chanel hand painted body jewelry accessories

I know lagerfeld’s painted body jewelry is somewhat old news but I still find myself looking at it often. speaking of pretty things and karl lagerfeld, my friend recho was a spot-on lagerfeld this past halloween. I’ve been meaning to post this since november, because honestly, she does lagerfeld better than lagerfeld. she blogs about fashion over at the milk and wine.

recho: fashion blogger of the milk and wine as karl lagerfeld

the upcoming jewelry line is being finished up and I can’t wait to get everything put together finally.

ellie from mint interviewed a bunch of entrepreneurs (and me) about how they deal with goals, deadlines, procrastination for a guest post at pitch design union. turns out we’re all in love with to do lists. good to know that jeff from BOOOOOOOOM feels just as weird about paperwork as I do.

missmalaprop says “all the bumblesea jewelry is so dainty and delicate, and absolutely timeless”

bumblesea is finally in neet magazine, I’ve loved them since they featured my old band and interviewed me for the magazine

last and kind of least my blog was mentioned in this huge spanish news site, soitu. gracias. unfortunately they’re going out of business.

and this song/video is awesome. enjoy.

I’ve been pretty busy keeping up with bumblesea and working on bigger projects so this art print idea is reserved for me to work on in the wee hours of the morning when I find it impossible to fall asleep. I’m currently working on an illustration of the hatched necklace (the egg only- I’d go crazy trying to paint the chain), and it’s about half way done. the photoshop file size is already up to nearly 2 gigs. luckily I have a few extra hard drives laying around that can be dedicated to holding all the original files.

bumblesea indie jewelry silver hatched egg necklace

right now I’m focusing on launching the much anticipated (and more affordable!) acrylic line. (I know I’ve been promising the new line forever..) the jewelry studio will be able to cruise on autopilot once it’s launched. I’ll still be on twitter and of course I’ll still update the blog- but it’ll give me more time to spend with friends and family.

nets photograph by femme de manille via flickr

dragon fruit photograph by femme de manille via flickr

I obsessed over dragon fruit (enough to name a bumblesea necklace after them) after seeing some photos of them on flickr. I got my hopes up about how they’d taste, spent five bucks on a single fruit, and it ended up reminding me of a mediocre kiwi. maybe it wasn’t ripe. what can you do?

at least they’re pretty.

free photoshop layer textures by les brumes via flickr

free photoshop photography filter textures by les brumes via flickr

- les brumes offers hundreds of amazing textures for photoshop geeks like myself to use for free. I can’t keep this find to myself, it’d be cruel. click on the images to check out more of her free goodies.

- house of gems is sponsoring a featured jewelry artist contest. enter to win and you could receive up to $500 to spend however you wish at their store. the contest deadline is today: august 15th and I just found out a few hours ago! fate? hurry up and enter here.

- I haven’t been posting/promoting the past few days because I’ve been spending all my time playing with PHP in order to have dynamic content on bumblesea. originally I installed joomla and skinned it to look exactly like my current site. I think I was searching for some PHP plugins when I came across indexhibit and fell in love with it. I’m scrapping the entire joomla project, it’s bloated and unnecessary for what I need. I’d prefer to support other small companies with similar taste in design if possible. is anyone still reading this? hi, mom!

bumblesea indie jewelry silver tree branch necklace on polyvore

- silver tree branch necklace by bumblesea

- off white converse all star high top chuck taylors (took me a few months to find off white but it was worth it)

- white ripped skinny jeans via topshop

- white tiger striped cashmere sequin tank top by rebecca taylor

- off white blouse via eruca japan

- crystal wedding decor tree via ethereal decor

- white marc by marc jacobs lil’ riz leather hobo bag

behind the scenes: still tweaking the bumblesea site, the code is sloppy and unfinished. brainstorming youtube video ideas. (I might have had a breakthrough.) figuring out the best option to offer free shipping on jewelry. brainstorming ideas for squidoo, associated content, helium. eating entire cheesecakes.

speaking of eating everything, someone’s started a daily journal about their anorexia/bulimia with the name bumblesea. so if any of you happen to come across that and wonder if it’s mine, nope. I still love food. and digesting it.

steambath by sgoralnick via flickr

amalia by habablow via flickr

shades of blue by whimsical via flickr

the more I dig around kayce’s portfolio the more I love this girl. her online portfolio has a nice clean minimal layout that is certainly quite inspiring. (anyone familiar with the layout I made for bumblesea knows I’m partial to no frills, no nonsense, SEO friendly design.)

my other favorites by her: “these ain’t no cubic zirconias,” “crit happens,” “everything I make, I hate,” “A is for absolutely nothing,” and last but not least “suck it trebek”.

in other news, I’m so sick it hurts to breathe. and alice matsumoto from the carrotbox mentioned bumblesea on her blog. her blog (dedicated to unusual and gorgeous rings) has been a constant source of inspiration for me even though I’ve never gotten into making rings. I’m so happy she digs my new work!

I will be your butternut squash by kayceeislost via flickr

faux show mono: hand set by kayceeislost via flickr

tshirt DIY long necklace via bumblesea

1. Find some old t-shirts you don’t mind cutting up.
2. Cut strips at whatever thickness you desire across the t-shirt so that you end up with loops. My strips were roughly half an inch wide.
3. Pull on the loops so that the fabric sort of curls and lengthens. Don’t pull too hard; you might rip the seams apart and lose your loop.
4. Gather loops.
5. Save one loop or just cut another one to wrap around the gathered loops. You can just tuck one end into the wrap.
6. Voila!

tshirt DIY necklace via bumblesea

tshirt DIY bracelet and necklace via bumblesea

For the bracelets, you can just cut loops out of the sleeves as opposed to the body of the t-shirt so that they’re smaller, more wrist-sized.