Pantone Fall Colors 2010

I don't usually follow seasonal color trends when I make jewelry. I order most of my supplies from the US and it often takes 3 weeks for shipments to arrive at my doorstep here in Canada. So, following trends isn't practical for my situation. For this Autumn most of my pieces are in shades of brown and golden colors with a few pieces including green as in my 'Enchanted Forest' themed pieces. And, of course, turquoise. My turquoise pieces ALWAYS sell well no matter what time of year I offer them.

My first solo piece I plan to make in my studio when I get my own torch at the end of November will be a turquoise pendant for my daughter. It's her 30th birthday on December 4th. The cab color fits into the Lagoon blue color scheme from Pantone. It will be embellished with 'water' elements which will further fit into the Lagoon theme. =) Here's the turquoise cabs I'll select her's from:



Ronnie is the jewelry designer at RadianTrace Jewelry. She's also the graphic artist at Mable's Makings, and the author of Ronnie Unplugged.

Blue Soup With Stars - Organic Beginnings

Although my jewelry is rather demure in size and number of components, I have always admired chunky, clunky, multi-strand, bohemian styles bracelets. I also love organic materials. For some reason I haven't pushed myself out of my 'demure' box and made more eclectic pieces. That's what I intend to do with this delicious pile of goodies.

Blue Soup One - Organic Beginnings

There's a variety of wood saucers, small seeds, wooden buttons, rustic ceramic large holed beads, shells, wood rounds, and a few cute little ceramic fishies. I also have one of my own Soul Song poly-clay pendants that I'm thinking of using as a focal point for a necklace along with some poly-clay beads & gemstones I could throw into the mix for bracelets.

I'm thinking of asymetrical bracelets, with leather cord, and button clasps. I'd like the pieces to make magical noise when you move.

So, this will be my next project. I hope to be able to post a few pictures within the next few days. Maybe early next week. Stay tuned.

Ronnie is the jewelry designer at RadianTrace Jewelry. She's also the graphic artist at Mable's Makings, and the author of Ronnie Unplugged.

Grand Re-Opening Sale at RadianTrace Jewelry

The transformation at RadianTrace Jewelry is complete. I'm very pleased with the new layout and colors. I added header graphics to the top of several sections which will be fun because I can change them out whenever the mood strikes. A few of them are made from my own photos while others are made from some of my favorite photographer's photos.

For the Grand Reopening I decided to have a sale. There will be a 15% discount on all items purchased on Friday October 1, 2010 from 12:30am (just after midnight) until 11:30pm in the evening.



So for example: this Olive Oil ring is regularily priced at $15.00 but it will only be $12.75 on Friday. I love the color combination of the antiqued copper wire with the olivine green glass pearl. Very Maid Marianish =)

Also, the first episode of the Blue Soup with Stars series will be posted soon. I'm just waiting for my camera batteries to finish charging so I can show you photos of the cool bead stash pile I  accumulated recently. Very rustic and woodsy. I'm so excited about this particular stash that I can hardly wait to show you.

My poor old camera really got a work out today. So did my old back! hehe I need to start sitting down to take pictures. Something about leaning over and forward is really messing with my lower back. Does anyone else have that problem, and if so, how did you resolve it so that you could spend more time taking photos?

I'm craving oatmeal so I'll see you again in a little bit.

Ronnie is the jewelry designer at RadianTrace Jewelry. She's also the graphic artist at Mable's Makings, and the author of Ronnie Unplugged.

May 2009 Give Away

It's capri wearing weather here in Chilliwack, and I love the soft whimsical sound of a tinkling anklet when I walk. So for May's Give Away I decided to offer this Pretty Plum Brass Anklet.

Prize Description: a tanzanite colored glass bell flower, a lavender colored faceted glass rondelle and an antiqued brass puffed hollow heart dangle from a delicate brass oval link chain.

How to Win: reply to this post in the comments section below making sure to leave your email address so that I can contact you for your mailing address in the event that you're the winner. Include your ankle measurement in your comment - measure loosely to leave room for bending your ankle. This is a promotional giveaway so it would be nice if you stopped by RadianTrace Jewelry to take a peek at the other pretties I have available for sale. That's it. That's all you have to do.

Great Deal For Canadians

The prices at RadianTrace are in US dollars, but now my fellow Canadians receive an at par exchange rate on your purchases. Meaning a $12.00 US pair of earrings will cost you only $12.00 CAD.

I've adjusted the Order Form to include a check box for you to let me know you're Canadian eh. *This offer is only available at RadianTrace.com.

Also, new items have been added to the following sections at RT.com: Earrings, Bracelets -> Gallery Two, Necklaces, Wire Rings, Word Charms, & Matching Sets.

Follow Your Dreams Give Away

UPDATE: The winner's name has been posted below! Following dreams has been the theme of my life for the past several weeks. So, I felt it was important for it to be the theme of my next giveaway. 'Follow Your Dreams' necklace hand assembled by me.

Prize Description: zinc alloy lead and nickel free teardrop shaped two sided charm, white fresh water pearl & glass bead dangle from a 24 inch rhodium finished 1.5mm ball & bar chain. (retail value - $20.00)

How to Win: reply to this post making sure to leave your email address so that I can contact you for your mailing address in the event that you're the winner. This is a promotional giveaway so it would be nice if you stopped by RadianTrace Jewelry to take a peek at the other pretties I have available for sale. That's it. That's all you have to do.

*UPDATED: The Winner is Giggles. Congratulations, and thank you for participating!

Love's First Blush

I think I'm in love. You know how you get all warm and fuzzy inside and your cheeks blush a soft pink when you start to fall in love? Well, that's how I started to feel on January 19th as I began working my way through the list of participants in this year's One World - One Heart blogging event.

I'm in awe of the talent and generosity I've witnessed unfold before my eyes each day ever since. I'm a genuine visitor to my fellow bloggers. I take my time and read as many entries as I can in about a 45 minute visit. I'm awed by you all. There's some really funny and talented, and soulful people online. I feel blessed.

The earrings shown above are titled Love's Blush. They are available for sale at RadianTrace.com along with a matching necklace.

Who Is Ronnie?

I'll be 50 in April and I can't figure out what happened to all the time! I have 3 adult children and 3 grandchildren. The youngest was born on December 13th, 2008. I live in Chilliwack, B.C. Canada. I'm a bush woman. I love the river. My favorite thing to do is hike along river trails.

I doodle graphics and make jewelry. I desparately want to become a metalsmith before my 60th birthday. I also sketch, paint and play with polymer clay. I have a lazy old cat named Tavareesh, and a crazy Pit Bull named Baer. No that's not spelled wrong. He's the second black dog I've had named Baer. The first one's name was spelled Bear. Baer is my forever friend....my animal soul mate. My familiar. I have arthritis and sciatica. I live with chronic pain, but my sense of humour prevents me from becoming depressed about it. I love to laugh. I laugh A LOT. I talk fast and get excited easily. I'm like a crow. I follow shiny things. I'm a sucker for links. I can get lost for days following links.

I'm a control freak. Everything in my kitchen and my studio has to be arranged a certain way or else I get thrown off track. No one is allowed to mess with anything in my studio. I like music. I like Southern rock, blues, loud bassy rock, and folk music. Ya I know...weird. I have very long reddish brown hair. Down past my butt. I keep trying to gather enough courage to cut it, but I always chicken out. I suspect it will be totally gray before I finally cut it.

I like salads. Any kind of salads. Fruit, bean, veggie, broccoli. Just throw a bunch of unrelated food stuff in a bowl and call it a salad and I'll eat it. My youngest son is schizophrenic. He's 23. The past 10 years have been really rough. For both of us. There's a lot more to me than what meets the eye. Like everyone else I'm multifaceted. Everything that shows on the surface is just a fragment of what lies beneath.

Cool Toys

This museum style photo of my sterling silver Suzie Q hoops was done online at DUMPR. The hoops are available for sale at RadianTrace.com.

I've been elbow deep in KatoClay for the past few days. Lovely material. There won't be any photos of my clay pieces for quite awhile. I like to perfect whatever I'm working on before I offer it for sale. Other than working with polyclay I've been getting ready for a home jewelry party, and organizing my pieces for the upcoming spring season. I have a few craft shows booked and I like to get new designs ready well ahead of time.

Inner Reflections

And so it seems I've managed to clear my head of the mental fog I had been aimlessly wandering around in. All it took was millions of hours spent sitting on my butt watching youtubes of Charlie Rose interviews. Um yeah, I think the cobwebs are gone now. Both my mind and my butt have expanded.

I've added the men's jewelry items to RadianTrace.com. You can view them by clicking on the link to the Men's Jewelry section. The brass ring shown in the above photo is called 'Inner Reflections' and it will be available for sale at RT.com soon.

Coffee & Other Buzzes

Coffee anyone? I've indulged far too much lately. I've needed it to keep me 'buzzing' enough to handcut 384 business cards. Yeah, you heard me right. Three.hundred.eighty.four.handcut.cards. Ok, so I didn't do it all in one day. I did 24 a day over several days. I find myself not wanting to give any away. They're like gold to me now.

Speaking of buzzing . . . I've been getting myself ready to sell my jewelry at the HoneyBee Centre on August 16/17. There's going to be live bees there. I'm allergic to bee venom, and for the past few days I've been thinking I must be crazy for agreeing to do this. I'm not only wanting to do it, but I'm starting to feel really excited about it. I've been happily making new packaging and jewelry displays. I found some great photo frames that I gray spackle painted and added black wire to for earrings. I also spackled an old cork board gray and painted the frame black. I think I'll pin anklets and bracelets to it.

This week I'm going to refurbished an old cabinet I have into a display case. It has glass doors so I'm going to take out the glass and replace it with black grid wire. It's dark stained wood with a nice glossy finish. I figure I can stand necklace and bracelet card displays on the shelves and hang chain necklaces on hooks on one door....then hang longer hook earrings from the wire on the other door. Of course it will be displayed with the doors open. I recently went garage saling and picked up a pair of large round black metal candle holders with spiral legs. I'm going to place pretty river rocks in the trays and use the stands to feature a couple of my higher priced bracelets.

I plan on reusing the spackled paint can with the wire circle (shown in my previous post) to display pendant style chain necklaces. The HoneyBee festival might be the last time I use it for shows. It's heavy and it takes a long time to add the necklaces. I have some interesting ideas for future necklace displays involving lazy susans. I think people will like being able to turn the displays. Turning things, and rifling through baskets and bins always enhances my browsing experience at craft shows so I figure there must be other people who also enjoy rifling and spinning.

I'll post photos of my displays as soon as I have them ready.

Home Jewelry Parties

I did a home jewelry party on Sunday June 22nd. The photo to the left shows one of the displays my daughter and I set up for the party. It was in a very pretty setting. I have 4 more upcoming home parties, and a two day festival booked for August 16/17. I'll post the festival information soon.

What Inspires You?

Inspiration is an interesting topic to me. I've noticed a few patterns to what inspires me. One of them being my inexplicable attraction to the color blue. This is strange to me because my favorite color is green. Yet, many of you will notice a lot of my jewelry pieces are blue. The color pulls me into the mysterious depths of my imagination.

I think of vast deep blue oceans, and velvety midnight blue skies filled with shimmering silver stars. In the oceans I swim. In the skies I fly. Blue helps me feel free. The feeling of freedom makes me feel calm. That's it! Calm. Blue calms me when I'm troubled. I suppose my attraction is no longer inexplicable. What inspires you?

The pendant is called 'True Blue' as in my true blue friend.

Secret Ring Coupon

I've joined a new project. It's called Etsy Secrets. It's a blog that lists 'secret' discount coupons for Etsy shops. Keep your eyes on the look out for a special coupon from me on the Blue Swirl Secret Ring shown in this entry. Details about how to get the ring will be included with the post I make at Etsy Secrets *Ü*

RadianTrace's Own Domain

I did it. I finally took the plunge and purchased a separate domain for RadianTrace Jewelry. My jewelry designs will no longer be sharing space on the same website as my mousedrawn graphics. They can now be viewed at www.radiantrace.com. This is an early birthday present to myself. I figure I deserve something special to help me get through some of the rough stuff I'm going through. I feel a bit better knowing that I'm still moving forward with my dreams even though things are a little hectic right now. Bit by bit I'll get everything done that needs to get done.

Now all I need to do is steal some time from somewhere to set everything up properly. I'm looking into shopping cart scripts, and separating my mailing list into 3 different groups for updates on my 3 websites.

It's amazing how much better I feel having finally done this. I think this will help me get back on track with the work I have waiting to be completed.

Nothing But Jewelry

With the impending arrival of my RadianTrace Jewelry website I thought it would be nice to create a blog for me to announce new arrivals, and for me to discuss my obsession with jewelry.

Why did I choose the name 'RadianTrace' for my business? It was a username bestowed upon me years ago by an online friend. I wasn't making jewelry at the time. I had only just started making mousedrawn graphics. But later when I began making jewelry I imagined streams of swirling baubles and sparkles trailing behind the name RadianTrace whenever I saw it in print. It somehow fits my personality so it seemed like a done deal.

Although I make jewelry in many different styles and colors my favorites are black and silver. Most of my newer pieces are done in jet, onyx, obsidian, blackstone, and silver. I enjoy the creative challenge of making custom designs.

I'm currently working on improving my skills in creating one of a kind metal clay pendants and creating pieces using the wire wrapping technique. I also create polymer clay faeries so working with metal clay feels like a natural shift for me. I'm very tactile and I've been known to be fascinated by shiny objects. Hence the nickname Crow, or Magpie.