Look at me! Look at ME!!

Whenever I buy things I have an awful habit of harassing people to make them look at what I've bought. I'm not the smooth kind of girl who buys something fabulous on the sly then POW! you're out and she's said she's just wearing jeans and she turns up in the justoffthecatwalk Marc Jacobs pink houndstooth dress (I'm coveting it soooooo bad) that she bought "the other day... " but forgot to mention... A-ha-ho.. no- definitely not me. When I buy something I pretty much wanna put it on then and there and strut, if it's not something to strut in I just glow and maybe make a really over-excited muppet face that I'm sure secretly scares people. A lot.

Maybe I just want to extend that walking on sunshine just-made-a-purchase feelin. Other people have different ideas. I am one of five kids. Guess where in the line? Oh! that's interesting! How did you guess already? For those of you who don't know what's it's like in a big family it's basically like this - the middle child pines for attention from anyone, but gets none! And then they end up buying a brooch (photo below) and some Mary- Janes and showing every one - first my manager, then the CEO of ShangBy (that's right - look at my brooch!) then my sister on skype and now you!!

Look at my brooch!!!

It's made from a sliver of polished agate. Lately I've been seeing so much agate in the stores in different romantic whimsy shades that have swept me off my feet. My gorgeous over-sized agate brooch included, I've also had a necklace made with cloudy fuchsia, black and orange agate and a pair of earrings made of sky blue agate pics below.

On my list of things to do this weekend - get some winter chic happening by getting myself over to the fabric markets. Need some floaty fabrics to go with my agate. Saw a Vivienne Westwood Anglomania coat made online which I love the style of - also looked at an Elizabeth and James (Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen's label) fitted blazer.

Friday tomorrow!! Happy Halloween! Thanks to lovely NinJa for comments. Email me at claire@shangby.com if you share the agate infatuation and want to wax lyrical to me, or if you want some for youself!

Love and Jewels XXClaire

Coming Out!

It's not an infatuation, it's real, pure one-sided, material love. When you work for ShangBy.com and you're at the pearl markets every day putting a stop to a habit that has long been out-of-control is obviously and conspicuously difficult. Why fight it when you can embrace it. Bored with pretending, I'm leaping proudly out of my jewelry box and announcing to the online universe - My name is Claire and I am a jewelry addict! Welcome to my homage to jewels! 

It's 10:30am, and armed with coffee I'm off to the jewelry markets. I head into jewelry stores jammed with stones and pearls and unconsciously start surveying the selection - sorting out the old from the new, the lovelovelove from the just okay. The turn over in the markets is so high that most days I found something new that I adore. The week so far - 

Monday - watched MissJ make a baroque "fireball"  seawater pearl and tourmaline necklace and went crazy for the fireballs which look like dramatic dollops of lustrous white pearl tears. Attracted to the quirky, the shape of these pearls says wild, free and high end cool without the stuffy after taste. Thinking earrings - single dropping pearls (large size) with 14K gold hook settings. 

Tuesday - wandered into a store and saw bright blocks of color in my peripheral vision. I tried half-heartedly to avoid turning to see what was there. Ten chunky solid stone rings in different colors of agate, turquoise, onyx and coral started to beg me to try them on. Most of them were too big :( but fabulous all the same. It's for the best, let the bank account recover and then presto, the smaller sizes will have been ordered into the store. Very sensible result.

Riding my little bike off to my cobbler who's made me some silver Mary-Janes. Can't wait to see how they've turned out. Full report with photos to come tomorrow including a look at designs of mine I've had created in the past couple of weeks and design plans for the future.   

Mucho love and jewels,

XClaire