Holiday Sale! Online Today Through 12/15!

Thanks so much to all of you for making this such an amazing year! Truly, you are the best customers a girl could ask for!  Click here to shop and enjoy your discount!

Upcoming Holiday Events, New Work, and Shop Update!

There is a lot going on in the world of Rebecca Haas Jewelry in the next few weeks! Here is a complete list of all of the events, from Middlebury, VT to NYC, and from November 29th to December 14th.  All of these events are open to the public, and I'll be selling all kinds of great holiday gifts from stocking stuffers to statement pieces, so I hope I'll get a chance to see you at one of these fun happenings!

November 29th at Clementine in Middlebury, VT 10:30-5

Small Business Saturday Trunk Show With Etsy Wholesale and American Express Open Come shop small and support local artists and small businesses at this great event.  I will be there, as well as the makers of the beautiful work below, and we will each be doing demonstrations and talking about our work and our creative process. Clementine is one of the featured boutiques for this exciting nation wide event, and I am so excited to have been selected be a part of it! 

instagram image borrowed from @emilyblistein

Next up will be the German Christmas Market at the beautiful Windham Hill Inn, on December 6th and 7th.  Saturday 12-5, Sunday 11-4. 
There will be local artisans, including myself, selling their work, and this is another great opportunity to shop local and support artists and their small businesses this holiday season! There will also be traditional wood crafts for sale from the Erzgebirge Region of Germany, as well as what will I'm sure be absolutely delicious German Food!  I'll be bringing lots of new work and classic favorite pieces, some of which you can see in the images below.  

Next I'll be making a whirlwind trip to NYC to do the second annual Holiday Flea Market at Huge in Dumbo, Brooklyn, on the afternoon of December 10th. I'll get you all more details when I have them as to hours etc.  I'm really looking forward to being back in Brooklyn for a couple of days, and I hope to see YOU, my Brooklyn peoples, while I am there!!  This event is also open to the public, so I hope you can make it!

And last but not least, my Annual Holiday Open Studio will be on Sunday December 14th, from 1pm to 8pm, here in Chester, VT.  There will be lots of great deals, some stocking stuffers, ornaments, and all kinds of goodies.  So don't finish all of your Christmas shopping before the 14th!  I'm sorry I couldn't do my open studio a little earlier this year, but as you can see my calendar somehow got pretty full.  But I will save lots of beautiful and one of a kind baubles for the 14th, I promise. 

Also, all of the work you see above, and some other new things, have been added to my online shop!  Click here to check it out!

River Luna Art

My new prints from River Luna, in the great hanging frame TH bought me at the Pear Tree.  I am so pleased.

New Work, Changing Rhythms, and The Weston Craft Show

I have really been enjoying making new work in the months leading up to this year's Weston Craft Show, which starts this Friday. I think the changing seasons, transitioning both kids into school or day care, and the general change up of the daily rhythms around here have fostered a great rush of creativity and inspiration.  I think it must be true what they say, change is, in fact, good!  Here is a little selection of some of my favorite new pieces which will be debuting in Weston this Friday.

I first made the earrings in the photo directly above, inspired by the little maple spinning seed pods, called samaras.  And it is such a fun shape, and so reflective of what I am seeing outside my studio window, that I was impelled to run with it, and now have a series of pieces incorporating and building on this fluttering hammered v-shape.  And I feel that there are still more designs to come, although I'm not sure what they will be yet!

The other direction this new collection has taken is in geometric and architectural bracelets, inspired by themes of varied symmetry and organic balance. 

And of course there will be the classic favorites to see as well, with lots of delicate geometrics intertwined with segments of chain and lots of mixed metal intricacy.  

I hope you can stop by the show this weekend!  It is a great place to support local artisans while you get a jump start on your Christmas shopping! And be sure to click on the link below to see the other wonderful Vermont Crafters who will be exhibiting. Here are the details:

Weston Craft Show

Weston Playhouse, Weston, VT

Friday Oct.10 - Sunday Oct.12, 10am-5pm

Once the show is finished I will be working on adding these pieces to my website, so if you can't make it to the show please check out my site next week for additional info and pricing on this new work. Of course sometimes life has a way of intervening before I get everything listed, so feel free get in touch with me directly for how to order anything you see here.

Quiet House

These little rug rats are both off on their first full days at school today, and the house is very quiet.  This is the first time since Ellery was born that I am staring down the barrel of a full child free day, and I am feeling a little crippled by the openness of it.  Looks like I should have made a plan for myself yesterday.  Maybe a shower is a good place to start.  Then a to do list.

So I guess the baby-moon is over.  It's been a little challenging pushing back the wall of work that is waiting for me in my studio, so now I guess I can start chipping away at it.  It is a little daunting. Thanks so much to all of my lovely and patient customers for allowing me this time and space with my boys, but now it appears to be time to get back to it in earnest.

But wow is it quiet, and I'm missing these little faces. . .

Happy Half-Birthday To The Littlest!

One very snowy early morning six months ago today this little person came into the world.  A very happy half-birthday to you Ellery!  We adore and appreciate your sweet, soft, and fuzzy-headed baby-ness every day.

Favorites From Yesterday's Mother Daughter Photo Shoot For Rebecca Haas Jewelry

Here are some favorites from the fun shoot I did yesterday with my friend Krystina, owner of The Pear Tree here in Chester, and her daughter Aili, who's been my model for the last couple of collections.  I have been wanting to do a multi-generational jewelry shoot for a while now and I'm so grateful to Krystina and Aili for agreeing to do it! I'm going to use these photos in my booth at The League of NH Craftsmen Summer Fair (which is right around the corner!) and I would love to hear which one you all like the best? The winner will be blown up to poster size and mounted on the booth wall. . .

Foraging

 Summer foraging 6.21. Wild sorrel and strawberries were found and enjoyed.

Ellery and the Baby Gym

We are doing well here.  Insanely busy, what with now balancing the needs of two (mostly) sweet kiddos with the demands of business with work.  Happily people have been ordering lots of jewelry, so we are having to figure out how to balance everything right off the bat.  

Ellery is now almost 3 months old, and starting to do things.  Intentionally, I mean.  He is reaching for things, using his hands a little, and making lots of great new baby sounds.  And he is as fat as a house, and very cute.

Spring weather has finally arrived here, followed in about three hours by the black flies.  Ah, life in Vermont!  And things are getting going in the garden, which is very exciting.

I'm sorry about the lack of posts.  It is hard to find the time, although I do miss it!  I do a lot more on Instagram these days, so if you want to keep up with what is going on around here, both creatively and with the little family please find me over there.

xo

Egg in Vinaigrette Toast

It's not very often that I see a recipe on the internet and immediately get up and make it for lunch.  That happened to me the other day when I saw this recipe for Egg in Vinaigrette Toast on my Facebook feed from the food blog Food52.  It's a dressed up version of a toad in the hole, with the addition of vinaigrette, which gets made richer with the runny egg yolk, and some healthy greens.

It was delicious, and super easy, which is the name of the game around here these days with the little baby causing all kinds of disruptions during meal times.  I overcooked my egg a little bit, since I got all excited about taking pictures for you people, but tonight I'm going to make it again for dinner and really get it right.  And tonight I'll also do a more substantial salad underneath with spinach as well as arugula.  I have a feeling this dish is going to be in regular rotation in our kitchen from here on out.

Recipe link here.

Welcome Ellery!

Our new little boy Ellery Standish H. was born on Saturday February 15th at 6:25 in the morning, weighing in at 8lbs 4ozs, 21 inches long, and the picture of health.  He is now 9 days old and has so far been doing lots of great eating and sleeping, minimal yowling, and we couldn't be happier with him.

  Here he is settling in at home on his first night, cozied up to the heat of the wood stove.

And here he is this morning, snoozing in the sun, which of course woke him up right after this picture so he ended up here:

He is very soft and snuggly, and still has that new baby smell.

Emmett is adjusting very well, and handling all of the new developments very cautiously, in true Emmett style.  So far I think he's touched the baby twice, but at least now he will be quite near him, and likes to check on him all the time and make sure he has what he needs.  He is being very helpful fetching and carrying things for his Mom who is often trapped under a nursing baby, and has also been so nice as to read books to us while Ellery is nursing.  He has also fully committed himself to the world of Legos in the last couple of weeks, and so has been spending every possible waking hour obsessively building Lego machines.

So far the transition to life as a family of four has been very smooth, and somehow it feels more balanced to me to have two kids and two parents.  I'm still working on why that is, but I think it has something to do with making space for each other, and understanding that no one person can have all of the attention all of the time.  Of course it has only been nine days. . . and we have had my mom here the whole time to help ease the transition.  So I'll have to get back to you on this idea a later on down the road.  But for now we are hunkering down for the end of winter and looking forward to some sunny spring days soon!

Paper Mosaic Collage: A Kid Friendly Art Project

I've had this idea stewing around in my head for some time now, and I finally got a chance to try it out.  Emmett can sometimes be hard to rope into craft projects because he gets frustrated easily if things are too hard or finicky.  But this project includes some super kid friendly tasks, even preschool friendly, like paper snipping and glue sticking.  It also includes some things that an adult or older child will need to do too, so it is a great group project.  

Here is what you will need: 

1) Some large thin white paper, like children's easel paper, or butcher paper

2) Various papers to make up the body of your collage, such as wrapping paper, decorative paper, scrapbooking paper, or whatever you choose.

3) Something to mount your collage on, such as this wooden art board, poster board, foam board, or whatever you have access too. (click on the link above to see where mine came from)

4) Something to use as your background, if you want one.  I used book pages, but you could paint the background, or use whatever appeals to you.

4) A pencil

5) Gluesticks

6) Kids scissors

7) Good grown up scissors, or an exacto knife and cutting mat.

The first step is to get the kid or kids snipping paper into small pieces into a bowl.  I found that Emmett had an easier time with this if I first cut the papers into long strips for him, and then he could easily snip them into something like squares.  There is no need for them to be a uniform size or shape.

And while he was busy snipping I pulled up some images of whales on Google images to use as a basis for our whale shape.  In hindsight it would have been a better idea to do this in advance.  Especially if you will be working with more than one kid.  Emmett and I together decided that the image below both appealed to him and fit well on the mounting board we had on hand.

So I sketched out the outline of this humpback whale on a piece of paper I snagged from Emmett's easel.  The paper (and the outline drawing) must be the size of the design you will want to end up with on your final collage.  You want the drawing to be as detailed as you can, although the outline is all you need, so you don't end up with an unrecognizable blob, so pay attention to the silhouette and make sure it is clearly the animal you are trying to make. 

Then you want to flip the paper over and make a more vague outline that surrounds your whole design.  This is the side you will glue the paper scraps too, and you want to make sure that they will cover every inch of the design on the other side.  This sounds really confusing, and is a little hard to describe, but it is very easy to do.  The next photo will hopefully give you a better idea what I am saying.

See how the outer line is less detailed but contains the whole more detailed silhouette within its borders?  That's what you want.  Now you are ready to start gluing, and hopefully the kiddos have lots of snipped paper scraps in their bowl. 

Make sure you have the larger, more amorphous side up, and let your little gluers get to work.  They can work as methodically or as willy nilly as they want, it will look cool either way.  I have some of the purple glue sticks which are great for kids because they can see where they have put the glue, and yet it still dries clear.

And just keep adding and adding paper scraps until you cover up all of the white paper up to the edges of your pencil border.  It's ok if there are overlapping papers, in fact, there will need to be, so don't worry too much about lining anything up.  Emmett got a little bored before all of the last little bits of white were covered, so I finished it up for him by filling in all of the tiny remaining gaps and then adding more glue to any of the scraps that weren't securely glued.

 When this stage is all done it will look like this. (above)

Once the glue has dried, or mostly dried, you flip over your paper, revealing the more exact drawing on the flip side, and get ready to cut it out, either with good sharp scissors or an exacto knife and cutting mat. Cut slowly, being sure to cut through all of the layers of glued paper scraps.

And now the fun part! You flip it over and see the mosaic pattern animal silhouette with nice clean edges:

And now for the background.

I could have just given Emmett a whole bunch of blue paints and let him go at it on the wood panel. That would have probably looked really cool too.

But since Emmett's attention was waning, and book pages are kind of my thing, and I knew I happened to have some pages from an old copy of The Old Man and the Sea lying around, I decided to go that way instead.

Now just slather the back of your whale (or other animal) with glue stick, flip it over and place it on your background and press down all the edges firmly.

The wood panel I used was from Dick Blick, and they come in loads of sizes.  The added bonus of using a wood panel is that you can attach a picture hanger right on the back of it and you don't have to worry about either finding a frame, or figuring out how you are going to get it to hang on the wall.

And you're done!  Emmett is 4, so by the end of this project I was pretty much working on it alone. And this is also a pretty big piece. But I bet with 7 or 8 year olds they would be able to see it through all the way to the end, as well as be able to take on a lot of the aspects that I did, like the background and cutting out the final silhouette.

Have fun!