East Goshen Harvest Festival

Hello to all!  I wanted to drop a quick note to let you all know that I will be selling my jewelry and accessories at the East Goshen Harvest Festival in West Chester, Pennsylvania.  I'm pretty excited about this one because it is the first time Helen Ethel Studio will be represented at a festival in the Philadelphia region.  

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The annual Harvest Festival, formerly the Pumpkin Festival, will be held on October 22 (rain date October 23) from 10 am -4 pm at East Goshen Park.  It will be family friendly with Hayrides, a Scarecrow Pageant, farm market goodies and prepared foods, music and pumpkins- lots and lots of pumpkins, I'd imagine.  So, if you are free and want to enjoy the harvest season please stop by and say hello!  I plan on having a mug of warm, mulled cider by my side, all day long. 

For more information, please visit the event's Facebook page.

Thick, Chewy Granola Bars

This past Labor Day weekend, a group of friends and I travelled from far and wide to convene on a little patch of land, next to the Juniata River in Central Pennsylvania.  This was our third year participating and Dan and I consider it our last big exhale of the summer, where we can kick back, relax and just enjoy the warmth of the sun, laughs with friends, and nature.  It was especially important for us to really embrace the idea of relaxation because we knew the weeks to follow would be a bit of a roller coaster for us.  The month of September was a whirlwind of travel for a wedding, moving and all of the packing and unpacking that goes along with such things.  And because of that, I did not post one. single. time. in September.

This camping event has typically been a pot-luck sort of deal and it works quite well.  I signed up for salads and baked goods.  I tacked the baked goods onto my list because we had finally received our replacement oven weeks earlier after being without one for nearly six months. Oh, how I've longed to bake! But because our apartment was in a shamble sort-of-moving-limbo state, I didn't want to get in over my head by spending hours baking cookies or a cake or any other time intensive confection.  Instead, I opted for a practical, semi-healthy treat that would give all of us campers an easy snack on the run for our daily floats down the river.  I made these thick, chewy granola bars that I found on Smitten Kitchen.

Spyglass Ridge Winery Celticfest: Booth Photos!

Here is a peek at my booth set up from this year's Spyglass Ridge Winery Celticfest in Sunbury, Pennsylvania.  This was my second festival appearance and I was very happy with the way things turned out.  I was especially happy with my booth display.  Below are a few of my favorite shots which give a nice overview of the set up.  I'll be posting more about the details in the coming days, so stayed tuned!

Art Deco Inspired Wedding Jewelry

First off, allow me to apologize for what seems to be the abandonment of my blog!  I've been seriously slacking with my posting this summer.  I vow to change this.  Secondly, my apologizes for this photo heavy post.  Hopefully it will be worth it.

The following set of jewelry was created for a June wedding that took place on a farm in rural Pennsylvania.  The bride desired a romantic, vintage aesthetic but for the most part gave me full artistic reign (thanks Katie!).  The color palette of sapphire and lime green was chosen by the bride to reflect her bridal party colors.  I chose to work in brass to quietly emphasize the vintage aesthetic and designed the necklaces as multi-strand pieces to stand out against her bridesmaids' simple, sleeveless sapphire blue dresses.  

An homage to my camera phone.

Ree Drummond is focusing on photos taken with a mobile phone for this week's Pioneer Woman Photography Assignment.  I was excited to read this yesterday as I have a bit of an obsession with my phone's camera and the many photography apps available on the market.  In fact, I currently have 913 photos on my phone.  Oh my!  I think it's time to do some house cleaning! 

Anyway, as I was sorting through my photos for an image to submit to today's pool, I thought it might be fun to highlight a few of my favorite iphone photos here.  Some you may have already seen, but others you have not.  I love all of them and especially adore the feeling of shooting a photo, running it through an app such as Instagram or ShakeItPhoto, and viewing the new image.  This usually concludes with me getting all giddy-like and shoving the phone in front of Dan's face to show him how amazing the image turned out.  Well, amazing in my opinion anyways.  :)

A more recent shot, taken below the Spring Garden El stop in Philadelphia.  It was captured while waiting for a very late bus (again).  And though I have a great aversion to Philly's public transit system, and remember that I was very annoyed when I shot this, something about this photo (and I think it's that soft burst of light at center) calms me in the smallest of ways. 

Oh, Friday

It's Friday and it's been a veeeerry trying morning.  All I can say is: Thank goodness it is Friday.  Mornings like this require a quick peek at this photo to immediately restore the smile to my face and make me all fuzzy inside.

It was taken on Heidi's first Valentine's Day with us.  She celebrated with a cookie from Doggie Style in Manayunk.  Actually, she celebrated with two, but we reserved the second for later in the week.  It's difficult to see in the dark photo, but she is literally licking her chops waiting for that cookie.  

I hope your morning has gone smoother than mine, dear readers- and if not, I hope this photo helped in the smallest of ways by bringing a smile to your face as well.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Golden Rutilated Quartz Earrings

Here are a few photos of the earrings I posted yesterday.  

The earrings are composed of faceted, golden rutilated quartz and labradorite rondelles- two stones that I am obsessed with at the moment.  They are suspended from hammered brass rings, a component that I've been incorporating into my most recent designs.  The red brass really helps to pull out the golden veins within the quartz that make them so, so appealing.  They turned out just lovely and I plan to make more in other stones and metals.  This pair was made for a friend's birthday, but I think they would make wonderful bridal or bridesmaid accessories.

As I mentioned yesterday, I wanted to wait until I edited the photos before I posted them to the blog.  I used a free trial version of Aperture 3 that I downloaded this morning, and was quite happy with the results.  I've been searching for a photo editing program for our new computer for quite sometime now, and I've been curious about Aperture.  I'd love to purchase Photoshop, but can't quite afford that right now.  So far, it seems that Aperture might do just what I need it to do. Have any of your had any experience with this program?  If so, I'd love to hear you thoughts and/or suggestions!

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