winner

the winner of the giveaway is christy brannan!  congratulations, m'dear!  please email your address to me so i can send your rings to you.  silversparrowdesigns@gmail.com.

and june, cinder, dj, and leann, i'd like to send you each a stacking ring too, for being a wonderful silver sparrow designs blog reader.  i truly appreciate all of you ladies ❤  just email me your address as well.

hearts and garnets and gratitude and a giveaway

i made many heart/garnet/ valentine's pieces!  i love how these turned out.  several different ring, necklace, and bracelet designs to choose from.

this one is my favorite, with several of conor oberst's lyrics

also a beautiful rainbow moonstone set in a fancy cathedral bezel necklace

and this charming lynx

we have been crazy around here with construction!  we thought that little miss theo would share a room with junebug.  but june's a pretty persnickety sleeper, and it just didn't work.  then we thought june could share with hazel for a while, but hazel's on the brink of teenagehood, and she needs her own space.  so, we are building a room for dorothy.  we used to have a huge living room.  now we have an average size living room and a bedroom for dorothy.   i will share photos when we are finished!

i have been a bit overwhelmed with orders lately.  which is so wonderful, after taking such a long break.  i know i've talked about this a bit, but during the break that i took from making jewelry i realized that i don't just make pretty things for people to wear.  i believe that i make meaningful pieces for women to cherish, to pass on to their daughters.  women come to me and we talk about what's going on for them, what they need in their lives, what they're working on, needing, desiring, wanting to let go of...  we come up with a stone, or stones, that resonate with that and find words or phrases or song lyrics to fit and i make them a special piece to wear and rub and focus on as they go through whatever it is.   i sometimes think of my work as the opposite of a worry stone- an intention stone, or a manifestation stone.  i love to do markets and hows because i love to watch people come into my both and see what they connect with.  it is fascinating to me, to observe people finding piece that resonated with them.  i've made so many wedding rings for so many couples over the years; i've made necklaces for mothers to give to their daughters when they begin to menstruate; i've made lanterns to help women battling cancer; i've made so many necklace and bracelets for mothers, grandmothers, aunts, etc. with the names of their children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews; i've made countless dog tags for people who cherish their dogs as their children; i've made jewelry celebrating births and memorial jewelry to remember losses...

i absolutely LOVE what i do, and i am outrageously happy to be back at it, and to have so many amazing customers.  you ladies are so fabulous!  i'd like to offer a giveaway just for you blog readers.

all you have to do to enter is just comment here with your ring size!  i'm not advertising this giveaway anywhere else, it's just for you dear blog readers.  i have no idea how many of you there are anymore!  but i am grateful for every one of you.  so, comment with your ring size to enter, and i will announce the winner of this little heart stack on valentine's day!

for leonard

i made this piece to honor the magnificent leonard cohen.  to me, some of his most meaningful words were "ring the bell that still can ring.  forget your perfect offering.  there is a crack in everything.  that's how the light gets in."  when i showed this necklace to my daughter she asked what those lyrics meant.  i told her it means to appreciate the good things you have in your life, rather than wishing for something you've lost or don't have; give up on trying to do things perfectly; and that everyone is flawed and flaws are beautiful. terrifically fabulous advice as you start the new year, yes?

hawk

when i returned home from a rather tumultuous trip, i was troubled to find a dead juvenile red-tailed hawk in our front yard.  he (i say he, although i do not know the gender.  this bird is too majestic to refer to as "it) did not appear to have been attacked and killed, more likely he had inadvertently flown into the glass of the window and broken his neck.  i never take the visitation of a potential spirit animal lightly, and despite (or maybe especially intrigued because of) the fact that he had chosen to present himself in death rather than life, i sought answers.  what i found astounded me.  a red-tailed hawk is said to: offer clear-sightedness, facilitate long distance memory, reveal messages from the universe, offer guardianship & courage, inspire a creative life purpose, *help you to realign with the original intention of your soul*.   furthermore, i discovered that a dead spirit animal, as opposed to a live one, can indicate that there is a part of yourself, in relation to these aspects, that has died or that you have lost.  although i couldn't find any documentation to support it, i also feel that the fact that this bird was not yet full-grown was indicative of the issues i've carried from my own childhood, unresolved.  to me, this was such a very clear message from the universe, and just in time for the new year.  so what did i do first?  i made a red-tailed hawk totem bracelet.  i added an opal to the sky.  opals offer comfort and enhance unconditional love, they ease transitions and offer strength and courage in times of change.  my hawk is now residing on my left wrist, forever in flight, to encourage me on my current journey of self-discovery, growth, and transition.

manifest

happy new year!  i consider the new year to be a time to reset yourself, not to make yourself better as so many claim, "new year, new you", as if the old you was flawed and faulty and you need to upgrade yourself, but just a time to realign yourself, make sure you still know what's important to you, what you want to achieve, where you're headed and how you may get there.   i see it as a time to remind myself what it is i want to attract to myself in the coming months, what i want to manifest.  i made this bracelet as a constant reminder to myself to keep my intentions at the surface.

this is my intention for 2017.  i always remember to state my intentions as if they are already happening.  i have found that this is the quickest way to bring them about.  i made several other manifestation reminders as well.

(this one has a tag that says "manifest" and a four-sided bar that says "love makes everything better".

and these.  manifestation stones.  rather than a worry stone, where you rub and worry and stress about problems, why not a manifestation stone, where you rub and intend and trust and believe that what you need will come to you?  i paired stones with properties meant to bring about certain qualities with specific things folks may want to attract.

we had a wonderful holiday season, and i hope you all did as well!

what will you be manifesting in 2017?