SFIGF shows starts...

well, it started yesterday. I should post (take the pictures first) pictures soon but the booth looks way way better than the ones I had last year. After searching for months, I came across linen displays (necklace busts, earring holders etc) which were offered by Rio Grande. Ordered one sample to look and feel...really liked them but ended up waiting for maybe 4 weeks before decided to place an order and.....just a week before that they discontinued the whole series!!!! don't even have any of the models I want left to ship...I am soooo disappointed and there is no one else in the entire internet world that provide linen displays!!!! I searched for a couple of days and ended up ordering white leatherette displays. Put them on a dark brown thick cotton cloth for contrast. All the 14k and 18k jewelry went into a lockable showcase again with the brown cloth at the bottom. Sprinkled a few semi precious stones around for sparkle:)

It was an ok day at the show. Towards the end of the day a couple of people came in and said they came for a different section of the show but their jewelry buyer is coming in on tuesday. They looked at all the pieces and said "you are the finest jeweler we have seen in the show". Such a great complement...hope I will get a good big order too:)

more on the show later.....btw, I am blogging from the show today:)

curves and designs

Found a few designs online instead of scanning my sarees to show where my inspiration for the sculptural designs are coming from..

I have a similar saree like this purple one - with all cuves embroidered..and they definitely inspired me to make some of the shapes I haev in this new collection. I used Fine silver in some of the designs and Sterling silver in some others.

As I mentioned before Mango shape is one of the most used shape especially in silk sarees.

This shape inspired a few earrings ...basic mango shape but with the two tips curved away from each other.

Kuukivi at Nolcha Fashion Week

No we are not on runway but will have a presence at the Nolcha Fashion week http://www.nolchafashionweek.com/ one whole day and display all the new gorgeous designs from Kuukivi. Nocha is for all the emerging designers like me. Although the main focus is on the apparel, jewelry and handbags definitely take their place in the show. I have been a member of Nolcha for more than a year now and decided to participate in the show and thus debuting Kuukivi designs in NY for the first time...

Here's another design that will make its way into all the three shows....Its simple but have enough color and metal to catch the eye

Kuukivi participating in ASD/AMD show

we will be at the fine jewelry section of ASD/AMD show in Las Vegas in Aug. I am excited to participate in this show. With these two shows, Kuukivi enters the fine jewelry market now and into future.

this morning someone asked me about the design I posted yesterday..how did i get into those designs....I have a couple of paintings from India, especially from Rajasthan. Beautiful paintings made with gemstones crushed into powder. The drawing is actually on the glass (inside ofcourse)and different colro gemstones are crushed and applied to the painting probably with some special glue. That inspired me a lot and I wanted to do something like that but on pure silk cloth but with precious and semi-precious beads.

well, I experimented with a few in the year before starting Kuukivi. But the pure silk cloth I had from India was beautiful but delicate..too delicate to hold the weight of the gemstones. since starting Kuukivi I kept thinking how to get similar designs in smaller scale as pendants....I experimented with different types of wires and beads but since I wasn't doing much metal work initialy, I experimented with limited shapes. Figured out its much easier to work with fine silver wire for these sculptures than sterling silver. Now that I work with metal, I have all the freedom in the world to come up with different shapes.

This one here is a very special shape for me. In India, this is called a "young mango shape". Everywhere you see - hangings for the walls to borders on sarees, this shape is part of our everyday life so ofcourse I had to do this one. As time permits, I want to promote this shape with different color stones and maybe one in just greens to actually make it a young mango:)

going green is more expensive!

I ordered a fabric banner to use as a backdrop for my booth at San Francisco International Gift Fair...and out of the options available, I picked recycled fabric - to start using "green" materials as much as possible and add jewelry line with green silver and gold as business grows. But the surprising thing is the recycled fabric is more expensive than the normal fabric (normal!!-- I meant the regular fabric we use everyday). oh well...maybe if enough of us start using it and recycle stuff, it might come down someday:)

I am excited and looking forward for the show. The booth number is 6306 in the Handmade section. I will be introducing 14k, 18k and 22k gold collection along with really cool sterling silver designs...here's one that will in the new product displays at the show..

Evaluating, and re-evaluating...

Have been spending quite a bit of time evaluating the past year of Kuukivi's life and re-evaluating/prioritizing. Which area to focus for the future et.al. Well, instead of beign everywhere, decided to just focus on fine jewelry as a bit complex designs are what I really enjoy designing and creating. But also add more metal work to the vibrant gemstones. I realized I really do love working on metal almost as much as love working with gemstone beads and wrapping them into perfect combinations.

We will be at San Francisco International Gift Fair end of July in handmade section...debuting fine jewelry collection including a couple of pieces with beautiful black diamond drops!!

Here's one of the simple but striking pendant with a oversize quartz rock in the center. The pendant is thick 12gauge SS wire hand formed into shape, hammered and slightly textured and connected to SS chain with Smokey Quartz roundelles.