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Posts Tagged ‘Luna & Stella’

Profiled: Suzanne and Luna & Stella

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on May 27, 2015| 4 Comments »

I need to share a really lovely piece on Suzanne and Luna & Stella, the company for which I blog.

Of course, with my eclectic topics, you could be forgiven for forgetting the Luna & Stella connection. But Suzanne’s birthstone jewelry speaks to relationships, and like all good relationships, this blogging one lets me breathe. (Suzanne said, “Blog about anything that interests you, Mom.”)

At OurBackyardRI, photographer-journalist Connie Grosch writes, “Based in Providence, the family-run business was founded in 2009 with the goal of blending great jewelry design with thoughtful meaning. Her merchandising and product development roles at J.Crew, Bally, and Victoria’s Secret combined with her experience as the Vice President of Merchandising and Design at the online retailer RedEnvelope, gave Suzanne a solid entrepreneurial foundation. …

“Having lived and worked in Switzerland, San Francisco and New York City, she and her husband chose Providence as their home four years ago. Living in New York City, pregnant with their first child as she and her husband were both starting new businesses, the couple decided they wanted to have a house and a yard. ‘And it wasn’t going to happen in NYC.’ They started looking for a small city and ‘Providence just came up on the map. We took a leap.’ …

“Suzanne is totally optimistic about the future of the business. ‘Rhode Island is just right in terms of design, manufacturing and business resources – from casting and plating to design and marketing.’

“And she is tapping into Rhode Island’s jewelry manufacturing history. ‘I’m a bit of a history buff and I like the idea of bringing that history to the present.’ Someday, she would like to manufacture the line herself – have a workshop. ‘And when I do, I want it to be in the Jewelry District.’ ”

More here. Grosch’s photo collage, taken at Talulah Cooper in Providence, where Suzanne had a trunk show before Mother’s Day, is really creative and nice. The only thing missing is Erik and Suzanne’s son digging into the shop’s many penny candy jars that day. So I add that here.

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Good Trunk Show for Luna & Stella

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 3, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Suzanne’s pre-Mother’s Day trunk show at Talulah Cooper in Providence went really well. It didn’t hurt that the weather was gorgeous and everyone wanted to be out walking around. I went down to help Erik with the kids. He bought two pints of ice cream for his 3-year-old, having learned that less ice cream gets eaten when it looks like too much.

Hayley at Talulah had a free penny candy corner to attract shoppers who have little kids — and to let the world know that she likes having children in the Traverse Street store and doesn’t care about things like fingerprints on glass cases.

A young woman whose navy-veteran dad had died recently decided to give the Luna & Stella anchor charm to her mother next Sunday on Mother’s Day That’s the charm that sends five dollars to the Rhode Island Foundation. Many people bought birthstone charms.

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trunk show

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Nautical Charm, Donation to RI Foundation, Trunk Show

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 24, 2015| Leave a Comment »

talulah-cooper-boutique-providenceNew followers can be forgiven for not knowing that this is a blog for Luna & Stella, the contemporary birthstone jewelry company. The company owner is my daughter, Suzanne, and she lets me blog about anything that interests me. So I do go off on tangents.

But today what interests me is the Luna & Stella trunk show, scheduled to take place Saturday, May 2, 12 to 5, in Providence, Rhode Island, at the Talulah Cooper Boutique on Traverse Street (left).

I really love the new Luna & Stella charms, including the Blixt lightning bolt (which has a special association with Suzanne’s electrifying son), the delicate cross, and the anchor that is based on the Rhode Island state flag. And because I am pretty familiar with the great work of the folks at the Rhode Island Foundation, I’m also tickled that Suzanne is sending them $5 of every anchor charm purchased.

She writes, “Our Hope Anchor Charm Necklace is inspired by the anchor on the Rhode Island state flag. $5 of every Anchor charm ordered goes to The Rhode Island Foundation’s Fund for Rhode Island, serving the state’s most critical needs since 1916.”

Oh. Did I mention that Mother’s Day is really soon, May 10? I myself have been dropping broad hints about needing my new granddaughter’s birthstone.

hope anchor birthstone charm necklace

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How Tibetans in Nepal Improve a Harvest

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 10, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Photo: Geoff Childs
Cleaning harvested yartsa gunbu prior to sale. 

Thanks so much to the folks who recently signed up to follow this blog. If you joined hoping that I would blog often about the topic that drew you here, you will soon find that the posts are rather eclectic. A couple years back, Suzanne thought it would be nice to have a blog tied to Luna & Stella, and she said I could write about anything that interested me. I thought, Wow! What an opportunity!

Today’s story is from the radio show Living on Earth. It’s about Tibetans in Nepal who have managed to avoid overharvesting a fungus that’s wildly popular in China.

“Anthropologist Geoff Childs of Washington University tells host Steve Curwood how one [area] is managing to harvest the resource sustainably. …

“Nubri is a valley in Gurkha district in the country of Nepal. The residents are ethnically Tibetan. They’ve been living there for about 700 or 800 years, so it’s an indigenous population of Nepal. What they have done in contrast to other areas is they’ve limited the number of collectors to only residents of the villages, and so that keeps the number of collectors way down. …

“CHILDS: What they’ve arrived at in Nubri is a combination of what they call ‘yultim,’ which we could translate as village regulations, secular regulations, and ‘chutim,’ which are religious regulations. … What they will do is, they will decree certain areas off-limits to human exploitation, and usually that’s a sacred grove of trees, a certain slope of a mountain that a deity inhabits or something like that. … In terms of the sustainability of Yartsa Gunbu, that’s going to be important because those are areas where annually nobody will harvest it. So it can come to fruition. It can spore. It can live out its normal life cycle.

In terms of the village regulations the first one that I just mentioned is the exclusion of all outsiders. The second one is they’ve got a designated starting date, and they arrive at that by looking at the snow melt, looking at the conditions in the alpine pasture and figuring out what’s going to be the likely time when it’s best to gather it.

“And so for a couple weeks prior to the official starting date, every adult in the village has to check in four times daily to the village meetinghouse to prove that you’re not collecting early. A third thing that they do is they tax it. For the first member of your household, the tax is very low; it’s 100 rupees or approximately $1 dollar … they gather that tax and use it for communal purposes.

“CURWOOD: So this consensus process, everybody agrees, everybody trusts, but they also verify. … looking at this from a broader resource management perspective, what are some lessons that we can take away from what’s happening in Nubri?

“CHILDS: Trust indigenous people. Don’t immediately assume that as outsiders with more education we can come in and devise a system that will work for them. I think, first of all, study what’s in place. Study with an open mind and move from there.”

Photo: Geoff Childs 
Mt. Manaslu (26,759ft.) in Nubri is the 8th highest mountain in the world.

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Morning Has Broken

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 4, 2014| 10 Comments »

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Last night Suzanne and Erik’s little boy got a baby sister.

My own baby sister e-mailed me, saying, “Sagittarius!” So I looked it up: “adventurous,” “relaxed,” “optimistic.” The constellation Sagittarius represents the centaur Chiron from Greek mythology, an archer and a mentor to Achilles.

Meanwhile, Suzanne says the birthstone for December is blue topaz. Lovely. I don’t have that one yet. The qualities of the stone can be found at the Luna & Stella website, here. (Suzanne’s friend Kate Colby wrote all the gemstone descriptions for the company — because, as Allen Ginsberg would say, when a poet was needed, a poet appeared.)

I am camping out in Suzanne and Erik’s guest room and will be blogging from here for a week.

 

 

 

 

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Leather Postcards

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on November 29, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Have you started getting (or sending) seasonal greeting cards? I have received and answered two already: one from a cousin who wants to be sure folks have her new address, another from a friend in England who has to get a lot done before spending Christmas with her daughter in Hong Kong.

It’s the season of relationships.*

The Christmas cards I love best are photographic or newsy or beautiful or offbeat. Here’s something that would be offbeat. Imagine getting a holiday version of the leather postcards I read about a while back!

“Leather postcards were first made in 1903. They were a novelty that appealed to tourists. When stitched together, they could be used as a pillow cover or wall hanging. The holes along the edge could also be used to attach fringe.  The cards were made of deer hide and the pictures burned in. The U.S. post office banned leather postcards in 1907 because they jammed postage-canceling machines. Leather cards continued to be made as souvenirs until about 1910. Value of the cards today depends on their condition and design. Common postcards, including those with comical pictures, have sold at auction for less than $1 per card. Those with pictures of important people, like the U.S. president, sell for more. One very special leather card cut into the shape of Theodore Roosevelt sold for $325.” More at Kovels, here. Still more here, at Andrew Sullivan’s eclectic blog.

 

* Because I have some new followers, I will point out here that Suzanne’s Mom’s Blog is for my daughter’s company, a contemporary birthstone-jewelry business that is about relationships all year long, Luna & Stella. There are some lovely stars and angels there, in case you were wondering.

Photo: Chris Bodenner
Leather postcards from the Albany Rare Book Fair

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Luna & Stella at Talulah Cooper 11/8

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on November 2, 2014| 2 Comments »

Talulah Cooper jewelry boutique in Providence 

Suzanne is partnering with Providence jewelry boutique Talulah Cooper to present Luna & Stella jewelry at a trunk show starting at noon, Saturday, Nov. 8, 2014. If you are in Rhode Island and have the time, do stop by and see the modern birthstone designs that led to this blog. One more sign that Rhode Island’s reputation for innovation in jewelry continues.

You can read about the trunk show on Luna & Stella’s Facebook page, here. Learn more about Talulah Cooper here (5 Traverse Street, off Wickenden Street in the Fox Point area).

P.S. If you happen to be clicking around the Luna & Stella website, there’s a goofy childhood picture of Suzanne’s Mom with her “cowboy” brother, here — on the page that showcases birthstone charms.

Below, Luna & Stella star birthstone earrings

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Luna & Stella Hits the Trade Shows

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 13, 2014| 4 Comments »

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And speaking of slate, Suzanne’s company, Luna & Stella, displayed birthstone jewelry on slate brought from Wales by Erik’s family and got a lot of compliments at New York’s Playtime trade show. In fact, one store asked if they could buy some for display!

Suzanne was not up for selling the slates, however. After all, she asked Erik’s sister and brother-in-law to cart them home to Denmark after a joint visit to Wales and then bring them to the US on their vacation. I’m not sure they would do that twice. As a bemused Klaus recounted after his son’s luggage failed to materialize, “We got to the US with no clothes for Axel, but the bag of rocks made it through just fine.”

Suzanne and Luna & Stella will be at the giant NY Now trade show in the next few days (Javits Center, August 16-20). Stop in at her booth if you are there. And you may very well be there as it seems like half the world goes.

From the NY Now website: “2,800 exhibitors and thousands of lines across 400 categories; 35,000 buyers representing 20,000 companies; they travel from all 50 states and 85 foreign countries; 98% place orders based on what they see at the Show; 78% write orders on the Show floor; 38% are new buyers.” More here.

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Wait Till You See the New Luna & Stella Site

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 14, 2014| 4 Comments »

I am utterly tickled with the updated website for Suzanne’s birthstone-jewelry company Luna & Stella, the company that is behind this blog.

I really hope you will take a look — both for new products like stacking rings and a star pendant and for the wonderful pictures customers submitted showing warm  family and friend relationships.

Suzanne says, “We had so much fun with this contest we decided to keep it going. Send black & white vintage or recent family photos to contest@lunaandstella.com and you could win a $100 gift certificate if we use your photo on the site!”

Suzanne has given me such a free rein with this blog that it’s possible some readers don’t realize it’s a Luna & Stella blog. So I’m thrilled that the new website is up today. It gives me the opportunity to remind everyone that Mother’s Day is the second Sunday in May.

(One of the many perks of being a grandma is that I get a new Luna & Stella charm or ring every Mother’s Day that there’s a new baby in the family.)

 

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Taking Photos in New York

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 5, 2014| 6 Comments »

Washington-Sq-is-where-I-came-inWashington Square, New York City

Random photos from my travels.

My husband going into the Public Theater to see classmate Ted Shen’s musical, A Second Chance. The Playbill for the show. A delightful chandelier at the Public, with paddles that illuminate changing phrases.

Subway buskers playing a grandson’s favorite song, “When the Saints Go Marchin’ In.” Grand Central Station. The charming Iroquois Hotel. A flower-themed mosaic in the Lexington Ave. subway.

Gertrude Stein looking like herself in Bryant Park. And the Metropolitan Museum, where we saw a great photography show with my sister and brother-in-law. More on that later.

(Be watching for the relaunch of the Luna & Stella website, where one of the family pictures is of my sister at age 3, pictured with Suzanne’s maternal grandfather. … Did I mention this is a blog for Suzanne’s birthstone-jewelry company Luna & Stella?)

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From Kids Playing to Making Poetry

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 14, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Today KM added three short poems to my recent blog post “Do you feel a poem coming on?”

Because of KM and the fact that everyone on twitter seems to be writing Valentine rhymes today, I thought I would point out an Andrew Sullivan post on the connection between poetry and childhood games.

Andrew quoted poet Sandra Simonds, who writes in the Boston Review, “The first thing is that sound itself intoxicates and that we connect sound, rhythm, and rhyme to form very early on, probably from infancy.

“The music of language forms our understanding of the world and that is why it seems so fundamental, in poems, to follow the music and sounds over sense, and to trust that your ear will take you where you want to go.

“We also learn that language is deeply connected to play — riddles, jokes, nonsense, and, for lack of a better word, fun. But it is also wedded to tragic losses, lost time, lost childhood, the loss of the child itself and the body of the child. … As poets, we take [a feeling of childhood] smallness with us into adulthood and turn it into poetry.” More here.

I need to think about that.

And while I’m thinking, I’ll share a rhyme that goes with jumping rope — and also perhaps with Valentine’s Day.

“Cinderella dressed in yella
“Went downtown to see her fella.
“How many kisses did she get?
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight …”

You are limited only by your jumping ability.

Photo: Luna & Stella, the birthstone jewelry company

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This Is My 1,000th Post

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on January 19, 2014| 11 Comments »

This is my 1,000th post! Thanks to everyone for sticking around.

Back in May 2011, Suzanne and Erik asked me to write a blog for Suzanne’s birthstone jewelry company, Luna & Stella. They said I could write about anything that interested me.

Anything!? How could I resist?

Luna & Stella gift giving is all about relationships and relations, and I’m certainly a relation.

One time a woman who was nervous about buying online checked out the blog, felt like it helped her know the family a little, and decided Suzanne would be an OK person to buy from.

Want a gift certificate?

I’m going to list a few of my favorite posts. They are mostly recent because it’s hard to remember all 1,000. If you comment on your own favorite post from Suzanne’s Mom’s Blog before February 1, Suzanne will enter you in a drawing for a $100 gift certificate. She said we should do something special for the 1,000th entry.

Here are a few of my favorite entries.

In this post, I had fun trying to imitate Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories.

This one, here, is about a funny episode at the “On the Media” radio show, with songs that Broadway professionals wrote for corporate conventions.

Here you can read a story about an older couple celebrating their long-ago wedding with a theme from the movie “Up.”

“Iceland Has Elves” got me started on a whole Iceland kick. (If you can get your hands on the video Cold Fever, you are in for a strange but fun treat. Thank you, Asakiyume.)

The post about Suzanne’s 18-month-old son “training” his grandparents got nice comments on Facebook. And here is one on gratitude that I did at Thanksgiving.

Will you comment on a favorite post, too? Write your comment before  February 1, Suzanne says, and she will enter you in a drawing to win a $100 Luna & Stella gift certificate. Valentine’s Day is coming up, you know, not to mention Mother’s Day. And Luna & Stella has birthstone cufflinks for Father’s Day, too.

And thank you so much for hanging on for my daily posts.

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Apple Picking Season

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 22, 2013| 7 Comments »

Photo: Tracy Lee’s Signature Apple Nut Cake

The other day I realized that since I have no plans to go apple picking this year, I better come up with a substitute apple activity to fill that seasonal need. Tracy Lee Karner had a yummy-looking apple cake recipe at her WordPress blog, here. I made up my mind to try baking it.

With the understanding that I, too, require only ingredients and utensils I happen to have handy, I baked it in an 8-inch-square glass pan instead of Tracy Lee’s 10-inch round — for 43 minutes instead of 40. I can’t be sure it was as yummy as Tracy Lee’s because I haven’t tried it in the 10-inch round, but it was pretty darn yummy.

P.S. You may have received random photos from me with no text. This will pass. I’m getting used to the Lumia 1020 phone Suzanne gave me for uploading pictures directly from the camera to the blog, which as you know, is part of Suzanne’s birthstone jewelry company, Luna & Stella. Sometimes I hit the wrong button.

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Fine Crafts: Two-Year Program

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on August 11, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Melita has created some great exhibits. Sometimes she invites in speakers to expand on the topics. There was a secret service agent who talked about counterfeit money, a speaker from Crane & Co. whose family has made the U.S. currency paper for generations, and the FBI agent I blogged about here.

Her latest exhibit features handcrafted furniture from one of the top artisan schools in the world, North Bennet Street School.

Founded in 1885 to teach practical skills and English to poor immigrants, it has evolved into a range of activities, including a two-year program for those who want to get serious about jewelry making, carpentry, cabinet and furniture making, locksmithing, bookbinding, piano technology, or violin making. (More on the programs, here.)

The speakers for this exhibit gave an overview of the school and answered specific questions about furniture making.

One project that was described was second-year students’ assignment to make a writing desk and a chest of drawers to go in the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst. The museum wanted replicas because the originals are archived at Harvard.

Below you see the students with the originals and the carefully constructed replicas before the latter were sent for finishing.

I include a link to the jewelry making, since after all, this is a blog for Suzanne’s jewelry company, Luna & Stella.

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The Entrepreneurial Sock

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 28, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Erik sent along this lead, and John sent it to him. Both are guys who started tech companies, and I’m learning that requires a certain kind of attire.

To signal you are a laid-back but savvy entrepreneur, wear cool socks.

Claire Cain Miller and Nick Bilton write at the NY Times, “For barristers in 18th-century London, it was shoulder-grazing wigs. For the Mad men of 1950s New York, it was briefcases and fedoras. For the glass-ceiling-shattering women of the 1980s, it was shoulder pads.

“And for today’s tech entrepreneurs in high-flying Silicon Valley, it is flamboyantly colored, audaciously patterned socks.

“In a land where the uniform — jeans, hoodies and flip-flops — is purposefully nonchalant, and where no one would be caught dead in a tie, wearing flashy socks is more than an expression of your personality. It signals that you are part of the in crowd. It’s like a secret handshake for those who have arrived, and for those who want to. …

“Some say the craze took hold because socks are an acceptable shot of flair in a dressed-down, male-dominated culture — and peek out when entrepreneurs present their latest apps onstage at the tech world’s frequent conferences. Others offer a perhaps more universal explanation. ‘Girls notice,’ said Matt Graves, 37 …

“Travis Kalanick, 35, co-founder and chief executive of Uber, the on-demand taxi service, began wearing statement socks at his previous company, which sold software to businesses.

“ ‘I started having to suit up for meetings with Fortune 500 companies,’ said Mr. Kalanick (his favorite: hot pink). ‘I wanted to keep a little of my geeky computer engineering flair without people thinking I was nuts.’  …

“Sometimes I will even browse the women’s section and get the XXL, because they have all the fun colors,” said Andrew Trader, 42, an investor at Maveron who helped found Zynga. (He is partial to wool socks with bright stripes as well as a pair with an American flag pattern.)”

Read more at the NY Times, here, and check out their slide show.

Erik adds, “And here is a Swedish retail start-up (featured in article) that apparently designs and sells them.”

I can’t tell you how happy I am to know about socks. Father’s Day gifts for the men in the family are settled for the foreseeable future.

Now, can I give Suzanne, the Luna & Stella entrepreneur, socks as gifts, too?

Photo: Peter DaSilva for The New York Times

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