It’s been a busy week and I haven’t been able to sit down at my laptop as much for blog posts but I did get to spend some time making a new design yesterday with a beautiful Sterling silver heart locket and adorable button pearls.

Let your sweetheart know how special she is with this necklace. You can store pictures in the locket, a tiny treasure, or secret wishes. Whatever you choose to put in it, you know that it will be kept close to your heart inside this locket.

View more images and read more about the necklace in my Etsy listing.

I love the new colors of purple pearls available. If you love purple you can incorporate it into your wedding jewelry. This ivory stretch charmeuse dress has a customizable color sash that can compliment the color of your bridesmaid’s dresses and the color of your pearls! I love the halter strap and the ruching around the waist and bust. It makes the dress very feminine. The dress is available from The Dessy Group and is called Destination Bridal Gown 1011.

I have added a few of my handmade freshwater purple pearls that would go perfect with this beautiful wedding dress.

Clockwise from bottom left:

• Passionate Purple Earrings Vive Jewelry $25.00 USD
• Passionate Purple Handknotted Pearl Necklace Vive Jewelry $75.00 USD
• Destination Bridal Gown 1011 The Dessy Group
• Wire wrapped Purple Pearl Necklace Vive Jewelry $60.00 USD
• Passionate Purple Pearl Bracelet Vive Jewelry $60.00 USD available by custom order

Paper n stitch is a fabulous site dedicated to all things handmade. My jewelry was selected to be one of the featured artists in this month’s exhibition.

From the site you can buy various handmade items from many talented artists. Check out the site www.papernstitch.com or view my items in my paper n stitch shop.

Just recently added to my shop are some fun pearl colors that would be perfect for bridesmaids!!

From left to right the pearls are:

• Multi-color pearls on brown silk thread with earrings. Vive Jewelry $100.00 USD
  Gorgeous shades of brown, green, beige, white, brown, and red are randomly strung and hand knotted on silk thread.
• Pink and white pearl necklace. Vive Jewelry $65.00 USD
  Adorable small white pearls mingle with pink pearls on this hand knotted pearl necklace.
• Purple passionate pearl necklace. Vive Jewelry $75.00 USD
  I love purple pearls and these are no exception! Gorgeous bright purple pearls are hand knotted on black silk thread.

With the affordable prices of digital cameras, there are many companies offering to print all those captured memories for you.  You can print calendars, cards, and photo books in various sizes.

Blurb.com is a fantastic site that provides easy to use software to create a book full of your own photos right on your local computer and then upload it to their site when finished to order the printed book. I created a photo book from my summer vacation photos and I was thoroughly satisfied with the result.

The photo at right is a publicly available photo book  for sale about Ozzie and Candice’s wedding. This book is a great example of what you could do with your own wedding photos  with Blurb’s tools.

Another great feature with Blurb is that you can keep your book private once uploaded and only send the web address to people that you know. This is an excellent way to make the book available to its stars: the bridal party, your parents, and your guests without having strangers able to access your photos. From the web address your bridal party and guests can purchase a copy and have it sent to their door without you having to do anything else.

You can view previews of the book layouts online similar to amazon’s book preview feature. Here is an inside page from Ozzie and Candice’s book.

The possibilities are endless and you can make it the way you want it! Dust jacket and all. Just imagine how great all those candid shots from the reception will look. You could also make a his and hers version where you each pick your favorite photos from the evening to remember your favorite moments. Keep it secret and then reveal to each other. It will be interesting to see how each turns out.