10 Reasons to Shop at Throwing Mud Gallery

 

 

 

 

 

New jewelry in the store

I've been wanting to get Martha's earrings at Throwing Mud Gallery since I bought some earrings from her last summer.  She specializes in limited edition and one-of-a-kind handcrafted sterling silver and gemstone artisan jewelry.

 Pretty!

Recyled Copper and Brass Cuff Bracelets

These gorgeous bracelets are made by an artist on Orcas Island. She uses copper and brass cut-offs from her local sheet metal shop and transforms them into beautiful, upcycled eco-conscious jewelry.

Passiko Jewelry

Passiko is a local jewelry artist that we've known for many years. I have some of her pieces in my jewelry box. She's doing a new line she calls "Mixed Up Metals", featuring unique patterns that are hand stamped into sterling silver and copper accented with gem stones and pearls.

Feather earrings

Feather earrings is a trend that has made a comeback. Lucky for us, Eileen B. brought in some new earrings yesterday, including some earrings she made with feathers she had picked up while on vacation in New Zealand.

Eileen likes to use natural materials that she finds in her travels.  We've carried her unique rock jewelry here at Throwing Mud Gallery since shortly after we opened.

She brought in several pairs of earrings, including a couple that are made with both copper and silver.

It's not easy being green

Even though St. Patrick's Day is not typically a big shopping day in the retail business, the window at Throwing Mud Gallery is now highlighting our items that are the color green.

Many of our potters use glazes in shades of green.   I have pots by Quinn, Ron, Mark, Andrew, Susan, Dan, Charan, James and CarolAnn. We've got a hand painted green martini glass, as well as green candles, green soap, and our quirky raku fish with green dots. We have beautiful green earrings and necklaces as well.

It actually was pretty easy to be green at Throwing Mud Gallery!

More Jewelry ideas for Valentine'sDay

Only a few more days until Valentine's Day.  I went through our collection of jewelry at Throwing Mud Gallery and picked out several items that would make perfect gifts for your lady love.

Valentine's Day Gift Idea

According to Wikipedia: "The heart has long been used as a symbol to refer to the spiritual, emotional, moral, and in the past, also intellectual core of a human being. As the heart was once widely believed to be the seat of the human mind, the word heart continues to be used poetically to refer to the soul, and stylized depictions of hearts are used as prevalent symbols representing love."

What could be more perfect to give your partner than a piece of jewelry representing your love.  Eileen B. makes some beautiful sterling silver heart jewelry.  We have a silver heart embedded in a polished rock, heart earrings, a silver bracelet with a heart charm, and a ring made from a brass bolt that has been rounded out in the center, with a sterling silver heart attached to it.

Beautiful! 

Now a little quiz for you.  The first person to answer this correctly will win 3 This Charming Candy lollipops.  You can pick them up in the store before the end of the month, or if you don't live close enough, I'll put them in the mail to you.

Who is the author of this poem?

"A bell is no bell 'til you ring it,
A song is no song 'til you sing it,
And love in your heart
Wasn't put there to stay -
Love isn't love
'Til you give it away."

Valentine's Day ideas

Valentine's Day is less than 2 weeks away!

Traditional gifts are usually flowers and/or chocolate.  What about getting your Valentine something that won't be gone in a couple of weeks.  We have lots of gift ideas at Throwing Mud Gallery...earrings, necklaces, bracelets, mugs, bowls, candles.....  You're sure to find something.

For the next several days I'll be highlighting some special items that will be sure please that special someone.

Jewelry for the ladies on your list

Just wanted to share some of the new jewelry items we've added to the store in the last couple of weeks.

I've featured Ann's 3-dimensional jewelry in the past, and we just got more styles of earrings in stock, plus 3D pendants!

 

Hope is moving away from Tacoma, but before she left she restocked her inventory at Throwing Mud Gallery with many new styles of earrings and necklaces

Sara also brought in more earrings and necklaces for your shopping enjoyment (how about a treble clef necklace for the music lover on your list?)

...and Heather is making some seasonal pendants perfect for winter, including a "partridge in a pear tree" 

Any of the women on your list would be sure to appreciate the original unique jewelry available in our shop.  Come in and see us!

New items in the gallery

We've added some beautiful artwork and crafts to the gallery in the last couple of weeks.

Mandy combines the vibrant colors of hand-dyed anodized aluminum and the natural elegance of fine and sterling silver to create striking designs with wide appeal. I bought a pair of earrings from her at the Salem, Oregon Art Festival in 2010 and am happy that we finally have some of her jewelry here.

Chumil is the creative collaboration of Glynn and James, who create elegant sterling silver classic modern jewelry.  Again, I bought earrings from them at a crafts show and have been eager to get their beautiful and unique jewelry at Throwing Mud Gallery.

Rabun is a fellow pottery with a unique style.  He adds a lot of details, textures, and interesting glaze techniques to his pieces.  One customer made the comment that they almost look like some of the details are made of wood.

If you know somebody who likes to play cribbage, we now have handmade portable wood cribbage boards with playing cards and pegs stored inside.  They even come with a suede case.

Mark and I stopped at a gallery in Bellingham while coming back from visiting Jordan and when we walked in the door this colorful glass on display caught out attention. We saw Nancy at an art show couple of weeks ago and were eager to place an order with her. She brought in her gorgeous colorful glass items just this morning.  Each piece is individually designed and carefully hand-painted.

Stop by Throwing Mud Gallery to see these fabulous unique items in person.  We've got something for everyone on your Christmas list.

New pieces in the gallery

Just wanted to show off a few new things we've added to the gallery in the last month or so....

When my son came down from Seattle to visit awhile ago, his fiance sent some lollipops for me.  I was intrigued by their flavors and did a little investigating into the company, This Charming Candy.  I thought they'd make a nice little added item to the gallery, so placed an order for some of their more popular flavors....Salted Caramel, Birthday Cake, Pistachio-Marshmallow, Root Beer Float, and also some of their themed collections.  For instance, the Breakfast Tray collection includes: blueberry muffin, maple sugar, sweetened grapefruit and hazelnut coffee, and the Fruit Basket collection includes guava colada, triple berry, pineapple heaven and watermelon basil.  We have flavors the kids will love, but also some flavors that the adults will enjoy trying.

I'm always looking for interesting and unique jewelry and have been on the look out for jewelry made of wood. I've seen Mitercraft's wood bookmarks at some of the shows we've done and discovered that they also make earrings made from several different woods.

When Mitercraft realized that a lot of their customers were including the wood bookmarks in a card, they came up with the idea of making greeting cards especially for the bookmarks.  The cards we have at Throwing Mud Gallery show a little boy falling off a sled, and the sled is a wood bookmark ....so clever!

Every year I am involved in several ornament exchanges with different groups of friends. In keeping with our preparations for the holiday season, we brought in some cute fused glass ornaments.  We've got bird ornaments, snowmen, trees and holly wreath glass ornaments....made in Bellingham, Washington.  What a great gift!

Silver jewelry and colorful pottery

We've known Bob for a lot of years from doing art shows.  Lucky for me, Bob and his wife like Mark's pottery, and I like their jewelry so we've done a lot of trading over the years.  I haven't counted them up, but I bet I personally own about 2 dozen pair of earrings and a dozen or more necklaces and several cuff bracelets that Bob has made. Right away when we opened the gallery, we knew we wanted to have his beautiful silver jewelry in our gallery.

James from Oregon creates beautiful pottery pieces. Look inside this bowl!

Gorgeous!

We have a selection of functional items such as mugs, pitchers and flower arrangers.  He also makes some nice wall pieces, like wall pockets for flowers and mirrors.

Mother's Day Ideas

Mother's Day is this Sunday - so, what do you get for the person who gave you life? Handmade items are always appreciated by moms. But not all of us are creative enough to come up with an idea. Let one of the artists at Throwing Mud Gallery do the creating for you!

Any woman likes jewelry and we've got different styles for many tastes - from simple classic to eclectic, we're sure to have a pair of earrings, bracelet or necklace that mom would love.

Maybe jewelry isn't your mom's style. If mom loves her coffee or tea, why not get her favorite flavor and a handcrafted mug to go with it?

For the mom who loves to cook or loves having beautiful serving dishes, we've got any size and style of bowl that she could want.

Moms that love to garden or display flowers, would appreciate a new vase and we've got vases that will hold one single stem or a big bouquet of flowers.

We've got journals or notepads for mom to record her thoughts, small glass dishes to hold her jewelry, beautiful fused glass wine stoppers or letter openers, teapots, soap, wood boxes and even some small items just to make her smile - like a raku fish or a pottery cat.

Staying busy at the gallery

We are busy getting ready for the grand opening celebration on Monday and promoting the gallery and pottery studio on a daily basis. There has been a lot of interest in pottery classes and we are registering new students just about every day.  Today I had to end registration for our Thursday evening class because it is FULL.

I'm a little late in introducing another jewelry artist who has some work at Throwing Mud Gallery. We chose several of Sarah's items for the gallery last week. Not only does Sarah design jewelry, but she is also a gifted photographer and mother of 4. She enjoys searching out interesting items and incorporating them into her bead and wire jewelry.

Sunday afternoon Mark and I went to Seattle for the Best of the Northwest Art Show. We brought home a car full of beautiful items for the gallery from some of the talented artists there. I'll be introducing them to you in the coming weeks.