We have a new book!! Break out the champagne!!

Please celebrate with us as we launch our new book! Come along on a beautiful adventure full of gorgeous images by Cynthia Shaffer and inspirational ideas from Anne Freund. Enjoy the wonderful tutorials contributed by talented artists Jen Crossley, Karla Nathan, Nellie Wortman, Rita Reade, Terri Brush, Cynthia Shaffer, Robin Dudley-Howes and  Lorri Scott. These beautiful art projects will inspire your creativity and fuel your artistic energy. We promise! 

Please join us at book signings at Gina Galvin's The Rendezvous in Round Top, TX for antique week  and the Where Women Create magazine reunion March 30th, Terri Brush's Art Camp in Oregon March 7-10 and Art is You in Santa Rosa, CA April 13 -17.  We'll keep you posted as we schedule more book signings. Hope to see you at one of them soon!!

If you'd like to order this fine book please click here:  https://www.etsy.com/listing/272935820/the-gilded-journey-nurturing-the-artist

Jewelry Affaire Again!

Hooray! We're in Jewelry Affaire in the October issue. There is only one pair of earrings shown but the article is about different kinds of Victorian buttons. Did you know they had "perfume buttons?" Young ladies at the turn of the century wanted to smell good for their young gentlemen suitors. What better way than to dab some of your favorite perfume on your buttons?! Clever young women they were! Wearing pieces of history is such a thrill. Live in Gypsy Style! xo

Romance Abounds

Romantic Inspiration"Out of Africa" is one of the movies I most admire. Karen Blixen was her own woman at a time before it was in fashion. She lived her life her own way. Two of the wonderful poems she quoted in that movie are included here for your enjoyment. Her parting toast when leaving Africa for the last time was "For many a rose-lilt maiden and many a lightfoot lad."

.          

"I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong hills..." ~Isak Dinesen Sea Cottage

 

The real Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen, how beautiful she was!

      

 “With Rue My Heart is Laden”

 With rue my heart is laden

For golden friends I had,

For many a rose-lipt maiden

And many a lightfoot lad.

 By brooks too broad for leaping

The lightfoot boys are laid,

The rose-lipt girls are sleeping

In fields where roses fade.

By A. E. Housman 

 

"When I Was One-and-Twenty"

When I was one-and-twenty

I heard a wise man say,
“Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.”
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
“The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
’Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue.”
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.

By A.E. Housman

Gypsy Gents Pay Attention!

How about something for the Gypsy Gents?  Poor things, they don't get to wear much adornment do they?  Steampunk flavor!

                                                         
                                      Happy Fourth of July from The Gilded Gypsies! 

We're still around, just disorganized and overwhelmed. Isn't everyone?

I am visiting our sadly ignored blogspot as I do see a bit of traffic.  Don't hate us. Life has a way of happening, doesn't it?

The Gilded Gypsies have been uber busy.  Several new publications for your viewing pleasure.  Anne was a featured artist in Where Women Create, May-July with a fabulous article featuring her cunning little studio in Sonoma, California. 10 fabulous pages and still available on newstands! Check it out!

I had a feature article in Jewelry Affaire magazine, Spring 2015 issue.  4 pages (It's not 10, but I was right proud just the same) on a collection of Tintype jewelry I created using some of my favorite things, gem tintypes, cut steel and buckle buttons.  Upcoming article in the Fall issue with Carved Shell button jewelry.

We were also part of the Art Is You show in Petaluma, California in April.  We were featured vendors and had the opportunity to host the welcoming hospitality event for a wonderful group of students, vendors and teachers that included Michael and Andrea DeMeng and Susan Lenart Kazmer. We met some great friends and got to see the work of talented others including Nellie Wortman and Lynn Suprock. I am giving a peak at our wonderful booth which we've decided was spectacular but too much work for two old broads like us.

I'll do better, I swear it.    Marie~

hApPy NeW yEaR fRoM tHe GiLdEd GyPsIeS!

Out with the old, in with the new. Make an adventure, make a friend, make a work of art. 
Make it count.

                    Let us live life with grateful hearts.
   Happy Thanksgiving from The Gilded Gypsies!

Be the Light

Each of us has a gift and talents which we can share with others. Smile at the people walking past you. Compliment the checkout person at the grocery store. Joke with the people who are serving you at a restaurant. Make somebody's day. We don't know what private battle each person is fighting. You may be the only bright spot in their day, so make it count!

Each day I climb the stairs to my studio I pray that God will use me as a tool to shine the light to others. It doesn't cost any money. It only requires being your genuine self and authentically sharing your happiness or creativity with one another. Particularly as women we need to support one another and cheer each other on! Don't be afraid of people "stealing" your ideas. Nobody can take your brain and the unlimited potential and stream of creativity you possess. YOU know what you've designed and created. If somebody copies you, consider it flattery and pity the fact that they can't come up with their own original ideas or creations. Be secure in the fact that you are UNIQUE.

Go forth and shine the light for others to see. It's contagious! YOU are one in a million, just like the stars in the sky at night. Shine Baby Shine!

xo Anne

To laugh often and love much
To win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children
To earn the approbation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others
To give one's self, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a 
    redeemed social condition
To have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exaltation
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
                                              ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

How do you define success? Take time out of your busy schedule to evaluate what is most important to you.  Spend your time wisely and pay attention to your priorities. Our lives are so busy and hectic that they fly by too easily. We respond to the next fire we have to put  out. We respond and react so much that we sometimes forget to take stock of how we spend our time and energy. 

Carve some time out to take a breath and figure out how you can best define success. Make sure to take time out for yourself! Enjoy the beauty around you.  ~ Anne

Castle in the Clouds

 There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.


Yes, I have a normal job, my life is not all creativity and smelling the roses.  Annually we survey our employees and spend our energy working toward being a "great place to work".  This year, I am serving as the "Great Place to Work" champion.  It occurred to me as I made my way home the other day that the creatives of the world need a "great place to work".  Having housed my talent and endeavors until now in a small attic room. I am so appreciative of the space I now have to stretch out that I find myself savoring the place as much as the artistic process. This is my encouragement to you to find your space.

A Victorian desk laden with a wrought iron garden piece is my main creating space. The shelf nearby came out of my Mom and Dad's shed where it was destined for certain demolition. I added baskets dry brushed white for art supplies. Old silver-plated pieces house my collaging tools and paint brushes.

Surrounding myself with the beautiful remains of the past inspires me so I have lots and lots of small vintage treasures that I picked up at estate sales.  These tiny obsessions fill wooden shelves and cover every available surface. A tiny metal Tootsie Toys piano sits next to a Victorian pincushion in the shape of a shoe...and there's Mr. Peanut, a retro salt shaker from the 1930s.  Angels and crucifixes, old perfume bottles and rhinestone purses, silver candlesticks and dried roses...it all adds to the ambiance in my creative space.
 

                                                                                A room without a chandelier is a room with no light. I've added paper mache angels to mine and continue to add vintage prisms as I find them.Vintage lighting can be found at estate sales and restored to working condition. If pieces are missing, get creative.    The top hardware on mine is made from a scrolly metal base I picked up somewhere and a vintage clockface! You must have one.  I insist.
                                                                                                     

A picture that hung in my grandmother's bedroom and then in my mother's keeps them near me while I work.  The dark cabinet of drawers on the right is where I house all of the supplies for our Gilded Gypsies jewelry. The chair is a turn of the century piece which I layered with loads of paint and gook to get a distressed vintage finish. I am one of those people who never researches how to do something, I just start splashing and sawing.  Clearly, I'm lawless......and dangerous. But the point is that if I can figure it out, anyone can. This is shoestring decor as the only pieces I paid any real money for were the desk, the multi drawer cabinet, the wrought iron trellis and the gold tabletop under the window.  Everything else was rescued and refurbished.

Favorite Things
Victorian Silver-plate
Victorian Shoe Pincushions
Religious Relics, Rosaries, and Crucifixes
Vintage Photographs and Tintypes
Antique Gold Leaf Frames
Tootsie Toys Dollhouse Furniture
Vintage Clocks
Small Vintage Books
Vintage French Postcards

Music is a must have in a creative space. Some of my favorites:
Overwhelmed ~ Big Daddy Weave
Sunrise ~ Norah Jones
Across the River ~ Bruce Hornsby
The Way I Am ~ Caroline Pennell
If I Didn't Know Any Better ~ Mindy Smith
Whom Shall I Fear ~ Chris Tomlin
Paperweight ~ Schuyler Fisk & Joshua Radin
Perfectly Lonely ~ John Mayer 

~ Marie ~
        

There are no rules of architecture for a 
                              castle in the clouds. ~G.K. Chesterton

Adonais....Lost Angel of a Ruined Paradise, words to inspire

I am enamored with Percy Bysshe Shelley and the romantic poets of the early 1800s. Particularly, the poem Adonais which Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote to eulogize John Keats who died of tuberculosis in Rome at the age of 25. The Keats-Shelley House is located next to the Spanish Steps and is a romantic look back at work of these remarkable men.  Housed in the Museum are letters from notables of the day including Oscar Wilde who claimed "the most sacred spot in all of Rome is the grave of John Keats". It's not a typically Italian place to visit, but authentic and worth a stop!



I want to share a couple of excerpts from this beautiful work,

   And one with trembling hands clasps his cold head,
   and fans him with her moonlight wings and cries,
   "Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead,
   See on the silken fringe of his faint eyes,
   Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies
   A tear some Dream has loosened from his brain."
   Lost angel of a ruined Paradise!
   She knew not 'twas her own; as with no stain
   She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain.

The imagery contained in a "procession" of those who loved John Keats and bemoaned his passing is one of my favorite parts....the personification of our emotions and thoughts is poetry at its finest.

 

And others came...Desires and Adoration,
Winged Persuasions and veiled Destinies,
Splendours, and Glooms and glimmering Incarnations of hopes and fears,
and twilight Phantasies,
and Sorrow with her family of Sighs.
and Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam
Of her own dying smile instead of eyes,
Came in slow pomp - the moving pomp might seem like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream

All he had loved, and moulded into thought,    
From shape,and hue,and odour, and sweet sound,
Lamented Adonais, Morning sought
Her eastern watchtower, and her hair unbound,
Wet with tears which should adorn the ground,
Dimmed the aereal eyes that kindle day;
Afar the melancholy thunder moaned,
Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay,
And the wild Winds flew round,
sobbing in their dismay.  

 

The romantic poets, Shelley, Keats and Lord Byron were all gone in a moment, none having lived even into their 40s.  Tragic figures, but great minds who bared their souls and left us some of the most lovely verse ever written.

 I used one of Lord Byron's poems, "She Walks In Beauty" in my last collage. This is my encouragement to any who might read this post to read up on these 3 men and allow their thoughts to inspire you to create. Words paint a picture...........paint yours.    ~Marie~