Abundant Earth Works--a post about jewelry, not food

And here we have another post that is not about food.

Soon this is going to be one of those blogs where people just post about boots and hairstyles and stuff. Okay, probably not.

But I did get something really amazingly beautiful for my anniversary in November. I was so happy with it that I wanted to give a little call-out to the shop Abundant Earth Works and the designer Dawn on Etsy. She's not a personal friend or anything. I didn't know her at all until I asked her to do this necklace for me (uh, which was from Kip for our anniversary). I just was so so happy with the necklace she made me. And since it's Black Thursday weekend now seemed like a good time.

I should tell you all that I have a small jewelry addiction. Not the fancy stuff from those corner jewelry stores in the mall. No. I find them a little boring and a lot overpriced. In fact, I noticed last year when I went from store to store looking for an original-looking mother's ring that all the rings from every jewelry store in town looked exactly the same. In fact, everything sort of looked the same. I've always liked jewelry that looked a little different from everybody else's. It doesn't hurt when it has a $20 price tag instead of a $200/2000 price tag either.

In particular I tend to love stones. No, I don't mean diamonds. I'm talking about, you know, rocks. I love them. Nerdy style. Like me and my kids will go to these "shows" put on by the lapidary club and just spend hours looking at rocks. Last year, at one such event, I got a piece of polished chrysocolla for free with another purchase. It was so so beautiful, but I didn't really know what to do with it. It sat on my shelf for quite some time and then I thought maybe I'd try to find someone to wrap it for me. I checked many many shops on Etsy. They would mostly do it for between $30 and usually closer to $50 or $60. That was a little high for me. But Dawn at Abundant Earth Works did it for less than $20. Which is remarkable in and of itself, but she also did a bang up job. I linked to several examples of wrappings that I liked, sent her my stone, and then crossed my fingers and left her to do what she thought best. (I've done this with other Etsy jewelry people before and found that we often just don't see eye to eye, no matter how anal my descriptions are of what I want). What I got was better than anything I could have imagined. I mean, it was just gorgeous. The picture looked better than what I'd pictured and then the actual necklace was even prettier than that. I've never been so happy with a jewelry purchase before--especially one I had asked someone to design (meaning I didn't really know what it would look like at the end).

You don't have to have a random stone hanging around your house either (though if you do, we could totally be friends). She's got plenty of stones on her shop to choose from.

So if you're in the market for something pretty, unique, and not bank-breaking this holiday season, give Dawn a try. She's having a Black Friday sale through Dec. 3rd where she gives at least 15% off (and up to 25% depending on how much you spend). Do it.