Using natural materials

On my last trip to Israel in October I was walking around the Nachalat Benjamin street on the artist street fair day and found this amazing jewelry shop with very creative display window. I love window displays they are like little fantasy, fairytale worlds that I get sucked into so easily! Here in San Francisco we have so many amazing shops and displays that I must share in an updated post.
But back to this window display, what drew me to it was it's simplicity and natural elements. The burlap sack, rough twine made the perfect backdrop for the stunning blue stone necklaces.

From this inspiration I collected some simple stones on the beach in Tel Aviv and used them for my own photos in Tali's collection that are now up in the saffronstyles Etsy store.

The collecting stones beach....

Halloween & my favorite scarf

My favorite scarf

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays. All of a sudden everyone has permission to be creative and to express themselves in ways that they normally wouldn't feel comfortable doing. I usually end up helping other people with their costumes and I have found it is one of the best ways to see the creative process at work. Once you get an idea it isn't so much about the end result of the costume but the treasure hunt of finding the all the pieces and putting it together, although it is a bonus if people know what you are supposed to be!
I pretty much always end up in a few costume categories. I guess these costumes just fit my personality and style, plus they are always easy to put together with things I already own. My go-to costumes are animals/insects past years include a black cat, raccoon, and dragonfly, butterfly and ladybug but the vampire and gypsy have come out to play a few times before as well. 

So now on to the story of last night's Halloween craziness. Last night my husband and I were not planning to out for Halloween but our housemate came home dressed in a purple cape and headband and convinced us to go out to some parties. So at 10pm I all of  a sudden had to come up with not 1 but 3 halloween costumes... since our purple superhero decided he wanted a new look! Of course my box of halloween stuff was nowhere to be found so my specialty the 5 minute costume began. My husband became an earthquake emergency volunteer with a hard hat, work gloves and orange emergency vest, and the required black eye and face wound. The ex-superhero became a greek god with a white sheet and a crown of ivy from the backyard and I went to my favorite go-to costume the Gypsy!

I love the gypsy because I get to dress up in all my jewelery at once and put my scarf collection to some good use! This time I used my favorite scarf that used to belong to my mom, but somewhere along the way many years ago became mine. I think she bought it in Paris from when we used to live there in the 80's. I love the romantic look of it with beautiful purple vine print and adobe brown background. This scarf has had many uses since I've owned. Who knows where it was before I got it... I've used it as a regular scarf, piece of a halloween costume (this is not the first time!), a few times it's been used to decorate the walls of my room and I've even used it as a belt! Not bad for a simple piece of fabric.

Why Saffron?

Why call this blog and business Saffron Style? Because I have found all the elements that intrigue me are somehow captured in the beauty and history of this little flower and it's delicate red stigmas.

Color, Nature, Travel, History, Passion, Beauty, Storytelling, Hand-picked, Spice

Saffron is an ancient spice that has had an influence on women, fashion and cuisine for centuries. Saffron is  the most expensive spice in the world due to it's delicacy and the fact that it must be hand-picked. Saffron the plant stamens are stunningly beautiful once collected and stored in little jars, but the source the crocus flower is also a beautiful purple specimen.Saffron is known for deep red color that is hard to capture in nature and has inspired many cultures. Buddist use the saffron yellow as the color of their robes, saffron is a key ingredient used to flavor and color Spanish paella, in ancient Rome the crocus flower was the subject of a greek myth,  Really this is just the beginning of the story, saffron has a long and complicated past but in many ways is still as important as ever in many countries and cultures.

You may know what saffron spice looks like but do you know what the crocus flower look like?

crocus flower- Rosalind Creasy

A big thank you to Rosalind Creasy for supplying me this photo. Check out her latest edible gardening book here

As promised here is my jewelery association with saffron. Another fabulous set of handmade silver earrings with a crocus flower purple colored stone from Sigal's collection.

my inspiration

Inspiration. Such a big word, I have found that all my inspiration comes from travel abroad. I love to find treasures on trips from food to crafts and jewelery I can spend hours in a foreign country looking for that perfect item that will always bring back memories of the adventure.

My friends and family have always loved the things I brought back from my travels and on my latest trip I started getting inspired to take this passion of mine to the next level. I went to Israel to see my husband's family and started talking to his aunt who is an amazing artisan. She makes stunning jewelery, leather work and more. She was wearing a beautiful silver necklace that I admired and we started talking about how she sells her pieces in England. I confessed my dream of owning a business finding and selling handcrafted items from around the world and she convinced me that I must start doing it...like right now.
So here was that little push, boost of confidence that I needed to get started. From that seed of a conversation I started meeting other jewelery makers who have a totally unique point of view and style that I can only describe as being unique to Israel.
 This blog is part of my journey to start selling these fabulous pieces made by amazing women that I am proud to know and support. Each blog post will feature a piece from someone I am representing along with a travel photo, person or inspiration that the jewelery brings to mind.

So a big hug and thank you to Sigal for your inspiration and confidence in me! 

This is the first piece that she showed me. A very cool handcrafted silver ring that reminds me of footsteps in the sand. 

The ring reminds me of the amazing beaches in Thailand..see below for a fun footprint pic we took on Koh Phi Phi.