Giveaway from Lemon Jitters
I am proud to announce the first giveaway of 2009 for Hue readers. The lovely Katie Guthrie of Lemon Jitters is offering up a pair of one-of-a-kind sapphire blue earrings.
She created these beauties specially for one lucky Hue reader. Aren't they fabulous? Wish I could participate...
How about a little about the artist first? Katie is a graduate student in Louisiana. In her free time, she makes jewelry from vintage and up-cycled materials. She's especially inspired by the color and motion of different pieces. In Katie's own words:
"A fellow jewelry designer once told me that she doesn't consider herself a metal worker or forger of fine materials, but a color mixer. I totally identify with that, as colors are truly the lifeline of my work. Even the subtle nuances of a basic bronze beadcap lend a completely different air to a piece than a darker brass would. With that attention to fine details and variations of color, I am drawn to the muted tones. I love understated, yet decadent color palettes. I also enjoy oxidizing metals because the result is stunning! I like seeing the slight changes in patina throughout a piece. That is where I think the real beauty of a piece lies, in the faint variations here and there."Currently exploring the idea of juxtaposing unlikely materials, she used to work a lot with vintage hardware and now is hooked on vintage glamour. There's a great mix of those two vibes in her etsy shop, often in the same piece.
image sourceOkay, now onto the contest!
The winner will receive these earrings featuring two vintage sapphire glass navette jewels, vintage beads with a lovely patina, and hand-oxidized brass chain and earwires. Elegant for daytime or evening.How to participate in the giveaway:
Post a comment with your best tid bit or historical fact about the color blue. Be sure to include your email address. A winner will be selected by Lemon Jitters in one week and be notified via email.
So, what do you know about blue?
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15 comments:
The ancient Greeks did not have a word for the color blue! Crazy, no? And those earrings are gorgeous!
Lynelle bnelle@yahoo.com
Blue, my Favorite color! Haint Blue is meant to look like water and keep the Haints out of your house making you safe from their influence. Speculation has it that the tints, tones, and shades from the blue-green to blue-violet part of the visible spectrum fools the Haints. Haints can not cross water. Using Haint Blue on doors, shutters, window trim, ceilings, the whole darn structure, can fool Haints and discourage them from "crossing" into your house. It's believed that Haint Blue can fake out insects and birds as well. Using Haint Blue on exteriors supposedly looks like endless sky to the little critters and deters them from making themselves at home
Great idea for the contest! I learned that in religion blue has always been associated with God's creative power. And the bride's tradition to wear"something blue" came from early Jews who believed that blue color symbolized love, fidelity, and purity :)
Olga
decorator1@gmail.com
In medieval manuscripts illuminations, like the famous "Tres riches Heures du Duc de Berry illustrated by the Limbourg brothers, intense dark blue pigments had a base of crushed lapiz lazuli.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Les_Tr%C3%A8s_Riches_Heures_du_duc_de_Berry_juin.jpg
and Karla, I didn't know it was called Haint Blue! Great name! If you go to Santa Fe, a lot of the older houses have doors and window frames painted in blue, for that very reason. I read somewhere that the tradition came from North Africa by way of Spain.
There have been recent studies on rats that suggest blue food dye may help treat spinal injuries. I think this is fascinating, if true! FD&C Blue Food Dye #1 "is remarkably similar to a lab compound that blocks a keep step in nerve inflammation." (wired magazine article: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/bluerats/)
oops. I meant "key step" not "keep step".
I love that blue painted ceilings in porches keeps away the evil spirits in the South!! Hmmm. . . that is right off the top of my head so it could be wrong that, that's what its supposed to do but I'm posting it here anyway!
The properties of Mayan Blue make the color resistant to chemicals, time, rain, and sunlight. Unlike other, more fragile natural pigments of the ages, relics of Mayan Blue have stayed vibrant and true for centuries.
There are a lot of linguistic studies that document that how we perceive colors is influenced by which language(s) we speak. So for instance Russian speakers, who have 2 completely different words for light blue and dark blue ("goluboy" and "sinly"), are more likely to categorize the colors separately. So Lynelle, I'm guessing that the Ancient Greeks might not have had a word for "all shades that we modern English speakers would consider blue", but probably had a lot of words equivalent to turquoise, teal, navy, indigo, periwinkle, etc etc.
Thanks for a fun discussion topic Rachel!
Mosquitoes are attracted to the color blue twice as much as to any other color.
heidig@gmail.com
I remember our decoration teacher said that painting floor deep dark blue is a challenge, because people tend to feel nervouse stepping on such floor. She mentioned a legend about king Solomon who ordered to turn the whole floor of his huge throne-room into a big deep blue pool with live fish and cover it with glass (don't know how he managed to do it at that time:)). And foreign visitors were specifically not informed about it. So when they entered the room - they all got a shock and going all along that hall to the throne made them very uncertain and quite amenable :)))
To create a calming atmosphere, paint the rooms in your home blue. Blue has been shown to lower your blood pressure and heart rate. It's not easy to get mad in a blue room.
wow, i am so impressed by all of your knowledge! Lemon Jitters has her work cut out for her choosing a winner. We should definitely do some sort of collaborative post where everyone shares more color-tid bits- it was so fun reading your comments! any ideas?
To get blue color on yarn, people had to collect they urin :)
But blue is so beautiful color
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