Tried, and true, and a little bit pointy, too

I've been where these black garnet Katie Diamond earrings non-stop since we got them in last week (thanks Rony!) and I feel wiser, fiercer, and a little bit weirder, too.   I highly recommend them.  They'll set you back $128, and are available in blue quartz and moonstone, too.

A simple equation

Two of our favorite creators of objects dark and sweet have joined forces: visit Mon Petit Fantome's blog to enter a giveaway to win a Grindstaff/8-9-3 ribbon.  All you've got to do is tell sweet, Southern Chad, the force that is Mon Petit Fantome what your favorite color and flower is.  Do it.  And, if you don't win, you can always console yourself by buying a Grindstaff/8-9-3 ribbon at Catbird.  Done and done.

Go West, Not So Young Lady.

I'm headed to Southern California for a spell. Later, dudes.

Swell

A whole new slew of jewels online (and more coming soon!), including this diminutive heart ring by Elisa Solomon ($280). It's 18k, and studded with opals, pearls, and rose-cut diamonds.  Yum.

earrings for your mom

my mother and me, 1981

the earrings I designed, inspired by our ant farm (my mother used to blow into a tube on the side to keep the little guys alive - neither of us knows what happened to the ant farm in the end) - 10k rose gold, 14k yellow gold, $290

the earrings Max Steiner designed when he found out his sister was pregnant - glass, sterling silver, and fine silver $88

Elisa Solomon flower child earrings, in the event that your mom's a hippie - 18k yellow gold, $430

J. Lingnau Arielle studs, because she's probably not - sterling silver, diamonds, $242

Mother's Day is a-comin'.

Click on images above. (D.S. & Durga Cowgirl Grass EDP, $75 // Digby & Iona Lost Love Compass, $280 // J. Lingnau Gold & Ruby Studs, $298 // Scosha Oxidized Earrings, $126 // Max Steiner 18k Gold Crane Earrings, $630)

Subway Etiquette Posters

Artist Jason Shelowitz created this brilliant guerilla campaign for the NYC subways. This one here is my #1 subway pet peeve, although gum cracking is a close 2nd.

"I surveyed 100 people on their top pet-peeves (not service related) while riding the Subway. I narrowed the results down to the top ten most occurring issues and rewrote them as a sort of list of rules. I designed posters in the style of the Service Changes posters we see everyday and silkscreened about 40 of each (400 total) and am currently putting them up on trains throughout the city, throughout this week. I encourage people to look out for them, and to take them before the MTA does."

(see the whole campaign here)

Molten Love

Like a little Liberace, Elisa Solomon floats into the store, full of joy, with fingers full of the most delicious jewels.  Elisa's line is a pinch Native American, mixed with equal parts art teacher at the Kibbutz and holidays on the Mayan Coast.  You can practically see Elisa's fingerprint in everything she makes, and you'd better believe we're putting a ton of her new pieces online, any day now.

Diamonds...from Outer Space!

Our fine friends at Bittersweets introduced us to moissanites, a mineral discovered in a meteorite in the 1800s.  They are a fine alternative to a diamond because they are A.  shiny like diamonds and B. from outer space!  I myself am a happily greedy traditionalist and prefer the Real Deal, but if you're inclined to go extraterrestrial with your Bittersweets engagement ring, I applaud you for your lunar-wayfaring ways.  Interested?  Let's talk!

Of Human Bondage

If you haven't watched Spike Jonze's short film, I'm Here, get thee to the internet cinema (the number of daily viewings are limited) and get ready to shed an oily Tin Man style tear.  You may never look at your metal recyclables with such disinterest again.  There is life in those shredded soup cans.  Perhaps.

I call Time Out.

Thanks Time Out! Woohoo!!

Oh happy day.

The Time Out article made me happy, but this...this really made my day. Maybe my week. One of our favorite jewelers sent us this email:

You guys are the best thing to happen to me as a jeweler.
I was ready to become a web designer this time last year...
I cannot tell you how great it is to work with you.

Photo from the sublime Hannah & Landon.

Roots.

Yeah yeah I know. Facebook. But check this out. I went to school from 2nd grade through high school with the post-er as well as many of the commenters above. I remember listening to Video Killed the Radio Star on a 45 in Heidi Becker's room in middle school. Gotta love a girl who lives in Boston but knows her Jersey roots.
(New Jersey Necklace, $112)

On repeat.

This weekend I heard this in the bagel store and had to hide my tears.

Magical mystery tour

Moroccan tea glasses, $9 (in store only)


Today is my birthday, you see, so if you walk by the shop and notice a girl in black luxuriating in a zebra chair, feet up, drinking magical looking libations, pay it no mind.

A Brooklyn man, in love

wooly mammoth ivory anchor earrings, $188

FAST-ANCHOR'D eternal O love! O woman I love!
O bride! O wife! more resistless than I can tell, the thought of
you!
Then separate, as disembodied or another born,
Ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation,
I ascend, I float in the regions of your love O man,
O sharer of my roving life.

-Walt Whitman

Room for you & Charlotte, too

"don't worry spiders, i keep house casually card" $3.95

'Tis a perfect day for spring cleaning.  Bright and light, with enough chill in the air to make one content to putter around the homestead on a Saturday, when brunch cocktails might otherwise call one's name loudly and persuasively.

Spring has sprung.

Blanca Monros Gomez Seed Ring, $176 // Elisa Solomon Arrow Ring, $40 // Elisa Solomon Ombré Ring, $1090 // Katrina LaPenne Old World Diamond Ring, $800 // The Wild Unknown Prints, $50

Like a snake in the diamond gilded grass

Good god, we did some fine, fine work this morning. We had the arduous task of picking through piles of epic new rings from one of the first jewelers Rony ever carried in the shop. Who, you say, who?  But patience looks so pretty on you, dear girl.  Hold your horses, and we will spill the beans soon.

There once was a boy named Pierre

We've got some new Catbirds in the house, and on their very 1st day working together, they sold the Digby & Iona lion knucklebiter ring (sterling silver & 18k, $360). To a man. As his wedding ring. If you'd like to follow in the footsteps of this fine gentleman (I do believe Aaron, the mastermind behind Digby & Iona dubbed him a "baller") come by the shop, or give us a call, and we'll get you all suited up.

Happy Spring, Part Deux

Springy hummingbirds, à la John Derian.

Night watchman

Spooky, spooky: we got an email at 4 a.m. from a gentleman who wanted to buy the John Derian seance plate.  With the streamlined, magical brilliance of the iPhone he snapped this photo of our store window and sent his query into the late night air.  While our new customer has a taste for the occult, there was nothing spooky about him when he came in the next day to retrieve his wrapped & ready plate.  Our new friend also bought 3 more John Derian plates, and we sent him off to dinner at Aurora, with a little gift on the house: an antique bottle from our collection, that matched perfectly a cork he had excavated from the basement of a former abolitionist's home in downtown Brooklyn.

Happy Spring.

Sunshine, sandals, sunglasses out of necessity, but no mosquitoes. What, I ask you, is better than Spring?

photo via Tea for Joy

Chateau Bizarre

A great and thoughtfully written review on an awesome blog. My favorite bit: "lots of good understated strangeness in here". The perfect description that I didn't even know I was looking for.