So recently, I've been practising my photography and video skills - this week I had the pleasure of working with the super fun Munashe who was kind enough to let me take some quick photos and videos of her. 

We met entirely serendipitously at this year's One Fine Day wedding fair when I had a stall and she was helping with behind the scenes work for the runway shows. I hadn't slept for days and was overly excited and she was super cool :) 

During the shoot, we ate sour gummy worms and sour cream and onion Pringles. These are the kinds of luxurious details you want to know about right? Lol. 

Would love to hear any questions, comments or thoughts you had on these - I'm keen to improve!

JY xx

Meaning "treasure" in French, the Tresor collection is an eclectic beautiful trove of shimmering lilacs and sapphires mixed with rich dulcet golds. For this, I was inspired by the Australian Ballet performance of Coppelia with the intricate shades of blue and lace and the treasures I have been seeing in her travels abroad (and in my imagination).

Some of the behind the scenes from the Tresor shoot: 

The gorgeous Anna Z from Chic - we had no makeup or hair artist on this shoot as I was keen to shoot a natural look and Anna had the most amazing skin

The amazing stylist Gemma Keil, placing each of the necklaces at the perfect length. Loved the concept of blurred, film-like imagery for this shoot. 

Colour backdrops of lilac and sapphire, the hero colours of the Tresor collection

Of course, a good muffin break is always awesome - Anna with super talented photographer Adam Bryce. 

Hope you all love the pieces as much as I do. We are launching Part 1 - Crowns in September and Part 2 - Jewels in October. 

JY xx

Monochrome, colour or both?

First things first - are you a monochrome, colour or both type of girl? 

If you're a classy monochrome, consider gold, silver or rose gold toned, black, clear, grey. Each of these is perfect for the monochrome lover. 

Shown:

• ANGLE triangle earrings in black, ochre, silver
• CELINE star drop earrings in black/gold, silver/black
• CHARA spike gem earrings in ochre/gold, black/rhodium
• SOLANA hoop earrings in ochre/gold, black/rhodium

Shown with two of my fav Matin pieces. 

Now if you're a colour girl... you can gorge on cerise, absinthe and amber as well. Whatever colour you're wearing, I recommend picking a tone that either complements or clashes - to direct you in a clash, you can use a colour wheel and pick colours which are opposite to each other.

Some of my fav colour clashes are (not necessarily shown on the colour wheel) - blue/orange, purple/orange, pink/yellow, pink/purple, orange/red. 

Shown:

RED/BURGUNDY/PINK

• ANGLE triangle earrings in cerise/rose gold
• CELINE star drop earrings in cerise/rose gold
• CHARA spike gem earrings in ochre/gold

BLUE

• ANGLE triangle earrings in amber/gold
• TRI single triangle earrings in black/gold
• SOLANA hoop earrings in absinthe/rhodium
• CHARA spike gem earrings in cerise/rose gold
• CELINE star drop earrings in silver/black

YELLOW

• ANGLE triangle earrings in absinthe/black/gold
• CHARA spike gem earrings in amber/gold
• CELINE star drop earrings in black/gold

Shown with Reformation pieces. 

Hairstylin'

Soooo now you've picked your colours, now to think about how to do your hair! Statement earrings actually play well with both up and down dos.

With hair down, statement earrings are great because they provide a striking peek out from under your hair. Case in point, see Talisa Sutton styling the CELINE earring like a pro -

l

And model Chloe Lecareaux showing the SOLANA hoop off with the best beach hair for the TUCHUZY shoot. 

Statement earrings are much more in your face and a key styling point if you put your hair up. The trend lately is for bold pieces so I totally recommend putting your hair up so your killer statement earrings can be seen.

Our model, Maisie Dunlop, shows this off the best! 

Face shape

Your face shape will also make a difference in how you feel and look when choosing statement earrings for your face shape.

A general helpful rule is to pick statement earring shapes which contrast your face shape.

For example, if you have a rounder face, avoid large circular pieces and steer towards the CELINE star drop earring or the ANGLE three triangle earrings. If you have a more angled face, the CHARA spike gem, SOLANA hoop and the CELINE star drop earring would work well for you. However, this is not a set rule - it might also change depending on how you've styled your hair that day (or how you feel or anything else really!)

I do hope you found this post useful! :)

If you have any styling questions, please feel free to reach out to us at customercare@jyjewels.com!

JY x

So I thought it might be helpful to put in writing what I get asked all the time - "can you recommend something for...."

*dress from Staud, pic from Staud

PICNICS

The Sunn necklace in cerise is vivid, playful and just lovely - it's one of my favourite to bring to a day picnic. The fuschia tint brings out the warmth in cooler feminine colours such as lilac and blush pink.  

 Styled with Giambattista Valli ruffled printed cady mini dress, Eugenia Kim Cassidy feather trimmed hat, Sophia Webster Lilico appliqued leather slides, Kara nano tie leather shoulder bag. 

PARTIES

Styled with Christopher Kane Guipure lace and mesh-paneled silk crepe de chine camisole, Miu Miu glitter platform sandals, Lanvin silk organza mini skirt, Saint Laurent clutch   

WEDDINGS

Styled with Self Portrait Azaelea lace dress, Alexander McQueen tulle and satin box clutch, Aquazzurra pompom raffia sandals. 

CORPORATE

Styled with Victoria Beckham stretch cady dress, Balmain double breasted blazer, Gianvito Rossi leather and PVC pumps, Givenchy light gray Pandora Pure bag 

OUR PIECE - ECLAT IN AMBER 

COLOUR POP

The amber colourway is by its nature vibrant. The strength of the colour means that it is a lovely complement to other strong colours. 

Styled with Mary Katrantzou skirt, Oscar de la Renta wool sweater, D&G pom pom sandals,  Mansur Gavriel mini mini bucket bag, 

CORPORATE

Styled with Givenchy black poplin silk shirt, Balenciaga Paper Za Plate tote,  Mansur Gavriel red suede mules, Joseph wool twill pants. 

EVENING

Styled with Marchesa Notte cotton silk faille gown,  Aquazurra wild thing sandals, Alaia Vienne envelope clutch. 

BOHO

Styled with March11 Kilim dress, ATP Atelier Rosa sandals and Sophia Webster iridescent pouch. 

PS, ECLAT in AMBER also goes really well with:

ECLAT in AMETHYST

ECLAT in ABSINTHE

 Do let me know if you have any questions about how to style ECLAT in AMBER anytime - you can email me at customercare@jyjewels.com.

JY xx 

It's already mid November (!!!) so prime time to start planning your perfect Christmas gifts! 

To help, we're offering complimentary hand made cards and giftwrapping for all orders made from now until Christmas! Add them to your order here - http://www.jyjewels.com/collections/custom-made-cards/products/handmade-christmas-cards-and-gift-wrapping

Order early though to make sure you receive your pieces on time. Last official day to make an order is 15 December (although you can email us at customercare@jyjewels.com to check if we can do any last minute orders as well). 

Always happy to answer any questions you have :) Shoot us an email at customercare@jyjewels.com

JY xx

Hi girls and boys

We're away briefly on an adventure (you can follow us on instagram and snapchat - "jyjewels") until 17 September so will promptly get started on any orders you make from now until 17 September when we get back.

As an apology for the inconvenience, please use the code ADVENTURE for free worldwide shipping on all orders made from now until 17 September! 

So where are we going?

HINT

JY xx

It was the day of the hailstorm that covered Sydney with a blanket of white snow. 

We went through 4 packs of jelly snakes in 1 hour. 

Kasey was acting stylist! Proenza Schouler blue tweed dress worn here as a top, with a mandarin wool Carven skirt. 

Kasey here with a vintage green brocade Balenciaga dress worn as a top, blue floral Balenciaga silk dress and Lover leopard skirt. 

Red snakes, Proenza Schouler skirt, Madewell chambray shirt. 

We finished the shots, right before the power went out. 

Many thanks to everyone involved - look out for the full collection launch soon. 

JY x

Just a quick blog update to say we will be away for a few weeks - we're hanging out with unicorns, eating icecream and finding beautiful new antique pieces (hopefully) to bring to you very soon!

Be excited though - we'll be releasing more pieces from the INSOUCIANCE collection once we're back, and we'll be documenting our travels through our instagram and FB if you haven't already started following us! 

You can still make orders through our website - pieces will be made especially for you and shipped as soon as we get back. If you have any questions, shoot us an email at customercare@jyjewels.com.

JY xo

This year, we are launching private studio appointments!

EXCITEMENT!!

For more information, click here!!!

Here is the final mock up of our beautiful stationery. 

I thought, having gone through what we did to get this beautiful stationery, I might set out a nice cheatsheet as to what I learned as it might be useful for those of you who are customising your own wedding invitations!

I cobbled my understanding from meticulously questioning a number of possible printers, various artwork guides online and general online summaries so I in no way represent that this is comprehensive but I hope you will at least find it helpful. 

The different types of colour - Pantone, CMYK, RGB. 

Pantone

Pantone is used to match colours across printers all over the world. There are many many MANY different pantone colours. It is different depending on the finish you want e.g. you can get uncoated (which is matte), coated (which is laminated)... and that's the end of what I needed to learn for that. Asking your printer to print in pantone is often more expensive than CMYK. Also some printers won't print certain items in pantone e.g. stickers, letterhead etc. 

CMYK

CMYK is what all printers will ask you to put your graphics in before you send it to them for printing. CMYK represents the colours which can be printed in (as opposed to .. all the colours of the world, which are apparently not available when printing). However, providing CMYK values to a printer does not necessarily ensure consistency. One printer told me that the ultimate colour would also be affected by the colours used in the printing previous to mine. VERY HELPFUL NOT REALLY. 

RGB

RGB is what you use when you're creating graphics which will be published online. It doesn't print well, so make sure everything you want to print is converted to CMYK. 

Converting Pantone to CMYK

I had a terrible time trying to convert my original Pantone swatches to CMYK. Pro tip - if you can, visit an in-real-life printer and take a look at their Pantone colour swatch book. I found it immensely helpful to see the actual colours in person.  

IN SHORT - make sure everything you want to print is in CMYK and visit a printer beforehand to check out what the colour looks like. P.S. I found this conversion table quite helpful. 

Preparing your graphics for printing

Your chosen printer is likely to tell you the specifications for any artwork you give them. Ideally, if you have someone designing your artwork, you can just send them the link and they can work it out because they are much more learned in this area. However, if you feel like having a truly marvellous adventure, you can try to work it out yourself! :P

Here is a picture I found online: 

Graphic from http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/

Bleed is the section around your design that your printer will eventually cut off from your final design. It is usually around 2mm, meaning that if you have a background design (such as the lilac design we chose), you should try to make sure it overlaps into the bleed so you don't end up with white spaces at the edge of your card (printers always say they might cut a little differently to what you think so it could happen!)

Safe zone is a smaller area in your design where all text and important images should be included to make sure they don't get cut off in the end. 

Also, no borders! Printers say no to borders!

Design programs

Perhaps don't mention this, but I used to create my Look Books in Word and uh, Paint (back in 2006... okay, I actually tried again this year too) . But now that I am wiser (and have dealt with incredulous and unhappy printers), I use InDesign, which is an Adobe program. 

Paper stock

So, "gsm" is generally how Australian printers tend to measure their paper stock. A standard business card is usually around 300-350gsm BUT I have recently learned that two paper stocks can be the same gsm but feel thicker or thinner! This is why I recommend obtaining as many samples as possible. Also, different printers use different whites for their "white" paper stock so consider how that might affect the colour of your printing. 

If you want to engage in certain printing options e.g. letterpress, where they literally press your design into the paper, I have been recommended to look at paper stock which is 600gsm or thicker to avoid the design coming out the back of the card. 

I have to say, a thicker paper stock really does make a lovely difference!

Oh! And my pro tip for printing is - you should print with darker colours than you see online as it will come up fainter in real life. Had I followed that, it would be much easier to show you a photo of my actual printed stationery. :) 

Let me know if you have any questions or comments - I'll help where I can (but note I am a jewellery designer and definitely not a graphic designer!)

JY x

P.S. I have heard great things about Minted and Wedding Paper Divas if you are looking for lovely invitations online. 

1. Picking the general colour you want - pink, blue, yellow, green, white, navy, lilac, purple, red etc etc
2. Considering your bridesmaids' body shapes (usually easier to ask them) - keep a list of the cuts they prefer
3. Using the information from step 1 and 2 to start filtering your searches on online stores to work out what your options are but keeping an open mind. Just because you picked a colour in step 1 doesn't mean you have to stick with it if you see something else you love! It's also fantastic if you can get all of your bms to a store to try on everything to see what suits, but with girls often living away, travelling or with packed schedules, this isn't always possible. 

There are a number of stores which sell beautiful dresses specifically catered for bridesmaids. Some of my favourites are BHLDN, JCrew, Bridesmaids Only, Maids to Measure (a custom dress shop), Jenny Yoo and Nordstrom. 

There are other stores which sell gorgeous dresses which aren't necessarily tagged "bridesmaid". It is usually easier to find printed dresses in fashion stores (as I find that the bridesmaid stores naturally err towards stocking single colour dresses as they are the most popular). For these, I suggest Shopbop, Madewell, Revolve, Topshop, Asos (although the dresses can be a bit short), Net-a-Porter, Matches and Lover.

I've put together a few inspiration suggestions if you're looking to style your bridesmaids without depending on bridesmaid focused dresses (I'll put together a post on the dresses I love from my favourite bridesmaid dress stores soon too). 

A bright pink print dress is absolutely gorgeous for spring weddings (although bright colours are always lovely regardless of the season). The white pumps and pearl cuff keep the outfit ladylike and elegant and the light pink lipgloss will just add a lovely pink glimmer to the mouths of all of your bridesmaids. For strong colour dresses with a print, it is always helpful to keep the accessories more simple to avoid overwhelming the overall look.

Brunettes often look gorgeous in yellow so if you have brunette bms, that's an added bonus! :) Here, the yellow is offset by the navy and pearls which are a perfect complement. The lilac nails provide that extra tint of a widely flattering colour and the bouquet matches the lilac perfectly. The nude lipstick is also perfect with slightly more accentuated eyes for this look (as accenting the eyes helps to avoid the yellow print overwhelming your bridesmaids' faces). 

I hope you found this helpful! I've had a lot of girls mention to me lately that they want to look for dresses which are more fun than the typical bridesmaid dress and for this, gorgeous print dresses in bright colours are definitely an option. 

JYx

As a bride, finding the perfect pair of wedding shoes can be ridiculously difficult. It probably feels like just a few months ago, there were infinite pairs of gorgeous and perfect bridal shoes flinging themselves at you from every which way but you were looking at dresses, so thought "eh, I'll look for them as soon as I've found my dress". Then, as soon as you had a few minutes to breathe - nothing!

When I was helping my friend look for gold wedding shoes for her wedding, I spent months trawling every one of the shopping websites which I love - BHLDN, Shopbop, Net-a-Porter, The Outnet, Matches, Farfetch, Badgley Mischka and Yoox just to name a few.  

I thought putting together a short list of the best suggestions for wedding shoes, wedding clutches, or other accessories might be helpful for some of you as well. Having bought pretty much all of my shoes (and everything, really) online since... the days when stores in the US charged USD60 to ship to Australia, I'm well aware of many of the places to get beautiful shoes (especially because your bridal shoes are an excellent excuse to have a bit of a splurge :P). 

Here are my top picks for the prettiest wedding shoes at the moment:

Jimmy Choo FAYME ivory and white satin and lace sandals 995USD (from the Jimmy Choo website)

I love these - they're delicate, lace, and have an ankle strap for that extra support (perfect for dancing and getting to the dessert table first). Best of all, the ankle strap is a neutral colour, meaning that they will blend in with your legs to avoid the dreaded cutting off the leg look. 

(P.S. A version of these which are just as pretty but have a slightly lower heels the Jimmy Choo FABLE heels (same price))

These gorgeous jewel print Miu Mius are the perfect height, with just the most delightful amount of pretty. Even better, they're patent which means they'll survive gardens, overzealous toasts and will probably last you well after your wedding day. 675USD at Net-A-Porter. 

I also love these beautiful champagne satin and glass pearl Oyster Bed d'Orsays (by Something Bleu) and available at BHLDN. The style is always more comfortable provided that you wear in the backs a little before you wear them on your big day. The front strap is also slightly wider, providing more support than those heels with the single thin strap across the foot. 310USD.

These blush pink satin Milly heels from BHLDN (by Badgely Mischka) are also very lovely - a subtle touch of pink which you might want peeking from under your gown. 195USD. 

Ahhh, I could look at pretty shoes forever but I have to get back to the studio to put some finishing touches on some new jewels. ;)

I'll be back more regularly with more of my online favourites soon! Let me know if you've seen any other gorgeous shoes which are floating around at the moment? 

JY x

P.S. the gold shoes my friend ended up purchasing were these lovely Sophia Webster rose gold patent pumps from Net-A-Porter. 

Everyone says this is a key decision which plays into your invitations, accessories, ceremony and reception decorations, flowers, bridesmaids's dresses, etc etc etc. Being reminded of the importance constantly is always a bit stressful though (but it doesn't have to be! Ta da!) 

My tip for picking colours is to forget about trying to pick every colour at once for each of these aspects. 

Often it is easier to first pick from one of a few loosely titled general themes e.g. "girly (i.e. bright pinks, purples, peaches), "sophisticate" (navy, blues, ivory, grey), "spring" (pastels in general) - going by some photos (Pinterest is a great source for this, or even a general Google image search), see what appeals to you in what you love - you might trawl through pages of photos until you see something that makes you SUPER EXCITED. 

In my experience, it is easier to pick aspects which work in tandem, say, the bridesmaids' dresses (as you can see below), as that will then inform the florist and your floral arrangements (as florists often use bridesmaid dress colour swatches to determine the colour of the relevant bouquets). 

See for example, a classically pretty pink and gold bridesmaid theme I put together, with the Arlequin crystal flower earrings (these can be made in antique gold btw, just ask and we will do what we can!)

I've deliberately chosen simple dresses (I will do a post on patterned dresses soon!) just so you can get an idea of how the colours work together.

Navy and silver is also another classic combo. This is updated by the silver pumps and the Danae pearl earrings (available in grey which would also suit this outfit). 

For the pastel theme, mint, pink and pearls is always a fresh and really lovely colour scheme. It's light, airy and with the Cheshire cream pearl studs and the Papillon necklace, something a little bit more special. 

Once you have an idea of the general colour scheme you like, you can work out the other specifics. 

Look out for my next post where I'll talk more about picking colours! 

JY x

Some behind the scenes shots of the shoot that we loved:

Working their magic with hair and makeup

Pink hued roses, together with our lilac roses and white peonies

Jimmy preparing for the shoot

Mel working on Renata's hair for the bridal updo. Dress by Anna Quan!

It was so much fun - I hope you love all of the photos as much as I do!

JY x