Vibe-ing

i'm sitting here trying to work like a sweatshop kid for this BUST Magazine show...and I just cannot focus!!! AaaaaaaaaaaHHHHHHHHH! anyway i am realizing that i am a huge Santogold fan. i love her, so i am listening to her during this process of unfocused behaviors....
enjoy

The Hand of Fatima Design Loves Courtney Love

Thank you again Miss Love for supporting my work and the handmade movement.
The Hand of Fatima Design has been featured on the icon of style's Hot List.
Check it HERE.

I'm Not Morbid...Really.

So why all the casket tags and such...I don't know, but I love them...I like that they are strange and old. This bracelet is so a favorite of mine. While I was creating it I thought of that Hole song about "going to Portland"...I obtained two of these babies, and actually got to talk to a funeral home director in Oregon!
I wanted to be sure they were true vintage because the brass was so intact, so I called the home after coaxing my antique dealer Jeff into telling me where he got it! Ha! Sure enough, I was soon being quizzed by the director, he was asking me "what the heck" I wanted these for! I thought it was funny, so now I am telling you!

Just a little FYI, Portland Casket Co. does not exist anymore.

Freedom of Womanhood

Wow, this film looks absolutely fantastical...I must see it.

Trunk Show and The Handmade Cavalcade

Hey! So I am kicking off the season of shows with an intimate trunk show with Chez Marie. The show was by invitation only (as requested by the coordinator and owner of the space). It will be all women and a variety of ages, from early twenties to fifties. I will have pics for you guys because I have started a new display format...I picked up some awesome vintage suitcases and my Mom is helping me to distress some newer wooden jewelery caddies. Fun stuff.
On another note, the first trade show I will be doing is The NewNew's
Handmade Cavalcade in Tribeca on Dec.6th...check out this fabulous graphic flyer designed by Jamie Boyle Ibrahim of bluestitchbooks.

Pre Sale Mailing List

Hey Ladies on the mailing list and Yin Yee (VIP), here are the new items not yet listed for Pre Sale November. Enjoy!The only item claimed thus far is the multi pearl strands with the green chandelier piece, that is for Yin Yee.

Tags

I loooove adding tags to each design I produce. I always like to use something with a handmade look, the older the better. A nice application of decay always helps. I purchased some hand died tags back in September. They are dyed with coffee and also stamped with a vintage looking crown. They smell really nice too! I stamp the reverse with my business stamp, also, I add a vintage brass fleur de lys on it and tag my luxe line of products. Here's an example:
another:

Something New

I took some pics yesterday, some newbies that will be added to the Etsy shop this weekend...okay by Monday night. I have two kids, gimme some slack!!

Move Over Conchords...Summer Heights High!!

Oh my goodness...just when I thought I was over HBO series'...I discovered Summer Heights High yesterday while visiting my parents (who have HBO) and I am addicted. I was hysterical!!! This guy is just too much. I need real comedy in my life...or is my life real comedy? Either way, this is one of those shows that will have a cult following...or does it already? I am always late.
xo

Courtney Love Love

Thanks Miss Love-Cobain for the love and blogging about me! I told her that calling me "genius" means I can prove to my family I am somebody-hahahhaa!!!! Miss love certainly picked some of my favorites, and I hope she enjoys them, and I hope even more so she continues being inspired on for her new album dropping in January. Visit her at courtneylove.com or her Myspace.
Big shout out to the other two Etsy sellers she gives C-Love love to!!!

Maine Trip Part II

Mary and Nabil took us to "downtown" Portland, Maine where Nabil had to make some deals on the docks for the lobster he would later bestow upon us. Sadly, I would partake in their demise...as a first time lobster killer, I was a bit sad and guilt ridden after hearing tales that you can sometimes hear the lobsters "scream" when thrown in a pot....
Anyway, forgive me if you can, Arian told me to remember that they are "sea roaches" and that will help me get over it...it did. I must say Portland is exactly what I thought New England would be, it's soooo cute and a drunkerd/college kid/beer lovers' dreamland chock full of BEER, breweries, bars and more places to buy beer. I don't drink, neither do Nabil and Mary, but Arian enjoys an occasional swig. "When in Maine, do as Mainers do." and so he got a taste of some Geary's ale along with his "lobstah", and I think it was safe to say he was getting his Maine on.
Portland is full of quaint, lovely shops and boutiques without the bougieness. One shop I just fell in love with, they had everything from shoes to babywear, but not saturated with any one thing...I don't recall the name, but I will always remember it.We snapped some pics on the docs in front of the "Bait Shack" and also near a park in the center of the shoppes, was a time piece store! Wait until you see the sign they have. I am a total steampunk nut, and this thing is so cool, I wanted to grab it and put in my living room. Another thing that was so interesting during the whole experience was that the mood was set by fog and overcast, and in the dampness, surrounded by the brew and boats, I imagined the days when this land was just cultivating, revolting and booming with industry...Look at how far we have come. I am a first generation born American, Nabil has arrived roughly 2 years ago from Rahbat, Arian second generation American on one side and descended from slaves on the other, Mary tracing her roots to this land for so many generations, and we were all their on those New England docks like the Americans we all are...I was moved, with the election results spinning in my head and my own visions of witches and hoop skirts.


Please do NOT forget to visit MothDesigns

Maine Is "Wicked"....Eating Lobster and Moth Designs....

There is a picture that basically can sum up what we did this weekend. Arian, the babies and I packed up and headed up north Friday morning to Portland, Maine where two of our best friends call home. Mary Robbins Sibouih of Moth Design and her wonderful husband Nabil were gracious enough to host us for a fabulous time! We were greeted with love, smiles, tea, home baked cookies (like two dozen with lots of chips!) and we feasted on lobster, and home made chowder...or "chowdah". We had never been to Maine before and we have been really wanting to go and get out of the city this year, and it seemed that fall with all the beautiful leaves and change would be opportune.
We had a blast, but let me give you a few details that left me so inspired from the trip.
Mary and Nabil have a real love story. To sum it up, Mary was an art student at NYU and got a chance to travel to India, Senegal and Morocco where she had a host family and taught English, Nabil was part of that host family, and for a long while they equally looked past one another as nothing more then host brother and American sister so to speak...as time progressed something began to bloom and it was their love...anyhow, after living together in Morocco and Turkey, the journey has brought them back to Mary's hometown of S. Portland and to the house that raised her father and his siblings, which she and the Nabster (as I affectionately dub him), now own.


What a house. Built in 1916, it's beautiful, spooky and full of treasures...old fading books, advertisements on chipping wood boxes, her grandmother's costume jewels, creaky wood floors, spirits and hints of Rahbat. We were basically in love with this house, as if its natural way wasn't fantastic enough Mary has added her creativity and splashed it all around, with a retro, mod spin, primary colors and funk all around...this place runnith over with nostalgia. Take a look at a few pics I snapped....


The deer head oversees all the procedures in the moth studio! If you notice all the old cameras, that's from Mar's grandfather who was into film.

How about that sewing machine?? To die for. Alot of the antiques in the house still function.



And at last some of the Moth studio.

Candy...

I just got word that I will be a part of the Lollishops.com crew! After applying two weeks ago...no wait, thinking I applied, when in fact Amir shut the computer down as I thought I sent it...I realized that I did not, and sent in a new application and Miss Sadie Lou contacted me with the great news!


YUMMMMY....can you even stand the sweetness of that ornament?

Leaving So Soon...

It's true. I may have to go! My personal website is in the final phases of it's temporary finish...sounds crazy, right? Well I have to websites- thehandoffatimadesign.co, and shopfatima.com
shopfatima.com will be ready shortly and then my goal is to have the first site i mentioned up and running. i was lucky enough to snag a great web designer named Taylor Johanssen who made a lovely template for me. If I cluster my blog into my new webby, i think it will be less confusion for my customers and visitors. What do you say?
Please wish me luck either way. I also wish that I was the "prettiest girl with a kebab"...Check it>>>>>


...."you're a legend Dave!"

Fall...

I love fall.
Fall brings many good memories to my being. A good New York fall that is brisk and crispy always tingles the senses in an awakening way. Fall is when my husband and I reached a very deep point in love before we were married, fall was when we first found out we would be parents, it was then the season that I learned the logistics of being a mother, and in general, I have so much childhood nostalgia of fall. I happen to ADORE Halloween, and I am dying to go to Mexico for Dia De Los Muertos. This fall I will be trying to deal with the crazy weather global warming has introduced to my hometown...to my mother earth as well, but I will really be in love with those brisk and crispy days because they are a treasure for certain!
I have so many new designs that I need to upload into the Etsy shop the problem is, now that the sun disappears so early I never make it in time to snap pictures. I know that it's possible to make a light box, but I really love the quality of natural light in my photos. I am no stellar photographer to begin with, so I need all the enhancement I can get.
I did a ridiculously exciting craft shoe in Washington DC called Crafty Bastards on September 28...it was just fabulous. The bad thing is...I designed a TON of new material and did not photograph it and now all the one of a kinds are out in the world with their rightful owners, but all I have is a memory...To any of the wonderful people I met in DC, if you have a picture of you in you The Hand Of Fatima wares, please feel free to send them this way!
xo

Here is a design of a newbie in the shop...and a little picture of Amir playing in the leaves..I hope he too has good memories of this season when he's older.

Hello Friend.

Hello Friend...the great words of Little Bill (My older son's favorite show on Noggin...well top 5).
Today is the first day of my new blogging life. It has been very hard to blog...well do anything these days. I am happy to be busy, but between the kids, community work, trade shows and building an independent website...it's hectic here. I think I have decided that in this blog we will talk about not just my indie jewelery endeavors, but all indie artists, art, music, life, fashion, style, and well, whatever you want to! I am happy to let you into my life a bit and my eyes are wide open to look into yours.
Peace,
Mariam

There's a nifty brothel token necklace for you to wonder about from my Fall collection.
xoxox