A Cupcake Revolution

Here is the press release for the most awesome, revolutionary glass cupcake beads that I've just begun designing with Payton Jett from the Green
Glass Café...

RockerJewlz & the Green Glass Cafe have combined artistic forces to create the most incredible line of lampwork glass cupcakes to date! Julie Vallejo and Payton Jett have shared their passion for glass art over the

past 2 years and it has evolved into an artistic chemistry that has resulted in a magical bond.
Due to their love of all things cupcake, Julie, a jewelry designer, began to request custom glass (lampwork) cupcakes of Payton, wondering if her imagination could become reality.

Payton, a glass artisan, accepted any and all challenges presented to her, teaching Julie about the intriguing properties of glass along the way. Payton knew how glass tended to move and morph beneath her torch’s intense flame but even with that knowledge, she was still always in awe as to what the glass would reveal to her when lifted from its cooled oven.


This mysterious quality convinced Payton she must never assume what results would form and thus reveled in the thrill of playing with glass requests from artists like Julie, who would take her inspiration and draw it on paper and tweak the design with Payton until they agreed on the finest detail of color, shape, size, harmony and contrast.

With these limitless edges of imagination, these two artists have in a sense created a marriage of passion and dedication to discovering the next best thing in glass and therefore, custom jewelry design. It is a rare gift for these two artisans to have found such partnership and a gift to share.

RockerJewlz and the Green Glass Café are now thrilled and excited to announce the revolutionary Deluxe Fantasy Dream Cupcake Jewelry!These cupcakes are bigger than ever measuring up to 26mm versus the more commonly known average sizes. Truly one of a kind (OOAK), these glass cupcakes are loaded with patterns and color combinations never seen before in the glass art world!

Plaids of raspberry, dark pink and red…black and white hearts set against mahogany colored cake draped with dark pink layers of frosting with rings of color surrounding the sprinkles.

If you have any experience with glass cupcakes, you know these are not your every day cupcake bead descriptions…we just know your mouth must be watering by now.

So come and satisfy your curiosity by joining us online to obtain finished Fantasy Dream Cupcake jewelry from Julie at RockerJewlz and experience the thrill of designing your very own custom cupcake beads with Payton at the Green Glass Café.

I feel so Chihuly

The Dale Chihuly blown glass exhibit at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco was a marvel. Left is the Macchia Forest, and below, the chandelier room. There were 11 rooms in all. Black walls and ceilings and dark floors were the perfect dramatic backdrop for the beautifully illuminated glass.

I spent most of my time in these 2 rooms. This may sound crazy, but the red chandelier? I wanted to consume it like liquid so it could become part of me. I know that sounds completely bizarre but that is how I felt...isn't art strange! The color of it, the striations in the glass tubes, the power of it...just wanted it to be part of me. No art has made me feel that before. These photos are from Chihuly's website and you can see more photos of this particular installation and others at www.Chihuly.com.

I didn't bother taking a camera and was surprised that snapping pics was acceptable as long as no flash was used. I spied one woman's photo on her camera and with just the lighting in the room against all that black, her shots turned out well, but I figure, hey, I'll just buy the book with the professional shots.

The Art of Chihuly book features this particular exhibit and was for sale at $45 which isn't bad but I told my son I knew I could get it for less online and I did. As soon as I got home, I searched and found a hardback copy still in shrink wrap for only $23 plus $4 for shipping...such a deal. Now I can relive the beauty and emotions whenever I wish.

My dad drove up from the central coast to join me and my son at the museum and he treated us to lunch afterwards in the museum cafe which featured all fresh food, cold & hot, and the prices weren't bad at all. We ate outside in the garden area.

The weather was overcast and wonderfully cool, just right for tee-shirt attire. It was fun to watch birds, from little Brewer's blackbirds to pigeons to one big seagull, munch on whatever lunch bits people dropped, be it on purpose or accidental. From our seats we could see the odd, multi-storied domes of the nearly finished construction of the new Steinhart Aquarium.

The domes are dotted with small round windows or solar panels maybe, and the rest is covered with what looks like moss. In the newspaper today an article stated this quote:"it is supported by recycled steel, insulated with recycled blue jeans and topped with a living roof." Interesting photos can be found here: Steinhart Aquarium.

Well, I highly recommend you visit the Chihuly site above to see if he's going to be near you any time soon. It's something not to be missed!

Can you say Chihuly?

Okay, so Chihuly (chi as in chick...chi-hoo-lee) is Dale Chihuly the amazing glass blower. Yes, gang, these photos are of glass art!

He no longer works the glass due to one blinded eye & an arm injury, but he directs his team to make his vivid dreams become spectacular realities...and his work is just across the bay from me in San Francisco...I'm so excited I'll be able to see his work on display for a mere $15 at the DeYoung!


It's kind of funny because these 2 photos were taken of displays he installed at Kew Botanical Gardens outside of London, England...just a couple of years after I visited London! So I never saw them but knew nothing of him at the time anyway, so I'm much happier about seeing them now that I've seen awesome work on his website (click his name above) and a t.v. documentary.

Since I live in a world of glass beads, I find his pieces breathtaking as he has glass blown into ridiculously simple or intensely detailed objects. You should see him freely tossing the bobbing balls (left) into the water as if they couldn't break...eeek! I had to laugh recently when "Frasier Crane" on "Frasier" yelled at his father (who nearly knocked over the Chihuly bowl on display in Frasier's apartment)..."don't hit the Chihuly!" Imagine what panic he would have felt seeing these glass bobs tossed!

On a different vein, although the bay area was surrounded on all four sides at one point by very distant wildfires, we still had heavy, smoky air for several days that blotted the blinding rays of the sun with a kind of gray haze that reduced the view of the sun to a deep orange cutout in the sky. Rather an end-of-the-world feel. What a sigh of relief it was to see patches of blue sky return!

I'll be playing Auntie to my godson next week and won't have much access to the internet or my beads, so my business goal is to get my icky taxes reported and to sketch and draw quite a bit so I can get rolling on listing drawings on www.MomsArt.etsy.com along with prints of my son's and my mom's drawings as well. What are the subjects? Hmmmm...welllll okay, just a hint...anatomy and botany...nope, that's all you get and you'll just have to savor the sweet ache of anticipation until then!

I'll be shipping jewelry and craft supplies Monday, July 7th and then again around July 16th.

Until then, ta.