MrB and I went to Washington yesterday for an inauguration dinner. We didn’t see the First Couple — Beyonce and Jay-Z — in person, nor did we see Barack and Michelle Obama, but we still had a good time. I wore an emerald-green Zang Toi gown for the last inauguration. According to Pantone, emerald is…
Jewelry
Appreciate a Dragon Day
The gorgeous Brittany Siminitz of jewelry-industry trade publication JCK tells me that today is “Appreciate a Dragon” day. How could I not know of such an important occasion?! I need to celebrate by wearing my Empress Wu dragon ring … … and my Empress Wu dragon earrings. I do a lot of animal-themed jewelry. If…
Jewel of the Month: Frog and Prince “Maneater” Ring
When I was little, I played with small plastic animals rather than dolls. My favorites were the horses, but I was happy with anything: cows, pigs, elephants, lions, fish, whatever. I would line up the animals in my room and lecture them. In first grade, I frequently tried to sneak an animal to school with…
For All You Lovers of Dialect AND Jewelry …
The American Dialect Society — founded in 1889 — voted “hashtag” as its word of the year for 2012. Social media has transformed the humble pound sign into a hot property! Celebrate with a sterling-silver hashtag jewelry design from my WENDYB by Wendy Brandes diffusion line.
Flaunt Your Age, Part II, and More Than a Week in Review
After posting Tennille’s custom 1976 birth-year necklace on Friday … … I’m already working on another customer’s 1966 birth-year necklace! If you’re interested in ordering your own birth-year necklace, email me at wbjewelry at hotmail dot com. You can select silver or gold and a chain length from 16″ to 20″. For those of you…
Flaunt Your Age
The late, great Nora Ephron wrote a book called I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman. In the title essay, she called the neck “a dead giveaway” when it comes to age: “Our faces are lies and our necks are the truth. You have to cut open a redwood…
Jewels of the Month for 2012
My Jewel of the Month posts highlight my newest jewelry designs — or, occasionally, existing designs that suit the season/holiday. Here’s what was hot in 2012. Click the photos to read the original posts. In January, I answered the question “Is it okay to mix metals?” with a resounding, “Hell, yeah!” February isn’t always about…
Kanye West, Azealia Banks & a New Year’s Resolution
Yesterday, after I gave Kanye West a pat on the back for his edgy wardrobe choices, he went right back to doing what he does best: complaining about how the world won’t let Kanye West be great. While venting at a second show in Atlantic City last night he said the Grammys have done him…
Good Customers and Bad Customers
I was going to share some insane emails — verbatim — from a would-be customer but I decided to spare you normal people the foolishness. (But if any crazy people happen to be reading this, make a note to yourselves: I don’t have to do any custom work that I don’t want to, and if…
Post-Christmas Jewelry Sale
Did Santa let you down? Console yourself with some Wendy Brandes jewelry. Through January 2, many of the gold pieces on my website are 20% off with the code 20OFF. Pieces in the Sale section are an additional 20% off the already-reduced price. That includes the one-of-a-kind seashell ring — made of 18K rose gold,…