I’m very excited to bring the work of papier mache artist Tiffany Ownbey to Heavenly Metal in the Fall. New to the fairs this year, her work is extremely clever and fun. She uses found objects and found paper products (pages from bibles, chewing gum wrappers, newspapers) to create comical figures in many shapes and sizes.

It was fun to hang out with Nancy Gardner and her hubby Burt Isenstein at their popular art fair booth. They were last year’s featured artist in the Original Ann Arbor Art Fair and are still riding high on that claim to fame! Lucky me: they were able to restock Heavenly Metal with more of their heavenly ceramic goodies.

I call Eric Silva “Mr. Popular”. I managed to wade through the crowds in his tiny booth, attempting to get an eye on his latest jewelry creations. I also managed to score some of his faceted earrings and adjustable rings for Heavenly Metal, though women were trying their best to grab them out of my hands. If you weren’t able to get inside his booth, come see what all the fuss is about.

I do up the Art Fair with a sidewalk sale of bargains from the store, and collectibles from my basement. Vintage hats mixed with sale books and jewelry, discounted clothing mixed with antique display pieces, hand-crafted art pieces mixed with old inventory — good stuff to pick through!

I also have some goods on sale inside — just for Art Fair. Wasabi jewelry is 20% off this week, as is all ceramics throughout the store (Judy Jackson, Beth Mueller, Ed Brownlee). Bee Design jewelry is 15% off, Baggallini Ugly Baggs are 25% off. The adorable Purdy Bird T’s from Spiders & Caviar are 10% off. All Nuvula T’s are 20% off. Maruca Design bags are 25% off. More good stuff and more great bargains!

Art Fair hours: 9:30am - 6:30 pm daily. Please come visit us! It’s very quiet in our neighborhood — there’s always a parking space right out front and we enjoy the company.

Here’s two fun shoppers who happened to show up at the same time wearing nearly the same outfit!

Here’s pictures from Colleen’s birthday party. I kept the proseco flowing as the guests oohed and aahed throughout the store.

The gorgeous cake was made by Courtney Clark at Cake Nouveau, a tasty cupcake and specialty made-to-order cake bakery around the corner from me on 4th Avenue.

Success from one good strong breath! The cake was a chocolate ganache with pink and orange mint frosting: YUM!

The party attendees were also successful — in the goodies they found to take away with them! Baggu reusable shopping bags were a hit, as well as Anne Garrison’s clever word charms and Luxe Design’s little silver charms. The group had the most laughs looking over the postcard selection — which is thinner after their purchases were made. The birthday girl received 10% off her purchases — and the leftover cake for her kids and husband to enjoy. I think the evening was a success for all!

Today was equally as fun: two more jewelry lines were delivered by Mr. UPS, needing to be checked in, tagged and priced, and put on display. Hey, no problemo: I’m done working on the new website!

Ready shopper fans? Here’s the goods: more Dream Mullick fabulous faceted silver and gemstone earrings that sold out as quickly as they appeared last month. More handcrafted Sharelli silver earrings and necklaces, made by those girls up in Montreal — back by demand. And of course, the Wasabi delivery: the sweetest delicate 1/2″ peace sign earrings and necklaces, brand new coral and turquoise gemstone earrings and necklaces, and much much more, many stone colors — all too delicate for me to do justice with a photograph. So hop on your bike and ride on over to Heavenly Metal right now before they disappear — or contact me if a bike ride isn’t possible, so I can describe them to you over the phone or by email if you have just got to have them.

Hey, I’m not done yet: the best part of the day was when Martha Bishop showed up with brand new and amazingly wonderful and even better-than-ever handmade greeting cards made from books she scored for free at an amazing recycling event held in her hometown of Williamston, Michigan. I bought nearly 200 of her one-of-a-kind cards because their preciousness is, well, too precious for words. Come see them. Come read them. Martha is a genius. And right now all she wants to do is make cards (they are wonderful). Since she’s currently low on sweaters, she is not in blanket, pillow and potholder production, but she has promised to get back to work on them when she has the materials. But right now, Martha admits all she wants to do is make cards. I can’t blame her. She’s got a good thing goin’ on.

Here’s Martha showing off her new cards:

While working on this new website, taking photographs of my nieces modeling online store items, cutting hair, and visiting with shoppers, I took delivery of the new Wasabi and Sharelli jewelry. Here’s a picture of a portion of the Wasabi, which now needs to be priced, tagged, and put on display: