Happy Friday everyone - I hope this blog post finds you not too frazzled in the festive lead up ! This week, I want you to meet a lovely local (give or take a few hundred km's) Friday Friend in edition 28 of the Friday Friends Dusty Divas series.
Meet Natalie
the face behind Starry Girl by Starzyia
The Starzyia Etsy Shop Announcement gives this wonderful insight into this talented artisan "my store is filled with traditional,symoblic, and healing gifts. Every creation has its purpose, and the knowledge is drawn from my background in herbalism, crystal healing, folklore, mythology, religion, colour therapy, feng shui, and astrology. I also have a double degree in psychology and history"
As you can see much thought and love goes into Starry Girl creations.
I want to share with you these items, a few of my Starry Girl favourites
How stunning is this piece "Mint Peacock" a Vintage Peacock Teardrop Cabochon on Satin Cord Necklace
these gorgeous earrings "Love Leaves" Delicate Glass Flower and Leaf Earrings
Collect or Create, 18 Japanese Used Stamps perfect for altered art projects (accidently added to my etsy shopping basket tee hee !)
and these divine Tree of Unity Earrings, antique silver tree pendants with cluster of glass beads (which also may have accidently fallen into my Etsy shopping basket tee hee)
and finally this beautifully unusual necklace "Cinnamon Ice Rose" button rose pendant on satin cord
And now my lovely readers, I invite you to take some "you time" - put your feet up, have a cuppa and enjoy the Starry Girl by Staryzia story x
The Scintillating Story of Starry Girl by Staryzia
Starry Girl by Starzyia is the name I gave to my business when I began in
April 2009, I have been called both Starry Girl and later, more frequently, Starry, for a good ten years now though I never seem able to get either name as my online identities on the sites I use, hence I adopted Starzyia based on the Russian, Anastarzyia. I am not the sort of person to add some digits behind my username to secure it, I’m just that determined to be unique!
Not that I always enjoyed being unique, I felt like the black sheep in the family for a long time, the one non-artist in a talented bunch of exhibiting (and award winning) painters. The first question I would be asked when introduced at an art show is ‘do you paint?’ no, not really, considering I can’t draw! I don’t even sketch my jewellery designs I have a terrific visual memory and ability to see in my mind’s eye.
I was driven to beading via a favourite pair of old earrings that needed to have the earwires replaced, so I found myself standing in a Spotlight store with my mother suggesting I not only buy the earwires I came in for but some extra supplies to begin crafting with. I laughed and said ‘come on, Mum, I’m not good at things like that!’
Well it turns out you can never just buy one bead. As an earring addict I did begin to make jewellery for myself and later thought I’d create a stock of extras with a view to opening a market stall. As luck would have it I was wearing a pair of earrings I made at an art opening and the lady who ran the lovely Fairbridge General Store Gallery invited me to sell through consignment. The same month I opened on etsy and that market stall is a distant idea not acted on quite yet.
I don’t think I was particularly unique in the first year of Starry Girl by Starzyia, I was making handmade jewellery but everything that was special about my pieces was not being expressed. My creative passion is to individually design jewellery rich with inner meaning, and it was only after I recognized the popularity of my blog posts on symbolic gift ideas that I realised people didn’t necessarily know what a colour means, or how a natural gemstone works in healing, what a symbol means or why they are attracted to a certain charm – and these are things I’ve been passionate about my whole life!
Now I love to fill my online shops with creations that have a traditional, symbolic, or healing nature and I draw on my experiences, most frequently colour therapy, crystal healing, and both a spiritual and psychological education in symbolism. To me, everything has an inner meaning, even an inanimate object has a value in our minds, it represents something and that gives it purpose.
I guess my life purpose has been to explore that and bring it forth for others, something I get really excited about and am so committed to.
I now have another Starry Girl by Starzyia store on the madeit site, and I often work to create custom designs for people seeking a particular meaning or a favourite symbol, colour, or variation of a design.
I am so lucky I get to do this in my home, where everything is harmoniously created, often while singing along to some favourite music. You can buy handmade and know that the person who made it freely chose to do so, in comfortable conditions with no exploitation and usually with great care and consideration for the environment.
What you hold in your hands when you buy handmade is something that was first a dream, and someone worked or perhaps ‘played’ to bring it into the world as you see it. You can hold it in your hands and not worry if it is toxic or unsafe. These things to me are a total wonder!
In the future I’d really like to add some extra skills, nothing I do so far is very industrial and I’ve never been that way inclined, but I would like to learn sandblasting so I can engrave messages on my beach pebbles. I’m also fascinated by the idea of stained glass earrings, like little panes of church glass!
I’m so grateful to all my friends and supporters, my loyal following of delightful buyers, and to all the members of my online communities of etsy and DUST (the etsy team for Australian sellers) without whom I would never have lasted this long!
You can buy any of these gorgeous creations and see many more at :
etsy www.starzyia.etsy.com
madeit www.madeit.com.au/Starzyia
or connect through this gorgeous blog
www.easygivingheart101.blogspot.com
or become a facebook follower at http://www.facebook.com/pages/wwwstarzyiaetsycom/161396068781
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