Gift with Purchase!

 

the Queen that Queens is named for

Hi, everybody. Finally blogger's recent 'technical difficulties' have been resolved, and I am the new owner of a 'password recovery system' so if this problem happens again, I won't lose access to this blog. Hopefully! I also backed it up, which I never knew I could or should do. Just in case you lost access, it's easier when you're a follower- so I suggest you join, and get as many friends to join to as you can.

It's been a Queens weekend, after all the royal wedding stuff I just felt like I ought to spend some time at the old homestead in Queens, NY! Our county is actually named for an english Queen, Catherine of Braganza, who didn't spend a lot of time on the throne with her king, Charles II in the late 1600's. I didn't find too many images of her, and so we're not getting a Queen Catherine necklace any time soon! The Kate's necklace is a genuine hit, those earrings she wore during the royal wedding are available on the website now too!

Our super-hit this week has been the vintage look, People StyleWatch features Blake Lively in our Vintage Fan Drop Earrings, a wonderfully sparkly, fun earring we've got in three colors. It's in the 'under 100' collection and qualifies for FREE SHIPPING, so take a look!

The rest of my vintage items this weekend were all sold yesterday, at the annual Douglas Manor all-neighborhood mega garage sale! This is a once-a-year event, all the neighbors put out their finest new and old garage sale stuff and part of the proceeds goes to the garden club to help keep the neighborhood looking pretty. 

Follow the signs on every tree in town!


I couldn't resist making sure OUR sale was the best, so we whipped up some Swarovski Crystal earrings to give to each customer as a gift with purchase. Yes, if you bought my brothers old soldering iron from the 1970's, or my Mom's ancient (and sort of funny looking) horse statue, you got some roberta chiarella earrings with your purchase!

It was a great way to spend a nice spring day, meet the neighbors and chat and eat pizza and sell and sell and sell. I just can't figure out why nobody bought the wine glasses but they fought over the purple and green picnic table plates, but hey, I only try to guess hot jewelry trends, not people's taste in garage sale stuff. It was a great day and we all had fun. Bye-Bye, Schwinn Bicycle, I enjoyed owning you for so many years!



Blakes earrings- much better than garage sale vintage!

 We capped off the day with a great dinner at BKNY, our bestest, tastiest, spiciest thai restaurant in town. Thanks to Joe, Thomas, Donna, Denise and my honey, Brian, it turned out to be a surprise birthday party for yours truly. Yes, Friday the 13th is a lucky day in the Chiarella family and I was so happy we all had such a good time. Ciao!

Happy Royal Easter

Happy Easter everybody! Our family celebrated today at my brothers house, enjoying traditional easter foods, roast lamb, pizza rustica and sweets, oh lots of sweets. We have a lot to celebrate this week so we made sure to do it in a 'royal' fashion.

I'm sure you all are following the fashion feeding frenzy surrounding the royal wedding of Kate Middleton and Prince William, which will take place next week. It's a big bang to start one of our busiest seasons in the jewelry business- bridal season. So, to get into the spirit I called my friends over at Buckingham Palace, and sure enough, the Queen was so stressed out with what's going on in her house, she readily accepted our invitation. 


The Chiarella Easter Dinner

 She is actually quite nice in person, and thought former commonwealth subject Thomas Nguy's famous mashed potatoes with garlic were better than what her chef serves up over in London. She even made her coachman drag-race down Manor Rd. against esteemed poet and author Eric Thomas Norris, who narrowly beat the royal carriage with Joe's corvair. It was a sight, I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes!

Seriously, this year is obviously starting out with some spectacular jewels, and I'm lucky enough to be right in the middle of some of the festivities. We made a wonderful necklace to celebrate the one worn by Ms. Middleton the day Prince William asked for her hand in marriage. Us magazine did a feature on this and used our 'Kates Necklace' for the shoot. It came out fantastic, and it's now on sale for you at only $68. I love it, made with Swarovski Elements and a great 16" chain.

Kate's Necklace, the royal one!

If that isn't enough for you, keep an eye out every day this week for the Today Show's daily coverage of the Royal Wedding. I had the pleasure of working with the ever fabulous Jill Martin as we filmed a piece showing my version of some royal jewels you can expect to see (if you're willing to get up at 3:00 AM next friday).

I am not sure which day we'll all get to see what we put together, but there are going to be a lot of great pieces on display at this affair,

 and you can bet I'll be whipping up a few that will give us commoners the royal look you'll see in London next week. We'll post up the jewelry for you the minute the royal family steps in front of the cameras, so you can get the look you want with Roberta Chiarella quality and prices that will make the royal jewelers faint. Ciao!