Seeing Halloween from a ‘beady’ perspective

As an artisan, one has to always find ideas that go with the theme of a craft fair that one takes part in.  For Vandane Pande, that meant using gemstones that were the colours associated with Halloween, without going out of her jewelry style, which tends to be simplistic, yet bold. She used chalcedony for many of her pieces. As you can see, there are no pumpkin cutouts or witches in any of her pieces. Yet, she has stayed true to the Halloween colours, but adding a bit of her creativity to make some special pieces.

Instead of using black stones in the following piece, Vandana decided to play with the colours and use lapiz blue tones along with the orange colour. The piece on the right is also quite exquisite, replacing black with pearls for most part. So if you are a lover of pearls but generally don’t go for Halloween colours (namely black), this piece could be a winner for you.

Having diversified into making wooden art paintings (having a painting on both sides), Vandana’s heart is still in the midst of gemstones. “Since we were children, we were surrounded by gemstones, thanks to my father. I have always worn a ring with one gemstone or another, since childhood.”

In her corporate job, she found herself working as a fashion merchandiser. One day, her Australian boss decided to create a line of jewelry to compliment the fashion collection he was working on. He put Vandana in charge of the designing and instructing of the artisans, discussing what stones would be used. So you can see, that the rest is history. “I really loved the designing consulting bit, but hands on jewelry making was not in my mind then.”

It was only a few years  ago in 2007 that she decided to try her hand incorporating her designing experience, her love for sparkly gemstones and that’s when ARTE saw her joining as a member, who has stayed on ever since.

Visit Vandana Pande‘s collection on facebook.