The photos here are of Andrea Gutierrez’s jewelry. She embroiders with beads, creating these cuffs.

She is my favorite jewelry designer (along with Jacqueline Rabun and Tom Binns). After seeing images of Andrea’s work, I had to meet her in person and see her pieces up close.

I asked to visit her studio, and, it turned out, she was holding a beading class. So yesterday I got a lesson in addition to a look at her amazing work.

Everything in her studio was a marvel. Like Rabun, Andrea can make something mighty in a very simple form. And although she can mix colors and shapes like a genie, she also blew me away with a single-strand necklace in one color (celadon green). The shapes and composition made it a worthy of being exhibited in a museum.

It reminded me of something the fashion designer David Meister once told me: “Simple is much harder than complex. There’s no where to hide a mistake.” I would add to that that it takes super-sized talent to make simple interesting.

I used to work for a magazine called American Woman. Instead of being sold on newsstands or by subscription, it was distributed only in hair salons. But it wasn’t about hair.

It was a fashion and lifestyle magazine for women. But what it was really about–or, rather, how it sold itself to advertisers–was its captive audience.

This was a big idea in the late ’80s. It was capitalized upon by Whittle Communication, which also created Channel One, broadcast programming for kids in school. Whittle was always looking for a captive audience–in a doctor’s office, even, they figured, to people sitting on toilets (hence the stall-back posters with ads you have undoubtedly encountered).

American Woman never flew. But I remembered it today when I set up a display of Hexaon jewelry in my own hair salon–Modem Salon & Spa, on Silver Lake Blvd., in Los Angeles. I am lucky to have my own sort of captive audience, since mine is the only jewelry line that Modem is featuring.

Lucky, too, to have Casey, the salon’s colorful receptionist as the newest member of my Spokesmodel Army. She fell in love with the “Zut Alors” brooch!

When I arrived in L.A., my best friend and I were “greeted” with this Post-It note (from his brother-in-law, who worked in radio) inviting us to be in a Michael Jackson video. I have no idea why we didn’t capitalize on this amazing crack at stardom, but we never did go. I think we couldn’t face the idea of being in that damn car for one more hour.

One thing we did make sure to do while in L.A. was go to Melrose Avenue. The famous strip for out-there clothing and music-centric youth culture was known to us even in the Midwest. I’d read about it in Details magazine; before it was bought by Conde Nast, Details was the first underground-culture publication out of NYC to take L.A. seriously. Melrose Avenue was l.a.Eyeworks (whose ads enthralled me); Aaardvaarks (the first important vintage store in L.A.) and Johnny Rockets, the first (or one of the first) faux-’50s diner. (Though we hated fakes, there was no denying the yumminess of the burgers and shakes, and the jukebox had the Shangri-La’s on it.)

Melrose today is known for cheap look-alike clothing with no real sense of edge. And yet some stores do still stand out. Necromance is a holdout for the lurid and gory (goth parasols, coffin flasks); l.a.Eyeworks continues to sell the coolest eyewear on Earth; and a new shop called Scream Famous (how Melrose is the name?) has exclusives for the truly hardcore fan of Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana and the Beatles. Its tour and portrait T-shirts can’t be found anywhere else in the US.

So it’s a personal joy for me that Scream Famous (7712 Melrose Ave., 90046) is carrying a large assortment of Hexagon handbags and jewelry. I met the store’s owner, Canan Fraser at a fashion show last week. After a 5-minute conversation shouted over blaring music, she asked me to bring in some samples. That felt like a very Melrose way of doing business.

I also love gossip, good or bad.

So it’s hard for me to keep quiet about an amazing media opportunity for Hexagon. It was mentioned to me month ago, and since then I have been mailing photographs and samples and discussing prices with the outlet.

“Can you handle hundreds of orders?” my sister asked. Um…if this deal goes through, I’m going to have to. I have been told that my site could get 25,000 hits once the story goes out.

Back to journalism. I have written several stories, such as this one, about a fashion company going under for inability to produce orders. Success, it turns out, can kill.

It’s odd being in the position of not knowing if I’ll be able to get the materials I need on time. Calls and emails today to close to 10 companies that wholesale the items I need have gone unanswered.

So I am vacillating between being very excited, and scared–and trying to stay focused, since the whole thing may not happen.

OMG my email just beeped. PLease let it be the leather guy.

I got very lucky when Alana Hillen agreed to model for the first Hexagon look book. I had met her through a friend the day before the shoot, and asked her to swing by for what I thought would be a half hour’s worth of photos. (It was more like 3 hours.)

When Alana showed up, fresh faced and bright, I realized she was the perfect woman for the jewelry: Natural, effortlessly chic, authentic and interesting. She had a sly smile, and she knew–or rather, WAS– everything the jewelry needed in a model. And although she volunteered to help me out for free, she had thought to paint her nails and put some self-tanner on. So many of the pro models I have worked with don’t go through the trouble.

Though Alana is from Hawaii, she seemed the quintessential California girl, from her blond hair to her entrepreneurial streak (she’s launching a clothing line called Studs and Idols).

I’m waiting for the images from the photographer, Reuben Reynoso (who is equally wonderful, and whose brilliant lighting gave the shoot an editorial, rather than catalog, look). For now, all I have are these images…and the contented feeling of a shoot that was everything I hoped it would be.

These wrap necklaces are summer-iffic. They look best with a tank T-shirt or other top that shows a lot of neck. The pairing of faceted, semi-precious stones with a casual lariat that’s simply tied on feels very “California” to me. I got the idea for them after having made some wrap bracelets.

I’ll debut one of these tomorrow when I go to California Apparel News, a fashion trade newspaper where I’m consulting (on social media) for a month or so. I’m curious if the jewelry attracts any comments. I’m going to try to find someone in the office with a less mottled neck than mine to do a little modeling for more photos!

Rachel, a woman from whom I have been buying stones such as those you see here, has been giving me valuable guidance as I prepare to take a couple of collections to a showroom to “audition” for representation. She had advised me to narrow down my themes, which were all over the place.

I did a series of pastel stone necklaces, rounding out the groups with earrings in hoop and threader variations. I pinned the groups on black velvet boards. What an improvement from the spastic amounts of pieces in bags with dozens of plastic pockets. I was quite proud of the upgraded presentation.

Until I sat down with Rachel. There was not enough variation in the samples. Not enough pieces in the groups. And some of the chains I had chosen were much too thick for what they were holding.

The feedback didn’t dismay me. Quite the opposite. Rachel is spoon-feeding me priceless knowledge from her 12 years in the jewelry business. In fact, to my surprise, she was delighted, rather than offended, when I cribbed one of her most successful ideas (the wrap bracelets, which put her on the map as a designer).

So these will be added to and fleshed out. I return to Rachel’s house for a second second opinion next week.

This is on my mind because Mother’s Day is one month away. I’m not one for Hallmark holidays, but I admit to being a bit sentimental when it comes to family and the amulets we wear to keep them close: a crest, a monogram, a ring passed down over generations.

So when I was about to leave for a lunch this week with a friend who is a mother, I wondered if I could make her a present with some sort of family element to it. The result was this wrap bracelet, in metallic brown leather, with my friend’s birthstone in the middle–an amethyst–flanked by the birthstones of her two kids.

Well, almost. One of her kids was born in September, whose birthstone is sapphire. Not having a precious gem on hand, I used iolite, which is also called “water sapphire.” It has a wonderfully smoky indigo color.

Today’s output: wrap bracelets made of semi-precious stones on olive green leather cord.

A gallery of all of them can be viewed here.

To work with wire is to fall in love. It’s so magically strong yet flexible, thin yet amassable into an impenetrable ball. Hey, there’s an idea. A wire ball into which I could ensconce gems…

Amazonite flanked by iolite and jade “teardrops.” $60 on Etsy.

These are my first attempts at working with semi-precious stones. I’m spacing them with tiny pearl-esque beads and hanging them from sterling silver chains.

Here’s the weird thing about stones: You know how people talk about the “healing energy” of them? Well, I feel the energy. (Not sure about the healing part.)

Aquamarine bookended by jade and rose quartz faceted teardrops. $60 on Etsy.

I am wondering about that energy that so many people sense from stones. Is it merely because they are concentrated energy–living matter that is compressed over time and pressure?

Pale blue quartz teardrops in a lariat of sterling silver box chain. $39 on Etsy.

Sometimes I think that “energy” is just beauty, which has an undeniable energy and power to it.

Chalcedony ball between rose quartz beads, below yellow jade and aquamarine. $59 on Etsy.

Personally, I am overwhelmed by the stones. Maybe it’s obvious. I don’t yet have a dialogue with them. I don’t speak rock. Yet.