Crazy At Heart

Love is in the air, and it smells so sweet. Dear husband, it's not red long stemmed roses that I crave for Valentine's Day, but bunches of fragrant pink peonies, velvety garnet calla lilies and majestic purple irises. This Valentine's Day, I am tickled pink and purple and maybe just a little bit crazy at heart.

Inspired by our annual spring landscape on Peconic Bay in Long Island, with it’s bursting pink peonies, pink and lavender hydrangea blooms and rich carpeting of shocking pink and purple petunias, I’ve put together a not so understated Valentine’s Day collection of stylish jewels and cards, available at Supermarket.


Highlighted by modern engineered stones that have been dyed or heat treated to create impossibly rich shades of magenta, purple, pink and ruby, the collection features fabulous items like my Dear Heart agate pendants, pictured at top, which are slices of pure color on blackened sterling silver chain. You can also find my Spring 2010 jewels listed on the Kitten Lounge Love Guide, which is all about things we would love to have or do.

Cynthia Rybakoff Spring 2010 Crazy Heart collection, $28 - $125 and Handmade On Peconic Bay art print cards, $3.50 each at Supermarket.

Art Imitates Virtual Life

Check out this super profile of my husband Matt Shapoff, Posted to Main News, the Second Life newspaper. Not familiar with Second Life? Where have you been? Second Life has been around since 2003, but it made a big splash in pop culture back in 2007, in an episode of The Office, entitled Local Ad, which introduced Dwight Schrute's "Second Second Life" avatar. Hilarity ensued.

Matt's a real life artist and photographer, whose unique collection of one of a kind Cyanotype and Van Dyke Brown art prints, called Handmade On Peconic Bay, have been steadily gaining popularity online as virtual art since 2007. That's his art in a Second Life gallery pictured above.

The flesh and blood Matt is transformed in Second Life into his alter ego, a tiny panda avatar called Kat2Kit. In fact, Kat2Kit is not only an artist but also a talented virtual actor who stars in Pooky Amsterdam's popular Second Life game show called The 1st Question. You can catch his live antics every Tuesday night at 10pm on treet.tv!

11th Hour Gifts

The holidays are such a busy time around our studio that I always end up dashing out at the last minute to buy gifts, as the occasion arises. I haven’t even sent my holiday cards yet, and so they will probably end up becoming a New Year’s greeting by default. By the third week of December, I’m already so over Christmas anyway, and happily at work on my Valentine’s Day and Spring collections, so a New Year’s card makes perfect sense to me. Our Earth colored duotone Nest & Eggs cards will be a perfect way to greet 2010, and the set of 8 blank note cards tied with a satin ribbon also makes a wonderful last minute hostess gift.


Speaking of hostess gifts, we've had a full calendar this season, so I came up with a chic and easy gift idea that would be appropriate for any type of holiday gathering. I filled mini Kraft shopping totes with a bunch of goodies, including a packet of our Handmade On Peconic Bay cards, some yummy Li-Lac Chocolates and a decorative but not necessarily holiday themed ornament from Anthropologie, and topped it all off with some brown tissue and an iridescent peacock colored ribbon bow.


We celebrate Hanukkah as well as Christmas, and fortunately for us it’s a very forgiving holiday. My husband Matt and I love the fact that we have 8 days and nights to find last minute gifts for each other, and we shop right up until the 8th day, which happens to be today! Matt is always happy with the gift of chocolate, and Li-Lac specializes in cute holiday themed items. Golden chocolate coins are a tradition in our house, but this year my favorite choco-gifts were Li-Lac's dark chocolate Christmas Moose and Hanukkah themed chocolate pops tied with blue and white raffia.

Handmade On Peconic Bay Nest & Egg note cards, $18 for a set of 8 at Supermarket and Etsy.

My Stars!

The holiday season is in full swing, so it’s a good time to take a step back from the shopping madness and whirlwind of social events crammed into a few short weeks, and contemplate the universe for just a moment. But that’s literally impossible to do in New York City, where the grid is brightly lit 24/7, canceling out any perspective of the actual night sky. I do love a crisp starry night, and just once I’d like to spend the holidays in a true winter wonderland, dashing through the snow and taking lovely after dinner strolls along Main Street, gazing up at the stars.

I’ve always been fascinated by the night sky, so naturally stars are a favorite motif of mine, ever since I first saw this particular star illustration (top), by my first artist crush Peter Max. Not long ago, I found these ultra-pure blue lapis star shaped beads (above), and it was love at first sight! Not only did they remind me of my favorite Peter Max illustration, but the phrase “blue is celestial” just popped into my mind and I pictured a cascade of falling blue lapis stars jewels.

Stars are also favored by Kelsey Merritt, who incidentally IS a rising star in the pop music biz. Kelsey and the Chaos! has been ripping through stages and exciting fans all over the country, so be sure to preview their smoking hot new single “Life Goes On”, and buy it on iTunes December 15th, when you’ll also get Kelsey’s very cool cover of “Santa Baby” free with your purchase. Kelsey was a guest model for my Blue Is Collection, and here she is wearing her own star patterned top with my Blue Is Celestial lapis star earrings and necklace. Can one wear too many stars? I think not.

Cynthia Rybakoff Blue Is Celestial oxidized silver and lapis star earrings, $78 and necklace, $110 at Supermarket and Shopflick.

Holiday Blog A Day

Check out my Blue Is Earth pendants in this special holiday feature slash Coach handbag give away on Kitten Lounge today. There are only three of these one of a kind hand crocheted blue agate slice pendants, and they are available exclusively at Supermarket!

Kitten Lounge is one of 30 lifestyle blogs selected to team up with Coach for their Holiday Blog-A-Day online event. Kimmie Smith styled my pendants with this fabulous Coach Audrey bag, which Kitten Lounge is giving away on December 24th. J'adore the indie-urban grey and blue color story, and have already made a mental note of items from my own closet that would rock this look: long grey top and leggings, check; grey suede boots and leather bag, check; blue and silver jewels, absolutely!

Cynthia Rybakoff Blue Is Earth sterling silver and blue agate pendants, $128 on Supermarket.

White Christmas

One can't hope for a white Christmas in NYC these days. Maybe some holiday sleet or soggy gray ice. You can always count on copious amounts of rock salt to be sprinkled over the sidewalks if that happens, which is about as white as it gets. But, you can always create a festive holiday mood indoors. Some evergreen garlands and red berry branches in a vase make for a great low key forest recreation. Maybe some twinkle lights around the windows and a glass bowl of vintage ornaments on the table to complete your holiday theme.

Matt and I live/work in our conjoined "studios", and the apartment is just crammed with our stuff. There's not much room for elegant holiday tablescapes, so I prefer to watch them on TV. However, I'm currently collecting white ornaments, which work nicely with Matt's beloved white fiber optic techno-tree. I'm obsessed with white decor in general, and have amassed an eclectic array of ceramic and glass objets blancs, including a cute Jonathan Adler ceramic owl, some fabulous Tiffany art glass and a series of white terra cotta Japanese inspired table top pieces I designed for a restaurant in the 90's.

So when choosing the perfect frames for a new series of Matt's Cyanotypes, some of which would grace our walls, I struck white gold when I found a guy who had just scored some Wyoming snow fence. He claimed that brutal winds and raging snowstorms had weathered the wood in 10 years as much a barn that stood for 100 years in a gentler clime. Handmade on Peconic Bay is a green design studio, and the wood we use is reclaimed and upcycled by skilled artisans into our vintage inspired frames. The lick of white paint over the surface of the snow fence is new, allowing the wood to retain it's weather-beaten surface, and giving these frames a rustic wintery look.

Handmade On Peconic Bay whitewash framed Cyanotype prints by Matt Shapoff, $125 - $145 at Supermarket.

The Gifted One

Today kicks off my spectacular 12 Days of Christmas savings event. First up, there’s free shipping on my sterling silver and semi-precious stone jewelry gift items under $50, to any world wide destination. Then save 30% on select sterling silver and stone items. To top it off, I’m sending along a free Peace On Earth blank greeting card in Soil with any purchase. And it’s happening only at Supermarket through December 17th.


Also, check me out in the Holiday Guide on Kitten Lounge! The Kitten Lounge is a fabulous lifestyle blog that brings the best in entertainment, fashion, beauty and style together. Kitten Lounge happens to be one of only 30 blogs selected to team up with Coach for the Holiday Blog-A-Day online event, and will feature my jewelry styled with Coach handbags on December 9th, when they will be the lucky blog of the day!