The Jewels from Cannes

The 64th International Cannes Film Festival has been on this month and as it is heavily sponsored by Chopard, the couture jewels on the red carpet have definitely been worth watching!

It was nice to see it wasn’t just diamonds at this event – coloured gems definitely made their presence known and it was a lovely change from white diamonds.

Uma Thurman (at top), on this year’s jury, wore these chandelier earrings set with 34 pear-shaped emeralds for a total of 54cts together along with a more understated emerald bracelet. The emeralds just glowed even from a distance and gave some colour to her all white ensemble. Another day, she wore this little diamond cuff. (I’m not jealous, really, I’m not… much!)


Model Bianca Balti went the green route as well, wearing this amazing De Grisogono emerald necklace. I adore the intense colour - she carries it well.


In the sapphire brigade were Fan Bing Bing wearing Cartier and Jane Fonda wearing Chopard.



Rosario Dawson had a showstopper necklace by Faraone Mennella of aquamarine and diamonds and look at the size of those rocks!


The co-president of Chopard, Caroline Gruosi-Scheufele wore a peacock bracelet set with diamonds, emeralds, tsavorite garnets and sapphires with matching earrings. I’m not a fan of this ensemble, but to each their own!


Former Miss World, Aishwarya Rai wore Chopard diamonds - 12cts of pink diamonds in her ears and a whopping 53ct emerald cut diamond on her hand.


Linn Ullmann, Norwegian writer and critic wore a more low key Chopard oval diamond necklace totaling of 46cts. A nice little row of sparkles :)


Penelope Cruz showed great taste wearing these rubelite and diamond earrings. Gorgeous.


Salma Hayek wore pearls with her diamonds in a cuff bangle and earrings.


Although hardly well known in Australia, Italian fashion blogger, Chiara Ferragni wore this Chopard mixed gemstone bracelet and earrings. I love the delicate colour of the gems yet the overall substantial size – I think this might be one of my favourite jewellery sets seen on the red carpet this year.


Nokia cellular phones, most wanted cellular phones


Nokia being a finish firm is surprisingly gaining 20% cellular phone penetration in the United States. This success is due to the two major business concentration of the company. The two business concentrations are Nokia cellular phones and cellular phone network infrastructure. Those two make up 90% of Nokia’s revenue. The company gains this success because of their commitment to quality, and their quest to provide consumers with innovative design Nokia cellular phones.

Nokia is narrowly focusing on Nokia cellular phone and cellular phone infrastructure because the company sees significant growth potential in the mobile telephone industry. Nokia is poised on giving landline telephony greater challenge in the coming years. It has started and is fast becoming a threat. Although admittedly, among the three major players in the United States mobile phone industry, Nokia, with its Nokia cellular phones and cellular phone infrastructure’s, can fulfill this goal because of their strong commitment to revolutionize the bile phone industry. Bigger may be the other players but Nokia’s focus on cutting edge technology to help developing countries do without land-base communications and gain speedy communication the mobile phone usage, may be possible. However, Nokia cellular phones and its exceptional technological design are facing greater challenge with respect to the fast-paced developments in the cellular phone industry. Nokia is also facing pricing challenge, more specifically, because of the downward global economic condition.

These challenges, however, the company continues to focus on superior technology for its Nokia cellular phones and cellular phone infrastructure. These business areas brought their company to the stock market map and Nokia is committed to continue providing innovative technology for as long as possible. Although, they believe the economic assessments that the economic condition may not require the superior technology of their Nokia cellular phone to help them secure profitable business in the coming years, they continue to refine the technological advantages of their products because it is a commitment they stand for. This assurance will surely please consumers who love the functional features of Nokia cellular phones.

This endeavor of the company to ensure technological advancement for their Nokia cellular phones and cellular phone infrastructure ensures the consumers that even with the proliferation of cellular phone in the market; one will always find the most functional and technologically advanced products in Nokia. One may actually get all the benefits of effective and speedy communication with Nokia cellular phones and its cellular phone infrastructure.

Choose the best and most efficient when you need mobile cellular phones, if you know Nokia’s promise of great technological developments, you will get all the benefits and more. This is because aside from the functional features, beautiful designs are coming out of Nokia plants to suit everybody’s needs for Nokia cellular phones.

Finally, Nokia cellular phones recommend users to follow telephone etiquette. This will help ensure the even while using cellular phone, keeping in mind telephone etiquette keeps you respectable. You will not bother churchgoers by turning off your phone in a place of worship. Avoid talking aloud in public in order to avoid creating nuisance and annoying people around. This is a good recommendation for cellular phone users. You do not need to flaunt your cellular phone, because Nokia cellular phones have their own personality, high-tech and functional, no need for you to brag about it.

Busy Days, Olive Picking and Olive Oil

I know, I’ve been a VERY bad blogger. I’ve posted very sporadically and I can’t seem to get back into the ‘groove’.

We had a very social April with lots of family coming and going and even some non-family social occasions. I’ve had two shows on since my last post … and only someone else who does shows can appreciate how much work and time they take up beforehand! I’ve also been busy running children around – to Sydney, to piano lessons, to school events. Hubby has been no better, he’s been to travelling off to seminars and meetings, having teleconferences at home (which I somehow ended up taking minutes for!?), attending the National Aerobatics Comp (he came second in Advanced) and the rest of the time busy on the farm.


The latest in the long line of things to do was to pick our olives. We have a few hundred olive trees planted on the property. Some are dryland and planted in tree lines (above), some are irrigated in the house yard (water makes SUCH a difference, the latter are huge). The photo below is post-harvest, we obviously missed a few but they are up high and we forgot the step ladder (oops).


There are some jobs you can automate, but olive picking isn’t one of them. So yesterday, hubby and I picked, by hand, our 6 heavily laden mature trees, in about 5 hours, stripping them fairly well to a height we could reach, onto sheets spread out on the ground. After tipping the sheets into tubs, we spent another hour or so picking through the 50 odd kilograms of olives and removing the branches and leaves. They looked so pretty in their tubs – a lovely mix of green and black (deep purple really) ovals.

I had to dash off into town then so hubby took them down to a neighbour who has an olive press to extract the oil. He then took cattle to the saleyards in Mudgee and returned via the neighbour with 4 very large (2-3 litres each) jars of olive oil. Its the first time we've made oil, usually I just pickle the crop for eating.


Considering the amount we use, I reckon these jars could do us for a couple of years. Note that these are almost opaque as they are unfiltered. They need to be stored for a while to let the sediment drop and then the oil is decanted from the top down. The green colour is a also a sign of fresh, first press, virgin olive oil.

To say yesterday was tiring would be an understatement. I’m so pleased to have the next couple of days at home, even though I have a ‘to do’ list that seems a mile long.

Taking off my farming hat, today’s picture is of a pair of limited edition freshwater cultured ‘keshi’ pearls, garnet and 12ct gold fill earrings.

To celebrate autumn (my favourite season of the year), I’ve decided that every purchase made up until 30 May 2011 will go in a draw to win a pair of these. What’s even better is that I will customize them completely to your preferences – peacock or white keshi pearls, a selection of coloured gems to chose from, and either sterling silver or gold fill.

So, if you’ve been thinking about a pre-winter jewellery purchase, now might be a good time and perhaps you will win a pair of earrings too!

Right, now back to that list….