Jewels of the Month: Designs for Ukraine

In February, after my Valentine’s Day post, I promised myself I was going to turn over a new leaf in March — right in time for spring — and go back to blogging regularly. I was quite the prolific blogger for almost 13 years. I even blogged through the first couple of months of the pandemic. Then came May 25, 2020, when cop Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd in Minneapolis. Before that day, I’d been spending most of my spare time and energy on activism, but after the murder, I was consumed with participating in (and communicating about) street activism. At the same time, of course, life was ever-more disrupted for everyone as the pandemic raged on, with the vaccine rollout still half a year away — not that we knew we’d get a vaccine that soon or that some of us would start protesting a life-saving shot almost immediately.

Nothing has actually changed as far as the demands on my time. I’d even started 2022 by resurrecting my weekly Indivisible Activate NYC activism newsletter, after putting that task aside following the November 2020 presidential election. But I’ve been bothered by my blog neglect, and especially by the fact that I’d published several Jewel of the Month posts on the very last day of the month. That ain’t right! So I decided, on February 14, that March 2022 would be my month for getting back on track here.

Ten days later, Russia invaded Ukraine.

As I mentioned in my Oscars post a couple of days ago, I’ve been sharing my Ukraine-related activities — as well as other activism — on my personal Instagram, but not here. I just haven’t had the capacity for more writing, considering that I’m doing extra newsletters to keep up with breaking news, as well as keeping a running list of in-person Ukraine-supporting events taking place in New York City. So here I am, on the last day of the month, with a Jewel of the Month post, which isn’t even about the custom design I planned to write about. I’ve decided to save that for more thoughtful treatment next month.

Instead, I want to reiterate what I’ve already shared on Instagram: Any full-price purchase of any of my jewelry from 1stdibs.com will result in a generous donation to one of the nonprofits supporting Ukraine.

As always, when I make donations from sales, I will provide receipts.

Everything I sell on 1stdibs is either 18K gold or platinum, so I’ll draw attention to two of the lowest-priced items there. My Jewels of the Month are single stud earrings from my punk collection that are available for $550 each. You can get my barbed wire stud in 18K gold with diamonds for that price …

… or my 18K gold and diamond pentagram stud. I think some benevolent witchcraft would be a good idea, no?

I’ve also got one silver piece to throw into the fund-raising mix: My hard-working NASTY necklace — which is frequently recruited to raise funds for women’s causes — is available for $300 on my own website.

If you buy a NASTY necklace, you can choose between a $100 donation going to Razom for Ukraine or to Abortion Access Front, because the attack on reproductive rights is an escalating crisis here at home. Remember, I’m just highlighting these particular designs. Donations will be made for ANY full-price purchase on 1stdibs, so if you’re ready to spend $40,000 on my one-of-a-kind Empress Wu dragon earrings …

… you’ll get a museum-worthy piece of wearable art and make some Ukrainian fundraisers very happy.

As always, I’m happy to answer any questions about the jewelry, donations, or using the website. If you need some help, holla at me at info at wendybrandes.com. Also, please send thoughts and prayers for my turning over my new blogging leaf in April!