Time of Giving

The the holiday season is upon us, and what better way to celebrate the time of giving than by purchasing beautiful handmade accessories as gifts for friends and loved ones. These handmade creations come with an advocacy of helping talented Filipino women from marginalised sectors of society. Our business partner and supporter based in the USA, Michelle Denisoff, will be joining a series of trade shows in Ohio and Los Angeles to share with her community the products made by mothers and out of school youth from urban and rural poor communities in the Philippines.   

Among the designs that will be showcased in these series of trade shows are: 

DALOY Collection

This collection is based freehand beading, not following any patterns, with the use of recycled materials unto the felt cloth. Unlike our other designs, which we usually sketch before proceeding to actual bead embroidery, this set  requires full utility of an artisan's needle skills. She must also tap into her design skills, with a little imagination, so as to be able to come up with a balanced design using materials of different texture and size. In making these necklaces, creativity and mastery of materials, including colour schemes, are brought into play and challenged, when doing free flowing designs. 

ALITAPTAP Collection

 

"Alitaptap" is a Filipino word which means firefly. People who are accustomed to city life are deprived of chance to see these magical creatures. During our visit to one of the far-flung provinces in the Philippines, the presence of fireflies on a nightly basis was a surreal experience . Their beauty bordered on the ethereal,  inspiring us in this collection. We used gem acrylic beads to capture the likeness of its glow, with acrylic crystals as accents, finished with braided satin to form the necklace. 

EL NIDO- LIKHA Collection

The Philippines has a wide talent pool of skilled and artistic workers. Handcrafting has been in the culture and tradition of Filipinos, even before the Spanish colonial era. As the nation shifted to industrialisation and modernity, the value placed in handcrafting began to diminish. Advances in technology, communication, and appreciation for handmade works of art have opened opportunities for these Filipino women artisans to find an alternative means of livelihood with artistic skills developed through generations of handcrafting. 

This is a collection of bead embroidered pieces that were made by the participants of our informal workshop with selected women based in El Nido. The designs were inspired by El Nido's natural beauty from flowers to fallen leaves. 

SIBOL Collection

For these necklaces, we chose to incorporate brooch settings into the braided satin, as a breather from our heavy bead embroidery concept pieces. The brooch settings are hand stitched on a satin rope, embellished with acrylic crystals and faux pearls.

LAKBAY DULCE Collection

 

Marites Dulce is a mother from an urban poor community in Manila, who we trained to become a bead embroidery artisan. She handcrafted most of the pieces in our summer collection. We decided to use wood and cut beads as the main accents for these pieces. Marites has gone a long way in creating statement pieces, and in honour of her achievements as an unemployed housewife to a highly skilled women artisan,we named this collection after her.

HIRAYA Freeform Collection 

Doing freeform designs are the most difficult, but rewarding form of beading. Novie Katimpo, a high school graduate from a rural province in the Philippines who was sent to work as a housemaid, became our first in-house apprentice. After training for 5 years, she has accumulated knowledge with materials, as well as being able to mix and match them intuitively. We believe that to improve their skills, our artisans should be challenged with every project. Working freehand, without any guides and blueprints, allow them to develop their artistic vision and creativity.

For inquiries  you may contact us at the following:

E: info@palamutishop.com 

M# & VIBER #: 310-529-8991 

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Fleur de Lis Collection

We recently made several handmade accessories inspired by the "Fleur de Lis", a stylised design of medieval French origin. Its meant to represent the different classes in medieval society. The working class, the clergy, and the military are depicted by the three petals of the Lily, or Iris, flower. This symbol was traditionally used as adornment for coats of arms and flags of French monarchs. Its popularity became widespread as other European nations began to adapt the "Fleur de Lis" for their own purposes. To this very day, this iconic emblem is still used in many different variations.

Due to the "Fleur de Lis'" vertical orientation, we decided on medallion design to better capture the petals curved profile and sharp edges. All in all, we were able to come up with a total of three necklaces in different colors representing Fall & Winter. We used the following materials: acrylic gemstone and crystals, seed beads, gold plated chain with faux leather back finishing with this opera styled necklace. The bead embroidered medallion part of the necklace measures six inches, while the chain's length is twelve inches. The total neckline measurement is twenty-four inches.

These necklaces are part of our upcoming Fall/Winter collection, which we will be unveiling in conjunction with the relaunch of our website and online store. With improved skills and newly learned techniques, we are hoping that we were able to elevate the texture and depth of our handcrafted accessories. The subtle tones we were going for on the "Fleur de Lis" design give it an understated appearance for a statement necklace, yet we're very pleased with the elegant outcome of the final product.

In the coming days, we will be blogging our Fall and Winter designs,  leading up to our website's launch date. If you wish to preorder any of these new handmade accessories before we finally list them, please send us a message on Facebook, Twitter, or through email. 

Keeping it real. -PJV

Teaching Beyond Walls

We believe in starting with something small so that we can make more meaningful changes along the way. Novie is our first in-house artisan and apprentice. Since coming to Manila from a rural community in the northern Philippines, she has already mastered most of our basic beading techniques. With every handmade piece of costume jewelry, she grows her skills in designing and beading. The best thing about teaching artisans such as her is that she is now capable of transferring the knowledge she gained by teaching other potential women artisans. For the past years, we have been invited to conduct small scale workshops, mostly for participants from poor communities, on how to make handmade accessories. As our chief apprentice she has played a significant role as an instructor for these workshops. The opportunity to teach others a skill in which they can use to help their livelihood, has helped her improve her skills as an artist. These workshops have also given us a sense of direction and fulfilment; that small scale efforts will someday amount to become relevant.

Our El Nido workshop for this year, was her most challenging livelihood training workshop. In this assignment, she was the main resource person who taught the participants. She was in charge of a group of women, ranging from teenage girls, mothers and grandmothers. After that, when we got back to Manila, our neighbour (who is also our current seamstress for our scarves) suggested that we teach her household help in beading, so that she can earn much needed extra income. Lyn-Lyn, who hails from Northern Samar, and has nine siblings she helps support financially, decided that her free time after household chores were best spent learning a new skill to help her earn money. Now, that we see Novie's maturity and equipped to handle an apprentice of her own, she started teaching Len-Len. She and Novie would spend entire afternoons, beading in our "kubo". On other days, Novie would be the one to go to Lyn's house and they would do their respective projects together there. The way Novie goes about to teach Len-Len is how I taught her all those years back. Teaching and learning should be a serious process, but without the absence of fun and positive reinforcement. In most of our blogs, we always reiterate that designing is more than being able to draw and sketch, it is to able to envision the process for the idea to take form. This however is not something that is done over a night or over a few courses. It is a lifetime commitment and devotion to your craft.  I continue to learn new techniques everyday, by allowing myself to work on several personal projects as part of my daily routine. 

We have always believed in the potential of communities to be able to help one another.  Caring for the people within  your immediate vicinity is always a good place to start, and we have tried to weave this into our advocacy. It is very hard to find women who will commit to a 6 month training of bead embroidery. In these hard times, opportunities to earn money are limited, especially to those who are experiencing life beneath the poverty line. I have always shared to my family and friends, even with our apprentice, Novie, that the end goal of what we are doing is not only to make money, but to empower and change the mindset of people when it comes to work. 

Beyond that, we want to place value in our craft, wherein our clients understand the process of making, creating and producing finished products. This ensures that hard work coupled with passion, are rewarded. 

Keeping it real.- PJV

Customized Gift with Love and Uniqueness

"Thank you soooo much Pj Valenciano for this superb and exquisite unique handicrafted necklace.. it's sooo beautiful and I cannot express how I am surprised because its beauty is beyond my expectation. It's more beautiful in actual.. no doubt that it was made by love and dedication.. I don't just like it but I soooo love it!!! I will surely help again  super thanks again "Palamuti" by PJ Valenciano. Please extend my deepest appreciation to the admirable woman who made it."- Carmela 

Carmela, otherwise known as Cha to her friends, is our newest client based in Singapore. Being a person whose fashion sense leaned towards the contemporary, she fell in love with one of our classic designs. The Requiron Necklace is a handmade necklace, bead embroidered with a red theme. For an upcoming special occasion, her birthday, the family celebrated with dinner at a fancy restaurant. She decided to have a handmade necklace customized, as an accent for her attire.  Cha was so enamored with her customized handcrafted piece, that  she ordered another one in a different color, as a gift for her Tita Elvie.

The power of the internet helps us communicate with our clients based abroad. While Cha now lives in Singapore, her other relatives, such as Tita Elvie, was based in the Philippines. Through a few clicks, she was able to place her order, have it shipped to a relative in a different country, and have it wrapped beautifully in an artistic manner. Included with her gift was a note from her family, written on delicate stationery paper.

We love receiving orders that speak of our  client's personality and style. We believe that every woman is unique, with her very own story to tell. Their tales, though not directly spoken, can be seen through people, place and things that shapes her life. Cha's choice of handmade costume jewelry not only shows her keen sense of fashion and art but her kind spirit towards helping Filipino women artisans. In making Cha's customized piece, we tried to present a creation which reflected her personality. Throughout the entire process of designing and crafting, we asked for Cha's opinion regarding the colors, materials, and overall appearance of the piece. Handmade art is made special because you are able to control the quality and design every step of the creation process. By incorporating elements of Carmela's fashion sense, we were inspired to make a piece that spoke of Carmela's love and affection for Tita Elvie.

Keeping it real.- PJV