DISCOVER
 Detroit Shining
By Elizabeth Atkins
Some people express their love for the Motor City by wearing pro-Detroit T-shirts. Others slap bumper stickers on their cars. Now, one Detroit enthusiast helps people tell the world they love D-town with a sterling silver, gold and copper conglomeration of style.
Goldsmith Yolanda Nichelle has created a line of “D” necklaces. “This is my ode to Detroit,” says Nichelle, a 31-year-old, stay-at-home mom, who makes jewelry in a studio in her Detroit home. “The necklace lets you show your pride in the city, but in a modern kind of fashionable way.”
The “D” necklace line—with various styles ranging from $38 to $75—is available at the Tulani Rose boutique in Detroit.
Nichelle learned how to work with metal at the University of Michigan. “I was studying industrial design, and I happened to take a jewelry design class,” says Nichelle. “It really spoke to me. It was a mixing of science and art. I’ve always loved jewelry.”
She uses silver and gold, plus gemstones and organic materials like turquoise and pearls. She also uses argentium sterling silver, which resists tarnish.
“I really like the metal and torches and hammers,” says Nichelle, who has been making jewelry since 1999. “It’s really a creative release. If I go too long without doing it, I get kind of frustrated and overwhelmed.”
She also makes sterling silver earrings, rings, bracelets and necklaces, which cost $25 to $150 and are available at Detroit Artists Market and the Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center.
“By making jewelry, I’m really sharing my gift with everyone else,” says Nichelle, who hopes to one day have a large jewelry line that’s affordable and widely available in major department stores. “It makes people feel good. And it’s something to enhance their existing beauty.” For now, she is happy to make Detroiters feel good, about their city and themselves.
www.yolandanichelle.etsy.com
Tea-licious 
By Elizabeth Atkins
Terri Heard of Oak Park worked for an insurance company for 33 years before purchasing Karma Tea + Tonics, a cozy tearoom in Ferndale.
“We have more than 70 flavors of tea from all over the world,” says Heard, 51. Her daughter, Tanika, 24, is the manager, and another daughter, Tifanie, 28, is the webmaster.
Heard and her sister, Regina Buright, had been discussing opening a dessert spot when she came across Karma Tea + Tonics. After hearing the original owner’s vision and visiting the shop, she says, “It just fit the description of everything I wanted in a dessert bar.”
If Heard is sipping on rooibos white chocolate toffee, green tea paradise or passion berry maté, a few of the teas on her menu, it’s no wonder she says, “I am enjoying my retirement.” She plans to begin bottling some of her teas later this year.
309 W. Nine Mile Rd., Ferndale, 248-546-3284, www.karmatea.com.
Literary Lifeline
By Elizabeth Atkins
As The Page Turns Bookstore, Gallery & Café in Northville is launching its second annual book drive for two local women’s shelters, First Step and SafeHouse Center, on Jan. 13. The store will accept book donations for six weeks.
“We believe in helping the community,” says owner Nicole Jackson, who first launched the shop as an online store in 2004. “Sometimes women in shelters are the last people anyone thinks about in terms of books. But reading and keeping people educated is a necessity.”
This year, Jackson’s brick-and-mortar store will mark its first anniversary by adding books in Russian and Italian to titles already available in English, Spanish, French, Chinese and Japanese.
149 N. Center Street, Suite 102, Northville, 248-912-0085, www.asthepageturns.biz.
|
