Beautiful Jean in Pictures

Beautiful finds at farmer’s and craft markets are why we love these markets. Recently, at the Calistoga Market in the unusually rainy and cold Napa Valley town of Calistoga, we found Bonnie Jean and her brilliantly colored feather jewelry, fascinators, headdresses, hat pins and shoe pins. Two shoe pins for my velvet pumps make them glamorous and more festive to wear with jeans and my LBD.

Bonnie Jean makes her creations from exotic bird feathers. She uses feathers from toucan, McCaw, guinea hen feathers, canary, parrots and other exotic birds. Before you are alarmed about this, she has smartly created a network of exotic bird owners who keep feathers for her when their birds molt and when they tidy up the houses in which their birds perch. She uses the most colorful, luminescent feathers she can find. Her table at the market vibrated with color.

We all secretly or openly love feathers. They are motifs in the design of everything from textiles to architecture and everything in between for millennium. Jean’s feather accessories are accessible, sustainable, recycled and affordable. And, they are handmade with love. We can ask no more from product, can we?

• Instagram: beautifuljeanfeathers
• Facebook: Beautiful Jean
• www.beautifuljean.etsy.com