Shop Class: Peace Images jewelry designer helping Haiti

Fashion columnist covers jewelry designer donating proceeds to Wyclef Jean’s Yéle Foundation.

Since the time my mom braided a hemp necklace for me and I learned to make bracelets out of gimp, or scoubidou, at Girl Scout camp, I have been a fan of handmade jewelry.

But Camille Peace’s designs, under her label Peace Images, are much more elegant than those ropey accessories of my past. And they better satisfy my philanthropic urges, as a portion of the designer’s proceeds, through the end of January, go to the Haiti relief efforts.

Peace is donating 25 percent of her profits from Peace Images sales on Etsy to Wyclef Jean’s Yéle Foundation. Peace, who is Haitian herself, felt a responsibility to help the victims of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck on Jan. 12 and centered on Port-au-Prince’s coast.

“They are my people,” Peace said in an e-mail. “How can I not help? And for the first time, I was in a position where I could help on a large scale.”

To read the rest of my first fashion column for The Temple News, please click here.

TPJ: The law of ex's

Today's post on Vered's The Penny Jar.

I have a dirty little confession.

I don't know how to be friends with an ex. Or even a we-were-barely-together-so-you're-hardly-my-ex-ex.

I've never had to be. The first boy I ever even came close to calling a boyfriend broke my heart so many times that I blocked him on every social networking website in the World Wide Web.

The second -- and he was bookended by the first jackass -- dumped me after two and half days. By text message. For his ex-girlfriend. After the pictures of him and her kissing were put up the same day, and my sister helped me craft a deliciously wicked letter for him, it was cyanara, sucka! This one once attempted a friendship and I couldn't carry on with it. It disgusted me to look at his Facebook page.

To read the rest, click here.