#booth803

A relative newcomer on the startorial scene at our AAS229 booth is AstronoBEAds (aka @astronobeads​) by Bea (get it?!) Doheny, whose shop was originally brought into our orbit by @startalkradio.

Bea has been steadily expanding her collection beyond the classic Solar System bracelet and elegant Pale Blue Dot necklace to include subtly evocative galaxy choker and moon bracelets (all pictured above). I love how simple and fun the designs are!

Bea is offering a discount of 20% off any orders using the code AAS229 (as are many other vendors - check out the full list!).

–Emily

Let’s start the features with our only toy: plush planets (and more!) from Celestial Buddies! We’ve posted them several times before (and even used them to inspire a research mascot), and we have samples of all 13 buddies at the booth. That is one star, eight planets, a pair of dwarf planets, a comet, a Moon, and a black hole that can hold them all!

I LOVE the details on the buddies - the polar ice cap on Mars, Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, Uranus’ iridescent ring (best viewed in infrared light!), Neptune’s storm, Pluto & Charon’s distinctive surface features, and the comet’s coma-over hairstyle.

Self-care during conferences* is very important so feel free to stop by the booth to give your favorite planet a hug and maybe even order one to have waiting for you when you get home!

--Emily

*Shout out to @drssarahcare!

Hoping to wrap up all the vendor posts today, and starting strong with longtime blog favorite @lostinspacejewelry! The Lost in Space Jewelry shop on @etsy is a treasure trove of “wearable worlds” and one of the first shops we found when we started the blog.

I actually didn’t buy anything for a while just because I couldn’t decide which piece I liked best, but Melissa solved that problem by speedily answering my request for a custom design. Seriously, we messaged back and forth and the bracelet was in the mail before the end of the day! She’s always coming up with new designs so when a fresh image hits the Interwebs I can’t wait to see what she makes with it.

Here are some of my favorite designs in her shop right now (It’s so hard to chose just a few!): 

Earth & moon phase double-sided bracelet

Saturn & moons double-sided bracelet

I Love Pluto double-sided heart necklace

Pluto & Charon ring

Wiggly Solar System double-sided necklace

Double-sided nebula bar necklace

Hubble’s bubbles double-sided galaxy & deep field necklace

Logarithmic Universe double-sided necklace

Each piece is handmade with exquisite attention to detail using the most stunning professional and amateur astronomy images, and Melissa really cares about what the objects are and how the images were made. These are absolutely splurge-worthy!

Watch this space for even more special designs from @lostinspacejewelry to be featured on the blog in the coming weeks...

–Emily

At our AAS229 booth we’re featuring some new vendors, including Tactile Melodies, metal jewelry handmade by Chelsea Jones.

The hand-drilled sterling silver necklaces represent 24 constellation (or asterism) necklaces, including 12 zodiac constellations and Big Dipper, Little Dipper, and Little Dipper with a special Polaris. Several other designs in the shop are gorgeously abstract, like the ribbons and scribbles (shown).

Welcome to the startorial Universe, Chelsea!

--Emily

Our second featured venue (previously) is Stern Design Works, an NYC-based company that makes creative & custom jewelry including necklaces, earrings, pins, cuff links, and rings!

From their website:

Each piece is inspired by the STEAM initiative (Science, Technology Engineering, Art, Math) and bridges past to present by artfully combining 3D Printing with lost material casting and other traditional techniques.

We love them for their space travel themed pieces, but the entire Collected Histories are of potential interest for us startorialists, including pieces inspired by science, spacecraft, sci-fi, animals, extinct animals, fantasy animals, and cheese. Yes,cheese!

I picked out just a few of my favorites for the photos:

Lunar module, Space Shuttle with boosters

Astronaut (and skateboarding astronaut!)

And two that warm my @amnhnyc​-fangirl heart:

Hayden Planetarium (sold out!) & Squid vs. Whale

They also offer custom work, which includes this FAQ answer that sounds like a challenge: “We have created everything from rocket ships to colons“!

--Emily

Four AAS229 vendors to go, and trust me, we’re finishing with a bang!

Every time the amazingly talented Holly of @shenovafashion​ releases a new design we get a flurry of submissions from people who somehow don’t know we’ve been posting her STEM-inspired dresses since way back, and even inspiring some of the designs! At least they think of us…!

Holly is always fashioning* the latest research results into stylish sheaths, most recently with the Gravitational Waves dress and the Dark Matter BOSS dress. Of course my favorite will always be the purple Jupiter, aka brown dwarf dress, even now that my own equatorial bulge is gone.

–Emily

*See what I did there? My pun game is slowly coming back to me!

Another featured vendor at our AAS229 booth that has been long-beloved by this blog is Eclectic Eccentricity (@eclecticeccentricity) and space-tastic jewellery with pun-tastic names. Some of their pieces are now available from the equally pun-loving @modcloth!

The Perfect Alignment Solar System necklace is a classic, as are any one of the necklaces with an astronaut, a space shuttle, or even both! The Shoot for the Moon earrings are still one of my faves and are now on sale - along with lots more!

--Emily

Full disclosure: vendors paid to be represented at our booth in order for us to cover the costs, but we are only representing awesome vendors!

We’ve posted the solar spectrum accessories and constellation necklaces from Boutique Academia before, but at AAS229 we’re showcasing even more! I’m not sure which pieces Summer has at the booth, but my favorites from the online shop (pictured above) are:

Star field necklace (I’d recognize LH 95 anywhere!)

Hello World tie clip, Tardigrade necklace (”Water bear don’t care!”)

Universe necklace (remember when that image made the rounds last year?)

There are over 100 STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) designs to check out in all! We’ll definitely be posting more of them soon...

--Emily