All Tarted Up With Nowhere to Go

I recently went through my shops and noted which items weren't really attracting any attention. This one wasn't, and I was dismayed by how anemic and pathetic it looked to me. Even the photo was bad:



I removed it and tarted it up and relisted it:







But alas, I think I probably missed the "summer" boat with this one. I tried to suggest the idea in my listing that it was actually a "winter" pendant (i.e., to wear during your mid-winter island getaway) but I'm thinking that probably isn't going to fly.

There are many other exemplars of my early work in my shop that are likewise anemic and pathetic and will have to be tarted up. Especially the earrings. I hate making earrings. Does anybody really buy earrings online? Maybe in multiples. 3-for-the-price-of-2? Half-price if purchased with coordinating necklace?

I have also had to go back and completely redo some of my early wire-wrapped pieces. Clearly I did these prior to purchasing my first pair of reading glasses or perhaps I was wearing mittens. Rather gratifying though to see how much my motor skills have improved. I've also quickly gotten over my aversion to wasting sterling wire, as my most crap-tastic pieces were of course done in silver. It's the cost of learning--learning curves are always a little expensive.

Tongue-Tied Tuesday

Almost speechless but not quite. Farm Town has taken all my energy. I have carpal tunnel from harvesting other people's crops for coins last night until 11:30. Had to...stay...awake until---*YAWN*---the grapes were ready...I am now a Popular Farmer and I can buy sunflowers (yessss!). My ambition is to earn enough experience to buy banana and plum trees, and pigs.

Just wanted to share these portraits of Beauty and Grace personified.

Meet Sophie, one of the granddaughters. She is a 10-year-old pit bull/Old English Bulldog cross, and endless entertainment. She snores like a lumberjack. Awake and asleep. Sometimes we babysit. She likes to sit in my lap.

This is my favorite pose. Sometimes a girl just needs to air the hoo-hah.





Good night. Jewelry tomorrow.

Speechless Saturday

Keep Doing the Same Thing Until It Isn't Cute Anymore

I made a bracelet a few months ago with bronze and steel lock washers from the hardware store, coin pearls and steel wire. People really seemed to like it. I eventually sold it to my boyfriend's sister who now wears it proudly in North Carolina. I've been meaning to make another one, along with a pendant and earrings, but have been putting it off. Wrapping the washers and polishing the steel was a bit of a chore. But I did it this weekend and it wasn't so bad. After I finished the pieces, I took a tiny paint brush and painted the steel wire with acrylic floor wax (formerly known as Future here in the US) to protect it from moisture. Read this tip on the Internet--can't say how protective it is, but it does go on nicely and once dry gives a nice shiny finish that doesn't rub off.

Here is the pendant:




And the bracelet:


And the earrings:

I really like how these turned out.

If somebody buys these I'll make them again. And again. Until nobody likes them anymore. Actually I'll probably keep making them beyond that, because you don't know that nobody likes them anymore until you make the last one that doesn't get any love. And then I'll wear that one myself. Or send it to one of you guys.

Booty from the Itty Bitty Bead Show

There was a bead show today in Kalispell that I went to. Just the other day I told myself, "No. More. Beads." Because I already have so many that one day when my eyes and my wits and my sphincters go I will still have some left. (The eyes and wits aren't what they used to be but the sphincters are still good.) But then I got this little flier granting me free admission to a bead show...

Well, as I expected, it was a pretty petite little show. About 9 or 10 small vendors. But I found some stuff that was reasonably priced, that I sort of had been wanting. I don't generally buy much locally (I prefer the scandalously low prices I find from the Goliath-sized Internet-based stores), but sometimes I find really cool stuff for a good price.

The stuff below was pretty reasonable, I thought, for regular retail, and there was a lot of gorgeous stuff actually. Fabulous pearls and gemstones. The stuff below is what finally hooked me:

Stick-shaped shell beads in deep iris green/blue, two strands of really reasonable blue-green magnesite, a few porcelain pendants (I like Chinese stuff), and some inexpensive metal beads and bead caps.


I grabbed up these pietersite barrels like Cruella DeVille at Puppies 'R' Us, and was captivated by the little tourmaline rounds; couldn't resist the little pomegranate pearls, needed some more amethyst purple glass beads for my Ultra Secret Christmas Designs, and grabbed the copper cones just because I like pointy things. Loved the ornate brass saucer beads--figured I could whip up some eye catching earrings with those without having to try.


Well, I feel cool now that I got to do my own Bead Show Post. I was feeling left out. I better go make something now.

Spiraling out of Control

OK, this is my third and last spiral pendant. For now. Had to practice after I watched Sharilyn Miller's "Ethnic Style" DVD (did you know you can hammer the crap out of worthless foreign coins and make your own dangly things?)--made a pile of spirals in copper (trying to make two identical ones for earrings, took me about six tries) and one in silver (how nice, it only took about SIX FEET of 16 gauge wire.) Finally got to use my itty bitty slate pearls, and had an excuse to buy the 4-foot strand of silver pearls at the bead store. You're probably going to be seeing a lot things with silver pearls now on this blog. For a couple of years. ("Oh look, a silver pearl trivet. And a keychain. And a belt buckle. Is that a tiara?") There are two more little sterling silver spirals joining the strung portion of the necklace to the hand-forged sterling silver chain. I got lucky with those--I'm shocked I got them the same size.

I attempted a square spiral and a trapezoidal spiral (I was going for a teardrop and couldn't execute) in brass. Mmm. Not so much. Maybe I will make them into key chains for the recycling guy and his girlfriend. I did these funky impressions of a split leaf philodendron in brass too, and oxidized them to dark brown. I might have to do the obvious and use them on a strand of chocolate brown pearls. With smoky quartz. (I'm in the grips of Monochrome right now. Time to head back to the Color Palette Generator. Hard not to pop a Sahara Desert photo in there. "Oh, look at all those lovely shades of Sand Beige!!!" Or Sahara Desert at Night. "Oh, look! Black.").

I will make earrings based on this same design, if I can produce two more little spirals that are the same size. Wish me luck.

Don't You Tell Me What To Do

I have a longstanding problem with authority and obligation. Any authority or obligation. I even resent aerobics instructors for telling me what to do, which is why I never take exercise classes. I'll jump around and flap my arms WHEN and IF I damn well feel like it. And just so you know, I probably WON'T feel like it. So stop yelling at me. I haven't done well in other types of classes either, because as soon as I sign up I resent having to attend. Even if I'M paying for it. I'd rather just...show up every now and again WHEN and IF I feel like it. (In fact, that's exactly what I did in college. And I rarely felt like it). This is also why I am not a joiner of organizations and clubs. As soon as I join, I get a schedule for the next six months of meetings and events I am expected to attend. How do I know I'm going to feel like going to a barbecue on September 5? Maybe I won't feel like it. In fact, I probably WON'T feel like it. I ALREADY don't feel like it because you just told me I have to. My resentment of having to go to work every day, at the same time every day, all day, and do what I am told to do, is mitigated only slightly by the fact that I am paid to do so. Not a lot, but the alternative (eviction and living on the street eating out of dumpsters) is less desirable. I'd sure have a lot of freedom as a homeless person but I don't like being cold and I wouldn't want to eat food other people had chewed on. And I don't like begging or rejection. Which is why I would never take a job as a fundraiser or a telemarketer.

So imagine my knee-jerk dismay when I recently got a pile of custom orders! And a pile of SOMEONE ELSE'S beads to use for them! I had never done custom orders before, and had never created jewelry out of materials I wasn't able to pick out for myself. Well, the sweet lady who requested the items is a very good customer (and a lovely person as well, too bad she lives way out in Ohio), so I plunged in. She sent me her beads, and some ideas she had for pieces she had been wanting, and I found myself ... rather intrigued by the challenge of trying to create something lovely and unique within someone else's guidelines. It's kind of like an improvisation game at a company meeting--here's a frisbee, a tampon and a throw rug; now make up a skit with that.

Our initial plans for her pieces morphed and changed a bit as I worked with her beads. It was really stimulating, actually, to work within specific guidelines, and frankly a relief; none of that labrador-with-twenty-tennis-balls-syndrome (this bead! no that bead! no this bead! no that bead! thisbeadorthatbeadthisbeadorthatbead!)--and it almost makes you be MORE creative. How to use this set of beads in a unique way, or make the most of them, instead of just moving on to a different bead that provides the novelty for you. Two of the custom items, using some of her beads (and some of mine) are below.

I especially like this set. The smaller lavender beads are amethyst provided by my Ohio lady.


This set used onyx rounds and turquoise chips provided by the customer:


She also had me create bracelets to go with the apple jade and brass necklace, brass and bronze pearl, and carnelian and brass necklaces she bought:






We have a little schedule worked out now, for items I will create for her in the coming months using some of her bead stash. We exchange emails almost every day--she throws more ideas at me and I let them roll around and suggest ways we can make it happen. She has some great ideas for color/bead combinations too, and sends me little extras as gifts with her beads. She sent me a little silver elephant I'm dying to use for something for myself. She's a delightful lady and I'm really enjoying the collaboration. I'm still a rebel though. Totally.