Memories of Places I've Never Been

I've thought so hard, so many times, about how cool it would be to go to Italy that I can damn near remember being there. And I sigh nostalgically for all those lovely mental trips. Tuscany was my favorite. The necklace below sort of morphed itself into a Tuscan palette (or what I think of as such) when I was forcing myself a couple weeks ago to NOT do a monochromatic piece. I had just gotten a pile of little gemstone rounds from the crazy people at BeadBabe.com who can't stop having these 50% off sales (seriously, check them out, they're having some sort of August sizzler sale, even their sterling silver is 50% off), and sort of threw them on the table with some of my other stuff and picked some out. For one frightening moment I thought they looked like Mardi Gras (which scares me, also Carmen Miranda scares me, but I do like fruit) but then I was able to talk myself into the Tuscany thing and all was well. (I'm traumatized by bright colors--too many early encounters with clowns). I used brass wire that I had left steeping in the ammonia fumes until it had turned a rich sable brown. The photo below doesn't show it very well, but the wire retained its luster. The stones are golden agate, olive ice flake quartz, plum jade, honey jade, lemon agate (the lime green ones), and freshwater pearls in olive green, gold and coppery plum.




And in conformance with my personal philosophy of conservation of mental energy, I went ahead and made two bracelets from the same design (if something is working for you, milk it until it's trite and irritating; unrelenting originality is exhausting).



This last bracelet is more in a charm style--I dangled the stones from some chain I had made from brass wire (again oxidized to a sable brown--you can see the nice sheen on it a little better in this picture) based on some industrial chain I saw at the hardware store. Sort of twisted S-links. For more information, or to purchase, click HERE.



I'm pretty proud of myself because the necklace and the first bracelet are already spoken for by a good customer in Ohio who just bought a bunch of stuff. Thanks Ruchi! I hope she has lots of friends who like jewelry too.

Okay, enough of that. Today is the last day of my Staycation (I'm exhausted) and I still have loads of stuff to do. Take more pictures of new stuff, retake pictures of old stuff, make more stuff, do another blog post, work up some interesting backgrounds with tissue paper and Mod Podge (not really working out yet, looks like elephant skin without the hair), figure out unit cost for all the crap I didn't need that I bought yesterday because it was 25% off (BFD), take a shower (maybe), eat (maybe), etc. I need a vacation.

Crop Circles, Camels and Blood Oranges

I have a thing for round disc pendants like this tantalizing "new jade" lozenge I got at Brought to Life Beads in Whitefish, Montana (where I live) a few months ago. I've been obsessed with this pale celadon color for a while now and keep buying more and more of it (I hope there are people out there with PayPal who share this obsession). Every week or so I would paw through my little box of pendants and wait for them to speak to me. Not a damn word. I really wanted to do something special with this one jade lozenge (is this why I have a thing for these discs? Because they look like giant candy? I don't even like candy). I carried it around with me for a while with an assortment of other stuff that I thought might make the most of it, but it just wasn't right. Finally, in a mad rush to pack to go to the lake for a few days, I was freed from my usual artistic paralysis and just threw some things in a container. One of them was a strand of these opalescent pale yellow green mini lozenges (or coins). I didn't want to take my whole stash so I just picked out a few pieces to work on. I did the majority of this pendant at the lake, even taking my Liver of Sulphur to do some oxidizing at our camp spot (we didn't get a lot visitors that weekend...) I really really like how it turned out--the circles and the wire remind me of a crop circle. I'm not usually that roundly pleased with my stuff (always something I don't like about it), but this really hit the spot for me. Simple.



Before that I was cruising around on some of the Flickr craft and jewelry groups, and visited the "Accessory Trends: Red, Peach, Orange, Gold" group. I was inspired. I hauled out my carnelian (lots of that), red agate, brecciated jasper and red aventurine and stared at it for a while. I was thinking bracelet. I didn't want it all Mardi Gras though (not that there's anything wrong with that). I don't really do the festive happy colors thing (irritates me for some reason)--I thought I could take all that luscious tangerine, apricot and poppy vermilion and make it something smoldering and moody with some deeply oxidized brass wire. So I linked them together with some heavy gauge brass wire, and added a length of chain I had made the other day, and popped the whole thing into the ammonia fumes (overnight, as it turned out--oops). Voila:



I love it. Kind of old-worldy. With a flash of fire.



And lastly, my ode to the camel and his habitat.



I ADORE camel. The color, not the animal. Wheat. A lion's mane. Sand. I was going to call it, "Behind my Camel", after a quirky Police song, and then thought better of it. Maybe not the best place to be. I don't usually give my pieces pretentious cheesy names, but it seemed OK in this case b/c I figured camel would be a search term. Camel and pendant and I had it covered. Especially since I don't have a clue what that little stone pendant is. Forgot to ask. Looks like something from the driveway. The little ivory spacers are bone, and the pale round beads are wood, and the light caramel colored disc beads are actually matte glass discs from Happy Mango Beads. (They are ever so slightly opalescent and come in a few different charming colors).



(Believe it or not, these photos were taken in my car on my lunch hour, literally IN MY LAP. I put the lid to a cardboard copy paper box upside down in my lap (this is also my work table in my "mobile studio"), arranged my stuff, and took a picture. No tripod. Steady as a friggin rock.)

Lastly, I sold some of my favorite pieces to family this last weekend, and am thrilled that they will be loved and worn, and given as gifts to special friends! The hardware bracelet, the house pendant with bronze pearls, the copper charm bracelet with amazonite and aventurine, and a labradorite and sterling necklace and earring combo are winging their way to Billings, Montana, and then on to North Carolina.



Thanks MaryLu and Marcia!