My Gothy roots

Did you know that when I started out making jewelry, most of my designs were Gothic? There were ankhs and elaborate crosses and so much hematite and amethyst! My style has changed quite a bit since then but I still love elegant Gothic designs, like this necklace, The Darkest Rose. Black, purple and silver is one of my favorite color combinations, and was in fact my very favorite before I fell in love with green.

I actually made this one a few years ago and only now got around to taking nice, Etsy-worthy photos to get it listed. It's always interesting to look over something I made a while ago and think about the ideas that were in my head and wonder why I never revisited them. This Nepal chain with crystals hanging off some of the flowers is really cool! Why didn't I ever do that again? Maybe I should come up with another design using it.

Still making tribal jewelry

My tribal designs don't really seem to sell. The sad truth seems to be that tribal dancers don't really splurge on jewelry unless it's vintage Afghani silver or something awesome like that. Modern handmade jewelry, even if it's one of a kind, doesn't seem to be in the budget. But I'm going to keep creating and hoping, because my muse is inspired by tribal costuming and I like having an excuse to buy cool inlaid beads and kuchi pendants and all that good stuff.

Fusion Orchid has inlaid beads and a Thai silver orchid. I have had this orchid for years. It's so beautiful, but I was never really sure what I wanted to do with it. I think it looks good in this necklace, and it strikes me as very tribal, because I love to wear fake orchids in my hair when I dance. Who knows, if it hasn't sold by the 18th, I might wear it for my recital!

For more handmade tribal jewelry, you can of course visit my shop Handmade Jewelry by Erthe Fae Designs. Even if you've blown your costuming budget on pants (I sure did!), you can still drool and daydream ;) And don't forget that if you do decide to buy something, you can use code discountme for 20% off. Yay!

Dreaming of the Flower Moon

The FAE Team Art Dare for June is Rose Moon, Flower Moon, or Strawberry Moon. I have another one of these pretty floral crescent pendants, so I will definitely have to use it. What could be more perfect than a moon with flowers already on it?

I totally missed the Milk Moon Art Dare. I guess my muse is lactose intolerant.

Temptation of another sort!

Today, I'd like to tempt you with news of an awesome giveaway! The very talented tatter TotusMel, from whom I have purchased tatted cuffs and barefoot sandals is celebrating her one-year blogging anniversary with a Super Awesome Giveaway! The cool thing about it, besides the beautiful prizes, is that you can actually increase your odds by telling others about it. The more people who enter, the more prizes she's offering. So go forth and enter, and maybe shop a bit in her store, too! I can vouch for the quality of her products, I just love my cuffs and sandals and will probably be buying hair flowers from her soon.

Speaking of hair flowers, I want to make some. A lot of tribal bellydancers wear real or silk flowers in their hair. It looks nice, and I'd like to incorporate that into some of my dance costuming. But I'd also like to give it my own twist, and wear some beadwoven flowers instead. I'm daydreaming of beaded flowers on combs, hairsticks, barrettes, and various sorts of pins, to be woven into my hair or worked into turbans. I started one the other day, but I got distracted by shiny crystals, and now I'm sick. Woe is me! But as soon as I'm better, it will be flower time all over again.

They're purple!

I've had a really strong tendency lately to only make things in combinations of green, brown, and blue, so today I decided I should make some purple earrings. They're called Plummy Posies. The flowers that I used are vintage and they're really quite lovely.

I'm not feeling any more sick than I did yesterday, nor am I feeling any better. Perhaps I'm just run down and dehydrated. As long as I don't come down with a cold, I'll be happy.

Today I hit the halfway mark on my herringbone project. I had intended to get a lot of work done on it at the game last night, but I was a little too tired. With luck, I will finish it over the weekend.

More cactus flowers

This picture isn't quite as good as the one yesterday, but I think it's nice to have some pretty cactus flowers to brighten up the blog, don't you agree? This seems to be a similar species to the yellow one, except that the cactus is not pink and the flower is not yellow.

Today I finished the neck chain for Locked Away. Next step: beaded toggle! I plan to make three toggle rings, so that it will be adjustable, somewhere in the 22-24" range. I'll probably work on the toggle tomorrow, while Chris is doing things for his business. I already packed away all of my books and magazines that might have had instructions (whoops), so I guess I'll figure it out on my own. Probably for the best, since I'm limited to the beads in the kit, so I'll need to come up with something that utilizes the sizes available to me.

I love my camera!

Remember how I said that I took some photographs while I was dog-sitting this past weekend? I finally sat down to edit a couple of them. Be sure to click for the full-size images, especially of the one above! The cactus flower is at once alien and beautiful.

What sort of cactus is it? I don't know. I think it might be some sort of cholla, but I'm not a botanist or even something resembling one. I just like pretty flowers and an excuse to play with my awesome camera.

In this image, you can see that the branch of the cactus is pink, whereas the part directly below the flower is green. Add in the yellow and red of the flower and it's very colorful. You can also see that it's rather spiny. I was stepping quite carefully when I went out in the desert to take this picture, and I still came back with lots of cactus needles in my shoes.

I'm really excited to see what macro mode capabilities can do for my jewelry images. I'll have to experiment next week.

I want to play with clay!

I'm not going to talk about more house stuff, but this is a picture that I took outside of the house. Isn't it a pretty flower? I should really learn to use my macro mode, so pictures like this would come out even nicer.

Today I received my copy of Christi Friesen's Down Under book, which shows how to make lots of Australian-themed polymer pieces. It was fun to read, and now I want to make an echidna. I fell in love with them years ago, when I read about them in some school book. I really don't have a good spot to work with clay right now, though. Maybe once I get things a little more cleaned up.

I'm feeling pretty tired. I'm glad that it's Friday, so Chris won't be getting up early and phoning it up all morning, so maybe I can get some good sleep. We also don't have any gaming, so I think we'll be home-bound for most of the weekend, other than a couple nearby errands. I have a lot of things I want to do around here, including hopefully some work on Locked Away, which I haven't touched since I posted the last update on it.

So small and fragile.

The desert is green, and there are wildflowers in bloom everywhere. I saw a lot of flowers on the drive to and from the Faire, but I didn't stop for any pictures. Yesterday, however, I was walking back from the mailbox and I was struck by these little-bitty daisy-like flowers that were growing right at the edge of the parking lot.

How small and fragile, I thought to myself. What a tenuous existence. At any moment, one of my neighbors could be walking to or from their car and squash this tiny plant without even noticing. And yet there it is, blooming alongside the asphalt, practically in the shadow of front bumpers.

Flowers are one of the many things that I know nothing about, so I have no idea what sort of plant this is. And I know the picture could be better, but my little view screen is hard to see in the bright, bright sun, so I pointed, zoomed in, and hoped for the best. One day I should really learn how to use my camera, but so far, the results of my inexpert shooting aren't too bad.

This is a post for those out there who think that we don't have seasons in the desert. Our Spring may be short, but it's beautiful. I love this time of year. The sky is so clear, the days are warm with a gentle breeze, and birds call night and day. Soon the palo verde trees will be in bloom, for a short time their branches will be literally covered in little yellow flowers, and then they'll all fall away, to blow around in every breeze. It's an amazing time.

Tomorrow, I'll have more beading to talk about, but today I just wanted to share these tiny blooms.