Closed for the holidays!

Earlier today I put my Etsy shop into vacation mode for the holidays. Normally I leave it open after my soft shipping deadline just in case someone wants something last-minute and is willing to have it overnighted, but those transactions are just so stressful! So this year one of my gifts to myself is actually closing the store entirely until the 26th.

I will still be blogging in-progress projects, though, and who knows what else, so keep checking in over here. I am in a beading mood. On these cool nights it's nice to watch a DVD with a blanket and a tray of beads in my lap, with endless cups of tea.

Strange Souvenir

This necklace is made with some souvenirs from my trip to Seattle. The focal was purchased from fellow bellydancer Tempest at a dance festival in Bothell (which I have decided, against all logic and evidence to the contrary, should be pronounced Bot-Hell), and the awesome drop beads are from a bead store in Bellevue, where we were staying.

I didn't intend to buy any beads while in Seattle. I made no plans to visit bead stores. After all, I have plenty of beads and didn't really need any more. But I ended up buying beads anyway! The Bellevue store was within walking distance of our hotel, so we went on a whim. I also randomly stumbled across a bead store in Bothell while looking for an ATM, so I bought some things there. You'll see some of those next week, if the items I'm making with them don't sell at the Desert Shakedown.

By the way, I'm of course not selling this necklace, as it is way too ME and serves as a happy reminder of my Summer vacation. But I will see Tempest again when I go to TRIBAL FEST (!!!!!!) in May, so I might bring back some more bird skulls to share.

Wuv.... twue wuv... that dweam within a dweam...

Valentine's Day is just a month and a half away, which means that most people aren't even thinking about it yet -- we're all basking in the post-Christmas afterglow, enjoying our gifts, getting ready for New Year's revelries. But as a jewelry designer, I have to think ahead and decide what I'm going to create to capitalize on the holiday. To inspire myself, I created this Thoughts turn to romance... treasury. It features elegant designs that evoke a Valentine's Day feeling, while still holding a year-round appeal. I've never been one for making blatant holiday jewelry, maybe because I've never been one for wearing it. So I'll design with hearts and flowers, and in red or pink, but not all of those elements together. Starting next month, keep an eye on Handmade Jewelry by Erthe Fae Designs for new one of a kind pieces evoking a sense of Victorian romance.

This was supposed to post while I was in Vegas, but it didn't. Apparently if you accidentally post something right away, and then try to change it to post later, it doesn't work. So I apologize for the long silence here. I had intended things to be slightly more entertaining while I was gone!

Vegas was fun, it was nice to spend a few days with one of my friends, just shopping, enjoying the sights, and hanging out.

Post Christmas Shopping and Shipping!

Please note that I am in Vegas with one of my dancing friends and have only brought my phone along. I haven't yet tested how well I can comment on my blog from the phone, so don't feel slighted if I don't respond to you. I'm pre-scheduling this week's posts because I don't want my blog to lie dormant for 5-6 days!

As I am in fact out of town, I will not be able to ship any jewelry that you might purchase at this time. But if you do want to buy yourself something -- if, for instance, no one was thoughtful enough to give you handmade jewelry and you feel like you need to buy some for yourself -- rest assured that it will go out on January 3rd and be on your doorstep by the end of the week! (Assuming your doorstep is in the continental US, otherwise it might take a little longer.

So just mosey on over to Handmade Jewelry by Erthe Fae Designs and see what's waiting for you!

Christmas Eve, and a new blog!

I don't really have any Christmas-y pictures on my computer, so here's good ol' Snowdrop, my go-to winter necklace. I hope that those of you who celebrate Christmas have a wonderful one, that those of you who don't just enjoy a nice, relaxing Saturday, and that no one gets into too much trouble while I'm gone! I will be in Vegas from the 26th to the 30th, and I'm just taking my Droid with me instead of my laptop, so I won't really be in touch.

As for my Christmas, instead of dog sitting like I normally do, I'll be going to Christmas dinner at a friend's house. Actually, the same friend who I usually dogsit for! But instead of being there alone with 3-5 dogs, I'll be there with Chris, and my friend and her husband, and several of their friends, so it will be very festive and there will be tons of food. I honestly can't remember the last time I had any sort of large, traditional Christmas dinner, so I'm really looking forward to it.

On a completely unrelated note, last night I started my new blog, Confessions of a Dance Pants Addict to track my 365 days of practice and generally blather on about belly dance. If you are more interested in my dancing life than my beading life, you will want to follow that blog. If you are more interested in the beads and jewelry, you'll want to stay here. And if you're interested in both, then you'll just have to read both blogs!

Recital Video!

Ah ha! This time, the video of my recital is just short enough to actually upload on Blogger! So here it is. I actually messed up a lot this time around, but oh well. We learn from our mistakes, right?

I'm performing with my fellow Anaya Tribal classmates, from levels 2-4. We're dancing to Mausam and Escape by A.R. Rahman from the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack. And it was my first time performing ITS with zills, and my first time performing in a 25 yard skirt (well, unless you count the one song that Ghazaal Beledi pulled us on stage for at Ren Faire).

Anyway, in other news, I am more or less on vacation from my store, Handmade Jewelry by Erthe Fae Designs for the rest of the year. I had a customer (ok, my mom!) over to purchase a couple gifts for co-workers yesterday, and I may work on some jewelry to get ready for Valentine's Day, but for the most part my focus is going to be on creating last-minute gifts for friends, working on Wings of the Morrigan, getting some dance practice and tidying up the house. I'll try to keep updating the blog, but I will be in Vegas for most of next week, so I might just pre-schedule a few fluffy posts.

One Meeeeeellion Beads!

I just got back from spending the weekend in San Diego, where Chris and I visited a couple of museums. Now, of course I expect to find beads in a museum... people have been making beads forever, so there's always some old beads made out of natural materials, maybe some Egyptian faience, some Victorian beaded purses, you never know. But at the Museum of Man, I found beads cleverly used to represent years.

But where are the one million beads? Guess they didn't fit on the board.
Oh. THERE they are! One million beads makes a nice little wall, don't you think?

(For all you beaders who are surely wondering, the beads were a size 6ish vintage-style white heart).

Butterfly!

Another picture from Aruba. My favorite part about the trip was going to The Butterfly Farm. I'm such a girly-girl about some things and butterflies are definitely one of them. They're simply so beautiful, delicate and ephemeral. To view them in a habitat full of their natural food, and have them flying right around me was just perfect. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me, so we have to rely on pictures from Chris's iPhone.

This was of course my favorite butterfly, because black and green is my favorite color combination. And oh, the green! The photo doesn't do it just -- the vibrancy, the iridescence... *sigh*

A picture from Aruba

I just realized that I hadn't posted any pictures from Aruba yet. Of course, I only got them from Chris last week, and I had a lot of other stuff to post then. But here's one now! A sunset with a sailboat. Please forgive the low quality, it was taken with Chris's iPhone, which doesn't have a zoom or a flash.

Back from vacation

I know, I know, I didn't even tell you guys I was leaving! I've decided to be a little more cautious about sharing too many details of my personal life on my blog, since it is open for the public and has my full name and whatnot on it. So from now on, you probably won't hear about my vacations until after the fact.

I had planned to be tricky and pre-schedule a few posts ahead of time, so my blog wouldn't be silent for weeks, but preparing for my trip just took way too much of my time!

And where, pray tell, did I go? Well, of course we spent a week in NY with my mother-in-law and that half of Chris's family. We went up to Sterling Forest for the Renaissance Faire, visited an arboretum (not The Planting Fields, a smaller one that we found on accident while looking for something else), took a ferry to and from Fire Island, and went on a pizza tour of NYC. Among other things. There was a little bead shopping as well! I'll share pictures later this week.

After that, we spent five days in Aruba with members of the other side of Chris's family. It was our first time traveling abroad (well, Chris has been up to Canada, but before you needed a passport to cross the border), so it was a new and exciting experience for both of us. Most of our time was spent on the beach, and painfully white girl that I am, most of MY time was spent under a chickee (giant umbrella made of palm fronds) slathered in SPF100 in a failed attempt to avoid sunburn. We also visited a butterfly farm while we were there, which was all sorts of awesome. Unfortunately, my camera did not like the extreme humidity there, so the only pictures we have were taken by Chris's iPhone. I'll also be sharing those.

Now that I'm back home, it's time to get the house in order, get back to the gym, get back into dancing, and prepare for the September Best Bead Show this coming weekend!

Home and stuff

I arrived home safely, but I am absolutely exhausted and not feeling that great. Hopefully tomorrow will bring the energy I need to unpack, find my camera cord, and do a full retreat report... but for now I'm going to collapse into bed.

Stories to tell

I am so very tired, after a very long day which was chock-full. Friends, beading, snow, stress, righteous anger, pub food, packing, hugs of farewell, it was crazy.

I have a lot of things to say, but no time to say them tonight. I'm leaving here at 9am tomorrow, and I won't get home until around 4pm. Luckily the snow has stopped for now, so I should have a safe drive home.

Regular full-length blogging with pictures shall return soon!

Awesome Day

Ok, I'm blogging after midnight and I should be in bed and I still have e-mail to write, so today's awesomeness will be given in bullet points.

1: Sherri Serafini is a great teacher and I love the project she designed for this retreat. I got a lot done on mine and hope to do more work tomorrow night at the pajama party.

2: The ugly contest was tonight. There were 14 entrants. Cthulhu won the "I don't think so" Ugly, which I'm guessing my lovely friends interpreted as "I don't think he's ugly" because they kept saying how adorable/cute/nice he was.

3. I danced tonight, for a mixed group of my friends and random retreat attendees. A few people clearly didn't like it, but most really enjoyed it. I had my first bout of stage fright, but I got over it. Shout-out to Bead Unique editor Pamela for loaning me her stereo, my friend and retreat roomie Maia for handling my music, and Colleen for taking photos that will hopefully turn out because she has a nice camera and skills.

4: There was other stuff but I'm so tired that I forgot it.

Hello from Tahoe!

Hello everyone! Tahoe* is great. It's cold, and only supposed to get colder, but our room is so ridiculously hot (even with the heat off) that I'm wishing I had brought my summer pajamas. All of the other public areas have been pleasantly warm, too, so I haven't turned into an elf-cicle yet.

I'm having a wonderful time here with friends old and new. Today we had our free extra classes, an assortment of four relatively simple projects, including wire crochet with beads, and making pendants with Super Gloss or whatever it's called. I really enjoyed playing with some new techniques. I also won some Vintaj components in a raffle, yay!

Tonight was the dessert social, which was also supposed to be meet the teachers... the only problem was that the teachers were also selling their kits, so there wasn't really a lot of opportunity to speak with them. I picked up my three gorgeous kits, ate some dessert, and caught up with friends. I wore my Steampunk Cameo necklace, which got tons of compliments, including from my idol Sherri Serafini.

All in all, a very good day, and I can't wait until the real classes start tomorrow!

*Technically I'm in a place called Squaw Valley, but I really hate that word, so I'm pretending it's actually Tahoe.

New York Ren Faire

Here's a picture of me vamping it up a bit at the NY Renaissance Faire in Tuxedo, NY. If I look just a little rumpled, it's because this pic was taken at the end of the day and that top sash had taken several dives into the muddy ground, including one where I thought I'd lost it for good. Luckily a vendor saw it in the path and hung it on her booth, and we walked by and saw it.

My costume is pleasantly cobbled together from items that I brought from home and items that I bought while in NY. Oh yes, and I'm wearing elf ears! I wasn't going to get them, since I don't do faerie costuming as much any more, but everyone thought that I should try them on and they looked perfect on me, so my MIL gifted me with a pair. She also bought a pair for herself, to go with the horns she bought last year. She looked so cute with her elven ears! The vendor even poked a hole in them for her cartilage piercing, making them look even more natural.

Over all, the Faire was muddy but awesome. There was an incredibly light misty rain off and on throughout the day, but otherwise the weather was perfect. Neither too hot nor too cold for my costume, and the clouds kept me from adding to my collection of sunburns. I was a bit disappointed that I had to layer my white choli over my green tie-dye top, but I think it looked OK.

The nice thing was that my brother-in-law Pete and his girlfriend Lisa were able to join us for the day. We wouldn't have been able to see them otherwise, as Pete is going to school a couple of hours away from home.

We caught quite a few shows throughout the day. I was excited to see that Wolgemut was performing that weekend, as I'd heard good things about their music but hadn't yet picked up any CDs. We spent a few minutes watching an impromptu jam session with them and another musician (one of the guys from Karpathos, I think), in an attempt to earn some free beer, and then we caught their 4pm show. Unfortunately, in the middle of their second song, their bagpipers pipe broke, a victim to the humidity. It was repairable, but not immediately so, so they apologized profusely and said they'd only be able to play one more song, which didn't involve the bagpipes. Then they said that everyone should clap along or dance, and of course, I chose the latter option. I was the only one who did so, and then to my utter amazement, they waved me up onto the stage.

So, without any warming up or preparation or anything, I improv-ed a dance to the song, using only a few moves because almost everything else that I knew totally fled my mind -- ha ha. But it was awesome! Possibly the coolest thing that has happened to me so far this year. After the song, they thanked me for my dancing, and Chris and his family told me how cool they thought it was, and of course, we bought CDs to make up for only getting a few minutes of music.

I was also able to get my shimmy on with the belly dancers later, when one of them caught me bouncing my hips along to the last song and pulled me out (they'd been pulling girls in throughout the show, but I was standing in the back avoiding notice... he he). It was a lot of fun, even if we were dancing in a muddy, grassy field (they were dancing in golashes!).

Anyway, my luggage finally arrived earlier (hence my ability to pull pictures off of my camera), so I should really go do some laundry and put away all of my purchases, so I can get the suitcases out of the living room.

Home tomorrow

Today was utterly and completely awesome -- except the parts where we drove through New Jersey -- but I just spent the past 1 1/2 hours packing, and I have to be up in 5 hours to fly home, so you'll have to wait to hear about it.

Not a quiet day

Despite not having any major plans, I still managed to be occupied for most of the day. I'm going to have to wait and post about my adventures after I get back, at this rate.

Tonight we went to an Afghani restaurant and there was an amazing belly dancer who gave two performances with a variety of props, including wings of Isis and a veil fan.

Earlier in the day, we saw District 9, which I thought was good but needlessly gory. That doesn't always bother me, but today I was feeling overly sensitive to such things.

I am once again overly tired, and I have to get up early tomorrow to go to Ren Faire, where it will hopefully not be raining as much as it has been all day.

So tired, but I need to blog!

Damn my commitment to daily blog posts! I spent well over 10 hours in NYC today, 12 hours if you count the time on the train to get there and back. There was a lot of walking involved, and my feet are tired. Actually, scratch that, all of me is tired.

My stupid camera batteries died as soon as I turned my camera on, but luckily Chris's phone has a good camera and he got some nice shots. I'll share at least one in tomorrow's post... and I'll buy decent batteries before we go to the Ren Faire. Those rechargeable hybrids may be great for the environment, but they're lousy for my camera.

Anyway, everything today was awesome and I'll make a full trip report tomorrow, when I should hopefully have some down time to rest my poor tired feet and catch up on internet stuff.

Cthulhu hitches a ride.

Cthulhu hitched a ride in my purse today, accompanying me on a trip to Long Beach to meet a friend. It's hard to tell in this pictue, but I've finished the top of his head, finally. I didn't get a chance to work on him during my flight out, due to the tight space in the airplane, but I've stolen a few minutes here and there to work on him.

However, Cthulhu didn't get to come bead shopping with me today, because I didn't trust him not to escape my purse and wreak untold havoc on the sanity of the bead store employees.

We went to three stores today. Wherefore Art Thou, a small shop where I found nothing to buy, my usual standby of Ace Handicraft, where I bought a bunch of key pendants, some vintage beads, and a couple of neat focals, and Beads and Stitches, where I found some matte pearl Czech glass and other neat things.

Tomorrow we're off to NYC for shopping, site-seeing and Wicked!

The sun, it burns!

No pictures today, because I forgot my camera and Chris isn't here right now.

We went to the Nassau County Art Museum, except not really. We actually went to a museum on their grounds dedicated to miniatures, where they were having a rather disappointing Alice in Wonderland themed exhibit. Then we ate a picnic in their grassy field, visited their guest shop (where I got an awesome painted and embroidered scarf), and walked down one of their nature trails.

Once again, despite sunscreen, I managed to burn. It isn't a bad burn, doesn't hurt, but I don't like being red in the face. I fear it may be time to join the ranks of the hat-wearers, even though it drives me crazy to have a brim obstructing my view. I suspect that skin cancer would drive me even more crazy.

Also, we went to Utopia, the goth/hippie shop that we always visit. I almost bought myself a corset, but instead I just bought two faerie tanktops which were on clearance sale, and four packages of new scents of my favorite brand of incense.

Anyway, time to iron the things that got wrinkled in my suitcase.