Fashionable Friday -- Jewelry Gift Guide

Ahhh yes, here it is, December. Truth be told, I don't like December very much. It has a bad habit of being cold, the mail gets slow because of the holidays, the stores are all crowded, and everywhere I go, bad Christmas music. Now, don't get me wrong, I enjoy the holidays. I just don't like some of the trappings that go with them.

What I do like is the giving, receiving, and selling of holiday gifts! I love holiday shopping, as there are few things more satisfying than buying something that you know is just perfect for your loved one. Making presents is fun, too, when you know that the receiver actually appreciates the work that goes into it. And hearing that my jewelry is being purchased as a gift always gives me a warm fuzzy feeling -- and believe me, in this weather, I need all the warm fuzzies I can get!

(Yes, I know all of you who are in genuinely cold climates are going "Oh, boo-hoo AJ, it got down to 33 degrees, you poor baby!" Yes, I am a weather wimp)

Where was I? Ah yes. Jewelry makes a great present for many people: mothers, sisters, daughters, wives, girlfriends, ME ;) You'd think that by now I might say "Oh no, no more jewelry for me, I've got enough!" but I just keep looking for and making more.

My crystal bracelets are very popular as gifts. Everyone seems to love them, and I have them in a wide variety of colors. There's still time to make a custom order before the holidays if you don't see a combination that grabs you. I can even make these as anklets.

Spiral Bracelets are also very popular. The spiral is a motif which has almost universal appeal, and it's very attractive when rendered in beads. My stock on hand is currently a little limited, but this is another item when I can easily make custom versions of. Spirals also make for very nice necklaces!

If you need a smaller gift, earrings are a great choice. My selection has grown by leaps and bounds this year, and I try to add new ones every week. Starting at $10, they easily fit into tight budgets, and there's a dizzying amount of options if you'd like a custom pair. Don't forget that I can make earrings to match most necklaces and bracelets in my inventory!

If you're in search of something even more unique, I have a huge selection of Strung Necklaces currently available. Although weaving is my speciality, I do enjoy the occasional strung project, and they often feature unusual focals, such as lampworked beads or carved stones.

While I would of course love it if you'd shop at my site for all of your holiday jewelry needs, I understand that my style might not be for everyone. So I'd be almost as happy if you shopped at any of these fellow jewelry designers, who do beautiful work!

Bead Indulgences is the perfect place to find chainmaille and wire-work jewelry. If you want a gift with a real "WOW" factor, be sure to check out her necklaces!

VChoy's beadwork also has a high "WOW" factor! You will probably not believe how awesome her beadwork is until you see it!

As you probably already know, I love Elle B's earrings. They blow mine out of the water. What they were doing in the water in the first place, I really don't know.

Dreams and Jewelry does some very awesome work, cool metal and resin and other materials. I like the vintage key necklace that she has up right now!

If you don't mind dealing with International shipping, Hana Jewels from Japan has some absolutely adorable jewelry, much of it with floral patterns. And her prices are unbelievable!

I really like JewelLace's work, too, and will probably buy myself some someday.

Ossabelle has some very cool glass slide pendants, including Lovecraftian ones! Excuse me while I squeel like a fangirl: EEEEEEE!

I could go on all day about awesome places to buy jewelry, but I'm starting to get hungry for dinner, so I think now I'll move on to great ways to store jewelry, in case you're shopping for someone who already has more than they know what to do with!

ErinLillies has a couple of beautiful handmade wooden jewelry boxes. I love the lid on the top one, such pretty wood grain... mmm.

Shevon Grant Ceramics makes some lovely jewelry trays, for keeping jewelry by your bedside. I need something like this for my desk, except that with how much jewelry I deposit here, it would have to be the size of a turkey platter!

Opalessence has some very cool "Jewelry Guardians" which are sculptures designed to hold your jewelry. I especially like the one that I linked you to, but there are a couple more in her store.

Hopefully between all of these links and the vastness of the Internet you'll be able to find the perfect gift for the jewelry lover in your life!

Of dragons and photography

At long last, here it is! The necklace that I made during the Thanksgiving weekend. I made the dragon and the sea star and then created the necklace for them, all over a period of two days. I'm pretty proud of myself! ;) The focals are made with Premo! clay. The dragon is accented with mother-of-pearl, Czech glass, and a seashell. His little starfish buddy is accented by a single mother-of-pearl bead. The necklace has freshwater pearls, mother-of-pearl, lapis lazuli, Czech glass, seashells, and Swarovski crystals.

I wish I'd decided not to patina the dragon, though. I'm not as good at patinas as Christi Friesen is, and they always seem to mess me up. I didn't intend for my dragon to be so sparkly and silver! Ah well. He's still cute.

Today I did my photography, which leaves me with one less thing to do for tomorrow's website update. Hurrah! As you can see, I now have real necklace displays to fascilitate picture taking... oooh, fancy! Of course, before I used them I had to brush the cat hair off of them. Black velvety surfaces and fuzzy cats are just never a good combination.

The only beadwork I got done today was some repair work that I'd been putting off. I might spend the evening fringing my bead belt, though.

Today's cool thing is The Daily Kitten. Awwww, so cute!

Brrrrr.

You know what? It's cold today. It's so cold that my font turned blue! Of course, those of you who live anywhere other than the desert or the tropics will be mocking my idea of cold, but it was 55 degrees and windy today, and in my book, that's just too cold. My husband, on the other hand, is from Long Island. He wore a t-shirt today and drove home from work with the windows down. I suspect that this has something to do with the time that he bonked his head on a kitchen counter as a child.

To distract myself from the fact that I am cold and as such, somewhat close to miserable, I kept busy today. I've been working on my beadroom. I put away some beads and magazines and sorted out some books to get rid of (why did I still have 3rd edition D&D books? Because I am a geek), that sort of thing. I also found a necklace which had been sitting unloved on my bead desk for most of the year and finished it. While I was at it I made a bracelet that I thought of last night, and I'll probably make some matching earrings tomorrow. All of this and more will be part of Friday's update.

It's supposed to drop below freezing tonight. Oh yes, and with all this cold wind, I discovered that my front door is drafty. The problem with getting a cheap apartment is that you end up with problems like a front door which isn't hung straight, and as such, has spots through which you can see daylight. 3 or 4 by my reckoning. Oh yes, and my desk is straight across from the door, about 5 feet away. Brrr. This will at least deter me from wasting all of my time browsing the web.

I didn't end up dancing today, but I will tomorrow. Gotta keep moving to stay warm, you know.

Oh, stop laughing at me! I live in the desert because I don't "do" cold.

Today's Cool Thing shall be... Mistress Mousey Designs, who has some really awesome rag skirts. I would absolutely wear one of these, and I don't usually go for short skirts. They have a great goth pixie look to them. Go forth and look!

My cat is helping me type this.

Yes, there is a very fluffy, friendly cat sitting in my lap as I type this message. He has a bad habit of biting my fingers as I type, so any typos are his fault.

So, first the important stuff. My new website is still not done and I'm not going to say when it will be done, so I'll stop looking like an idiot when it isn't done when I say it will be. Does any of that make sense? Luckily I convinced my webguru that a night of downtime in the middle of the holiday shopping season was not acceptable, so he'll be making sure that doesn't happen.

And now, the dancing stuff. So lately I've been feeling all cool because I'm dancing and trying new things. I did a little floorwork the other day. I decided to do more today, and I decided it would be awesome if I went to the floor at the end of one song and then danced my way up at the start of the next song... really snazzy, right? So I get up to one knee, and try to get up to the other knee, and something goes wrong and my leg says "Nope, not doing that!" and somehow I fall backwards into the couch with a little yelp. This freaks out both my husband and the cat, who seem to think that I have greviously injured myself. Luckily the only thing that hurt was my pride. So today's lesson is: I am not nearly as cool as I think I am. I couldn't even act like I meant to do that. Stupid reflexive yelps.

Today's Cool Thing is Miss Doxie's Holiday Shopping Guide! It is cool because not only are my earrings listed in it, but lots of great products from other Indie businesses are listed as well, and many of them offer discounts! Plus it is funny. I suppose maybe I should warn you that it is also peppered with expletives, so if that sort of thing offends you, stay away. Otherwise, click, read, and shop!

And now... holiday shopping.

Today was largely spent on-line, doing my holiday shopping. Honestly, even with having several items already bookmarked and a really good idea of what I wanted to get and where I wanted to get it, it took me hours to get everything ordered. Not only that, but I spent a good $25+ on shipping alone, and that was with getting free shipping on two of my orders.

And you know what? It was still better than going to the mall. I dislike the mall under the best of circumstances (honestly, these days it's just 50 stores selling variations on the same clothing, which I could just wait and get at the thrift store next year for $5/piece), but during the holidays? Forget it!

On-line shopping is not without its problems. If I go to a store, I just give them my credit card, sign the slip, and it's done. On the internet, I have to fill in my contact information and payment info, and some sites want you to even sign up for an account before you can so much as get a shipping quote and decide if you want to order after all. I signed up on one site, got ready to check out, and only as I was poised to type in my credit card info did I see that they wanted to charge me $20 to ship $35 worth of stuff. It's not like I was ordering bricks, either. Luckily a friend was able to hook me up with another source, with better prices, selection, and reasonable shipping. Hurrah!

The good news is that my holiday shopping is mostly done. I even purchased a few gifts for my in-laws, though the brunt of that will still fall to my husband. Now I just have to do my holiday crafting! I'll start tomorrow by making a present for the Secret Santa swap I'm taking part in. After that, it will be time to clay it up. Unfortunately, I won't be able to post this stuff until after the holidays, as some of the gift recipients have been known to peek at my blog.

In other news, the new website is not done yet. Hopefully tomorrow. I am assured that it will be cool.

Speaking of cool, today's Cool Thing is Legends by Valkyrie. I admit it, I played with Barbies when I was a girl, but these are way beyond that. Very cool custom dolls with clothes, weapons, and sometimes even beaded jewelry. I especially like her faeries and goddesses!

Who told the weekend it could end?

And here it is, Sunday night already. In a few more hours my super-long weekend will be done and it'll be back to the daily grind, such as it is. The nice thing about being a self-employed artistic type is that the daily grind mostly consists of things that I like to do. And since I have ideas for new jewelry, it should be a great week.

I finished the anklet I was working on, and while it's quite cute, I'm a little bored with the technique I used. I'll be trying to make some anklets in other styles this week, which should result in a good variety for the website and maybe a couple of prototypes for my own personal wear. I also had an idea for a lariat which I'll have to gather the appropriate materials for.

As I type this, my webmonkey husband is hard at work on a new version of my website. Hopefully I'll be blogging about that tomorrow! It should be really awesome, assuming there are no icky bugs to be worked out. You never know with new websites. Once all the technical stuff is done, it will be time to focus on the artistic and get some pretty graphics up!

Today's Cool Thing is Dornick Designs! She has some really cool jewelry. I especially love her pendants and see a few that I might like to buy for myself. My willpower is still holding strong, though, so I probably won't shop until after the holidays. My willpower doesn't have to stop you from shopping, however, so have a little look-see!

I'm having such a good weekend!

So, yesterday I finished my sea dragon, but just as I was putting the finishing touches on him, the mail arrived and there was Christi Friesen's "Under The Sea" book. I read through it while the dragon was baking and well heck, it was so much fun that I just had to make something from it. So my sea dragon got a little starfish buddy. And then once he was baked, well, the two of them needed to have a necklace together. But I realized that if I made a two-strand necklace, I'd be really limited on what I wore it with, so I decided to be all sneaky-sneaky and make two complimentary necklaces that could be worn together. AH HA! And that was essentially my day yesterday.

Well, there was also the late-night Legend of the Five Rings game with my crazy friends which involved much laughter and mayhem. And there was also the housework, but I'm not about to blog about that because it's boooring.

Today has been pretty lazy so far. Hopefully I'll get a few things done after I fortify myself with pizza. There's an anklet which needs to be finished, after all, and I need to start planning some more projects and thinking forward to the holidays.

And here is your Cool Thing: Reel Opinions is my go-to spot for movie reviews. It's hard to find a good reviewer who will tell you straight-up whether a movie is good or lousy, without getting bogged down in subtext or gushing like a fanboy over every single movie. Ryan Cullen does a great job of giving you an honest review and being entertaining at the same time.

Fashionable Friday -- Black Friday

Yes, here it is, the dreaded Black Friday. It's about 3pm, so the usual madness is long past. For the record, I've spent the entire day at home, and won't be leaving until almost 10, when I have a game to go to. Black Friday sales are not worth the mayhem.

Allow me to wax nostalgic. No more than 10 years ago, Black Friday didn't seem like such a humongous deal. For my mother and I, "getting up early and hitting the sales" meant that we were up at what, 6am, to go wait outside Target. The people who really wanted the bags of free samples and junk would mob the front door. The clever people like us would wait outside the garden department. I can't even remember what the heck we'd buy. We didn't do it very often, being fond of sleep on long weekends.

Nowadays, "getting up early and hitting the sales" means that at midnight, you're camped out hoping that you can get one of those $250 laptops. When the doors finally open, everyone's shoving and being nasty. People get hurt sometimes. The lines to check out stretch through much of the store. All for stuff.

Don't get me wrong. I love holiday presents and good deals as much as the next gal, but I think that the Day After Thanksgiving sales have reached a level of insanity usually reserved for villains in Batman.Honestly. Is it worth getting trampled for a really good deal on a TV?

And then there's the concept of Buy Nothing Day, which suggests that we should not make any purchases today. Meant as a protest against consumerism, it's supposed to send a message to the merchants. All very good and nice, but people who buy holiday presents are going to buy them anyways, whether they buy them today, tomorrow, or already finished their holiday shopping back in March because they're so much more prepared than the rest of us. However wonderful a concept Buy Nothing Day is, the crazy people will always camp out in front of Best Buy, because that's what they do. If they weren't waiting to get a $250 laptop, they'd be hoping to get one of the 12 Playstation 3s in the store.

Don't even get me started on the militant anti-consumerism activists who go so far as to fill store locks with glue to try to prevent people from shopping. I will always believe that turning to violence or vandalism is not the best way to get your point across -- it just makes people think of you as a bad person or organization.

A recent development is the so-called Cyber Monday. Supposedly the on-line equivelant of Black Friday, it seems to really not be all that it's cut out to be.

So what's a socially conscious shopper to do? I believe that rather than focusing on when you shop, you should think about where you shop and what you buy. And while I'm not going to say that you should avoid all large retailers, because there's a few I shop at myself, I do think that one of the best things you can do is shop locally, and/or support small and independent businesses. As much as possible, support artists and those out trying to make it on their own!

I link to a lot of small businesses, indie shops, and artists in my blog. If you search past posts, you can find a lot of great things. You can also seek out your own new and exciting shopping spots! You can check eBay or Etsy for listings by artists in a variety of mediums, or small businesses which do their selling through auctions. Shopping blogs are a great spot, too. Check out Rare Bird Finds; Indie Fixx; Artisans, Artists, and Anything Indie. Explore the Links pages of your favorite artists and small shops. Click through some ads on Indie sites. Or ask your friends about their favorite shopping spots.

During the holiday season and beyond, it's important to support small businesses and artists however you can. And of course, as an added bonus, you find gifts far more unique than anything in the department stores. Happy shopping!

MMmm, so full!

Thanksgiving is such a fun holiday! I might feel differently if I had to cook the giant meal (especially since I'm a lousy cook), but I just love getting together with my family and not worrying about presents, just relaxing and joking and catching up. As an added bonus, I got to play with the dogs. Dogs adore me and the feeling is mutual. Mom and I spent a little time looking at Petfinder, but honestly, I live in a two-bedroom apartment, what am I going to do with a dog? There was this adorable Aussie mix whose ears were kind of rounded so he looked like a bear. SO CUTE!

Yes, I am highly susceptible to cute animals. It's been months since I saw that chinchilla in New York and I still want one.

Anyway, since I had a few hours before going to my parents' house, I played with clay. I was going to cover some Altoids tins, but a search of my beadroom revealed that I don't actually HAVE any Altoids tins. Refusing to be thwarted, I decided to make a sea dragon instead. He's my best dragon yet! I'll put the finishing touches on and bake him up tomorrow. Pictures will be posted this weekend. I had so much fun that I might even make another dragon this weekend.


Today's Cool Thing is Christi Friesen's books, which would teach you, yes you, to make cool polymer critters and leaves and things, too. Believe me, if I can learn how to do it, so can you!

Pleasant Wednesday.

Well, I didn't do a whole lot today. Mostly spent some time on-line, received my package of displays and supplies (yay!), and watched some Babylon 5 on DVD. I also went to my local bead store, where I purchased scandalously expensive chain. This is why I prefer to shop on-line! After I post this, I'm going to relax and enjoy a nice cup of tea. Afterwards I'll either work on an anklet or play a video game, depending on how motivated I feel. Holiday weekends were made for laziness, after all.

You may notice that my website is now green. Its appearance may change several more times in the future, but for now it is a pleasant shade of green. I guess it's a little more cheery than the old black.

Tomorrow I'm going to play with some polymer, unless something comes up. We're not due over at my parents' house until late afternoon, so even if I sleep in, I have a few hours for clay fun. Besides, it's about time I start my holiday crafting!

I hope that everyone enjoys the holiday tomorrow -- and if it's not a holiday where you are, just have a beautiful day.

Oh yes! Today's Cool Thing is Project Gutenberg. FREE BOOKS! Ok, they're e-books, but still. FREE! For you to read! Lots of cool old books. Enjoy!

Looong weekend.

Tonight marks the beginning of the long holiday weekend for my husband and I. Of course, I'll still be doing my work on the weekend. I have stock to make and an apartment to keep tidy.

We don't really have any big plans for the weekend. Tomorrow I'll go to the bead store to pick up some chain. I'm planning on adding anklets to my stock soon, and I'd like to make them adjustable. Ankles are a pretty varied and fickle body-part, so it's good to have a little leeway on sizing.

Today's Cool Thing is Forgotten Toybox. Ohmigosh their books are awesome! After the holidays I plan on buying myself one of their book pendants. I'd love to have a full-size book, but honestly, what would I do with it? I tend to buy journals and never use them. A book pendant, though, I could wear, even to Ren Faire! If you visit their site, be sure to drool over the gallery, too.

I'm a dancin' fool!

First of all, I finally finished the lariat I've been working on all this time. Hurrah! It will be in this week's update. It looks like the update will happen this weekend; my husband decided to take Wednesday off to make for a super-duper long holiday weekend, so I'll probably spend the day lazing around with him instead of updating. My new displays are scheduled to arrive on Wednesday as well, which means I should be able to get some nicer pictures. Woohoo!

It turns out that I'm not sick, thank heavens, so I celebrated by dancing hard tonight. A good 20+ minutes of dancing, and it was the first time my abs have hurt in a long time. It felt great. The dancing, not the sore abs. Almost every time that I dance, I start off with QNTAL's "Levis" which is currently one of my husband's top 3 favorite songs. I followed it up with Wench's "Voodoo" which gives me goosebumps when I really get into it. Tonight was a goosebumps night.

This bout of dancing was partially inspired by today's Cool Thing: a great gallery of photographs from Pennsic 2006, by Ron Lutz II. I looked through the Musicians and Dancers gallery, and I have to say "WOW!" His excellent photography perfectly captures the grace and beauty of the dancers. I found myself saying both "I want to dance like that!" and "I want to dress like that!" Enjoy!

In other news, there are only 10 days left to vote in the Rare Robin Awards! Remember to vote for me and any other great shopping site that you'd love to brag about!

Nameless Blog Post

Well, let's see. My gaming on Friday and yesterday was good, for the most part. My tea leaf cookies were delicious. And my dichro lariat still isn't done. That's about the size of what's going on in my world right now.

I feel like I might be coming down with something, which would of course suck. If I am sick, I need to at least be better by Thursday, to fully enjoy the turkey and puppy-filled experience that is Thanksgiving with my family. I'm hoping that I'm just dehydrated and will be all better in the morning. The tasty tea that I'm brewing right now will help me with that plan.

I'm hoping to do some writing of some sort tonight, either working on the collaboration with my husband or tinkering with my second draft. I took a few days off from that since I hit the part where I have to write new material. It was such smooth sailing before then!

Nothing else really to say, so here's today's Cool Thing: Kimono Source. Oh, how I love to drool over vintage kimono, obi, and other awesome Japanese clothing. So shiny!

Fashionable Friday -- Seeing Red

Red is a traditional Autumn and Winter color, perhaps because of red falling leaves and the red and green of Christmas. I've seen a lot of red on display recently, so I guess the tradition is still holding on. Now, I personally don't wear a lot of red. I'm one of those pale, freckly Irish kind of girls, so only a few shades of red look good on me. However, red (especially paired with black) is one of my best-selling colors, so I buy and use a lot of red beads. Best of all, I'm never tempted to keep them for myself!

Gothic Romance, the above earrings, are one of my newest red items. I also just added the Vampy bracelet, featuring plenty of lovely red crystals. And if it's a red necklace that your looking for, I recommend the Midnight Passion collar, which is both sparkly and dramatic. There are many other red items on my site, some of which have been featured in past blog posts. Just a few minutes of browsing will help you find them!

Sometimes one needs to dress up this time of year. I tend to like to wear something out of the norm -- case in point, I showed up to my husband's company's Christmas party wearing my hand-painted dragon cloak. If I wore red, I would definitely look for an excuse to wear this dress.

Of course, it's hard to find an occasion for such an elegant dress. For more casual gatherings, I like long, flowing skirts like this one. And if you need to look mature and professional, you could wear this stylish vintage blazer.

As far as other jewelry artists working in red, well, Elle B comes through as usual with some awesome earrings. And I also found this great necklace from Tomoko, a Japanese beader.

There's plenty more red to be found, whether it's at your local mall or your favorite web merchant!

Little stuff.

Whoops, I sort of forgot to blog yesterday. I got caught up in editting my story and playing video games. Actually got the first two chapters worth of revisions done, GO ME! Now that I've finally started, it's not too hard to do. I'm making changes I didn't even expect to, which will hopefully improve the flow of the story.

Today I made two items for tomorrow's update, and they look pretty awesome. I'll try to get the update done a little earlier in the day than usual, as my Wednesday game has been moved to late Friday nights, so I have to bake cookies tomorrow. Mmmm, cookies. I'm going to try a recipe which has tea leaves mixed in. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I LOVE tea! Luckily most of my friends enjoy tea, too, so everyone should like the cookies.

Oh, and just a head's up, while I will be doing my usual Fashionable Friday column on Friday next week, I think I'll do the jewelry update on either Wednesday or Saturday, depending on how soon I get jewelry made. Thursday is of course the big dinner with my parents, which promises to be delicious. My Dad will BBQ the turkey, and Mom will make a ton of fixings, and Chris and I will bring pickles and lots of olives (Chris and my brother Joe usually manage to eat an entire can while dinner is cooking). Also, I'll get to meet the new puppy, Storm. I do so love puppies!

The cool thing for today is Gothic Charm School, an etiquette advice site for Goths. It's at once amusing and informative. The Lady of the Manners has Faith and the Muse in her music links section, which makes her instantly awesome in my book. Come to think of it, it's been way too long since I listened to said band, other than their cover of Dead Can Dance's "Mesmerism" which is on my belly dance practice CD. Time to break out some music!

Accomplishments.

Well, today I finished up the gift I was working on yesterday, and finished the earrings that I was working on last week. I also prdered some business stuff, displays and the like, and finally got to work on the second draft of my book. I'm feeling pretty good about actually getting a lot done.

Last week, someone on one of my forums posted an article about time management at the office. It was more geared towards people with traditional dayjobs instead of a home business like mine, but it's still good advice. They suggested that every day, you should get something done before you check your e-mail. And you know what? It's true. I get so caught up in e-mail, IMs, forums, and other web stuff that some days, 2 or 3 hours pass before I even think about getting anything done. So today before I even started the computer, I did those earrings and some housework. I'm going to continue this for the rest of the week and see how it goes.

Today's Cool Thing is the artwork of Nedda Angelina Shishegar. I mentioned her leaf jewelry in my Fashionable Friday column, but I also really love her faerie paintings. In fact, the very first button on my infamous button bag was one of hers. Be sure to also check out her guest galleries, where she features other faerie artists.

WOOHOO! 100 posts!

Normally I might do something special for my 100th post, but I didn't realize it until I went to post, and it's a little late to come up with anything nifty. I guess I'll wait for a bigger milestone, like 500.

Today I did a bit of beading, but it was a gift, not website stock. Still, it was good to get something done. I hope to get even more done tomorrow.

I did start the new collaboration book with my husband last night. We only got 1 1/2 pages into it, but it's a start. We'd hoped to do more tonight, but things kept coming up. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. And hopefully I'll also find time to work on the second draft of my first novel. I really hate doing second drafts. The story's already told and I want to move on to another story, not refine this one.

The other thing that I started last night was that I began to read a Laurell K. Hamilton books. I'd always seen them, because they're shelved next to one of my favorites (Barbara Hambly), but never read one. Well, my friend and fellow Dread Genre Writer Helen had picked one up as "market research" and so I borrowed it from her to do some research of my own. You see, I mostly read High Fantasy, but my book is Modern Dark Fantasy, so I need to see what's being done in the field. There are some definite parallels between my work and Hamilton's. The difference is that ohmigosh is there a lot of sex in her books. I mean, I'd heard that they were steamy, but there's more steam than story here! I'm not a prude, so it doesn't offend me. Instead, it sort of amuses me. But the writing's enjoyable at least.

Today's Cool Thing is Button Arcade, because I love buttons! I haven't ordered from them yet, partially because my "button bag" (a cheap department store messenger bag) is running out of room for buttons. I need to find new things to put buttons on. My husband's laptop case/messenger bag is looking mighty tempting... hmmm. Yes, anyway, Button Arcade has an awesome selection of "I Heart ..." buttons which I need to buy. Oh yes.

Aaaaaand let me remind you once more to vote for ME and any other cool Indie business sites in the Rare Robin Awards!

Awwww, isn't it cute?

I got my very first blog spam post today. The person who posted it managed to post it about 8-10 times through 3 or 4 different posts. Honestly, why put the same message, from the same person, five different times on the same post? I had a good laugh while I was deleting them.

Today was a very lazy day. I slept for about 12 hours, and it felt so good. I was going to work on some prototype earrings, but I'll admit it, I played video games instead. But I also spent some time with my husband, discussing our shared writing project, and as soon as I finish this tasty mug of hot cider (I'm pretending that it's actually a chill Autumn evening), we'll get to work on actually writing.

I'm determined to bead a lot this coming week. I need to get presents made, repairs done, and web site stock created, and as far as I know, I've got nothing going on this week other than the usual games.

Today's Cool Thing is Stuff On My Cat, because it makes me laugh so hard. If you love cats, and enjoy silly websites, you'll like this one.

Trying new things.

Today my husband and I, along with our friend and neighbor Alex, went out to an SCA battle. None of us had ever been to one before, and some friends kept suggesting that we check it out, so we did. It was held out in a little town called Winkelman, AZ. Winkelman is at a higher elevation than Tucson, so it was nice and green, and the drive was really awesome.

We had fun seeing friends and watching jousting, but due to being generally exhausted, we headed home after only a few hours. I'd hoped to stick around for the dancing at night, but I probably wouldn't have been alert enough to appreciate it. I've spent all night feeling almost dazed.

Part of this I can blame on the sun. I spend almost all of my time indoors, and so when I go outside for more than a few minutes, my body gets unhappy. I managed to avoid sunburn, but I've still got a headache. Bah.

Surprisingly, there was not a lot of jewelry on display at the "merchant's row" but there was a lady who had some wonderful chainmail that she and her husband had made. Very professional work, nice jewelry designs and they'd tumbled the maille so it wasn't all nasty and scratchy like the first bit of maille I bought. I would have liked to have brought some home, but it was a bit out of my limited budget for the weekend.

In keeping with the day's events, today's Cool Link is to Chivalry Sports, a local store that also does mail order, specializing in Renaissance garb and related items. Cool stuff, awesome people, and some informative articles. Enjoy!

Fashionable Friday -- Falling Leaves

Living as I do in the desert, I don't really experience Autumn much. We had a high of 89 degrees here on Wednesday. 89! And while -- contrary to popular belief -- we do have leaves out here, they're all rather small and they stay the same sagey greens year 'round. This is probably because our Winters are as warm as some peoples' Summers. What do the trees have to worry about? Ok, ok, our nights do drop to freezing during the Winter. Sometimes. But the biggest deal about Autumn here is that it's Not Summer.

This does not stop me from loving Autumn leaves. Sometimes I visit my in-laws in NY and NJ during October. In between complaining bitterly about the weather (honestly, it's not in the 80s in October? What is up with that?), I enjoy the changing leaves. Since I'm only visiting, I never have to deal with the hassles associated with said leaves, such as raking and blowing and disposing. I just admire the pretty colors. Of course, I like leaves of any sort, even our tiny little desert leaves, and I look for excuses to buy leaf beads and use leaf motifs in my jewelry.

Autumnal leaves are easy to find on my site. There's the necklace above, Autumn Dryad. And there's still Dame Autumn, whom I love to link to at the drop of a hat. Leaf Fall is more simple, but still visually stunning. I have many other leaf necklaces, and more yet planned, but these are the most Fall-friendly of the bunch.

Many other jewelry artists find inspiration in the changing colors and falling leaves. Blend Creations has this beautiful washi pendant, made with maple leaf paper. Enchanted Leaves has an entire selection of Autumn Leaf jewelry. Dreams and Jewelry has a Leaf of Fall necklace which makes a lovely understated accent. And if you want to really be blown a way, check out Christi Friesen's Amazonia Unfurled. Wow.

Of course, if you live someplace other than the desert, you might actually be feeling a chill in the air. You could keep warm with this gorgeous hand-knit sweater from JewelLace. Or maybe you just want to keep your neck cozy. Well, instead of a more traditional knit scarf, how about a stunning red leaf scarf, made from kimono silk?

Next to the Amazonia necklace, my favorite leafy item for today's blog is Andrea Adams' leaf mask. I really love her leather work, and I think this particular mask is just a knock-out.

Finally, for my fellow artisans, I offer up this great link to C.A. Therien's eBay store. I've conveniently sent you right to the "leaf cane" section, where you'll find a great variety of polymer leaf canes, just waiting for you to try them out.

Looking for awesome leaf products on-line is certainly a lot easier than taking a sight-seeing trip to see the changing colors, and more fun than raking your lawn. I'm sure that with a little browsing, you'll find things even cooler than what I've shared today. Have fun!

Good shopping trip!

Today was lunch and shopping with my Mom. As I mentioned before, we hit the big JoAnn's sale. I didn't even bother looking at beads, but I did get some other cool stuff. A few bricks of clay, some ribbons for kumihimo, and fabric for a bead quilt. Plus a couple of magazines. The latest issue of Bead Unique has a tutorial on doing glass slide pendants, something that I've been wanting to try.

I realize that the blog has been a bit, well, boring lately, so I'm going to try to spruce things up by sharing a cool link every day, in addition to the explosion of cool stuff on Friday. Whereas Friday is all things to buy, the rest of the week will be whatever is cool... a funny time-killing site, a happy news story, a gallery of eye candy. And sometimes, things to buy. Today's cool thing is Tea Perfume by SBS Teas. I love this idea SO much! Normal perfume doesn't do much for me, but smelling like a cup of chai? I like that idea, and I'm sure my husband would like it, too. SBS has a bunch of really awesome sound teas, chais and cocoas, too. I'm planning on buying some for the holidays (I know an insane amount of tea drinkers) and I'll just have to get some for myself, too. Just to, y'know, make sure that it's good enough for my friends. Not like I'm a tea addict or anything...

And of course, the other Cool Thing is the Rare Robin Awards! Remember to vote for me, and if you vote for at least two other sites, you can win some awesome prizes!

Repricing and Things.

I spent this afternoon repricing my entire earring selection. I intended to get to a couple of other categories, too, but something came up. Hopefully I'll be able to do more tomorrow and Friday, then finish it all up at the start of next week.

Today's mail brought some vintage nailhead beads which I'd purchased from eBay. Nailheads are really cool flat-backed beads which were traditionally used to embellish garments. They're usually faceted or otherwise patterned on the top. This time around, I bought some lovely transparent red faceted ones, and some that are a light tan with two holes and a nice floral pattern on top. I haven't treated myself to any nailheads in a long time, so I was way overdue on these. Whether or not I'll actually use them to make anything remains to be seen.

I don't know if I'll have any new jewelry in Friday's update, or if I'll just focus on pricing. I haven't beaded anything yet this week, and tomorrow I'm going to be out with my Mom. JoAnn's is having a big Veteran's Day sale, with polymer for cheap, so we're hoping to get there before the good colors all sell out.

In a funk.

I haven't been feeling very creative lately. I've been spending way too much time playing video games and browsing the web and not nearly enough time beading and writing. This happens every now and then, and seems to be a normal part of life for many creative people. I need to get myself motivated again, especially since the dreaded holiday shopping season is upon us all!

Just a bit ago I went out and voted like a good girl. I'd been hearing that the polls were really crowded, but we didn't have to wait in line or anything. I guess most people prefer to vote early in the day. There were almost 20 propositions on the ballot, so I had a lot of reading to do before I voted. I'm glad that it's all done now. I feel that voting is important, but all of that dry reading... ugh.

I have a bunch of novels to read, which should help me recover from the political overload and maybe get me feeling creative again. Plus I have a fun weekend coming up, so at the very least that should kick me back into gear!

Interesting Weekend

Yesterday was one of those obnoxious days where I was in a bad mood and couldn't think of anything positive to say here. Basically, someone said and did some unkind things and tried to ruin the day for the rest of us, and while I think that most of my friends managed to salvage the day (my husband, our carpool pal, and myself went out for Japanese, for instance), it still got under my skin.

Today, however, was a wonderful day. Chris and I went out to visit my friend who lives in the desert. It was a beautiful day, everything is surprisingly green from all the rain we had this Summer, and my friend is such a warm person. So we sat in her Arizona room, enjoyed the view, played with the dogs (she has two Border Collies and a Border Collie/Queensland Heeler mix, all very sweet), and talked for several hours. It really lifted my spirits and has left me feeling refreshed for next week.

I'm hoping to get some more beading done in the next week. I intended to work on the black-and-orange lariat yesterday, but I don't bead well when I'm in a bad mood, so I'll work on it a bit tonight instead. Also on the agenda for this week is looking into a different shopping cart for the site. PayPal's cart is very easy to use, but it's also very limiting. I'd like to be able to offer discounts and such, and I just can't do that right now.

That's all for now. More tomorrow.

Fashionable Friday -- Ensembles

Many jewelry designers sell coordinated sets. A necklace, earrings, maybe a bracelet, too. I usually don't, for the simple reasons that I recognize that sometimes you want just the necklace, earrings, or bracelet on its own, or that you can't wear earrings, or that the necklace is the right size, but the bracelet is too small. I want my customers to buy just what they want. However, I do still make a lot of coordinating jewelry, so that if you want a set, you can assemble it.

For instance, take the Carribean Spirit necklace above. It's lovely on its own, but my Oceanic Earrings would make the perfect accent for it.

Lady Ghost, which was featured in my Fashionable Friday column a few weeks ago, also has a pair of earrings made with her in mind, appropriately named Ghostly.

Some items have multiple accenting options. The Tranquil Butterfly necklace would look equally perfect with Ornate Butterflies or Teal Trio. The choice is yours!

Death's Garden would look just right with my Gothic Garden earrings, and the Scarlet Shadows bracelet makes it a complete set.

If you prefer a necklace and bracelet combination, might I suggest the Purple Dawn necklace with the Purple Illusions bracelet?

I do have a few pre-made sets on my site, if you prefer things that way. I'm partial to Dancing Butterflies and Turquoise Starshine.

Remember, color coordination really is everything, whether it's in clothing, jewelry, web design or interior decoration. A well-matched set of jewelry gives you a polished, finished look that will impress those around you!

This is Thursday's post.

Well, let's see... what is going on today?

-Last night I started a lariat in black and orange, with those awesome dichroic seed beads.

-I've received a request for black and white earrings, so I'll be including a few pairs in tomorrow's update.

-This morning I dreamed that I was finally working on the second draft of my book. Maybe it's a sign that I should stop slacking off.

-The Rare Robin Awards are still going on, you can vote for me and make me happy! Remember, vote for 3 or more awesome websites and get entered into a drawing for phenomenal prizes!

Welcome to November!

Hard to believe that it's November already. This month has really flown by.

Yesterday was fun, although the problem with living in the desert is that it's still warm on Halloween. I couldn't wear my cloak, instead I wore belly dance clothes, including a backless shirt. And I wasn't cold. That's Tucson for you. Anyway, the cookies turned out OK, though I won't be using that recipe again, and everyone had a great time at the Call of Cthulhu game that my husband ran. Now life goes back to normal until Thanksgiving...

In actual jewelry-related news, this week will be a bit of a sparse update. I have some things that I really need to do, including repairs, a present, and reading all of this election literature. On top of that, after the mad amount of beading and writing that I did last month, I'm now in a bit of a creative low. I think I need to spend a bit of time exploring my bead collection and maybe looking for more new techniques to try.

There will be at least one new item this week, maybe more, and a small Fashionable Friday column. Plus, of course, I'll be starting my repricing. But don't expect a 10-item update full of spectacular woven necklaces, and a column bursting at the seams with awesome links. I'm saving all of that for next week ;)

Happy Halloween!

I hope everyone has a safe and fun holiday. Growing up, we didn't do Halloween very often at my house. Now that I'm an adult, I've decided that I really don't care if the holiday's roots come from a religion other than my own; most of our modern holidays have been so commercialized and removed from their origins that it doesn't matter anymore. So I'm just going to enjoy wearing a costume and eating more sugary snacks than I should. And if being an adult was going to stop me from dressing up and having fun, then I wouldn't go to the Renaissance Faire. So today I'm baking chocolate cookies for my friends, and tonight I'm putting on some nice black clothes and my hand-painted dragon cloak and my $1 Goth boots, and I am going to enjoy every moment of it.

Oh, and I am going to wear more black, silver, and malachite jewelry than you would think that one woman would own, because it all looks so awesome with my cloak.

If you didn't get enough macabre skull action with last week's Fashionable Friday column, Rotem Gear has an awesome Dia De Los Muertos blog post that you should read. Look at all those cool sugar skulls and nifty t-shirts. I love this sort of thing.

I'd better go hit the kitchen and work on those cookies, it's going to be a big gathering tonight so I'm going to bake a couple dozen.

Of fish and fringe.

The above necklace is one of my projects from this past week: the first in my series of tribal necklaces. For now, these will all be made for myself, to be worn when I dance, but when the gem shows come back to town, I will be looking for supplies to make them for sale, too. The jade fish in this one came from a necklace that I bought at gem show a few years ago; they were strung with cheap silver plastic spacers, and looked cool even like that. Here I've added some Afghani jade tubes, faceted jade rounds, sterling silver fish from Bali, and a lampworked fish by an Australian artist. It's just about choker length and sits pretty comfortably.

In other news, I've just now finished the base row of my belt! It's plenty long enough and rests just right on my hips, staying in place even over the slippery skirt I'm wearing today. Now, of course, it's time for fringe. I just need to decide what sort of dangles I want to put at the ends of the fringe... hmmmm.

I haven't quite decided what I want to make for the website this week, so I need to start thinking about that, too.

Fashionable Friday -- An Influx of Skulls

It's a little strange, walking into a department store and finding skulls on clothing not marketed specifically for Halloween. Strange, yes, but also good. If you have any sort of Goth or pirate tendancies, then you're probably taking advantage of this trend while it lasts. I sure am. Skull-bedecked yoga pants make me a happy girl.

Truth be told, I only have two skull items on my website. One is the above necklace, Death's Garden. The other is my awesome Grunge Skulls bracelet. The problem is that my husband and I like to hog all of the cool skull beads to ourselves. It was hard parting even with these! I guess I will just have to take a trip to the bead store and buy more skulls for busines purposes, and maybe one or two for myself.

But don't despair! If you need more skulls and skeletons than my little site can provide, there's plenty more to be found out there! This skull-patterned halter dress, for instance, is about 7 shades of awesome. If you need a more casual way to show your affection for skulls, how about these Skull Heart and Flower shirts? I love that pattern, and really need to get one for myself! If you're feeling really daring, though, you could let the whole world know that you are a Love Pirate!

Jewelry is a great way to add some skulls to your wardrobe, and I'm not just saying that because I'm a jewelry designer. Bijouboutique's earrings have skulls, style, and plenty of movement. I love them! Keen Designs has a couple of awesome skull necklaces; I like the one at the bottom the best. And for a fun touch, I like this skull bracelet! If that's not enough, ratkiss! has a nice selection of skull jewelry, right on the front page no less.

Once you've got yourself all decked out in these skull items, you might want to check yourself out in the mirror. Well, hey, why not have a pocket mirror with a festive skeleton? And if you want your favorite pampered pooch to rock the skull style, too, Lindsay Designs has you covered with some kewl collars. Lastly, now that you've got all this great skull swag, you'll need something to carry it all in. You know what I like to carry things in? Messenger bags! It's a good thing that this one comes in a Los Muertos print.

Yes, if there's one trend I'm really enjoying this season, it's definitely skulls. I hope you enjoy them, too!

Mmmmmuffins!

I missed posting yesterday because I had to bake muffins. Tasty, tasty muffins. I'm finding that I rather enjoy baking, and since many of my friends are young guys, I don't have to worry about baked goods sitting around, tempting me to eat them. There are no leftovers when I bring muffins to group events!

When I wasn't muffining it up, I made a bracelet for tomorrow's update, and worked on my ongoing belt project. The belt is rapidly nearing completion! Hurray!

It looks like I'll just have the 5 items for tomorrow's update. My evening tonight is pretty busy -- I'm getting together with my neighbors for pizza and a bad Lovecraft film. Even if I'm not there all night, my mind will probably be too damaged by the movie to create anything of beauty. At least the pizza will be tasty!

Tune in tomorrow for Fashionable Friday and a website update! See you then.

On to the next one...

Alright! I finally finished the necklace last night, and it looks great. I also worked up two pairs of earrings, which will be included in this week's update. I have a couple more ideas bouncing around in my head, so it should be an easy matter to have a full and interesting update on Friday. I might even make some stuff for myself.

As a reminder, it's going to be about another week before I start raising prices on my jewelry. Because my website design requires that I change each price individually, not everything will go up at once, but almost every price will be raised within the first half of November. If you've been eyeing something, buy it now while prices are still low!

And another reminder is: vote for me in the Rare Robin Awards! Don't forget that if you vote for at least 3 sites, you are entered into a drawing for some truly awesome prizes. How can you resist that?!?

Still working on it...

Yep, I'm still in the midst of working on the aqua strand collage. I'm having trouble getting the ratios right, so that all of the strands will hang just right, in relation to each other and to your neck. I'm just about to sit down and attempt to finish it tonight, so I can start tomorrow with a fresh project.

In case you're wondering why I've been wanting to use up all these stray beads (hence all the collages), the simple fact is that they were taking up space. Space that could have been occupied by new beads. And so the new beads languish in bags and hidden places, and then I never find them when I'm looking for project-fodder. I'm greatly streamlining things by using up all these beads that I bought years ago, used half of, and then forgot all about.

Now I can replace them with new beads that I will use half of and then forget all about.

Isn't it beautiful?

I've never claimed to be a very organized or efficient person. Quite the opposite. I live and work in a state of barely contained chaos, too much stuff and too little space. I love beads, so whenever I see something awesome that I can afford, I snatch it up. And within the past year I've added kumihimo and polymer clay to my repetoire, so now I have supplies for that, too. And books. Do I ever have books! Books for beading, books for writing, books for gaming, and plenty of books for books' sake. This leaves me very little room to actually work, so periodically I have to go through a stage of cleaning, organizing, and purging. That's where I'm at now.

Probably more than you want to know about my workspace, I'm sure. On that note, it's time to tackle the necklace.

Beautiful Sunday.

The pleasant Autumn weather is still holding out here in Tucson; as I look out my window, I'm treated to a beautiful blue sky. It's very calm, quiet, and just the right temperature. I think this weather is helping to foster my creative spirit. Without the heat to drag me down, I'm free to think and search for supplies and spend hours just beading or writing away.

Ah yes, beading and writing. I was only able to post the one necklace in this week's update, as I ended up being too busy to complete the strand collage. I've got to organize my time a little better, and stop using chill mornings as an excuse to sleep in. On the bright side, I did finish the first draft of my second book, and the wheels are turning for the second draft of the first book, and the plot of the third.

In the midst of all of this, I'm still finding the time and energy to dance. My stamina is back, and so now I've been focusing on trying some new arm accents, and also some stomach-isolating moves. I feel great when I'm dancing and I sync right up with the music.

I haven't quite figured out what I'll be making this week, other than finishing the strand collage. I think I'll spend some time in the bead room tomorrow, looking for materials that will inspire me.

Fashionable Friday -- Greyscale

It's a bit surprising to me that grey is so in this season. But there's no denying it, it's on all the shelves and in all of the windows. And for the most part, it's not even paired with other, friendlier colors. No, monochromatic greyscale ensembles are the look for Fall and Winter. Some are drawing straight from businesswear, with their pinstripes and smart lines, whereas others have a more ethereal look, the shimmer of silver satin.

As an artist, I feel drawn to find beauty, so this week I set out to make something that was at once grey and beautiful. Lady Ghost (seen above) was born of that quest. I purchased the cabachon and vintage beads in New York with the intention of pairing them with black for a more traditionally Gothic look, but I love the otherworldly blending of silver and grey that I've achieved here. Perfect for any formal Winter event, be it the office Christmas party or a night on the town with that special someone.

A subtler grey statement can be achieved with a sparkling bracelet, maybe accenting your business suit. If crystals are your style, try Silver Mist on for size. Or you can adorn yourself with that universal symbol, the spiral, by wearing Cloud Burst.

It's really not hard to find grey jewelry, of course. Silver, after all, is just a metallic grey, as is pewter. Dreams and Jewelry's Aged necklace combines silver with labradorite, a beautiful blue-grey stone, perfect for winter. Weekend Jewelry, in the meantime, adds lustrous coin pearls to sterling chain for a very feminine look. Of course, you need earrings to round out the outfit, so try First Frost from BeadGal Desigs, or for a more Goth-Punk look (something I always like), try Jewellace's Heart Earrings, an awesome twist on crochet jewelry.

I know that I usually leave the men out in my column, so this week I'm happy to say that Weekend Jewelry also has some subdued grey jewelry fit for the guys. I love this leather and moonstone necklace. Actually, I'd wear that myself, but I have been known to be a tomboy!

With the chill in the air, you may find yourself wanting to make some cozy scarves and hats, so why not use grey yarn? This eco silk is beautiful, and it works into last week's theme, too, by being made from recycled soda bottles! How awesome and clever!

If all this grey has you feeling like a corporate drone, you can always express your feelings with Camp Apparel's barcode bag. Quite possibly the most awesome purse I have EVER seen online, and I have seen some pretty awesome purses.

And now, having exhausted yourself with a grey shopping spree, perhaps it's time for a nap, on grey silk pillow cases. Not the sort of thing I would normally list, but Elliebelly is donating 10% of the price to the Komen Foundation, so they definitely deserve a shout-out! Besides, that really is a lovely color!

So remember, even grey can be beautiful!

Slacking off...

Ok, I admit it. Other than making a quick bail for a pendant I wanted to wear, I didn't bead yesterday. Instead I wrote 16 pages on my book, bringing it to just right before the end. I've just got to wrap up the loose ends and set the stage for book 3 and then I'm done. I'm pretty happy and excited.

I was going to take beads to the game, but we got such a late start that I figured I'd spend more time unpacking and packing the beads back up than I would actually working on the necklace. But I did pick out the focal and all the accents for the necklace, so when I finally sit down to bead today, I can jump right into it.

This does mean that tomorrow's update will be pretty small, probably just the two necklaces. But since I've had 19 items between my last two updates, I think that's OK. Next week should be back to my usual standards of at least 4 new items.

Eye Candy

Alright, I have an aquatic-hued strand collage in the works, but I probably won't do much on it until the game tonight. Last night I decided to stop wussing around about my book and start finishing it, and only wrote 10 pages because I knew I needed to sleep. I'm hoping to ride that momentum today.

Lately I've been drooling over the knotted wire jewelry of Loren Damewood. It's understandably out of my budget, but very nice to look at and admire. You especially have to see his Knotted Mail, which is just plain awesome.

Enjoy the eye candy, and I'll be back tomorrow.

Little bits of news.

First and most important, I finished my special necklace last night. YOW does it look great! I am simply in love. You know, I have got to stop making all of this jewelry that I want to keep. Or maybe I should make a couple of things for myself, so I won't feel so neglected.

You may remember Dame Autumn from my Fashionable Friday column two weeks ago. Well, I've been talking her up on my forums, and Dreams and Jewelry just featured her today! I feel like my necklace is in great company, as there are lots of cool items on there that I would love to have. Once you're done at the blog, be sure to visit her site, too. There is some beautiful jewelry there!

Tonight I'll be starting another project, got to keep myself busy. After all, I only have one thing for this week's update and it's already Tuesday. It's probably time for another strand collage, and then maybe a bracelet or two and some earrings to round it out -- I've really been working on stocking up on the earrings.

There are still a couple more days to vote for Erthe Fae Designs (and your other favorite Indie sites) in the Rare Robin Awards! Share the love!

Almost done!

I am very close to finished with my grey necklace. Hurray! It's shaping up quite nicely, I think.

I have a bit of repair work to do this week, but I still think I will be able to have a decent selection of new items for Friday's update. And the Fashionable Friday column is already shaping up to be pretty good!

With the weather growing pleasantly cool as Tucson finally acknowledges that it is indeed Autumn, I'm going to be able to start doing polyclay work again, too. I'm not sure that I'll be selling any of it, but I'll definitely share on the blog. I have a couple of cool ideas, though I'll need to get more tools and supplies to do them properly.

More tomorrow!

Insert Meaningful Title Here

I think I spent about 4 hours last night, off and on, working on the pendant for the necklace I've been planning. It didn't turn out quite how I expected, but it still is awesome. And very sparkly. Today, I get to figure out how to work it into a necklace. Woohoo!

Also, last night I finally started working on my novel again, which is a good feeling. I'm approaching the end, and I might be able to finish the first draft before the end of this month.

Lots to do, but not a lot to say. I'll probably be more chatty during the week.

As promised...

Ta da! There it is, the pendant I made this week. I've only dabbled in bead embroidery before, but recent talk and show-n-tell on my favorite beading forum made me decide that it was time to really get into it. I used Laura McCabe's article in the most recent Bead and Button as a jumping-off point, making some changes along the way to accommodate my bead selection and sense of style. This pendant really reminds me of Amy Brown's faerie paintings, as the fae in them are always wearing stripes and checks. The pendant is hanging from a black herringbone rope that I made especially for hanging assorted things from.

I have a necklace planned for this next week that will use that same technique. Actually, I'm going to start it today. If it turns out, it will be featured on Friday :)

Don't forget to show me some love by voting for Erthe Fae Designs in the Rare Robin Awards!

Fashionable Friday -- Waste Not, Want Not

My plan for this week was to go through my bead collection and use up a lot of those beads that I had just a few of, you know, 10 of this, 6 of that, things that I bought on a whim and never intended to make part of my regular stock. Of course, I was out all day Saturday and then all night Tues, Wednesday, and Thursday, so I didn't bead very much. Nonethless, I was partially successful in my efforts.

The Moss Spirit -- seen above -- not only used a green garnet that I bought "just because," but it allowed me to use up the last of some Czech glass cubes that I used in another necklace, some freshwater pearls that I bought years ago, the olivine crystals from this year's BFAC project, and a number of Czech glass beads.

There were a few bead types that I couldn't quite use all of, so I had leftovers to make earrings! Mulch?!? used the last of the copper-lined firepolish, as well as some paired beads I'd forgotten about, and Presto, Pesto! used the dark olivine firepolished and some random beads from a swap some months back. And while looking for beads to make more earrings, I found some lonely crystals from BFAC 2004, which made their way into Dawn Flowers and On An Angle. Really, earrings are one of my best ways to use "leftovers."

I fully intend to work towards my goal throughout the next few weeks. I have a whole bunch of aqua-capri blue beads which might make a nice strand collage, and there are always pairs and foursomes of beads waiting to become earrings. But in the meantime, I asked around and found how some other artists use their scraps, leftovers, and recycled materials!

Starchild Crafts uses scraps of fabric to make kickin' keyfobs. Meanwhile, Textile Fetish has these awesome patchwork aprons and bags made from scraps. If you enjoy bags made from scrap fabric (and really, who doesn't? They're unique and environmentally conscious!), you should also check out My Diva Shop's recycled jeans purse with its country charm. A more unexpected use of scrap fabic is decorating stationary, which is exactly what Teacups and Tadpoles does!

Dismantled Designs specializes in making clothing out of other clothing. I really recommend browsing through her site, as it's cool to see clothes remade :)

If you'd like to make your own items with scraps and recycled items, you certainly have a lot of options! SixOneSix makes it easy with this box of supplies! Or, you can look for that delicious recycled silk yarn, some chunky recycled glass beads, or the recycled plastic peace beads that I saw at gem show this year. A google search will surely turn up countless supplies. And don't forget that Found Object art is very popular and feasible as well.

With the internet, the world is practically at your fingertips. I hope that this column will inspire you to not only check out the artists and suppliers I've listed, but to search out other sources for recycled and salvaged goods, and ways to use them yourself. And how is this a Fashionable Friday, you might ask? Not only are many of the above items stylish, but in my mind it's always in to keep things out of our landfills!

Gearing up for the update

Whew! I have 10 items done already for tomorrow's update. That is going to be a whole lot of photography, let me tell you.

I spent pretty much all night last night working on the main necklace for the update, and it is just WOW. Maybe I'm a bit biased, since I created it and it's my favorite color, but this is one knockout of a necklace. I keep looking at it going "I wish I could keep this." Because, you know, I really need one more green necklace. What I need is an elegant, medium-length blue necklace. Will I ever make such a thing for myself? Of course not. I'll keep making things in green and black.

I have a big project planned for next week. It's big, because I don't know how I'll make it happen, I just have this vague idea of how I want to put all of these beads together. If it turns out, it will be spectacular. I'm talking about "Wear it to the company's formal Christmas party" spectacular. Of course, I wore a hand-painted panne velvet cloak to the last Christmas party, so my taste is a little skewed.

But for now, it is time to clean up and put away all of the beads and supplies from the last couple of days of creating. They've kind of taken over my couch...

Just beadin' away

Well, I didn't break the camera out today. I had to play a couple of games of Go instead. So hopefully I will be able to post my nifty new pendant tomorrow. If not, I'll photograph it with Friday's update jewelry and post it over the weekend.

Ah yes, Friday's update. I'm working on a very cool necklace for that. I didn't bead as much as I'd hoped to this week, so I'm taking the necklace with me to my Wednesday game instead of bringing the Belt of Doom. Also, while looking for beads for the necklace, I stumbled across another cache of paired beads, so expect lots more earrings this week. Woohoo! Several of these bead pairs are vintage, which makes them even more fun to work with.

I'm going to try to make more time for beading, as I had a few great ideas for necklaces for myself (yes, I'm greedy) and I don't want to cut too much into my production of website stock. After all, the holidays are coming and I want to have a great selection available for all of your gift-giving needs.

Don't forget to vote for me in the Rare Robin Awards! I'll make sad puppy dog eyes at you if you don't.

Change is coming!

They say that change is good. This change, however, is kind of a mixed blessing. Starting on November 1st, I will be raising all of my prices. I've resisted for a while, doing my best to keep prices low while still fairly compensating myself. Unfortunately, the cost of buying supplies and doing business keeps going up. At my current prices, I simply can't keep doing business; it's become impractical. On average, I'll be raising prices by about 20%. Shipping rates will stay the same, however.

I'm telling you this now, so that if you've had your eye on something, you can buy it now before prices go up. That's right, it's my "The price hasn't changed yet!" sale. Ok, so it's not much of a sale. But I felt that it was only fair to give you advanced warning. If only more businesses would do that, eh?

There are good changes coming, too. My beloved code monkey is hard at work on a new website for me. This will include implementing some awesome options, like a search and recommendations. I'm not sure when this will all happen, but I can tell you that when it does happen, it will rock!

Things are cruising right along, beadwise. I already have 2 items ready for this week's update, and I've been working on a personal project to learn a new technique. It has been just way too much fun, so even though it's a bit time-consuming, this technique will definitely show up in a few website items. I might post the finished item tomorrow, so you can get an idea of Things To Come... ooooh.

Back to the beads for me.

So glad it's the weekend!

Ahhh, it feels good to be enjoying the weekend! Today was a D&D day, and to keep my hands occupied between bouts of dice-rolling, I took my ongoing Belt O Doom project. This is a very long belt made with an African Helix in black and varying greens. It's almost long enough to go around my waist now, but I need to add a bunch of extra length for tying and dangling, and then throw some fringe on that baby. It makes a good gaming project, I took it to my Weds game this past week, and I'll take it this week, too. If I keep taking it to gaming, I might actually finish it someday.

Tomorrow, I think I'll work on a bracelet or two for Friday's update. This coming week is going to be pretty busy in the evenings, so I'll have to make up for it by being productive during the day.

The Rare Robin Awards are still going on, so if you haven't yet, you can vote for my website in the Funky Jewelry category!

Fashionable Fridays -- Everything Old is New Again

It seems to me that even going all the way back to the 90s, vintage and retro styles have been big. That trend continues even now, more than halfway through the "aughts." Different decades have held favor over the years, with the 60s and 70s being the big contenders, classy 40s-50s styles sneaking in every now and then, and now, the 80s are screaming "Hey, aren't we old enough to be retro yet?"

In the world of fashion, old styles show up in a number of ways. Designers might recreate vintage dresses, use retro prints, or even recycle old fabric, beads, and other materials for new designs. The consumer has many choices for expressing their own love of recycled fashion, too, either by purchasing these new items, or by seeking out genuine vintage items. Many thrift stores now have "retro" sections, rather than saving the bygone styles for Halloween. eBay is a source of great vintage finds, whereas a web search will turn up many sites that will either sell you vintage clothes, or educate you on the styles and how to tell the real deal from fakes.

As a jewelry designer, I love working with vintage beads. My Dark Murmurs bracelet (shown above) uses 2 different styles of vintage beads and a vintage button. Dame Autumn and Leaf Fall both feature vintage leaves, which are of course, just perfect for Autumn. Vintage beads abound in my earring section, just check out Midnight Stars, Gothic Garden, or Peachy Keen. This is just a sampling of the vintage selections on my site; I rarely turn down a chance to buy vintage beads!

Of course, I'm far from the only jewelry designer inspired by the styles and materials of yesteryear. Elle B uses vintage beads in all of her creations, and I especially love her earrings! Oasis and Canyon are very cool, and the latter features perfect Autumn colors! The Wing Thing works some awesome vintage buttons into her jewelry, check out this faerie bracelet! Vintage style and beads alike are found in Miss Evil Kitty's floral pins. Dejarnette's Minty Julep necklace also caught my eye. And while I don't normally "do" plastic, this 80s robot necklace from Zlanarama brought a huge smile to my face!

I also got a big, cheezy grin when I saw Rotem Gear's vintage-inspired Tofu T-Shirt. Usually I see this graphic used to say something raunchy, so this was a pleasant change! For other vintage-style clothes, why not check out the aprons from Sweet Pea Handcrafts or Modern June? They almost make me wish that I cooked enough to need an apron -- but that would cut into my bead time! ;)

There's no denying the absolute cuteness of vintage purses, but finding the real-deal in good shape and affordable can be difficult. Why not buy a modern day purse based on vintage designs instead? Goodmorning, Morning has some cute ones, especially the Scalloped Bag. 2 Fresh Petunias also offers several vintage-style bags, but I like the Sophisticate Handbag the best, especially the green bird one! Meanwhile, Teacups and Tadpoles has vintage-inspired lunch totes, perfect for kids or adults!

Those of you with kiddoes either of your own or on your gift-buying list might enjoy the Vintage Baby section over at Hip and Little, or One Little Monkey.

After all this shopping, you might feel the need to pamper yourself (I do after all this typing!). You might not think that spa supplies can be vintage-inspired, but Vintage Body Spa is out to prove you wrong with their retro labels and packaging!

This is just a small selection of the vintage and vintage-inspired items that you can find on the web... and just think of what you might be able to find locally, in boutiques, craft fairs and bead stores!

So much inspiration!

The above image is a custom necklace which I was recently commissioned to make. Having received a satisfied e-mail from a very happy customer, I feel like I can display it on the blog now. I LOVED making this necklace. Working with vintage jet is so much fun!

When I was getting the jet out, I was reminded of how much I love all of my vintage beads (for the most part, they're kept in the same place. I am somewhat organized). As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I decided to make some things with them this week. Well, here it is only Wednesday, I've already made 4 items, and 3 of them contain vintage beads. Yay! All 4 items will be in Friday's update, and I might even have a few more items by then.

I'm working on a super-secret collaboration with Deborah of Bead Indulgences, and I just got her contribution to that project today. Because she's such a sweetie, she also included some crystals that I wanted but was unable to get at the gem show. So tonight I'm taking just a little break from website stock and I'm going to make myself a crystal bracelet.

In closing, don't forget to vote for me in the Rare Robin Awards! :)

Artist Spotlight -- Bead Indulgences

I am pleased to be able to announce that my dear friend Deborah has just launched her site, Bead Indulgences. Deborah is a lovely and talented lady who creates some simply breathtaking jewelry. Where my "thing" is beadweaving, Deb has found her niche in wire and maille, and what a fine niche it is! I love how she incorporates a wide variety of beads, from common Czech glass to fantastic carved stones, into her pieces to give them a more unique feel.

I met Deborah on-line in the beading forum that we both frequent, and I had the pleasure of meeting her in person at the gem shows in February. Her husband also does jewelry work, and it was so nice to see the two of them shopping together and sharing ideas. I believe that couples who share interests truly have the richest relationships... although it is hard to share beads sometimes!

If you read Step by Step Wire Magazine, you may already be familiar with Deborah, as she had a tutorial in their Summer 2006 issue. She swore me to secrecy, but now that it's on her site, I can brag ;) Although I don't work well with wire and as such was not able to test it, the project looked very nice and the directions were concise. I hope that in the future she'll share more of her designs with the world.

Deborah does one-of-a-kind work, so I recommend that you check her site often to see what is new and exciting!

A jewelry-ful day!

Just as I'd hoped, today I was able to get some serious beading done! I strung a beautiful necklace which I'm very happy with, and I'm working on a nice woven piece, too. These items will of course be in Friday's weekly update.

Keep watching my link section for more great sites, I added another one today.

In the meantime, please vote for my website, www.erthefae.com in the First Annual Rare Robin Awards, hosting by Rare Bird Finds! If you vote for my site and at least two other great business websites, you'll be entered to win some fabulous prizes. Click on the banner below to get ready to cast your vote :)

Posting After Midnight

Darn my late-night posting habits, making it seem as if I am posting the next day!

Today was regrettably another jewelry-free day, although I did get some business-related things done. Actually, I got a lot done, but it's all boring technical stuff.

Speaking of boring, I'm getting bored with my current blog template and name and stuff, so I'll probably be tweaking it up over the next few days. I already added a new link, to Lois Oster's great lampwork, and I expect to add more links soon.

Tomorrow there shall be beading, oh yes, and new news for the blog, so it feels special. For now, it's back to the pretty faerie book. Mmm, weird Victorian artwork.

Of books and things...

Now that I finally finished the book series I was reading, maybe I can get back to being productive. A word of advice -- don't read Tad Williams' Otherland series. It's not worth the time. I remember enjoying his Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series, but Otherland had me constantly complaining while I was reading, and now I don't want to read anything of his ever again.

Standing in the way of my productivity are two other books which I picked up recently, being "Children of Cthulhu" (a collection of short stories inspired by Lovecraft), and "Anansi Boys" by Neil Gaiman, sequel to "American Gods" which is one of my all-time favorite books. While at the bookstore, I saw that Gaiman has a new short story collection out, but it's in hardback, so I resisted. Instead I bought a book on faerie artists... ooooh.

None of these books, however, are 1000 pages of literary devices and false suspense, so I should be able to breeze through them and still bead. I'm hoping to make some jewelry tomorrow. I would have made something today, but it was not to be. Had to do some writing instead.

I'm working on things behind the scenes, business-related and otherwise. Might have news to talk about in the near future. For now, time to ready my faerie book and then catch some sleep.