Making stuff!

Well, I got an early start today, and my friend was too busy to come over, so I actually got to have a little creative time today. I just whipped up a quick, simple necklace which I'll try to get photographed and into the Etsy shop soon. Because it is quick and simple, it will also be affordable! I think I need to have more than just earrings in the $25 and under range.

I'm going to do a little beading tonight during the game, probably just bezel a rivoli that will eventually be part of a larger project. Or maybe bezel one of these slightly defective rivolis and make myself another cute pendant. I haven't made anything for myself for a while... and I have several green rivolis to choose from. Hmmm....

In my mail today, there was a package full of some goodies that I purchased from Etsy... two different styles of vintage glass cameo cabochons, and some cool Czech snake beads that I wish I'd had for the Animal Instincts challenge. I'm trying not to buy a lot of random supplies, but these were all too awesome to pass up. The cameos are especially beautiful, and I've been needing some of those for Neo Victorian/Steampunk jewelry.

Just flitting in.

I snapped a few shots of this really cool moth on the screen in my beadroom today. I owe thanks to Topher for these pictures, as I found it by following his gaze to see what he was staring at. The neat thing, which is more visible when its wings are spread out (unfortunately, those pictures were fuzzy) is that the lighter parts are translucent.

Anyway, I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't get to bead today, and I won't be writing either. I did take a bunch of LL-BFAC photos, and go to Target and buy another vest, and get some housework done, but I didn't get to any of the fun stuff I had planned. Bummer.

Tomorrow will be another busy day! I've got housework galore, possibly a visit from a friend, then grocery shopping and gaming. I'll try to at least get some beads together to work on something during the game.

Sarcasm dog rolls her eyes at you!

I took this picture of Maggie looking sarcastic last night. And that's all I'll say on the subject of dogs, since it isn't the weekend!

Over the weekend, I came to the conclusion that I'm just not going to finish this beaded book. It's boring. I remembered that square stitch was a bit tedious, but my memories were not exact in just how soul-numbingly dull it is. I bead to enjoy myself, so I should be doing something fun. As such, I'm going to go in a totally different direction for the Ancestral Expressions challenge. Hopefully I can start my new project tomorrow.

I have a couple of small, simple projects that I want to do, too, and I need to finish the wyvern brooch. I definitely need to make time to bead this week, when I'm not taking LL-BFAC pictures, or editing them, or cleaning house. And speaking of BFAC pictures, it has been working out much better to take them in the game room. I'm not getting that weird yellowish tint anymore, so it must have been those lights.

Also, if you're on Facebook, you can now become a fan of Layne's Legacy -- Beading For A Cure! I'm maintaining the page, and will be using it to post pictures, website updates, news, and the auction schedule. You can use it to chat with other LL-BFAC fans, plot out your auction purchases, and introduce your Facebook friends to a worthy cause.

I've been tagged!

When I checked my comments today, I saw that I'd been tagged by The Beaded Lily with one of those blog memes where you share random facts about yourself and then tag your friends. Weee! Here's the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blog.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

So without further ado, here are some facts about me:

1. I like to dip french fries in honey instead of catsup.
2. My female cat is named Xunalira because I couldn't come up with a good name for her, so Chris and I played with a word spin game until we randomized something that we liked.
3. It's been 14 years since I had a haircut.
4. I used to square dance.
5. I live within walking distance of the largest park in my city.
6. My first roleplaying character was a five foot tall faerie armed with a katana.
7. I wrote my first novel when I was 15. Too bad it sucks.

And the seven people I'd like to tag are:
My friend Charlene
My EBW Teammate Ann Burke
Fellow LL-BFAC Contributor Arline
My friend Doris
My friend Gina
Marilee, who probably doesn't like memes but gets tagged anyway
Blog-buddy Christina

And now, back to spending my Saturday lazing around. Hurray, lazy Saturday!

All day at the camera...

Well, not quite all day, but I did spend a while setting up my photography stuff out in the game room. It worked out pretty well in there, and I took a lot of pictures, which I will have to sort out tomorrow. It was unexpectedly warm today (back up to 90), and the heat wiped me out. Once I was done with photos, I just wanted to kick back with a cold glass of water.

I've just added the little widget that allows you to easily follow my blog! If you are a blogger user, you can choose to follow this blog, and my posts will show up on your dashboard. Plus you can click on any of the other people who are following my blog, and see if their blog interests you. Isn't technology grand?

That's all for tonight, I want to go write before I get too sleepy.

It's Fancy!

Just took my first batch of photos using my light tent and varitone sheet backgrounds. Ooooh. Aaaaah. I purchased these items in an attempt to make the Layne's Legacy -- Beading For A Cure photographs look nicer, hence why this test shot is of Locked Away.

By the way, if you're new to this blog and haven't seen Locked Away before, you can click on the "locked away" tag at the bottom of this post and view all of the in-progress posts I made about it.

I seem to be having some weird lighting issues in this shot, though, probably from the incandescent bulbs in the overhead fixture in the guest room, where I've been taking my pictures. Tomorrow I want to move out to the game room, where the lighting is better and I can set up on an actual table. We're not having a game on Saturday, so I can actually keep my stuff set up until Wednesday.

Work on my beaded book is going sooooo slooooow. This is why I don't do square stitch very often. It's time-consuming and well, a little boring. I'd rather be embroidering or doing a herringbone rope or something. I don't think I'll be making very many beaded books in the future, which is too bad, because I think it will be pretty cute.

Last Day to Vote!

Voting for the Etsy BeadWeavers' November Challenge ends at midnight! I'm not sure if that's midnight PST, EST, or some ST in between, but there you haven't. If you haven't voted already, click here and choose your favorite! The poll is conveniently located on the right side of the blog.

I'm pleasantly surprised to see that I'm in 4th place, which isn't bad at all, since I think there are more than three items which are much better than my necklace ;) And there's a very good chance that the item I voted for will win, which is great. Everyone loves to pick a winner!

I plan to work on my beaded book at the game tonight. It's actually the perfect sort of project to work on during a game; small, easily portable, and at this stage, very repetitive. Tomorrow I'll probably take a break from it and finish the dragon brooch, as a friend of mine sent me plenty of pinbacks. So many pinbacks, in fact, that I may have to make more brooches!

Started my November challenge piece

After considering various parts of my heritage, I decided that rather on focusing on a particular country of origin, I was going to do something rather specific to my family. I come from a long line of teachers, readers, writers, and general bibliophiles, so I'm making a beaded book.

I did want to do some sort of pretty, elaborate piece inspired by the jewelry worn by ladies in Renaissance portraits, but let's face it -- there's no aristocracy in my family tree. We're all a bunch of peasants, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. Besides, a beaded book is something I've wanted to do for a while.

I came up with the idea last week, but I finally sat down to work on it today, I'm using square stitch, which is not my favorite technique. It's pretty time-consuming. But it will give my book nice straight edges, like a book should have. I'm using Delica beads, whose uniformity will help create the image of a smooth book cover. Hopefully it will turn out! Watch this blog for in-progress pictures!

Celebrating 10 years of Erthe Fae Designs!

In October 1998, I bought some beads at a cute nature gallery in one of our local malls, turned them into jewelry, and listed them in eBay. I thought this was a fun way to make some money for the holidays, and that it would go to the wayside someday when I got a "real" job. Little did I realize at the time that I was getting myself into an all-consuming addiction that would lead to numerous friendships, a few fun journeys, and the need for an entire room set aside for my supplies.

To celebrate this momentous occasion, all jewelry in my Etsy shop is now 10% off! This sale will continue until the end of October. All other jewelry that I list between now and then will also have 10% knocked off of its intended price. This is a great time to pick up some holiday presents, or something suitable to wear to all those year-end parties.

Thank you to all of my friends and family who have been a constant source of support, encouragement and inspiration on my jewelry-making adventure!

No pictures here, move along

My grand plan to take photographs was thwarted by my camera running out of battery juice, and me being unable to find the other two awesome camera batteries that I have around here someplace. I know that rechargeable batteries are better for the environment, and I'm all for improving my green footprint, but I really seem to get better life out of those Lithium batteries that are designed for electronic gadgets.

Anyway, since I can't do photography today, I'm writing instead. Yay! I've written a few pages, and if I really buckle down, I might even get to kill off a character tonight. Well, probably not, but it's something to strive for. I admit that I tend to get really attached to characters, and then I don't want to kill them, but a few need to die to move the plot along. Poor characters.

Because it's the weekend, I get to talk about my dogs. Awwww! They're behind me right now, wrestling. Daisy makes this really vicious face, with her ears back and her lips pulled way up, and her jaws go snap-snap-snap in a ferocious display that is really ruined by the fact that she'll randomly stop to lick Maggie. They're really amusingly bad at fighting, so I often find myself giggling at their antics. This causes them to break up their fight and run over to me, to try to get me to join in. They also still try to get The Toph to wrestle with him, but he is having none of their corgi shenanigans. I did catch him sniffing Daisy's wagging tail the other day, though. He's getting used to them!

Quick Post!

Can't blog for long tonight, my parents will be here in a few minutes, and a polite hostess doesn't leave her guests waiting while she blogs ;)

So anyway, a quick rundown of things that happened today: I decided what to do for the November EBW challenge, I realized that I really need to buy more Delicas, and my light tent for photography arrived via UPS. As such, tomorrow's blog post should have some nice pictures!

The turtle compels you to vote!

No, I'm not talking about the US Presidential Election. No politics here, only beautiful beaded jewelry! The turtle compels you to vote for your favorite entry in the Etsy BeadWeavers' challenge! Go forth, view all of the lovely pieces submitted for the Animal Instincts theme, and cast your vote. Tell all of your jewelry-loving friends, too!

Please note, I am not one of those people who tells all of her friends to vote for her, and to tell their friends to do so. I created Turtle Talisman to challenge myself to make something I wouldn't normally (a piece of jewelry with a non-fantasy, non-insect animal), and while I think it's very nice, I do not think that it is the best item in the poll. I want people to vote for the item that they like best. That's what I did. There are some really great items, made by people who were clearly more inspired by the theme than I was.

Now, if you want to tell your friends to buy my Turtle Talisman, I will not stop you ;) That would buy me a lot of cabochons! (ok, maybe not a lot, I have expensive tastes)

On a barely related tangential note, today was an awesome mail day. I received my two most recent Etsy purchases -- a pair of hairpins with clock face cabs, and a gorgeous steampunk bottle -- and a package from my friend and frequent blog commentor Marilee, who sent me some awesome sewing and beading supplies. Hooray for packages! (and for my nice mail lady, who brings them to the door, and who doesn't mind having two corgis charge at her every time)

Etsy Treasury!

Well, this will expire tomorrow night, but you should really check out my Etsy Treasury, The Green Faerie! I curated it yesterday. It's my first treasury ever, and I was really excited to snag it. It's a strange, almost exhilerating feeling, to get to show off a bunch of my favorite items and sellers. And of course, it's fun to pick out items that go well together.

I finished the embroidery for my dragon/wyvern piece. Now I need to dig through all of my beading books -- which are still boxed up -- and find directions on attaching pinbacks. Assuming I have any such finding. I used to have a bunch, but I think I got rid of them all, because I never make brooches. Curse my fickle muse! If I don't have any, I'll just have to hit the bead store this weekend, and in the meantime, I have a different project to work on, so it's OK.

But for now, my main project is cleaning house in anticipation of having the game here tonight. The beads will have to wait!

World: Not quite conquered yet

Looks like I didn't conquer the world today. Or even my house. It was too nice of a day to go out and conquer anything. Autumn has hit Tucson, and we're having lower temperatures (for us) and gentle breezes. The dogs love it, they always want to go outside and chase lizards.

That's right, I didn't blog all weekend, so you get dogs in the middle of the week! This is a picture from shortly after we got the girls. Daisy likes to sleep next to my desk like this, it puts her in the middle of things and makes sure she doesn't miss out on any petting, snacks, or opportunities to go outside. Maggie's more likely to sleep on the Giant Dog Chair. She favors comfort over being in the center of things. Of course, right now, neither one of them is sleeping. They're playing "Follow the kitty around and give him kisses." Poor Topher.

The dragon necklace is coming along well, though it may turn out to be a brooch instead of a necklace. And it won't be my EBW entry, as it's going to have a steampunk story to go with it. Alas, my ancestors were not steampunks. I don't think my great-grandfather the engineer counts, even though they were steam trains.

Zombie-B-Gone

After a mostly relaxing weekend, my zombie feelings are gone and I think that when I wake up tomorrow, I'll be ready to conquer the world! Or at least my house. The house could use a good conquering.

I've got a nice vintage dragon cab all glued down, and by tomorrow the glue should be all cured and no longer producing headache-inducing fumes, and I will get down to some serious beading. This may or may not end up being my entry for the Etsy BeadWeavers' November challenge, "Ancestral Expressions." Given my heavily (ie, 100%) European ancestry, a heraldic-looking dragon fits, but I'm not sure if it's what I want to do. I might honor the Welsh side of my heritage. For that matter, my great-grandma Chapman claimed that we were from the same branch of Chapmans as Johnny "Appleseed" Chapman, so I could do something like that*. My English roots would give me a good excuse to do something Victorian, and I always like an excuse to do that. I'll probably avoid Irish, as several other people are already discussing that. I could even be silly and do something Elven, since I joke about being an elf or a faerie, but I do have enough of that in my shop already. The French and German/Prussian sides of my family call up no immediate inspiration, though I do have lots of nice vintage German beads.

I have almost a month to decide, though, so we'll see what the muse says!

*Due to this admittedly probably apocryphal bit of family lore, I'm always amused when I hit the part in American Gods where Shadow meets John Chapman. One can't help but be amused when one's possible ancestor shows up in ones favorite novel.

Uuuuugh

I feel like a zombie. Uuuuuugh. Braaaaaaaainz.

"Safety Gear" isn't working out yet. I'm going to try a different technique, I think.

I got some new ultrasuede today, so I might do some more bead embroidery instead.

As soon as I stop feeling like one of the living dead.

Close-up

Here's a close-up of my turtle pendant. I'm really happy with the positive response so far. I didn't think he was that awesome, but sometimes we're our own worse critics.

I really want to do more embroidery pieces. I ordered some ultra suede earlier this week so I can back them. I have a few cabs to work with, too. I just want to buy a whole bunch more! I've got a few sellers favorited on Etsy, and I can't wait to go on a little shopping spree someday.

For tonight, I have a weird steampunk necklace idea to work on. It's been floating around in my head for a while, and I decided it was finally time to use it. I even have the perfect name for it... It's called "Safety Gear" and when you see it, you'll know why!

Turtle Soup Talisman!

I finished the Turtle Talisman and he is on Etsy! Just click on the link to see more pictures. I'm pretty happy with how he turned out, especially since I almost never do animal-themed jewelry. The greens are all very nice, the bead soup was fun to work with, and it's good to do fringe that isn't branchy every now and then.

Now, of course, I just have to figure out what to make next! I'm thinking of maybe bezeling around another rivoli, or possibly just doing some stringing for the next couple of days. I don't want to start a major project until I find out what the next Etsy BeadWeavers and Art Bead Scene challenges are. Besides, I have a lot of non-beady stuff that I'm supposed to be doing right now, too!

Mmmm.... tea

I'm in a bleh mood, I have a ton of work to do, and Chris is sick with a cold which I'll surely have within the next couple of days. But at least I have delicious tea. I bought some mojito flavored tea from this seller. I'm on my second gigantic mug of it tonight, which considering the fact that it's black tea, does not bode well for my ability to sleep tonight. Guess maybe I'll get more of that work done...

I don't think I'll quite finish my turtle necklace tonight, but it will definitely be done tomorrow, unless I wake up sick, which would suck because then I likely wouldn't complete it in time for the EBW challenge, which is the whole reason why I'm making it.

The above run-on sentence proves that I have had too much caffeine.

Oh, and a website update. We've purchased erthefae.net but Chris can't find my database to upload it. I've decided not to be annoyed, because at this rate, it's almost funny. It would be nice to have my site back in time for my 10 year anniversary of business, though.

And now, back to my turtle.

I love my Daisy dog!

And now, as promised, I talk about Daisy!

Daisy is a very, very enthusiastic dog. She loves to be pet and held. As soon as one of us sits down on the couch, she jumps up into our lap. Most of the time, she'll immediately roll over onto her back for belly rubs. She's content to spend an hour or more lying on her back like that. At times she's a little too enthusiastic. She'll sit on Maggie's head and slowly shove her out of the way to get attention. Luckily we have two people and two dogs, so there's always enough love to go around.

She's also much more eager to play fetch. Maggie will sometimes halfheartedly chase a disc or ball, whereas Daisy will charge across the yard for it. Sometimes she even brings it back. Of course, this game is quickly ended when Maggie attacks her and then they have to chase each other around the yard.

Of the two, she's much more obedient. She comes as soon as you call (even if you're calling the cat...) is quick to sit, and gets right in her crate, now that I've discovered the proper hand cue to show her that I mean it (pointing straight down at the crate I want her in). Maggie knows all of these commands, but like a cat, she obeys on her own terms.

Anyway, we're officially keeping their original names. I'm not thrilled with them, they're not the sort of names I would give a dog, but it just felt weird to change them after a few days of using them. The girls are happy with their names, which is important, although knowing them, they'd probably be happy with anything.

The next two days will be very busy for me. I have to do some BFAC photography, a lot of stuff for the e-zine I write for, and finish up my turtle necklace. Expect short blog posts!