My brother rocks!

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I come from a family of makers. Off the top of my head, here's a run down of what we do:

Mom -- Cooking, baking, sewing, cross stitch, polymer clay, painting, making teddy bears.
Dad -- Building, drawing, painting, polymer clay, once he put together a plastic model of a skull and reconstructed a human face over the top of it.
Me -- Beading, polymer clay, dance costuming.

(This is not even counting dance, music, and other arts that don't result in a physical object)

Until recently, all I would have said about my brother is that he was good at welding, in fact, he does it for a living. But then he decided to take up leatherwork, and wow! He's taken right to it. He made that belt I'm wearing! There's some more bottles around the front, and the pouch and absinthe bottle are both removable. It rests perfectly on my hips, or can be worn around the waist if the costume demands it. The leather edges are perfectly smooth, the dye is even, it's totally 100% professional looking. I'm so proud of my little brother!

This is the part where I shamelessly plug his shop, Zolgar's Forge on Etsy. He has a lot of steampunk and Gothic designs, and a little bondage gear among other things. He also does custom work. So, y'know, if you're looking for something made of leather, check him out. He's awesome!

My family rocks!

Let's take a little break from talking about business to talk about how much fun last night's holiday gathering with my family was! It will also serve as an explanation as to why I won't be posting any new jewelry today. You see, my brother Joe and his girlfriend Michelle challenged us to a gift wrapping challenge. We lost mightily because I waited too long to start, but I did get props for hiding their present (a Groupon for an event they wanted to attend) inside last year's pocket calender, which had all the pockets stapled shut and decoy papers in most pockets. The calender was in turn covered in tape, wrapped, put inside a laptop box over-stuffed with bubblewrap, which was in turn wrapped twice.

But Joe and Michelle brought in a box larger than my washing machine, which had layers of boxes inside, including one in paper mache made of the paper leftover from her family's Christmas. And inside that, the best thing ever... a box wrapped in candy. Michelle did this for Joe last year. It was the first time we met her and needless to say, it made a great impression! We were very happy to be this year's recipient of the candy box :) It has sweet, fruity candy for Chris and chocolate for me, yay! Inside was about 7 more layers of wrapping (including two of tinfoil), and inside that, individually wrapped presents to make for the perfect game night -- a fun nerdy game, ginger beer and rum to make Dark and Stormies, hot chocolate and homemade marshmallows from Michelle's family's chocolate shop, caramel corn, and so much more!

What does this have to do with listing items? Well, all of those treats and the paper they're wrapped up in are covering the dining room table where I do all of my photography! Today is going to be mainly dedicated to cleaning up the post-holiday mess, although I will also work on making some jewelry, too.

In other news, my Mom is awesome. You might think that the above mask is leather, but no, Mom made it from polymer clay! It's the perfect blend of black with some iridescent green-gold clay in it, echoing the shimmer of raven feathers. It's so gorgeous! I'm already thinking of all the occasions I could wear it for -- a Gothic bellydance performance, masquerade at Wild Wild West Con (and any other conventions with masquerades), handing out candy on Halloween, etc etc. I really love masks and this one is extra special because it was handmade with love by my mother.

There were a lot of other cool handmade gifts. My brother has really gotten into leatherwork, so Dad and Chris both got awesome belts with lots of accessories for their steampunk costumes. Mom made Dad a sporran to go with his Utilikilts, and Michelle a black and red kitty hoodie. Michelle assembled and painted a Warhammer miniature for Joe (he was really touched, which made me exclaim "Nerd love!" I have joke immunity, after all, I was excited about the Goblins of the Labyrinth book that Chris gave me). And there was so much more! So many of this year's presents game from artists and crafters, whether made by one of us or purchased at Etsy or local conventions. I love how dedicated my family is to supporting artists!

Back from vacation

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

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

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

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

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

Fun and Sun at Ren Faire!

Here's a picture of me with my awesome mother-in-law Marlyn at the Renaissance Faire! I'm a woodlands belly dancer and she's a mischievous imp -- the horns and ears are from the NY Faire, but the awesome wings were purchased yesterday at our Faire. The skirt and belt are from my closet, we're close enough in size that I was able to help her with an impromptu costume. However, while we were there she picked up a couple of skirts, so she'll have her own costume when we return to the NY Faire in August!

This was my first time doing Tribal buns. I put my hair up in two little buns, wrapped the yarn falls around them once, clipped them into place with little barrettes and then added all of the flowers and sticks I could. I really love this new pair of falls, they're perfectly earthy and have more texture than my green and black pair. I could see myself getting addicted to wearing my hair this way. I just have to remember to sunscreen my scalp...

Yes, as usual I got a little too much sun with my fun! But it was worth it. Mediaeval Baebes were back again, this weekend only! We saw their show, two belly dance/world music troupes, and the falconry show, in between all our shopping. What a great time! The weather was perfect, the performers were all at top form, and the booths were well-stocked with beautiful goodies. And I even got my first henna tattoo! Yay!

Fun day at the gem show

Today we took Chris's Mom to her first Tucson gem show. We chose the Tucson Electric Park show, which is half gem show, half swap meet, and all fun. Good times were had by all, and I picked up some pretty Czech seed beads to add some different colors and finishes to my embroidery, plus a pretty opalized flourite cab, and some totally non-bead-related goodies.

The show has grown tremendously since I stopped going a few years ago. While there used to be just a few small stalls behind the main tent, there were now rows and rows of them, a decent-sized food court, and a whole lot more medium-sized annex tents. We spent most of the day outside exploring those, and I feel I may have gotten a bit too much sun! But it was a great time.

A whirlwind of activity.

Well, this has been a crazy month. After gem show, I had less than a week until my in-laws were due to arrive, and the guest room was still cluttered with packed boxes from the move and BFAC items. Plus I had a scary doctor's appointment during that time (which thankfully resulted in non-scary news). So there were several days of cleaning and reorganizing and generally being too busy and tired to be on the computer.

That was followed by three jam-packed days with the in-laws. We went to the Renaissance Faire, where we got to see Mediaeval Baebes (one of my favorite bands), who were giving live performances for two weekends and President's Day only. It was nothing short of awesome. While at the Faire, I got two halter tops and veils for dancing (one set in saturated teal, one in green), and I got Chris a flute-staff. It's a bamboo staff, with a flute built in. Plus my in-laws bought us a really cool carved wooden dragon with hooks for hanging things, which will go up in the guest room. And of course, we got chocolate, because we always get chocolate for the road.

There was lots of shopping, eating, and talking during the visit, and it was really just a nice time. The corgis hit it off very well with my in-laws, and didn't even bark at them much like they sometimes do with guests. On Wednesday, we all went down to the dog park for the first time, where Maggie made friends with all the other dogs and we met a fellow corgi owner.

Since then, I've just been trying to recover and get things ready for the BFAC 2009 auctions, while at the same time receiving my BFAC 2010 kit. More about that next month, I'm still sworn to secrecy!

Anyway, I'm going to resume regular blogging now, and hopefully I won't have another prolonged silence like this.