Farewell Medusa!

Well, I *said* I wasn't going to do any more shipping this month, but when a gentleman contacted me on Etsy asking if I could mail this necklace because it was the perfect Christmas present for his girlfriend, I couldn't say no! So off I went to the post office.

Both of my Medusa necklaces sold this year, which tells me that I had better get some more Medusa pendants from Green Girl in February, and maybe shop around for some other Medusa focals to add to my line.

And now, back to the present I was working on when I had to drop everything and rush off to USPS!

Daily Specials Return

I don't handle change very well, so the simple act of switching to a new computer completely threw off my usual routine. Now, more than 2 weeks later, Daily Specials are finally back! Face of the Gorgon is today's offering.

This week I hope to get my camera talking to my computer, and start getting new jewelry into the store for the holidays. Of course, that would require me to spend less time playing video games and more time beading. The beads have been feeling awfully neglected lately.

Medusa Rocks!

Face of the Gorgon is my second Medusa-themed necklace... Third if you count the one that I made for myself with this same focal. I just love Medusa!

I had some fun combining stones for this necklace. The nephrite jade echoes the shape of the pendant, whereas the lizardite has a snake-skin like appearance. I actually had the chance to purchase some beads that were made with real snake skin, but they felt really gross. I couldn't stand touching them. I don't know if the texture was really that bad, or if my natural aversion to snakes was kicking in.

The nephrite, lizardite, and eagle eye from yesterday's necklace all came from the Rings and Things show in May. They have another show coming up on November 1st, but I don't think I'll be attending it, since I'm hoping to go up to the Phoenix area on Friday the 30th for a Halloween party. Three trips to Phoenix in 4 days would just be too much.

I started at the gym

Medusa Turning to Stone is today's Daily Special. One thing that I love about Green Girl is that she made not one, but two different Medusa bead/pendant styles. This one, and a two-sided flat coin with Medusa's head on the front and a snake on the back. That other one is in a necklace I made for myself and wear all the time, in gorgeous olivine greens. Mmm.

As stated in the title, today I started attending Chris's gym. I guess that makes it my gym now, too. While at the gym, I learned that I suck at squats. I also did a lot of rowing. I also hung out with my friend Casey, who is my learning-to-workout partner, and who does not suck at squats. While I was trying to learn to keep my stupid heels flat while squatting, he was lifting big heavy weights from a squat. So in a way, it was actually good to suck, because I was a lot less tired at the end than he was. I'm going back on Thursday, to learn what else I suck at.

What Copyrite Isn't.

No, no, this isn't a post about whether or not you can copyright your jewelry designs. It's a post about the mysterious copyrite beads that I bought at the Rings and Things show last month, and am currently using to embellish my coin bra.

Wikipedia and Google gave me no answers, so I decided to ask Dave, the Rings and Things Twitter (and blog and website text and more) guy. He didn't know, so he asked around. No one knew. They could only narrow down what copyrite isn't.

It isn't copralite, aka, petrified dino dung. Dinosaurs were awesome, but they didn't poop out sparkly rocks.

It isn't cuprite, aka ruby copper, because that's far too brittle, and the wrong color.

It could possibly be chalcopyrite, but I'm not sure that's as black as these stones. It does seem like this stone might have pyrite of some sort in it, though, due to the gold flashes.
It doesn't really show in the photos, but the stone has a bit of chatoyancy and flashes of gold sparkle below the surface. It's a very unusual stone, perfectly suited for the fantasy designs I like to create. It seems like the sort of thing a dark wizard or an unseelie faerie would wear.

As Dave asked around at Rings & Things, he did discover that this bead came from some old stock, and was sold to them as Copyrite, but since they had no idea what that was, they put the question mark on the tag. Like most stone beads sold in the US, they were cut and shaped in China, and sometimes the language barrier results in stones labeled with unusual and/or incorrect names.

The next step in the ongoing investigation of this bead mystery is to mail a "copyrite" bead back to Rings and Things for the owner Russ (quite the stone connousieur, I'm told) to have a look at and offer his expert opinion. I'll be sure to blog about what he says!

Speaking of stones, today's Daily Special is Medusa Turning to Stone, which actually doesn't have any stone beads in it, but is awesome nonetheless.

Medusa Turning to Stone

Despite being afraid of snakes, I have a real fascination with Medusa and naga. I really love this three-dimensional Medusa head pendant, I've had it for years, and I finally decided to work it into a necklace. Of course, I chose Ndebele stitch, to mimic the slinky, scaly nature of her snake-hair. If you'd like to view the additional images on Etsy, please click here!

This was a fun piece to work on. The green section is Delicas in two-drop Ndebele in green iris Delicas. Very fluid. Then when it transitions to "stone" I've used matte grey Japanese seed beads in a single-drop Ndebele. Much stiffer and a little more nubbly, like an aged statue.

I'm not quite sure what I'll do next. Probably something inspired by the snake Loa Damballah for the Etsy Bead Weavers' "Animal Instinct" challenge. That's another one I've had planned for a while.

Street Fair and Studying.

It wasn't raining today, so we went to the Street Fair. It looked like a couple of vendors had packed it up and left after yesterday's bad weather, but most were still there. It was a cold, overcast day, but the walking kept it bearable until the end, when a chill wind started to blow.

I was sad to see that a few vendors who I like to shop with weren't there, but there were still a lot of nice things. I kept myself on a tight reign and only made a couple of purchases this time! I found someone selling stained glass bracelets for 3/$20, so Chris helped me pick out three really pretty ones. And I bought some simple blue-green niobium earrings. When I was a teen I found I could no longer wear earrings. Many people had recommended that I try niobium, so today I finally decided to. These earrings were pretty, but affordable enough that I wouldn't feel bad if I couldn't wear them, and the vendor had enough cool stuff to make me really want to wear earrings again! Anyway, I've been wearing these all afternoon and though it hurt at first, I can barely feel them now. Yay! Earrings, how I've missed thee!

My favorite thing that I saw, but did not buy (because it was $550!) was a painted woodblock image of a medusa's head. The snakes were all different colors, and layered and intertwined. It was seriously awesome. Although I'm afraid of snakes, I really love medusae and it can be hard to find good artistic interpretations of them.

Anyway, prior to popping on to blog I was busy studying for my Chinese final. I'm just worried that all of the words that I've forgotten will be on the test! Seriously, when am I going to need to say dorm?