Do I have some Treasuries for you!

It's been a while since I made a steampunk Treasury, so that's the theme that I decided to work with yesterday. Lots of great steamy items from my friends in FAETeam. I'm thrilled that RobinRed is now part of the team, because I've been admiring their masks for a while and now I can include them in my team Treasuries!

With the holidays coming (yikes!), gift guides are now a trending topic, so I decided to make a Gifts for the Bellydancer guide which in no way serves as a holiday wishlist (yeah right, I'm not kidding anyone).

Speaking of gift guides, Andrea included my Black Rose Gothic Necklace in her jaw-droppingly beautiful Treasury: For Your Favorite Gothic Beauty -- Gift Guide.

Not specifically a gift guide, but Lisa's Argh Matey is a great collection of pirate-themed items that would also make great gifts. I'm happy to have one of my steampunk escutcheon necklaces in there!

The Hungriest Pixie Ever -- Hunger Moon Art Dare

The Hungriest Pixie Ever is my entry for FAE Team's February Art Dare. Our theme choices were Snow Moon and Hunger Moon. If I'd had more time, I would have made entries for both themes, but the month flew by, so I only had a chance to make a Hunger Moon necklace. As soon as I saw that theme, I knew I had to use the pomegranate faerie that I'd been hoarding for years, and the little pomegranate charms that I'd purchased to match her.

The pomegranate faerie focal is of course from Green Girl Studios. If you're a regular reader of my blog, you already know that I love designing with their work, because it perfectly fits my sense of style and they're such a nice family. As such, I was pretty peeved when I heard that someone had ripped off many of their designs! For details on this nasty incident, visit Cynthia Thornton's blog. Thankfully it looks like they are making progress on stopping the offender, which is especially important since this person was copying the work of many artists. That's just not cool!

The little poms are also by a favorite artist of mine, Melanie from Earthenwood Studios. Because they work in similar themes (faeries and steampunk and nature), Green Girl and Earthenwood components go great together, and I'm always happy when I can design a piece that combines them (for another example, see Her Airship Sailed Through Time).

It's important to me to continue supporting the bead/component designers I love, especially when they're facing the double whammy of a poor economy and increased design-piracy. I haven't been buying as much as I used to, since I haven't been selling much, but recent events have served as a good reminder that I should be spending a bit more, and giving them a bit more love in my blog!

Closing on a lighter note, the inspiration for the name of this necklace came from my dog Daisy. During the first few months that we had our corgis, I noticed Daisy sitting on the couch, head down, ears back, giving me the big eyes because I was doing something other than petting or feeding her. I declared her "the saddest puppy ever." But because she does everything to the full extent she can, she has numerous "-est puppy ever" moments, whether it's hungry, barky, happy, or something even more ridiculous. I couldn't help but use the same naming convention for the subject of this necklace!

Yo ho ho and all that

I was going to load up the pirate lexicon page and write this whole post in pirate lingo, but then I realized that my enthusiasm for Talk Like A Pirate Day has really waned. I'm much more interested in Pretend To Be A Time Traveler Day. Maybe it's because pirates don't wear goggles (unless they're airship pirates!).

Regardless, it is somewhat fitting that I made a necklace with a skull today! Of course, he's more of a Dia de los Muertos skull than a pirate skull, but that's OK. This was a really fun necklace to work on. Most of the length is spiral tubular herringbone with black Japanese seed beads and green satin Czech (I think?) cut seed beads. Then it turns into four strung strands of those same beads, gathered at short intervals by vintage pressed glass flower beads... all topped off by a skull bead from Earthenwood Studios. Oh yes, and a green satin glass button with a floral design. Gotta have a cute button clasp on a Ndebele spiral.

I have to take more pictures tomorrow, and then I'll list him on Etsy. I sort of decided on a whim to take a bunch of BFAC photos today, so that pushed back my photography time for Mr. Skully-Man here. Now I just need to decide if I like these BFAC pictures.

Class and things.

Tuesday through Thursday is turning into a rough time for me! Chinese class itself is very easy right now; I already know all the words and grammar rules that we're learning, so it's just a matter of practicing how to say and write them properly. Honestly, I get pretty bored in class. But there's so much homework! I feel sorry for anyone who has made this class part of a full workload. The homework isn't even that difficult, it's just very time-consuming to write all those characters. As such, a good chunk of my daytime on Weds and Thurs is spent doing the homework that was assigned Tuesday night. It doesn't help that we have a game on Wednesday nights, which really can't be moved because everyone already planned their work and class schedules around it (yes, it's that good).

In other news, I had a lot of fun on Talk Like A Pirate Day. I indulged in a little pirate speak, and cobbled together a makeshift pirate costume, which of course involved a lot of jewelry. I really do enjoy any excuse to dress up in a costume. Was it just me, or was there less of a big deal made about Talk Like A Pirate Day this year than there was last year? Are most people pirated out after three Pirates of the Carribean movies? Is the trend slowly dying out? Are the ninjas winning?

On the bead front, I've only made one necklace this week. I got distracted by aforementioned homework, and working on my book. I think I'll spend some time in the beadroom this weekend, looking for new inspiration.