Falcon Crest

I am on a roll!  I have posted one more set tonight.  Drumroll please...  I present: 

The Falcon Crest!

Two exciting things to note about this set:

1.  It involves gold.  I have noticed that I tend to lean towards silver or copper, just due to personal preference (gold tends to get lost on my skin color).  But, I have been trying to break out of the confines of such limitations...  and so, here is something black and gold.  Yay!

2.  I bought almost all of the materials for this set when I was visiting my parents this past Christmas.  (Yes, it's been awhile.)  Looking at the different pieces reminds me of the good times that I had while spending time with them.  I can be sentimental at times, perhaps, but I don't think there is anything wrong with remembering happy times.*


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* Almost everything that I own tells a story--where I was, who I was with, what I was feeling.  Looking at things, holding them in my hand, is like reading my past or remembering a story.  I think that is partially why I have set up my store the way that I have, with every item telling its own story.  (Of course, it is also due to the fact that I love telling stories, and have so many that I am full to brimming.)

Three Rogues

This has been a long time coming.


Today, I posted on my store a set of hairsticks that I made more than two years ago.  I made them for myself, but I have never worn them.  I present: the Three Rogues.

Oooooo, and a closeup:

Have I mentioned that I love taking pictures in the morning, when the light is just so?  *contented sigh*


Anyway, the design is one of the first ones that I ever came up with; I am still pleased with it.  I remember feeling so clever when I made sticks using all of the possible color combinations (yes, I was new to making hairsticks, but I was still enthusiastic).  


I also remember that I had a lot of trouble learning the properties of the glue I was using...  I had never used something before that bonded so quickly.  This happened to me more than once:

Yes, that is one of the dice beads stuck to my finger.  *grumble grumble*  It's a rather blurry picture, but I think it still does a good job conveying what happened.  My husband still hasn't let me live that down...  He always tells me that I have to be perfectly awake when I glue my hairsticks, or I will end up with my fingers glued to my forehead.  (And he's probably right...)


So!  This is a special pair of hairsticks.  I am pleased to be able to post them (to match the earrings and necklace I already had listed)...  I would much rather they be put to use and loved by someone else, then sitting lonely in my hairstick box.

Taking pictures

I have been delighted to find that, between the hours of 9:00 and 11:00 in the morning, the light from the window falls directly onto my desk.  Since I am still looking for employment (other than my Etsy store), I am often sitting at my desk during this time, whether writing or job searching or working on my store.  And now, I can't help it...  I'm also taking pictures.

Here is what the window looks like in the morning:

Yes, there is a lilac bush right outside of our window...  It is very close to the house, and a family of cardinals were nesting in it earlier this summer.  (I took lots of pictures and snippet videos of mama cardinal feeding the babies in the nest.)  Here is another look:

And here is what it does to the desk, which is to the right of the window:

It did not take long for me to start playing around with what that light does to objects... especially shimmery shiny objects:

Those are actually the Silmarils that I recently posted on my store--the ones that I made for the store, and the ones that I made to keep.  Thus encouraged, I am now trying to utilize this wonderful natural light to take more dynamic pictures of the items I'm posting onto my store.

Three examples:

Mist Berries, posted today

Sun Drops, also posted today

As-of-yet unnamed hairstick, not yet posted

Overall, I am very please with the outcome.  While I am not a trained photographer, I have always enjoyed playing with the medium...  It is nice to have an outlet for my photographic dabbling.

A long evening...

I spent most of this evening hefting 5 gallon buckets filled with water and crud, as we attempted to clean out and patch up our leaking cistern.  


It's a long story. 


Anyway, I was very excited that I had enough brain power to post something tonight (even if I don't have enough brain power to describe just why we were cleaning out our cistern).  Ta-da!  Here is the lovely little pair of earrings that I call Summer Butterflies.

Here is the story:


In the coastal town of Dewpointe, there are many indications that summer is drawing to a close. The days start getting shorter, the breeze off of the ocean starts getting cooler... and the gardens become filled with small yellow butterflies. These yellow butterflies, called the Summer Butterflies, are hardly bigger than a person’s thumbnail. They skirt through Dewpointe on their way south, filling the air with wonder as they fly through.

The small yellow butterflies featured on these earrings are just as diminutive as these Summer Butterflies; with the deep blue bead reminiscent of the sky, they are ideal for the long last days of summer. 


This story was inspired by the grand migrations of the Monarch butterflies (if you don't know about them, look it up!  It's pretty spectacular).  I just got a lovely image of a large number of little yellow butterflies flittering and floating through the air.  Well, perhaps I'm just tired, but I thought it was pretty.


So, anyway, that is my accomplishment for the evening.  I think it is now time to rest.

Shining Silmarils

For the past month or two, I've been working on making lovely shimmery pendants using glass cabochons.  While I have been very excited about them, I have been a bit hesitant to post them on my store.  Why?  Simply because (as per usual) I didn't know what story to associate with them.  


The story that I finally decided on was, in fact, my mother's idea.  While we were on vacation two weeks ago, I showed her what I was creating.  She called them Silmarils (as in, the Simarillion by Tolkien--which I have read).


And, so, it stuck.


So, today I posted three lovely new items, two necklaces and one ring:

I am very content--especially with how the pictures turned out.  The pendants themselves shimmer and shift in the light...  for instance, the last one--the dark blue one--sometimes seems more purple than blue.  It's gorgeous.

I am very happy to share.

Guess what this means....

That's right!  I'm unpacking my beads!  *does a happy dance of much happiness*


I still have some work to do organizing them...  BUT, at long last, all of the boxes are up from the basement.  All of my beads are in the same place, an accessible place: a little nook in our bedroom, nestled between my desk and my husband's computer area.


*long happy sigh*


It is nice to have my creative area back.

Quilts!

Well, not real quilts--although I have always found them to be quite beautiful.  Especially crazy quilts, with intricate embroidery worked in amongst the different textures and colors.  Well done crazy quilts are a veritable feast for the senses (especially those made with velvet).  I have started many such quilts, but do not seem to have the focus to actually finish one.


So I suppose, instead, I should have titled this entry: Wow!  Quilt-inspired pretties that aren't actually quilts, but are still somewhat similar!  That is a bit verbose, though, so hopefully Quilts! should suffice.


Anyway, first up: my skirt reconstruction.  


Recently, I noticed that one of my absolute favorite skirts was starting to die.  The fabric has become so thin in places that it's just wearing through...  not to mention the numerous stains from, er, lots of love.  So, inspired by crazy quilts, I decided to patch it up.


It all started like this...

And then I started adding other patches.  Some were for aesthetic purposes, others to reinforce particularly weak parts in the fabric.  After a week of occasional stitching (mostly while watching my husband play video games), it turned out like this:

That should have been enough.  A few patches, and I could start wearing my favorite skirt again.  But nooooooo.  While poking around in a fabric store, I found these:

Mwahahahahaha!  Granted, I know two embroidery stitches.  Three, if you count cross-stitch.  But, I decided not to let that deter me.  While on vacation with my husband and my parents, I started using the backstitch to doodle some squiggles on the skirt:

And:

And:

I am still not done.  Honestly, I don't know when I'm going to just leave it well alone.  My last time at the fabric store, I picked up more colors of floss (they were only $0.20!--a beautiful price for anyone on a budget).  I am enjoying it a great deal...  drinking tea and embroidering while watching my husband play StarCraft II or something on the Xbox.


One last picture of the whole process, just because I like it...

So, that was the first quilt-oriented thing I've been working on.  The second is a set of pretties that I just posted on my store.  I made the set awhile ago--before our move in June, actually.  I simply hadn't posted it yet, because I didn't know what to call it.


And then, tonight, while looking at the skirt I've been working on, I had the inspiration I needed: the name Patch-Quilt Queen.  While trying to come up with the story to go with it, I didn't want it to be something where patch-quilt had a bad connotation, almost akin to Cinderella's rags.  Like quilts themselves, I wanted the story to reflect a proud heritage.  The story that I finally decided on, I think, reflects that.


And so, I proudly present the hairsticks:

And the necklace:

Not crazy quilts in and of themselves, but a patchwork of different colors all brought together to make something beautiful....  just like the quilts they are named after.

Posted! - A Tribute to Indiana Jones

I love Indiana Jones.


There, I admitted it.  Even though my anthropology training has me cringe slightly every time he blows up an important archaeological find (like when, in Last Crusade, he uses the arm of a Crusader's skeleton as a torch), I can't help it.  He is dashing, he is fallible, he has a wonderful collection of books that I would love to read...  and, come on, he's Harrison Ford.  What's not to love?


So, to honor my affection for the whip-slinging lover of antiquities, I made a set of archaeology-inspired lovelies.  Something about the swirling patterns on the Crazy Horse Jasper and the antiqued look of the porcelain, just makes me think of something that Indy might have found on his many adventures.


Here is the necklace:

Here are the earrings:

Here is the hairstick:

All three things are for sale at my store...  shameless self-promotion, perhaps, but more just excitement to share.  It took me awhile to come up with pieces that I was really happy with, and I am quite pleased with these.


...

And, just to clarify, I didn't get a BA in anthropology (with archaeology field and lab training) because of Indiana Jones.  I didn't actually see the Indy films until I had already made that decision.  

No, that honor goes to a young Ben Affleck, who in the PBS special The Second Voyage of the Mimi taught me all about the amazing culture of the Mayans.  I wasn't even 10 yet, and I was fascinated.  That fascination hasn't left me, either...  I went on and got an award for a report I did on the Mayans in the 7th grade, and just this past Christmas, I was given a Mayan hieroglyphic dictionary (which I sat and read for two hours on Christmas day).

So, thank you to Ben Affleck and my parents for showing me the wonders of past cultures.  And, for those who are interested in a brief overview of The Second Voyage of the Mimi, go to the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Voyage_of_the_Mimi.

And, now, I go to read.  (No high literature for me tonight...  I'm working my way through the wonderfully ridiculous Indiana Jones novels, and I'm up to Indiana Jones and the Sky Pirates).

I will leave you with one of my favorite exchanges from the Indy films:

"It belongs in a museum!"

"...So do you!"