Cleared my plate

Another one finished...

...and now I have absolutely no projects waiting to be finished, just in time for a four day weekend. :)

But I do have an idea to pass by my sister, the sew-er <---how do you put that!?!?
...surely not sewer...
And she's not a seamstress, she makes quilts, so obviously she's a quilter, but I don't want a quilt...well, I won't be selfish since she did just give me one...hmmm.
So many ideas, so much time...

Not so much new...

Done before, but in pink. Just a bracelet and necklace this time. I might rearrange to get a pair of earrings out of it later, but this package came with less beads than the blue...they were sold by weight.


Only for the brave at heart...these babies are five and a half inches long!!! I love how they tickle my shoulders, and I don't know if I can pull it off, but I'm gonna try. Then I'm going to put a few in my Etsy shop for Valentine's.


Ok, enough distractions for me, back to the red sandstone and black seed bead necklace...then bed...maybe.

To sell or not to sell...

Don't get me wrong, I loved making these bracelets, and making a profit off of them wasn't a priority when she ordered them, because I like her and she said they were for gifts...but I have a dilema now. The husband of the woman I sold them too, who is also a regular customer at my 'real job', stopped by and in a friendly, not so discrete, but not terribly overt, way suggested that I make them for him to sell. He kept saying how beautiful they were, and how his wife just loved them, and that he could really sell them. The thing is, I'd never made so many in such a short time and hadn't really broken it down to see how much it costs me to make the kind that she asked for. I have gemstone versions on my Etsy for $15 and $20, but these were glass, and I thought, not really worth that much. But honestly, I really feel a $6 profit isn't worth the hours and hours I spent on them...or the broken fingernails and bruised fingertips. How do I tell them that without feeling like I'm being greedy? And the biggest dilema of all...how do I let it go so I can feel creative again?

Work in progress

A finished peridot bracelet and a necklace to match. I'm partial to peridot, so I'm tempted to keep this one, but I think I'm going to try and sell it instead, just because I want someone else to love it as much as I do. Is that narcissistic? LOL

A crocheted bracelet in gold for my sister who loves her some yellow...I hope she reaaallly loves yellow, 'cause it's YELL-OW lol.

And this is the next piece in progress, well, one among a few honestly. I get an idea and I have to try it out, even if I'm not done with the last. The only thing that's changed since I was a kid is that now, I actually finish them. In fact, I get an itchy feeling deep down if I leave something for too long, kind of like that lightbulb-in-the-brain-new-idea-itch...only, gotta-know-if-it-really-worked-itch instead, lol.

Snow Day!!!

When I heard we were to get four to six inches of snow, I thought I'd take an old fashioned snow day. On my day off I thought I'd stay in, curl up with a sweater and the quilt my sister made me for Christmas. I'd work on a relaxing project and maybe listen to the radio or a good movie and sip on a homemade hot mocha.
Well, so far I've done some of that, skipped the mocha, but I had to make some hot enchilada soup after the two hour trek through said snowstorm :)

These kids kept yelling at me to take their picture, which I'd already done anyway. But then a photographer with a professional camera came out and indulged them...I got on the other side of his lens as fast as I could, he looked like the staff photographer from the local paper that got me walking to my mother's house one day a few summers ago...I ended up as a silhouette on the front page of the paper the next day. :(

When I was a kid they used to put up hay bales so that we could sled down the hills without ending up in this creek.

 I wasn't the only one who took the scenic route through the park. When I walked up to the barrier to the old 'indian trails" I expected undisturbed snow, and found lots footprints.

by the time I was done, I was thoroughly frozen and my jeans were solid slabs of ice. Funny that my shoes repelled the snow though. I love these boots for that, and the fact that they're comfy furry lined, but they do NOT keep my feet warm...they look stubby in this picture because I took the photo myself, so the original is really upside down, lol.

New Year, New Projects, New Enthusiasm

Well, that's my New Year's Resolution anyway. I'm going to be more energetic and enthusiastic about where I'm going with my art...and I'm going to call it art, not just "my hobbies" or "just one of those crafts I do". Everyone else sees what I do as art, and then I stammer through some reason why it's just a hobby really. But, art takes on all kinds of forms and entities. I think the real difference between a work of art and a hobby is how far you push the boundries of a craft.

If you just like to learn the basics, follow the rules, you've got yourself a hobby. And there's nothing wrong with that. Hobbies are great for stress and mental energy, everyone should have a hobby. I have several, and collect more every year. In fact, I intend to re-learn how to sew this year. Perhaps even make a few new dresses for myself. I was looking at a wrap dress the other day and thought: 'I can do that'. And so I shall.

 But most definately I'm going to push myself more with my jewlery, encorporate it with other things, branch out a bit. I love finding new ways to do old things, like the crochet wire. By the way, just finished my first order of the new year, and my first mass order ever.

Right now I'm stuck on beadweaving. The only pattern I know is a rope, but I'm already changing it up.

This one is a neclace woven with a double strand of nylon invisible thread and thousands of tiny silver lined clear glass seed beads.

I've made ten bracelets and a necklace so far, and now I'm working on another. Right now it's bracelet length, and I might leave it at that, I haven't decided.

I love how great the perdot worked with this, and the uneven size and shape of the raw chips just makes it look that much better...way better than I expected. I can't wait to finish this one. But I'm gonna, think I'll go to bed before 4AM today, lol.

Goodnite world!!