Wire pieces from today

Again, I'm trying to do at least a few pieces every day for the new display I'm putting up over at Tempe Yarn and Fiber next week. Today I felt like doing some fancier stuff, so I did.

Earlier this morning, I focused more on some knitting. I finished a sock and started the second one. Finally, later this afternoon, I did these three pieces. Two pairs of fun earrings and a cool bangle. Materials: sterling and fine silver, black onyx, moonstone, AAA grade Chinese crystal.


I asked my honey to bring a flashlight over and see if it would help get better pictures. I think the spotlight look is actually pretty cool, especially for these pieces with the crystals. It makes it look very Hollywood premier.




Anyway, these pieces are going to get antiqued. I'm on an antiquing kick. Once they're antiqued (with the pieces from yesterday), I'll post those pics, too.

Adding more hours to the day

It stands to reason that if I don't have enough time, I should add more hours to my day. So I got up around 5:30. I made 32 pumpkin muffins (from the best pumpkin bread recipe ever... coincidentally, this recipe also makes the best pumpkin muffins ever). Got Thad his breakfast, made his awesome lunch (deli turkey sandwich on sourdough, Cheeto puffs, organic apple, and coke zero) and got him out of the door, managing to pray a blessing over him and everything.

I also managed to make some jewelry this morning and here I am to show off some of my stuff before I get started on the rest of my day!

First of all, here's my latest handspun yarn. It's about 336 yards or so of a fingering weight yarn, peacock colored wool plied with yellow and purple silk. My friend, Barbara (the same lovely Barbara who is letting me borrow one of her spinning wheels as I'm paying off the one I have on layaway now), dyed the silk. They were spun from silk hankies, or mawata, and it was really fun to do them. I really love the fact that this isn't just handspun, it's got some hand dyed stuff in there, too. Makes it even cooler. I'm calling this one my Cleopatra VII yarn.


Here are the earrings I made yesterday. I got stuck on these citrine beads and decided to just go with it. I couldn't decide which of these pictures I liked better, so I'm posting them both. I like the arrangement in the top better, but I prefer the background of the other one.



Production mode desk looks like this:


This is before I clean it all off and pull out my torch for stitch markers. I think I'll do that later today. I may clean everything off and pull out my clay stuff, though, for shawl pins. I just can't decide. We'll see how the day shapes up!

And here are the pieces I made so far today: four pairs of earrings and two pendants. I tend to really love certain beads at certain times and I always used to force myself not to use them (how DUMB) because I didn't want all of my stuff to look the same. But this time around, I have finally realized that if I get "stuck" on certain beads one day, I will most likely find new favorites on another day and eventually, in the big mix of time, I'll end up with several varied pieces. So, holy DUH. Today I was all focused on these absolutely lovely prehnite beads I've had for pretty much forever. I wanted to use all of the rest of them, but their holes are so tiny that to use up my remaining four beads, I need to get some 28 gauge sterling wire! Crazyness. So I pulled out my citrine again and had fun, and did a bit with crystals.


I used to always be so paranoid, too, about the cost of the final item as I made things, and I would make decisions in my pieces, trying to make them cheaper so that people would be more likely to buy them. I've decided to stop that, too. Forget stupid Target and Walmart and all the crap they sell for $3. Anyone who can't already tell the difference between my stuff and that stuff wouldn't care about the difference anyway.

So, yeah... It's been fun! I'm enjoying just doing what I want creatively without worrying about whether anyone will buy it or not. If I can't sell any of it, then I've got a huge, AWESOME stash of gifts now or I have a whole bunch of awesome jewelry that I can wear. Woohoo!

Who has time to freaking blog right now?!

So over the last week, the world has come together and then fallen apart again. For 6 solid days, my precious Elliott slept through his nap without wetting his bed (in underwear!). Yesterday and today? Ugh.

Add to that extra crafting for gifts. I literally started making stuff in JANUARY. How this has happened to me again, I don't know. But I am having fun pulling all the stuff out of the gift pile that I've been building all year. If I actually sat down with a list, I probably don't have as much to make as I think I do, but I still freak out a bit. It feels like it's some badge of honor at this time of year to be kind of (read: totally) frazzled. I need to get over it.

Add to that making stuff for my show in December at TYF, and the new display I'm setting up as of next week and I'm just sort of beyond myself.

Oh, yeah. And my family. And my house.

I guess blogging will keep me sane. I'll post pics of all the earrings I made today for my display. If anyone wants some super high quality gifts for Christmas, you know where to go get them. Nordstrom. No, but really. My stuff is really cool.

More cards!

Here's a bit of updating from September's pictures: (My new Christmas cards are at the end.)



I LOVE the birthday card above... I had so much fun with stamping and layering. I made the little piece behind the flower using a few flourish stamps which I stamped in different directions to form the shape. I also stamped it with a graph patterned stamp I have, and before I did any of that, I had started with a plain white sheet and aged it with some Antique Linen distress ink. I love making cool stuff with my stamps.


I loved this card, too. I love the mindscape stamps by Inkadinkado. If you look closely at the humming bird, you can pick out several pictures, mainly butterflies, that make the whole. Do you see the one in the wing? That one's easy. How about the one on the face? Cool, huh?

And HERE are my new Christmas cards. I just made these a couple of nights ago. The one on top here is continuing my theme of stamping stuff. I started with plain cream paper and stamped these gorgeous images for top and bottom to create the patterned paper look. All of the red stamped images are from Stampin' Up!: Tiny Tags, Artistic Etchings, and Day of Gratitude. Over the tops of these papers, to add some extra interest, I stamped another pattern with Antique Linen colored Distress Ink--music notes on top and my graph stamp on the bottom. Most patterned papers, if you look at them, have several layers of images. You can create the look yourself by adding a bit extra like this. ^_^



I love this one, too. I cut the red piece from an old patterned paper scrap I had on hand that I couldn't throw away because it was too pretty. The paper was stamped with the Joyeux Noel first, then I covered it with another paper and stamped the rest of the sheet with the pretty french script stamp from Stampin' Up!. The Joyeux Noel and the cool tree from the other card are both from the Mistletoe & Co. stamp set by Pink Paislee.

I also really loved the fun sequin addition I did to the bottom card. It's SO easy. I love sequins, first of all, because they're super cheap and you can really load up on colors without breaking the bank. I used to glue them one at a time all of the time (like on the first Christmas card, come to think of it), but in the last month or so, I've started stringing them in a lump and tying them to things. Once everything is set, you can play with spreading them out a bit and making them look cool. They're very garland like, aren't they? I thought they worked for Christmas. But I'm putting them all over my scrapbook pages right now, too.

Okay, that's it for now. Gotta go do some laundry. I'm also probably sewing some napkins today, finally. I'm redoing my table in fall colors, so I've got some nice burnt orange cloth from JoAnn that I'll make into napkins with instructions I got from the Martha Stewart Encyclopedia of Fabric and Crafts. I love Martha Stewart and I'm not afraid to admit it. She is one incredible woman. She had a vision and she really went for it and she achieved it. What a success story! I think those of us who are really young don't even realize that the world used to not have all of this information out there, and she is really one of the pioneers that started this entire sharing of information thing, not only in household stuff, but in crafty stuff, too. And it's just awesome! I'm really glad I live in this time! And in America. But that goes without saying. And I said I was doing laundry, but I kept typing instead... so now I'm actually going to go do laundry. ^_~

Catching up, Cards, & New Clay Shawl Pins

First of all, I have to share this with everyone:


We let this verse sit unfinished on our wall for probably two months or so and we finally finished putting it up last night! Yay! I used my Cricut to cut the letters out of a slightly textured black contact paper I picked up at Home Depot. This is NOT vinyl. Sheesh. I'd go broke if I tried decorating my house with vinyl. Anyway, when I bought it, it was about $6 for a roll of 18" wide contact paper that was several yards long. It does, as I said, have a slight texture, but it's seriously no big deal. You can't tell from far away. I cut it with the contact paper side down, with the sticker part sticking up (leaving the sticky backing on it, of course). So if I'm cutting any words, I reverse them so that when I pick the letters (which are face down) off of the mat, they come up facing the right way.


Here are the new shawl pins I just took down to Tempe Yarn and Fiber. The flower ones can double as pendants. The flowers and the little Japanese style one have sterling silver loops in the back for the knitting needles to slip through and they're only appropriate for lacier weight scarves and shawls. The flowers can also double as pendants because of the way I placed the loops. Oh, and the little Japanese girl is already gone. She got purchased the first day they put them out. I need to make more! ^_^


Isn't she CUTE!? I had so much fun with her. She was about 1.5" tall, maybe shorter. I just loved doing the details on her little face. You can't see from the picture, really, but her lips were totally textured and shaped like little lips, and I brushed a hint of pink PearlEx on her cheeks to give her a slight blush. I coated her (and all of the other shawl pins) in a satin finish clear coating to give them just a tiny bit of shine, but not too much. I like the satin finish because it doesn't make them look all plastic. At least in person.


Here's a closeup shot of one of the flowers. I made a base petal shaped Ikat cane out of blue pearl and white which I proceeded to slice. I dyed the slices with alcohol inks before arranging them into flowers. I think they're so cute! Especially this one, with its little clay button center. The others have Swarovski crystals in the middle.

And now for some cards...


Above is a thank you card I made with a coffee theme. The inside, of course, says "Thanks a latte", which was SO cute when I first saw it, but now every single coffee themed stamp set seems to have a stamp that says that. I mean, it's still cute. I feel a little dorky using it now, though, like I always feel dorky doing anything I feel that a lot of other people do. I need to get over it. Most people haven't seen it yet. (This one got sent to my Aunt and Uncle, thanking them for a cool birthday gift!)


Another fun layered card.... I sent this one to my Uncle and Aunt, thanking them for their cool birthday gift.


And here's another thank you card... I forget where the idea came from. Some magazine. I LOVED the idea, though. It is such a cool, fun use of scrap papers! Especially my oh-so-precious BasicGrey scrap papers. A moment of silence for the glories of BasicGrey, if you please. Okay. That's enough. It's not like I'm super weird or anything. I just love BasicGrey above all other paper companies. It all started with Marrakech. I won't get into it. This card got sent to my mother in law for the awesome birthday gift she gave me. (I just had a birthday, if you couldn't tell, so I sent a lot of cards which I naturally had to photograph before I sent them.)


Naturally, with Christmas quickly approaching, I'm making Christmas cards now!!!! (I don't usually do Hanukkah cards even though we celebrate it, Messianic style, because I don't know anyone else who celebrates it. So who am I going to send cards to?) I loved this card so much because I used a little piece cut from a Scattergories game that we recently played where Elliott obviously got a hold of a pencil and scribbled on one of the pads. I just thought it was the cutest, so rather than using some random piece of paper, I used that one, and so this card is definitely going to one of the grandmas this year.


And here's the last card for now. Very fun! I stamped the kraft background paper with watermark ink to create this look which I totally scraplifted from a paper that Stampin' Up! sells. I don't think it's wrong. I mean, the paper uses these stamp images, which I bought, so I made it.

I was looking through September and I still have so many more pictures to post. I've really got to catch up. I'll do that later. I can't believe I haven't posted pics yet of my new craft space! It's so lovely! I'm really excited about it!

Until I post again... many blessings on you and yours. You're fabulous. Go make cool stuff.

Covered tins and homemade ribbon storage

Recently, we got an awesome new (to us) couch from our friends. It's HUGE and we had to rearrange our entire living room to fit it in, including moving my craft space from in front of a window on one of our walls to a corner of our living room. I am thrilled beyond thrilled to have a wall in front of my desk now so that I can eventually do some storage hung on the wall. The plan is to eventually put a shelf in and add a florescent light underneath so that I can get rid of the big light above my desk.

Anyway, anyway... I was at JoAnn and got these tins on clearance, then covered them with some paper. They've become my embroidery floss/chalk storage. I love them so much! I sanded the tops of the tins, then cut a 6.75" circle (the tins are about 7 inches across) out of kraft cardstock for each, then a 6.5" circle of this really cool patterned paper... I decorated/aged the papers and attached them with Mod Podge decoupage glue.



The circle plastic canvas thing is NOT for doing plastic canvas. *shudder* It's for marking circles and curves for my stitching. I forget which brilliant friend introduced this idea to me. But I love it and it works really, really well for evenly marking dots to poke and stitch in your papers.

NOW. On to my ribbon storage. It's not fancy, but it's functional and cool. I had gotten these wooden pieces at Hobby Lobby for making spindles, and I've successfully made a spindle that I love very much, but you know, when you buy these wooden pieces, you get many pieces in a package and I was starting to wonder what I was going to do with it all. Then I decided to undo my former ribbon storage and make a ribbon tower.


This is a 12" long 1/4" diameter wooden dowel. with a toy wheel and a knob that both have 1/4" openings. The packages say right on them what size opening they have, so you can make sure you get the same stuff.


Basically, just put some glue inside the wheel and stick the dowel in so that the bottom of the dowel is flush with the flat side of the wheel, as shown in the picture below. Set it on your desk so that it all evens out. Slip your ribbons on. This setup holds 18 ribbons with spools about the size that you can see in my pictures. I leave the knob unglued so that I can pull it off later to change out the ribbons. This setup actually stands up very well, even though it doesn't look like it would. I haven't had it fall over at all.


Secure ribbon ends with small pieces of tape so that they don't fly everywhere. I was originally thinking that the ends hanging down looked cool, but they soon got way too long and really tangled and that was not a fun mess.


So here's a general photo of the space now. I'll post more pics once I get my shelf. I recently got a new three drawer tower from Walmart, too, and I haven't labeled it yet. Oddly enough, this is pretty much what this space always looks like. I always keep it clean. I make stuff, then put it all away. To me, I just love the freedom of being able to sit whenever the impulse hits me and make whatever I want. I do scrapbooking, jewelry making, polymer clay, and other general crafting at this desk. So it's a multi-use station. It's not as pretty as the craft spaces in the magazines, but I love it.

New pieces and fun stuff!

Okay, I've got some new stuff. Yay! Here are my semi-famous lotus pendants. People love these. I put a tutorial on claylessons.com for how to make them.


Here are my latest pieces posted to Etsy. I've gotten obsessed just a bit with crosses. I have to say, too, that I've had some pretty severe carpal tunnel type pains developing in my right hand and arm, so all kinds of things are becoming too painful to do in various crafts, including sanding and buffing. I allowed myself to sink into the depths of despair a la Anne of Green Gables, but then decided to just explore and perfect techniques that actually shouldn't be sanded when completed. These pendants are a result of that. I'm adding beads, crystals, and accenting with PearlEx before baking. They're a different kind of work, but they're still a lot of work. And I've been strengthening the use of my left hand, too. A lot of these pendants were worked with my left hand, doing texturing and cutting and whatnot. It's annoying, I suppose, but also kind of fun. I feel like I'm really exercising my brain now.






So there they are! I'm really quite proud. Oh, and I have a new camera. So I can take awesome pics now. Aren't they pretty!?

It's been forever, I know, but I have pretties!

Okay, so I've been off the radar for a bit. Basically, I had a really successful show at TYF and then I rested. Because I was a silver fusing maniac for about 2 weeks and it was just time to take a break from everything.

I've been really embracing fiber arts lately. Specifically spinning. There's something so cool about it, and it's really neat to be able to sit on the couch with my wheel in front of me while we all hang out, playing games (they move my pieces for me), watching TV, etc. I don't have to be off by myself at my craft desk and that's awesome.

Anyway, my friend just got here, so here's the rest of my blog post in super summary mode. ^_~

Spun skeins of yarn soaking before dyeing with Kool-Aid:


Dyed skein with Kool-Aid:


Original skeins, both about 100 yards of fingering weight, Navajo plied, spun (by me!) from merino wool. These skeins were named "Sand" and "Blue Sky".



Skeins after dyeing with the Kool-aid. Now they're named "Aurora" (from the Blue Sky skein) and "Sedona" (from the Sand skein).


Latest handspun: 220 yards of fingering weight in a 70/30 merino wool/silk blend. I'm calling this one "Aloe".


So there it is! That's what I've been doing. I need to go now! ^_^

Another post, same day, but it's cool

It occurred to me that I never have shown spinning stuff on here before. So, just for a fun aside, here is the current spinning I'm working on with the wheel I'm borrowing from a friend at Tempe Yarn and Fiber:


It's a beautiful 70/30 merino wool/silk blend that is just a dream to spin. I'm having SO much fun with it. I can't wait until I see whatever yarn I eventually make with this.


And above is the spindle I made tonight. My hubby and I walked through Hobby Lobby for quite a while tonight. It was therapy for my day. ^_~ I just have to say again how much I love him. Sweet man got me ice cream AND walked around in Hobby Lobby with me tonight. He made the hook for the spindle. I designed it using the basic toy wheel setup, but I think I made it just a bit more sophisticated. It spins very well and I spun a tiny bit of merino wool on it just to test it out and plied it up, then tied it as the cord for this big fine silver ring I made that I'm not turning into anything for my show. It's just a fun, completely simple rustic piece. And it feels cool that I spun the cord for it. I think I might start doing that for a lot of my pieces. It's super fun.

I've got 6 more pairs of earrings to make (to balance out my display) and one more bracelet. I think I'll just end up getting up early tomorrow. I hope I remember everything. At least I only live 2 miles away from this place.

Crazy week. New stuff. Venting (a bit). And still going strong.

Okay, I'd like to take the first section of this post for my wee bit o' venting. Brought to you today by our sponsor: the crappy week, new and improved version, as in the crappy week just before I had a show that weekend.

Honestly, it's hard to pin everything down. I'm sure that as a survival technique, my mind has blocked out a good deal of it. But here's a snapshot:

-I canceled a class this week because I was informed at 2:05pm on the day of the class (I have to be there at 6:00) that I had 2 students signed up, but it was curriculum night that night at my son's school, so... I'm supposed to get 48 hours of notice. I know I annoyed people by doing this, but for real. I have too much stuff going on to drop everything because someone else didn't call me in time. (And classes are supposed to automatically be canceled if there are less than 3 students, but I just won't get into it... this is the 3rd time in 2 weeks I've done this. I'm sure they assume I'm crapping out since I'm quitting after October, but it's always been this: not getting enough notice and there also not being enough students. It's too many hours of work to do a class so that I can get like $15.00 in three weeks.) Anyway, this was a hard decision. I don't like saying no. But I've vowed to be more assertive. So there you go.

-My 3 year old, Elliott, my sweetheart and my joy, a blessing to my life... Really, he's a treasure. Okay. *sigh* My 3 year old, Elliott, picked THIS week to have a huge regression in his using of the potty. Every single day this week he has had an accident. I thought yesterday was the topper when he started in the living room and went all the way to the bathroom tracking pee-pee footprints behind him. But today might have been better. I don't have to share the details, but he might have been trying to make a new lake in the bathroom. I'm not sure.

-Our weight room got flooded from this weird and freaky micro-burst storm we had a couple of days ago. It apparently loosened shingles on our roof because we got two huge leaks, too. On the surface, this wouldn't appear to effect me too much (can't remember the last time I used weights), but it did because this is also the place I store all of my jewelry displays and organza pouches and ring boxes and bags and all of that stuff that I use to make my shows successful. I mean, I hate to be obvious. But, yeah... this is all stuff I NEEDED to be easily accessible this weekend. Now it's all shoved willy-nilly into the garage and part of tonight will be pulling it all out and sorting through it all to find the stuff I need.

-Today was the worst day of the whole week (if you can believe it), started off by getting some horrible news that should be good, I suppose, but the potential bad of it is so much that I was really mad when I heard it. I got, for lack of a better word, yelled at for nearly a half hour about a disagreement that a certain person can't let go of, but that I would happily never talk about again. It's just one of those trying to convince me of their opinion things that doesn't work because I simply don't care and I know what I think and I'm done. After this is when Elliott tried to make the lake in the bathroom. (See above.) And then, because I was momentarily distracted upon leaving the house and taking the kids to my grandma's (she's watching them so I can finish all of this show stuff), I locked myself out of my house and, bonus, my car, and my grandma came and picked up the kids while I waited outside for my husband to drive in from his work, 22 miles away, to let me back in. Did I mention I live in Mesa, Arizona? It's not that pleasant outside today.

So maybe that was more than a bit of venting. But it's been kind of building up for a long time today. And I don't do it that often. So... I actually feel a bit better.

Just for fun, here is my table as it sits now after nearly 3 days of constant use:


It's a card table I have set up right by my couch so that I can do my torch stuff while we're all watching TV. I'm excited to get it out of my living room tomorrow.

Here's the pile of stuff I pulled out of the tumbler today. This is what it looks like before I separate it all out. I had accidentally gotten rice in the tumbler at some point this week, which I saw when I pulled the stuff out. I thought that was kind of funny. It's some really clean rice, I guess. ^_~


Those huge purple beads are SO cool. They're vintage glass beads I got from an older lady at the church I used to go to. She knew I made jewelry, so she handed me this bag of old, gorgeous purple beads that apparently fell of a necklace that snapped. I offered to restring them, but she didn't care. I've had them for years and never used them, and I finally decided to make something with two of them.


Here's the whole setup so far. It really doesn't look like a lot. I've still got to price everything and find my displays. I won't have a lot of room, and most of my thing this weekend is my demo of how I make my buttons, which reminds me that I have to cut a lot of blanks tonight, but I think it's still a pretty good supply.

That's my ugly desk, too. The icky background of a lot of my photos. It's really sturdy, though, and can take a lot of abuse. Just like me. ^_~

Overall, I feel pretty good. Maybe partly because my sweet hubby ran off to McD's to get me a McFlurry after he drove home and let me in. He just took the rest of the day off. Even though we're obviously not interacting right now, just having him around is so nice. I always feel more at ease when he's near me.

So tomorrow is going to be good. Still a lot of work to do, but in the end, it will have been fun. I always look back and feel glad about my accomplishments. I make amazing stuff. And even though most of this doesn't have anything to do with knitting, it's exciting to be selling in an area where people really can respect the time and skill it takes to make things. And I'm starting a new pair of socks tonight. Wewt, wewt!

Weekend show stuff/Cool knitting stuff

Okay, I've been busting my rump to get stuff ready for Saturday and here is just a taste of the goodies in store if you wish to come and buy my stuff and support not only a local artist, but an awesome locally owned shop (Tempe Yarn and Fiber... I'll be there this Saturday from 12-4 with cool stuff and a neat demo).

Here's a pair of earrings (all fine silver, carved onyx beads) and a pair of bracelets that I made recently. The bracelets are the first two in what I hope will be a long line of stitch/row counting charm bracelets. Sometimes as you knit, you're asked to repeat a certain number of rows a certain number of times. I don't like to mark up my patterns/books a lot because if I want to make the thing again it's hard to discern between my two sets of markings. So these bracelets are all fine silver (the chain made by me, link by link, the clasp and the headpins the beads are on--all me!) except for the hooks which are made by me, but out of sterling silver instead of fine because the sterling has a bit of spring to it and will let the hooks stay formed longer. If they ever do loosen a bit, it's really easy to just squeeze them closed again. Anyway... the idea is that as you knit, you can move one charm along one side to count rows and one charm along the other side to count repeats. That way you don't have to mark up your pattern. ^_^ And they're GORGEOUS. So, yeah. You know you want one.


Here are other bracelets I made in the last couple of days for the weekend. I really love these. From left to right: Another bracelet inspired by my pwoosha son, Thad (he had made me a bracelet when he was 5 for Mother's Day... I gave him free reign in my beads and he picked only Swarovski crystals and bali silver [good boy!], but he mixed them all up so freely and used all kinds of colors and shapes, and it all looked so good and that bracelet goes with everything and I still get compliments on it.), with various Swarovski crystal beads; black onyx and fine silver; Swarovski and fine silver; Swarovski again and fine silver; and amazonite and fine silver... All of these bracelets, again, are made by me 100%, every link, every clasp, and every bit of awesome. LoL. I LOVE these.


And Barbara let me borrow one of her spinning wheels. Yay! Here's the first test yarn I spun on it to get used to the wheel. I love it even though it's just plain red without fancy colors or anything.


Here is my second Malabrigo sock almost finished....


Here's the most artsy photo I took of my completed glorious socks on my feets:


I just bought more Malabrigo today to make socks for my sweet husband who is my favorite person on this earth. $20 for a skein of yarn and SO totally worth it. I laugh at myself... if I tried to describe Malabrigo to a non-knitter, the first thing that comes to mind is, "It's like the cashmere of wool yarns." LoL. I guess it gets the idea across. Until that person gets to paw some real cashmere. *sigh* If only cashmere socks were able to stand up to wear. I wonder if I could knit myself a pair of cashmere socks and just sleep in them or something. Something to ponder... Now those would be expensive.