Even More Koi

Well, since I have to hang onto the original koi necklace I made, due to the upcoming publication, I decided to make another version to put into the store. Actually, I think I like this version a little better. The faceted rose quartz I used here is pretty chunky - about 12mm in diameter and the large freshwater pearls are about 10mm in diameter. I also feel that I'm getting better at making the koi pendants. My Showcase ad on Etsy started at midnight and will run all day Friday. It looks pretty good - please go here to check it out. I've already had some traffic to my store, but I'm not sure if it's due to the Showcase ad or due to the fact that I posted something new tonight (which always seems to generate some traffic). I'll be interested to see how many people actually visit the store tomorrow, though.

Good grief, I keep forgetting to post this, but remember this necklace?



Yes, it's not too late enter my 100th Post/Etsy Store Opening Giveaway! The drawing will be held midday on Saturday, so don't delay! Enter now for your chance to win!

Ahem. More practically, go here to enter the contest. Thanks! And thanks to everyone who has entered already. (Lisa, your computer story was so sad! I remember that when I was studying in England, I had a fellow American classmate who brought over a brand new Apple Macintosh computer and tried to plug it into the English socket without a proper adapter - completely fried the computer. I think she, like you, did get it replaced, and the incident had a happy ending, though.)

I feel that I'm finally more or less set up in the store for the time being (with the exception of a few more pieces of inventory), so I will hopefully be able to devote a little more attention to the blog and new work from here on out. I have a new necklace that's been in my mind all week - I just haven't had a chance to sit down and make the components for it, yet. If I'm lucky, I'll have something to show you early next week.

Thanks for stopping by!

Gold Rush

As some of you may or may not know, in addition to fine silver, metal clay also comes in gold versions - both 22k and 24k. Given how expensive fine silver metal clay is (much more expensive than sterling silver), you can imagine how mind-bogglingly expensive fine gold (i.e. 24k) metal clay is. Trust me - it's mega-expensive, and it comes in little, eensy weensy packages (3g is a standard size package). I never expected to have the opportunity to work with it.

So, you see, I had this 30% off coupon for our local art supply store. Generally, it's much cheaper to buy PMC on-line than in a bricks-and-mortar store. However, with the coupon, and because I was going to be in the area for other reasons, it made sense for me to stop by to pick up a packet. Although the store had advertised holiday markdowns on many products, because this never ever applies to metal clay, I didn't pay much attention to it. So, imagine my surprise when one of the store clerks pointed out that the store was clearing out its stock of gold metal clay. Further imagine my surprise to find that it was the 24K version that it was clearing out and that said PMC Fine Gold had been marked down to more than 75% off the current list price (in fact, I have not even been able to find the current list price for the 24k version, only the 22k version). So I ended up walking out of the store with a tiny lump of pure gold (with clay binder) in my purse. Sure, it was still an indulgence, but I know for a fact that I'll never have this kind of opportunity to work with fine gold ever again.

So, I've been gloating in a completely unseemly way for the past couple days (in fact, some may say that I'm gloating right now - sorry, I just can't help sharing this with you). Every now and then I coo at the box, then put it away. There's only one problem, though. I'M SCARED TO DEATH OF USING IT!!! I think I'll just tuck it away in a safe place and just look at the box, from time to time for the next year. Do you ever do this? I do this with yarn all of the time - I find a really nice yarn on sale for a fantastic price, pick up a few balls, and then it ends up sitting in my stash, because I never seem to have a pattern worthy of it. So silly.

Okay, I'm off to fire another kiln load of my more standard fine silver. Thanks for stopping by!

Good Fortune Lite

I just added a few things to the store this evening, including this necklace. I was going to wait a while longer to list finished pieces in the store, but given that I have a Showcase coming up on Friday, I decided to go ahead and post a couple items. This necklace is actually a significantly simplified version of the one that will be appearing in the July 2008 edition of BeadStyle Magazine. I took the colors from an impeccable source of Chinese cultural images - the place mat of a local Chinese restaurant. (Needless to say, I have my tongue firmly in my cheek on this one. I am not Chinese, and I don't mean to insult anyone who is. Taking the blue, yellow, red and orange color scheme from a Chinese eatery just seemed in keeping with the whole fortune cookie theme.) I started out using my own lampworked glass beads for the colors, but ended up switching them out in favor of stones. The strong color combination expressed more subtly with semiprecious stones just seemed to work better.

I have to say that the only real downside to this new venture that I have noticed so far is that I find myself glued to the computer even more so than usual. Even the Short One has been picking up on this and has demanded his fair share of Internet time over the past couple days. This usually takes the form of surfing to the Sesame Street website and playing the Oscar the Grouch Trash Sorting Game. Well, I say "play", but it's mostly me sorting trash, while the SO offers color commentary and dribbles a bit on the laptop. The only really noteworthy thing about these sessions is that one of the items of trash to be sorted during the game is a half-peeled banana. For some reason, every single time this segment comes up, when the SO sees the banana on the screen, he hops off of my lap, runs to the kitchen and complains until I peel him a banana. It doesn't matter what time of day it is, it doesn't matter if he's just finished eating a meal, he will want to eat a banana while playing the game. Weird, no? I've said it before, I'll say it again - I would pay good money to know what exactly he's thinking at times like this. (Practically speaking, it means I've had to be careful to buy extra bananas lately when we go grocery shopping.)

Anyway, after listing my new items on Etsy, I spent some time making a few more koi out of polymer clay. Really, I'm usually not so stuck on one design, but there's something about those little koi pendants that I find very appealing (no pun intended). I'm definitely going to try to have a new one listed in time for the Showcase.

Okay, it is way past my bedtime. I'm starting to get that eyelids-propped-open-with-toothpicks feeling (and how nasty is that?). Have a great Wednesday, everyone! I'll see you sometime tomorrow.

Shameless Self-Promotion

Keen eyes may have noticed this in the side-bar already - once again, I've entered Stringing Magazine's design challenge contest, and once again, voting is now open. The theme for this quarter's challenge was "Double Trouble". I actually designed this necklace with this challenge in mind. Once again, I took the "double, double, toil and trouble" from "Macbeth" as being the "double trouble" for the necklace and used an adjoining quote from the play as the focus of the necklace. If you like this piece, I would certainly be grateful for your vote over at Stringing Magazine. Voting is open until December 9th.

Well, I'm making a concerted effort to stay out of the comments section of the giveaway this time. I do have this to say, however:

Phoar - he's gorgeous!!!

Hmm, yes, VC, I can understand why NBM was a little embarrassed to shout this at the top of her lungs in a crowded store. I would've liked a stuffed pig that said this, too, though. A one of a kind gift!

WMK - we love America's Test Kitchen here! Yep, we have it on TiVo. That's a great suggestion - thanks!

Laura - thanks for blogging me!

In short, thanks to everyone who has entered my little giveaway this time around. As usual, I'm enjoying reading the entries!

Also, thanks to everyone for their good wishes on my store opening. Despite a few hiccups, things seem to be going swimmingly at the moment. I just finished up a wholesale order and got a couple pendants ready for shipping tonight. I also managed the mad dash to secure spots on Etsy's main product Showcase over the next two weeks - it'll be interesting to see whether it makes a difference in terms of how many visitors I get to the store. Look for my store to appear in the Showcase this Friday and the Friday after Thanksgiving. I really badly need to make more inventory for the store before the first one, so I apologize in advance if my entries over the next couple days are a little short.

Thanks for stopping by!

Shhh! Don't tell the Short One

So, as I may have mentioned (the past two days are a blur of sleep-deprivation right now), I received a couple nice surprises in the mail on Friday. The first two were these packages that arrived from Bristol, England. (I wish I'd thought to take a photo of the outer package, as well, which was nicely decorated enough evidently to prompt the postal worker in England to warn the sender that it might not make it through Customs. Clearly, any Customs officer would want such a stunning parcel for him or herself, and that's even without knowing what wonderful stuff lay within.) Actually, there were three packages, the third being some Cadbury Roses - one of my favorite chocolates of all time - but they're long gone now.



Here's a hint as to what was inside these nicely wrapped packages. Can you guess? Whatever it is, seems to have come from Monkee Maker and seems to have a cute, plushie bottom.



Ah, yes, it's HP14! Hullo, HP14 - welcome to the U.S. But what are you holding there?



Oh, look, it's another monkee - HP4. Welcome HP4! I invited these two English monkees to come live with us, as I felt the Short One could use a few more monkeys, not to mention monkees, in his life. I bought two from MM (thank you MM!), so the SO and I wouldn't squabble over who gets to play with the monkee. While HP14 and HP4 don't really look all that related (except in that general monkee kind of way), I have to admit that I see them kind of as parent and child - HP14 as the sensible, all-knowing, always-right parent and HP4 as the little rascal who runs around mushing bananas in the carpet and squealing a lot. Er, not that I know anyone like that, of course.

I'm sure HP14 and HP4 will be back, but not until after the holidays. In particular, I've asked them to make themselves at home in the hall closet until Christmas. They don't really make all that convincing telephone books, but they're in a bag - hopefully no-one will notice they're there for the time being. So, please keep them a secret from the Short One, okay?

By the way, all of the background art in the above photos was provided by the SO.

Thanks for stopping by!

ps I've switched out most of the fuzzy, off-center photos in my Etsy store. More on this later.

100th Post / Etsy Store Grand Opening Giveaway!

Hmm, well, Blogger still counts this as being Friday, November 9th, but in fact, it's after midnight where I live, so I am going to go ahead and post this. (As usual, the biggest block of uninterrupted time I have is at night, after the Short One is in bed. I just have to forego incidental things, like, you know, sleep.)

Never mind, that, though! Welcome to my 100th Post! I can't believe I've already made it to 100 posts on my blog. I want to give a big thank you to everyone who has been reading my drivel for the past several months. You are all generous, gracious people, and you have saved me from the horror of mumbling to myself.

Also, I have now technically opened my Etsy store, although things are still a little unfinished here and there. For one thing, I can already tell that I will have to re-take some of my photographs. The Etsy program cropped some of them in a funny way, and I need to go back and deal with that. At any rate, the pendants are listed at this point, if anyone has any desire to see them. I have agonized about pretty much every minute detail of this, and I'm sure there will be changes over time. However, everyone has to start somewhere, and I've decided to start here. (I may end here, too, but I'm trying hard not to be too pessimistic at this point.)

I realize that many people who read this blog make their own jewelry and beads and will therefore not have an interest in my store as customers. However, if any of you do have an interest, I would like to offer you, as a special blog-only promotion, a small extra, namely: anyone who purchases a pendant from my store over the next week (essentially, while the Giveaway is running - more on this in a bit) will receive a free black rubber and sterling silver necklace. I just received these today, and I'm very happy with the quality. The necklaces are a substantial 4mm thick and create a nice statement with the pendants. They have a retail value of $12.00. Now, inevitably, when I opened my shipment today, I came up short on the number of necklaces, and it turns out that they, too, were backordered. (If I am still operating the store next year, I will definitely take note of when the Christmas holiday season starts for jewelry makers.) It is technically possible that I will run out of necklaces, but I sort of doubt it. One thing I will say is that I have a limited number of 18" necklaces - most are 16" in length. If you have a preference as to length, please indicate it in the comments section (and, of course, regardless, you should indicate in the comments section that you are a blog reader and would like a necklace). I will do my best to accomodate you. If your length is no longer available, I will let you know before shipment.

Now, on to the Giveaway! I won't tell you exactly how late I was up making this necklace last night, but it was pretty late. This necklace is approximately 16" in length. I made the focal from PMC (what else?). The shell pearl that I placed in the bezel cup is substantial - approximately 14mm in size. As usual, I filled the bezel with tinted resin. The clasp is a button I made from PMC, as well. I finished the necklace with coral, lovely pieces of kyanite, rose quartz, citrine and quartz glass beads. How do you win this necklace? Help me out with my little holiday dilemma!

Now, I am the kind of anal person who Christmas shops all year long and usually has all of my gifts ready by October. Ever since the Short One arrived, however, for some reason my organization in this respect has completely gone to pot, and I really have nothing except toys stashed away in my closet for the holiday. While I feel that the Husband will probably appreciate the Brio starter train set that I picked up when one of the local toy stores was closing down earlier this year, I don't think he'll particularly want it as a Christmas gift. I don't know about you, but I find the men in my life (except for the Short One) extremely difficult to shop for, as it is. To top it off, my Husband is the type of person who says "Oh, anything is fine" whenever I try to question him about what he might actually like Santa to bring him (Grrr). Now, you don't have to provide me with actual Christmas gift suggestions to enter this contest (although they'd be welcome! In addition to being an engineer who loves gadgets, the Husband is also an avid cook, by the way...). However, I would like to hear stories about gifts - memorable, funny, disastrous - that you received or gave for the holidays or other celebrations (birthdays, etc.). If you are really, truly, too shy to say or can't think of anything, you can just leave your name (please do leave a name - no Anonymous posters), but I'd love to hear your stories.

The contest will be open for one week, closing next Saturday. I will try to have results posted early enough this time so that it won't be the middle of the night for folks in overseas time zones. As before, you must check back to see if you've won. As before, you do not need to be registered with Blogger to leave a comment - you can just manually type in your name. Oh, and although I swore up and down I'd use a random number generator this time, I've decided to throw caution to the wind and have the Short One pick a name out of a hat again. Call me optimistic.

Okay, back to fiddling with the Etsy store for me. Once again, thanks so much for making this blog such a wonderful experience. Have a great weekend.

Dot matrix printer serenade

I'm sort of punting today, as I'm getting further behind on things. This clip showed up on one of the Husband's favorite sites. The premise is that, due to the writer's strike, Fox is running an earlier pilot of "24" that was made in 1994. The title of the piece is "What if Jack Bauer used AOL 3.0?". I don't watch "24" myself, but I found this incredibly funny - it's another commentary on technology and things we generally take for granted these days. Oh, for the days of dot matrix printers with those irritating tear-off sides.

I made the Giveaway necklace last night. It looks quite nice (if I say so myself). However, since I'm so obsessed with resin-filled pendants these days, I'm thinking I may want to make something else for the Giveaway, so I'm going to go out and fiddle with the resin a bit now. Oh, and I made the last pendant that will go into the store - it came out pretty well, I think. I hope you'll drop by the store this weekend to take a look at it (and everything else, of course)!

In order to clear up some time to get everything done, I will not be posting tomorrow. Please come back on Saturday for my 100th post/Etsy store opening Giveaway!

Thanks for stopping by!

Vicious Chickens and Congenial Monkeys

So, I received a little care package in the mail yesterday from the Vicious Chicken. Note the super-cute monkey wrapping paper. (VC actually apologized that the package wasn't wrapped very neatly. Tsk! Some people are such perfectionists!) Anyone who is familiar with the VC's charming blog will probably have a good guess as to what's inside. (Use the box of CHOCOLATES for a size comparison. Yes, she sent me CHOCOLATES. I don't think anyone's given me chocolates for about ten years. VC, marry me. We don't have to tell the Husband or NBM - we can just sneak off. Of course, NBM does have that faster-than-the-speed-of-light-looking bike now. Hmm....) Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes...



Ta da! PG (sort of like Lipton's in the US, for the uninitiated) is holding a little monkey giveaway. Buy one of their economy 160-teabag boxes of tea and receive this little ambassador of goodwill. I complained to VC that I couldn't get ahold of PG Tips on this side of the pond, and she sent me one! (Seriously, VC. I bet I could figure out a way to dodge NBM's bike. Well, maybe.) Of course, VC is now drowning in teabags. If you visit, I'm sure you'll be able to sit down and have a cuppa with her. As an aside, you may notice that the little guy here is looking a bit acquisitive about the chocolates. I can't really blame him - had I been stuck in a little envelope with a box of chocolates that I couldn't actually open (it's hard having suctions cups stuck to your hands), I'd be feeling a little acquisitive myself. However, I will say that I managed to wrest the box away from him last night (no photos of this - it was a little ugly), and snarfled two of the chocolates - they are delicious.

So, thank you, VC. While I feel that this may all be part of an underhanded plot to populate the world with knit monkeys, it's one in which I'm happy to be complicit. Plus, he makes a nice addition to my the Short One's collection of cute stuffed animals.

In the meantime, I have the last kiln load of metal clay for this week ready to be fired when the SO takes his nap. I printed out business cards last night - they are serviceable, at least - and I'm hoping to start taking photographs tonight. Wish me luck!

And thanks for stopping by! Have a great day, everyone!

How to Wear a Snowflake

I sat down and strung one of the snowflake pendants, just to see how it looks. I have to admit, although I'm not always completely happy with how I translate the vision of a piece I have in my mind to the actual bead or pendant (everything always looks much more professional in my mind, alas), I like the clean, spare look of this rendition of a snowflake. I wanted to maintain a simple blue and white color scheme for the necklace. Turquoise is one of my favorite stones, and I always love how summery it looks, but I thought that I could actually use a clean, blue turquoise for this wintery piece. I wish I'd had larger chunks of turquoise for this (all of the larger pieces in my stash are on the green side), but I think these small turquoise beads work surprisingly well with the freshwater pearls and clear, faceted quartz crystal beads. I added frosted white seed beads and a simple lobster clasp to finish it.

The black and sterling necklaces destined for the store are now officially scheduled to arrive on Friday, so barring any delivery problems, I will be opening on Saturday.

The Short One's outlook has been improving, I'm happy to say. His nose is dribbling a little less, and he's not coughing as violently. In fact, he's been cheerful enough to want to engage in our ritual good night/nap kiss. Being a manly little man, he particularly likes it when I stand halfway across the room (for a better running start, of course), rush at him like a banshee and plant a smacker on his forehead that's more like a firm head butt than a real kiss (at which point he keels over in his best dramatic manner, giggling). We do this maybe three times before lying down to sleep. Ever since the SO arrived, I've often felt that being a parent is like belonging to a secret society, with its own rules, rituals and secret handshakes. It's just finding out what the rituals are that is proving to be so entertaining.

Thanks for stopping by!

Let Them Eat Cake

Well, this isn't a great photo, but I'm going to post it anyway. I'll try to update with a better one this evening. I'm in blog withdrawal! I can't believe I actually managed to stay away all weekend. When I started this blog, I envisioned posting Monday through Friday and then taking the weekend off. In actual practice, I think I do post at least one time during the weekend most weeks. Everyone in the beading and knitting blog communities is so congenial, it's hard to stay away for more than a day.

Anyway, I envisioned a cupcake pendant with the Marie Antoinette quote "Let them eat cake" printed on it. I made this one with a cupcake bead from Debi Cogwell, the Palm Tree Queen. Now that I've made a couple pendants, I'm itching to use one of them for a full necklace. I may still do that over the next couple days. I already have a design in mind for the snowflake pendant I posted a few days ago - I just haven't had the time to sit down and string it yet. I think I really do enjoy making the jewelry the most and not just the components. My next lot of items for the Etsy store will probably be finished pieces - bracelets, earrings and maybe one necklace.

I just received word that a shipment containing the black rubber necklaces that I bought for the store is in transit. It may just get here by Friday. Even though I doubt I will have the sterling chain by then, as long as the other necklaces arrive, I will probably go ahead and open the store. To be on the safe side, let's say Saturday morning for the store opening. If anything changes, I will be sure to let you know.

The Short One has come down with a nasty head cold. It seems he barely got over the previous one before getting sick again. He has been going around the house dribbling like a fiend and coughing. We've had a little extra cuddle time this past weekend, as a result. Poor little guy. I'm hoping this one passes quickly.

I've managed to cobble together a banner for the etsy store (the address of the store is www.melissajlee.etsy.com, by the way). It's a little crude, but I think it'll do, for now. I've also mocked up a business card that I will use for the time being, while I'm still debating what to do about the website. I have one more new pendant design to make (which is going to remain a suprise - you'll have to visit the store to see it/them) and then I'll be ready to start taking photos. Plus, of course, I still have to make the prize for the 100th blog post giveaway!

Speaking of giveaways, I entered one at Green Girl Studios website a while back for a necklace that Andrew Thornton designed, and I found out today that I won! Thank you Cynthia and Andrew! I am very excited. Green Girl Studios does such beautiful work. I wish I had the creativity that Cynthia Thornton has in her pinky - I would be so happy. I'll be sure to post a photo of the necklace when it arrives.

Oh, and it seems that the koi necklace I put together last week may be published in a book next spring. Cross your fingers! The bad news is that I now have to hang onto that piece for a while, just in case it needs to be re-photographed. I made another koi pendant over the weekend, and that one will go into the store.

Thanks for stopping by!

Deja Vu

Here's what I meant to post last night. Look familiar? I thought I'd put just one of the Smooches pendants up for sale in the shop. Unfortunately, it also has the dubious honor of being the most expensive item to go into the shop. Remember, the lampworked button in the middle of the piece was made by Sarah Moran, one of my favorite lampwork artists.

I had a disappointing setback today. I ordered some sterling silver chain along with other supplies to put up for sale with the pendants, in case people wanted them. Even though they were listed as being in-stock at the time I placed my order, they did not arrive with the rest of the shipment and the packing slip indicates that they are back-ordered. I have some black rubber and sterling chokers ordered through a different vendor. As long as they arrive by next week, I should still be able to open the Etsy store, but I was hoping to have sterling chain available as well, and it looks as if that is not going to happen.

You may have noticed that I am getting closer to my 100th day post, with the accompanying giveaway. The timing appears to be working out nicely on this - I'm hoping that the giveaway and the store opening will coincide (I hope to have the Etsy store open by Friday). I will provide a firm date, once I'm reasonably certain that this will take place.

In the meantime, I've had another "Mommy moment". As a preface to this story, I should mention that the Short One loves stickers. In particular, he loves sticking stickers all over my hands, face and shirt. I encourage this, as I would prefer that he not damage furniture and/or walls by putting stickers on them, and I find them mighty easy to keep track of, when I'm wearing them.

Now, it's been unseasonably warm around here for the past week, and I decided to take the SO out for lunch at the local cafe. We live within walking distance of a little downtown commercial area, so we took out the stroller and went out quite cheerfully. We had a great lunch - the SO said "hi" to everyone who came in the restaurant (he'd make a terrific professional greeter) - and we decided to run a few errands afterwards. It wasn't until we were at the local bookstore, and I looked down to rummage around in my purse for my credit card, that I finally noticed that I still had about twenty stickers with such gratifying sayings as "I'm awesome!", "My name is FABULOUS!" and "Too cool!" plastered across my chest (I know, I know, but they were the cheapest colorful stickers I could find at the grocery store).

The funny thing is, the folks at the cafe didn't bat an eye at me. I did get completely snubbed by a group of local businesspeople sitting next to us, but I take that as a matter of course (the "invisible mommy syndrome" that seems to affect some professionals, especially on airplanes, is an ugly thing in my mind, but there's not much to be done about it). So, now I'm wondering - does this mean that the folks at the local cafe are just used to my appearing with "I'm fabulous!" stickers all over my body? How many times have I gone out like this without realizing it? Oh, well. I can only chalk it up to motherhood. Anyway, since I make the SO wear the clothes I pick out for him, it seems only fair that he gets to dress me up a little sometimes, too.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great weekend. I'll see you on Monday.

What a dummy

I tried posting earlier this evening and was not able to upload any photo (which was originally supposed to be of the new pendant that I finished today). Then I ended up getting distracted. Instead of making even more pendants, as I originally intended, I made this. I was sitting around thinking that maybe putting pendants in the store rather than finished pieces was a bad idea and that I should have primarily finished jewelry instead - so, I ended up stringing the koi pendant. Now, of course, I think I should have just stuck to my original plan of offering just pendants. Sigh. Either way, I think I see another koi pendant in my immediate future.

As far as this new necklace is concerned, I was thinking of cherry blossoms when I strung it - hence the use of faceted rose quartz. I finished the piece with Czech pressed glass leaves and seed beads. The clasp, which I just happened to have already made, is PMC3, as usual.

Sorry for the short post, but I was trying to make a concerted effort to get some sleep tonight, and it's already past 1am, so I'll close for now.

Thanks for stopping by!

Koi

I just finished another "treasure box" pendant. This one has a little personal history behind it. The first thing to bear in mind is that my father loves sushi and always has, long before it ever gained the popularity it currently has in the U.S. When I was a child, the only place you could find a Japanese restaurant was in a major metropolitan area. This essentially meant that whenever we went on family vacations (which tended to be in larger cities), we always ate at Japanese restaurants. The second thing to bear in mind is that I hated Japanese restaurants as a child. You couldn't get a decent hamburger or plate of spaghetti at any one of them - just ick, weird-looking food that tasted funny. (In an ironic twist of fate, the Short One's favorite place to eat is our local Japanese restaurant - he'll slurp up soba noodles, munch on vegetable tempura and eat avacado maki any day of the week. But I digress...) There was only one thing I enjoyed about going to a Japanese restaurant and that was the koi pond that almost all of them had at that time. Naturally, my parents encouraged my enthusiasm about the koi, and I always insisted on spending a good amount of time watching them. As an adult, I do not have a koi pond, have never raised koi and hardly ever see them, but I still love to watch them when I do.

I've had a koi pond piece in my sketch book for the past four months, and the store opening finally motivated me to try to make one for the first time. I made the little koi out of polymer clay. The box is filled with hand-tinted resin. As usual, I made the box itself from PMC. I love the way this turned out. In fact, I really want to keep it. This suggests to me that it probably is good enough to go into the store, so that's where you'll see it next.

As an aside, all of this talk of Japanese restaurants made me remember the time I had dinner with my family in the Ginza in Tokyo, back in my 20s. The fish was so fresh that it was swimming around in tanks, literally. After my Dad ordered his sushi, the waiter brought one over to him, flopping around in a basket, for approval, the way a sommelier presents the label of a wine bottle to a patron for approval. When the sushi arrived, the carcass of the fish was draped elegantly around it, in a decorative display. This in itself would not have bothered me so much, had the tail not still been twitching, which it proceeded to do during the whole dinner. I suppose it's only fair to "know" one's food, if one is a meat eater - which I am - but I have to admit that this is one of the reasons I still don't eat sushi.

Thanks for stopping by!

ps I keep forgetting to post this. I've been seen at Art Bead Scene! ABS had an article on skull beads the other day, and mine were among them. If you like skull beads, pop on over here.

Treasure Box

Here's the new pendant I mentioned last night. I have a tendency to make big, chunky focals, and I wanted to try to create something a little more delicate looking. I'm pleased with the way it came out. This particular setting has shells, freshwater pearls and a piece of coral in it. I strung it temporarily with opal and more freshwater pearls, but I could see this looking good as well on a simple sterling chain. I could also see varying the contents of the box quite a bit, to include other types of "treasure". This design will also be in the shop when it opens, hopefully next week.

There's still a lot to do to set up, but I'm slowly getting there. I intend to open with about 10 pendants and gradually add up different types of stock over the next month to include clasps, earrings, bracelets, maybe one or two of the more lavish necklace designs, maybe rings. Wish me luck... I'm sure I'll need it!!

All right, it's back to work for me. As always, thanks for stopping by!

Let it Snow

Well, I've finally moved past Halloween and onto more winter-themed beads. Here are my first batch of snowflakes. I think at least one, possibly two, of these will make it into the shop. I chose a simple, Victorian-era snowflake design. Despite how straightforward it looks, it took me numerous tries to carve the stamp before I had two sizes that I felt I could use. After applying the patina, I polished them to a high sheen. The patina in the recessed areas of the design really makes it pop. I think they will make attractive pendants. I will try to string one of them over the next couple days, to see how it looks.

I also made a little fortune cookie pendant, destined for the shop, and a new bezel design that I hope to fill with resin in the next couple days. So, new work is on the way.

The Short One's costume was a hit at the party yesterday. One enthusiastic grandmother threatened to take him home with her. By the end of the day, the SO had dribbled cracker crumbs and juice down the front of the sweater (more fool me for not bringing a bib - I don't know what I was thinking), but he had a good time. We finally bought all of our Halloween candy yesterday, too, and I'm afraid I may have succumbed to a Kit Kat or two (don't tell the Husband - he thinks the bags are all still unopened in the cupboards).

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Yes, but is it a costume?

Here it is - I finished it at 5:30am this morning (background art courtesy of the Short One). I like it, but I feel that in my determination to get something practically wearable after Halloween out of it, I sort of short-changed the whole costume aspect of the thing. Well, hopefully, the Short One will be happy with it, anyway. I think it's clear who he's going as for Halloween, no? So, I may be asleep during the party, but at least he has a costume something to wear.

I'm going to go pass out now...

ps. The SO tends to be faster than the shutter speed of our camera, but I'll try to get a photo of him wearing this for Halloween.

Fresh from the Oven

Well, these buttons are fresh from the toaster oven in which I bake polymer clay. Close enough, though. I ended up having time to make the buttons, for which I'm grateful. The more I knit, the more I think this is going to look too much like a regular sweater and too little like a costume. However, the buttons should help. I hope. I had a little panic when I discovered that I didn't have any brown clay or any clay in regular primary colors with which to make brown clay. I ended up using bronze clay and white and black to make the "cookies". The end result is slightly shiny, but I think they'll pass.

I'm just finishing one arm of the sweater right now. I have the other arm, the button band and the crew neck to go. Oh, and finishing the blasted thing (my least favorite part), but since I knit the body in one piece and picked up stitches for the sleeves from the armhole, the finishing shouldn't be too bad. The party isn't until 3:30pm tomorrow, so theoretically, I can work on this during the SO's nap, too. Sigh.

Thanks for all of your kind comments about the Etsy store. I live in fear that no one will buy anything (I'm a glass is half empty type of person), but I figure that if I don't at least try it, I'll never find out. Talk about moving outside one's comfort zone...

All right, back to the sweater. I probably won't be posting again until Monday. Hope everyone is having a nice weekend!

Have you any wool?

I am falling further and further behind on the Short One's sweater, and I need to finish it tomorrow night, so this post will be quite short.

I collected these wonderful sheep and balls of yarn beads from lampwork artist Lezlie Belanger over the past year. Great, aren't they? I finally have an idea of what to do with at least some of them. I've decided that one set, once the piece is finished, will be going into my Etsy shop. Yep, I've decided to open a store on Etsy. My business license application went through today, and I'm just waiting for certain documentation, so I can register wholesale accounts with a couple vendors. I'm hoping the store, which will start out modestly - I plan on listing ten items, initially - will go live sometime in the next two weeks. I'll keep you posted.

I received good news today. The Kissing Bandit/Charmed Kiss necklace will be in a new book on metal clay that will be published next summer. Calloo, callay! More on this later, too.

Okay, break's over. I'm very sorry for writing such a lame-o post, but I'd really like to get the SO's costume/sweater finished, and finished properly, before his party on Sunday. Wish me luck!

Have a great weekend!

Abracadabra!!

I was originally going to try to wait until I finished this piece before revealing this particular charm, but the way my schedule is shaping up, it may take me longer to finish this than I had hoped. So, here's my latest charm and probably the best magic trick I've ever performed.

Last spring I bought a set of beads from lampwork artist Jena Fulcher from her fabulously colorful Cabana Boy series. Due to the time of year, the set included an Easter bunny bead. Now, although I love Halloween beads, I'm not generally as fond of other holiday beads, including Easter beads. So the bunny has been sitting around in my stash, as I really had no idea what to do with him. For reasons that will be clear once I finish this project, it finally occurred to me that the bead didn't have to be an Easter bunny bead at all. So, with a twist of my, er, clay roller and a wave of the craft knife, I turned him into a magician's bunny. Not bad, eh? I think he looks pretty cute this way.

Ooof, I am up to 7.5 inches on the costume/sweater. I'll be dividing for the armholes pretty soon. I'm hoping to make some theme buttons from polymer clay, but I'm wondering if I'll really have the time. We'll see how it goes.

In the meantime, the Short One and I strolled downtown today to have lunch out and discovered that our town was having it's merchant's trick-or-treat today. I must have missed the notice when it went out. Our town has fun holiday activities and the Halloween ones included a hay ride, pony ride, pumpkin decorating, bouncy castle and a few other older activities that the SO is just, well, too short for, right now. He did go on the pony ride, but he was singularly unimpressed by it, I'm afraid (the pony seemed rather resigned to the whole affair, as well). The SO does not eat candy (yet - I'm sure the days of innocence will be over pretty soon), so we didn't participate in the trick-or-treat, but I think he did enjoy watching all of the big kids running around in costume. (I don't think he realizes yet that his day of being crammed into a monster costume that Mama made is coming yet, or he might not have been quite so sanguine about the whole affair.)

I still can't believe that Halloween is this week. Where did the year go???

Thanks for stopping by!

Baby Burritoville

I spent some time trying to drape this blanket artistically to photograph it, and I failed miserably, so you'll just have to use your imagination. This is one of the two blankets I knit for the Short One before he was born. He spent the first couple months of his life sleeping in it. Now, it's hard to believe he was ever small enough to be wrapped up in it like a little burrito. I knit this from a Debbie Bliss pattern and it was one of the most awfully, stultifyingly boring projects I have ever knit. There's just nothing like knitting a 26" x 28" rectangle in garter stitch with 4ply yarn to really get the blood racing. The edging was fun, but it took almost no time to knit. On the other hand, this has been a stupendously useful article for the Short One. It currently serves as a stroller blanket and door flap for the Short One's little fort where he likes to hide every now and then.

Okay, in hindsight, I should have put this on the poll and let everyone decide, but I have a little follow-up question. Given that melissalee.com is registered and a porn site, how would you feel about my using melissajlee.com instead? Would it be too confusing and lead you to inadvertently visit the porn site? If you have any thoughts on this, please let me know. I realize Strands is the front runner right now, but I thought I'd ask about just using my own name, which would have been my top choice, were it not for the whole porn site issue.

Well, I'm making some headway on the sweater, but the SO is just too interested in my yarn these days and has developed the disturbing habit of wrapping loose strands around his neck. I'm so afraid he's going to go running and choke himself - I ended up having to put the knitting away while he's up. It means I don't have as much knitting time as I thought, so I guess I will be pulling a couple late nights. I'll try to visit Thursday and Friday as usual, but if I miss a day, that'll be why.

By the way, I kept thinking of that old joke this morning, the one where a fortune teller informs her client that she will fall in love with a "short, bald, toothless boy". The woman scoffs, goes on her way, marries a handsome guy, then has, yup - a baby boy who is, of course, small, bald and toothless. Now the SO was never bald - he was a very hairy little dude. In fact, when I asked the Husband what the SO looked like after he was whisked away to be cleaned, weighed, etc., his only comment was "Well, he has a very hairy back". The pediatrician pooh-poohed this initially and told us the hair would drop out, but after several months, she started qualifying her statement with "Well, I can't promise it will drop out...". (It did eventually drop out, and we're all sort of letting bygones be bygones, although, as his Uncle pointed out, it'll probably all come back when he hits puberty. His bushy head of hair never did fall out, though, which we found quite charming.) Uh, where was I? Oh, yes. It just strikes me every day that, no matter how much you think you're prepared to love your child, the reality of it still ends up hitting you like a ton of bricks once he or she has arrived. (Don't tell the SO I said so, though.)

Thanks for stopping by!

Something Wicked Redux

Yes, yes, I know - I'm recycling old work. Well, sort of - I took this shot with the light tent tonight. Even with the one full spectrum light not working, I think it came out better than I could have done after dark previously (the best time of day for my to take photos - the Short One loves cameras, even more so because I avoid letting him plant his sticky paws on the camera lens - I try to take all photos while he is sleeping). Anyway, I took this shot because I'm entering another contest. Voting hasn't opened yet, but I'm sure you'll be hearing from me when it does. (Honestly, the fact that you put up with all of this and still read the blog never ceases to amaze me. You are really nice people. And I'm not just saying that to butter you up or anything. Truly.)

Also, I wanted to get the icky aftertaste of that failed cobweb pendant off of the front page of the blog as quickly as possible. (Rachel, thank you for your kind comment. I know you worked quite hard to reach the level of expertise that you currently have with icing - but you still have great talent!!! I can barely write my name legibly these days, my hand shakes so much. I don't know how much room for improvement I have, sigh. I will try the technique again, though - it beats a lot of cutting and soldering...)

I was planning on making beads tonight, but in a moment of distraction, I accidentally cast on the Short One's costume/sweater and ended up spending my bead time working on that. It is exactly 2" long right now (I am knitting it in one piece, so that is both the front and back panels). I'm surrrrre I have plenty of time to finish it before Sunday. Absolutely. No problem. At all.

So, if, contrary to my earlier promise, you don't see new beads for a few days, that'll be why. At least I'm not in denial about the Short One's costume/sweater any more.

By the way, it's occurred to me that I haven't showered you with verse or song lyrics recently. When I was living in England, the Tube was running a series called "Poems on the Underground" or something similar to that. In spaces usually reserved for advertising, the transit folks would post poetry. I traveled up to London quite a bit to do research at the British Library, and I always enjoyed reading the poems. It was really difficult to resist reading them, no matter how late the hour or how tired I was. (New York later adopted a similar program called "Poetry in Motion", but for some reason I never liked their selection of poems as much. Either that, or my job at the time just put me in too poor of a humor to appreciate them during my commute.) One poem in particular always made me and my friend Ingrid (she of the Little Something Wicked bracelet) laugh. I apologize if I'm misquoting, as this is from memory - but it went something like this:

When I am sad and lonely,
When I feel all hope has gone,
When I walk along High Holborn,
I think of you with nothing on.

Thanks for stopping by!

My Documents

I tried to embed this from YouTube last week and failed completely, so I'm going to try again. Once again, the Husband's geeky interesting websites brought up a winner. This clip is clearly an homage to Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First" and is really for anyone who's ever worked in an office in these tech savvy times. I remember at my first real "career" job after leaving school, one of the partner's at the firm could not figure out how to turn his computer on and had to have his secretary come in and do it every morning for him. I imagine he's retired by now, but I do wonder how he coped with our ultimate reliance on email (business was not conducted by email at the time) and gadgets like CrackBlackberrys (Blackberries? That just doesn't look right).

I suppose I've dated myself somewhat with that statement. I remember talking with one of our teenage summer interns a few years ago. You should have seen the look on her face when I explained that not only did the Internet not exist (in the form we know it now, at least), personal computers did not exist for part of my childhood. Yes, I did feel like a caveperson during that conversation. Ah, Pong, I remember it fondly. And the Merlin game. Anyone remember electronic football and Merlin? You know, the one with the jingle: "Where's Merlin, where did he go? Janey's got him playing Tic-Tac-Toe..." I can't believe I remember that.

I sat down last night and finally wrote the pattern for the Short One's costume/sweater. It should be fairly straightforward (although it was interesting to flip through my knitting notebook and check his current dimensions against the last time I made him a sweater, in the spring - they grow so fast). I haven't cast on yet, but I'm still hoping it won't take more than a couple days to finish and won't require a late night mad dash session to finish. Can you tell I'm an inveterate procrastinator?

Many thanks to Monkee Maker for the tip on how to create strike-throughs. I feel so technically savvy, now!

Sorry for the absence of beads in this post. I'll get back on the ball, tomorrow. Really.

Thanks for stopping by!

Urk...the Failure

I'm actually not all that keen to show this to you, as I think it looks pretty terrible, but here's the other version of the cobweb - the one that I think doesn't work. I wanted to try to make an openwork, lacy version of the cobweb with the thought that I could dangle Halloween-themed beads from the "strands". There are several different types of metal clay, including a paste type that you use with a syringe. In a way it's similar to frosting that you apply with a pastry bag (what's the technical term for this? It's slipped my mind, like so much else). I basically attempted to draw this cobweb using the syringe. My hand shook like anything, and I ended up getting little globby bits of PMC everywhere. Then the green clay (ie, clay before it's been fired) was so fragile that it kept breaking off. After a few repairs, I just thought "#@$^%!!" and decided to toss it in the kiln with the rest of the load to get a ballpark idea of how something like this could turn out, it it were actually done well. I kept thinking, where's Fancy Pants when I need her (you may recall from my previous post that she is a cake decorator extraordinaire)? I think Rachel would do an absolutely brillant job making these. Me, not so much, although maybe I could improve a little with practice. Now, don't say I don't reveal all, even the stuff I'd rather not!

As some of you have already noticed, I've put up a poll in the upper right hand corner of the blog. I've been thinking of setting up a real website, and I'm trying to come up with a name for it. As I mention in the poll preface, melissalee.com is already registered and is a porn site, so using my name is out. (While other variations, like using my full name or middle initial are still available, I'm worried about how much traffic would mistakenly go to the porn site, so I've decided to avoid those options.) Anyway, I would greatly appreciate your input regarding a memorable name for the site. So far, it seems folks prefer just leaving it "strands of beads". I guess this would be fine - I actually chose this name ad hoc. I knew I had to start a blog for the Collaboration Exploration and felt that if I didn't do it immediately, I would never actually start one. In retrospect, I wish I had chosen something with a little more, well, zing or panache or something. I mean, to those who voted for it - do you really like it or is it just an issue of being accustomed to the name already? Just curious.

Alternatively, if you don't like any of the names in the poll and have something else to suggest, please feel free to post something. Thanks for taking the time to respond, either way!

I finally remembered to take my ball winder and swift from the Short One's closet, where I've been storing it (there's space in there - his clothes are all so conveniently short still). Now I have this heap of blue yarn sitting in the living room reproachfully, wondering why it's not a monster sweater/costume yet. I suppose I should go wind some of it.

Thanks for stopping by!

BOO!

Since it's technically Monday, I'm going to go ahead and post this. I stayed up too late stringing it, but I couldn't resist. I like how the PMC web turned out (I have another version of a spider's web that turned out poorly. I'll try to show you that one later this week). I wasn't sure how the linoleum cutter (which is what I use to carve the stamp) would do on thin lines, but it seems to have worked pretty well. The ceramic beads that I added are all by Melanie Brooks Lukacs of Earthenwood Studio. I didn't know what I was going to do with these beads at the time I bought them from her. She has a little spider bead in the same series - now I wish I'd bought one of them. Perhaps the spider has gone out for a walk? Perhaps the wearer is the spider? Yeah, that's it. I used the black dagger Czech glass to suggest spider legs. I finished the piece with amber, Czech pressed glass leaves and Swarovski crystals.

Given how close Halloween is, this will probably be the last Halloween-themed piece. Yep, it's almost time to buy the Halloween candy for the trick-or-treaters (I typically wait until the last minute to buy the candy to avoid temptation. It's one of the nice things about not working outside of the house right now - my former office used to be replete with holiday sweets from now until the New Year. I'd always gain at least five pounds.) For any overseas visitors who are unaware of the American custom - candy is given out to trick-or-treaters, rather than money. I found the Engish custom intriguing. Of course, I found Guy Fawkes' Day even more intriguing, especially since I lived near Lewes and had the opportunity to see the Pope burned in effigy during the Lewes celebration. More on this later.

Sorry for the short entry, buy I'm barely able to prop my eyelids up at this point. Yawn. (Oh, how funny - I accidentally typed "Yarn" the first time, instead of "Yawn." What does that say about my fiber obsession, I wonder?) Good night.

Rolypoly Donuts

Here they are finally - Sarah Moran's new bead design, the Rolypoly Donut. I know it's hard to gauge size from this photo, but these are big beads - over an inch in diameter - and they are large-holed. The green one has been poked to create a little bubble in each chamber and the orange one has not. I reallly love these beads, so much so that I've managed to remember to visit Sarah's site when she puts up new work - Thursday night at 8pm (this in itself is difficult, because it's the Short One's bedtime) - for the past two weeks. I just bought a cool blue version of the bead last night. I think they would look fabulous just on a leather cord (I think most of her beads look great that way), but, knowing me, I imagine I'll come up with a more decorative use for them. The green one has a designated purpose but the other two do not. I have to admit, though, it's tempting to get some heavy gauge jump rings and just connect the three of them in one extravagant chain necklace.

In other news, I finally broke down and bought a light tent on eBay the other night. I'd been holding off on it, but it just seems ridiculous, given how much time, effort and moolah I've been spending on making jewelry lately, not to have a way to photograph the pieces effectively. Or, at least, photograph them effectively in theory. In my dreams, my days of slapping necklaces down on the stove range will be over... I'm sure the Short One will approve. In fact, I'm so sure the Short One will approve, I'm planning on setting everything up in our unfinished basement, where he can't get to it easily. Given the Husband's propensity for getting into things (on one of our first dinner dates, he started tapping on the faux marble walls outside the restaurant until he found one that sounded hollow and ripped the whole panel off to reveal a fire extinguisher and related equipment - I nearly died of embarrassment) I don't expect the SO's habit of tinkering will change as he grows older. However, I'm hoping the potential for injury and breakage will abate a little. And if you have older kids and have a different opinion, don't tell me - I don't want to know. La la la la (fingers in ears).

I'm in the initial stages of coming up with a new sculptural design for PMC. I'm hoping it won't take me too long to refine. Hopefully, I'll have something new to show you by Monday. Well, maybe Tuesday. My father is arriving today for a weekend visit, so I may not have much time for beads this weekend.

Have a great weekend, everyone!