In Tooth and Claw

Here's a photo of one of the things I was working on last week. Yup, a new dragon-themed piece. This is actually a button. I intended it to be a claw, although I suppose it could easily be teeth, as well. I've been debating putting a little cz at the tips, so that the claw looks as if it's grasping a jewel. I might try that next, but probably not for a couple weeks or so.

I am finding this 'flu a little hard to shake off completely, which is unusual, as these things tend not to last more than a day or so for me. I'm feeling better enough to take care of the Short One, though, much to his relief and mine. The SO's new favorite word is "more". Although it makes a nice change from "no", I'm finding it a little hard to explain that we don't actually have "more" of everything in the house. At one point this afternoon, our little Commodore was demanding "more boats, more boats!" in what seemed to be a fine naval tradition. After rounding up the usual suspects (he has a few boat bath toys) failed to appease him, I ended up looking up the instructions for origami boats on-line and making him a personalized fleet out of a bunch of his artwork we had lying around (tip number #3 - children's artwork makes great origami paper!).

Does anyone else here do origami? My Dad used to entertain me with origami animals when I was a child, and, as a result, I spent a lot of time practicing my valley and mountain folds in my youth. I can only do pretty simple stuff - the usual crane, a frog, an iris, a crab, etc., etc. - but I do actually still make things from time to time. Apart from decorating Christmas trees and building fleets on a limited budget, though, I haven't been able to find a lot of practical uses for the skill (okay, it's been a useful party trick on occasion, which just goes to show how desperate I can get at cocktail parties, but that's another story). One of these days I'll make origami jewelry from paper-type PMC - I just haven't gotten around to it yet... If anyone has any other good ideas, please do let me know...

I hope everyone had a good Monday. See you tomorrow.

Domestic Tragedies

The one bit of good news I have to share: the koi bracelet I made for my friend as a Christmas present has shown up in today's post on Art Bead Scene. Yay! Thank you, Art Bead Scene! Please go here to see it.

Once again, I'm sorry for my absence on Friday (this is turning into a sad refrain, isn't it?). I do have a good excuse this time - I ended up in the ER early Friday morning after a copious amount of vomiting and other unpleasant things. I started feeling quite sick while working on my jewelry and, in my paranoid way, was afraid that I had inadvertently managed to poison myself with one of the chemicals I was using. Fortunately, it turned out to be completely unrelated - just a bad bout of stomach 'flu. This is the first time I've really been incapacitated by sickness since the Short One was born, so it's been another learning experience for the Husband and me. H. ended taking Friday off to chase after the SO, while I lay around feeling not so good. The Short One has been tolerating this whole experience pretty well, although he has had an endearing tendency to want to snuggle during my short appearances downstairs to reassure him that I'm still around. (Trying to balance the snuggling with not making the SO sick has been an interesting excercise, though.)

On top of that, the sewer line has started backing up through the drain in our basement floor. At first, our plumber told us he simply needed to clear the drains of tree roots. When that didn't work, he said he needed to install a t-junction further down one of the pipes, where the clog probably was. When that proved not to be the problem, he told us he needed to bring a specialist in with a camera, because we probably had a partial line collapse somewhere on the property. In the meantime, we were to use the water in the house "lightly". He called yesterday and told us, due to scheduling conflicts on the part of the people with the camera, they would not be able to come out until Tuesday. Oh, joy.

Hey, are you still awake? Sorry to bore you with all of this domesticity, but I'm afraid it's really occupied Friday and the weekend. With April around the corner, and my contest deadlines coming up, I should be able to get back to business as usual this month and actually blog about, you know, making jewelry or even possibly a little knitting. You may scoff, but I have a plan. It's not even very cunning.

Thanks for stopping by.

Great things happen on...

Hi, everyone! It's officially Ornament Thursday, so here are the links to all of the wonderful crafty goodness that the OT team cooked up this month. The theme for this month is "Sprout". (By the way, to find my project you may click on the link or simply scroll down the page to the earlier post.) I hope you find some inspiration here! Have a great day.

Alexa Westerfield - a.k.a. Swelldesigner
Now that's it's time for spring, ideas are "sprouting" all over the place. Alexa creates this eye-catching notebook to keep them in order.

Art Bead Scene
Some good karma is sprouting up at the Art Bead Scene with Heather's Lotus Flower Bracelet

Cindy Gimbrone aka The Lampwork Diva
The Brooklyn National Anthem sprouts every year when Cindy's in Spring mode. See what it inspired this year!

Earthenwood Studio Chronicles
Melanie giggles and remembers a furry friend, brings back an old mold, and sprouts up a beaded LOLhammy ceramic ornament

Helen Bradley and Michelle Zimmerman at http design
It's spring and we're sprouting all sorts of wonderful art at http design. Michelle is toting her art to the market and Helen revisits a fun art school assignment for her inspiration.

Humblebeads
Humblebeads celebrates spring with a Berry Good bracelet inspired by some juicy disk beads.

Jennifer Heynen of Jangles
Jennifer has come up with a cute little necklace to remind you of spring.

Katie's Beading Blog
Create some spring flair of your own with this easy bead embroidery idea from Katie's book, Hip to Bead.

Kriss Cramer - Spring Is In The Air
Not much of a horticulturist? Me neither! But I love flowers and I enjoy growing these ones with some paper, paint, and rhinestones.

Linda and Tea at Make It Mine magazine
Tea decided to join the fun this month. Check out her quilt blocks and Linda's purse.

Melissa J. Lee - Strands of Beads
What do Korean playing cards have to do with a sprouting spring? Check out Melissa's blog to find out.

Michelle McGee - S-P-R-O-U-T
Michelle just can't stop creating in green! A little wooden birdhouse becomes a beautiful palace!

Savvy Crafter
Candie shares some happy spring memories with a cheerful felty flower idea!

Snap out of it, Jean! There's beading to be done!
Jean tells a touching, poignant tale of some beads who help one another, and after a small amount of sturm and drang they get it together and help each other! In fact, they prettify whatever YOU choose! Go see! It's fun!

Spring is Sprouting for Joolz by Lisa
Even without a green thumb, Lisa managed to "grow" a garden of sorts this month.

Sprouting Up with Beading Help Web
Lynn Kvigne's used wire and a lentil bead to create a "sprouting" pendant for wire workers who want a bit of a challenge!

The Goddess ROCKS!
Inspired by a river rock shaped like an ancient goddess statue, Hali paints, melts crayons and adds glitter to create a sparkley celebration of Spring.

The Impatient Blogger
How does your garden grow? With metal mesh, Czech glass beads and vintage French images all in a row! Margot just returned from Paris where she discovered a treasure trove of vintage paper. This scanned and sized postcard image fit the theme of sprout perfectly and the necklace was in search of a new home...add some teal metal mesh bows and accents and voila...a design sprouts forth!

Vintage Girl Teams Up With Her Vintage Momma!
What does a gal do when she finds herself far from her crafting supplies? Why, she raids her mom's basement and then puts dear old mama to work! Stop by and you'll see why mom's basement is fertile ground for things that sprou

Ornament Thursday - Sprout!

Welcome to Ornament Thursday! Each month, a group of diverse but like-minded artists come together to create pieces based on a common theme. For more information regarding Ornament Thursday, please go here.

This month's theme is "sprout". I'm not sure if you could really say that flowers "sprout" rather than "bloom", but the buds on this piece were calling to me and green is the color of sprouting, right?? Right?? (Should you disagree with me on this point, I hope you'll willingly suspend your disbelief for a few moments.)

This piece is actually quite special to me. I made the focal from a hato card, a Korean playing card, that I set in a hand-formed PMC base with resin. When my mother came to the United States as a student in the fifties, she brought a few personal items with her, including a very nice set of hato cards. She never went back to Korea, eventually meeting and marrying my father and raising her family (namely me) in the Midwest. Through these life changes, she kept her set of cards and eventually spent many hours entertaining me with them when I was a child.

I wanted to commemorate my happy childhood memories by making this pendant. (I should note that I did not use cards from my mother's actual set, which we carefully preserve in the family. This card is from a more modern version that I purchased a few months ago.) Hato cards contain twelve suits, each representing a month of the year. Each suit has four cards, with varying point values. Although all of the cards are beautifully illustrated, the high point cards tend to be the most intricate. I chose a card representing springtime for the "sprout" theme. This card is actually the high value one for the February suit. (Yes, I'm cheating again, here - I didn't use the card for March!) By the way, regarding the scale of the piece, hato cards are considerably smaller than Western playing cards. They are slightly larger than a box of matches. Thus, although sizeable, the card still makes a nice pendant.

If you would like to see what the other suits look like, Randy L. Pearson has a nice website dedicated in part to the card game minhato that is played with - yup! - hato cards. Please go here to view. (Incidentally, if you would like to learn how to play minhato, Randy has a nice on-line version of the game available here.)

But wait, there's more! Please visit these talented OT artists to explore their vision for "Sprout":

Alexa Westerfield - a.k.a. Swelldesigner
Now that's it's time for spring, ideas are "sprouting" all over the place. Alexa creates this eye-catching notebook to keep them in order.

Art Bead Scene
Some good karma is sprouting up at the Art Bead Scene with Heather's Lotus Flower Bracelet

Cindy Gimbrone aka The Lampwork Diva
The Brooklyn National Anthem sprouts every year when Cindy's in Spring mode. See what it inspired this year!

Earthenwood Studio Chronicles
Melanie giggles and remembers a furry friend, brings back an old mold, and sprouts up a beaded LOLhammy ceramic ornament

Helen Bradley and Michelle Zimmerman at http design
It's spring and we're sprouting all sorts of wonderful art at http design. Michelle is toting her art to the market and Helen revisits a fun art school assignment for her inspiration.

Humblebeads
Humblebeads celebrates spring with a Berry Good bracelet inspired by some juicy disk beads.

Jennifer Heynen of Jangles
Jennifer has come up with a cute little necklace to remind you of spring.

Katie's Beading Blog
Create some spring flair of your own with this easy bead embroidery idea from Katie's book, Hip to Bead.

Kriss Cramer - Spring Is In The Air
Not much of a horticulturist? Me neither! But I love flowers and I enjoy growing these ones with some paper, paint, and rhinestones.

Linda and Tea at Make It Mine magazine
Tea decided to join the fun this month. Check out her quilt blocks and Linda's purse.

Melissa J. Lee - Strands of Beads
What do Korean playing cards have to do with a sprouting spring? Check out Melissa's blog to find out.

Michelle McGee - S-P-R-O-U-T
Michelle just can't stop creating in green! A little wooden birdhouse becomes a beautiful palace!

Savvy Crafter
Candie shares some happy spring memories with a cheerful felty flower idea!

Snap out of it, Jean! There's beading to be done!
Jean tells a touching, poignant tale of some beads who help one another, and after a small amount of sturm and drang they get it together and help each other! In fact, they prettify whatever YOU choose! Go see! It's fun!

Spring is Sprouting for Joolz by Lisa
Even without a green thumb, Lisa managed to "grow" a garden of sorts this month.

Sprouting Up with Beading Help Web
Lynn Kvigne's used wire and a lentil bead to create a "sprouting" pendant for wire workers who want a bit of a challenge!

The Goddess ROCKS!
Inspired by a river rock shaped like an ancient goddess statue, Hali paints, melts crayons and adds glitter to create a sparkley celebration of Spring.

The Impatient Blogger
How does your garden grow? With metal mesh, Czech glass beads and vintage French images all in a row! Margot just returned from Paris where she discovered a treasure trove of vintage paper. This scanned and sized postcard image fit the theme of sprout perfectly and the necklace was in search of a new home...add some teal metal mesh bows and accents and voila...a design sprouts forth!

Vintage Girl Teams Up With Her Vintage Momma!
What does a gal do when she finds herself far from her crafting supplies? Why, she raids her mom's basement and then puts dear old mama to work! Stop by and you'll see why mom's basement is fertile ground for things that sprout

Thanks for stopping by!

Plumeria Blossom

Here's my most recent acquisition that arrived in the mail today. I purchased it from a designer on Etsy who is doing a little destashing. I believe it's supposed to be a plumeria blossom. I know you can't tell from the photo, but this is a huge focal - 50mm across and, since it's carved agate, quite heavy. For some reason, ever since I blogged that I'm not terribly interested in floral designs, I've become obsessed with, well, floral designs. Lately, I've gone completely mad for designs incorporating oversized stone flowers. This was the largest piece I could find with detailed carving. This will likely be paired with onyx or huge black shell pearls and a little coral or red jasper. I'm not sure when I'm going to have the time to put it together, but I'll be happy to add it to my stash for the next month or two, in the meantime.

The Short One, in turn, has gone mad for eggs. Although he, thankfully, didn't comment on the absence of his dyed eggs, he's been playing feverishly with a set of plastic ones and has commanded me at intervals to draw colored eggs with crayons and/or cut out egg shapes from construction paper so that he can decorate them. So far, the eggs in the fridge are safe - I tucked them a little further back on the shelf. I'm hoping he won't notice them, otherwise we could have a major excavation of foodstuff in the kitchen if I don't keep a sharp eye out!

I'll be back late tonight (technically early tomorrow morning, I guess) to post my Ornament Thursday project. Thanks for stopping by!

Egghead

Did everyone have a Happy Easter? We certainly did. We decided to color eggs this year with the Short One, despite the potential mess factor. To say that the SO was MASSIVELY EXCITED would be an understatement. The Husband and I thought we'd have a nice, calm egg dipping session where the SO would choose the colors (he is in the process of learning his colors right now), and I would dip them for him. We had a fine time dipping the first couple eggs this way, with cute multicolored stripes, etc. After that, all heck broke loose, with the SO tossing eggs (this, even though he was firmly held in parental arms the entire time) in dye bowls, with the expected consequences, and becoming increasingly overwrought by this new and excessively exciting art form. So much more entertaining than crayons, let me tell you.

Here are the results of the SO's first ever attempt to dye eggs. While, personally, I feel that he did a darn good job for someone still learning the finer points of motor control, I think the Husband is still slightly traumatized by the amount of mess this generated. Also, I must admit that another drawback to this whole experience is that the SO is firmly convinced that eggs are like the big rubber balls in his toy chest. The cracks you see in the photo were not so much caused by his tossing the eggs in the dye bowls as his attempts to get them to bounce on the floor, afterwards. As a result of this enthusiastic playtime, I ended up quietly disposing of them after he went to bed - but not before taking this commemorative photo. (My only concern is how to keep him from tossing all of the remaining fresh, and definitely not hardboiled, eggs in the fridge on the floor over the next couple days, but that's another story.)

On the beading front, I managed to finish one of my contest pieces this weekend with only moderate cursing and tearing of hair, and I strung my Ornament Thursday (which is this Thursday) project tonight. I can't show you the contest piece for a while, but the OT project will be posted on Wednesday. Try to contain your excitement, please.

I hope everyone had a great weekend. I'll see you tomorrow!

What happened?!?

This was the view outside my window today. So I have to ask, WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED TO SPRING??? Tsk, how depressing. I think we've had about 4 inches already, and it's still coming down as I write this. The Short One was quite excited by this development, but I must say that I've had quite enough of the white stuff at this point.

Can anyone recommend a good epoxy to use to adhere leather cord to metal? This is the first time I'm using leather cord in a necklace without a crimping end cap or without a self-finishing knotted clasp (my favorite option), and I'm a little unclear as to whether my usual adhesive (I usually use E3000 cement or Devcon 5 epoxy, depending on the situation, if anyone is interested) will actually do the job or not. Any comments on this are quite welcome.

I'm still slogging away at my projects with no end in sight. Well, actually, that's not quite true. The deadline for filing these pieces is the end of the month, so one way or another I'll be finished with them in a little over a week. Ack.

Meanwhile, the SO seems to be gaining speed on a daily basis. I can't tell whether this is a function of age and height, or a sign that the procedure to cure his ingrown toenails has really gone well. I would like to know, however, when a toddler's ground speed tops out, as I'm already finding it a little difficult to keep up with him. I mentioned this to the Husband, and he replied, "15". I suppose it's a fair question - do kids hit a maximum mph within a year or two or do their legs just keep getting faster and faster as they grow longer, until they qualify for their driver's license? (I bet you know which answer I'd prefer.)

Have a great weekend, everyone. I'll see you on Monday. Oh, and Happy Easter, for those of you who celebrate Easter!

Steampunk

I was up until all hours again working on my projects, so I'm punting (again). Here are beads that are on the top of my Wish List currently. They are by Melanie Brooks Lukacs of Earthenwood Studio. These are part of her new Steampunk collection. For those unfamiliar with the term, steampunk is a sister to cyberpunk, placing a similar emphasis on cool technology. In steampunk, however, the technology is from the steam power era. If you've been reading this blog and are familiar with my Geek Love work, you'll probably guess that I love cyberpunk. I also love steampunk, which has a more Victorian, beautifully elaborate aesthetic. Think dirigibles. Think clockwork mechanisms. Melanie has really outdone herself with this new collection. I'm dying to get my hands on these beads. If you'd like to see the full collection, please go here.

Okay, the Short One is indicating that he'd very much like a little milk, please. I must run!

I'll be back later tonight - thanks for stopping by!

Royal Purple

Well, I finally have something to show you. This is my first attempt to string one of my amethyst stalactite top pendants. At the time I strung this (a couple weeks ago), I thought I'd managed to get the color balance right, but now I'm not so sure. I bought this beautiful, chunky rose quartz back in December, and I've been itching to use it. I love the color combination of purple, pink and green, but something about this necklace still seems just a touch off. As you can see, this is still a bit of a work in progress.

On other fronts, the Short One is continuing to do well with his toes and has been very patient about sitting still for the compresses (he spends the time covering my face with little alphabet stickers - there is an advantage to having a captive audience, after all).

The SO is a real alphabet fanatic. He's loved letters since he was about 18 months old. I get weird looks from other mothers when we "play alphabet" in public, as if I'm some neurotic woman making a pathetic attempt to turn my child into a super-genius, but it really is all his idea. Nothing makes him happier than reciting or having me write his letters for him. In fact, in our continuing efforts to circumvent his pickiness at mealtimes, the Husband and I hunted around for alphabet pasta at our local groceries (we finally found some after looking around for about a month) and have been adding it to various dishes at mealtime. So far it's working pretty well, although he does have some tendency to pick out the pasta and leave the other good stuff. In fact, it's working so well, that I'm seriously thinking about getting some alphabet pastry cutters and using them to cut his veggies and fresh fruit into letter shapes in an attempt to get him to eat them. What do you think? A cunning plan (this is a reference to Black Adder - I love that show)?

Well, now that my Designer's Challenge piece is finished (the photographs came out very nicely this afternoon), it's back to the various contest pieces for me. I can't believe it's already the 18th. Where is the month going? Does everyone have their taxes done?

Thanks for stopping by!

Focal

I set out tonight to make only the focal for the piece I'm putting together for Maria Grimes' Designer's Challenge, but it came out so well (I know, I'm so modest), that I got all excited and ended up finishing the entire necklace. Now, I'm sitting here too late at night, while my eyes slowly cross. On the other hand, this was one of the five pieces I'm supposed to finish before the end of the month, so it feels good to get something done, finally (except for photographs, which I will take tomorrow). I can't show you the necklace until the Challenge closes, at the end of the month, but I have to say that it really is one of the more unusual necklaces I've made (at least, the focal is unusual), so I hope you'll come back again to see it.

Many thanks for all the good wishes for the Short One's recovery. Obviously, this was a pretty minor procedure as these things go, but I tend to fret over stuff like this. The SO, on the other hand, is continuing to take the situation in stride. It was all I could do not to guffaw yesterday, when the podiatrist told us that we would have to apply warm compresses to the SO's feet, twice a day for twenty minutes each time. The SO tends not to sit still for more than five minutes at a time and then only if there's a particularly gripping episode of Sesame Street playing. However, much to my surprise, he sat still very nicely for his compresses today (and he was otherwise reasonably active - his toes do not seem to be hindering his ability to get into things). Of course, as a precautionary measure, I did go out to the local party store this evening to stock up on stickers and coloring books, since we have to follow this procedure for a full week. The SO is, after all, a toddler with a toddler's instincts. (I figure that the Husband and I will learn to come to grips with his toddlerhood sometime within the next ten years, at which point it will be far too late to do us any good.) On the whole, though, his toes don't seem to be bothering him at all, despite how they look right now, for which I'm quite grateful.

On other fronts, I received good news in the email box today. I have had my first project accepted by Simply Beads Magazine. It is a holiday-themed necklace and will appear in the December 2008 issue.

Okay, I must go be bed before I fall asleep on the table. Have a great day, everyone.

ps. The photo is of another focal I did last year - this was one the first bezels I ever made from PMC. The "shells" in the bezel are actually ceramic beads from Earthenwood Studio.

Tomato, Tomahto

With the weather actually making it up to the 50s (F) where I live, the Husband and I have been thinking more about our garden, and, in particular, the little vegetable patch that H. cultivates every year. Here's a pic of some cherry tomatoes from last summer. I'm always struck by how much sweeter and more tender home grown veggies are than even the stuff that we buy at the local farmer's market. I'm completely hopeless with plants - I've managed to kill off pretty much every house plant we've owned except the jade plant (which can be ignored for months, I've learned, without terrible consequences). H., however, comes from a family of gardeners and does quite well with our small plot. Last year, we enjoyed a huge harvest of tomatoes and basil (which, sauteed with butter and a little white wine, makes a truly excellent pasta sauce), cauliflower, sweet peas, butter lettuce, etc., etc. Uh, it makes my mouth water, just thinking about it. Apparently, we're due for sleet-turning-to-snow tonight, so I suspect it will still be a little while before H. plants anything, but I'm certainly looking forward to it!

All of my bead-making went on hiatus for the past couple days. The Short One has been scheduled to go into pediatric day surgery for the past month, and we took him early (quite early - we were up a little before 5am) today. He has had a problem with ingrown nails since he was an infant, and they've finally become bad enough that the podiatrist recommended that they be cut back. Due to his age, he had to undergo a general anesthetic for the procedure- the thought of which has made me quite jittery. I'm happy to say, though, that he came through beautifully. The hospital allowed me to come into the OR and they administered the anesthesia while the SO was sitting on my lap. (The anesthesiologist kept telling me to avert my face from the gas mask - apparently, they have accidentally put a few mothers under, in these situations.) After the SO passed out, I was escorted from the OR to the waiting room. While it was hard to leave him - he looked so terribly small on the operating table - the procedure only took about 15 minutes, and he came to in the recovery area with Monkey (Junior - who has been called into service) by his side.

Anyway, he's doing fine, and I'll be back to the usual bead patter tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by and Happy St. Patrick's Day! (Noticing that H. was wearing nothing green while we were waiting for the SO, I happily stomped on his shoe, with my usual level of maturity. Hopefully, you fared a little better.)

A Happing Ending

Well, as it turns out, I do have a little something new to show you today, after all. I really like working with leather cord as a stringing material, but I'm not terribly fond of the usual commercial end caps that are available for them. Plus, I needed a bigger than usual set for what I'm working on now, so I decided to try making them. Here's the result. I'm pretty happy with the way they turned out, and I think they'll actually be functional, which is always a relief. (Actually, I think they'd make pretty cute bells, too, if I insert a clapper, so you may be seeing bells in the future from me.) As usual, background art is by the Short One.

I'm still racing around trying to finish multiple projects. I finalized the design for the piece I'm creating for Maria Grimes' Designer Challenge (results will be posted on Maria's website on April 1st - I'm one of twelve participants). It's making me chortle like a madwoman. If I can resolve all of the technical issues (and I'm optimistic about this right now), it will end up being one of the more unusual pieces I've made, which always makes me happy. I just need to make a few components for it out of (what else?) metal clay, which I will do tonight. More on this at the beginning of April!

And the teaser for this month's Ornament Thursday is up! Please visit the OT blog, for a sneak peek at Lynne Kvigne's intriguing new project. The theme for this month is SPROUT! And, of course, please come back on the last Thursday of the month to see this month's participants' projects.

Okay, I need to get back to work again. I have about 20 pieces that need to be dipped in liver of sulphur and polished tonight. Ugh. Have a great weekend, everyone!

White Day

Happy White Day! I believe this is a strictly Japanese holiday. (I'd be interested to hear otherwise, if I'm mistaken.) In Japan, only girls give Valentines (usually involving chocolate, I believe) on February 14th. The boys don't have to do anything but accept the gift(s). A nice deal for the boys, don't you think? They get to wait until March 14th, White Day, to reciprocate, if interested. (I'm a little unclear as to whether boys are obligated to reciprocate for a Valentine they've accepted or not.) This has always struck me as being a wee bit unfair to the girls - for one thing, having to wait a full month for a reply seems, well, nail-bitingly difficult - but perhaps that says more about my personality than about the holiday.

Here's my gift from the Short One - a nice piece of original artwork. I think it shows a lot of artistic insight, don't you? Oh, and the crayons to the side are the triangular non-rolling crayons that have recently become the SO's absolute favorites - he won't even touch the regular round ones at the moment.

Anyway, may you have a wonderful White Day yourself. I'm still struggling through with my contest project, so probably no new work to show until next week. I will stop in to say "hi" tomorrow, though.

Buttons and the Speed of Sound

Oooh, how biiizzzarre. That Theremin Jam video that I tried embedding from YouTube several nights ago finally showed up in the blog tonight. How unexpectedly...speedy. Not! Anyway, it's good, don't you think? I am still disappointed that the Star Trek theme is actually sung by a woman trying to sound like a theremin, though - as pointed out in an earlier blog post by Oscar the theremin player (thank you, Oscar). Ah, well, there are plenty of other examples of theremin playing that I've seen on YouTube (including one that's a cover of "Video Killed the Radio Star" that the Husband finds inexplicably humorous - I think we ended up watching that three times).

For some reason, apart from the big pieces over which I've been tearing my hair for the past week or so, I've been in the mood to make buttons. So far, I've just made a couple of bezels to be filled (picture above - background art by the Short One), but I'd really actually like to try making buttons from some of my other pendant designs, like the "Geek Love" pendant. I think it could look kind of cool. Kind of extravagant, making buttons from fine silver, but kind of cool. Also, as far as the koi buttons are concerned, one of my favorite cardigan types is a kimono style one. I don't even use a pattern for this - I just write up something simple myself. If I can figure out a way to photograph it, I'll post one of the ones I made last year on the blog. Anyway, I thought a kimono style sweater with a single button closure would look great with a big koi button. It's on my "to do" list. If I'm lucky, I'll get to it before next winter...

Anyway, I've been meaning to post links to these photos for a while now. I actually came across them on Beatrice Killeen's Fried Peas website, but unfortunately, I can't figure out a way to link to that particular blog post of hers, so I'm just going to link directly to the photos (hope you don't mind, Beatrice!). These are fantastic photos of a great white trailing a marine biologist in a teeny tiny canoe (there's nothing gruesome about the photos and there was no actual contact between the marine biologist and the shark - the shark just investigated the canoe for a bit). I believe they were taken by a National Geographic photographer. They really give a sense of scale - I would not have like to have been the man in the canoe, though. As far as I know, they are legitimate, untouched photos (and I believe Beatrice researched the issue before posting them on her site). Go here and here to view them.

Okay, back to my @#$#%$ projects. See you later.

Gnarls Barkley Crazy Theremin Jam

Sorry for not posting last night. I finally managed to sit down to finish a project that I'd been meaning to do for several weeks and, when I finally, finished it was after 2am. Anyway, for reasons that will probably become clear over the next few weeks, I spent part of the day yesterday grilling the Husband about transistors, capacitors, 16- and 14- bit chips, etc., etc. (You may recall that he's an engineer.) His eyes lit up like a little kid asked to explain all of the features on the new model airplane he's just received for Christmas - it was so cute. In fact, H. got so enthusiastic, he made me sit down and watch theremin videos on YouTube with him. It's amazing how many videos there are of people playing the theremin on YouTube.

Do you know what a theremin is? It's an instrument that you play without touching anything. Yep, it's true. Even if you think you don't know what it is, odds are that you've heard one. In the theme song to the original "Star Trek" series, that unearthly humming is made by a theremin.

The above YouTube video was one of the more bearable theremin videos I watched last night. It is kind of an interesting instrument. I just don't find the sound it makes terribly soothing!

Anyway, have a good day, everyone. I'll be back tonight.

The Signature "S"

I'm afraid I still don't have anything new to show you of my own work, so I thought I'd show you a favorite piece from my own personal collection. Anyone familiar with Sarah Moran's work will know right away that these boro beads were made by her. In fact, however, the whole necklace is Sarah's work, including the signature "S" lampworked button that she uses on many of her finished pieces (all of her finished jewelry incorporates a signature "S", but sometimes it appears on a bead, rather than a button). In addition to beads, Sarah very occasionally sells finished jewelry. I fell in love with this necklace the minute I saw it. It is one of the few finished pieces made by a beadmaker that I own. (I also have a small collection of Navajo and Zuni jewelry - I love Native American jewelry - but that's for another time.)

On other fronts, the Short One has been going gangbusters with crayons recently. He's been so prolific with his artwork, I'm really at a loss as to what to do with it all (they do make nice art for notecards, though). Like most mothers, I always carry a few crayons in my purse for dining out and for emergencies. After the nth time searching for crayons that had rolled under the table at the SO's favorite Japanese restaurant, the Husband and I were determined to find a set of square, non-rolling, crayons. I remember that they were available during my own childhood, but I really hadn't seen them around recently. After hunting around for a while, we finally found a set of triangular crayons (made by Melissa & Doug - love that company) at a local art supply store. They are simply fab! The SO finds the new shape intriguing, and the triangular shape seems sturdier and less liable to snap than the conventional round ones. The amount of time we spend searching the floor for stray crayons during meals out has dropped by 80%. I highly recommend them for anyone with a little artist in the family.

Thanks for stopping by!

Bad Blogger

Could I be a worse blogger these days? I've spent the past week working on a erstwhile contest piece, to the exclusion of almost everything else, including sleep. I forget which author said that he spent the morning taking out a comma and the afternoon putting it back in (or vice versa - the whole quote is pretty hazy in my mind), but I've pretty much been doing that with a single necklace for days. Yesterday, I added a piece of sterling chain to the necklace, tonight, after thinking about it for two hours, I took it out. I think this whole evening definitely falls victim to the law of diminishing returns. I just need to finish this piece, photograph it, submit it and stop thinking about it. I decided to enter a contest just for the experience (I have no expectation of placing or even making the finals - the level of competition is too high), and the experience, thus far, has been a little stress-inducing.

Anyway, given that I'm (once again) punting, I thought I'd show you this older piece. It's based on "A Midsummer Night's Dream". The porcelain moon face cab in the focal is by Earthenwood Studio. I made the leaves from resin. Ultimately, the leaves were not entirely a success. This is a project I'd like to revisit at some point. The leaves are light and the colors are vivid, which I like, but I had problems with the surface of the leaves being a bit rough and crude looking. I made the molds for these leaves by sticking a polymer clay mock up of each leaf in silicone molding material. The clay was not finished well enough, and, as a result, in patches the resin came out of the mold looking a little cloudy. I have a few ideas on how to fix this little problem, but the way things are looking, I may not be able to revisit the issue until May or so. I do like the overall design of this piece, though, and my friend Rachel Place used this photograph when she kindly surprised me by making the banner for my blog for me. See?

Sorry again for the short, rather bland post. If you would bear with me for another day or two, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks for visiting!

Phoning Home

I'm afraid I'm totally phoning this in, even after missing last night's post. Last night involved part two of my large project and an unhappy Short One who couldn't sleep between 1-4am. Late at night is usually my private time for making new beads, etc. Mostly, the SO sleeps pretty well these days, but there are some nights still when he simply wakes up for some reason and has trouble getting back to sleep. I have insomnia issues myself from time to time, so I can sympathize - I'm hoping he doesn't inherit my chronic sleep problems. However, the combination of the SO being unable to sleep and fiddly resin work simply makes one (namely, me) want to tear hair out (mine, not the SO's, poor guy). I finally tottered into bed around 5am, around the same time the Husband was waking up for the day.

The project isn't going so well, either, I'm sorry to say. I prepared one large lot of colored resin yesterday afternoon, large enough to deal with all of the pieces of my necklace. Because I hand-tint the resin, I have dye lot issues, similar to what you find in hand-dyed yarn. I wanted more than enough resin for my project to ensure that the color of the beads match well. However, for whatever reason, despite the fact that I used a single pot of resin for the project and made the beads at pretty much the same time (barring the 1-4am issues), I'm still getting weird color variations from bead to bead. It's another hair tearing issue, I'm afraid.

Oh, and, I wanted to correct my post from Thursday. A theremin player names Oscar actually came across my post (you can read his comment in the Comments section). He informed me that the sound in the Star Trek theme is actually the voice of a woman imitating a theremin and not actually a theremin. How disappointing. Oh, well, it's still an interesting instrument. Thanks for the information, Oscar!

Okay, I need to call it a night before I keel over. Sorry to have been such an absentee blogger these past days. I should be able to do better next week. Thanks for stopping by!

ps. The necklace above is an old one - the flower pendant is by Michele Goldstein. I strung it with my own beginner lampworked beads.

O Theremin, My Theremin

INSERT VIDEO HERE.

Okay, I tried to embed this YouTube video a couple times and have lost my post both times, so I'm going to do this the old fashioned way. Please go here to view it.

Sorry for not posting last night. I finally managed to start a project that I'd been meaning to take care of for several weeks (it has an actual deadline coming up), and by the time I finished it was after 2am, so I chucked it in. For reasons that will become clear in the next few weeks (hopefully), I spent part of my evening yesterday grilling the Husband about transistors, capacitors and 16- and 32- bit chips (you may recall that H. is an engineer). H was very excited that I was asking all of these questions. He was just like a little kid who'd just been asked to show off the features of the new model airplane he'd received for Christmas - it was really cute. In fact, H. was so excited that he made me sit down and watch a bunch of theremin videos on YouTube last night. Just for the record, there are surprisingly a lot of videos of people playing the theremin on YouTube.

Do you know what a theremin is? For the uninitiated, it's notable for being an instrument you play without touching anything. Yep, it's true. Oh, and while you may think you don't know what it is, chances are, you've probably heard one. In the theme song for the original "Star Trek" series, that unearthly humming is made by a theremin. Remember that? Anyway, the link above will take you to a video of one of the more bearable theremin pieces I watched last night. It is rather interesting to watch someone play the instrument. I just don't find the sound that it makes particularly soothing!

Have a great day everyone. I'll be back tonight.

Romance, romance

This is the new version of the fortune cookie fortune bezel. I know it's impossible to tell from the photograph, but this version is significantly lighter than the original. I put it in the Ornament Thursday Luck necklace, and it's much more comfortable to wear. The sentiment suits the necklace, too, I think.

The Short One and I actually ate lunch at the local Chinese restaurant today. As I mentioned previously, the SO loves the lemon chicken dish there. Well, he doesn't love the lemon chicken per se - he loves the baby corn in the lemon chicken dish. He gobbles up baby corn as if there's no tomorrow. I actually pay extra to have the chef put in tons of baby corn in the dish. Every now and then, when I'm lucky, he'll deign to eat a piece of chicken, too. I really worry about his getting enough iron. He evolved pretty quickly from being an infant who would eat anything, to a toddler who would really prefer to eat only white rice and the odd bit of apple sauce and pineapple. I started cooking his rice with iron-rich beef stock a while back, and he's even starting to reject that. But I digress...

At any rate, since fortune cookies have been on my mind lately, I asked the waiter if I could go ahead and buy an extra bunch of them, as I needed the fortunes. I got strange looks, but the restaurant was happy to oblige. I opened them up when I came home and not a single one of them was really a "good" fortune. One of them reads "The next time someone insults you, fail to notice it. You will show more class for doing so." True, but how depressing! I guess that's what I get for trying to circumvent the whole serendipity factor of receiving a single random fortune at the end of my meal.

Thanks for stopping by!

Hato Cards II

It seems to be my month for cleaning up old work. Here's another project that's been sitting around for several months. You may recall that way back in October I showed you a few Hato cards, which are Korean playing cards. Well, I finally got around to making a bezel setting for it and embedding one of the cards in resin. Actually, I had a few false starts with the bezel. Making bezels from PMC can be interesting, because PMC shrinks when it's fired. After a few costly mistakes, I got frustrated and put the whole thing aside. As it turns out, I found a template that worked for this last week, made an impression of it in the clay and simply cut the impression out freehand with a craft knife. The end result is a little rough looking - there are no perfect 90 degree angles here - but I kind of like it that way.

Anyway, it's actually a little late in the year for me to be using this card. Hato suits are based on months of the year and this card is from the suit for February. However, the image seems very spring-like to me, and I'm all in favor of a little springtime, right now. This is a bit of a teaser/spoiler, too, as I'm likely to use this pendant in my Ornament Thursday project for this month (which will take place on the last Thursday of this month). It's a bit of a stretch for the theme, but I'm quite keen to use it, now that it's finally assembled. I hope you'll come back to see what I make with it!

My mother, who is visiting, came down with the stomach flu that's been going around here. I feel very sorry for her - she spent the whole day avoiding the Short One (who is mighty curious about this development and keeps making a run for the guest room every time we go upstairs for anything) in the hope of not passing it on/back (he had stomach flu a couple weeks ago) to him. Fortunately, at this point, it seems that this is one of those 24 hour viruses. We are hoping that she will be back to normal very quickly after a day of rest.

Meanwhile the SO, who has a habit of clambering up one of the dining room chairs so he can reach our notebook computer (as you may recall, he feels that we keep the computer especially for his entertainment), has started falling off of the chair in quite dramatic ways. So far, we've managed to avert real disaster (although one seemed bad enough to warrant checking his teeth, afterwards - they're fine, fortunately), but keeping an eye on him is no longer sufficient. Two eyes and a couple hands seems more like it. Are girls like this? I just have this impression that this is more of a boy issue. Maybe I'm just falling victim to stereotypes here? I mutter to my Husband about his Y chromosome, but he just rolls his eyes at me...

Thanks for stopping by!

Still traveling the Road of Life...

A while back I made a traffic light pendant but did not add any patina at all to the metal before filling it with red, yellow and green tinted resin. I felt that the result was just slightly washed out looking. This is kind of embarrassing, but I made this second pendant just a few weeks after, and it's been sitting in my pending projects pile ever since then. Sometimes I have a little trouble remaining focused on my projects... Anyway, I finally got around to completing it. As you can see, I decided to add the patina. I also mixed the resin to darker shades of red, yellow and green (the green did not photograph well, but it's close to an emerald green). I'm pretty happy with it, although, having the usual "grass is always greener" mentality, I can now see the usefulness of the version without the patina, too. I've ordered a few components to make a full necklace with a Road of Life theme, which should be fun.

I've actually been wondering if this pendant is masculine enough looking to make something for a guy from it. I was flipping through a few old beading magazines in my stash over the weekend and one of them had a "For Him" section. I have to admit, the piece that was displayed was nothing any man of my acquaintance would actually wear (except possibly the Short One, and he just likes shiny stuff). It got me thinking about men's jewelry. I feel that a few pieces I make might be suitable for men's jewelry, in that "shark tooth pendant" kind of way. I think it presents an interesting challenge, and I love a challenge when it comes to this stuff. So, you may be seeing my efforts in that direction over the next month or two. (Plus, I feel it gives me a head start to try to design something cool enough that the Short One might wear as a teenager. I'd like to do that, although, who knows what kids will be into by then. Now that's a scary thought, eh?)

I just took a kiln-load of silver out and am preparing to buff them. I'm trying to modify my fortune cookie fortune bezel so it doesn't use so much silver (my first versions took a HUGE amount of silver - they are extremely heavy and expensive, as a result). I'm also working on a couple new projects. I won't have anything finished for these in the next week or two, but they might be good for a work-in-progress photo later this week. More on this later...

I hope everyone had a good weekend! Thanks for visiting.