Limited Edition Artisan Holiday

November has arrived! This means Thanksgiving, colder weather for some of us, football, and one month closer to the holidays. Yep. You heard right we are that much closer to the holiday season.

I have been inspired by this upcoming time of year and created a few Limited Edition items. These are items that will only be seen for a few months then will no longer be available even to custom orders.

The first of this year's series of ornaments...

A shabby chic copper photo ornament. Each ring in this ornament has been handformed from scratch. The bezel is also created from copper, and everything has been give a light patina. Can you tell I'm in a patina phase? Each year you can change the photo to show the growth of your child or grandchild or even your pet. It would also be lovely to commemorate a loved one. I had a fabulous idea that it would be lovely to hang on the tree with a white ribbon, but I couldn't find one to show you.

A favorite of mine....

The sad snowman pin. A solid sterling silver pin/brooch fashioned into a snowman with sterling silver twig arms. He is anxiously awaiting his new home. Secretly he hopes it is someplace warm but won't mind the cold as long as he's loved. This snowman will only be available this year. Next year there will be an entirely different themed snowman because I love snowmen. Won't you please take him home and make him a happy snowman?

Remember these items are limited editon, and the designs won't be seen after this year. You can buy them in my shop.

Let me know what you think of these designs. You know I love your feedback and ideas. Plus, I have more limited editions planned and will be able to incorporate the feedback.

Short and Sweet

I might get this blog back on track at some point in time. It seems to have fallen by the wayside.

Got K's report card. It was all A's and B's, and she brought the grades up that I wanted her too. Yay! Now if I could just get her to care about schoolwork. She used to love to do workbooks and educational software and schoolwork wasn't too bad. This year it's been a struggle to get her to do anything. She's only in the 3rd grade. It shouldn't be a struggle with these teenager issues. Grrrrr.

There's something in my chimney again. I'm a little scared as to what it is. I say something because the bird cage is on the chimney. I even checked it myself. I don't know what it is about my chimney these things love so much. I'm afraid I'm going to get eaten one day by something that crawls out of my chimney. Good thing I have all those remodel materials piled up in front of it.

News at JSD. I was on the front page the other day thanks to Elements by Dawn. Yay! Thank you to the Diva for telling me and taking this fabulous screenshot. There I am on the bottom row in the middle. I also relisted that cuff you see pictured. It seems I have a few things that need to be relisted. I'm just falling more and more behind. I might have to put myself through jewelry bootcamp. All things can be found in my shop.

Time Flies

I do apologize my lovely blog friends. This house thing is killing me. I'm going to need a vacation after all this. Why does my yard have to be so big?!

The lady in charge is supposed to be here today after making an appointment last week. We'll see if she actually shows and what she has to say. At least things should be getting back to normal after this week.

So, what I have missed? Anything exciting? I, personally, have so many things to blog about like my seedlings, my new items for my shop, and my new vintage fave that I'm keeping for myself.

There was an article yesterday in the Storque about the challenges. Very lovely. I'm crossing my fingers that I don't sound like an idiot to anyone. It's great promotion for the challenges. I do love doing them and have been so surprised that they've lasted as long as they have.

Oh, now for the pics so you know what they are. They just happen to be the latest in my little etsy shop. The first is a sterling silver bangle accented with a freeform/recycled piece of silver. One of Steve's friends rescued that for me at his job. I have a couple of other pieces that he gave me as well, but that one was the best for that piece. It's been accented with a sterling silver sphere. Next is my latest edition to my wedding collection. A very pretty copper Art Deco style tiara. Very fashionable and vintage-y. Plus, I love that it's not too tall. You know I have that problem with making things big and chunky. I don't know why I have such a hard time making delicate things.

Oh, and I have to find time to blog about my newest tv craze, The Real Housewives of NYC. Talk about catty and social climbers! Until tomorrow...(Yes, I will blog again tomorrow.)

Misplaced creativity

Finally got my supplies in. Yay! It's sad to think how much money it was for not a lot of supplies. It's sad too that I still need more. Maybe this will give me the push I need to get back to jewelry creating.

You see in the spring, especially with this house, I have a lot of creative urge to be in the garden or working on the house. I want to get things done and work every minute. Perhaps if someone actually forced me to do that I wouldn't have anymore creative energy in that field. While this may be all fine and good, the rest of my creative life suffers. I've made one new thing in approximately a week which is a long time for me. I'm going to see if I can make my two creative lives share time.
With all this creative surge, I did manage to decide what was going in my garden at least with flowers. I don't know what they will look like together, but you know I don't care. At least, I'll have lots of pretty flowers and some seed pods to do electroplating with. I decided on chinese lanterns, globe gilia, ornamental grass, chamomile, bee balm, baby blue eyes, oriental red poppies, a mix of clarkias, crimson king, verbascum, maltese crosses, and a mix of columbines. I do have a slight fear of all these seeds because they will have to be started in the house so the birds and ants won't eat them. I've never had a seed actually grow outside. I should've built a greenhouse because my sunroom is going to look like one. I think it amounts to like 3 or 4000 seeds. I got good deals. What can I say?!

Well, I suppose I should get down to business. Orchid has been updated with that lovely owl pictured and a few jewelry supplies and a pretty frosted blue glass mini vase both not pictured. I even finished my challenge item at Jewel Street Designs which is also pictured. A lovely pair of earrings inspired by Art Deco design with birds flying from wire. It can be found in my shop.

New Bangle and Auction Finds

What to blog about? The eternal blogging question. Hmmmm.

So, this weekend not so fantastic, but in some ways it was. Steve was sick this weekend. Now, if any men are reading, answer me this. Why do men have to be such babies about getting sick? Seriously. He wasn't even sick sick just a cold, and yet, you would think he had the bubonic plague. He forced me into going out of the house because of his melodramatics. So, in a way, my spending money at the auction I went to was his fault. lol. I went, I saw, and I bought. I didn't spend that much money. $40. I did get an incredible mahogany dresser with both a modern and retro feel, a black retro chair, a bunch of drawer pulls from the 40's and 50's, and a couple of terracotta planters. Of course, K was with me so she got a few things as well as always, and I did bring an old world radio home for him to tinker with. All in all, I don't think I did bad. Photos of the dresser will be forthcoming. I should've taken pics of it before I got it into my nasty house under construction :)


In other blog news, I finished this great bangle. I created it for my challenge in the forum. This week's challenge was bubbles. As usual, I am all late and wrong, but at least I finished it this week. It took much longer than expected or should have. It's created solely from sterling silver tubes and copper tubes in different sizes. I still have to polish it, but I will be listing it in my shop this morning after I do that final step.

Hope all my lovelies had a beautiful and terrific weekend! Pssst. It's March and that means it's almost spring for us Northern Hemisphere people. Yay!

Shake Your Booty

Well, you don't have to really, but it will make me smile if you do. I have this problem with saying those words. I like to put them to different tunes like the theme song to the Howdy Doody show. People think I have Terret's Syndrome because of this. My family especially likes it when I do it in public places like the grocery store. My little well kept secret.

Did I mention I'm on a healthier eating kick to help me lose weight? It's not a diet. I'm very adamant about that. It's just improving what I eat and cutting out fried and fatty foods. I've been doing pretty well. Eating some cereal or a smoothie in the morning, having a small lunch with a salad. I haven't lost any weight yet, but I haven't been able to exercise either. At least, I haven't gained weight.

Here's one of my smoothie recipes. Some of you may all ready know this one, but it's my favorite. Feel free to share smoothie recipes with me if you have any.

1 1/4 cup of orange juice
1 banana
1 1/4 cup of frozen mixed berries
1/2 cups of lowfat yogurt
1 tablespoon of sugar

Combine oj, banana, yogurt, and sugar in blender. Add berries slowly while blender is running. Blend until creamy.

That smoothie will help you shake your booty all day long.


Here's a taste of one of my new pics. I really like how it turned out. I guess that book I got on Sunday knew what they were talking about. Much better than my old pics, and a lot easier to get. The item in the pic is my Atomium ring recently relisted on Etsy.

Snow Day

Snow day!

Yes, with a whole inch(well, maybe a little more) on the ground we have a snow day. Our first of the year. I really don't know why we have a snow day other than they couldn't shovel their sidewalks off. We are one of the few school districts around with a snow day.

Now, as a kid, I loved snow days. Things have changed. As a stay at home mom, I hate snow days because they wait until I have to get up before dawn to let me know that school is closed. Then while my child gets to sleep in, I'm up for the day. Seriously, now it was done snowing yesterday by 6 in the evening. Did they really think it was going to melt when the temp was going to drop to 18 degrees?!

Well, that brings me to my newest item in my shop. The piece pictured is my Asian Blossom Cuff from my 2008 Spring Collection- Moonlight in the Garden. I'm hoping to bring spring faster. You can find it and a few others from my new collection in my shop.

I'm back! Again.

So many things to blog about and so little time!

Let's see if I can catch you up with my life since the last time I blogged. Hmmm. It's a good thing nothing happens in my life or we might be there all day. Last week was the big week. We had a friend die in an accident which was really hard. He was so bubbly and full of life and only 23. He was like an uncle to my daughter. Not two days after finding that out, I fell going to check my mail(darn Etsy packages!) and sprained my ankle.

The sprained ankle is an interesting story. We live on a major highway which is only two lanes. Who thought of that I have no idea! My mailbox is across the street so pretty much everyday I play frogger(if you remember that game) to check my mail. Did I mention this highway is also one of the deadliest highways for people falling asleep? Because of this, they have grooves cut into the center of said highway. Well, I stepped in one just right. Went rolling across the highway and couldn't get back across. I had to wait for ever and a day for no cars to come so I could hop across the highway to get to my truck. I drove the truck up my driveway then crawled about 200 ft to my house. What a day!

I'm getting better now. I only use crutches if I'm going out of the house because I can't handle uneven surfaces yet. I can walk though with a bit of a limp and pain. Grrr. I hate being broken.

Did I mention I'm in the Valentine showcase today? Leave it to me to pick the worst day possible. Only every spot is filled with jewelry people. They should just call it the jewelry showcase. lol. If you want to know the worst day to get a showcase, ask me.

You might have noticed the ring in the picture. That's my latest called "I love me" ring. It's completely sterling silver. The heart centerpiece has been created from individually cut pieces of sterling silver tubing. Everyone needs something that just says or reminds you to say I love me. You are your biggest fan. It can be found in my shop.