Rainbow Giants

Giveaway!

2010-06-21T16:59:00.001-07:00

Denise Moore is giving away a MASSIVE stash of beads over on her blog! Go check it out!

http://deniseyezbakmoore.blogspot.com/2010/06/best-bead-give-way-ever.html

Being Bridal

2010-06-09T23:14:00.000-07:00

I have a ridiculous love of wedding shows. Probably because I fantasize heavily about an extravagant wedding, even though that's not in my plans, ever. It isn't realistic to spend thousands (or more) on a wedding, and having a big ceremony isn't realistic for the way our family is spread out, either.

However, weddings are always in the back of my mind. When I went to a wholesale jewelry show (which I was hoping would have beads... there were no small beads, but lots of glass focals, which I picked up a great number of), I saw a lampworked heart bead with a creamy-looking flower in the middle. I immediately thought, "BRIDAL JEWELRY!" envisioned it with pearls, and grabbed two. (In retrospect, more would have been better.)

I strung the gold and white freshwater pearls on thin copper wire, added a few subtle citrine rondelles for an understated accent, and attached white ribbon to fasten the necklace with.

I also superglued the ribbon knots, which meant I had slightly stiff ribbon, which in turn caused me to get a nasty cut. I usually use safety scissors because they fit my hands better (and they're safer, obviously!), but they were downstairs, so I was using some adult shears instead. I was trying to hard to trim off the stiff bit of the ribbon that I slipped a little bit and got a good cut in on my index finger.

I think calling it a "bridal battle scar" is catchy, don't you?

Giveaway!

2010-06-05T15:39:00.000-07:00

Lorelei is giving away from ceramic beads from Nan of Spirited Earth! Go enter!

http://lorelei1141.blogspot.com/2010/06/spirited-earth-giveaway.html

Good news: a dear friend of mine, whom I actually discussed my mixed feelings regarding my copper flower necklace with, decided she was going to purchase it after I posted a photo on my Facebook last night! My friends have been so supportive as I've gone through this journey - they've complimented me, purchased jewelry they liked (which is a compliment all on its own), and now they're cheering me on, and encouraging me to get on the ball and open up my Etsy shop! I think things would go more quickly if I had a dedicated area for jewelry photography... I want my shop photos to be high-quality, and I keep pushing the opening back because of that.

Beautiful Jewelry

2010-06-05T02:03:00.001-07:00

I'm not really in the mood to type a post, but I do have some jewelry pictures, finally.

My kingdom for a lightbox and a little niche to shoot photos in...

I am, in fact, so lazy right now that I'm only going to credit the art beads.

The butterfly focal is from Nancy at Round Rabbit.
I shaped the copper flower myself. :)

It would seem that uploading from different sources gives you wonky photo sizes.

Woohoo!

2010-05-28T00:51:00.000-07:00

These past couple weekends have been full of adventure! We went shopping in Pigeon Forge last weekend, and we'll be leaving for Atlanta tomorrow afternoon, where we'll hang out with Jonah's Uncle Alex and Aunt Melissa and attend the renaissance fair on Saturday. I'm pretty stressed about packing, though. We'll only be there for three days, but I have things I need washed, and we've only gotten one load of laundry done!

I hadn't initially planned an outfit, since we don't have any good medieval-inspired clothing... but I purchased a lovely, flow-y red skirt in Lane Bryant to wear. Tonight, Jonah found a frilly white shirt that I had purchased for band concerts, which was also from Lane Bryant... and now I have an entire pirate wench outfit thrown together from Lane Bryant products (undergarments included). I'm pretty amused. We need to find some leather for a makeshift belt, but beyond that, it's all ready to go.

Oh... I also need to find my boots. And I'm thinking about wearing one of our daggers. I'll have to ask Dad if he'll let me take The Raven.

Pictures from Tennessee! The Great Smoky Mountain National Park overlook, and dinner. I have a ton of landscape shots, but I haven't uploaded all of them yet - primarily because I didn't feel like tossing 200 photos at 2-3 MB apiece onto my laptop. We got out and snapped pictures, we sat in the car and snapped pictures as we drove by... I'm just not motivated enough to weed out the good ones right now! I need to at least dump the files from the memory card, though. I intend to take a lot of pictures in Atlanta.

We had dinner at Thai Thani, which is a restaurant that offered Thai food, Japanese food, and Italian (although we couldn't find it on the menu... the people near us had a pizza, though) in the same venue. From top right, descending: Miso soup; a Thai soup I can't remember the name of that had coconut milk, mushrooms, chicken, tomatoes, and lemongrass; an assorted meat, rice, and noodle dipping platter; yellow curry; pad thai (which I will never order mild again).

Waugh!

2010-05-24T08:08:00.000-07:00

Technically, I am now a college graduate. (Actually, I have been for almost three weeks now) Sure, it's only my Associate's degree, but that makes me ten times more employable than I was! That being said, I really don't have any intention of getting a job this summer, because I am no longer motivated to do anything but sit in a dark basement, listening to techno music (or some Fleetwood Mac) and watching movies. Although I do intend to spend a lot of time creating jewelry and setting up a flea market booth to sell it... and to start listing on Etsy. Finally. For real this time. I mean it. I just need more bubble mailers.

Jonah is taking some summer classes for the first summer quarter.
I'm also looking at volunteering with our local Teen Challenge thrift store, which seems to put its profits toward keeping teenagers off of drugs. And once I get my university ID card, I can go use their facilities, and their new recreation center is very nice. It's all indoor and air-conditioned, with a climbing wall, an indoor 1/4 mile track, and plenty of exercise machinery. The idea of me on a climbing wall is a joke, but I intend to use the rest of it!

I've spent about three weeks going, "I need to take some pictures of my jewelry for a blog post." And when I took these the other day, I still didn't have all of it with me to photograph. I also spent a good 20 minutes trying to get a shot of these earrings:

These photos are deceptively good now that they're on my machine. They all looked blurry in my digital display - and overly shiny. I must have snapped at least 30 pictures of these, because the shine from the Swarovski crystals kept acting funky. Or maybe it was the glint of the flash off of my lacquer tray.

Anyway, they're clear Swarovskis (the color is something like "moonshine"?) with liiiittle, tiny faceted blue apatite rondelles.

I really loved the look of from my last post, but I didn't have the appropriate sizes in the colors I needed to make pairs for all my other rondelles. So these surfaced. I need to find a smaller bead reamer, though. The blue rondelles have holes so tiny that I couldn't even get the 28g wire through some of them.

I think I like this pair even more than the orange and green pair, to be honest.

I spent one night making several pairs of earrings that would be cheaper than my normal fare. I have a jewelry display in the knick-knack resale store that my mother and her friend own, but nothing (literally. nothing.) has sold. Most of it is earlier work, but I refuse to think that it's THAT bad. I think the biggest thing is that an $8 to $15 price tag isn't something that the people who come into the store are interested in. You come in there looking to blow a few bucks. They've got stuff like sunglasses for a dollar, and movies for five dollars. You don't come in there looking to buy a $30 necklace... and so no one has. Regardless, having a few $3 and $4 pairs can't hurt, whether I sell them online, at the flea market, or in the store.

This is actually an interesting pair, because I caved and finally bought myself 101 Wire Earrings, which I've been itching to purchase ever since I first saw the book linked in a Beading Daily newsletter. Anyway, this pair comes just about straight out of the book, and it was a design that made me say, "Why didn't I ever think of that?"

I've really enjoyed the book. There are a few project ideas that I'm very excited about trying out, and I found it very inspirational. It gave me the push I need to make my own earwires.... aaaand I don't have a picture of the pair that I did it in. It also showed me that I'm imagining boundaries where there aren't any, in terms of how my earrings have to be made. Several pairs in there don't have anything to keep the beads from sliding off the wire, if they maneuver themselves correctly... but with proper care, it wouldn't matter. It was food for thought. The other pair of earrings where I shaped the wire for the ear has a pair of copper rounds on top that can slide right off. Disorganized women, beware.

I do intend to get a better photo of this pair (you know, one that doesn't have another pair in the left-hand corner, for example!), but I wanted one of them hanging so that they'd convey the full effect. Purple and orange go together. I like purple. I like lavender. I like glass briolettes. I like carnelian. I like them. I wonder if anyone else will.

I had an adventure this weekend, but I'll save that for another post. Tomorrow, maybe. I try to blog regularly, I do... I'm just not very good about consistency! If I'm not taking photos or making things to take photos of on a regular basis, then I have very little to say in an update. Let's just give a quick preview of my trip by saying that I now own a pair of underwear that is covered in music notes!
I find that very exciting.

I bought faceted rondelles. :D

2010-04-12T15:02:00.001-07:00

Swarovski bicones, faceted peridot rondelles.

Faceted pink amethyst, citrine, and apatite rondelles.

Flower shaped from sterling silver, faceted peridot and pink amethyst rondelles.

Dale Chihuly

2010-03-24T18:33:00.000-07:00

If you don't know who Chihuly is, go to his website. You will be wowed. I think that Jonah's aunt was one of the first people who mentioned him to me, and I was amazed.

This is relevant because I've been watching a program about Chihuly on the Ovation channel - showcasing his installation in the Royal Botanical Gardens. There are a few segments that show his process, and those are absolutely amazing to watch. The sheer number of people handling those giant glass rods is astounding - that's not what I think about when I think about "working with glass."

His use of color and organic shape, though, is obviously what sets him apart in the world of sculpture.

All of these photos are of Dale Chihuly's work, and are from his website. They aren't mine!

Bah.

2010-03-24T17:16:00.000-07:00

No jewelry this week - I've been junking out on World of Warcraft, when I haven't been sleeping or enjoying a generally demotivated slump. What I need to do is shake people who want to buy my jewelry down for money - we're leaving for Louisville on Friday, and there are bead stores there! Real, physical bead stores! With beads! But I have no money! AHHH!

I'm sorry, my poor, neglected beads! I'm sorry!

2010-03-20T13:24:00.001-07:00

Last night I sat down and:

1) Finished a bracelet that I had to re-string five times, because I (and Jo) couldn't get the tiny little knot down far enough to keep the thing as tight as it needed to be. The thing plagued me for like two weeks, because I loved the design, but couldn't get it strung right.

I love pearls. They can be so unusual, but so elegant, as well.

Freshwater pearls in white and teal, porcelain circles, and copper chain with a copper hook.

2) Finally used some of my silver tube beads to make something.

It's simple, but I'm pretty partial to it. I love the way the crackle glass looks with the silver, and I like the copper clasp in the back - that paired with the green makes me think of an Irish hillside.

Green crackle glass, green Czech pressed glass beads, silver bead caps, silver tubes, and, of course, the copper clasp.

3) Debated the placement of these flowers. But earlier today, I decided that I liked this necklace with flowers more than I liked it without.

Brass wire, coral sticks, red glass beads (I think... they were purchased by Lacey as well, and I need to look up what they are), and red bamboo coral flowers.

Sophisticated.

2010-03-18T21:17:00.000-07:00

Amazonite, hematite, and sterling silver.
It's NOT memory wire.
It IS shaped sterling silver with a chain extension and lobster clasp.
And personally, it's one of my favorites.

No Cat Today

2010-03-17T16:41:00.000-07:00

Just regular pictures. :P

Black bone spacers, black Swarovski bicones, carnelian rectangles, blue chalcedony tubes, black seed beads, and a crab fire agate piece at the center. It snaps with a lobster clasp!

Personal tidbit: Usually I dislike lobster clasps. But lately, they've been more appropriate for some of my necklaces than a toggle would be. They hold weight better.

Amethyst chips and rose quartz fan pieces, with purple seed beads and a pretty silver toggle.

Silver glass pearls with white freshwaters... these are Lacey's "gift" pair that I sent her. The other pair in the box was actually made for her with beads that she bought for me to use. I guess you could call that a "trade commission"?

Oyster shell hoops with kyanite rondelles dangling in the middle.

Okay, I lied. Maybe a little cat.

So Long, Farewell

2010-03-16T22:46:00.000-07:00

Goodbye, babies! Get to Lacey before her birthday. (:
(She doesn't read this. Shh, don't tell her.)

A Happy Story

2010-03-16T20:10:00.000-07:00

When my sister went to get her ears re-pierced at Claire's (partially at my behest, although I haven't badgered her about getting them re-done in MONTHS... so she can't REALLY blame me. despite the fact that she did), I saw this cute little panda sleep mask. But because no one at my college told students that our state's governor was nuking the NC Earn Grant, I didn't have seven dollars to spend on something to put on my face! (It's all fully budgeted... and none of it can be spent toward beads. Frown.) But my perceptive little sister, who I have gradually become more endeared toward since she has hit puberty and become bearable, noticed me looking at it. And so when she went to the mall last weekend, she bought it for me!

Sisters are awesome. Go little sis!

P.S. Personal observation: So when I went into Claires, all the girls in there were shorter than me. And I'm 5' tall. But they all looked more grown up than I did. I mean, I thought I was looking at a store full of 20somethings who were legal dwarves, because these girls were so made-up and wearing such short trousers. Were these girls actually 20something dwarves, or are parents just letting their kids wear too much make-up these days?

P.P.S. Does this mean that, if a 12-year-old will spend an hour applying make up to make her look older, I should consider spending at least five minutes to put on eyeliner and lip gloss or something before class?

Marketing

2010-03-15T21:03:00.000-07:00

You know how some Etsy shops mention that their merchandise comes from a smoke and pet free home?

We are not one of those homes.

Interestingly enough, I think that Altair sold a necklace and possibly a pair of earrings by being in these pictures - the girl who commented on my Facebook album of him asked about pricing for the butterfly necklace and hinted that she was interested in the zigzag earrings.

Rhodonite, "new jade" (a.k.a. funny-colored serpentine), prehnite, copper.

So, I re-did those earrings in my last post, so they would descend.
Sterling silver, Humblebeads clay rondelles, poppy jasper rondells, and a random stone round.

A porcelain butterfly focal from Round Rabbit, blue chalcedony tube, freshwater pearls, and pressed-glass flower.

Faceted sage amethyst square, suspended from sterling silver chain with a dangle made from carnelian faceted rounds and little glass seed beads.

A necklace I made Jo for his birthday - black stone and glass rounds, Peruvian blue opals (or chalcedony), and tigerseye.

I need to take pictures of the other things that I've made... they're sitting in a bag. I'm trying to find background options that'll look professional, since I'm working on a Google Sites page that I can stick on a business card. It's been kind of hard to fit in, since I'm pretty busy with classes and honors projects. I'll be graduating with my Associate in Liberal Arts degree in May, and then it's on to the university... but first I need a job this summer. I'm trying to find some kind of intern or clerical work in a social work setting, so I'll have some background experience in that kind of environment. (Since that's my major, now.)

OKILUBAIBAI.

Not Quite Dead Yet...

2009-11-20T14:02:00.000-08:00

It seems like the only thing I've had time to do lately is spend money, which is something that I happen to be good at doing. Not that I regret any of the beautiful shiny things that have been gracing my mailbox - I just wish my paycheck had been substantial enough to support my habit.

Right now, Jonah and I are living with one of our friends in Franklin... her mother got married, and she can't drive, so the three of us are staying in her house until she finishes the semester out. If she decides she wants to stay and can negotiate it with her mother, we might rent here next semester. Right now, we're living this sort of dual-life between my parents' house and this house, though... we haven't fully "moved," since we're only going to be here for about three more weeks. A lot of things that we need are still at home, waiting for us to say, "Oh, hey, we need that, let's stop in and get it." My beading items have no home here, since there's no room, so they're at home as well, and it's making me antsy.

I do have some photos of the few things I managed in my spare time.

Dyed green turquoise, copper, and dyed purple snow quartz.

Sterling silver, poppy jasper, and some lovely "free gift" clay beads from Humblebeads. I'm not entirely sure what the smallest bead on top is - it was part of a stone assortment. This is probably one of my favorite pairs of earrings that I've made, so far.

Giveaway, giveaway, giveaway... dingdingding?

2009-10-21T18:43:00.000-07:00

Kelley Wenzel is having a bead giveaway - you win if you come up with the new name for her latest beads. I entered, because I love giveaways. And I also love Stephen King... so "Redrum" was really the only thing I could think when I looked at the pictures and read her description of them.

Kelley's Bead Studio: I Need a Name!

I've been enjoying some pretty intense vertigo since Sunday night - if I move my head or upper body so much as 40 degrees in any direction other than the "default position," the room starts spinning like crazy... and if I close my eyes, I still feel it. I'm probably heading to the doctor next week if I'm not over it by then. I've had some "severe dizziness" once before, and I wasn't sick at all, but I don't know if I can take the medication he gave me for that with my current regular medications... and I can't bring myself to go see him just for him to tell me it's okay to take it. While I've been spending gratuitous amounts of time in bed complaining, Jo has been making rings for people... he made a pink one for my little sister and has made two others for some mutual friends of ours. I'll try to shoot some pictures of them next time I get the opportunity. I never ceased to be amazed by how he can just pick up something and make it work. He made my ring in... less than an hour, I'd say. Being a dexterity-challenged crafter, I'm incredibly jealous of him. ;P

This Saturday, we'll be off to see the Scottish Games down in Charlotte (my favorite former teacher/dear friend is volunteering with the museum that is holding the event), and after that, maybe I'll have something shiny to post to show that I'm making progress as a jewelry-maker. Maybe. I hope.

Ba-zinga!

2009-10-16T16:44:00.001-07:00

Jonah has spent the entire week bedridden because of a gout attack. I'm just about ready to cut off his foot and call it good!

I am generally not an emotional eater, but being equipped with a vagina, there are some days that just require chocolate medication, and today was one of those days. My mother's alarm didn't go off, and ours was either insignificant or also silent... so I was two hours later to work than I intended to be. Work study allows me a flexible schedule, but even on a flex schedule, it's a job, and I'm treating it as real world-training, so I would have been totally buggered if it were a "real job".

So I get there, pop my lunch in the microwave, run up to the second floor to get a coke from the machine. But I don't hear my first quarter clink! I figure it's stuck. I push in two more to move it. Still no clink. Coin return does nothing. Hitting the machine does nothing. So I'm like, "AUUGH. Fine." I go over to the food/drink machine and try to get a juice out of there.. but it won't acknowledge my dimes! So I eject the coins and it gives me some different change. AMONG these different coins is a CANADIAN EFFING QUARTER. But I don't realize that until I try to use it and it's rejected. I go to the third floor coke machine. I have 75 cents, plus the canadian quarter. The canadian quarter is not accepted by the machine, despite the fact that I got it from another one which also wouldn't accept it. BECAUSE I can't use the Canadian quarter, I am exactly five cents short instead of being able to purchase my drink. There are no students on campus on Fridays. Today is the ONE day where there isn't any change under or on top of the machine. Okay. Fine. I eject my change and am shorted another nickle. I go into the bookstore. Cokes are 1.40 in there, so I don't bother. I ask if I can exchange the canadian quarter. She says, "Yeah, uh, no, that's not technically money." But I GOT IT FROM A MACHINE! It SHOULD have value because it COST ME 25 CENTS! I finally had to go down to the cash office, tattle on the second floor machine that ate my 75 cents, and get our cashier to pay me that back so I could go get a drink from the third floor machine. Twenty. minutes. wasted. all for a Dr. Pepper.

After lunch (the best microwavable pasta meal I have ever eaten, might I add) the day begins going normally... or so I think. I print out some letters for admissions. On the last two letters, our hefty printer jams. It is not as small or as simple as my little home printer. I drag it away from the wall, pull out the back panel after some searching, and tug. Usually, my little home printer releases paper when I do this. Not Hefty. Hefty gives me the bottom half of the sheet. Okay, that's progress. I make little tears along the way and finally cannot tear any more paper out. It is still jammed. I ask our admissions officer if she has tweezers or could help me find a simpler way to un-jam it. Our ruckus brings the dean out of his office. We three stand over this thing for THIRTY MINUTES trying to yank paper out of it, because we got a top half out, but there was still some non-visible paper jammed in there that the printer just wouldn't get over. Everyone who passes us says, "Did you try turning it off and back on, and opening and closing the lid?" Yes, yes, yes, yes. Admissions officer gets out a TOOL KIT from my supervisor's office and the dean starts trying to unscrew things to take the printer apart. This does not work - Hefty apparently doesn't like being dismantled. We finally give up and decide we're going to call IT, but five minutes later, Admissions Officer (in an amazing feat, because I would have hit the thing with a hammer and called it a day) works the last bit of jammed paper out with a tweezer. Thirty-five minutes wasted because of Hefty.

Later, I got a cut from the bottom side of a manila folder. I didn't even think that was possible, but my folder cut spans my middle finger between the two mid-joints. I spent five minutes hunting for a band-aid. An HOUR of my day was wasted on a Dr. Pepper, a printer, and a folder cut. Baffling!

Fortunately, our career counselor has a very loving husband who made a big ol' chocolate cheesecake for her, which she brought in to share with us. It took all of my power not to shove my entire face in it. Unsurprisingly, after I had a slice, the day got a lot better.

Anniversary

2009-10-13T13:28:00.000-07:00

Today is Jonah and I's four year anniversary! We made each other rings - his is quite stunning, considering that it's the first ring he's ever made.

Jo's ring for me - tall, because every woman wants a big rock. :P
(Mine just happens to be a fiberoptic bead.)

The ring I made for him - a whopping size 16 with tigerseye, malachite, and copper

Must Be Funny In A Rich Man's World

2009-10-03T14:34:00.000-07:00

This week's productivity has been completely disproportionate.

Didn't make anything. At all. All week. I've either been too busy, too stressed because I was busy, or sleeping. This bothers me, because if I'd been able to sit down and do my own thing, I probably would have been a lot more relaxed. On Wednesday, I had a fleeting idea for a necklace, but I lost it.
I bought some chain, lots of copper findings, thicker wire, some mandrels (hello, custom-sized rings), a hammer, a cup burr, and some sterling silver earwires. I was a little shell-shocked because of the amount of money (I'm still not to the point where I can shake off spending more than $60 at one time).
I got paid for a pair of earrings.
And I just spent that plus a bit extra to buy some beads from the Humblebeads Etsy. I admit, I was definitely swayed into spending that amount because there's a weekend sale going on where you can get a snow owl bead for spending over $20... but I had my eye on a few things, and I finally had to pick and choose, then cut my final choices in half so that I didn't spend another $100. What I did pick, I bought for obvious reasons:

You can't tell me that bead doesn't speak to you on some level. I could just eat it up.

Now I just have to finalize more sales so that I can buy more beads. Maybe I'll have time for that this week. I've also been going crazy trying to find a plentiful lot of watch parts, but I can't find many good deals on Etsy... and while I can find large quantities on eBay, I hate auctions. I don't have time to babysit an item just to have it snatched out from under my nose at the last minute. I'll find a solution someday.

Swamped

2009-09-29T20:36:00.000-07:00

You know, between the flux of people coming in and out of my home, doing homework, working with the chorale, going to school, and working at school, I suddenly don't have time for anything, and I haven't even been employed for a full week yet! I am incredibly prone to being stressed-out by just about anything and everything, and I just want everything to PLEASE STOP FOR FIVE MINUTES so I can do something I enjoy and stop feeling like my head is going to explode.

I'll never get these custom orders done on time if it doesn't. D<

Maybe if I can kick everyone out of my house for just one solid weekend, I can get things cleared up and find some focus. Jo and I are fighting right now because overnight company always overwhelms me (additionally, we have no free couches, clean floors, or extra beds) and he keeps inviting overnight company BACK - we had two totally separate overnight visitors last weekend, and one was unplanned... the other, I didn't want to turn away, because she didn't want to be stuck in Georgia and miss our game on Sunday. The first slept in a computer chair and the second slept shoved at the foot of our bed. Why would someone even WANT to sleep there? I get most of the bed because I sleep the right way on it, and -I- don't even think it's comfortable with someone lurking at the bottom of it. I tried to tell him that we need a simple, nonverbal way for me to communicate when I'm not feeling up to visitors (and that I don't like overnighters out or in my house, ever, anywhere, unless we're over two hours from home), because I hate that he tells everyone, "Ask Amanda," and then I look like the big bad wolf because I say, "No, not today/tomorrow/this week." And then I also have to deal with people trying to convince me, because some people can't take no for an answer. I like our friends a lot, and I don't mind having them over for a while, just as long as they GO HOME when I'm ready for bed. There has been, without fail, at least one person in our car getting a ride home/hitching a ride to our place every day this past week. It's getting overwhelming. I can't afford the gas or the stress anymore.

Fun and pretty posts in store when I've got time, I hope.

A Lesson In Overenthusiasm

2009-09-24T14:01:00.000-07:00

Jo's Mom: "i don't like jump rings for that reason - i prefer endless loops. you could always solder them together ;-)"
Me: "I do have a small electrical soldering iron that's waiting to be used... but I don't have any solder yet! And I'm kind of intimidated by the idea of using it. I'm sure that once I do I'll get carried away and want to solder everything."
Jo's Mom: "and that's a problem because..."
Me: "Because my parents would be very angry when I soldered the doors shut."
Jo's Mom: "that would take a very long time."
Me: "It's a safer bet than trying to solder the dog."

Bracelet made with the jump rings I was complaining about. I cut the rings from a 20g copper wire coil I made.

Button, Button, Who's Got the Button?

2009-09-19T20:35:00.000-07:00

The answer to that question is: me.
In fact, I have quite a few buttons lying around. At Christmas, Jo's aunt Heidi was kind enough to gift me with all the orphaned buttons from the dry cleaner she works at. Some of them had been there since before she worked, so she checked with her boss and cleaned out the drawer, which resulted in us coming home with a nice stash.

There are lots of possibilities in all of these buttons! Jo has already made a very cool rotating thing (to go on a ring, if I'm not mistaken) with a compass button that he rigged to the top of a gold button he flattened the edges of.

I haven't gone through all of them, although Jo (silly magpie man) has already picked out many of his favorites, and I've got a few that I liked (and that he pulled out for me) sitting on my desk now.

Eee, buttons!

Back In The Saddle

2009-09-18T00:14:00.001-07:00

Ah yes. I am indeed back in the saddle. I'd be blasting AC/DC right now, if my head didn't ache like crazy. (It seems like I'm most productive in life in between bouts of migraines and nausea.)

We've finally gotten our lives in order enough for me to return to Life As I Know It, as far as this blog is concerned. My spring semester and summer were effectively hectic enough to keep me from getting anything done except passing my classes and keeping my head bolted to my body.

In the past two weeks, though, Jo has moved my crappy old desk out of my room, we cleaned its former home, and we erected his desk, which is a handy corner module from IKEA. It is the perfect workspace. Yesterday after my nap, I moved the shelves and jester dolls out of the way and set up my space, and I've been in a joyous, bead-loving frenzy ever since.

It looks terribly cluttered in this picture, but that's because I had just gotten some things out after Jo had been fiddling around over there. The wires are always all over the place, but I've usually got more workable surface area.

My ribbon finally has a home! And my beading board! (Which I still almost never use... it's not that it isn't a good idea, it's just that I never get around to that in the creative process.)

All my enameled and generic craft wire has its own fishing-supply box to live in. I also keep my clasps in the spare compartment of that.

My re-organized base bead box.

My favorite corner of it... from the top right, clockwise: identified gemstones, fun swirly beads, various briolette/dangly bits, and lampworked shapes... notice Cindy G's wonderful skull sitting in there! (I'm still trying to figure out how I want to use it.)

My big ol' Compartment 'O Focals... pretty stones, plus a few of Lynn Davis' lovely beads hiding in there. :P

A few of the "new" beads (which are really from the middle of my dry spell last spring) that Lacey purchased for me... she has such a great eye for interesting things! She's got a custom order with me that includes some of these beads.

My latest and greatest effort from last night... a sterling silver ring. The coil is a bit messy on this one, but it's mine, so I'm not so picky about that. The stones are a piece of carnelian and one of those "Peruvian blue opals" I bought... which I am slightly skeptical about the validity of. I don't care much whether they're really real, but I hate false advertising in my jewelry. /:

Another ring:

Glass moon face, kyanite rounds, and a little red stone.

Next up on my purchase list: a ring mandrel. Sizing to my own finger is messy, and I'm anywhere between an 8 and a 9, so if I want to actually sell some rings, I need to get a mandrel, ASAP!

Finally played with some of the jumprings I've had lying around. I also need to get some of that "Tool Magic" coating, because if I'm not careful, I mar the rings pretty badly. My biggest complaint right now as that these rings are as "closed" as I can get them... and they still don't look 100% closed. More like 98 or 99%.

Playing with the idea of coiling wire. I used my flush cutter handles for these spirals. :P

In other jewelry-related news, I've sold a pretty good portion of last year's jewelry... and I'm working with a friend from high school right now to create custom jewelry for her Halloween-themed wedding. I also have a custom order for a variation on another pair of last year's earrings, but she's looking for "hypo-allergenic 10k or 14k gold kidney ear wires." I've searched and not been able to find any. She doesn't know if she has a nickel allergy, but the only options I've seen are 14k nickel free or 18k+, which is naturally nickel-free, according to what I've been reading. I'll have to go talk to her about her options on Tuesday, when I'm feeling better. The next step in my plan? Actually populating my Etsy shop! Soon, my pretties... soon!

A pretty wrapped box, courtesy of Panda Mae Jewelry. A bomb, or a pair of earrings? You decide.

P.S. I am, in fact, reading everyone's blogs again! Google Reader has made my life 100% easier. I don't miss a thing that anyone posts now! (:

Christmas Plans

2008-12-19T17:43:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone is having a lovely holiday season. (:
I've been enjoying all the precious sleep I can get.

My Christmas will consist of:
A lumbar puncture on Monday
A wedding on Tuesday
Traveling to Virginia.. probably on Wednesday
Going to Kentucky for New Years with Jonah's family

So, I figure I'll start "OFFICIAL BLOG HIATUS" today, and then I might post over the weekend if I make more jewelry. And past that, no guarantees on when I will post again up until after New Years.
I hope everyone has a merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, great Kwanzaa, a happy New Year, and a generally prosperous yuletide holiday, regardless of what you're celebrating.

The Cows Came Home.

2008-12-15T21:55:00.000-08:00

Mooo. That's the sound of the jewelry cows coming home. They finished their long trek on Sunday, when I spent an entire evening making earrings.

Glass-based pearls and black Swarovskis.

Silver glass-based pearls "caged" in brass... I'm definitely going to use thicker wire next time. What a pain.
Additionally, the cage is also a pain to capture with my camera.

Silver glass-based pearls, non-caged.

Clear seed beads, black Swarovskis, even more silver glass-based pearls, and white Czech flowers.

Vintage garnet saucers separated by small clear seed beads.

And finally, my favorite pair of the lot... a lapis teardrop beneath Czech glass and fiberoptic beads, with a Swarovski on top.

Hat, hat...

2008-12-14T20:27:00.000-08:00

I shouldn't be so wild about hats.
I look like crap in hats, as a general rule.
But ever since I really got into Etsy, I've been seeing so many adorable knitted/crocheted things that I just love. I love the big neck cowls I see. I love the cute little shoulder capes with hoods. I love the arm warmers. I love the head wraps. And I love the hats.

And tonight, I'm all about ear flap hats.
And ear hats.

These two adorable crocheted ear flaps are by CrimsonEtClover, and I want
to own them both. I feel like I have to have them. As soon as I sell my two
pre-ordered pairs of the Lady Luck earrings, I may have to buy the black and white pair...
But no! I must save my money!

This beautiful hood is by Pixiebell, and she has it in different colors. I just love
this neutral wrap, and the braided look. And just in general.

On a non-earflap note:

This Jellyfish Tam in Grape Jam (I love the rhyme) by Pixiebell is just fabulous.

This hat got me searching for ear flap hats tonight when I saw a link to this
on Twitter. This is an adorable earflap Knittles hat.

I really need to figure out the intricacies of crochet (so I can do something other than a chain stitch), and learn to knit. I want to make these things. My god.

2008-12-08T17:52:00.000-08:00

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6600955
The most beautiful sight in the world! <3

Oooh, sneak peak...

2008-12-08T15:22:00.000-08:00

So I made my Etsy shop banner last night. Click it to see the full thing.
(Or, rather, the banner that I'll use at different venues by changing the sitename.)

Feel free to fawn all over me and tell me how fabulous it is.
I know. :P

GAZE UPON ME AND DESPAIR!

This thing took hours. Originally I had a background image of the pearls in the pearl necklace with the Lynn Davis bead. I was partial to the picture because that particular one had been taken on my laptop lid, so the pearls were reflected back. But the section that was just the pearls and not the bead (because I can't rightly include another person's handmade art bead in my shop banner - that's not what I sell, and it's not my bead!) was a bit blurry. So then I switched to another picture, same format, with the pearls more in focus, and I mirrored it across to make sure the bead didn't show... but the font was too fancy, and the second font that Lacey (who I rely on for tons of advice, and who helped me through this entire process) suggested to me felt too thin on top of it.
So then Lacey found me this font, and bam!
I feel like Emeril.
I also love this font.
I may never, ever, EVER use any other font, because I love this one so much.

In contrast to the banner, my shop icon only took minutes:

I figured there was a decent amount of rollover in using my twitter icon as my shop icon, etc...

Oh, uh, and then there's my blog banner.
I love it.
(It feels a little Walt Disney, and that's definitely me.)
I may have to elongate it to fill that space, since I don't have any option to center it, unless I can pull up a full HTML view of my blog coding.

Christmas Cheer and Holiday Headcrabs

2008-12-07T17:05:00.000-08:00

I'm such a grinch. Am I the only person that can't stand how Christmas music starts being played on every radio station at Thanksgiving? I'm never ready for Christmas music until 5 days before Christmas Eve, or less.

Meeko is also a grinch.

Jonah's mother sent us a really nice Saint Nick's gift box. For those of you who aren't familiar with Saint Nicholas Day, it's a tradition that's practiced throughout different parts of the world. The story of Santa Claus is derived from the Saint Nicholas legend. Children would put a shoe (or a pair of shoes) outside their door on the night of December 5th, and if the children were good, their boots would be filled with small toys and sweets. If the children were bad, they would find a switch left in the shoe. Children would also leave carrots in their boots for Saint Nicholas' donkey.

We didn't get any switches! She packed some very lovely things, including that cute little elf-y collar for Meeko. She also enclosed some lovely seasonal earrings that I think she made - I'm wearing a Christmas light pair right now. (And she packed two chocolate oranges so Jonah and I didn't have to fight to the death for them.)

We took some photos with the cat.
She wants us to die.
But she's been sitting very contently in her collar these past two days.

And a holll-i-daaay head-craaaaaaaaaaaab.

Shiny Pretty Things!

2008-12-05T20:31:00.000-08:00

Well, I've spent the past week doing a monster load of papers... 15 pages, eight pages, and three pages last night. Now all I have left are next week's finals and a persuasive speech on the 15th, and then I'm home free until next semester begins on January 7th!
Next semester I'll be taking introductory algebra (to catch up on Algebra II principles that I missed during high school), conceptual physics with a lab, critical thinking, general psychology, and health & wellness.

Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy Thanksgiving - I hope everyone else had a wonderful time with their families and friends. (:
I brought Jonah to his first family even with Bowman cooking... once you've had it, you never go back. The older generations of my family were part of large families and helped a lot in the kitchen, so the Turkey Day lunch is always delicious.
We also went up to my great-great paternal grandfather's farm. It was first time I've been there, and the second or third time my dad had been. Most of the people there hadn't seen him since he was a little boy. So I got to meet another slew of family members I didn't know. It was a really great holiday, overall - up until I got a nasty sinus infection that manifested on Saturday.

Since things are slowing down, I've had time to play with all my beautiful beads!

These earrings are disco-licious.
I'm not lame at all.
Faceted gold-colored plastic and faceted carnelian.

"Grape Nuts!"
Green turquoise, purple-dyed snow quartz and brass.

Bubblegum. (:
I'm going to try resizing them slightly, but I like the results as they are. Pink candy jade trapezoid briolettes (Lacey bought them as my Chrismas present!) and grey and black bicones with sterling silver.

A shot of the middle of a little bracelet I constructed from black seed beads and clear vintage glass rondelles. The clasp on this bracelet is brass, and hand-crafted.

A pendant I wrapped up one night. Twisted sterling silver with white seed beads and a malachite round in the middle of the circle. I'm hunting for some black ribbon to suspend it on.

Tiger ebony wood circles with some beautiful blue chalcedony tubes that I purchased from Lorelei in the middle.

"Lady Luck" earrings, composed of more lovely beads I purchased from Lorelei.

My favorite necklace, ever. Now that I've made it, I wear it just about every day, and I'm not entirely certain that I'll be able to part with it. Glass pearls and wooden beads paired with one of Lynn's beautiful zephyr rounds.

The handcrafted, hand-wrapped clasp of the above necklace.

Black rubber "Oh!" rings formed into an open-lidded cube by orange jump rings... I've been having trouble getting my jump rings to close properly. ):

2008-11-18T18:49:00.001-08:00

MRI results were normal! (:
Registering for Spring tomorrow.
A lot of work now that I'm in the end-of-year stretch.

2008-11-17T10:53:00.000-08:00

Been on something of a medical hiatus from the internet world - I have been reading everyone's blogs, though! Just not every day, and I don't think I've commented in weeks.

I'm getting the results from my MRI today. (Or, I'm supposed to get the results today, and if I don't I have to call them and tell them to get their act together.) When all these doctor's appointments and this load of finals-are-almost-here classwork finally dissipate, life will be normal again. I enjoy my classes, but I'm so ready for Christmas.
I need to register for my next classes this week, too! I haven't even thought about what I'm going to do!

We went out on Sunday and I thought I'd share a few of the day's photos with you. I laid around and took some nice tree pictures - glorious autumn! The orange leaves are so amazing. It got super cold when we got ready to leave, though... couldn't feel my toes!

2008-10-29T00:13:00.000-07:00

I made things today!
Well, okay, just a pair of earrings and a bracelet (my first that's wholly out of metal... I need to sell some things so I can get more 20G wire! And thicker wire, too), but since my jewelry output in the last two weeks or so has been pretty much zilch, this is an achievement for me.
Pictures come tomorrow.
Additionally, depending on how I feel about some of my pictures, I may start stocking my Etsy shop tomorrow.
That also requires me to have my banner finished, which... I know I started designing one but I'm not entirely certain that I finished.

Originally I sat down to play with my new pretties from Lynn, but everything I pulled out that was a brown/tan neutral seemed like it would take away from the attention given to her beautiful, detailed beads. I think there's some potential with pearls involved, although my glass-based seem (in a certain light) to have a greenish sheen (or maybe I'm insane?), and I'm not sure that'll be particularly flattering. I keep seeing one of the Zephyr squares (leaning more toward the bomber-brown rather than the bronze) positioned asymmetrically on a necklace of pearls. We'll see what happens. I also have some ginormous silver pearls that might look good with the beautiful merlot-colored Zephyr bead I purchased from her.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

My internet is being insane. I'm not sure if it's because of the weather (cold, cloudy... it snowed randomly last night, and we had 3+ inches outside our house, but once you pulled out onto the highway from our road, it didn't look like there had been any snow at all!) or because Hughesnet just sucks.

I was 30 minutes late to class this morning because our 9:50 alarm went off, and Mom said, "I'm leaving at 10!" But our 10:20 alarm never buzzed. We woke up at 10:50 running around like maniacs... and then we had to dig the wee Neon out of the snow.

We watched The Happening tonight... I know the critics hated it, but I thought it was kind of cool. Just seems like most people might not have liked it because it didn't have a very big "shock factor." Does this make my taste questionable?
(Don't answer that. I love Cats and just about anything B-rated. I don't need to hear it from anyone else.)

I should be in bed now. I think I'm going to do that. Snuggling under the covers will be nice on a cold night like tonight.

2008-10-25T19:41:00.000-07:00

I go in search of a laundromat, to see if Lynn's beads came in the mail (*fingers crossed*), and to Wal-Mart... just for the hell of it... although I really like the idea of purchasing a few towels... maybe a small bath rug to place outside the shower and another to place over the threshold to my room so I'll stop tripping over all the ethernet cables.
We'll see.

"The Garden of Eden Creation Kit."
It's supposed to save the post-apocalyptic world in Fallout 2. It sounds like an arts and craft project.

To Do:

2008-10-21T13:50:00.000-07:00

-stop being sick.
-stop getting headaches.
-clean up the rest of my bedroom so I have a workspace again.
-swing the cat around by her ankles as retribution for the times when, to spite me for tossing her off me in the middle of the night, she knocks EVERYTHING SHE POSSIBLY CAN down from EVERY SHELF AND SURFACE IN THE HOUSE. This morning, she decided to demolish the pile 'o junk on the back of my toilet and I went into pee and my head nearly exploded.
-make more jewelry.
-upload jewelry pictures from camera.
-get INSPIRED. lately I've been feeling so blah, gross, and unmotivated that I sit down to play with the jewelry and I find myself dissatisfied with the boring results.
-stop staying home.
disclaimer: the staying home is because of disease. not because I am trying to play hooky.

Catch-up

2008-10-16T23:05:00.000-07:00

Alrighty then. I know it's Thursday, but I don't really have much else to do, and who sleeps at 2 A.M.?

First off, my weekend. I did -not- get to grace my dear friend with her necklace at the farm. In fact, I didn't get to see the Farm. We were supposed to head over there on Sunday, but we lazed around all day. Dad, Terry, Papaw and Jo went on Saturday, but I declined to go because they were going over "just to see what had been killed" during hunting. I don't like looking at dead animals until they're cooked and on my plate, thanks. If I had a conscience (which I don't), I'd never eat deer again, since their dead heads have been mounted on my grandfather's wall as long as I can remember. (I liked them when I was a kid. I'd pet them. But after I saw a real dead deer, non-taxidermied, I have since decided that I don't like looking at dead animals and taxidermy disturbs me.)

However. The engagement party was pretty enjoyable... but what was more enjoyable was the after-party-after party. The friend, his fiancee, his mother, his sister, dad, Jo and I all went out for Japanese. (Oh, delicious sushi. I actually liked mackerel, too, which was surprising, since the general consensus was that it was mostly nasty, but could be tolerated with mustard.) That was nice - following that, though, we went to karaoke bars. I loved it.

The first place was really great, and everyone who sang was fabulous. No joke - there was not a single person who got up there that made me want to put myself out of my misery. If they didn't have good voices, they could at least carry a tune, and picked flattering songs for their vocal style. The bar itself wasn't too smoky or too alcohol-saturated. (Am I the only one who gets a kick out of the fact that the first bar I've ever visited was with my dad? That was the premise I used to talk him into going and getting my waters for me - "How many more opportunities do you think you'll have to regulate what your daughter drinks at a bar?")

My first song, "Lights" by Journey, was... questionable. Dad said he didn't notice, but Jonah and I were both very painfully aware of the random flats I was sliding into. I got offstage and Jonah was like, "You need to cool it and just sing."
I never used to get nervous, but once I got into high school and lost my attention span, my confidence went with it and I got "solo test and audition syndrome," where my entire body will shake, I experience shortness of breath and weakness in every limb of my body. My knees refused to work for ten minutes after I got off that stage.
My second song was "Notorious" by Duran Duran and I kicked some ass. I even danced. Dad was like, "...I didn't even know you knew that song."
This, from the man who sits less than 20 feet away while a stream of 80s music pours out of my bedroom every week.

Jonah was a spoilsport, so he didn't sing. When dad -finally- gave in and decided to sing, he got up there and made me decide that I think needing to warm up is in our family. My dad has an -amazing- musical capacity. He has always been a wonderful guitar player, and he played the piano when he was younger. He has always had a great voice. (And some of my fondest memories include the time when I was in first grade and he came into class with his guitar and we sang "Shady Grove" together. Another fond memory was when we were both in the church choir and he'd sing the women's parts on some of the songs.) He got up there, and he didn't really get a good hold on what he was doing until the middle of the song. It was very unusual for him. Afterward, he said, "Oh my god. I know the song by heart, but I just couldn't hear it to save my life."

That bar started filling up around 10:30, so we left and tried going downtown, but they were having the "Hickory Alive" festival, so the karaoke place we wanted to go to was pretty much barricaded in by cars. So instead, they took us to Stoker's. Now. Stoker's is a place my that one of my alcoholic great-uncles frequents... said uncle has been in countless bar fights and has been shot at a bar once. So that should give you an idea about this place's character.

We start walking in and I notice the enormous sign on the door: "ABSOLUTELY NO ONE UNDER 21 ALLOWED ON THE PROPERTY." I balked, but dad's friend said he knew the owner and it was fine.
And then I walked in.
I have never. in my life. seen drunk rednecks attempting to line dance. and i never wanted to. and that was fine. drunk rednecks, country music, of course line dancing happens.
And then "Low" by Flo Rider came on. I know this song! I've danced to it, on my New York cruise, and at my high school prom. You know. With people my age. Under the age of 35. Don't get me wrong. Generally, I'm egalitarian in all things, and just like other factors, your age doesn't matter, the quality of your person does.
But... but...
NO ONE UNDER 21 WAS ALLOWED IN THAT BAR BECAUSE SEEING HEAVY MIDDLE-AGED DRUNK REDNECKS LINE DANCE AND GRIND TO POPULAR RAP SONGS IS HAZARDOUS TO THE TEENAGE HEALTH.
as'd';gflkbmfa!
Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if they weren't too drunk to stand and weren't all wearing trucker hats and flannel vests.

When the karaoke started back up... it got worse. I appreciate people who are brave enough to get up onstage, no matter how good their voices are. They deserve to be clapped for on the merit of confidence alone.
But I'm pretty sure Jonah and I mouthed, "We're in hell" to one another at least three times, and various members of our party plugged their ears (discreetly) at least... three times.

It got scarier.
The table next to our section of booths had been rattling off loud beer chants all night.
Our favorite was this one:
"KILL THE YANKEES!"
"HOW MANY?"
"ALL OF 'EM!"

Jonah pretended to try to get up and said, "I've got to get out of here."
Dad's friend leaned over and said, "You're fucked!"

It was generally petrifying.
The karaoke portion went well for our table - dad's friend and his fiancee have really good voices, and I sang "Black Velvet," because it was the only song I could think of that wouldn't get me lynched while I was standing up there in my geeky glasses with my colored hair and my "The Cab" t-shirt with skulls on it.

And then we left. I'd -wanted- to go to another bar, but we all dispersed because my brother and sister called my dad whining. "We're TIIIIIIIRED. When are we going back to PAAAPAWWWWW'S? TERRY'S FALLING ASLEEP. and we clearly cannot sleep at Nana's even though there are two open beds, so will you come home?"
Next time I want to go somewhere, they're getting chained to a tree in the woods. Jo says we'll just give them sedatives.
I like the tree idea better.

When we left, we came home with two beautiful jars of homemade apple butter that my stepgrandmother made.
Oh man. If you have not had the chance to partake, you -must- find yourself some apple butter. It's delicious. The vanilla is yummy enough to be eaten right out of the jar.

It is good not only on biscuits (best on fresh biscuits, if you ask me), but on bagels.

You might notice a considerable smattering of butter on those bagels.
This is because my genetics are not the only reason I am a plus size.
Let me, enlighten you about Amanda's General Principle Theory of Bread Law.
If (B)_t , then B = B(b).
If bread is toasted, then bread must also be buttered.
And I don't believe in that margarine crap. Anything that doesn't attract anything, not even FLIES, after being left out for months on end is clearly not fit for human consumption.

The point of this story was that apple butter is delicious.

Monday night we gave Meeko a bath, since she has huge brown fleas that her collar isn't having an effect on. It didn't help much with the fleas. We're going to be buying flea shampoo and bathing her weekly, plus getting her the $1 collar she had before, which worked.

Needless to say, she wanted us to die after that.

ahhh

2008-10-14T18:49:00.002-07:00

No time.
Sick.
Very busy.

I promise that after my last mid-term on Friday, I'll go back and leave everyone comments and do all the reading I can.

why do I keep calling them finals?

2008-10-10T12:13:00.000-07:00

Okay.
So the Little Necklace That Couldn't eventually did, because Jonah spent over three hours screwing with it.
Again. He'd get right to the end, and would lose the entire thing. And one time, when he finally got the end knotted, the first end slipped off and he lost everything in the other direction.

But, his sheer stubbornness and determination (which is something that is endearing about him, but would be tremendously annoying if I came up against it instead of having it on my side) got the necklace made.

One of my best friends turned 20 on Monday, and since I might get to see her this weekend (provided she can get the time off to come to the family farm... and jeeze, how country is that? "The family farm.") I decided to make her this gift. Since she's "coming of age" and she'll be going to Europe soon, I thought that she could use a pearl necklace - since every woman should have a sophisticated string of pearls in their jewelry box, just in case.

These pearls are glass-based, because I am poor, but when it comes to the pearl necklace, it's the intent and appearance that matters, in my opinion. I wanted something more to be going on, though, because I didn't want them to be too fancy. In between the pearls are red Czech glass beads, and the teardrops are garnets, separated by clear Czech beads.

I need to attach the handmade clasps (and maybe some chain or a jump ring or two an extension... Jonah finally got it strung, but it's shorter than it should have been) and clean up the mess of stringing material around the bead tips.
BUT IT'S DONE.
And that's what matters.

2008-10-09T22:13:00.000-07:00

My friend's necklace is "The Little Necklace That Couldn't (be made)."
And so I'm giving up.
Seriously. If I have to re-string you seven times, and drop you more times than I can count, and the crimp beads magically won't hold on the end (four different crimps!), you don't want to come into existence and I won't keep trying to force it. I've probably lost as many beads as I put into the freaking necklace. It'll be CHEAPER to do something else! My generally average blood pressure has suddenly become ridiculously high, I'm sure of it. My sore, cramped hands won't have any more of this.
I'll make something else and feel better.

I shouldn't be this excited over being tagged by someone.

2008-10-08T18:13:00.000-07:00

But I'm pretty excited.

Here's blog-type stuff:
So last night I spent two and a half hours (it should not have taken that long, but it did, and I had to re-string it twice because my first strings weren't long enough, and there was a mishap with the clasps) stringing and building the clasps for a necklace to give to my friend that I'm planning to see this weekend, since Monday was her birthday. I used my shiny nifty bead stoppers that I bought, and rejoiced! "MY GOD! BEAD STOPPERS ARE REVOLUTIONARY."
Then, trying futilely to knot final end of the Accu-Flex wire to keep my bead tip on, I dropped the entire strand and lost it. Lost some of my new beads, AND all my hard work. Trying. to tie. a knot.
I gave a wail. And then I sat very still for about five minutes and cried out of sheer frustration.
Jonah came and bailed me out. He found almost all the beads I lost in the floor, and offered to re-string it for me, then had the same problem I did with the knotting.
So it needs to be restrung, but I am wary at the prospect.

Here's the meme thing:

Lynn tagged me. Now I'm going to have to scavenge through the few blogs I read to see if I can find anyone to tag who hasn't already done this. :P

Here are the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog - some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blog.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

1) I have grown up around keyboards, since my mom and dad both worked with computers, and it always seemed like it absolutely incensed my 7th grade keyboarding teacher that, without putting my hands in the "appropriate starting position on the keyboard," I could type faster than she admitted to being able to.

2) My family had always been fans of the NC band The Laymen's Daughter, and we often drove to Black Mountain to see them play at some bar. (The Grey Eagle? I never paid that much attention, I was 5-6 or so.) I always enjoyed going to their shows because they'd occasionally give me a shaker to play in time to some of the songs. But when they were playing their last show there before they split up, I opted to stay home just so that my favorite after-school assistant could baby-sit me. Years since, I have regretted that decision... come on, Amanda, it was their last show. What were you thinking?

3) I have this unconscious habit of making patterns with my body... and after a few minutes it becomes a conscious habit and I try to challenge myself by changing them up. This might not be so unusual, except it always occurs in a side-to-side motion: either I will start on one side of my mouth and click the three sections of my teeth in different patterns, or in bed at night, I will swing my feet around.

4) Speaking of patterns, I also end up tapping out tunes, instead of humming them. My boyfriend is the only person other than myself who has ever been able to interpret any of the tunes that I tap.

5) I was the female portion of my high school senior class' "Most Unique" superlative, and because my hair was green at the time, we took the "Most Unique" picture with a trash can. (Oscar the Grouch, get it?) The tall guy got in it, I hid behind it, and we peeked over the edges.

6) I'm a really awful procrastinator about filling out forms and signing things/getting them signed. Half of the time they don't even get sent back like they're supposed to. In fact, I got this two-sided "Voter Registration" card a couple months ago, and I don't know what to do with it (I had no information to change, do I still send it back? Do I keep it?) and I still haven't even thought to ask anyone. The NC registration deadline is the 10th. :|

7) I ask entirely too many questions (at least, the tour guides at the Biltmore House probably think so) but I have a distinct inability to ask for things. No, seriously. I have trouble ordering things at restaurants. Even at fast-food joints like Taco Bell. Jonah orders for me. Asking for a sales assistant to assist me in a store kills me. I know that they are getting paid to help me out, but I hate feeling like I'm troubling or inconveniencing them.
Similarly, someone close to me that bought one of my necklaces as a birthday present to herself back in the beginning of September hasn't paid me yet. I still haven't mentioned it to her. I don't even know how to go about it. I don't want her to feel like I'm badgering her or something.
(And I'd have to do it on Facebook unless I stopped by the high school, and... come on, hitting people up for money on Facebook makes me feel incredibly tacky/guilty.)

Those I Am Tagging (this list might be disappointingly small):

PeppyPilotGirl of Silvery Ever After, Strings and Sealing Wax and Other Fancy Stuff, and Keep The Geek.
Janice of Goddess Findings... Jewels for the Spirit.
Cathy Lybarger of Aardvark Art Glass.
Oh Crud!
Do I have anyone else
that hasn't been tagged?
Guess not. |: NEXT TIME!

Poetry, Stem, and Roots

2008-10-07T18:15:00.000-07:00

Religions of Star Trek, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom, and The Crystal Bible came today. I started reading the first pages of the latter two books, and I'm definitely interested. We'll see how long I can keep my nose out of them.
(Let me add that I hate book juggling because I say "I'll read these two" and end up with 11 books to read, that I don't remember I have until 2 days before they're due back at the library. And I can read fast, but not that fast.)

I made two pairs of earrings last night, but I'm not sure I'm "feeling them."
I really need to practice practice practice my briolette wrapping. It just isn't working out for me. I'll have to re-read some tutorials and try again.

I used to fancy myself quite the poet.
I still might, but I never write poetry much anymore. I got published a few times by a few different groups, "back when I was writing." I was a poetry machine from ages ten to thirteen or so.

My creative writing teacher in high school sent out our poems and things when I took her classes, and I was actually going to be a nominee for North Carolina Poet Laureate last year, but I didn't send back my information form in time.
My junior year I was a top ten finalist in the Creative Communications poetry contest... got my poem published with nine others in the front of the anthology that year. It's a big red book with fireworks on it that sits, never looked at, beside my bed.

I'm a poetry snob - I felt like about half of the other nine were not "top ten" material, in my own personal poetry contest. I actually devalue(d) a lot of my "poetry achievements" because I was a poetry snob. "Yeah, I got six poems published by poetry.com, but they'll take anyone's poetry."
I think that, with my new leaf, I should be more accepting and appreciating of other peoples' achievements.
But I have to say, I still can't stand to read certain poetry. There are poetic greats I will always love. e. e. cummings is my hero. (I think I started worshipping him a bit too much. Some of my older poems where I played with typography, which is still one of my favorite things to do, were... special.) Plath, Rumi, Bukowski (although honestly, I think he's definitely the poetry world's #1 underachiever. I'm not sure how the man managed to get famous writing about the fecal stains on his underwear, but for some reason, his poetry and novels are raw and readily readable), Neruda. Janice of Goddess Findings has posted a few Hafiz poems, and I'm intrigued by his writing. Consequently, while I respect their poetic merit, there are several poets that I don't like to read often: Dickenson and Frost, for example. A poem just has to have something. If it doesn't, I lose interest. Truncation turns into the paragraph breaks in a textbook.

I had to do a "mirror poem anthology" assignment last year in Creative Writing II, and I enjoyed it. It was far more lax than it should have been - we didn't have to follow rhyme scheme and what have you. The poems just had to match up, line-for-line, line-break-for-line-break, and subject-wise with their original counterparts.

One of my favorites that I found was Potions by Yusef Komunyakaa. (Coincidentally, my mirror of this was also one of my top favorites out of my anthology.)

The old woman made mint
Candy for the children
Who'd bolt through her front door,
Silhouettes of the great blue

Heron. She sold ten-dollar potions
From a half-lit kitchen. Chinese boxes
Furnished with fliers & sinkers. Sassafras
& lizard tongues. They'd walk out

Of the woods or drive in from cities,
Clutching lovesick dollar bills
At a side door that opened beside
A chinaberry tree. Did their eyes

Doubt under Orion as voices
Of the dead spoke? They carried
Photos, locks of hair, nail clippings,
& the first three words of a wish.

Today I found a sheet torn out of a notebook on the floor outside my room - I'd ripped two pages out of that particular book this weekend so Mallary could use it for her science class. (Two pages because it only had two with writing on them... I had been using it as a devoted "write to Jonah" notebook, and then my complete and utter inability to follow through with anything I want to do kicked in.)
I found a little poem on the back of the sheet.

"today I picked a flower
and played you love me,
'you love me not,'
said the petals
but the stem said not to listen
because the roots said you loved me miles."

It made me smile.

The World At Large

2008-10-06T12:52:00.000-07:00

My Sims 2 package came this weekend, along with Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, Creating Beaded and Wire Jewelry, and The Anticraft.
The Anticraft is a seriously fabulous book. I'm going to have to learn knitting so that I can knit this squid-shaped menstrual cup holder... even though I don't own a cup.
Maybe if you double the pattern, it could be a hat...

Julie brought over The Dresden Dolls' "No, Virginia." The new sound is kind of raw, and I'm really partial to it. My only complaint is that so far I haven't heard Brian singing any back-up vocals... I'm only on song four, though.

I got the last of my bead orders today. My FMG package was freaking enormous. I'm looking forward to creating now that I have everything here!
After I do my Tories & Radicals writing piece...
And an open-book take-home test...
And study for The Holocaust...
But on the bright side, Wednesday is the last day of class before Fall Break, so I'll have Thursday and Friday to fiddle with my beading materials and then we're down to Hickory to visit family friends and family.

I gave my informative speech today, on the role of pets in the family. I think it went pretty well - I was sort of wired and nervous, though. We'll see how my grade turns out.

For my demonstration speech, I've already decided that I'm going to teach about jewelry-making, and demonstrate making a pair of earrings.

This Isn't Good

2008-10-04T01:06:00.001-07:00

Heaven help me.
I've discovered the wonderful world of Bento.

My rock tumbler arrived today.
It is tiny, and will take 14 days to tumble things.

Laptop Search Conclusion, Glasses, Beads

2008-10-02T18:21:00.000-07:00

So I got my glasses today. They have some major magnification on them... my dad is confused. He thought they were just supposed to give focus. (I had no idea what they were supposed to do.) They also didn't test my vision with the glasses on, they just asked me how they felt and sent me on my way. Dad says they look like reading glasses from Wal-Mart.

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to feel confused or gypped or something.

My HP Mini-Note that I ordered from Thinkgeek is gimp.
Apparently HP is selling computers that are still in their promo stage. Wireless cards (among other things, but on my computer, it was my wireless) aren't working properly. People are all over the Novell and HP forums looking for help. We should have known better when HP didn't have much information about the laptop other than its specs on their site. But you expect your factory PC to be in perfect working order when it comes out of the factory.
I feel confused and gypped, so I am returning it.

I bought a new replacement today. It is a Compaq (which was bought out by HP, but I'm hoping HP is keeping their fingers out of their new subsidiary's pie enough for Compaq to retain its former quality), and it is not a tiny laptop. It is a bigass widescreen honker with a sleek black lid, 2 GB of RAM (1 GB more than the Mini-Note), 160 GB of HD space (10 gig more than the Mini-Note), a 2 gigahertz dual-core processor... onboard video, but it's supposed to be pretty high quality.
It's running Vista.
Smack my hand, for I'm actually... enjoying my time with it.
Yeah, it has flaws. Yeah, I'm annoyed that it doesn't want to talk to my XP computers until I install this protocol on them. But... it's like having that Linux set-up that the Mini-Note had, except more user-friendly because you don't need command prompts to install things.
Granted, I hate how you can't find ANYTHING on a Vista, unless you spend six hours searching for it. That will change when I get used to it, I hope. I also don't like how it likes phoning home to the Microsoft Mothership all the time. Even when you disable functions that should call back, they weasel their way to a phone booth somehow.

Some of my new beads came in yesterday.

From the top down:
Dyed purple and forest green quartz rounds.
Natural coconut heishi beads and natural Picasso serpentine.
Garnet teardrops and oyster shell beads.
Wavy zebra stone coin beads.
Red-dyed "Mountain Jade" and black and white bone spacers.
Dyed turquoise pendant and teardrop beads and carved coral leaves.

As I said in a previous post, it's getting harder and harder to wait for all my supplies to get here...

Quick-Delivery

2008-09-29T20:18:00.000-07:00

Today, I received Lorelei's lovely jewelry (I'm thrilled!), a bead order I placed with a lovely Etsian, Deby0 (HOORAY FLOWERS!), and my wire from Monsterslayer.
I nearly shat, to be honest.
I really didn't expect anything to be in the mailbox today.

So I sat around, wearing my new jewelry, and played with my newly-acquired stuff.
I wish I could find either of my crochet hooks... they were out of 24g copper wire, and then even though I ordered 22g they had apparently run out, so I only received 26g, soft, and it's BEGGING me to crochet it.
I don't even know if that's an ideal size for crochet.
But I intend to find out.

First off, I made a little wrapped bracelet, like the ones that are in some of About.com's jewelry-making tutorials. It's pretty standard, and the wrapping is... questionable. 26g really isn't a great wrapping size either, apparently. Or maybe it simply takes some refining. Regardless of how the wire looks, I think it's cute, and I plan on wearing it. I handmade the clasp out of 20g half-hard sterling silver. (And good grief, it IS pretty hard. It took a while to finagle that.)

In keeping with my flower kick, I thought a pair of patriotic flower earrings would be cute.
Jo said his mother might like them - I think I'll give them to her. I'm not a flag-y kind of person.

I decided to make some signiture earrings.
Because, you know, I'm "Panda Mae Jewelry..."

I thought it was a cute gimmick. I also like the little flower with the panda.

Suuure, it looks like the flower is coming out of the panda's butt, from the side, but you don't look at them from the side, often.

I'm forcing myself to stop making jewelry so I can wait until all my new supplies come in.
sfkj. so hard to wait.

My eyes have really been bothering me today. I don't know if it's because now I -know- they aren't working right, or if they're actually bothering me, but my left eye just feels... fuzzy all the time. The vision is still the same, but it feels tired and... well, fuzzy. As fuzzy as an eyeball can feel.

Heritage

2008-09-28T12:51:00.000-07:00

Mountain Heritage Day was great!
Well, we could have done with some parking passes... but past having to park in B.F. Egypt, it was great! We're both a little sunburnt (I didn't think about bringing sunblock), our feet are a bit tender, but it was a very good day.

The weather was super, first off. It was overcast for most of the day, so it was nice and cool. There was a surprisingly large turnout, considering the gas crisis that our part of N.C. is in.

We had a great time handing out fliers and listening to music. In-between people trickling in, we joked around and danced to the bluegrass (when I work at Mountain Heritage Day, I work at the "vendor check-in booth," which is also a visitor entrance, near the music stage). Occasionally we sang songs.

When we weren't looking around or playing "greeters," we were holding down the fort... which was really just time to relax and chill out. I brought my bead boxes so I could make a few earrings while we waited, and I got three pairs made. Jonah made a pair of his own, and started a very intricate (well, maybe it's more tedious than intricate) pair that I really like the look of. He's got to fine-tune it a bit, but it's looking great. And it's a mixed-metal piece, which is supposed to be "in" right now.

I'm very proud of him. He's a skillful craftsman and creative thinker, and I enjoy having him in my life. I can go to him when my earrings (such as the little flowers-on-posts earrings I've made lately) aren't doing what I want them to, and he can usually help me find a solution. He's very intrigued by stones and wire-wrapping, so I may let him do that for me. He's already made himself a wrapped-piece necklace. The only real flaw in it is that he used the silver-plated wire his mother sent down, so the wrapping on his first crystal (he added the second crystal earlier in the week) has been worn down to copper... which would be fine, except it's very uneven wear.

Michele got swamped with extra volunteers (because even though she's in-charge, other people involved like to recruit hospitality majors and minors, since they have to serve a certain amount of volunteer hours), so she let us have a generous amount of off-time. We watched some "Indian Ball," (which I didn't understand in the least), looked at the vendor booths, and got some food.

I was a little displeased. I spent all year waiting for Mountain Heritage so I could get a meat pie at the Scottish foods booth.
The inspector woman made the Scottish foods booth people decide they weren't interested in attending Mountain Heritage Day any more.
I didn't get a meat pie!
Missing the meat pies wasn't really my "great life tragedy," but it was a little disappointing. We bought lamb and steak gyros, instead. We also bought a funnel cake, which made up for the lack of Scottish influence in my day. I really just need to look up a meat pie recipe so we can make them at home.

Jonah, the "anti-ceramicist," actually bought two beautiful ceramic cups. I meandered over to one of the lovely little jewelry booths (there were lots of jewelry booths) and he popped in a moment later going, "WE HAVE TO GET THESE MUGS THEY ARE SO PRETTY CAN WE HAVE THEM PLEASE?"
So of course I said yes. They're very nice, they're everything-safe, and they have a very unique glaze.

Overall, it was a very nice day out, until I got a headache right at the end. It was time to leave anyways, though, so it wasn't a problem.

The jewelry we made:

Some chic cubes with green cane glass.

Kyanite.

I've mentioned my love of those acrylic cubes.
I meant to buy more when I placed my FMG order... oops.

The cube earrings hanging.

Fun with twisted bugle beads.

Jonah's pretty little earrings.
I liked his creativity in using the pearl beads as leaves.

I placed a personal order (I lied about the personal expenses. I didn't mean to. My mother kept saying, "Buy that when you get your refund." And so... here we are!) with Amazon last night that I'm pretty excited about. I made a minuscule dent in my wishlist.

1. Religions of Star Trek.
This is going to be the most useful purchase I made as part of this order, since it serves as: a research resource, pleasure reading, and it's going to be a gift once I'm done with it. (The recipient knows that it won't be coming to her brand-new.)

2) Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Book of Tarot.
Jonah and I have been looking for a good, informative, and hopefully all-encompassing tarot guide. This one looked like the best choice. My non-crafts-related wishlist is peppered with tarot decks and books. :P This purchase is "officially for him," but we're both going to enjoy it.

3) Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life.
I think it was Lorelei who made a post about that book.

4) The Crystal Bible.
Judy Hall's book has come highly recommended by many jewelry blogs I've read.

5) The Sims 2: Apartment Life - Limited Collection.
Don't judge.
No, really.
My dear friend Emily and I grew up nourishing an addiction to The Sims from the time it came out. I still find myself wanting to dig out the originals and play, but I've "misplaced" most of my discs. (I've been seriously considering buying The Sims: Complete Collection, since I'm missing two or three expansions... but if I was going to spend $40 last night, it was going to be on the version of The Sims that feeds my Build Mode addiction better than the original.) We both borrowed copies of The Sims 2 from our friends and loved it. We've needed this. This limited collection thing is a great deal - I get The Sims 2: Double Deluxe with it... which means that I just spent $40 on the original game, the Nightlife expansion pack, and the "celebration stuff" item pack... and got the newest expansion with it. I've been waiting to get this game forever, and go figure - I buy it only a few months before The Sims 3 is due to come out.
This is a totally selfish purchase that is going to keep my house filled with squealing college girls for weeks to come.

6) Re-Creative: 50 Projects For Turning Found Items Into Contemporary Design.
My mom is going to like this book too, I think. She's always trying to do things to the house... as if redecorating a wall will draw your eye away from all the boxes and toys and the dog-smell-on-the-ancient-carpet.
I live in paradise.

7) Anti-Craft: Knitting, Beading, and Stitching for the Slightly Sinister.
This was irresistible. You can't tell me that title doesn't make you want to crack it open.

8) Creating Wire and Beaded Jewelry.
Does this purchase even require explanation?

9) Such A Pretty Fat: One Narcissist's Quest to Discover if Her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big, Or Why Pie is Not the Answer.
I couldn't not get this. Pure pleasure reading. I hope it's as good as the title suggests.

On the business end, aside from bead orders (and I ordered some very unique beads, but more on that another time), I purchased a stone tumbler and some neon wire (and tools that I'm planning on using on clay) from American Science & Surplus. (I also placed a large wire order with Monsterslayer. Their customer service is very nice. But that isn't the point.) Jonah was flipping out about how I "NEEDED TO SPEND BUSINESS MONEY ON A TUMBLER," because he wants to tumble rocks.
He's cute sometimes. I got a small one. I'll be interested to see if I can safely tumble certain jewelry pieces in it as well. If not, no loss - I bought polishing supplies.

I want to make soap. We'll see where this urge takes me.
Jonah says I'm turning into his mother and grandmother.

Okay.

2008-09-25T14:48:00.001-07:00

Is it just my add-ons that make my layout look totally wonky? (i.e. the sidebars have been under all the posts for.... a week or more, on my screen.)
Need some feedback here. I keep trying to fix it and it isn't WORKINGGGGG.
I tried a different layout with a lefthand bar, and it worked... except the background didn't go all the way down so the font was unreadable.
safdj!

It's Hard To Overstate My Satisfaction...

2008-09-25T14:02:00.000-07:00

I favorite too many things on Etsy. s:
I'm going through and trying to clean sold bead lots out of my list at the moment.
It's tedious. 47 pages of favorites to weed through.

Johnathon Coulton's "Still Alive" has been circulating nonstop in our heads all week.

I've enjoyed my day off... my big check came today, too, so that means beading supplies and making a purchase with Lorelei. (I get a bracelet and earring set and Jonah gets a Steampunk ring from a different seller for the same price. It's a nice compromise. These purchases are really the only "me item" purchases I'm making.)

In perfect timing with my check, ThinkGeek's little teeny HP laptops came back into stock today, WITH a $100 rebate. I'm all over it... I just hope they don't sell out before tomorrow. (Since the check won't actually hit until then.) So I'm pretty sure I'll be getting a 120GB HP mini-laptop that runs Linux, instead of wasting my time with the teensy Eees.

So far today, I've accomplished two jewelry pieces.

An "invisible necklace" with the Peruvian opals.

One of my crimp beads broke (HOW THE HECK DOES THAT HAPPEN) and so that's why that unfortunate cluster is there... it doesn't look too awful, though. It wasn't upsetting enough for me to hack up the entire thing and start over again. I might wheel the necklace around a bit and call that cluster a focal. It'll be a great match with the asymmetrical earrings... and the set will look superfabulous over a black turtleneck.

The lapis coins and porcealin "donuts" meet in a holy union.

I really love this pair... the empty hole at the bottom really just gets to me.
There's also some interesting visual bead texture in the piece, if you look at a close-up.

The Singing World

2008-09-24T20:01:00.000-07:00

Apparently I have super-eyes, because they have compensated as if I've had 20/20 for 18 years.
Apparently my vision is, in actuality, very crappy. We're talking like, "I can't read that large magazine header" crappy.
Wow. This optometrist's appointment has been very enlightening.

Looking around with relaxed eyes was very surreal. It also gave me an intense headache. (Which was a bummer, since today was, before my appointment, really the first day that my head hasn't felt like a balloon stretched to its limits, on the verge of exploding.)

I also have some optic nerve damage from pressure on the eye, so I get to go see someone about that. I'm not exactly thrilled - I didn't like all those light tests with the bright things in my eyes, and the poking. I'm hoping that all this glasses-nerve stuff will help get rid of my headaches. Or at least reduce the amount. She also referred me to a chiropractor for them.

So we picked a pair of glasses my insurance will cover... which I assume look good, because Jo and Mallary (my little sister) gave the most positive input about that pair. I couldn't really see myself very well. I feel very intimidated. When I was little, I yearned for glasses (and braces, for some reason - thank goodness I don't need those). I've gone a long time without glasses. I'm forgetful. What if I lose my glasses? I'm going to have to make myself one of those little-glasses-necklaces that holds your glasses at the end. Fortunately, I have the ability to make a very pretty glasses-holder.

I was also worried about swimming. It is my favorite form of exercise. I like to do laps. (Funny story there: I took swimming lessons 8 times throughout my life, and never picked it up until I took a weeklong lesson the summer before I turned 11. Then, that Fall, I joined the swim team.) They are very zen, they're actually very useful exercise (except for the part where you eat an entire horse after you come out of the pool), and I never enjoyed them while I was on the team, but now they're all I want to do in a pool. While my natural vision isn't quite so bad that I won't be able to see the wall, I'm just nervous about botching something up. After my eyes have adapted to my glasses, I'm not supposed to have vision this clear without them, to my understanding.

Needing wear-these-all-the-time glasses just feels like a very large change in my life, and I'm concerned about breaking them or losing them or all the other things that my klutziness could cause. Because if I do then I'm screwed until I can get them fixed. /:

My regular doctor, whom I also saw today, decided I have yet another case of tonsilitis and sinusitis. I'm the chronic-sinus-infection kid. That kid who sat next to you in class who was always sniffling and drowsy, or was hoarse. Or had leaky ears.

Today was just a yucky day for my head region.

On the bright side, I don't have to go to school until Monday, because of the "gas shortage" that we've got up here. My college has actually called off almost all of the classes, since a lot of our students drive over from other counties to get to this campus.
Everyone flips out about gas availability at random intervals and decides THEY MUST FILL UP, and we get lines and stations with no gas and... well, it's nasty. The last time it happened (before the hurricane that hit Gavelston), we had gas stations hiking their prices up from $3.60ish to $4.30+. Granted, one of the main stations that was guilty of hiking up the price unnecessarily got a nasty fine. Does this happen in other states, or is Western North Carolina just filled with idiots? (Okay, it's not filled with idiots. There are some very wonderful people here. But by and large, we do get some people who do... stupid things.)

Class attendance has dropped in a lot of my classes, because no one can afford to come in. I met a cosmetology student today who got up at 5 A.M. and biked over to get to class.
So. I have two days to work on jewelry and upcoming assignments.
And no getting up early.
I can deal with a four-day weekend.

p.s. the mystery free gifts are crab fire agate nuggets!

A Feast Fit For A Jewelry Artist

2008-09-23T18:47:00.000-07:00

This was a triumph!
I'm making a note here:
HUGE SUCCESS!!
It's hard to overstate my satisfaction.

I just love the glow of the Peruvian blue opals. It's like they have their own internal night-lights.

Here's my booty:

Here's the "sampling-of-the-booty play-by-play."

Mystery free gifts from my order with BeadBargains of Etsy.
I'm going to be sending her this picture - she forgot what they were, but she can identify them!

Sage amethyst faceted 40x30mm focal. I had to have it from the moment I saw it.

The Peruvian blue opals.

Wee little 4mm kyanite rounds.

Pretty amazonite. Bees. bees. bees...

Some of my fun-to-fondle drilled cola nuts.
(This blog is PG-13, what more did you expect?)

Lapis coins and teardrops.

Carnelian teardrop briolettes. So tiny.

Howlite briolettes. Obviously a set in the making.

Rhodonite squares...

More rhodonite...

Some yummy tigerseye.

I forgot to photograph these, so here they are from the Etsy listing:
Chocolate adventurine. They're side-drilled, so I'm excited about their potential.

And from Boxesnbeads of Etsy:

Suglite briolettes.

Apple-green turquoise briolettes.

Faceted chalcedony drops.

So. I'm pleased with what I got.
I'm having an issue with the amazonite hex beads, though.

I want them to do this:

But I attempted that with wire and it didn't work AT ALL. They didn't hold tight enough.
Any ideas on how to keep them together, other than by using some jeweler's glue?

Big Ol' Life Update

2008-09-22T16:22:00.000-07:00

In response to PeppyPilotGirl's wondering about my college career, I figured that I may as well just post my response here. I keep forgetting that, while this blog is partially here to further my creative skills and the career I'm making out of them, it's also... you know, my blog. Where I can blog? About my day-to-day life? I'm a bright one, sometimes.

My college career is going pretty well, I'd say. My goal is to make the President's List, (or at least the Dean's List. My GPA should already qualify me, but I wasn't full-time when I was taking my previous classes) and so I'm trying to excel in everything I do. I'd like to be doing some art classes, though. Or better yet, pursuing my goals of metalsmithing and glassblowing. But, all that in due course.

I took my first Comparative Cultures test on Friday... it was a lot of information to absorb, since we hadn't had a quiz or test up until that point. I would have gotten my grade today, but I didn't attend either of my classes. I feel awful. My nose exploded last night. My head pounds. I am in SAD SHAPE. Anyway, even though the instructor sent me a reply to my "I'll be absent" e-mail, he said, "Your test grade is _______. I'll keep you in suspense."

He's really one of my favorite teachers. He can be ornery. :P

I've got a whole mess of assignments due the first four days of October. I quiver. I need to give a speech on the 1st, but I still don't know what my topic will be - it's open-ended, I just want to pick a topic that I know a bit about, that will be interesting to the whole class.
Maybe video games and how they don't encourage violence - parenting and comprehension does.
Oh wait, that excludes every. single. chick. in my class. (None of them game, apparently, and a vast majority of them said they don't even like to read.)
Well how about my jewelry hobby?
Oh. Yeah. The Michael Phelps guys. They won't like that.

You can see my dilemma. I don't think I'll be able to find an entertaining middle ground.

Other stuff:

-I got my beads today! Kyanite and Peruvian opal and tiger's eye and rhodonite and drilled cola nuts (which are insanely cool and far too entertaining for me to put into a jewelry piece) - OH MY!
There's more, but then I would just feel like I was bragging. ;)

-Mountain Heritage Day is this weekend! The least-like-work-volunteer-work that I could ever ask to do! Really, I would work at Mountain Heritage Day every weekend, if it occurred every weekend. Jonah is coming to help this year, and my history professor is thrilled. She's only met him once, mostly in passing, and so she's excited to get to know him. And I know he'll adore her, if only because she's a trekkie. Although she has many more loveable qualities than that. In fact, I occasionally (in informal situations) call her "Mommy."
There will be meat pies and funnel cake involved.
My stomach is singing the hallelujia chorus already. (Cue the Latin choir.)

-I'd like to introduce everyone to my new television:

Oh, wait, that's not really it.
Here we go:

BOOYAH.
Amanda's Room: Tiny Hole/Home Theater.
ROCK!

My only complaint is that sometimes, even though the projector is well above my head, my eyes start feeling funny after I've sat under it for a while.

And since I'm sure everyone is used to animal cruelty on my blog by now, have a cat picture.
It's not as cruel as it looks. The sock is one of those gormless elastic-less wimpy socks that you try on shoes with at Wal-Mart. It's Jonah's fault. It's a wonder Meeko even comes near him anymore. She's endured 13 years of this. She's a literal glutton for punishment.

I'm going to go lay down and play with my cola nuts.

I'll Get You, My Pretties... And Your Little Posts, Too!

2008-09-21T18:19:00.000-07:00

Time to make up for some neglect. I'm sorry, blog world.

These aren't all the earrings I've made in the past few weeks, these are just the most recent pairs.

I've recently begun using posts, and I love them! Which is surprising. I also have a buttload more backs than posts, so I'll be able to send customers spare backs with their earrings. Which makes me feel like I'm doing something nice, because I don't know about everyone else, but I'm ALWAYS losing backs to my earrings.

Silver bead caps (which I somehow can't seem to find on my purchase invoices... so I have no idea about their quality) and lepidolite on posts.

Oh, turquoise. I do love me some turquoise.
These earrings aren't really a "STUNNING INNOVATION," but they've been brewing in my head for a while. I kept thinking "Oh, well, maybe I'll come up with something better." But the other night I decided to go all in and put them together.
And I like them.

Red porcelain donuts and black Czech crystals, wrapped in sterling silver wire.
The wire is a new thing for me... it's 28 gauge, and so I'm still practicing.
I'm considering re-doing these earrings, but I hate the idea of wasting so much wire.
Maybe I'll just keep this pair and re-make another to sell- I love the colors. They feel very chic.

Silver filigrees with blue AB firepolished glass.
I have a matching necklace in mind, but I need silver chain.

Red glass flowers and... red glass flower, accented by a gold filigree cap in between. On more posts. <3>

I wanted flowers that stood up.
Jonah helped em rig them to do so - as you might be able to see, the eye pin's loop is actually around the part of the post that goes through the ear. It doesn't interfere with inserting the earrings - I tested them.

Hooray, earrings!
I hope the rest of my supplies come tomorrow...
I also hope that my nose will stop hurting. I'm so snuffly-sick right now that it's not funny. My nose is searing with pain. Painful pain.

Gypsy Moon Designs

2008-09-20T21:48:00.000-07:00

You may have seen these earrings by Gypsy Moon Designs on Etsy's front page today, and I certainly hope you visited her shop, because I think that her jewelry is absolutely gorgeous.

If you have visited her shop and you've seen one of my previous posts about the Goddess Pendant from Mamacitabeadworks, you can probably guess which of her pieces is my favorite.

The Wild Woman necklace.

Maybe it's because I love the human body, and female bodies just have more curvy variety to them. Maybe it's because I love flowing hair and spreading my arms out to great the day. Maybe it's because I love the feeling of empowerment and freedom that the position and the implied nudity radiates.
Or maybe it's just 'cause it's pretty.

Sun Worshipper

Dancing Gypsy

Chocolate and Peaches

Woodstock

I think she's just wonderful. I've always been a fan of her overall style - the "Bohemian Gypsy" thing. Since I was young, I've loved the multiple strands of necklaces, the semiprecious stones and brass filigree findings. When I made my first bead order here on Etsy and decided, "I think I'd like to make this into a hobby and a career," that what what I envisioned.

I figured this creative artist deserved a post singing her praises. (Not that many others don't - often, you'll have to catch me in an, "I need to blog" mood.)

All photos are from her Etsy shop.

Empty Space

2008-09-15T20:35:00.000-07:00

I just mailed off a ton of earrings. Well, just six pairs... but regardless, my jewelry rack looks totally empty.

It's disconcerting, but I'm trying to wait until I get my supplies (please, please, please let them come by the end of this week!) before I start creating. But I should be paid for those earrings by tomorrow, so then I'll have to order MORE supplies (I am -all- -over- some chalcedony drops. I hope all the things I favorite'd don't get sold yet! Still trying to shop cheap) and it'll be a vicious cycle.
Actually, it's already a bit inconvenient, since I'm not getting any chain.
All the beautiful new beads Lacey bought me for my birthday involve chain, in my head.

Let's go over a few things, shall we?

1. I was on FMG today and I have to say, Swarovski, you're killing me.
Why'd you have to go and make all these beautiful drops and connectors?
I'm not even girly enough to like those flowery things. and. i. love. them.
Images from Fire Mountain Gems.

2. Jonah's cat (okay, well, by now she's my cat too. I snuggle her more than he does.) likes tight, unusual lurking spaces.

First, she liked to tuck into this tiny space between my desk and these boxes.

That isn't as roomy as it looks.

Last night, Jonah cleaned off my bookshelf so we could use more space.
Meeko claimed it.
Here's the evolution of her space.
(Please don't yell at us for animal cruelty. She stuffed herself in here.)
(We just added and subtracted books.)

Nibbly-Ducks and New York City

2008-09-12T20:20:00.000-07:00

You saw the poster.
I'm an awe-inspiring, gorgeous, gasp-inducing spectacle.
That face is worth the price of admission alone, wouldn't you say?

I didn't want to just yoink the aphorism that PeppyPilotGirl (one of my favorite people in the Blogosphere, and the owner/jewelrymaker of Silvery Ever After - go take a look at her site. She's quite fantastic at her craft!) used to entitle one of her personal blog posts a while back.

But it also seemed appropriate, since I've got a world full of ducks.
No, really.

Sadly, most of them reside behind my desk, between my CPU and the wall, at the moment, but they'll come out when we finally do the cleaning we've meant to do since we got back in July.

Let's take a little tour. I'm pretty sure I have pictures of most of them, if not all of them. (You know, before they fell.)

(Maybe I'm the one doing all the nibbling.)
It all started with this little guy.
My best friend, Emily, gave him to me in 7th grade, and I named him Walter.
Walter spread the news that I collected ducks.

This was a picture of my collection as it was the summer before I was a freshman in high school.
From the far left to the right, Icarius the dead duck, Walter the blue devil, Clooney the doctor,
Jean Claude the ruthless pirate (you can't really see his wee hatchet), and Charlemagne.
My parents gave me Icarius.
I found Clooney in a shop on Broadway in Myrtle Beach.
I really can't remember where Jean Claude came from.
I purchased Charlemagne on our 8th grade trip to the Outer Banks of NC.

Ignore me and focus on the ducks - I acquired two new ones for Christmas my freshman year.
Emily gave them both to me. The spotted one is Webster. A close-up of the black devil is below.

This was my second Xmas duck from Emily. He's a hot-rod devil,
but I can't for the life remember his name.
We named them both after a thesaurus and a dictionary...

Other ducks in my life, that I can't find pictures of:

There's Squirt, a very tiny baby duck.
Summer, a lovely blue duck with outdoorsy stuff painted on her.
And, the duck I got most recently, my autistic duck. Let me just stick in a disclaimer here: autism is not a laughing matter. I have no prejudice against people with any altered mental state, self-inflicted or otherwise, no matter how large or small. But this duck... is a sort of day-glo yellow, and its eyes are the exact opposite of cross-eyed. Its pupils are as far to the left and right as they could have been painted.

And then there's the duck that inspired me to make this post in the first place, Liberty:

Give you a dollar if you can guess where I got her.
Okay, not really.

Liberty hails from one of those little-nook-in-Chinatown shops full of underpriced t-shirts and overpriced tourist junk in New York City. Liberty, the Virgin Records store, and my band's success at our competition were really the only bright points of the city.

My high school band decided to attend a national competition in N.Y.C. last year. I nearly wet myself when our director first announced it. Let me explain.

All my life, ever since I was a little girl, it had been my dream to live in New York and star in movies and musicals. I wanted to act and be a music star from about the time I was six or seven, and I decided I wanted to star in a Broadway musical when I was about nine. All these fantasies took place in New York City, which was, in my eyes, the hub of all real life.
(My intense dislike of the small size of my hometown was, in part, fuelled by that belief.)
I was going to go to New York City one day, and live there. It would be magical. I would get discovered.

So naturally, our director announced our plans at the beginning of the year and I was amped all the way up until April. New York City was within my grasp, at least to visit. April came, and I had the pleasure of beginning my trip with an extremely uncomfortable bus ride. My friends and I all took our seats in the back (despite the knowledge that the bathroom would be right beside us) and since seniors boarded first, I saved a spot for my sophomore friends. They ended up sitting together across the aisle, so I had an empty seat which I couldn't deny anyone the right to.

So L took a seat beside me. L was a sophomore who was being used (as rebound) by another band girl after a sordid break-up. She had already ditched L once, but they'd decided to become an item again for the duration of the trip... until L decided he didn't want to sit beside her because he was no longer interested.

L wasn't a bad kid. He was, however, very, intensely socially awkward. There were some simple social concepts he simply didn't understand. You could tell him, but it didn't process. It's as if certain things were simply missing. I didn't hold this against him, because he was a friendly guy. Everyone accepted him, in moderation (and in moderation because, after a certain point, I found that he became ridiculously annoying, and apparently everyone else already knew that). He was very loud, too. And random. I believe a certain degree of spontaneity is a good thing for someone to have! However, there is a fine line between spontaneity and interrupting another person's conversation to yell, "HI GOOSES!"

Sitting beside him wasn't a problem. He listened to a CD player and I talked with my friends, and we all did our own thing. However, we got off for a rest stop in Virginia, and when we got back on the bus, L put his arm around me and hugged me tightly, saying, "Let's cuddle!"
I'm a cuddly person, with people I've known for years.
I'm not a cuddly person with total strangers.
"No, thank you L, but I'm really not into cuddling. I don't like to be touched. I don't want to cuddle."
"I don't care."

Well, I cared very much, especially that he would disregard my wishes. So after I pried him off of me, I was intensely uncomfortable sitting next to him. I was so uncomfortable that I wouldn't sleep in the seat next to him (because he kept touching me), and so I squeezed my fat butt between the seats and slept on the aisle floor.

We arrived in New York and immediately our plans started going wrong. It turned out that our Jersey hotel was too far away for us to return to it before we attended the Lion King that night. We wouldn't see the bus until after the performance. Not only that, but we arrived to find that our rooms weren't ready. As usual, my room happened to be the last one that was prepared. I ended up having to shower, dress, and leave my luggage in the room of some other girls. I should have brought a slack set along, but I honestly don't have a lot clothing, much less a lot of nice clothes.

My Broadway outfit was a lovely, stretchy, ruffly-top dress.

If you aren't a girl carrying a bit of extra luggage 'round the thighs, you might not be familiar with the consequences of something like this. I happen to carry the entire cargo compartment around in my thighs, so I'm a victim of some serious inner-thigh chafing.
I'll just leave that at that.

Emily and I outside the Minskoff Theater.

So, we set out along the streets of New York City.

We saw the Empire State Building:

Emily and I on top.
Neither of us predicted making memories like this when we six.

We ate some real New York pizza. One slice alone was as large as my head.
I made my first purchase at Forever 21. They a to-die-for turquoise-colored earring set.
We walked to Times Square... wow.

Did I mention wow? I felt so sophisticated just standing there.

We hit up Hard Rock, but discovered we wouldn't be dining there because they served alcohol indiscriminately (or something?) And no, I didn't get a shirt, sadly.
Sephora was huge, and tempting, but I couldn't justify spending a $20 on eyeliner.
Virgin. Records. I spent more there than I did anywhere else on the entire trip. Actually... after Virgin Records, I really didn't buy anything other than food and cups with my money. I was trying to save it, in case I saw something that I just had to have.
And then we hit up the Lion King. It was a Broadway musical. Broadway plays, for the uninformed, are performed in any of the large professional play houses in Manhattan that seat 500+. Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway plays are defined by seating as well. Off- is in a theater with 499 to 100 seats, and Off-Off- is in a house that seats 100 or less. To be honest, I had wanted to see The Phantom of the Opera instead... but I came out of that theater and I was undeniably glad that I saw Lion King. During the first number (Circle of Life), as soon as the choir came in, I literally burst into tears. I cried through the entire song. It was AMAZING. The melange of puppets and costumes, blended so beautifully, in such a theatrically cohesive manner; the musicianship of the singers; the lighting - all of it, absolutely astonishing. I cried again when Mufasa died. My only complaint was that the young actor playing Little Simba that night (because the young actors alternated and only acted every other night) had something wonky going on with his acting. In the most inappropriate places, he sounded like he was confused, or asking a question. It was only a minor glitch though. The entire show left me breathless.
The next day, we planned on visiting the Statue of Liberty. The tours were backed up, so we walked around Chinatown so everyone could purchase knockoff purses instead. I was saving for that big purchase, so the only things I bought were Liberty and this beautiful bakery confectionary. I wanted to stick that bakery in my pocket and take it home with us. Another group (we split up with chaperones during every day of the trip) had found bubbletea, which I had been searching for. (For the uninformed, Bubbletea is the future.) Unfortunately, we had to get on the bus right when I realized that they'd found a place to get it.
We had lunch and performed at the Heritage Festival.
That night, we went to Medieval Times. I spent $30 on cups, because Jonah and I are medieval dorks who like goblets. I got a ridiculously tall shot glass that had measurements on it (beginning with queen and working up, going through things such as princess, lady-in-waiting, with WENCH at the top), and a Wench mug (I'll photograph it sometime), and a nonalcoholic daquiri in a $13 goblet that someone at home stuck in the dishwasher, resulting in the paint chipping. ):
Oh, did I mention that I want to work at a Medieval Times one day? And that Emily and I ate every course of our entire meal without soiling our napkins, because we were determined to bring them home? Well, I've mentioned that now.
Our last day, we began the morning by more shopping. I'm not a big shopper. I'm too poor to enjoy shopping. I would much rather have visited an art or music museum during our stay.
However, on a more enjoyable note, I bought a white chocolate duck, which is still sitting here at home with me in its cute little wrapper. I wore my "I'm A Gay Robot" shirt that day, and ended up getting compliments from both the attractive homosexual in the chocolateir and one of the guys working in Saks Fifth.

We had a "Sounds of the City" tour that took us around to various locations of musical significance, but I got crippled by the mother of all migraines. The tour guide was kind enough to give me some pills I didn't recognize (and didn't take out of suspicion - thank goodness I always carry tylenol on me) and misdirected me into a mall on our final stop. I searched for the rest of the band for about 20 minutes, only to come out of the store just in time to see them returning to the bus from Starbucks. I MISSED STARBUCKS! There was much woe.
We returned to listen to our results from the festival, and we. kicked. ass. We scored first place in our size and band type division, and then we scored first place out of all of the instrumental bands at the festival, and then we got an award for having all of our scores average out above 90, and then we got invited to an invitation-only festival in Chicago next year. (It actually made me sad to be a senior.)

One of our awards plaques, which I forgot to flip around after uploading.

We took our cruise. It was so much fun! Granted, I insisted on dancing on my bum ankle (it gave out on me around the middle of the second day. I hobbled everywhere), but I am unstoppable. When I dance, my butt has a life of its own. It was like magic.

All in all, it was a fun trip, once you discount the regular annoyance of my gimp ankle and having L attached to my hip whenever he was around. I was glad that I got to go, but I discovered something.

I really don't want to live in New York City. We passed into the city in the bus and I did not feel changed. I was not suddenly "a real woman." It was not magical. If anything, I was more enchanted by D.C. and the area around it, my first time there, than I was with New York.
And to be a little honest, that makes me sad for little-me.

Other good things to mention:

I ususally don't open forwards that come to my e-mail address, but I open e-mail from my mother. She sent me an incredibly amusing e-mail entitled "Medical Information For Women," and I thought I'd share a brief segment that made me smile.
TOP TEN THINGS ONLY WOMEN UNDERSTAND
10. Cats' facial expressions.
9. The need for the same style of shoes in different colors.
8. Why bean sprouts aren't just weeds.
7. Fat clothes.
6. Taking a car trip without trying to beat your best time.
5. The difference between beige, ecru, cream, off-white, and eggshell.
4. Cutting your hair to make it grow.
3. Eyelash curlers.
2. The inaccuracy of every bathroom scale ever made.
1. OTHER WOMEN

The other parts of the e-mail were hilarious "pregnancy questions" and "estrogen issues." If you'd like to see the rest of the e-mail, let me know. I've kept it, and I can forward it to you.
Cake Wrecks. Oh lord-a-mercy, Cake Wrecks. It speaks for itself.

And in the spirit of Cake Wrecks, I'll show you the best cake I've ever made.
Well, no. The most fun cake I've ever made. It was for one of my friends' 16th birthday parties.
We collaborated to give her a lovely surprise party. We made the cake and threw confetti at her.

Yes, I do parties and weddings. ;D Don't you want a cake like that?
Also, yes. Those are carrots and broccoli.
Another friend said Birthday Girl would appreciate it more if vegetables were involved.
"She appreciates vegetables."

Pop Rocks.

2008-09-11T17:16:00.000-07:00

I know, I've committed the first sin of blogging-for-better-business: not updating for a long time.
Get in your slaps on the wrist now, I will only be accepting them for the next three days. :P

I've just felt very overwhelmed lately, and today is the first day in about a week in a half where I've felt like I could just stop going and chill out. The messed up thing is that I really didn't even have that much work bogging me down... I just had to go somewhere or do an assignment every. single. day. and once I'd get home I'd just feel pooped and... well, I'm just not entirely certain where my time went. It certainly hasn't been present these past few mornings. Tuesday I was sick and actually missed my favorite class because of it, and I seem to have been stuck in a rut of arriving late all week. Which isn't my style - when I entered college, I intended to be where I needed to be on time, because I come from a family where we are always late.

But today was nice. My schedule feels cleared (for the time being), Friday is tomorrow, I got to spend some time with one of my friends today, and I'm working on some jewelry at the moment. Tomorrow, I intend to go cash in the payments from the jewelry I've sold. Did I mention that? Since I posted my jewelry on my Myspace and Facebook, I've sold five pieces! The only reason it's so important is because I'm pretty much out of head and eye pins. Literally. I have four eye pins - two gold and two silver - left. That just won't do. ):

My monthly magazines have come this week, and the one I've been flipping through has a huge two-page spread ad for Harajuku Lovers.
I adore Gwen Stefani. I have been a huge fan of No Doubt from the time that I was about eight. I'm one of those geeks who is still rooting for the band to get back together, and maybe revisit their original style. When Gwen came out with her new album, I ate it up, despite the shameless self-promotion. Some songs reminded me a bit of Paula Abdul's music (you know, when she actually did music?). Her second album impressed me less, sadly. But that isn't the point.
Generally, I like her personal style, when she gets all dressed up and goes out.

I also loved a few things I saw from her line - the cutest shirt I've ever seen was a Harajuku Lovers graphic tank top with the little Japanese girls on it. I think one of them was zipping around on a motor scooter. It was the most precious thing. It was one of the few tops that I've seen that I can actually envision myself willingly paying over $30 for.

And, of course, the magic of the internet fails me, and I can't find this shirt to save my life.
Other cute shirts, though:

I really love that last one.
(Granted, none of these come in XL or higher, as far as I've seen. But I can dream.)

The Jewelry Marathon

2008-08-30T17:21:00.003-07:00

Well, it's not really a marathon, per se.
But I did make a pretty decent amount of jewelry this weekend.

I thought about naming this pair "Clusterfuck."
But I didn't think that was appropriate enough to put on Etsy.
The orange beads are glass druks - the rest of them are plastic.

This pair is just a greener version of the "Raspberry Swirl" earrings.

Probably one of my favorite pairs that I've made.
These are actually bead cap filigrees, with wrapped glass bicones.

"Barbie's Night Out" seems like the most appropriate name for this pair.
They're very pink. I like the gradient effect in the colors.
Plastic beads, glass bicones.

Don't have a name for these either. I need to polish the wire swirls, though.
Glass AB beads with seed beads.

This is the first bracelet that I've made, and I'm quite pleased with it.
It's pretty large... that first wrist is Jonah's. The second is mine.
It would be great on someone with a thicker wrist, or pushed up on your arm.
I'm not sure what the stone in the middle is, but I used bicones, prehnite,
tiny silver double spacers, glass rice, green-swirled-glass, and olivine AB beads.
Keeping with the green theme, the bead caps are in the shapes of leaves.

Radioactive.
Plastic beads... they're much more neon in person.

"I Want To Buy You Flowers."
It's a great Emilie Simon song - you should look it up and take a listen.
Evidently I was feeling floral yesterday, because I made this and the earrings below.
Wrapping the flowers was such tiny, tedious work!
Olivine rice beads, pressed glass leaves, olivine AB beads,
some springy green seed beads, and a clay bead with a flower design in it.
This bracelet also features the leafy bead caps.
It's a bit smaller than the first one.

Delicate, springy earrings - tiny flowers, pretty swirls.

Grateful for Giveaways

2008-08-30T16:53:00.001-07:00

I need to find some resources for my research paper for American History. The paper can be about anything - so mine is going to be about Star Trek. I've got a 15 page minimum, and I -know- I want to include something about Shatner.
I think I need to visit Amazon.

I've been looking at a lot of different chain maille tutorials ever since I read the most recent post on Cindy Gimbrone's main blog. I'm -definitely- interested in it... I just need to wait until I get some money so that I can purchase some jump rings to play around with.

Speaking of Cindy Gimbrone, she and Lynn Davis were my angels of fortune on my first week of school. They were both doing giveaways - Lynn's was random, and Cindy's was a naming competition. I was fortunate enough to be drawn in Lynn's giveaway, and she sent me these two beautiful zephyr beads:

This picture doesn't even do justice to their brilliance.

Lynn has been making and selling these in her Etsy Bead Shop, ExpeditionD. She does them in multiple colors, and, like all of her beads, they are the some of the most gorgeous beads I've ever laid eyes on. She also uses them in some of her own jewelry, which she sells on her other Etsy account. Her most recent item is a cuff that features her bisque-colored Zephyr beads.

Cindy was having a little contest to name her Punk'Inz bead set. (It's a pumpkin head! In case the name didn't clue you in immediately.) My suggestion was "Skelebones," which she altered a bit and used on her other punk skull set- "Skele'bowz." Even though my name wasn't what she was looking for originally, she was kind enough to send me one of her Skele'Bowz Big-Eye focals! While I haven't photographed mine yet, you can easily imagine what mine looks like. If you go to the page for the regular Skele'Bowz set, the focal she sent me is a slightly longer, larger-eyed version of the one in the picture. It's the most precious thing! My mother adored it as well - she thought it was incredibly appropriate for my sense of style.

Thanks so much to the both of you. (:
If you actually happen to read this, that is.

My biggest dilemma is figuring out what I want to do with these three beads. Since they were free, I think I'd like to use them in some jewelry for myself, but I just can't seem to imagine how to use them with the beads that are currently in my box.
I'm an impatient person, so this is a problem for me.

Quick Update

2008-08-25T19:39:00.000-07:00

I am SOTIRED. I pushed an Isuzu today and I finally got my essay done.... the price was PAIN. A three-page essay should not take that much out of someone who can pump out 20 pages in a night. I've just been exhausted lately. ):

I have made some jewelry... unfortunately I forgot to grab pictures of the newest two pairs before I uploaded. So those come next time. I tried giving the Juicy Fruit Hoops a "test drive" and I found that they were really... inconvenient to wear. If I had a longer neck, they wouldn't have hit my shoulders. Julie, however, came over, tried them on (she wears them through over her gauges), and has decided that she's buying them from me. I said I'd discount them and give 'em to her for $5, but I think she's determined to pay me $10.

Quick picture update, finally.

Vintage amber and brown beads. The brown bead is "capped" by some shell beads that have been recycled from an older necklace. The rondelles are antiqued brass. I don't have a name for them yet.

My "fancy-pants" earrings - I've been wearing these most days, to look nice. If I sell them, I'll just put new hooks on them. They're fabulous sophisticate-to-go earrings. Quartz between smoky and jet-black bicones and gold beads.

Comedy break. Jonah torturing Meeko. She's getting too old for this.

A necklace I made for myself from some of my new things. Howlite elephant between white acrylic spheres on a knotted dyed hemp cord. Jonah said, "You should sell it!" And I nearly bit his head off. This necklace is MY BABY. (And what a time-consuming baby it was.)

Finally, me babying the cat.
Because SOMEONE has to.

Ba-dum, tch.

2008-08-19T18:04:00.000-07:00

I meant to blog sooner than this. I really did. But I kept falling asleep. I've still got that headache, and it only flares up around the evening, so I'll crawl into bed for a nap, Jonah will forget to wake me up and I'll rise at 6 A.M., cursing all the way to the shower.

So I've had my first days in all the classes that I'm signed up for, and I'm very excited about the future. Comparative Cultures and Sociology of the Family are looking to be everything I'd hoped: interesting and exciting. Sociology is actually pulling ahead, because the class is based largely on discussion, which I could do all day. I might need to buy a stress reliever (my last abortion discussion-that-turned-into-a-debate, two years ago, got a little unruly), but I'm sure I'll enjoy it.

Public Speaking should be decent, and The Holocaust... I didn't really get a feel for the class, from just going over the syllabus. I expect to have a good time in there - the professor is really neat. However, two long classes back-to-back leaves my butt feeling like a brick...

My American History I class is fabulous... and it's technically the same class I took two years ago, under "Nature of America," which is a humanities credit. This is a history (that I don't need), so it's just elective credit. And it's going to be faboo, per usual. I think my research paper this semester is going to be about William Shatner and what an asshole he is. If I can't get enough on that, I'll just do a general Star Trek thing. I'm going to have fun with it, whatever I choose.

Mountain Heritage Day is the 27th and I'm excited... and already enlisted to help, per usual. I talked Jonah into volunteering with me, and so we'll have a great time, and he'll really enjoy the festival, I think. I didn't really take the time to look around when I was volunteering last year, but I won't be able to resist this year... Mountain Heritage Day is one of the most fabulous places to shop for jewelry locally, or just about anything, for that matter. I bought an interesting hand cream the last time I went as a guest. That was probably four years ago. I also got two of my favorite jewelry items while I was there.

Not the best picture, but I don't think I've ever taken a close-up of them. They're faeries. I think they're pewter, but I can't be trusted. So don't listen. They actually aren't really heavy, though. They're MIA right now, which is EXTREMELY unfortunate, because I adore them.

The second item was one I also bought from the same craftsman (I think), which I gave to Jonah after I met him. Before that, I wore it religiously. The top of it has actually broken from all the wear it was getting while Jonah wore it, so it is, sadly, retired until we find a way for him to wear it that he feels comfortable with. (He hates the idea of damaging it again.)

Bah. I'll ask him for a picture from his computer, when I can get it. It's a very attractive dragon, though.

In addition to that dragon, Jonah also wears my class ring. On something other than his finger, since he wears a 14 ring. Right now he hooks it to his medical alert bracelet.

No, you aren't imagining it - the engraving says absolutely nothing about high school, or me. It's engraved with my name on the inside, but the outside says Meus Vita, Meus Diligo - "My life, my love."
My thinking was that if I was going to pay $400 for a ring, I wasn't going to associate it with something I couldn't stand.

That ring to the left of it (you know, on the "important finger,") is one that Jonah gave me the first time we met.
Long story, that.
The funny thing is, after almost three years, I can't wear it anymore. This summer I got home and that finger started itching and getting scabby-looking beneath the ring - I put the ring on my middle finger, the ring finger quieted down after a day or two. The instant I put it back, the redness-scabby-itchies came back. My doctor said I have a nickel allergy!

Apparently, it has developed.
Nickel has never bothered me. I wear (wore... I'm not wearing it now) that ring night and day, absolutely everywhere. Now I can't anymore. My finger feels very naked and sad and empty.
The thing is, if I wear it on another finger, the breakout doesn't occur. But it doesn't fit any other finger the way it fits my ring finger - absolutely perfectly. There are very few rings I can stand to wear (because my fingers are so short and thick), and that one was perfect.

Frowny face.

I didn't accomplish what I planned to in this post.
Maybe tomorrow. 10:00 - it's bedtime.

Morning Glory

2008-08-16T07:48:00.000-07:00

I am the anti-morning person.
You know the one.
The morning person gets up and says, "What a beautiful morning! I'll go watch the sun rise while I eat my cornflakes!"
The not-a-morning person gets up to the fifth round of alarm buzzing and goes, "Oh thank god, I smell pancakes."
The anti-morning person gets up at 2 P.M. and says, "Oh crap. Not even coffee can help me."

That last one? That's me.
So someone explain to me why I've been getting up at 5 A.M. every weekday this week.
That's rhetoric. I know why. And I just can't go back to sleep.
I just can't stand getting up so early. ):

Today I got up at 8, which was better, except that was only because Jonah kept me up until 1 A.M. watching Waterworld and Michael Chrichton's "Sphere." It was quite a stretch, since, before last night, I'd been going to sleep before 10, not counting all the headache-induced napping I would do from 4-8.

I need to go get a bag today, because I start classes on Monday. I'm anxious about it. I want to turn over a new leaf and try to make some friends, instead of spending college like I spent high school.

I'm expecting a refund in September, so I'm looking at getting a laptop.
I'm really not sure what I want, though. While it would be nice to have a computer that I could play games on (new games, specifically - my desktop's Direct3D is totally botched), easily transport, and use for school stuff, I really don't feel like spending 2k on a gaming laptop. To be honest, I really don't want to spend over $1,000 on a laptop. I'd like to have enough money to set aside for future school expenses. Additionally, I also don't particularly want a laptop with Vista on it.

Asus (asus.com) has a cute little model called the Asus Eee, which is a line of smaller, more portable laptops. Dad said that he read that one of the smallest ones costs $300. That's not too bad, AND it comes with XP. I won't be able to play games on it, but do I really want to lug around a 7-pound honker just so I can play The Sims 2 while I'm sitting in the student lounge? I mean, if I'm going to work 15 hours a week, and my day begins at 11 and ends at 2 (except on Tuesdays - I've got a 1:45 until 5:20 wait between classes on Tuesdays), I'm probably not going to be spending enough time sitting around on my tush to play The Sims on campus.

Of course, the alternative to getting myself a 7-pound nVidia-supporting honker is spending two or three hundred dollars on a new graphics card for my desktop, then spending three hundred to get an Eee. Three pounds (at most) of a convenient, compact system.

But what if I want to play The Sims on the couch?

The Great Laptop Search begins.

The Sock

2008-08-14T07:41:00.000-07:00

I got this... sock change purse from selling Girl Scout cookies one year. (I just got out of Girl Scouts.) It has monkeys on it. It's pink. Not necessarily my style, but it's cute. I'd been storing change in it for ages.

And then we started cleaning my room and dumping the change we found into the sock.
Jonah said, "You want to buy new beading supplies, you can use whatever money is in this sock. But nothing else." (Because, you know, we're broke, and he still doesn't have a job, so I can't spend any of my birthday money in case we need it for "real world" things, like the rent and utilities we don't have to pay, and my $1 prescriptions.)

Today, I took the sock to the bank.

I just spent $20 on essential (in other words, required to finish my necklace) findings on Etsy.

I love the power of loose change.

Let Them Eat Cake

2008-08-13T02:42:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday to me. Er, you know, yesterday.

I've done something to my neck, with the muscles or nerves, because I'm getting a hellish migraine that seems to stem from it. I never thought I'd spend my 18th birthday at the doctor's office and in bed, sleeping when I can and lying around in traction with my head propped at extreme angles.

I'm -supposed- to be party-hearty-ing and what have you. D<

Also a bit disappointed that I missed the Perseids yesterday morning. Did anyone else who might be reading this happen to see the shower?

Grapevine

2008-08-09T18:44:00.000-07:00

I've "heard on the wind" (read two blog posts and a beadingdaily e-mail) that plagiarism is on the rise in the jewelry-making world. Especially online. The BeadingDaily newsletter was more along the lines of, "Original ideas no longer exist since we're technically all just copying ancient civilizations - especially you people using swirly patterns in your designs. You're just copying the Egyptians."
Granted, it wasn't that surly or obnoxious, and it mentioned (I think) that we should all pay homage to those who came and crafted before us.

That made me feel nice. You know. In an uneasy way.

And now everyone else is seeing people copying their designs, and that makes me sad. One: when you're doing it deliberately, it is not only dishonest, but ridiculously unkind. Two: no one likes being copied. I don't like being copied. (My jewelry hasn't been copied.)

Here's the thing: as it has been mentioned, not everyone is -intentionally- copying other people. They just aren't original enough to come up with their own designs.

This makes people like me quiver in their bloody boots.
I don't -want- to copy anyone. I think it is disrespectful and dishonest, and I have this terrible fear of lawsuits.
The thing is... if people are unintentionally copying others, how will I know if I am? I am relatively new to all this. I'm inexperienced. I'm just doing what I can. And thinking about originality and design, suddenly I am charged to step things up. I'm not sure what to do. "Makes some more swirlies with your wire, that will surely make it a little more original!" But then the 10,000 other jewelers out there who are making swirlies in their wire who are also trying to step up originality are thinking the same thing.

I think my point is that the thought (I'm not entirely sure why it never entered my mind until people brought it up) makes me too nervous to want to craft. Because I'll do something -wrong-. Not just wrong as in a mistake, but wrong as in something that -I- will take serious issue with. If I pop a bead onto a head pin, make a loop and attach it to an earwire, who am I plagiarizing? What if I do three beads that look exactly alike? What if I do a rondelle-sphere-rondelle configuration? What about the cluster of carnelian I used on my last necklace? Am I copying someone? What about the split between the strings before they all merge back into one? If even the simplest things I can do are considered copying, I am a villain in my own mind!

Things like this make me so edgy. Who do I hurt when I make something I -think- could be original? Who do I hurt when I make something simple - three beads in a straight line?

I couldn't stand to hurt someone by crafting. Shouldn't crafting be the least harmful thing a person could do?

Anyway. From my, "I Don't Understand Paypal, AHH!" beading frenzy last night, out came three pairs of earrings:

I don't know what all the stones are, because they came in that assorted stone pack. I'm fairly certain the middle pair in every picture (with the two round danglies off the end of each earring) is composed of quartz... but I don't know what the dangling stones are. These earrings also reminded me why I need to buy chain-nosed pliers... and maybe round-nosed. I'm working with a needlenose pair and everything keeps slipping out of my fingers and hurting them. And getting lost. ):

The pair on the left (your left, when you view the picture) has only one stone I can identify for certain, because it came out of my little compartment of prehnite beads. The top beads are glass ovals, the prehnite beads are second-from-the-top. On the right pair, the prehnite beads are the beads on top.

I rather like all of them... and I was hoping that they'd be nice, sophisticated-and-simplistic pairs to sell, since I want to have several listings up when I begin selling.

That box that the earrings are hanging on in the first picture is one of my favorites... which broke fairly soon after I bought it, sadly. The clasp that keeps the lid shut (so that you can lift the box by its handle) broke in half. But that's okay, when it's sitting on the ground, it's a great and lovely storage box. I "had to have it" when we went to one of my favorite outlets last year around this time... so it was my birthday gift.

Any ideas on what those other stones are?

eep.

2008-08-08T20:56:00.001-07:00

Paypal's seller limits for regular accounts confuse and frighten me. I don't understand. Only 5 credit/debit card payments can be received a year... but... but... what if they sign up for Paypal and pay before their bank is verified, does that...... count....

I'm just going to go make some freaking earrings.

It's Friday Morning, Do You Know Where Your Children Are?

2008-08-08T02:36:00.000-07:00

Well, apparently the choir thing at the college is only on Tuesdays right now! However, the instructor told me to turn in an application anyways and he'd keep me in mind if they created any other ensembles. And I can join up in the Spring, since I won't have any evening classes.

Brighter notes:
-I just had some really good good-morning pudding.
-While doing something completely unrelated (I think I was reading a Final Fantasy XII F.A.Q.) I figured out how to make the pendant I had been seeing in my head for a while.

I bought three of these vintage silver-plated swallow stampings from CraftySupplies (now Pink Bird Beads) at Etsy. The hoop is a part of an old earring that I deconstructed... it's plastic, as far as I can tell. Personally, the earrings just weren't my style. However, once I put the hoops (or would you call them circles instead?) in my bead box, I immediately decided I wanted to put a swallow over one as a pendant. I just wasn't sure how to do it.

So I was sitting around, looking up something in the aforementioned FAQ for Jonah, listening to Muse... when all of a sudden, the way to wire the swallow to the circle just came to me. It was a very cool moment, since I don't have creative revelations like that very often. However, once I was wiring it, the way I pictured it didn't happen. I don't have a problem with that - I'm trying to preserve what little inherited-wire that I have, and I don't mind the look I got instead.

After I made the pendant, I just went ahead and strung up a necklace for it.

"Free Spirits On The Rise"

The four clustered stones in the second picture came from an assorted gem pack that I bought from Lorelei's destash shop, TheBeadPod on Etsy. My -theory- is that they're carnelian. That's the only stone I can think of that comes in that color. While I'd planned to just start the necklace where those stones are, the holes weren't quite large enough for my two strings, and I don't own a bead reamer. But I think I like the cluster a little bit better. From what I've been reading about it, sources have said that carnelian is supposed to enhance:
-passion
-creativity
-compassion

Different sources have mentioned different things though. Until I buy myself a book, I can't promise anything about my information being correct.

The necklace is long enough that, at a choker-length, the pendant portion hangs down to the middle of my chest. I have a fairly thick neck, though, and a short body, so it might be longer for people with thinner necks. Definitely something to draw eyes toward the cleavage.

Let's see. I've used seed beads, orange druks, purple druks, matte purple druks, jet black glass cubes, orange glass oval beads, a few lepidolite beads, and some texture-y rectangular-y amethyst-colored glass beads. Oh! And one of my favorite beads (which I'm using sparingly, because I like them so much) - a black glass bead with gold and silvery swirls around it. These swirly beads are absolutely awesome. I have one blue one with red swirlies, and I may just hoard it forever. It's gorgeous.

Anyways. This is definitely the longest necklace I've constructed, to date, and probably my favorite. I haven't got any clasps or crimp beads, so I'm afraid I'll have to wait until I get some money (my birthday is in 4 days though, so that should bring some) before I can sell it, since it sort of... needs a clasp.

I'm going to go make some more bead balls now, I think.

Have a happy-pre-Caturday-cat-picture! And a Jonah picture too, I guess.

"Help."

Registration

2008-08-05T19:30:00.000-07:00

My advisor was sweet enough to call me back (unlike the admissions office... not that I hold it against them) and squeeze me in between two of her appointments today. After she made my appointment, I picked out a class schedule and some classes I wanted to take this semester... and we registered me for them without a hitch!

Er, well, there is a hitch, as WCU (the university where I'll be getting my B.A., and which sponsored my dual-enrolled college English course last year) still didn't have my grades for my last English class finished, so I can't take my Lit class until I get an official "final" transcript. You know, one that doesn't say "Incomplete" on Expository 102 or 112 or whatever the second level of it is. The class itself was over before high school was, so I only need to go to the student services office and get a new copy. Not a real problem.

But I'm registered in my other courses!

M/W/F I'll have:
Public Speaking
Intro to Lit, when I turn in my transcript
Comparative Cultures

T/Th I'll have:
Sociology of the Family
The Holocaust

And on only Tuesdays, I'll have American History I with the professor who taught my dual-enrollment histories and humanities. I adore that woman. I volunteer for things to spend time with her, in fact. She's in charge of the university's Mountain Heritage Day festival, and while I enjoy the festival itself, working for her is an absolute pleasure, just like being in her classes.

I hadn't noticed that American History I was on Tuesdays only, so this means that, if it's fine with him, I'll get to be in the jazz choir (run by a lovely, curious older man who subbed in my band class regularly). I was disappointed that the choir met Tuesdays/Thursdays, because I'm entirely too attached to the history class' professor to give it up.

We'll see what happens. I need to send off some e-mails.

I also got told that my aid would also buy me my books! That's completely invaluable, because I wasn't sure -how- I was going to pay for them, even if I bought them used.

I had such a lovely day! I hope everyone else did too!

Earring Joy

2008-08-04T23:43:00.000-07:00

Finally, a camera upload.

My new earrings. I'm thinking about calling them "Raspberry Swirl" for two reasons.
1) I was listening to a lot of Tori Amos while I made them.
2) They are sort of raspberry-ish, in a purpley-red-goodness way.
They'll be on Etsy when I finally list my wares.

One of those lovely acrylic cube beads I love so much topping seed beads that are on wire. The wire swirls can actually be condensed or lengthened, so someone could change the spiral shapes if they wanted to. Heck, they could straighten them, if they felt like it. But I think the spirals give the earrings a little somethin' somethin'.

Fat-Bottomed Girls, You Make The Rockin' World Go 'Round

2008-08-04T15:21:00.000-07:00

I know, I post too much.
I think I'm trying to make up for the time I'm going to lose when I enter "the adult world" in about two weeks. And, you know. Lose all my precious spare time.

Being someone who loves her curves, and who loves other peoples' curves (not in a pervy way, mind you), and who loves people who love their curves, it really made my day when I saw that Cindy Gimbrone has started a blog called The Curvy Crafter.

For those who don't know, Cindy is a lampwork artist of some skill. She's also begun reviewing beading books.

Just thought I'd share that with everyone.

And, although I started out naming this post "Body Beautiful," which is a perfectly lovely name for it, there was just something about this Queen song that was calling my ~~rear~~ name.

Time To Clean

2008-08-04T01:02:00.000-07:00

Time to clean.

Working at my desk, one of my necklaces-in-progress slipped off and I caught one string, but not both. I probably just lost about $6 worth of lepidolite and prehnite. Yesterday I lost two of the vintage glass beads I had snatched from an old bracelet to use later. My precious stones aside, I also lost three seed beads and a pretty, miniscule black swarvoski to... well, the underside of my chair. These things, they fall on the floor, and I cannot find them, no matter how much I feel around. I feel through things that I cannot stand to touch. (There was something crusty down there.)
I feel through fuzz and accumulations of hair.
Ew.
I feel through grime.
*Fun fact: I cannot bring myself to touch anything that looks grimy.
I feel no beads.

Above me, someone is sitting on high, looking down. There could be more than one of them. I don't know who they are.
But I do know this: whoever they are, they are smacking their foreheads and going, "D'OH!"

Photo Therapy

2008-08-03T20:40:00.000-07:00

I wish I could find the camera cord. Jonah took it out of the camera bag (where I'd put it, so I wouldn't lose it), and now guess where it is? Lost! Imagine that!
I may have to bludgeon him the next time he moves my things!

So, since I can't show off jewelry, I'll show off some pictures I took back in... April or May, I'd say. I'm trying to blog regularly, because if I don't, I might end up forgetting about it. That's what has happened to every blog I've ever tried to start.

A goat at the Carl Sandberg house. The stables where his wife did her goat-raising were one of my favorite parts. The goats were so friendly and frivolous! I liked the detail in his fur that the camera caught.

These lovely flowers were right outside the Carl Sandberg house. I have no idea what kind of flowers they are.

This is my friend, who (obviously) plays the oboe. Specifically, it is her oboe. Hands are fascinating things - all people are different, but I think our hands are one of the most varied and telling parts of our bodies. It was a little bit difficult to get the shots I wanted: I was laying under her, doing crunches to get the right angles. I don't think I've ever held a crunch so long in my entire life!

So those are a few things I like.

Expletive Day

2008-08-01T23:30:00.000-07:00

Friday is clearly the day to be injured, because I'm dinged myself up twice now.

The first time, by some force of strange, dumb luck, the middle finger of my right hand got squished between the freezer door and the fridge door. I know this doesn't -sound- painful, but the freezer door was flying toward the freezer, my hand was holding open the fridge, and I let out a shriek like no other. I must have spent at least five minutes dancing around the kitchen.

And about an hour ago, I walked into my room and managed to knock my needlenose pliers off my desk. They fell, point-down, into my big toe. It's bleeding.
They're sort of rusty-lookin'.
I hope I don't need a tetanus shot. The last time I had one was two years ago when a piece of mulch magically penetrated my flip-flop, and my foot.

On the bright side, I made a really pretty swirly pair of earrings. Pictures of those come when I upload from the camera later tomorrow/today.

I Get The Giggles...

2008-08-01T19:12:00.000-07:00

...looking at MacraMe's shop on Etsy.

I mean, the owls are precious enough, but the presentation? Absolutely magnificent!

Jewelry and Baby's Breath

2008-07-30T20:49:00.000-07:00

http://www.beadniks.com

Who do I have to kill to get to one of these stores?

I didn't get anything serious-business-related done yesterday, and today I got up early enough to call so I could make an appointment with my advisor... but no one answered. So I left a message with admissions. That was 2:30. I didn't get a call back. At all. It's 1:42, next day. My mother is slowly but surely developing a twitch, and reminding (read: nagging) me about how I need to get registered. I keep telling her I'm going to. She keeps saying, "You're going to lose all your aid and you won't get to use your scholarship!" I keep telling her she's overreacting.

...I hope this doesn't get my aid yanked. I should have been enrolled by now.

Craft-related, though, I finally figured out how to attach some earwires to my Juicy Fruit Hoops. I think I need to invest in some jump rings.
And some softer wire.

Anywho, I'm really pleased with them.
I'm probably going to sell them in my Etsy store after a while, once I've got a few more things made.

The squares are acrylic, surrounded by glass seed beads, green crackle beads, pressed Czech leaves, and orange druks. Jonah's mother passed a pretty substantial portion of her bead collection onto me, and that's where I got those bicones. I'm fairly confident they aren't Swarovskis... I'm not sure what they are, but they all seem to have an AB-like finish. Regardless, these earrings are fun, flavorful hoops. I absolutely adore them. I finally managed to bend some small pieces of wire into rings to attach the silver earwires to, and so now they're finished, and I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

I also made two little pairs a few weeks ago.

This pair combines two lepidolite beads and two plastic pink flowers to make a pretty, girly pair of earrings. The plastic flowers are another "inheritance" from Jonah's mother.

This pair uses the leftover beads I had from when I started making earrings about a year and a half ago. I think they're a pleasant, tiny hat tip to the mod world. I love the drizzle beads (I've got some green drizzly spheres in my box, as well), and the chubby, swirly cylindrical beads make my day.

This bracelet and necklace set was my gift to my longtime friend of 12 years for her 18th birthday. The necklace was ridiculously hard to photograph - I couldn't get the entire thing in focus. Sometimes fancy cameras backfire on you. I could probably point out what I used in them, but most of the components are simple.
Owls, though.
Owls for wisdom. I love these little Czech pressed owls. I have 8 more, four in that gorgeous jade color and four in garnet swirl.
I can't bear to part with them.

I've got a lot of "inheritance" beads in my box right now. Mother-in-law (calling her that saves time) let me go through a small container of assorted beads (most were plastic) and pick out the ones that caught my eye. In addition to fun and sparkly plastics, I found two blue-and-gold tubes (I think they're glass) and a beautiful oriental-inspired (if not genuinely Asian) bead with a gorgeous red flower on it. My theory is that it's probably a lacquered wood bead. I'm going to use it as a focal for a bracelet or necklace that I'll make her... when I get around to it. I don't think I have the right beads to color-coordinate. Yet.

asdlkjf. I have twelve tabs open in my Firefox, and every single one of them is somehow bead related. One is an About.com beading thing, five are bead blogs (not counting the window for this post), and the rest are Etsy stores. Do you have any idea how long is has taken me to complete this post?
I keep getting distracted.

I woke up with the cat on my chest this morning and nearly wet myself in fear. She had her face nose-to-nose with mine. I know those old wives tales about cats stealing a baby's breath are... well, old wives tales. But I honestly thought she was going to kill me. It's been four years since I've woken up with a cat on top of me. The first one was Wigwam. He was my friend Ghee's cat, and he decided my face looked like a nice place for an 8 A.M. nap. He bore me no ill will... unlike Meeko, who is, I'm sure, constantly plotting my untimely demise.
It was petrifying. So I scratched her ears and let her stay there.
I scratch your ears, you don't make a move for my face.
I keep my eyes, you get attention.
We coexist.

also: this bloody label thing keeps trying to enter "free gifts" as one of my labels.
also also: Tears For Fears' "Mad World" just came on, and Jonah said, "What is this, a remix?" I think I just died a little inside.

!

2008-07-29T19:38:00.000-07:00

AHH.
I CAN'T STOP SNEEZING.
THERE ARE BALLS OF CAT FUZZ EVERWHERE.

this is madness!

I Love Lampwork

2008-07-29T12:37:00.000-07:00

AHHHHH.
You cannot tell me that fish isn't one of the most adorable beads you've ever seen.
"Gina The Baby Shovelnose Fish" by Aardvark Art Glass.

The Aardvark Art Glass blog is also pretty splendid, and I look forward to reading more there in the future.

The entire store is wearable beach art! Fabulous!

This person is the type of person I like to think that I would have a marvelous time with.
There's also a rather interesting fez hat bead listed in there...

Other gorgeous glass pieces that popped up when I did a category search include these shiny lampwork bits by Ribbonrose:

These grey and black beads are probably one of my absolute favorite listings on her shop...

Another favorite:

It's really the vine on the pumpkin that does it for me.

Chloescreations also provides attractive and affordable glass beadage. I feel drawn toward this particular set:

I like those beads because they look like how butterscotch tastes.

On other, non-shiny-thing-related news, I took my math accuplacer today, and did about what I expected. High in arithmetic, lower than I needed to be in algebra. Fortunately, now that I've taken that test, I can get my aid information and register for my classes. I hope the ones I want aren't all taken up. I didn't plan on taking a math Fall semester anyways, so I can re-test and hopefully score the 12 points I need by the end of this semester.

My college is a multi-campus network of community colleges, and I happen to be the closest to the main campus.
The main campus isn't the campus that provides art classes.
The art class campus is 40+ minutes away.
I'm going to spend two years in school, taking an excessive amount of history classes and, at most, one art class. (If you consider digital photography an art class.)

What have I gotten myself into?

More Beads

2008-07-27T23:55:00.000-07:00

So I was reading some idea listings from Art Bead Scene and I got directed to Mamacitabeadworks on Etsy.

Oh. My. God.

If I do not purchase this pendant, I might explode. It's fabulous. It celebrates curves, I celebrate curves. It has curves. I have curves. It's nude and proud, and I have no shame. Clearly, this beautiful little charm and I are soulmates. We're meant to be.
I just need to wait until I can start work study before I can buy her.
...I can wait.
....I'm not developing a noticeable twitch or anything... yet... am I?

On Lorelei's blog, I found a link to Roundrabbit at Etsy and I just bulked up my "Favorite Item" list. I actually began feeling like I had to exercise what little self-control I possess with favorite-ing items. For some reason, I absolutely cannot let myself overflow my favorites list. It's as if the world will end if I let it get too large.

Anywho, I'm all over this. (The images are links to the actual item listings.)

And this.

And, well, just about anything else in her shop, to be honest.
Etsy is such a painful experience for my wallet.
And painful for my tender little heart, when I'm broke. :P

...Journey's "Easy To Fall" just came on my shuffle.
How appropriate!

The Art Bead Scene also linked PenGwynne's bead shop, which has a bucketload of fun-looking beads listed... I plan on ordering a few in the future. These colorful resin beads caught my eye...

I'm a sucker for bright colors, in case my hair wasn't any indication.

Pengwynne also has a Steampunk-style jewelry account, which sells beauties such as:

And, a de-stash and retro jewelry account. I loved this pair of earrings:

And last, but definitely not least, Pengwynne also has a shop full of cool, vaguely surreal art pieces!

Now I have to go watch Metropolis... I also need to find a way to attach these adorable hoops that I designed to some earwires.
Pictures of those will come when I figure it out.
(The reason I'm not sure how to do it is because I feel like if I just put the earwires on the hoop, it will... dangle below the hoop unprofessionally when the earrings are held in the air. Maybe I should just get over it.)

Passion

2008-07-27T03:34:00.000-07:00

So I bought some jewelry that I'm absolutely wild about. It's a bracelet-earring set made by Goshengirl of Etsy.

That's gorgeous red glass, and the moment I saw it I had to have it.
But I said, "No, I can't spend money."
...And so uh, later, I went back and spent the money.
Not that it wasn't reasonably priced, it's just that we're flat broke right now.

I regret nothing!

(Also, the pink marks on my wrist aren't from the bracelet sitting normally - it's actually very comfortable. I had my wrist between the edge of the desk and my body while I was leaning over my keyboard.)

You should check her out. Her work is attractive and affordable, and she's a very nice and accommodating person to do business with.

Not to mention, the free gifts that come with your purchase are awesome.
...I'll post pictures of those the next time I unload photos from my camera.

This is actually the second jewelry listing I've purchased from her.
...I'll post the other thing later, too.

She's worth checking out. Goshengirl @ etsy.com!

Strange Bedfellows

2008-07-24T22:01:00.000-07:00

I'm finally home now, and I have two new roommates.

Meeko, the Giant's cat. My only nemesis.

And the Giant. (I call him Jonah.)

My summer has actually been eventful.
It has included:
Travel!
Drama!
Excitement!
Strep throat!
Running out of gas!

In fact, I got strep throat twice.
That was exciting.

And, after coasting on neutral to the Sunoco station outside town when the $60 worth of gas that we'd put into the tank during the duration of our 10-hour trip ran out, we found this cool bug!

I was prepared to be unimpressed. I was scrupulously rationing $5 worth of gas into the tank (because I was paying with my card), and Jonah said, "Hey, a moth! Look at this moth! Check this out!"

I've grown up in the mountains. I spent years going to Girl Scout camp, where moths are the dominant species in the showers.
"I don't care about a moth, Jonah. Go get in the car."
"No, look! Get the camera out of the car!"

The car is a Neon. The car was packed to the brim with luggage. The camera bag was lurking in that mess of luggage, somewhere.
But I'm glad we dug it out.
I've -never- seen a moth like this in my entire life.
I'd like to preserve it and put it on a leather thong.
It doesn't look like a moth, it looks like a bead.
A bead with wings.

(I'll make a jewelry post tomorrow.
I promise.)