Mini Snowmen Earrings

I got the urge to make my teeny snowmen earrings. I made 3 pair in one day. That is like...huge for me. :) Not only for the multiple children making distractions factor, but also because I have the attention span of a gnat! :)

Anyway....I really enjoy making the little guys. Snowmen are my MOST favorite winter thing. And last year's earrings were a big hit. So I'm giving it another go this year. Would anyone like to place bets as to how many pair I can make before the ADD kicks in? I'll put my money on about....6 pair total. LOL!

They will be up for adoption in my etsy store. :)

ABS November Challenge

Thanks to our computer woes and house issues, I barely got this finished in time for the November challenge. I bought some really nice adjustable ring blanks from The Perfect Bead a couple weeks ago. I bought them with the intention of making some faux stone cabachons like these beads.

But after reading about the coffee inspired challenge I had a lightbulb moment! I had just days before looked at some dark brown mica powder and wondered what I would ever do with it, but once again put the powder back on the drawer with no ideas. The ABS challenge inspired me to make "cappuccino quartz"!

I am very pleased with it. It was a devil to photograph though. I could not get the colors exactly accurate. The stone came out so rich and chocolatey brown. It's much richer brown in person. The mica powders sparkle and make the ring really fun!

I see trees of green

Sorry, no red roses too. I don't care much for roses. :)

I am still using Mom's laptop (Thank you Mom!!) but I've discovered I can use my PhotoImpact program via the portable hard drive backup doo-hickey Aaron bought last week. Yay for USB connections! :) Anyway...here is a picture of the new pendant I made last week:


It was definitely an evolving idea. I sat down intending to make a wire and jewel xmas tree pendant. I wasn't feeling that shape. So I pulled out my idea book and made this from an old sketched idea. I'm pleased with how it turned out. I used gold filled wire and vintage swarovski rhinestones from my pal Scott. (check out his Etsy shop for great swarovski supplies!) I used gold and copper mica powders for the earth below and tree and around the edges. If I wore gold jewelry I would be keeping this one! :) I imagine it hooked to two seperate pieces of chain. But I'll be putting it on Etsy soon and let someone else decide how to use it. :)

Been away

Fah fah away....like with 2 broken computers and no internet! **gasp** I'm not sure if it was Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon, but the laptop battery DIED. Like died died. And we couldn't find one locally so Aaron ordered one online. He comparison shopped and bought one that was $100 instead of $150. That's great...but apparently this company is not johnny on the spot with the shipping.
Anyway, over a month ago the desktop computer died. It gives me this windows\drivers\pci.sys file is missing or corrupt error message. And I can't find the XP cds ANYWHERE!!! But it wasn't a huge big deal b/c we had the laptop. Until Tuesday!

Mom, bless her heart, brought over her laptop today. I've downloaded and burned that pci.sys file to a CD but I can't seem to get the desktop fixed. I am sooooo not computer saavy in that way. So I'm guessing it will remain broken until we can find the XP disk.

How many times can I roll my eyes? :) Anyway, it's just fortunate for me that google has merged with a half dozen companies or I wouldnt' even be able to log into blogger! Without my firefox cookies I'm lost! LOL!

I had just taken pics of a new pendant I made when the laptop died. I still have them on the flash card but I can't resize them, so I'll wait to share those later. I really just wanted to pop in and say Hi! And thank you all who sent bday wishes! I really appreciate it! :) See you later taters...

Been beading

I think I'm afraid to clay. I just can't bring myself to open the clay drawer and start a new project. It's really weird. I want to clay but I can't make that first move.
Yeah....I'm definitely weird! Where's my therapist? **looking around for Dr. C. Morgan** :)

In more recent weirdness, I have made some jewelry. Nothing major. Just earrings and a pendant. Let's not forget my other phobia: designing jewelry. WHY is jewelry/beads my primary hobby? (Note to self: Research taking up knitting.)
I can't commit to something as serious as an entire necklace but I can do pendants. I finally used some lovely ceramic beads I bought many years ago. I made this pendant:


Then I made some matching earrings:


I also pulled out all my zuni bear beads and made these guys:

I'll be making more zuni bear things, I think. My Mom will get some of it, but the rest will go on Etsy. :)

Eggplant clusters

Or maybe dinosaur egg clusters. I'm not sure. Neither name sounds very glamorous. LOL! Here are the earrings anyway:

I bought the window beads in a bead store in Eureka, CA about 3 years ago. And I just used them today! I hardly ever buy beads in a bead store. Bead stores are just not...economical. I am frugal and like to buy my beads in bulk.

I love cluster earrings. I made a few pair of cluster earrings, a few years ago, before I had ever seen them on the internet. Which makes me feel good. Lately I have serious issues with "originality" and "oh crap...that looks like someone else's design". So me coming up with an original cute idea, way back then, makes me smile today. Nowadays cluster earrings are all over Etsy. Have you noticed? ANYWAY...it dawned on me that my unused bead store beads would make cool clusters.

I spent some time playing around with photographing in the new craft room. The windows are all south and west light. I took late afternoon pics. I experimented with direct light on the earrings. They were SO pretty sparkling in the light. It's sad I couldn't capture that in picture. But I'll keep experimenting. I didn't use my lightbox. And I didn't even adjust the picture color afterwards! I just cropped and sharpened. It's not a stellar picture...but it's not bad for a first pic in the new room.

Anyway (how many times have I said that word??), I'm wearing my new earrings right now and I love them. It's the first jewelry I've made for myself in a long time. I think I'll do it again....soon. :)