Livin' in a box

I'm livin' in a cardboard box.

Well, not really. But I was thinking about thinking outside the box and that 80's song popped into my head. :) Anyway...on to more clay related issues.

I haven't been in a blogging mood lately b/c I haven't been in a talkative mood lately. Actually I've been in a grumpy funk for WEEKS now. My family is thinking about voting me off the island. Consequently my blogging is suffering as well. I have been uploading a few items to my Etsy shop though.

All stitch markers as you can see. I enjoy making these little tattered hearts and flower beads. But they don't really stretch my imagination and skill level, you know? BUT...the time I'm spending in my Happy Room is therapeutic even if it's not ground-breaking creative time. :)

I have made one bead set that is different from my norm. I chose to use acrylic paint for these.

The next time I make the striped spacer beads I will make the stripes begin AND end with black.

I have a few other bead sets 1/2 finished on the table right now. Hopefully this week will be another productive one. Sadly I have to trade a clean house for Happy Room time...but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do! ;)

Screw You Cupid!

Screw You Cupid!
Originally uploaded by ~Christie

I had a deeeliteful time assembling this treasury. I loooove winged hearts! And stitched or repaired hearts. And...hearts in general. :) There are some COOL items in it. Please go have a looksee.

Expose Yourself v.2

Here is another treasury featuring few-sale shops. Such great items and shops! If you feel the urge, why don't YOU make a treasury with that theme in mind? There are scads of "fewbies" who would love the help.

Without further hoo hoo...here is the current treasury. Please visit and click those item photos!

Etsy Treasury for "Needy" Shops

They NEED a sale! :)

I am so excited! I got my first etsy treasury today!! And it's full of cool items from shops that have few or no sales. So please, visit the treasury and click on the items. The more clicks the treasury gets, the higher it will move in the lists, and the more exposure these shops will get.
And if you see something you love be sure and buy it! LOL!

Thanks for helping out. I hope this will start the ball rolling for these fellow Etsians!

Sweet little girls

After posting my snowmen earrings, my friend Gina suggested gingerbread earrings would be cute...and she was right! :)

They went thru a few different body shapes before I settled on this one, but I like how they turned out. This pair went to Etsy. I have a 2nd pair almost finished on the clay table. They make me smile. Thank you Gina for sharing your idea! ;)

Now let me share a few pics of my favorite sweet little girls. I had not intended to take pictures of them today, but the kodak moment just presented itself so I started snapping! I have about a dozen funny not-quite shots, but here are the best ones.
Here's my beautiful Miss Emily.

I am THRILLED to have not one, but two, good pics of Miss Lydia smiling! I have not been able to capture this smile since she started sprouting teeth!


And one last shot...this one of them both. I shall call them Thing 1 and Thing 2. Because they are that ornery. :)

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. :)

I Highly Recommend..

I am a self taught crafter. I use books and online tutorials. I live in the middle of no-where and do not have access to lots of workshops and classes. I am not financially able to travel to locations where classes ARE available. So I have been buying how-to books for over 10 years. This means I have bought the good, the bad, and the ugly. :)
I want to share the GOOD books with you and save you the trouble of trial & error shopping. These are my must-haves...my absolute favorites. I looove these books!
If you buy one of these books from Amazon.com I will get a small commission. Just FYI. So thank you, in advance if you make a purchase through one of these links.

I have 2 books that tie for my absolute favorite polymer clay books. This is one of them. The title says it all...this book is FUN. All the projects are beautifully done but also funky and clever. Clear instructions with lots of pictures. Kim takes the 'ordinary' techniques and turns them into extraordinary projects for any skill level.

This is the other book that ties for favorite. It should be named The Polymer Clay Bible. Judy put together a masterpiece that blends beautiful pictures with a wealth of historical and instructional information. You can spend hours looking at all the contributing artists' "eye candy". Or you can spend days reading and absorbing not only the artistic background of polymer clay, but following the easy-to-understand project lessons.

I had never bent a single wire before I bought this book. I was scared to make even the simplest looped eyepin for earrings. Mark takes you through every single step from the very beginning. He starts by explaining the wire and tools clearly, and shows you clear photos (of the right and wrong) every step of the way. I can not praise this book enough. If you want to learn basic to intermediate wire working, buy this book!

Like the book above, I can not recommend this book enough to aspiring seed beaders. No joke, everything you need to know is in this book. Carol gives large, clear diagrams of all the seed beading stitches and patterns. There is plenty of fabulous eye candy to inspire you as well.

Saying thanks

I have always liked to send some sort of thank you gift with purchases. The gift always varies depending on the person and the situation. The gift usually coordinates with the purchase or is a few extra of what they purchased. But more times than not I don't have extras. So I've been playing around with the idea of a standard thank you gift have on hand. And I came up with this:





They're magnets! They are 1 inch square. They are really just simpler versions of my flower art bead pendants. The petals are solid colors instead of cane slices. The centers are beautiful, tiny vintage rhinestones from my extremely talented pal Scott. (Psst! Look here for more sparklies.) The words are an image transfer using tshirt transfer paper. As you can see from the picture of the back side, my transfers are not always perfectly straight across. LOL!

I've already mailed out a few of these in different colors. Personally...I love them! But then, I adore the flower pendants I make as well. I'm biased. :) Anyway, I'm super pleased that I now have a handmade thank you gift to send to each customer. It makes me smile.

How do you feel about thank you extras? Do you send something with your packages? Do you expect a little something extra as a buyer?

OT personal note: Monday we were told we might close on the house today (Friday). But there have been a few typical closing snags. (Snags with our house?!? No way!!) Today the word is we'll close by Wednesday. We're almost there! Wheee!!

Last of the skulls and a new video

Happy Thursday to you. :)

I have uploaded the last of my little skull beads at Etsy.

Because of the move, there will be no more before Halloween. Which totally kills a whole list of color scheme ideas I had! So please go check them out if you are in the want or need for adorable little handmade skull beads. :)

Also, I've uploaded a new clay video. This one covers the how-to of making shiny polymer clay beads. I demonstrate wet sanding, buffing, and applying Future as a clear finish.
I originally planned to upload the video to both Live Video and YouTube, but only promoting the Live Video one b/c I really prefer that website. But wouldn't you know it....Live Video is doing site upgrades right now and my video is stuck in the que. But the YouTube version is fully functional. LOL! Irony! :)
Anyway, here are the two links: On YouTube - Live Video.

And on a personal note: We are in the home stretch of the house closing process. We will get an official date any day now. Yay!! Now....I'm off to pack some boxes! :)

Edited to add: The Live Video version is live now. The link above will take you there.
Also, only 2 of those 4 sets of skulls are still available. That's leaves 4 sets total. So pop on over there if you like. :)

Adding new content

I managed to get a 3 column layout going here. I've never been super keen on the 3 column look, but now that I'm going to use this blog as my main communication webpage I have to adjust. :)

I added a link to my clay tutorials and transferred all the links from my "favorite links" page at Dragonflylane.com over to the right column there. --->

I also have a page of recommended books I'd like to move here, but I'm not sure it's sidebar content. Maybe an individual post that I can then link to in the sidebar?

Anyway, please let me know if you click on anything that doesn't work. I found a nifty online tool that allowed me to create this layout and all the colors. I'm planning to tweak it with some graphics too. But this will do for now.

The sun has finally popped out today (been cloudy and rainy...YAY!!!). I need to get outside and take pics of some new skull beads while I can. Toodles!

Faux ceramic

Have you read Michael's faux ceramic tutorial? It is very very fun stuff. I am enjoying experimenting with all the color possibilities. This is only a tiny part of my experiments.

These are cute little beads that I plan on making more of.

All but one were made with pre-tinted TLS. I *think* they were tinted with oil paints but honestly I'm not sure. I bought them from another clayer some time ago. But I like the way they feel and look. The darker purple one (about 3 o'clock) I made with TLS tinted with metallic alcohol inks. The liquid clay is gorgeous, but I'm not crazy about it on this beige clay. Even with several layers of Future, it's still sort of grainy. Don't like that so much. I'm going to try the purple liquid clay on some different base colors. I'm thinking turquoise, pink, white, maybe silver? What do you think?

And I loooove this pendant. I've listed it in my Etsy store, but I'm not totally convinced I want to part with it! I wonder if I should take pictures of it on the usual white background? Hhmmm...


Anyway, this is what I've been playing with. In between skull beads that is. :)

I got an award!

The very pretty Melissa of Bully Beads gave me an award! Wheee!! Thanks Melissa!


Check out her Etsy Shop. Lissa makes gooorgeous jewelry!

God bless the parents who drugged us.

As seen on Laura's blog. I think this little story is great! Aaron and I are firm believers that there is far too much Ritalin and time-outs nowadays. People always say to us "Your children are so well behaved. How do you do it?" Answer: We raise and discipline them like we (and our parents) were raised. Anyway...before I get on a soapbox, check this out:

The other day, someone at a store in our town read that a Methamphetamine lab had been found in an old farmhouse in the adjoining county and he asked me a rhetorical question.

“Why didn’t we have a drug problem when you and I were growing up?”

I replied I had a drug problem when I was young: I was drug to church on Sunday morning. I was drug to church for weddings and funerals. I was drug to family reunions and community socials no matter the weather.

I was drug by my ears when I was disrespectful to adults. I was also drug to the woodshed when I disobeyed my parents, told a lie, brought home a bad report card, did not speak with respect, spoke ill of the teacher or the preacher, or if I didn’t put forth my best effort in everything that was asked of me.

I was drug to the kitchen sink to have my mouth washed out with soap if I uttered a profanity.

I was drug out to pull weeds in mom’s garden and flowerbeds and cocklebur’s out of dad’s fields.

I was drug to the homes of family, friends and neighbors to help out some poor soul who had no one to mow the yard, repair the clothesline, or chop some firewood; and, if my mother had ever known that I took a single dime as a tip for this kindness, she would have drug me back to the woodshed.

Those drugs are still in my veins and they affect my behavior in everything I do, say, or think. They are stronger than cocaine, crack, or heroin; and, if today’s children had this kind of drug problem, America would be a better place.

God bless the parents who drugged us.

Silver and clay belong together!

At least in my humble opinion they do. :) I am so excited that I now have my beginner metal smithing supplies. In the next month or two (sooner if I make some Etsy sales!) I'm going to add a jeweler's saw and some metal sheeting to my box of toys. Right now I'm working with wire and premade bezels. I'm practicing my soldering. It's getting better. Which merely means I suck a little less than last week. LOL!

Anyway, I sketched an idea and created it this week! The soldering even went well. I polished it and added come clay. YAY!!


The leaves dangle and move slightly inside their delicate frames. FUN! :)
I held several different styles of beads inside the frames. I foresee several versions of this one.

It looked better in my head

How many times do you say that after you create something? Oh man...I say it A LOT.

I have been wanting to make some flowers with skulls as the centers. In my head it was so cute and odd and whimsical. But this first version of the idea is 'ok' but not perfect.


Structurally the pendant is fine. But I'm not 100% pleased with the way it turned out. I think, maybe, the skull needs to be nestled into the petals instead of resting on top.

However! I do like how it kind of has that pirate's medallion look about it. The flower petals almost look like a compass to me. And the tiny swarovski rhinestones (Thank you my generous friend Scott!!) really sparkle in that fiery blood stone sort of way. :) Oh!! And the extra long headpin was made my ME. I finally found something I can do successfully with my torch. LOL!

Last nite I got to thinking....I may not be 100% happy with the pendant, but someone else might think it's perfect! We are all drawn to different styles and have different tastes.
What should I do with it? I was thinking about opening a discussion at the Etsy forums....asking others to share pictures of their "Not quite perfect" creations. And maybe, just maybe, potential buyers will fall in love with those creations and want to give them a good home. Because I think we all create things that are structurally and functionally good...they just don't appeal to the creator aesthetically. Kind of like when I'm sitting at a red light and say, "I'd drive that car if it were a different color!" But the car's owner loves the color. Am I making any sense at all? I don't feel like I am.

I guess I'm wondering: Should you only sale the pieces you yourself feel are aesthetically perfect? Do you withhold the not quite (aesthetically) perfect pieces? (Even if they are otherwise perfect in your opinion.)