Printer Tray Tuesday: Red Dragonflies

I have a printer's tray at home full of beads from my stash waiting to be turned into wonderful pieces. And thus, I have dubbed Tuesday to be "Printer Tray Tuesday."

Here is the first compartment:
-lucite flowers
-wooden dragonfly beads
-green crystals
-amber crystals

I knew I wanted to make a tassel-like piece. So I pulled out some waxed linen cord. Add in some lucite flowers and a touch of green on top aaaand...

Happy Tuesday, all!

Getting Back Into It

Slowly but surely, I'm developing a routine.

Well... not today. I forgot to set my alarm and slept far too long to be appropriate to mention on my blog :P

I'm a bit depressed. The boyfriend says I am grieving the loss of my Borders. He's probably right. He usually is. Yesterday, we spent the morning at Starbucks, drinking yummy coffee and making things.

To be honest I only made one pair of earrings. I spent most of the morning browsing the interwebs for some inspiration.

I'm not sure what made me pair those green crystals with the yummy orange lucite flowers. It seems my muse isvloving summery colors. Someone needs to tell her it's almost fall.

Distracted by "The King and I." I love musicals like this. Lol. Happy, Wednesday!

So over it

I'm really quite over being depressed. Really. Over. It.

This week, I'm going to be happy. Employees can bitch me out at work. Customers can complain about discounts (I'm sorry, we're already going out of business... what more do you want, people!?). And those insane demands some people are asking of me? Well, let me tell you, I can't do it. And you'll just have to deal. I'm only one person. DEAL.

*BIG SIGH*

It's been quite a while since I posted new works. Here's two of my latest.

Copper, lucite flowers, crystals, pearls, and seed beads. LOOOVE IT. Lol.

Now, I just need to find the time to post to Etsy...

Dragonflies

 I love dragonflies. Sure, they're bugs and if one landed on me, I'd probably freak out (FLASHBACK ALERT!: Did something of the sort with a white butterfly when I was a kid) but they are rather beautiful.

Above is a bracelet I made for a friend's mother who recently commissioned me to do some work for her. She had recommended a wonderful book on stones and I really really do love a good book recommendation. She had said that she, too, loves dragonflies AND amethyst and thus, this bracelet was born. I used little silver lined lavender colored seed beads as spacers. I think they add some sparkle.

I found these lovely etched bone beads at Michaels and just knew I had to have them. Two fire-polished beads and a purple glass crystal bead hang at the bottom of each earring. LOVE these. Not sure what kind of bone it is, but I'm assuming cow bone. Dunno why.

Dragonflies can represent change. They can represent dreams and good luck. The new year is approaching and I know that I try to come up with resolutions each year and just fail. This year, I want to try really hard to keep them. They're all things that I've been meaning to do and January 1st will just be the day I decide to really get serious. I will start a new blog just for my resolutions because it seems to help me stay focused on my jewelry so why not my personal goals?

Do you do the resolution thing? I know lots of people do. Heck, at work, the health section is PACKED with books because even the industry knows that people are going to give the diet resolution another go. Share your thoughts. I'm very interested :)

Hope you all had a lovely holiday!

A Bracelet on Date Night

First off, sorry about the crappy picture. I forgot my SLR at home.

RH and I are on our date night. We've made a habit of having a date day every week, really. This usually includes running around town shopping and being together during the day and then at night, we'll have dinner and go to a movie. Lately, we've been trying to sneak in art time so he can paint and draw and I can do jewelry. The above bracelet is what I made tonight.

All copper wire and blue crystals. All handmade, as well... even the hook. YAY! And I'm wearing it right now. It matches my blue shirt :)

I need to invest in a bracelet sizer... anyone have any good suggestions other than the one linked?

Feathers Turn to Crystal

Remember yesterday's post? I ended up buying the feathers. They're peacock neck feathers, so says the package. And at my bead store, you can get them 2 for $0.50. RH and I did some driving around before picking up these feathers and found out you can get some pretty floral picks with peacock feathers (with eyes, even) in them at Michaels. The one I wanted was $6.99! I'm glad I got the neck feathers because I ended up breaking one of them anyway and because they were only $0.50, I didn't feel too terrible about it.

I was attempting to wrap wire around the ends so I can hang them... well... they're very delicate and didn't like that very much. I decided, anyway, that they didn't work for the design and ended up finding some peacock blue crystals for my earrings.

Much better, I think. Sorry about the crappy photo. Light's not very good in my room at 7am.

These will make it to Etsy... someday... hahaha. I am planning a massive shop update... I just need to find the time. :P

Happy Monday, everyone!

Didi Pendant

I was at a loss for words when I opened this window to write. Then "Are You That Somebody" by Aaliyah (which was one of my favorite songs in high school) came on Pandora... got me dancin' in Corner Bakery and ready to write!

You may recognize the above pendant from this post. However, it is not that pendant. The pendant from that post currently hangs from a simple black leather cord around my neck. The one above is an almost identical pendant. It's slightly bigger and has a better wrap job... it is, after all, the second pendant I finished (started and abandoned probably three other ones). This one is going somewhere special and I don't want to jinx anything by mentioning where it's going. Sorry, folks. I'll let you know when I can :D

I didn't want to just string it on a piece of cord so I linked some minty green glass bead with copper and added some dark purple crystals. I hammered a hook clasp special for this necklace and finished it off with some brown leather. The finished necklace is a bit asymetrical because of the clasp, but I like it. I'm hoping who I send it to likes it too.

BTW: "Didi" is sister in Hindi :)

Hey, do you guys have any special tips for photographing necklaces? I was having a bear of a time trying to get the whole thing into the picture so I ended up just photographing the main part of the necklace. Do you hang them off a wall and photograph them like that? I should have done that I think...

First Ear Wires

This wire wrapping thing was easier with smaller seed beads! Who woulda thunk? It was such a bear wrapping the beads around the pendant I made in this post. But the wraps on these earrings are nice and tight.

I love seed beads; they're like little gems and I'm loving wrapping them around wire shapes. For the earrings, I used some glass crackle beads I have in my stash. I also made my own ear wires! A first for me!

They're rather thin but the holes in my ears aren't very big so not a big deal. They hold up nicely even for 24 gauge wire. I suppose I should hammer them to harden but haven't done that yet. I added a piece of purple crystal for extra sparkle.

Rather late with this blog post but am still making the blog-a-day challenge for November. Tish led me to the site NaBloPoMo which stands for "National Blog Post Month." I joined up. Haven't had a chance to explore it yet (I'm on vacation :D) but it looks like a really cool community for bloggers!

It's been super hot here in SoCal. Today, the high was 99 degrees! Sigh. Hoping it will cool down soon. How's the weather been for you?