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?

A Far Off Land

RH and I have decided we are going to go to India. There's no set date yet. There's no fleshed out plan. All we did was agree that in a few years, we will be in India.

I'm not entirely sure how this fascination got started. I do know that it's something we both share and I feel so blessed that he wants the same things I want. The word marriage was thrown around in our conversations. So was the idea of moving in together. Scary conversations, yes, but exciting nonetheless.

I found this pendant at a bead store in Dana Point. It's not a real coin. The owner said that the pendant was a reproduction. I'm wearing it now, strung on a simple black cord. I want to keep India fresh in my mind. I want to take it around with me as a constant reminder that I will get there one day. I've gotten in the habit of touching it before making a purchase. Like asking myself if I really need to be spending the money or if I could put it away for India. Hasn't happened yet, but hopefully I'll get better at the saving part :P

We tried Indian food for the first time last week. I LOVED it. It was a tiny little grocery store in the middle of Lake Forest. It had a tinier buffet. I tried a samosa, chicken tikka masala, some kind of veggie mush that was totally yummy but I can't remember the name of, lamb curry, and tandoori chicken... all with some rice, of course. They had garlic na'an which was HEAVEN. We had some left and I ate it later with some string cheese. RH liked the lamb curry and the rice (which meant something because he usually HATES rice) but not much else. We're going to give it another go soon. :)

Hello, November

Wow. November is already here!

It was RH's birthday on the 22nd of October. And because he's such a dear, he said he wanted to go to the San Diego Zoo (which is what I wanted to do for my birthday but we couldn't afford it).

I did quite a bit of sketching. Not enough photo-taking, I think. Last time we went to the zoo, I took about 800 pictures of the polar bear playing with some tree branches.

So many of the animals were fighting. The rhinos were fighting, the sun bears were fighting, and someone said that the polar bears were at it too. We didn't see the polar bears fighting, thank goodness. I love polar bears and probably would have been very upset to see them bloodied up.

Below are some sketches from my handy-dandy sketchbook. I'm not very good at cats but I certainly did try.

 Anyhoo... happy November, all! I read somewhere that November is Blog Month or something and some people are trying to write a blog a day for the entire month of November. Guess who's going to try and keep up with that challenge?

Featured!

I may have mentioned before that I got featured in a magazine... Well, here's the magazine!

Its a wonderful story. I came home and found the magazine waiting for me. Giddy with excitement, I tore open the plastic packaging and frantically flipped through it in a desperate search for my submission. Finding nothing, I thought to myself that it was a thank you for sending in my stuff and was content with having received such a beautiful magazine to flip through. Well, before going to bed, I decided to flip through it again, this time a bit more thoroughly and slowly, savoring it as we usually do with new magazines. Towards the end, in the "We had SO many submissions but couldn't resist adding these in" section, there they were... my earrings. Looking so cute and pretty. And with a lovely little blurb they wrote for them as well.

I TOTALLY freaked out. Facebook updates. Texts to the boyfriend. I ran into work telling anyone who would listen. It was a good day. :P

I just can't believe something *I* made is in a magazine. Maybe after I've been through this a few times, those thoughts will turn into, "I can't believe they DIDN'T publish my stuff!" but for now, I'm still rather giddy. And oh so grateful and thankful to the lovely people at Jewelry Affaire for adding my earrings in. It has lit a fire in me that gives me hope that I won't be pushing books forever (not that I don't love my job at the book store... I just want more, you know?).

The magazine itself is full of lovely designs. If you get a chance, check it out at your local book store or craft store. Hopefully they carry the Stampington Magazines. If not, you can check them out here. Click on "Publications" to find Jewelry Affaire.

Hope everyone is having a lovely week! It's been rainy here and I love it.

Trial and Error

I like to sketch out my designs.

Sometimes...

 ... they don't turn out so hot. Probably should have used smaller beads. It's a design worth trying again.

Then other times, I surprise myself and actually make something that I hold up and say, "Holy crap! I made that? I brought it to life?" 

Its quite a wonderful feeling. Something that I hope all artists experience. For me, it's rather rare with my jewelry making to bring a sketch fully to life. I'm tickled pink and want to show the world. 

Thank goodness I have a blog :P

Can you tell I've been dreaming of India?

Scrabble: We Tied

We tied at 266. How funny is that? My words of note: pee *giggle*, axe (with x on triple letter), um... and stalk. OH! And orient. YAY!

I love Scrabble.

Flowers and Butterflies

My day off on Monday wasn't as productive as I thought but I made two beautiful things.

Must go! Going to be late for work O_O