Oil Slicks and Mermaid Jewelry

Conch shell detail, seashells as accents. Swarovski glass pearls, multi-faceted crystals, Czech fire polish glass beads, seed beads in 15/0 and 11/0, bugle beads. Twisted fringe detail. 22" necklace pattern is modified design from Jill Wiseman​. Clasp is nickel free metal alloy.

In Stitches

My first new piece is a petrified snail shell with druzy agate inside, Swarovski pearls, glass seed beads in 15/0 and 11/0, a Sterling silver clasp, backed in Ultrasuede. I donated it to the silent auction at my kids' school. You can click and enlarge the photos. 

The second piece is a geode slice with seed beads in 11/0 and 15/0, bugle beads, Swarovski pearls, Czech dragonscale beads, backed in Ultrasuede. It's about 4.47" from bail to the ends of the fringe. 

Sunken Treasure necklace

Made as a Facebook Pay It Forward project. Czech glass button, glass seed beads, gold-plated cord caps and clasp. About 30 hours, total.

Royal Carnival

Small progress since my last update as I spent a lot of time goofing off this week. Anyway, the center is finished and now I'm on to making the beaded kumihimo necklace.

Elevator Music

Sorry for such long absences. I've been working on various projects but sometimes the day is over before I realize it's even begun. 

We had teacher appreciation last week, then both daughters had their birthday on the fourth, and since then I've been trying to catch up on an end-of-the-year gift for the kids' bus driver.

So without further ado, here's the stuff  I've made but haven't posted;

Teacher Appreciation for Son's teacher

Teacher Appreciation door decoration with for an "UP" theme

Ugly shelves the previous house owners left behind, being primed for painting

Planets and nebulae done on the shelves in spray paint

Newly painted shelves hung over my dollhouse table

And said dollhouse table after I cleared 95% of the stuff off of it

Yesterday I was so into the creative spirit that I was drawing mandala patterns in dinner gravy while it was cooking, and then I made a potato man out of mashed potatoes and vegetables. 

Honestly, I like being more in the groove and don't mind being distracted from posting updates. 

earballs

New earrings, all completely stitched by hand. Czech glass buttons, glass seed beads, Swarovski black pearls. The pair on the left has 24K gold seed beads and gold fill ear wire. The pair on the right has Czech preciosa crystals and sterling silver ear wire. They measure about 2 3/4" long. 

Victorian bead embroidered necklace

Details

As a whole

Dralion

I'd planned to add a dragon's eye focal piece to this but the design would be too heavy for the delicate stitch so this one will be as is. I got ideas for two large collar pieces in the process, so it's still a win. 

Prototype

So I've been playing with some ideas I got for cuff bracelets. I've decided that I'll be making slight modifications to the inside lining in the future but I like the potential.

Please pardon the crappy phone pictures and the stray cat hair :) This one was claimed on facebook shortly after I posted it and I've all ready got orders for future work, so it seems I've found something good that I can call my own :)

There are two more waiting on my desk - one to be varnished and one that still needs the inside lining and sanding and varnishing. 

So that's what I've got. Thanks for stopping by :)

Flood Waters

Most of my regular readers know I'm located in the northern reaches of Colorado, so I'm sure some have been waiting for an update. We are fine, but we've been surrounded by deep flood waters on all sides for many days now. We live on the side of a hill, so the water has gone around us and downwards without much problem. Our yard squishes when we walk on it, but that's fairly normal here after any substantial rain. Coal Creek is less than a half a mile from our house and had some pretty intense flooding. It used to be ten feet down in a ravine, where as now it's ground level and above and has gone from ten feet wide to fifty feet wide. Last I saw, whole sides of the bank walls had been sheared off and were gone, but that was a few days ago and I've not really left the house since aside from walking the dogs around the block.

So in other news, I put in an admissions application to art school last week. I always said I was going to get an art degree, but never did it. Really, if I'd gone to college right out of high school I would have either failed out or dropped out and that would have been a waste of time and money. Now that I've got some time and motivation, I'm ready to follow that dream. I'll be focusing on a Fine Art degree with a focus on sculpture. I like to think it will help with all the neat prosthetic makeup I want to learn, and designing and crafting pieces for Comic Con and all the other stuff I like to make with my hands.

We started potty training Youngest Daughter a little over a week ago. As of right now, she's weirded out by urinating without a diaper on that she jumps up and runs away from her potty before she's done. So the potty is sitting in the foyer of our house on tile floor for easy clean up. Her awareness has really come along, so hopefully getting her to realize when she needs to go and being okay with going in a toilet and not her diaper will fall into place pretty soon. 

I haven't been doing much glass lately. I have about ten beads sitting in water waiting to be cleaned but I've ignored them for more than a week. I have been doing a fair amount of experimenting with new polymer clay designs, things for Comic Con and things for my regular Etsy sales. 

Speaking of polymer clay, I was looking at polymer clay cuff bracelets online yesterday to see what's popular and what's been done too much and what hasn't been done. Gathering ideas, so to speak. I've noticed that a LOT of polymer clay cuff bracelets are only decorated on the outside and I've come to wonder... Why? The inside is highly visible in a cuff bracelet, particularly if someone asks to look at it up close. Also, the inside is a whole separate potential canvas- even if it's just a plain accent color to set off the outside design. When attaching clay to metal, you must first coat the metal with glue so the clay will adhere - leaving the back unfinished greatly increases the chance that something could get between the clay and the cuff and it could crack or break, or the whole outside may come off. Then all the time and energy spent designing it would be wasted. I plan to use other people's design neglect to my benefit. 

Here's the inside of a pendant I made the other day. I took it out and discarded it because it was only an experiment and I scratched it while I was messing with it, but it's got good design potential for lots of uses and I plan to expand upon it. Please pardon the blurry picture, I took it one-handed with my phone.

So yeah. All is well here, all things considered. Been busy, but will hopefully have more time for creation and updates in the near future. Thanks for stopping by!