Summer's almost here!

Today was SO hot! About 85 degrees here. It made me realize that we're gonna be miserable when it gets really hot, lol. The new house that we moved into is actually quite old. Part of it was built around the early 1900s, and the rest probably in the 30s or 40s. Most of the windows, consequently, are basically just there so that it's not pitch black inside of the house. They weren't made to open. We have the huge windows that don't open. That means, no air conditioner. We DO have three doors in our house, so I'm trying to figure out some way to have the doors open without our animals getting out. Unfortunately, one of our chihuahua/mix dogs is a freakin' stunt dog, and can almost jump over me. Admittedly, I'm not very tall, but 5'2" is still pretty high for a 12" tall dog to jump, lol. So, with Terra the trick dog living here, we can't just use basic baby gates to keep her in, because she just jumps over the darn things. I'm hoping that the oak grove right next to our house will get leafy pretty soon and shade the house more so that it's cooler. I'm crossing my fingers for that!



So, today I created a ton of handmade business cards and jewelry tags to use when I go to The Gathering next weekend. Then I took a couple of pictures, organized a little, and then worked on a necklace that I've had planned for a little while. My friend, Alyssa, is a glass bead artist, and I have one of her gorgeous vessels to work around. It's nowhere near done, but this is what I got accomplished today

...basically, I did a lot of twisting wire to make the chain with, then pounding to strengthen said chain. Hopefully I'll get it done maybe tomorrow.

Circles and Squares 5/5/08

This bracelet was very fun, and included TONS of sterling silver wire...almost 300 inches of it! It highlights a beautiful lampwork bead. The etsy listing can be seen at http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=11523763

Au Naturale 4/15/08

I finished another piece of jewelry today. My entry for the Etsy Wire Artisan's Guild Street Team special challenge: Earth Day-Au Naturale. Wow. It's so frickin' awesome! I started out knowing that I wanted to create something "beachy", using some of the shells and rocks and fossils that I have picked up through the years on the Oregon Coast. I didn't know exactly how I was going to use these items. And I sure didn't know how the heck they were going to attach to whatever piece of jewelry I ended up making. I thought maybe a charm bracelet? But I really wanted to use one of the nice snail fossils that I had, and I thought they would be too big to dangle from a bracelet, or earrings. So, I was basically boxing myself into another necklace/pendant. Last night, I went to bed with the snail fossil, wire, and pliers, to play with it for a while before falling asleep. I often find that this is my most creative time, but I'm usually too tired to have it be of any use for anything but dreaming, lol. I ended up securely spiralling some silver wire around the snail fossil, forming a pendant. I put it away and went to bed to sleep on it. While I slept, I dreamt of a necklace formed of spirals of silver wire that formed waves, and hanging from the waves were charms of the sea. It was the perfect beach necklace! Of course, when I woke up, I remembered that I had dreamed of making the perfect beach necklace, known exactly how to do it, but couldn't REMEMBER lol. So, I spent about an hour trying out different spirals until I found one that looked JUST right. Everything went fairly fast from there. The necklace is formed of sterling wave-ish spirals. Heavy duty sterling chain attaches to that, and fastens with a heavy duty artisan clasp. Dangling from the waves are: two wire wrapped orange agates, and two wire wrapped green pieces of sea glass. The center focal piece is the fossilized snail, of which the fossil is also mainly comprised of agate (VERY cool!), and dangling from the top of the snail is a teeny tiny perfectly round agate, encased in a silver cage. All of these items are exactly as I found them at the beach, minus the sand, lol. They haven't been tumbled or polished or anything fancy like that. I trusted the sea's perfectionist nature to get it right, without my intervention. This necklace makes me think of something that a mermaid princess would wear to entice sailors, just in case her own charms weren't enough. ;-) What do you all think? This piece is listed for sale, not in my own etsy store, but in my guild's special store, which is opening with a bang on Earth Day, therefore the Earth Day theme. You can see this piece listed on April 22 at www. WireArtisansGuild.etsy.com OK, I'm exhausted, I'm off to bed!