Lordy, Lordy... It's been a while. Nov 26, 2010

"DANG!" It's been a long time.
Work-work has been crazy. Changes and more changes and yet you know the saying - the more it changes the more it stays the same.

But I've been trying to keep busy on the creative side too - it helps keep my mind clear but sometimes I get caught up in the stressers of work and worrying about getting a piece done and then I step back and remember - this is fun... and try to relax. SO - here's some fun I've been having lately...

Gifts, Gifts ... late gifts!
August starts crazy birthday & anniversary time for our family! And as I indicated at the beginning of this post - it's been awful crazy couple of months so all my birthday and anniversary gifts are late! Yep - late... as in mailing tomorrow late! YIKES! OK enough of that - on to the good stuff!

In August my little great-niece turned two and I created two gifts for her - first is a charm bracelet I call "One to Grow On". It has little mother of pearl beads, Swarovski pearls and some precious hand-made lamp-work beads by Bastille Bleu Lampwork. The Rose is for her name, the cupcake because she loves cupcakes and the color is pretty close to her birthstone. The lady-bug is a nick name she has. The heart was hand-crafted by me from fine silver and stamped with Mom and Dad. The thought is that I can create fine silver charms and send to her and her mom can add them to the charm bracelet for her.

Now, knowing that she's only 2 and this has small pieces I figured that her mom would hold onto it for her for a little while so I created a cutesy little necklace that she can wear now to play dress-up with. Created with lamp-work beads from a number of artists but featuring a bear, ruffled disks and polka dot beads by Bastille Bleu Lampwork. The others are from Blissful Garden. The beads are strung on a piece of pink suede cord and knotted so that it can be shortened or lengthened as the little one desires!

September brings birthdays and anniversaries -

"Baby Love" is for my niece who is a wonderful mom. Her daughter is represented in this necklace. The pendant is hand-crafted completely by me in fine silver (.999). The heart starts on the lower left w/ a lily, curves up to the rose at the top and then curves down to a cz representing the babies birthday - Peridot. The pendant was made in stages w/ firings between each stage. I'm so in love with this pendant. From the little sparkly silver frit and patina in the lily flower to the rose made with individual-shaped rose petals to the leaves wrapped around the heart. It gave me grief but I learned a lot from it!

Now this beautiful (if I do say so myself) pendant hangs from a gorgeous, hand-dyed silk ribbon in chartreuse by Jamn Glass. I trimmed the ribbon to approx 20" and formed the sterling silver coiled end pieces and then hand-forged the sterling hook with a pretty little chartreuse lamp-work spacer by That Bead Girl capped on each end by my own fine silver (.999) hand-made, textured end-caps.

Oh now there's a fun story - Amber from That Bead Girl makes gorgeous bead, cabochons, and beautiful wine stoppers, appetizer forks, bookmarks, pendants and more all featuring her gorgeous lamp-work pieces. When she creates custom beads she makes extras to be sure her sizing, color, shapes are correct. When she has a large amount of these orphans she puts them together in a lot and posts them to ebay. Wellll let me tell you I scored one of her postings - 355 hand-made lamp-work beads. Spacers like nobodies business! Some focals, some regular beads, discs, mini's, roundels, OMG I was/am in bead heaven!!

So now you know how I ended up with the coordinating chartreuse lamp-work spacer for the hook!!!

OK - enough! Next post will be Anniversaries!! and still MORE birthdays!

Please take time to visit my friends using the links posted above. These gals make all their product by hand - in their work shops, rooms, studios. They are true artisans and I am so proud to present their work in my pieces.