Merry Christmas Eve!

Check out Chloe attired in her Christmas spirit.  You may be able to tell she dressed herself and was completely thrilled with her Santa hat, Christmas shirt under the denim jumper, plaid skirt and argyle tights combination.  Always a treat and a surprise to see how she dresses herself :)  

This is before going to an Ugly Christmas Sweater Party.  Todd picked up the sweaters from Goodwill, but his needed to be modified into a neck-less, sleeveless atrocity.  My Dad was over that day and he saw nothing wrong with either sweater....he thought mine was very nice.

I am LOVING these beads and had fun stringing them into a floating necklace.  The base bead is made out of a dark Elphaba green (which I just got and absolutely LOVE) and then is swirled in Smoke Rings.  LOVE LOVE LOVE these and will probably make more!  Taking a chance the recipient won't be on the internet today, but I just had to share a pic of this

It was two days ago when I got the frantic call from a good friend with his daughter asking "Can you please please please make my Mommy a necklace with green, blue and purple beads for Christmas?"  I really like how the colors swirled together and there is great veining going on in the greens that I used in each bead.  And the purple was fun because it reacted great with the other colors to form different shades and separations.  I hope Mommy loves it :)

Trunk Show on Saturday

I am excited about this Saturday and showing off many of my new pieces of jewelry.  I have been working hard over the past month to create many new items with different sets of beads.  Many new colors and designs!  Cassie has added several collections to her inventory and will be displaying those as well.  Come to our trunk show on Saturday and mention this blog to get 15% off any one item of your choosing from my shop!

Jewelry Trunk Show on Saturday!

So I know quite a few of you have been wanting to see the new copper stand I made last week with my new blow torch. Here it is. I'm very pleased with how it turned out! It will hold either a TON of earrings or loose beads. Wendy was very nervous about me drilling holes on the insides of the vertical side bars because the drill bit slipped off a couple (ok, several) times and gravitated towards my left palm. She was making all kinds of snide remarks about tetanus shots and missing work so she could drive me to the ER. But I persisted without heeding her safety warnings or alternative suggestions for holding the stand while drilling. I only nicked my palm once and now you can barely even tell that the drill bit went through my hand! But doesn't it look cool? And with the other stands, too. Very pleased with my Tool Man Tim efforts :)

And then I had fun making gift boxes out of scrapbook paper, which really didn't take me terribly long to cut and fold up. But they look pretty spiffy, too. Betting these won't last past this Saturday at our trunk show on the 13th at my house!

And check out Cassie's great set up at our show last Saturday! I kept telling her everything on her table felt so calm and zen. Her pieces are simple and elegant.

Torch & Jewelry GNO, or rather GNI

Wendy came over last night with cake mix & icing (God bless her for saving me so I could make a birthday cake in time for my Mom!) and 2-bite brownies.  I'd be willing to take the 3.5-4 hours to make the Italian Cream Cake (on a weekend, of course) for Mom, but she just wants the yellow cake box mix with chocolate icing.  So that's what I made while helping Wendy eat the brownies.  I think Betty Crocker should double the size of the box mix so you can make two pans and still slurp up half the mix, but I had to settle for whisk drippings.  Once the pans were in the oven, we headed to the studio.  Happy Birthday Mom!  I hope you had a great day and I enjoyed cooking dinner for you tonight!!!

Wendy fired up the torch and made a ton of beads in three hours while I strung up jewelry.

I like floating necklaces and with the mini-crimps (yes, even those are sterling silver), they are much easier to make.  The Swarovski crystals I used have an AB finish, so they have that cool metallic glint which blends right in with the special Striking Color glass I used to make the dots on the black beads.  I LOVE how this glass reacts and changes into so many different colors after I have heated and cooled it a dozen times before putting the beads in th

e kiln.  I also made some matching earrings.

Then I made this necklace with a bunch of different really cool seed beads I bought at the bead shows in Tucson last February.  My beads in this necklace also use the same Striking Color 

glass (Brad Shute makes this by hand and it has a lot of silver in the recipe, which causes these great reactions!), but just wrapped

clear base beads.  I heated and cooled these beads many more times than the black ones above, which is why they are creamier, with more ambers and gorgeous green.  

It also has a really cool square toggle clasp that I don't think I have used before now.

And lastly is a pic of the updated hair cut.  I was ready for a change, so before showering yesterday I put my hair in a ponytail and cut off around 6-7 inches.  Afterwards, I got Todd to hold my hand mirror so I could see the back better to shape/stack it up.  

I'm pleased with how it turned out and have received compliments that it doesn't look like I cut my own hair, so that was positive.  It is just long enough to tuck behind my ears.  

Three words for this winter:  Need.  More. Scarves.