New Stuff and Old Stuff Revamped

I have a spot on the Just Jewels showcase tomorrow on Etsy so I was busy trying to get two more pendants done tonight. I know alot of people say the showcase spots are a total waste but I try to do one Main showcase a month and all of them have given me quite a few hearts, views and even sales either that day or people that hearted me came back and bought something. As I said, I prefer the Main showcase spots but the Thursday that they came open (the same as the Just Jewels one) I forgot and this was the only one that had spots left when I finally remembered.

These are the latest two pendants, a larimar and a labradorite piece. The larimar is pure perfection for me. The frame turned out great, the bail is fantastic and the design even surpised me as it just fits. I don't draw out or plan out most of my designs, I just pick it up and start turning the wire. Don't get me wrong, I love my labradorite piece I just did but the larimar one was just natural. It was like I started it and I was done with it, just like that.


As for my "revamped" part of my title, that's probably a bit over stated. Close to when I first started my blog I posted some pictures of my first attempts at making glass beads. Well I've FINALLY gotten around to doing something with a few of the firsts ones I made. I've started making a bracelet with them. I love how it's turning out so far and the only thing I really have left to do is add some chain to make it adjustable and to figure out what I'm going to do about a clasp. I really want to make my own hook type clasp out of wire but clasps are far from my specialty. For now I'm happy with how it looks and will be looking for some ideas on what to do to finish this piece off.

3 day weekends and birthdays

I took yesterday off to spend the day with Dave whose birthday is tomorrow. It was nice and relaxing. We dropped the little one off at daycare and went out for breakfast and took a nice drive and just talked. It was nice because we used to do this all the time but with Little G around, most of the time he has something to interject or say and you don't really get to talk about anything to serious. Then, we went out to lunch before the rains came.

Knowing that my craft show is coming up in October I'm trying to keep a decent stock of pendants so I've set a goal of 4 pendants a weekend. This weekend I'm doing good as I have made 3 labradorite ones. I listed two on etsy but the third I need to get some better photos of. Here they are.
The second one is my favorite and if there has ever been a pendant that I have had a half a mind to keep for myself it is this one. I just love how the design turned out on it.

Here lately I have been on a labradorite kick. I have 3 more stones that I ordered this past week, 2 are more of the gold/green color the other is a green/blue one. I also have 4 larimar stones coming any day. One of them I am anxiously awaiting to get and wrap. If it looks half as good as it did online it will make an absolutely gorgeous piece. Next to search for will be some quartz stones.

Just Vanilla

Yesterday after finishing up dinner Little G got to have some ice cream since he ate really good. We buy these 12 packs of single serving ice cream by Bluebell that has 6 chocolate and 6 vanilla cups in it and usually Dave or I will split it with the little one. You would think that the chocolate would be his favorite but he's all about the vanilla ones.

Yesterday I was the one sharing the ice cream and I let the first bit kind of slowly melt in my mouth and the taste and idea of it being "vanilla" made me think back to a time back in high school. I was of course one of the band kids and usually about 2 weeks before school started band practice started from 8-12 Monday thru Friday. Of course, once I could drive, my two best friends and I would always go to this little shed like looking house on the other side of town and get shaved ice. I say shaved ice because if I say snowcone people invision those pointed cups with hard little ice nodules that crunched when you ate them and had generic flavors. No, shaved ice was served in a styrafoam cup and you actually watched them shave this huge ice cube into the cup and then shape the ice slivers into a ball, just like you would with snow. Then there were the flavors, at least 50 to choose from.

One of my friends and I would usually try a different flavor each time we went, him the sweeter ones like cotton candy, bubble gum or blue rasberry and me the tarter or just different flavors like mai tai and cinnamon. Our other friend would ALWAYS pick vanilla, and we would always give him a hard time because of course back then when someone would say vanilla the first thing that would always come to my mind was boring and bland. There was nothing exciting about vanilla, and when we would tease him he would just smile and humor us and our antics.

I thought about him yesterday and his vanilla and how it really isn't that bland of a flavor at all. It's a staple to almost any baking recipe, if there is something lacking flavor wise some measurement of a teaspon will usually so the trick. It's like vanilla is the perfect balance of sweet. It has this sugary sweet taste but at the same time it's smooth and not harsh.

So yesterday, when I was half teasing my son asking if he wanted chocolate ice cream or vanilla , exagerating the word chocolate and he kept tell me, "No momma, 'nilla" I just sort of smiled to myself and thought about my friend who always had that smile as if he held some secret, some knowledge that only he could understand. Thinking back on it yesterday I think he did.

New Glass

This past weekend I got a chance to really play with my new glass. I am now in love with CiM glass rods. I bought several different colors to try that included, Bordello, Celadon, Glacier, Simple Berry, Evil Queen, Poi, Ginger, Canyon de Chelly, Hades, Desert Pink, Comando and some clear. I've tried out all the colors to some extent and here is a photo of my creations
I am extremely proud of the two flower ones as they were my first attempt at doing flowers.