Ohhhh, what I wouldn't give to have even just a small corner to dedicate to my hobbies. It gets kinda (okay, VERY) frustrating to try to work at the kitchen table, only to have to clear it off so we can eat a meal, especially if I'm in the middle of something. Jewelry making supplies are especially a pain in the backside to have to gather up multiple times before I finish something. I do have a mechanic's tool box that I've dedicated to my jewelry stuffs and it does roll around, but I need a dedicated work surface on which I can leave a project for a few hours and come back to it and my work be undisturbed. For this issue alone I've greatly slacked off on making much in the last several months. I live in a very small home, with 3 kids no less, and just can't figure out how to spare a corner for my needs.

With even a small dedicated work area, I could branch out into a few more methods to make jewelry and not stick to just stringing and wire wrapping. I'd love to get into polymer clay, maybe a bit of torch work, etc. I just don't have the space for it at the moment. Argh! I just KNOW there's a way to make a bit of room for what I need, I just need to come up with a better solution than kicking one of the kids out... :D Building on to my home is out of the question financially, and every single corner of my home is being used... I've just got to come up with something, there's GOT to be a way!

If anyone has any viable ideas please let me know. I feel like the answer should be obvious, I'm just not "seeing" it... yet. :) It seems I've seen other artisans post pics of their work areas, maybe I need to re-peruse those and see if I can adapt some of their ideas for my own use.

(Image borrowed from The BlueCircleGuys... hope they don't mind, but I felt it fit my situation. LOL)

Back to playin' with beads!

Yep, I finally found the time, motivation, and most importantly the inspiration to haul out my jewelry making supplies again!

I'd also like to express my thanks to a most wonderfully generous friend on Facebook (Tammy) for sending me a gorgeous mix of beads! You rawk Tammy! :D The following pieces are a mix of Tammy's beads and my own. We must have similar tastes because I had several beads that coordinated well with what she sent. :)

Made two of these, one for my mom's birthday. Glass, crystal, and silver plated toggle and spacers:


Made two of these as well. I love the matte finish of the mauve beads and the frosted focal glass bead. Antique silver finish bead caps and gunmetal finish lobster claw clasp and crimp covers... and a few Czech fire polished beads, too:


And a couple o' these. Crackle glass cubes in pink and green with rose quartz chips, silver plated spacers and toggle clasp:



Just one of this, those are glass pearls, Swarovski crystals in a pretty champaign color called "silk" and an antique silver finish toggle (IIRC it's pewter):


Although I got on a bit of a bracelet kick, I managed to make a pair of earrings. Crystal rondelles, matte finish mauve beads, round Czech fire polished beads on gunmetal finish head pins and fish hooks:


Yep, felt good to "play" with my bead stash again, it's been too long. Look out, Tammy... you'll be receiving something special in the mail realllll soon. :D

Back in the saddle on Etsy!

Okay, so I've still not gotten graphics or any jewelry listed on there yet, however I have been doing some spring cleaning and plan to post some excess crafting supplies in the destash section of my Etsy store. so far I have a few retired design/rare rubber stamp sets up for grabs at phenomenal (IMO) prices. I've done my homework and researched the sets I have and saw that they were going for ridiculous prices, especially on eBay, so I've listed what I have at a fraction of the eBay prices... better grab them if you want them! I shall be listing more in the next few days as I have time to take pics and such (there's a big box of them!) so stay tuned!!

Yeah, I've been MIA for a while

Okay, so I've been MIA for quite a while, both here and at my Etsy store. However, school for my kids is drawing to a close very soon and I'm planning a major overhaul on both sites, so if this blog appears a bit wonky from time to time it's because I'm doing some tweaking.

Throughout the course of my hiatus, I have acquired a new version of Photoshop for my graphics and I've been brushing up little by little on that, and I've also gotten my hands on some new jewelry making materials that I'm just dying to get creative with a.s.a.p.! New PS, beads, bead caps, wire, etc.... oh boy! See? I've not abandoned anything, just been working in the background a bit. :D

I've also been getting into makeup a little bit. Gosh only knows why as I seldom wear it on a day to day basis, but for some reason I've been enjoying watching tutorials on Youtube on how to apply it. My makeup skills are sadly lacking since I haven't been a regular makeup wearer since the mid 90s or so (yikes!) so I've been trying to bring myself to the present times on that. Most of the "gurus" I've seen are in their late teens to mid 20s, there seems to be very few that are my age and/or do looks that I feel would be age appropriate for me. I certainly can't afford high end products such as Mac, so I stick to common drug store brands. Ya know, I don't even know if I'd buy the high end brands even if I COULD afford them, I've found some bargains just with locally available common brands that IMO are pretty good quality.

The kids and I are currently building a fire pit in our front yard. It's been kind of fun, not to mention the kiddos have actually been (semi)cooperating during the process. We're still not done with it but when we are, look out marshmallows, we shall be impaling you with long sticks and toasting you to sticky gooey goodness when we get it done. Mmmmm....

Anywho, that's all I'm going to post for now, have a great day! Be good, and be good to each other. <3