March 2005 Archive

Thursday, March 31, 2005

Month O' Softies
How's this for 11th hour?
Theme = "Self-portrait of the Artist as a Young Child"




Gotta hit the hay for an early client day - More soon -

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Golden Brown
In New Orleans Monday, I stopped by the accurately named The Bead Shop. I've been wanting to make a design with dyed freshwater pearls for quite awhile. The Bead Shop had loooooads, so I finally picked a dozen strands and made these luscious necklaces and bracelets:


These are at once light and rich. Golden yellows to bronzes to warm taupes. If you like topaz or smoky quartz's colors, you'll like these. These pieces would look super with a linen shirt or a chocolate brown sweater. I like that instead of stuffy, perfect white pearls, these are more organic, more character while still being elegant.

	Necklace 15" • dyed freshwater pearls, glass seed bead spacers, small lobster claw clasp • Qty 1 - 15" • Price: $29 $14.50! 1/2 off Summer Clearance

	Bracelet 7.5", 8.5" • dyed freshwater pearls, glass seed bead spacers, small lobster claw clasp • Qty 3 - 7.5", 2 - 8.5" • Price: $15
	Length 7.5" small 8.5" medium

Friday, March 25, 2005

Mod Tile Card
To fulfill a request for more masculine card designs, I designed this handsome number:

It utilizes my own darn rubber stamps, the mod tile sheet. Can you believe it? I designed this set in 2001 and this is the first time I got my hot little hands on them!

Sets of 10 cards with 10 envelopes in a handy, dandy plastic sleeve will be $15 once I get a chance to make a big old batch of cards. Contact me if you'd like to be notified when they're ready.

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Finger Puppets Galore!
Felt = Joy. The ker-chunk of cutting it. The colors. The heft. These was SO much fun to make. From left to right: White Bear, Sunflower, Orange Bear, Rabbit, Chickie.


And here's the trio of bears, with the Green Bear, that couldn't fit on my 5-digit hand:


The chickies are about 2.5" tall, all the rest about 3". Bunny is taller with those fetching ears. Get yours for a mere $6 each. Orders by Friday should get to you in time for Eastering.

	White Bear • Qty 4 • Price $6 $4.50

 

	Sunflower • Qty 0

	Orange Bear • Qty 2• Price $6 $4.50

Bunny • Qty 0

Chickie • Qty 0

	Green Bear • Qty 5 • Price $6 $4.50

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Finger Puppet Army

Such a happy army.

Finger Puppet Factory
Saturday, I've got a new craft show. One Night Stand at Innjoy near Division and Damen here in Chicago. It's easy for me to do craft shows because I have more inventory than god. Nonetheless, I use every show as a deadline to make new stuff.

For this show, I'm working on finger puppets - Springtime cousins of these guys. And a couple new card designs. Here's the progress on the puppets:

Clockwise from upper left: Green/pink bears, orange/blue bears, White rabbits, yellow chickies, sunflowers and offwhite/pink bears. They need faces and the bears need pompom ears. Da color ain't great with the camera flash.
posted on 3/15/2005 06:43:00 PM

Saturday, March 12, 2005

More Spring Thinking

Here I am looking out the window wondering if Spring will ever arrive. Last night, the was snowing big, wet, messy flakes and it got me supercranky. This morning, I finished the think spring necklaces. I'm wearing three of them above.


Here's the new, smaller lobster claw clasps on this bracelet. I ordered these in addition to my favorites, because they are smaller and this is a more delicate necklace. The thinking is that the smaller clasps will have to migrate to the front yet.

I'm now making all of my necklaces and bracelets to standard sizes. I am definite that the necklaces will be 15", 17" and 19". That accomodates both my bias and design toward shorter necklaces and people's different neck sizes. Bracelets? I'm still figuring that out. Any suggestions?

FYI, my neck is 15".

Out of that 4 yards of strung beads, I made 3 15" necklaces, 3 17" necklaces, 1 19" necklace, 1 7.5" bracelet, 1 8.5" bracelet.

	Bracelet 7.5", 8.5" • glass beads, silver color accents, small lobster clasp • Qty 1 7.5", 1 8.5" • Price: $13
	Length 7.5" small 8.5" medium

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Thinking Spring
I just had to drag myself away from the computer, so I watched a tepid movie and started on some more jewlery. I alternated greens and blues with plenty of silver. Very springy and fresh.



I made 4 yards of this pattern. Can't divide it into necklaces and bracelets until I get some small clasps - it's a nice thin strand and I don't want my larger current lobster claw clasps moving around to the front, like they'd be prone to do.

Monday, March 07, 2005

Madison, WI: Behold the Mighty Badger!
Behold a gallery of images from my Madison adventures this weekend.

Beautiful Materials
Today I returned from Madison, Wisconsin. While there, Amihan and Shaima introduced me to Jade Mountain Bead Shop. Found a few gems! Had a very good visit, but every so often I was itchy to get home to make a brand new necklace from the yellow turquoise, red coral and quartz beads:

I adore these colors together and there's some great texture and depth in these three beads:

If you find this necklace as alluring as I do, you can get your own! The beads are hung of black fake leather cord and the length is up to you! Silver color lobster claw clasp.

posted on 3/7/2005 12:21:00 AM