Our Living Nativity

Daphne's getting ready for the Christmas season and pulling her brother along...
I really love her imagination, with all the animals (real and imaginary, including Alf and the Handy Manny measuring tape) she could find surrounding the pink-clothed baby Jesus in a shopping cart. 

Patina

So, as I said a few days ago, I finally got some supplies in for the Vintaj embossing and after the fun family-filled Thanksgiving holidays, really got down to work in creating some pieces as I have been wanting to do for awhile - again, nothing like a deadline to make me want to work.  This is so fun - embossing, painting and then finally figuring out what kind of sandpaper to use for reliefing the pieces.  They turned out beautiful!  Each piece is glazed on both sides. I know that the tutorials say you don't need to glaze the Vintaj pieces before or after you patina them, but I was especially worried about the pendants - didn't want the copper pieces to be causing any skin discoloration for those that would like to wear them.  These pieces will be at the 1305 Gallery soon...

 

Yuletide 2012

Guess what?  I have some jewelry items at a craft show in the 1305 Gallery.  A few artists put their items for sale at the Gallery's Annual Holiday Show and Kevin's cousin asked me to add some items for the Cindy Craft Cartel table.  So I was in - with about a week's notice, it was a pretty hectic deadline to get some jewelry items, but sometimes a deadline is good for creating those pieces I've had mulling about in my head for awhile and keep thinking, I'll get to but hardly take the time to.  Well, now is the time!  I worked and worked and probably neglected the kids a little while working on this.  I also recently got some supplies for some more pieces, which I will be posting about soon and getting to the show asap! 

The show runs from now (well, actually started on Black Friday) through January 5th.  Hours are:  Monday-Saturday:  11-7, & Sundays 12-5.

Here are some of my pieces that are currently at 1305 Gallery!:

Ears To You Blog Hop

Thank you CopperDiem for starting this hop and for letting me be a part of it.  Check here for the other's in the blog hop. 


My first blog hop....
I've certainly lurked on others and saw how cool it is to be a part of one - the networking, the feedback, seeing everyone's creativity when all are given the same directions. 
So here's the deal with this one.  These earrings were created to be donated to the Ears to You organization whose mission "is to provide earrings to lift the spirits of women undergoing chemotherapy for any type of cancer."  Pretty awesome idea, huh?  The organization is located in Hinkley, OH - which is just around the corner from where I grew up - thought that was kind of cool too.
And here are the earrings. 

The lampworked discs and stars in the first and last ones are from Jodie Marshall.  The pink pixies in the last earring set are from My Elements.  The purple flower Czech glass daisy beads in the second earrings are from Yashma Creations paired with some purple drops from Hobby Lobby.  The third pink and tiger's eye earrings are a pattern from a Beadwork magazine.
That's it - they have been shipped!

Thank you for looking.  Here are the other participants.  Take the time to look at all of theirs too!
 
Copper Diem
My Addictions
Beads, Tea and Sweets
Juls Beads
Fabric of my Life
Blogging Business Artisans
Jeannie's Blog
Lorelei's Blog
One Kiss Creations
Backstory Beads
According to Katie
Cherish Designs
Beads: Rolling Downhill
Falling Into The Sky
Garden Path Beads
Antiquity Travelers
Sissy and Jacks
Erin Siegel Jewelry/Art Bead Scene
Northwood Creative Studio
SilverRose Designs
Dreamin of Beads/SAS Jewelry Design
Cabe Woman  ** You are here**
Summers Studio
Honey from the Bee
Shaiha's Ramblings
Mama's Got to Doodle
Beads for Busy Gals
Tanya McGuire
Creative Atelier

Other creative endeavors - Halloween Yarn Wreath

I am a knitter.  I was a knitter.  I am a knitter.  And before I started hoarding beads, I hoarded yarn - and still have the stash.  While there is a very small, remote possibility that I may actually use all of the yarn, (kind of like last year, when I finally bought and made very easy felt applique stockings instead of believing that someday I would crossstitch stockings for the whole family)..... sometimes I get realistic - so I made a Yarn wreath and invited a friend to "shop Denise's Yarn Hoard" to make a wreath of her own.  I may have to make more - very quick.  Great bang for your buck (and time!).  There is plenty of inspiration on Pinterest and Etsy for these too.

In the meantime, I also started a blanket that I bought the yarn form 3 years ago.  An easy knit - with little thinking involved.  I'm hoping to get it done while watching some of my favorite tv shows (like Hoarders - Ha!).  Which mean it may take until next year before it gets done.

More earrings

In just a few days, I will be posting an earring blog hop - and that definitely motivated me to design earrings - all sorts, well, all sorts in the small amount of time I have for beading.  So I've been able to post a few more to Etsy.  And come back on November 3rd to see the Blog Hop reveal.

These are so sophisticated (?!) - is that the right word?  Don't know, but can't wait to make them in a few other colors.

And some delicate flower earrings - I've been pondering these lucite flower beads for a long time - may try these in a few other colors too.

Another new bracelet

The idea from this bracelet is from Interweave's 10 leather bracelet emag.  It turned out well but I couldn't get both pieces of leather cording through the lampworked bead - which was pretty frustrating. 

Swavorski crystal lavender chain from Word of Beads - local shop
White leather cording from Potomac Beading Company
Acorn lampworked bead:  Loriola lampworked beads from Ornamentea

New bracelet

Hey!  After looking through just about every person's blog from the Lori Anderson Bead Soup Blog Party, I stumbled across a tutorial for a cool- looking bracelet and had to make one for myself. 
The original tutorial is from The Gossiping Goddess:  http://thegossipinggoddess.blogspot.com/p/tutorials.html
Simple, casual with a little bit of - how'd you do that?    I like it.

The red ceramic bead is from:   JeraLunaDesigns
The teal glass Indo-Pacific glass seed beads are from Yuki Designs.
Vintaj brass jumprings. 

Going to the Farm...

We went to a local farm for some fun Fall activities.  A corn maze, hay ride, picking out pumpkins and lots of cool pumpkin people for the kids to imagine with.   The corn maze was hard!!! - we were supposed to look for 6 shapes in the maze and ended up only finding two before the kids got tired.  The hayride was cool and only had one small "scary tunnel" as Joey pointed out.  Good times right now - the kids are at a cool age.  They all really enjoy these kinds of excursions.

Just having some fun

I have been lurking on other people's blogs and saw some awesome, beautiful jewelry with embossed metal.  So lo and behold, I was up at Hobby Lobby and finally found out how it's done.  The Vintaj embossing kit and patina paint - turns out jewelry that is so cool.  Really like it.  Unfortunately, they only had ink in the color of red, rust and orange - which doesn't make too huge of an impact on copper plates as other colors probably will.   Can't wait to experiment.

For sale on my etsy store.... 

New Jewelry Listed

I got my 2nd sale on Etsy!  I'm sure my husband will be thrilled that something is selling.  And of course selling something reminds me that I should be more active if I want to continue to sell other somethings on Etsy, so I listed two pieces that I've already shown in previous posts and have been sitting on my jewelry desk for awhile andthen, made another piece of jewelry, while learning some chain maille.

 I've also been working on some earrings, but they can't be revealed yet, because they will be part of a blog hop from copper diem - can't wait to see everyone's results. And then the earrings will be donated to Ears To You - another awesome idea - much better than just hoarding a bunch of beads.

What's been keeping us busy...

In addition to Daphne starting school, Joey also started preschool and likes it - especially the trains and school bus ( that he gets to play with - not ride).

Running a race....

 This was part of the race - climbing over a big net thing and jumping over fire...

 and this was part of the race - an army crawl in mud...

Soccer - for Daphne...

Swimming - for Daphne and Joey...  (Joey constantly has a huge grin when he is swimming)

Troublemaking for Brady...

 

First Day of School

Daphne's first day of school went off without a hitch.  She took the bus again and likes her teacher and likes eating lunch with all of the other kids.  She's doing great for all day first-grade. 
It's a little quiet without her around...

 First day of first grade...

 Waiting for the bus with Joey

 A beautiful moth that was on our Wishing Well in the backyard - love the colors.

 Some new earrings for myself... with lampworked glass.

 I'm trying to finish some projects and this bracelet has been half finished for awhile, so I finally took the time to tie up the loose ends - figuratively and truly.

And another project that I started awhile ago and have been taking up space in teh dining room.  Some fabric covered button hairbands.  They turned out very cute.