7/11/16

Coming Back to Life


Hello my lovely friends. It is such a pleasure to write to you, to imagine you, well, caring what I have to say or am up to or have made. Thank you guys for your encouraging comments they make me happy.
Here's a big ol' bunch of things I just set using my Cosmic Rocks technique. Cuz an etsybud send me the fangs, as well as some lovely stones and other things, so I thought I should get to mounting all these bits I've been letting lie unused and unloved.
Including, on left, stuff I just leafed like the edge of this huge stone left me by Patroness, and these two iridescent leaves from Teapotsandtelephones which I also put wire coils on from some old kuchi to make the skinny antique wires more substantial. Maybe I'll earring them up like I did those purple headpins from last time:







Here's a big ol' pile of necklaces I've made and have been listing all day.

I don't know why lately I've been taking pictures of my necklace batches all displayed together. I guess it's from seeing how popular that kind of thing is on Pinterest. Ladies who pin seem to subscribe to the "more is more" aesthetic I suppose. Even though the vast majority of necklaces purchased in the world are actually quite simple and minimal. But then, my target audience isn't into conservative and understated.


A Happy Miracle.



Check out my coin purse necklace!
OK, we've all seen adorable antique coin purses made into necklaces but my innovation was to stitch milagros- from Inheritance Haul- all over the front. Tell me that doesn't look super special? Cuz it's the look of a bunch of milagros together that we recognize from seeing folk altars and religious pieces from Mexico and the like. The coiled rope chains are all sterling from Peru, also fro Inheritance Haul. Cuz I thought the rest needed to be super simple. Make a good layering necklace I think.
(OMG I'm so glad I raised the price up, fucker already sold!)

And speaking of locket-type containerish pieces ...


The Smallest Word Can Reach Me.

So this is a little Turkoman prayer box that was also left to me by Patroness. I turned it's siblings into earrings once upon a time: 
How wild are those?
Here, I removed the dangles for labradorite and textured rhinestone drops (Teapots) and took out the cheap bead cabs to put in vintage gold-painted ones.
Like the purse above, another long necklace with a locket-type focal and minimal chain busy-ness.
But still quite special with a thin sterling rope from Inheritance Haul, jonquil chain from Teapots and these superduo seed beads with dark variegated coloring that I tied into a sort of cord. I think it looks way cool. Also filigree ovals I linked in a long length and scroll chain which I lurv.

Extender chain dangle has two little post earrings from Inheritance that I made into drops by curling the post wire.


A Dark Patience.

Check out all this glowy goodness.
A bunch of Gobi Desert Agates, tile by JBDRusticOrganic and this ammonite I leafed the entire back of which looks super cool.


In the same glowy orange/amber vein:

When the World was Luminous.


OK so this wooden souvenir I had gotten from lumina jewelry who was previously RomAntiqueSoul. It was, like, almost interesting, you know? But frustratingly not quite there. However, as soon as I thought to slap that metal leaf on it, it became perfect. It's from 1875! I added a copal/resin amber bead from Inheritance haul and a chunky drop nugget of Gobi Desert Agate. Also includes a bunch of my faux ancient polybabies, vintage glass and lampwork.




A Final Accounting.
These took FOREVER to get right. The one still looks longer than the other but they at least look like they belong together and they're not tangling up all over or lopsided... They are from Inheritance haul plus faceted tourmaline nugs from my recent friend gift. I had to solder connector loops on to those sterling ear wires. Turns out the one on the left was pewter and I almost melted the whole thing with my insanely hot soldering iron.

Plus I went ahead and added this nutty babble to the description.
"As for the naming of the pair: after making these, I noticed I’d chosen an American coin depicting the people this country tried to remove from the planet. Not only that, but I paired it with a religious medal representing beliefs of many of our founders, at least widely defined, a belief system that should have prevented that genocide. How ironic indeed. Some of us do care deeply about the ill we do each other in this world, but does it matter? The families who became rich off of slavery, for example, are still rich. The descendants of those humans they owned are still impoverished. So is there any final record, a metaphorical tally in heaved, a filing cabinet where accounts are kept and note is taken for later reckoning? Can there ever be an acknowledging of the injustices imposed upon the powerless by the powerful? Will Karma ever save us?
Heady stuff for a simple pair of earrings yet this is the kind of thought process that goes into my creation of the Victorian tribal aesthetic, as well as the stream-of-conscience associations that go into my naming process."
OK so I was concerned it might be a bit much and that it might even turn off some more conservative buyers but you know what? Fuck it, I'm not doing this for money and it's not like I'm saying something revolutionary there. I mean, people don't maybe want to be reminded of slavery while earring shopping but for me that stuff never really goes away. It they can't handle it, oh well.
Music of the Spheres. Sterling hoop earrings with polymer clay art beads. Rustic artisan jewelry by fancifuldevices
Music of the Spheres.
OK, I could not get the camera to focus on those beads! I made these hoops of real sterling and yeah. Here you go, a simple pair that feature my polybabies in all their lone glory. No other clutter in the way.

What else? Oh, I went back to the gym. I actually wasn't as bad as I thought I'd be. All those weeks of trying to work out while suffering flu-like symptoms got to me psychologically. But I think I'll be ok.

Lord of the Stars. Victorian tribal artisan bracelet with antique Kuchi.Also, recently I took down a whole bunch of things that had been languishing in the shop. At first it made me fret but I feel much better for it. If something doesn't sell in months, there's probably a reason. I realized most of the items I took down had serious design flaws and I'm either going to address them or use the parts.
Like this bracelet which is good but too long and the razzle dazzle of the focals isn't reflected in the strands of rustic black beads. So I tightened up the end loops and added leaf and blue pigment powder to the beads.


Look! I'm not completely sure how I'm going to finish it clasp-wise but I already like it more.
Iridian - keyhole bracelet with reclaimed colorful glass beads - rustic assemblage jewelry

Also this which the celluloid flower dangle had nothing to do with the brightness in rest of the bracelet.
I removed it and went hunting for bright bits. Now I'm not 100% satisfied with it since the enameled ball bead isn't to the scale of the rest of the piece, but I'm certainly moving in the right direction.


Eternitarian - artist pin brooch with mixed media - India aesthetic - bohemian rustic art jewelry←Or this piece which on the one hand I really like, on the other I realize the image has nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of the piece- namely, the frame and the mandolin. If instead I found an old art image of someone playing a similar instrument to tie it all together? Ehhhh?

So here I am trying to get fit:
 
   
Here's me sharing food:
 

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7/4/16

Happy Forth cuz 'Murica!

Have I been blogging? No. Have I been making? Yes. Am I recuperated from the surgery? Sorta. It's not going as fast as I would've wanted and I seem to have some serious dizziness issues now cuz I wouldn't be me without issues!
One lovely customer sent me a bunch of her theeengs to make something out of. Kinda funny because I can recognize all my etsy peeps among her stash, and I just got to play with her pretty stuff! 
Here's a double-wrap grey choker with optional cluster pendant fall.

I made these just to fill out some gaps in the necklace above, though I only ended up using three. 
Here are some headpin earrings before I added the ear wires. The pins are by Lori Lochner. I'm very proud of these actually. Like, with these kinds of headpins, it's hard not to make them worse by trying to do anything with them, they're so lovely as is. So you have to do something that frames them, even improves upon them, without taking anything away.

The same is true for these beauties by numinositybeads. PLUS I managed to break one, so yay. However, I was able to fix it with a bit of kintsugi-inspired magic.
←Kitsugi
So I added a strip of gold around the other pin as well, draped with some of the customer's own sterling chain, and topped with dangly caps. Again, trying not to overwhelm. Now I'm thinking if the sterling were yellow metal it might have been better but I didn't want to waste all that lovely sterling.

I also made this with beads by Happyfallout and shipwreckdandy, a ring from Outwest and the client's amethyst pendant and turquoise flower necklace.

I had been planning to make some architectural sort of constructionist  earrings with my own beads for a while now.
Stelliferous- abounding with stars
I did these with my style of soldered ball pins.
Also Ethiopian opals which are impossible to capture the strange flash of, so I approximate by upping the saturation around some of the edges.
Ichorethereal golden fluid flowing in the veins of the gods like blood.

These are with longer, finer hammered arches (upside down Vs?).

Esemplastic- having the ability to shape diverse elements or concepts into a unified whole

When I shared TeapotsandTelephones' gift haul a while back I showed you these big glass discs. I embellished them with some orange flowers from her gift decals as well. Unfortunately, the adhesive necessary to keep them on made the little glass facets  disappear. But yeah so then I hung the discs on rings and below, a big chunky Gobi Desert Agate and an amber glass drop pendant from Inheritance haul. AND another friend sent gifts including those carnelian ovals wich dangle to the side.

Earthy. Geode (from the ancient Greek for earthy) set in a cupped ring using my Cosmic Rocks technique.

Y'all I actually had this listed a million years ago. It got misplaced but now it's back. I made the finger band smaller and painted my nails grey cuz grey.

Love's Vast Filed.
“Each moment from all sides rushes to us the call to love.
We are running to contemplate its vast green field.
Do you want to come with us?”
― Rumi


The best tin ever, from Uruguay, along with two mis-matched polybaby connectors and sterling-wrapped briolettes from Inheritance Haul. Honestly I think they're coral cuz I don't know anything else that looks like that. But I've never seen coral cut so precisely. 
Soul's Destiny.
"It is the soul's destiny to be loyal to its own desires. It must abandon itself to its master passion."
-Rebecca West


You've seen similar to these before. The ladies love 'em. They're already gone.

These are gone too. Navettes were from aforementioned Teapots haul. Also Uruguayan tin and Japanese cotton pearls which I finally tried alcohol ink to tone down the electric sea foam color and it worked.

I have a bunch more to photograph tomorrow.
How have I been this productive while still feeling not 100%? Becuuuuz I finally fixed my coffee problem! Mom read a bunch on it and in one tiny corner of the web, one chick was saying the irritable bowel caused by caffeine isn't in the intestine, it's in the stomach- the caffeine signals the place to flood with tummy acids. So guess what? I take two omeprazol (pepcid) about 1-2 hours before caffeine and I'm golden. Sure, it means I have to wake up two hours before I wake up to take it but I'm just that light a sleeper. Sort of, sometimes it ends up being 4 hours and it still works. I'm not even in mouth-pain from being parched!
I know you wanted to hear all about that in great detail but dude, this is huge for me. All us artsy people are riddled with vague health issues, as you well know.

Check out my baby's paw tufts. Doesn't he look a tad affronted to be bothered mid-nap?
Also this baby:                                                               And this actual baby:
  
I can't thank you guys enough for all of your lovely encouraging comments. You are all such kind souls I feel so lucky to have drawn you all to me somehow.

I know how to thank you! An extra long cute animals section.

We haven't seen dogs for a while 'round these parts.

The other day I was feeling so dizzy I actually started to cry (didn't I say something about never crying last post? Crap.) So I just googled cute dogs and scrolled and smiled.

 
I think the still photos capture just as much of a story as the gifs.
   

 
Aaaand it's 5:30 AM and I'm somehow still awake. Cuz of course I am. Crip crap paddywack.



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