ho hum

you'd think as much as i talk, i'd be better at this blogging thing...

BUT i shall try to post more as i am starting a summer camp here for my kids this year and want to document as much as possible!  camps aren't in the budget (seriously, who has $600 to send two kids to half day camp for only a week???) and i feel so bad that mama can't swing that kind of dough so i'm starting CAMP of AWESOME (kids picked the name).  i picked Camp Lackofmoolah but that has a negative tone, yes?  i have about 100 things i want to attempt, including art projects, field trips, etc. that will keep the kids happy.  i'm determined to make this an epic summer, y'all!  more to come...

frosty photos and site update

My 2010 shows are finally over and I can now focus on stocking my retailers and get down to the holiday nitty gritty with the kids.  It has been frigid outside and I have been dreading taking product shots but I recently discovered that we get such fantastic late fall/winter daylight in our huge front windows and got totally lucky with these shots.  I'm in love with how they turned out (post processing is fun, too). 

 These new pretties are in the shop but going fast!  I'm so thrilled with the positive response to my new resin work.  I can't wait to get the storybook charms back up and running with resin instead.  I'm so burned out on soldering after all these years.  =)

all work and no play...

Actually, my work is play so that phrase doesn't really apply.  I am worn out all the same though! =)  I have two shows on Sunday and it has been hard for me to make such a massive amount of jewelry this week.  I'm just ready to walk away for a while even though I think I've done that a bit too much this week already.  I don't think I have enough made but I am burned out at the moment.   Here's a sneak peek...

 

 

okay, back to work.  i mean, PLAY. 

A friend of mine brought this piece to my attention again and I'm so thankful.  For years, I have only had Holly's feature as a good record which unfortunately had broken links (the original site is much different now) but through some poking around and slap happy clicking, I found the original article and the tutorial, too!  Hurray!  At first, viewing the pictures, the text and the jewelry (and the house in the background) brought a big lump to my throat and a few tears to my eyes.  Amy contacted me about the feature not long after the ex and I split and it was such a wonderful boost at a no-good, rotten time and a great distraction.

It is a such a beautiful piece and so well crafted.  Amy Powers is gifted like that I'm so grateful that she found me worthy.  Thank you, Amy.

Photo credits to Holly of Decor 8 and Amy of InspireCo.  The really nice picture of me above (one of the two in my lifetime) was taken by the lovely Casey Futrell.

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Thursday was the 25th anniversary of Calvin & Hobbes.  I was obsessed with reading this comic in "the funnies" each day back when I was 16 and I vividly recall finding out on my birthday that Bill Watterson was taking his first hiatus.  I was crushed.  How would I live without my daily fix of a boy and his tiger?  Calvin and his little buddy were a wonderful, insightful, hysterical escape for my teenage self and I've never tired of reading and re-reading the books.

Once a boy broke my heart and kept all of my Calvin & Hobbes books, except two, and I remember calling him after we broke up to ask for them back.  I asked more than once to no avail and ended up screaming into his answering machine that I didn't give a damn about our break up; I just wanted my beloved books back!  (No, I never got them back.  Asshat.)  

Calvin & Hobbes was one of the things my Dad and I talked about the night he passed away.

I used to visit Grateful Dead shows just to collect the bootleg Calvin & Hobbes tees.  Bill Watterson, I'm glad you'll never read this.  

Last year, The Boy finally discovered my C&H books in his bookcase and fell in love, too.  I think he's read them all a zillion times each and we delight in reading them together before we fall asleep.  Giggling together over the endless shenanigans, sarcasm, jabs at the hapless Dad, the brilliant snowgoons, the philosophical questions that need a little explaining and the tender adoration of Calvin to his stuffed tiger are memories that I will take with me to the end.  I know he will, too.

“If your knees aren’t green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life.” -Bill Waterson

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tgif.

I've been doing a bit of mental revamping and planning for a new direction for my work.  I've been beyond burnt out on recycling vintage for a long time however that's what my stores and customers want so I've been accommodating them.  However, I find myself dreading putting things together the same old way with the same old components.  I can't tell you what I'm up to (b/c then I'll jinx it) but I can tell you that I will be retiring my soldering iron for Storybook Charms and moving into a more streamlined (and easily reproduced) direction.  It takes forever to create one of these pieces,

 

to get it just right with all the perfect bits and bobs and to do that a zillion times for stores and shows and my site is nothing short of torture.  I used to love it but now...I LOATHE it.    There is a certain appeal (at least for now) of repetition for production's sake.  

I have three shows coming up and we'll see then how the public takes the new stuff (gosh please let me be over the learning curve by then!).  Hopefully I'll even have my rebrand up and running soon, too.  I'm blessed to have an extremely talented friend who is willing to take on a logo redesign. 

By the way, how did October, the most amazing month EVAH, come and go so quickly?  I never even had pumpkin cheesecake like I usually do. And I turned 41 without nary a balloon or cocktail.  Damnit.    

Okay, November, whatcha got?