Rain on the Way...

or so they claim for Saturday...The upside is that I will likely get to wear my most fabulous rain boots to visit the dog show tomorrow, the downside is that it will be gray and cold and sad outside. But, don't you worry, I will be surrounded by fluffy fuzz puffs of canine happiness and that combined with my ever so cute rain boots will make for a most fantastic day!

Now although Pupper will not be able to join me at the dog show, I did get some glamor shots of her this week with my new camera. We've had a very old and mediocre camera for quite some time now but Kelley was the most horrible influence on her last trip to SD and caused us to long for a lovely camera like she had...

I have such plans for it! First, I need to figure out how to use it...

I took some new pendant pics on the most gorgeous textile-like paper that I have been hoarding for (literally) months... What do you think of the monochromatic pics? Too much distraction with the patterned background? I love these patterns though...lots of ideas for pendant designs here...


A pile of some nifty pieces I need to get on the website... A few in my matte foam glaze that turned out to be perfection!


Another peek at a lovely customer's finished creation... Cynthia came up with this lovely combination matched to my peacock glazed pendant.

Sadly you can't find Cynthia online yet, she's a brick and mortar girl, but you can pop by her blog to say hi.

Hopefully come Tuesday I will have some super cool (for me) news to share!
Have a most wonderful, dry and warm weekend all...

Look What Dana Did...

Check out her pretties using my pendants! Dana of Colors of the Woods has such a lovely way of matching my glazes with her gemstone beads, doesn't she? You can find her ArtFire shop by clicking on the pictures...I just love to see what my customers come up with!

Plans and Projects...

The last couple weeks have been on the hectic and busy side- I feel like I've been trying to cram in more than usual...although that has also included fun time with friends and fitting in a short run every couple of days (only because I can't do a long run yet!). For that reason, not a whole lot of new work has resulted from me in the last few days...but I have been glazing, and enough to fire the kiln today so there will be some restocking of the website happening this week.

So even though there's not so much new from me, I have a knockout bracelet to share made by Dawn of Northern Adornments... I love that she was able to find a matte finish wire for her Viking Knit to pair with the Spruce bracelet bar. Check out how perfect that weave is!

Despite my busy bee-ness this week I have managed to spend endless chunks of time fabric hunting online. After my visit to the wonderful fabric/yarn/book/gift shop a couple of weeks ago with my neighbor where I picked up some super funky fabric, I decided that I needed to dust off the sewing machine again. The amazing fabric (which I can't find a pic of online so you'll just have to wait for the finished product!) is destined for a super cute apron using this pattern... I think I might change up the pocket a bit and go for a smaller, side pocket instead of a large centered one though. Also while at The Grove, I discovered Amy Butler's Style Stitches book with the most adorable mix of handbag patterns.



I was so smitten with this particular bag...that I decided to take a huge leap of faith in my novice sewing skills and give it a shot! I chose this amazing peacock pattern for the outside of the bag... and this pretty design for the interior. The bag pattern includes dividers to keep everything organized inside so I'll be using a nice grass green in the background color of the interior fabric. The biggest challenge was finding home decor fabrics that I loved in the same online shop as the trim fabric for my apron! The purse fabric is a little trickier to locate as it needs to be 54" wide instead of the usual quilting/apparel width of 44-45". Luckily I was able to find what I needed at Fabric.com...although I still need to pick up the supporting materials for the handbag. I may have to procrastinate on it for a little while though to work up the nerve!

Just a quick reminder that my CSN stores contest is still running until Thursday so if you haven't entered, hop over to that post to comment!

When Things go Terribly Wrong...

you begin the blog post with lovely eye candy. Or at least this is the approach that I'm choosing to take today...which may be misconstrued as denial but really should just be interpreted as avoidance. This lovely bracelet is by Shannon of For My Sweet Daughter. I love how she echoed the colors in this Robin's Egg Abstract Butterfly pendant but I also think the design is great...not too fussy but enough little details to be special.
In further delay of my traumatic story of gore I will let you know that I have added a whole bunch of new pendants, beads and caps to the website. Look, aren't they shiny and pretty? But there were a few dud pendants that curved on me because of rushing...I thought the glaze turned out great though so I hate to just scrap them...anyone interested in a giveaway of slightly wonky curved pendants? If there's enough interest I'll do a giveaway next post.

So for those of you who are squeamish or just don't want to hear my whiny tale of woe, stop reading here, leave me a comment that you do/don't want wonky curved pendants, and check back on the next post...

I'll wait...

Ok, all heebie jeebie prone sensitive souls gone? (don't worry, no photos for this segment)

What a day yesterday! Mid-way through my morning I feel a little something moving around the back of my upper molar. At first I thought it was just a piece of granola bar or something but then realized it was much too large and it "kind of" hurt. So I finally realized that part of my tooth had broken and called my dentist. They got me in near the end of the day and told me that it was completely crazy that a chunk of my tooth would completely shear away when there wasn't decay present. What can I say, I don't do things halfway...if you're going to be a tooth grinder you might as well create nice deep molar fractures while you're at it!

The dentist pulled out the broken chunk **gore alert** which had pieces of pulp attached from the root. Since the root was hit and the break went all the way below the gum line I had two choices…root canal, gum surgery which might have to include some bone removal, and a cap or pull the tooth and decide after it heals if I want to proceed with a dental implant.

After some discussion between both dentists in the office (husband and wife team) we decided it was best to pull it, but since the root was exposed they figured I was going to be in terrible pain until it was pulled... so they called the oral surgeon who said his next opening wasn't until today at 3:30! The dentist called him back and apparently did some sweet talking (the wife, not the husband)... the surgeon called his babysitter to stay late and I had to zip across town to his office asap.

End result... numb face, hole in the mouth and prescriptions for super strength ibuprofen and percocet. I was foolishly optimistic that I'd be back to "normal" today but it still hurts too much to eat or talk so I'm benched for at least another day or two. Most frustrating for me, unproductive time as it's just too darn uncomfortable to move much.

Wow, thanks to any of you who decided to stick it out with me to the end of the post! The moral of this story...ok, there's no moral but at least I can say that I'm very thankful this didn't happen while I was eating and drinking my way through Napa and Sonoma!

Next post...something uplifting when I'm no longer medicated :)

Noticeably Nostalgic

I was so excited to open my email to this photo from Erin of Tesori Trovati Jewelry. She used one of my petal pink asian circle pendants with Vintaj filigree wrap. In her words, she added Vintaj chain segments interspersed with vintage Czech cathedral beads, brass filigree beads, gray freshwater potato pearls, golden shadow swarovski crystal bicones and finished it with a brass trigger clasp, a brass butterfly charm and a small gray pearl. I loved that she designed it with the filigree wrapping around the back so that the pendant can be worn facing forward or backward. Glazing the front and back of a pendant takes a bit more effort than just glazing one side, if it's only glazed on the front the pendant can sit on a kiln shelf during firing. However, if it's glazed on the back as well, the pendants need to hang in the kiln so they don't touch anything. I do it just because I like the uniformity of both sides being glazed, but I think it's wonderful when a designer takes advantage of that extra detail as well!

Erin also mentioned something that I thought was worth addressing here- that my pendants were thinner than she thought they could be and because of that she was worried about breaking it while wrapping it in the Vintaj filigree. Since my pendants are made from high fire clay, they're quite durable but my goal is definitely to make them as thin as possible without compromising their strength so they are lightweight. The only time I've broken them is when they've encountered a harder surface, i.e. pendant meets tile floor, pendant flies out of my hands on to cement, and so on. Treat them like you would a nice dinner plate or your favorite coffee mug and you should be fine! If you're wirewrapping or filigree wrapping, it's important to not put too much pressure against the edges and be careful not to slip with your pliers but you don't have to treat the pendants like they're made of eggshell!

Back to the glazing table so I have another batch ready to go in the kiln tomorrow- I'm aiming for three glaze firings this week so there should be plenty of new work on my website by next week!