What?

I renewed a couple of items, but that's all I did for the jewelry biz today. Oh well. I'm hoping to get more done tomorrow! I was gone most of the morning, and I got lots of other things done, so I'm not too worried about it!

What did you do today?

To Live is to Create

Pink Delight Bracelet

I ran across this quote by Bruce Lee of all people and had to share it!

"To Live is to Create - 

To live is to express, and to express you have to create.

Creation is never merely repetition.

To live is to express oneself freely in creation."

~ Bruce Lee

Busy, Busy

It's been another busy week and I honestly haven't gotten much crafty stuff done! I've been too tired or not home or whatever. The side-effects from the medication withdrawals are getting better though! So my sincere hope is that I'll be back to more of a "normal" schedule sometimes in the next few days :)

On of the reasons I've been so busy is because my best friend has been home for a visit, and I don't get to see her very often! She means a lot to me and I've been wearing myself out spending time with her. That's a good thing though! And well worth it :) In fact, she's coming over tonight for a movie night. I'm trying to get a few things (blogs mostly, and a little organizational stuff) before she gets here and then my plan is to crochet while we watch tv! I'm way behind on my baby blanket.

Still Here, Still Kicking

I just wanted to update my blog, and update all of you who actually read this thing as to why I've been absent!

Those of you who know me fairly well know that I've been fighting a long battle over the last two years. For anyone who's just getting to know me....the short story is that about two years ago my asthma attacks (which have been severe for years) grew drastically worse. The doctors have tried all sorts of medication and treatment, but they haven't been able to get it under control.

As a part of trying to treat my asthma, I've been on steroids for the last two years. They have kept me alive, kept me out of the hospital, but being on steroids is NOT the ideal situation! Since we are finally getting my asthma under control (that's a long story too), we are working to at the least reduce my steroid levels, and at best get me completely off them!

The only problem with getting me off the steroids is that I get to go through withdrawals, just like a druggy, as we go through the process. The good news is that I'm not having any super serious asthma attacks, the bad news is that I'm exhausted and dealing with about 5 different side effects.

Combine that with having a busy week, and I just didn't have the energy (mental or physical) to blog this week! I haven't really gotten much done crafty wise either. I do have lots of ideas on the table though, and I'm hoping to get to spend some time beading and catching up on watching things tonight :)

Back to Normal?

Can anyone truly say what's normal and what's not? It's an intriguing question... Anyway, life these last few weeks has been pretty crazy, but I think I'm going to be able to start getting back to something at least resembling my "normal" routine now. My ribs have healed up quite a bit so the pain is no longer interfering with my ability to get things done (at least not as much), I'm adjusting emotionally to the reality of my Granny having cancer, and the holiday craziness has calmed down a little!

Our holiday's aren't over yet though. My brother has been out of the country for the last two years and he comes home tomorrow night! I'm so excited! Since he's coming home right after Christmas, we put off celebrating our family Christmas until he could be with us, so that will be Thursday night. Saturday we have a big welcome home party too.

Despite that I should be able to get at least most of my normal stuff done! So hopefully you'll start seeing me around the forums and visiting your blogs more again :)

Crafty ADD Update #8 and Health Update

Hey guys! Sorry I've been quiet the last few days. My migraines got REALLY bad, and we figured out that I've been reacting to them painting my apartment complex. I figured this out on Friday, but was determined to just stick it out. Then Saturday was horrible, and when I woke up on Sunday just as bad... Well that's when Mo and I made the decision to have me move back in with my parents temporarily. Hopefully it's just for a week or two until the paint fumes settle. The whole process has been exhausting, but I do seem to be doing some better now that it's been a few days so it looks like it's working!

Have no fear - I packed up my crafty stuff and brought it with me! So I'll still be hard at work creating fun crafty things :D And now that I'm starting to feel a little bit better that means I'll get more done again :P Unlike this last week... Here's where I'm at though!

Crochet

Didn't get as much done on this, this week. I'm going to have to step it up so it gets done in time for next months baby shower!

Fun piece of news - I just found out yesterday that my "brother" and his wife are having another baby! I won't need to start on that baby blanket until after Christmas though. Plenty of time to figure out what I want to do. I might do another crochet project...or I might do a quilting project :D

Cross-Stitch

I still have a lot of ideas floating around my head for the next cross-stitch project, but I havan't had the brains to do the actual planning. So I've worked more on putting thread on bobbins! Going for a bit of raibow type pattern since these threads don't have numbers like the DMC thread that I have in my other storage box.

Jewelry

I love doing custom orders! This piece is the first piece in 5 piece set I'm making for a gal in Germany. The piece shown above is an arm band that's designed to be able to be tied with one hand to secure a shawl to the upper arm. I'll be making a matching one like this, two bracelets in the same color but w/ beads, and a choker, also with beads

More About my Project

Yesterday I blogged about my jewelry board project. One of my friends asked why I was hanging all my jewelry up? Well the answer is fairly simple - I have too much jewelry!

Ok, maybe not too much, but the only way to put it in a jewelry box would be to buy an expensive jewelry armoire. While that would be pretty, that is, like I said, expensive! In my apartment up north I simply put a bunch of thumb tacks into the wall. It was a college apartment and rather pathetic, so I didn't care :P

Since we've moved home from Ellensburg most of my jewelry has been boxed up, or lying in a plastic tub. So either I've had no access to it for a year, or it's been tangling easily in my box so I haven't been pulling it out too often!

Using the bulletin board to hang up my necklaces and bracelets, and then the embroidery hoops for my earrings, will keep my jewelry untangled and easy to access! That means I'll probably wear it more often. Who knows? Maybe that will lead to more sales!

I also have some new items to show you! Leave me a comment about your favorite to get an extra entry in my top commentators contest!

Having Some Fun :)

I was having a bad day - so my brother and I decided it was time to cheer me up! We did a pretty darn good job too :) If you want to see some of the fun photos I posted, go visit my other blog.

I'm also excited because it looks like I'm going to be hiring my brother in the future to do product photography for me! This really excites me for two reasons. One, he has a better camera. Two, my hands shake a lot from medication so it's HARD for me to get good pictures. We're still working out the details but he took a bunch of shots for free today so I can now work on a bunch of new listings!

We also picked up my old bulletin board from my parents house. I stripped it of it's misc items (that was a trip down memory lane) and I started hanging up my necklaces and bracelets. I'm not done, but here's what I have so far! Only problem is I'm rediscovering necklaces of my own that I want to re-make :P

My earrings are going to be on a embroidery hoop. Well, two hoops probably looking at this pile! All I did on that today was to pull them out from their various places they were stashed and dump them on the hoop :P

I've given up the project for the day. Too much moving around and I'm not breathing too clear. I'm assuming it's from the stress earlier this day that had me all in the dumps :P Not feeling as stressed right now, but these things can affect my body long after...

I've been Tagged Again!

Thanks to Gallery32 for tagging me! I'm in a random mood tonight - so I'm actually filling this one out :) I'm not passing it on though - but if you like it fill it out ok!

10 Things About Me:

1. I'm a hopelessly addicted Sci-fi and Fantasy Fan

2. When I don't blog, I feel sad :(

3. I probably read at least 4 books a week.

4. I'm a compulsive over achiever.

5. If I'm beading/crafting I'm probably watching something on Hulu.com

6. Because of my health problems I have more friends on line right now than in the real world.

7. I love being outdoors, but the outdoors and my lungs don't always get along.

8. I love coffee!

9. I love chocolate!

10. I'm on a diet so I have to be careful of the last two :P

Getting Ready

I'm so excited about putting my jewelry out to be sold on commission! It's a lot of work to get ready though. I already had a bunch of stock created (whew) so this morning I pulled out my lamps, camera, and took a whole bunch of photos! I'm not sure when (if ever) I'll get a chance to edit them, but at least I have visuals for myself now if I want to look back and see what I created for the shop. I have a nice mix of earrings, woven earrings, some necklaces, charm bracelets, link bracelets, and woven pieces. I love it because I get to showcase most of my styles of work! Woohoo! Really the only one missing is hemp ...and that's because she said hemp doesn't really sell in her store. That's fine with me! I'm a rather eclectic artist anyway :P

So what's next? Well I need to finish preparing one of my display stands (probably do that tomorrow), create an inventory list for myself and to give to the store owner, and tag all the items.

Whew.

I'll get it done though!

Oh - and of course I haven't completely stopped creating while I work on this. I need breaks after all! Last night I finished the next piece in my Elements Series - Swiftly Changing Waters :) I love how it turned out!