crow's nest

the guild of funerary violinists

these earring are my favorites, ever.

the crows are my flameworked glass beads made with dark silver plum glass.

the handwoven sterling silver nests each hold 3 freshwater pearls.

below the front and back of the nests.

no, i am not keeping them, they are promised to someone.

soft focus

i have such a thick head cold that when i snapped this pic of a freshly painted corner of my new studio i left the camera on macro - and didn't notice.

this pic stays because it is exactly how i feel - what is it about a cold that makes you so bleary?

come back later - like tomorrow - i have some lovely stuff to post.
such as, my favorite earrings ever.
and my first stab at free motion quilting.

winter birds

more new earrings.

little polymer clay birds rubbed with gold powder then perched on black peacock stick pearl branches. the findings are all sterling silver.


A kind word can warm three months of winter.
-japanese proverb.


i keep reminding myself that the magnolias in the park behind my house will bloom sooner or later.

crows & leaves

more new earrings.

glass crows made with dark silver plum glass.
wired together with leafy green fresh water pearls with sterling silver findings.

last december i wrote, and drew, a tutorial on making glass bird beads - if you want to read it click here.


more stuff packed up and 'scattered to the winds' from my studio.
actually, almost all of it is headed to the antique co-op.

taking pictures of all my fussy little vignettes seems to make them easier to take apart.

water sprite earrings

the beads from a few days ago (17 jan post) are earrings now.

i messed with them for ages, trying different pearls, moonstones, opals, etc.
and finally settled on something really tiny and simple - four lumpy rice pearls.


this picture is of a favorite little corner of my old studio. i took it all down today, which made me sad. the little bees are brush and ink drawings.
i also picked out paint for my new studio space this afternoon, which was anxiously fun.

i adore paint chips even more than potato chips.

strawberry charms

a new bracelet.

especially for the doc on her birthday.


it features some sculpey strawberryish beads from last summer - made the day when i first tried sculpey with the birthday girl. the doc is my polyclay guru.


there is also rock crystal, my flameworked glass beads, rose quartz, ceramic beads and even some antique italian glass wedding beads.


and because i never met a pearl i didn't love - wads of assorted freshwater pearls.


all strung on a sterling silver chain with sterling silver headpins and findings.

bad behavior

when i should have been working with gems...

i was plinking around on ebay buying them.
oh, but look at these pink freshwater pearls - they're huge - 24mm - each one almost a luscious fleshy inch long.


mossy leafy pearl perfection.


tiny diamond cut moon stones.


shopping is murder.
wonderful, wonderful murder.

winter cloudscapes

it was a beautiful late afternoon for cloudscapes.













digital photography is an image lovers dream come true.

alfred u. roadtrip

we drove miss freshman back to alfred university today, her winter break had come to an end.

it wasn't snowy but the temperature was a wicked cold zero. almost no one was on the road, it was desolate out there on the highway.


i rode shotgun and worked on knitting wooly socks.


miss baby in the back - happy to be heading back. she was pretty much done with us after more than a month at home, but we will certainly miss her.


almost there - in the middle of nowhere.


beautiful, beautiful clouds - i took lots of cloudscape photographs for a later post.


i never mind this drive, it's such beautiful country.

snowy trash

i have been working on one of my trash charm bracelets.


the pickings are always good in front of my favorite mexican joint - john's tex mex. it's rusty bottle cap heaven.

mmm, city snow.

i drilled holes in dozens of street caps today with my new dremel and then put grommets in them. i hope to finish up a bracelet over the weekend so that i can show one off here on monday.

water sprites

i am dreaming of water that's not frozen.

new beads - like swirling water.

made with a bunch of different rod ends of transparent blue. each bead has a bit of dichroic encased in their center for sparkle. they are simple to make - start with a round bead, mash it flat, spot heat an edge and twist with a matching stringer to make a swirl. keep spot heating and twisting the edges until you have it as swirly as you want, anneal the whole thing and onto the next bead.


hundertwasser - "end of waters"

4 glass crows

glass crows.

made with dark silver plum glass, each one is a little bigger than a dime.

when combined with the sterling silver nest charms these should make some spectacular earrings.

sorry about the blurry photograph - i have a wicked cold. why does being sick make for fuzzy photographs? i don't know, but it just does and it also means i am going to leave it that way rather than re-shoot.


wasn't that a dainty dish to set before the king?

sterling silver nests

have you ever made something haphazardly and then were called on to make it again? and the problem is you can't really remember how you made it?

that's how it is with these nests. i sat there today trying to remember how i made one months ago...


i know i used a couple thicknesses of sterling wire and a broken silver micro chainlink necklace picked up at a garage sale. i always buy anything sterling, usually these ugly little necklaces have broken clasps or a kink which makes them super cheap - and useful.


starting with the thicker wire i wrap it around the tip of my finger a few times and then roughly into the shape of the nest. then with a length of the superfine wire i start weaving the broken necklace chain into the mess. just like a bird.


it took the whole afternoon today to weave these two and each one is only about the size of a dime.


at the end i mixed up a bit of oil paint, with a lot of transparent glaze medium added in, and dabbed some inside the nests to give them a little bit of depth.


all they need now is to dry overnight and then i will wire some pearl 'eggs' into them.

public market #2 - merzbau

as i wrote last saturday - every saturday we go to the rochester public market. it is always a visual tune up and there should be pictures every weekend.

as the vendors sell their cases of fruit & veg the boxes are just tossed aside.

the wild heaps of cardboard always make me think of the dada collage artist kurt schwitters and his merzbau. ok, you want to argue that kurt schwitters was not a part of the dada movement - fair enough - i do not claim to be an art historian. but you cannot argue that the man was a great lover of a pile of cardboard boxes. his life's work was to create the perfect heap (installation) of boxes - the merzbau.

kurt schwitters - merz picture 32a (cherry picture collage)

little birds

this little ceramic bird came from an estate sale
- he nests on my desk.

i've been making more sculpey birds, like the ones from last summer, which ended up in this bracelet.

these have gold iridescent powder rubbed into them - they should work very well for the art bead scene 'ice storm' challenge.


some tiny crows with gold rubbed into them.

everyone seems to be making little birds - look here at humblebeads and here at earthenwood beads.
ahh, zeitgeist.

and some sculpey faux boix.


and since they just happen to match, a gratuitous photograph of some chocolate cupcakes we made.


"We don't see things as they are.
We see them as we are." - anais nin