Milkweed

You know, I have this thing for milkweed.

I think I feel a new oil painting coming on.

Earrings Are My Favorite

Just goofing around making earrings - for Halloween and beyond.

Wee chili pepper headpins with a skull added - simple enough.

Earrings are my favorite thing to make and I make lots, and lots, of them.
Hands down, the best overly decorative fix. Is anything ever too crazy for a pair of earrings? No.
They're the candy of jewelry, little bits of sweetness.

I've added a new category to my list of labels - earrings.
So if you want to look at my stuff for some lobe lovin' inspiration - do it.

Eureka!

Finally, a technical success.
A pseudo-Pandora bead.

Sure, it's just a practice bead with copper instead of silver...

and I stupidly used the 'Q' instead of the 'O' stamp.
Apparently I need a stronger pair of glasses.

So what, the glass bead is atrociously ugly.
The big news is - it all worked.
I have so many exciting ideas for this, it's time to go make beads.

Hello Halo

A new style of earring I am messing with, a glass bead with a little ring of semi-precious stones.
They sold out immediately on Sunday, so I guess I'll be making more of these.

The pair on the left are labradorite around a bead, and the ones on the right are carnelian ringing headpins.

Artist's Row 2012

A really nice snapshot of a shopper looking at my glass buttons yesterday at "Artist's Row."

(photo by Annette Dragon)

Thanks to everyone who came out yesterday to the Rochester Public Market for "Artist's Row."
This annual show is just a wonderful monster of an event, it was my 8th year exhibiting.
It was a perfect, perfect day!

Morning Glories

Morning Glories - oil on canvas, 24" x 24" (sold)
It's good to have finished a new painting.

Brushy

Two new brush and ink drawings.

Yes, they'll be for sale at the Rochester Public Market during Artist's Row on Sunday.
I'm in shed C, booth 30.
Truly, I have no idea what was going on in my head last night when I drew these.

A Pot of Coffee with a Unicorn

I'm reviving an old series of charm necklaces I called "Mexican Voodoo."
They're part Mexican Day of the Dead, part Voodoo charm and all tongue in cheek.
No magical powers included.

Each one has a hand carved bone skull, a flameworked glass bead body and a nifty found object charm.

This one my daughter snatched up, because she knows it takes big brass balls to be a unicorn.

Opening Day of Earring Season

It's the beginning of earring season, it coincides with the start of the NFL football season.
As in, I hammer earring wires and make baubles while watching the Buffalo Bills lose on tv.

Little eyes of protection for your ears (above).

I always underestimate the number of purple earrings I need to make.
What is it with purple earrings?

I wish you could see how iridescent these are, they look like little green peas inside soap bubbles.

I really like the ear wires on this pair, they're designed to look little sterling silver plant tendrils.

Heavenly Planets

I'm just starting the long process of building my holiday inventory.

 

Big glass balls with hand hammered bead caps.
They're fun to fiddle, and fidget, with.

A peek at their underwear - the bead cap bottoms.

To make this bead you start with a cylinder bead of black, roll that in silver foil (not leaf) and then encase in light amber, pale transparent teal, and pale transparent grass green.

Now all I need to do is make another 30 or 40 of them.

Not For Love or Money

I make a lot of these pendants, they have a big fancy glass heart paired with a special found object.
They're called 'Love Charms.'

This battered nickle was given to me as change - I was thrilled.
It's the lucky nickle, lucky to still be alive. I cannot imagine what chewed it up like that.
I used my helicopter punch to make the hole, my favorite new tool,

I'm not even sure what mish mosh of glass I used in the heart - it was an end of the day bead made with scraps on my bench and stuff picked out of my 'shorts' bowl.  I know the base was mostly cobalt blue and black, then some silver foil and some lime green odd lot double helix. It looks like there might also be some transparent aqua and some opal blue frit in there...

I called it "Not for Love or Money" because even though it's a heart (love) and a coin (money) it not what the charm invokes.* It's about being happy to still be alive, about dodging the bullet, surviving a big scare. Like that little nickel, it may be worse for wear but it made it through whatever nasty misadventure befell it.

* invoke - to call on (a deity or spirit) in prayer, as a witness, or for inspiration 

Mrs. Moth

I am much more of a social moth than a social butterfly. Make of that what you will.

Glass moth bead - raku glass wings with a light silver plum body, about 1 3/4" wide across the wings.

End of Summer Bracelet

It's my favorite time of year, when summer starts to yield to fall.
There's that feeling to the air, the garden is overspent, it's full on tomato season, the first apples are picked.
The kids are still excited to be back in school but it's not yet time to unpack all the sweaters.

So, one last summery bracelet, after this it's on to autumn colors. 

Leaves and Sky Bracelet : flamework glass beads and sterling silver

The lumpy little clouds are made with Effetre 'Sky Blue Opalino' glass and the leaves are Effetre'Mosaic Green.'

I am starting to get the hang of hammering my own clasps.

This is the photograph that inspired the bracelet.

It got blogged a few weeks ago, but everyone is always asking me where "my inspirations" come from.

And, bonus, the drawing for the bracelet from my jewelry sketchbook.

South Bethany Beach, Delaware

Did you miss me?
I was away being a complete slug - it was perfect.

When we arrived the ocean was angry. Such a storm.
After that, six days of the nicest vacation weather ever.

I sketched a little, read a ridiculously lo-brow book, picked up shells and wandered the beach.
We drank fancy Dogfish Head, since it is the local beer when you're at the Delaware shore.
One whole day I spent learning, from a master, how to bar-be-que a pork shoulder.

I just want to go back.