Last day to enter contest!

The above art was done by Julie Coash.

Today is the last day to enter photos for the $50 bead/pendant giveaway! Send your entries to gaea (at) gaea (dot) cc!

Etsy Treasury Love.

A jewelry designer sent me this this week! It's the first time that I'm aware of, where one of my "gals" was up on one of those elusive treasury pages! Pretty cool, no? Thats my girl on the right second row down! Pretty cute idea for a treasury too! In Goddess we trust!

Where They've Been...

Here are a few of the pieces that have been here and there....


Anne Hartman created the above necklace as a gift for her daughters teacher. You can read about it on her blog and she was kind enough to mention us!




Donna Hardy created the above necklaces. She and her sister create jewelry for their etsy shop funkyMonkey!


Kelly Stribling also has an etsy shop, Beadliotheque How cute are the "coffee and donuts"!


These cuties came from Maureen Scott!

Keep sending in photos for a chance to win $50 in Gaea Pendants! Please mail entries to gaea (at) gaea (dot) cc!

Raccoon Poop?

Let it be known that in our house, poop is funny. Having two children one tends to suffer quite a bit of it. You may say that on some days we seem to be up to our eyes in it and not really noticing it. Poop. Nothing seems to phase us. So, one fine Saturday morning in the midst of our cleaning and car repairs and children watching and bead making, I came across something in our car port that looked suspiciously like poop. So I ask "Robert, Is this poop on the ground?" His reply, "Yah. It's raccoon poop." ... "Uh, raccoon poop?" I question. "Yes. Raccoon poop." How or why my dear husband would consider or know that a small turd on our property would be from a raccoon and not our 3 year old is beyond me. "But it's green." he notices.... Um, yah? Maybe it's the sheer number of diapers I've changed or the fact that our droopy drawred daughter had just pranced through that made me think otherwise. Raccoon poop. Ok Robert, go to your "happy place" I'll clean up the "raccoon poop".

The Art/Jewelry Exchange Update.

Click HERE to see how the Art/Jewelry exchange is progressing! It has one more stop and then back to me for so words and a greater plan....

WHOOO HOOOOO!

Guess who will have one bracelet and THREE pairs of earrings in the Winter 2008 issue of Stringing Magazine? ME! I am so thrilled! I don't know which ones sent will be used. I am so excited! (The photo is for the Fall issue due out soon. The Winter cover isn't available yet.)



I am a huge textile fan and have been collecting fabrics for ages. Pebble cloth and vintage fabrics are my favorites. I've been following the delightful blog of Cicada Daydream for a while. Her fabrics and home decor items are just dreamy. This last week she held a giveaway and my name was randomly drawn for her top prize! Almost 200 people entered to win various pieces of her new fabric line. I had my choice of two and had a REALLY hard time choosing! The Wild Mushroom and Pussy Willow prints won out. Which seems sort of unusual for me since I am so drawn to green and blue. I just had to say "thank you" again for such a generous and wonderful prize!

Must.... keep.... glazing....

More Crazy Squirrels!

Over the weekend our paths crossed once again with a wondering neighbor dog "Duke" who is an incredibly sweet and handsome Basset Hound. We've come to call him Mr. Bud and he spent Sunday visiting and playing until we had to walk him home. It just goes to show how attuned their noses are as our friend came into our yard (and away from scary street traffic) he found a squirrel on the ground and chased him up the side of our house. Man! That critter flew! Too far from a tree, this little guy found himself up our screen porch. Of course my fancy flash photography was probably scaring the heck out of him too. Excitement!

Keep sending entries for the contest! gaea (at) gaea (dot) cc

Round and round and round and round and round and round...

These are the bead from one almost all round bead firing. They are for a customer who makes some very special jewelry. Not just because she uses my pendants and beads but because of the message they send. Kelly of Lynn Kelly Jewelry has survived cancer and she had to get the word out there that others have too. Her message is a positive one, choosing to shed light on all of the survivors out there and she is doing it with jewelry. She has a few items listed in her etsy shop. Check her out!

Keep sending in contest photos! I'll be posting photos of some of the entries next week!

Tired.

I've been busting myself to get a special order fired and seem to have hit every obstacle along the way. The kiln is loaded and on. Whew! Now I have to turn myself around and immediately jump into the next firing. It is hard to do two in one month, but it must be done. I thought I would get a few hours to myself as Magnolia started preschool this week. She isn't ready to separate from Mama, so it's OK. We'll work on it. I did have an appointment with a local shop that just opened up this month. It sells only local art and good! A great idea as Ojai is know for it's artist community. I had to call and reschedule. We (Magnolia and I) were not up to it. The shop Made in Ojai will have a web site to help promote artist and they rotate jewelry designers to keep the shop fresh! I already know two other local friends that are featured! One of the parents at my daughters school has her botanical oils there and an etsy shop! More etsy love to be had by all!





Well, it has been a tough week. The kids have been out of sorts and so have we. In an attempt to make us laugh and get our littlest one onboard with the whole getting dressed to leave the house plan, Pootie was asking our little grumpus "My shorts feel funny. What's wrong with them?" which got great squeals of laughter from us all and of course she just HAD to show him how she puts her clothes on. Until she decided that the pillow case was more comfortable that her pants. Humor. The it's the best medicine ever.

More to love at Etsy!

Congratulations to our friend Loni! She just opened her own Etsy shop! Her beautiful jewelry features some Gaea beads as well as her own unique creations! Check her shop out HERE! The woven bracelet above features some lovely seed beads and A Gaea cube bead in Spring Green on Chocolate.

I thought I was loosing my mind!

There is was again! That noise! A soft little noise right behind me. Was it the bag of pretzels settling on the shelf behind me? Or something else? Maybe a ghost! I work quite a bit in my kitchen. It has good lighting, water and an oven to store my work trays in. I usually have music on or am watching a movie so there is sound on in the back ground. But this was a quiet evening. Just me and my thoughts. THERE IS WAS AGAIN!!! I distinctly heard a noise! Right behind me! I spun quickly and caught some shadowy movement. WHAT WAS THAT!?!? Then, I saw it! It had quit a long tail and whooop! It disappeared out of sight! It was a mouse! Hmmm... I can't have a mouse in my kitchen. As cute as it is, it needs to find a more appropriate home. We do live in a rural area. The country really. Lots of places to roam and live, out of doors. I didn't want to harm our little friend. So off we went to the hardware store, in search of a kind and gentle mouse trap.... 35 bucks, huh? for a little trap to free him from later? Hmmm... Let's see if we can figure something else out. I did a search and found this ingenious way to safely trap a mouse! And it was FREE! So we caught our little friend and took him to a lovely little field (the same one that I swore I saw Shrek and Fiona frolicking in last Spring!





My son is now worried that a wolf will eat him. That is a project for another day...

Ok. Back to work!

This little light of mine... and yours... a contest!

These lanterns have been waiting for their time to shine. The time is now. I've been playing with different "light up" colors. They look just like the lanterns in my studio. I'm hoping to have a few more examples of the glowing colors after the mid September firing.

I've also been thinking about all the pendants that have gone out into the world. They sometimes feel like children and I miss them! Where are they? Are they still enjoyed? What have they seen and done? As summer is ending I think a contest is in order! Do you have a special story or picture of you wearing a creation you made with a Gaea pendant or bead. What is it's story? Where are you in the picture? Send a picture of your creative design (jewelry, craft or art object) and a quick story about what inspired the design or a picture of you with the piece maybe at a special location (like the Eiffel Tower!) Send them in though the month of September and a few lucky winners will be randomly chosen for a $50 Gaea pendant gift pack! Send entries to gaea (at) gaea (dot) cc