Patience.

I am itching to play more with the silver clay. Not just making charms and beads and buttons but actually creating with the ones that are already made! Sweet little charms sit patiently in their cozy wooden box waiting to see the light of day. Patience my precious...

Did you notice the little crack in the heart? At first I was sad about it. All that work and then... POP! A little crack and a nice reminder to slow down and be patient. I rather like the little crack now. This piece knows me. The universe must too... patience.

I really am working on beads...

Really.

A girl can dream...

A boy can too. I've been dreaming about this with my boy. Sigh.

Supposed to be making beads...

But I'm not. On this beautiful and stormy day, I'd rather make small cards from my coloring book pages and paint them with metallic paints...

Hey! Sold my first silver piece!

Bye-bye button! The little silver daisy button from my etsy shop is on it's way to a new home! I hope it does me proud!

I really, REALLY want to make a ring but am not yet comfortable with the silver clay yet. It does have a mind of it's own sometimes! Here is another little charm that I have a few ideas in mind for! Some leather! Some Turquoise! Some ceramic! Wheee!~

A little night owl...

I am really enjoying the ink drawing process. Sketching an idea. Penciling it in. Making changes. Putting the ink on the page. ERASING THE PENCIL! This seems to be the most fun because it is the final step and it's all clean and tidy and done. What is your favorite part of your process? Gluing it on? Watching the color bleed? The way the pencil feels when in glides across a fresh sheet of paper? When you lift the lid and it's all tinkling and bright and fresh and new and didn't melt to the shelf?

Delish!

Giveaway?!?! This one is good! Rosy Revolver necklace is involved! Check it out! Enter to win! It is DELISH!

Not the only birthday girl!

Thank you Joelle for hosting a lovely party! And Happy Birthday to you too! We ate and talked and had a good laugh at our old age symptoms! This was the card I made for Joelle! I hope she doesn't get sick of the home made gifts! Or run out of wall space! XOXO2U

Color me silly!

Last drawing for the coloring book project. Print one out! Play! Post! Let me see what you do with her!

Just added...

It sometimes takes me a while to add things to the website...
The mermaid beads have their own page and will be available in various shapes and sizes! YAY!

Also, here are the zodiac pendants, now available in round, square and tear shapes.

Best Birthday Ever!

So here are a few random things, some are trades, and gifts to myself and some are just...

Here's to a new decade, a new year, and officially being 40!


Thank you Andrew for these little beauties! They are part of his charm club and I can't wait to see what the post person will bring next month! Love! Love! Love them! There still may be room to join his charm club...http://andrew-thornton.blogspot.com/


This lovely turquoise cabochon was a trade from Trudy of Black Crow Beads in the Netherlands! Thank you Trudy! It. Is. Awesome! Must. Make. Ring!


From the Salvidor Dali website (yum!)

In other news...

Of course my back went out for my birthday, but Robert was such a sweetie and stayed home to take care of us all (he even cleaned the house!!!!) In spite of the pain, (I mean seriously, I couldn't walk, and got stuck on the floor at one point, yowling like a banshee!) it was a great birthday! Just having us all at home was perfection!

Mama? You need to color that!

Well said my 4 year old angel! Yep! I'm tempted to take them for a test run! I like to make photo copies of them and try out all sorts of colors! I'm feeling like this Day of the Dead theme will be with me for a while even though I had one that was a butterfly motif in mind, this one won out. As my nearly 40 year old back has decided to act like an 100 year old back today I will be sitting quietly, not making a fuss, enjoying some coffee (even if it takes me 3 hours to make it!) and drawing some more today.

Have a great day! And enjoy your pain free back if you got one! Do a little jig for me!

Four Days Till Forty

I will be 40. In 4 days. Age is an amazing thing. Where does time go? My 8 and 4 year olds make me feel young and old all at the same time. I usually feel like I'm a lost child of 12 until some adult thing brings me back to reality. Like the fact that I have two children and I'm the one driving the car. Age really is just a number. Until you overhear the 8 year olds talking about something ancient from... the 80's. As in "Man, that's so old! That's so 80's!" I hope you whipper-snappers are referring to the 1880's. Then I'm down with it.

I was considering a Chuck E. Cheese birthday party. I thought twice. I'm sure Joelle is happy I did.

Here are a few drawings for our coloring book. I'm putting it together. I get the cover. I'm 40. Should I just start saying that. Like my 4 year old randomly announces her age? I'm not as cute as my 4 year old. Hmmmm..

Creative tornado!

The year is off with a bang and back into the work. I'm having a hard time sleeping with all the ideas and things going on in life at the moment! The Made In Ojai store is having an awesome event. If you are local, please stop by to see it...



For the event, I thought it would be great fun to ask other artists at the co-op to collaborate on a coloring book for the event. Just some simple line drawings put together to hand out as a fun "thank you" for being there. So far we have collected a few mermaid drawings which is fun! Another fun event will be our heart design challenge. We will be decorating these hearts and displaying them in the store then possibly auction them off for charity. I was really inspired by Cynthia Thorntons art clay locket from her book "Enchanted Adornments". If you haven't seen it, it's quite amazing! A secret hiding place in a heart! Love it! I'm really excited to get started on this!

Testing the waters...

Thanks for all the lovely comments! I really appreciate the kind thoughts! I've been getting back into the swing of things and have put one little button into my etsy shop to test the waters....

The star above is about 1 1/4" tall (I can't do the mm thing!) I'll get back into clay... soon...

Oh! Happy New Year!

With my grief came creativity.
I made 13 pieces the day my Grandmother died.... Here are a few....

Thank you! And sadness...

Thanks for all the comments on the previous post! It's a good reminder to be respectful of others. It is so important to be respectful out in the world. The topic has come up a lot lately. Maybe it's the season? The push to be generous turns into just a push? I am remembering to be respectful to others.

Our family had some sad news earlier this week. My grandmother passed away at the age or 91. She had a full life but was ill. It wasn't unexpected but it sure was sad. We were not on the best of terms at the time of her passing. I knew time was short and had tried to reach out to her. She was a flawed and beautiful person. I am taking time to think about what lessons I was to learn from our time together, good and bad. Remembering the great and sad times we had together, I will always be mystified by how things changed and why. She had some really great sayings that also contradicted her own behavior. A favorite of mine was "Shit on should!" meaning, don't let anyone tell you what you "should" be doing. She never did. She traveled the world in her retirement and always had a great story. I think we helped to show her the humor in life. She lived through the great depression, scarlet fever, a parents suicide, a dear brothers passing and an abusive marriage. I can see where her pain came from. I can sympathize. I will miss her.