New Jewelry Listings, Featured Artist JC Herrell, Cashing in your scrap gold and silver

NEW JEWELRY

I listed some new pieces today. As always, click on a photo for more info.

A bit of lampwork and a LOT of Bali silver.






FEATURED ARTIST: JC HERRELL

As promised, I want to introduce you to one of my favorite lampwork artists. Her name is JC Herrell and she has her regular website
and an Etsy store .

AND… she was kind enough to let me show you some of her totally awesome beads on my blog today.

If you have a chance to meet JC at one of the bead shows, say hi and introduce yourself. She’s a totally warm and friendly person.

And yeah, this may be a repeat… some people are worth repeating. :-)





Please check her out next time you’re in the mood for some bead buyin’ action.


SELLING YOUR SCRAP SILVER AND GOLD

I can now tell you with first-hand experience under my belt that MidWest Refineries are awesome. 95% for gold and 90% for silver and a pretty quick turnaround. I don’t know anyone else who can beat their prices.


FOLLOW-UP COMMENTS

You are quite right, IAM (comment on Sept 23rd’s post). It certainly CAN be played both ways. I do think women suffer the greater brunt of the effect, however, but yes, anyone can be manipulative.


Remember that your thoughts are the primary cause of everything.

Four Silver-Heavy Bangles, Underwater Bedroom Can Be Yours, Gaslighting Women

NEW MOTIVATION, NEW JEWELRY

This week, I ran across two self-representing artists who have an output that is so unbelievable you’d swear they must have others doing the work for them. I was astounded to think they could be making everything themselves. But evidence showed otherwise and I’ve just got to say WOW. I wish I could be HALF that productive. My hat’s off to them.

And it motivated me to get my rear in gear (that, and a phone call from my son saying that job-hunting isn’t going to well… eek!).

But I loved what my motivation came up with last night. These are bangle bracelets with 14g sterling silver wire running through the entire length. They’re pretty weighty (lots of silver Bali beads!), which I adore.










UNDERWATER BEDROOM

I would LOVE to stay here!



That’s one of the suites in a hotel on one of the Maldive Islands (Indian ocean). Pretty cool, huh?



GREAT ARTICLE

A Message To Women From A Man: You Are Not “Crazy”

You’re so sensitive. You’re so emotional. You’re defensive. You’re overreacting. Calm down. Relax. Stop freaking out! You’re crazy! I was just joking, don’t you have a sense of humor? You’re so dramatic. Just get over it already!

Sound familiar?

If you’re a woman, it probably does.
… read the rest of this eye-opening article here.


TOMORROW SNEAK PEAK

Featured artist: JC Herrell… stay tuned!

If you want something you've never had, you've got to do something you've never done.

New Jewelry Listings

Hope everyone’s doing well. This is a busy month.

I’ll start off with my new items…

Re-visited the Quad and Trio necklaces
that were so popular in my store last year.



Here’s a necklace I’ve been getting a lot of compliments about. See that silver loop around the lampwork bead? I made that AGES ago, probably back when silver was like $20 an ounce. Then it got stuck into my WIP drawer (“works in progress”). My works in progress are more like ideas I had that got guillotined somewhere along the way because I realized I had no clue where I was going with the idea.

Anyway, last week I pulled the silver loop out and said, “Now here’s a total waste of good sterling. Do something, woman!” And so I did. Thank goodness for my drawer of Alex beads. Yay!



This necklace you’ve all seen before. It’s sort of a staple with me… I have to make at least one each year. :-)



This next one is one of my latest experiments. I *adore* smooth rocks. I decided to paint on these with permanent paint (won’t wash off… I tested my own piece for four months… never removed my necklace the whole time).

Decided I wanted Enochian symbols on them (also known as the Angels’ alphabet). This is homage to one of my favorite shows of all time (I’m not always full of depth), Supernatural .

BTW, if you aren’t familiar with IMDB (the website link I just showed you), it’s my “go-to” for movie, tv, actor, director info.

So anyway, here’s a sample. I wanted to get kind of a surfer-feel to the necklaces (which also meant I wanted them to be able to stand up to some good old fashioned wear and tear).




Okay, enough of the new offerings.

Yesterday I went to the Arrowsprings bead show. Wow, it was so cool! (But not the weather.)

I love bead shopping. And everyone there was SOOOO nice.

The beads were AMAZING. And seeing everyone’s new lines... wow! I’m going to contact some of the artists and ask if I can share their work on my blog for you to see.

Well, I’d better go just now ‘cause I actually wrote this last night then forgot to post it. Mornings are my most productive time, so let’s hope for some productivity today. :-)

New Bracken Designs Listings (including a tutorial), Swarovski Color Chart, Another DIY Light Box

New Bracken Designs Listings

Some new listings include a page full of stacker bracelets (except for the ones that sold already).

A stacker bracelet is a bracelet that works just as well as a stand-alone piece as it does when worn in combination (stacked on the wrist).

Stacker bracelets generally have evenly sized beads in a simple pattern, rarely have a focal or counterweight charms, and they are not adjustable.

This is what they look like when stacked:






One of the two new items I’m really excited about is this pair of earrings…


… because I’m also offering kits to make your own…



… as well as just the tutorial (without the kit).




Swarovski Color Chart

I try to remember to share my resources with you (when I think of it). Here’s one I’ve been using a lot lately… Swarovski Crystal Color Chart by FusionBeads.com


Another DIY Light Box

Thank you, Bill Huber, for taking the time to share this with us. Click here for instructions (including photos) on how to craft a homemade light tent for photography.

And with that, I bid you farewell… until next time!

A Trip to Grover Hot Springs and Featured Artist Bonnie Belt

Grover Hot Springs

So a week or so ago, I took a trip up to Grover Hot Springs.

Here’s the view from a walk we had from our motel:



BTW, when I was shrinking and cropping this photo, I noticed something in the sky:



Most likely a plane or helicopter, but I like to pretend it’s a UFO. :-) If you’re wondering what I’m talking about… it’s that tiny white speck in the upper righthand side of the photo.

These beautiful yellow flowers were outside our motel:



This was my first time going to a hot springs. I had no idea we’d be at 7500 feet during that trip. My ears didn’t have any trouble on the drive, but when I went from the hot springs to the cool pool, I got really light-headed. Yikes! That’s a shame… the cool pool felt really nice.

The hot springs did too… but it’s already summer and I tend to run warm these days anyway (if you know what I mean) so it was kind of like taking an outdoor bath in the middle of a heatwave.

Here are two views from the hot springs:




The water comes out of the ground at 115 degrees Fahrenheit and they add cold water to the pool so it’s around 102 when we get in.

I apologize for not having very good photos. Apparently I’ve been taking indoor photos of small items at close range for way too long. I don’t even know how to use my camera for regular purposes. Ha!

I couldn’t resist snapping these dandelions, though:



Here’s a shot from the trip home (we had to stop twice for road construction):



It was a neat trip. I enjoyed seeing a lot of the things along the way, too. If I stopped every place I wanted to “check something out”, though, we’d never arrive anywhere.

As far as jewelry-making adventures go, I’ll blog tomorrow about some new listings and my latest tutorial.

But now…


Featured Artist Bonnie Belt

I stumbled (or Binged) across the work of Bonnie Belt the other day and she was kind enough to give me permission for me to share her website and a couple photos of her work with my readers.

I love randomly finding someone whose work is (to me) just outstanding. See for yourself…





To see more of her work and read about her, visit her website: http://www.bonniebelt.com

Well, that’s it for tonight. Hope everyone has a great day/evening/night… and I’ll see you tomorrow!