new blog!

my blog has moved! reach me here:

storiesbyindigoheart.blogspot.com

see you there!

blog maakeover!

i'm getting a makeover! the same sweet lady who did becca's personal blog and our jewelry blog. yay!
so i'll going over to storiesbyindigoheart.blogspot.com. she'll switch over all my archives and do a new header and background and signature.... all kinds of good good stuff.
looking forward to it!

i love this bracelet. made it last week and sold it yesterday. isn't the clasp adorable? kinda wavey. it's amazonite and red agate.

worst. farmers. market. day. ever.

so here is a photo of our worst farmers market day ever. it started out great. then the wind storm. then the thunder and lightning and torrential rain. really, the photo doesn't do it justice. then dennis, the husband of tammy, who is becca and my first farmers market friend, fell background like a board and smacked his head on the concrete. horrible sound. i was the first to get to him. he was kind of moaning and his eyes were rolling around... at first i thought he just slipped or tripped or something. but no. he had had what the doctors are now calling a *massive* heart attack. a customer came running up, saying she was a nurse practitioner, so i yielded the floor and took over tammy, who was pretty much falling apart. see, the thing is, tammy and dennis are absolutely *adorable* together. they are just totally besotted with each other, in a really cute way. he stopped breathing many times. they did cpr. it took the ambulance *twenty* freaking minutes to get their, so he went that long without enough oxygen to his brain. he was blue by the time they got there. so they put him into a coma that night and the doctors were like, 'he's not going to make it'. then the next day he started making some purposeful movements with his legs. then the next day he woke up and knew simple things and his family's names. and then he was *laughing* and telling jokes and totally himself (!). now he's campaigning to go home even though he's still in icu... tammy thinks it's because he's afraid...

all i can think is that he wasn't supposed to survive. certainly not as himself. and he had been chopping wood all by himself up on murphy dome road all day. if it had happened then... if it had to happen, it happened perfectly. just when the right people were there. still pissed off about the ambulance.

and now tammy is never going to be able to come back to farmers market. she actually came by yesterday to say thank you to everyone and she had a panic attack in the drive way.

i'm gonna miss her and her beautiful crafts and seeing her and dennis hold hands.

metalsmithing

here's the little box i made for metalsmithing this semester. i *really* don't like making boxes. i want to make *jewelry*, not boxes. but it's required, so i guess i'll just have to suffer through it. on the way home from the previous class, my sister and i were listening to the radio and a j.j. heller song came on that i absolutely love. the first line is 'i have unanswered prayers, i have trouble i wish wasn't there' and it just struck me. wow. that is soooo me. so i stamped it on the lid of my ugly rectangular box and suddenly it wasn't so ugly anymore. yay for amazing inspiration from the universe. my wierd blogging platform is centering all my stuff today and i can't get it to stop. annoyingly justified.

      

lorelei, here is the little bowl i thought you might like. it's teal with dark grey ashy drips throughout. the bowl has a matte/satin sheen to it and the birds are a shiny black over the matte teal glaze. it sits on three ball feet. i hope you like it as much as i do!

turquoise

turquoise is my favorite stone. it's just so yummy! i made this necklace over the christmas break. love it.

farmers market starts this saturday. wow! halfway through the last week of school. whoa! i'll take pictures of all the stuff i made this semester and start sharing next week. some artbooks on the way from amazon; *yay*!!!! love love love amazon.

arrrrr, matey

this is one of my favorite bracelets i've ever made. why? i'm not sure... the gothy feel to it, that happy skull and crossbones... i'm a closet skull and crossbones fan and emo-ish at heart. not sure it will ever sell, though, since my demographic for this one is so different than for the rest of my stuff....

end of semester, oh how i love thee! i got both things i entered into the student art show, which really surprised me. maybe i'll show those pieces next week, when i get them back. i'm actually pretty ready for finals... especially in painting. still got stuff to glaze and a couple things to bisque in ceramics. and a never-ending list of things i want to make in metalsmithing. i *really* missed metals over the holiday break, so i think i might go crazy this summer. so i plan to buy some copper and work on cold connections. i'll need a chasing hammer, steel bench block, letter stamps, thick copper wire... thinking about purchasing a soldering iron, so i can do a little bit of hot connections.... the project i'm having the worst luck with is my cubic box. hinges, oh how they stress me out. rrrrrrrr. i keep finding things to do *instead* of working on the stupid box. leaving it to the last minute.... stupid, stupid, stupid. so. i'll work on it first thing on wednesday.

metalsmithing: the ring issue

here are most of the rings i made this semester. from left, the stones are prehnite, larimer, labradorite, and charoite. i love all of these rings. there are little things wrong with them, but overall i'm pleased. yay! getting better!

hair trials

my hair has been a source of much consternation. i have had it down to my waist. i have shaved it completely off. i've dyed it within an inch of it's life; red, black, blonde, platinum, pink, chocolate... and the happiest i've ever been with it is this sweet purple, blue, and white striped confection. this isn't the best photo of the hair color, but it's the only one i've got. i also like the haircut here... what's really wierd about my hair right now is that it's turned black. it used to be auburn. is this the effect of too much coloring? or just a natural effect of aging? i've got a few grey hairs, which i don't mind at all. i wish there were more of them! my next hair experiment is dreadlocks. i'm going to get them in this summer. i've been doing research on them. they're an awful lot of work! you have to roll and twist them every day and wax them like once a week and wash them like every three days... geez. i thought it was like, they're in! leave them to it. wash them once a month. but no. *lots* of work. like, a prohibitive amount of work. and it'll take like eight hours to get them in. ouchie-wa-wa. but!!!!! i *still* want them done. i just think they're so beautiful. i'm nervous about the texture of them. i've never touched one before, and so i don't know how they will feel. i'm hoping they're soft.... not scratchy. we'll keep our fingers crossed.

nene's toes

here are my little one's toes, front paws crossed, as she sleeps on my lap while we watch a movie. i have to say i adore my cat. am i good about cleaning her litter? no. but boy, is she loved. i'm sure i've mentioned before how just last year god told me that animals have souls and will be in heaven with us. well, it's been interesting to see how that knowledge has changed me. i've been able to handle better the idea of eating meat and hunting for food. fur trapping and the mistreatment of animals still sends me over the deep end... well, fur trapping is abhorent but i'm not gonna go join peta. just to let you guys know i'm not rabid. mistreatment of animals, though? whoa, don't get me started. i think there's a special place in hell for those people. anyway. i look forward to heaven where i'll spend eons hanging with the animals. meerkat manor? here i come. the pridelands? can't hold me back. and my precious lost ones: midnight, socks, persephone, cassie, baby, and becca's dearest; tiger. can't hardly wait!

lorelei's mugs (maybe)

lorelei, here are the two mugs. one is a little bigger than the other. they're about the size of a regular tea cup...

memory

my first piece of jewelry that i can remember was a bear paw pendant with a turquoise stone that my father gave me. it was a beautiful work of craftsmanship, made by the navajos. i lost this gorgeous piece when i was twenty one while on the trip to take my sister to grad school in texas. these events are inextricably linked, for both events were a wrench. losing my sister, who was my very best friend, was a significantly larger pain than the loss of the necklace. but i must admit that i still feel pain over that pendant. bear is my spirit animal, and i feel very strongly that my father gave bear to me, one of the most amazing, transformational, *huge* gifts that has ever been given to me.

i went without a bear paw for about ten years, looking for one sporadically. i was still mourning my loss. but then, one day, quite out of the blue, i was ready. and i found a beautiful replacement. it isn't the same as the first; it isn't as heavy or as exquisitely made as the first, but it's turquoise (my stone) and it's about the same size. so. i made a necklace and i wear it every day and i feel close to bear, again, and thankful to my father for the gift of bear.

christmas break

classes are finally over! yay! got through bazaar season relatively unscathed. we didn't do as well as we did last year, which was disappointing. christmas was great, watching my two favorite girls enjoying every minute of it.

i've been making jewelry like crazy. now that i'm not channeling my creative energy into my classes, i have extra to go into the business. hopefully we'll get our etsy store up and running in the next couple of months. without the stash sending us monthly checks, it's been a little thin around here. and farmer's market is way off in the distance.

becca is trying to justify taking metalsmithing with me next semester. it's more expensive than she expected so she's juggling it all in her head. i ****really**** hope she takes it with me. i love taking classes with her.

here is the pumpkin i carved this year. just one, cause i ran out of money. lame-o! i looooove carving pumpkins. but the seeds! oh, the seeds! totally my favorite part of the whole thing.

rings

here are two more of the rings i've made in metalsmithing. the clear stone is moonstone and the turquoise one is chrysacolla. i really like the chrysacolla one. the moonstone not so much. but i'm getting better! yay!