I spent yesterday with my DC Craft Mafia peeps, Erica Burns (Erica Burns Designs) and Mary Kearns (Herban LifeStyle) at the Handmade Mart in Downtown Silver Spring. The day started out with rain but the sun didn't let us down and it shone the rest of the day (I have the sun burn to prove it!). Everyone was out and about and buying tons of stuff! There was live music and lots of things to eat and a whole street of handmade goodies. The whole event was a success in my opinion. Silver Spring is such a diverse and lively community.
My collegemate, Clarisse, who I haven't seen in ages, even dropped by! Thanks, Cla, for your support! A couple of her officemates are planning to launch their own jewelry business specializing in pearls and I was glad to give them some advise.I also got to stock up on my favorite sugar scrub supplied by Herban Lifestyle. Mary worked on a new formula which I tried this morning and it's just luxurious! And the scent is so energizing - my favorite is Lemon Souffle. I highly recommend it!
Lastly, it's always greatly satisfying to see people pick up my jewelry and wear them. Below are some of the pieces that I said goodbye to yesterday. It was interesting that a lot of my blue and green pieces sold. Looks like those were the colors of the day. Also most of everyone were buying earrings. So blue, green and earrings were the favorites of the day. Enjoy them ladies!
I had a busy and rewarding day yesterday. I got to make 4 necklaces and 2 earrings. I had a bit of a slow start with a new design - did 3 false starts before I finally got the hang of it - then did a quick trip to the local bead store for some emergency supplies and back to beading again. This is a short post cause I need to get back to work! Hope you are all having a lovely weekend!
Sun is out finally out, it's a three day weekend and I'm beading like mad again! I have a show to prepare for and trying to remember all the thousand details to get ready for one. Number one on checklist is make more jewelry! So as I prepare for the beading marathon, let me show you some lovelies that I already do have on hand.
Beading is great therapy. It certainly helps me to de-stress from work. But life took a turn and the stress became personal as my husband was diagnosed with cancer. The energies got shifted to him and beads became trivial. But beading still helped to keep my sanity. What do you do when you don't have access to a computer, can't really bring your beading stuff with you and had hours of dead time in the hospital where you really couldn't concentrate but needed to occupy your mind? I turned to coloring triangles. Pages and pages of triangles, I had a box of my son's coloring pencils in my bag, a template of a triangle and I would ease my mind into a mindless mental state and just color those little blocks. Some people looked at me like I was crazy (I still am!). Half the time, the results would be nice, the other half just gibberish. Funny how the mind can go into hypermode and idle at the same time. Mind and No Mind, kind of a thing?
Now we are in remission (yay!) and life getting back to somewhat normal - depending on your definition of normal. I took the drawings and started to render these triangle pendants. It's been satisfying to bring these colorings to life. You know what they say about finding some light in life's dark moments. I think about my state of mind then when my purpose was just to color each tiny block. And now the satisfaction I have in finally taking these drawings and creating something tangible, real. And, hopefully, give enjoyment to the person who decides they like the pendants enough to wear them.
I tend to take the earrings I make for granted. Probably because I make earrings when I need a mental break. Well, I've done a lot of earrings in the past year (yeah! needed that many mental breaks!). They've all been in hiding in my box of earrings begging to be photoed and shown off to the world after staying in the dark for too long. So I'm going to start introducing them here and in my 
All too often it happens. You work on a piece and end up wanting to keep it for yourself! I'm doomed on this unless someone out there knocks me to my senses. Can you blame me? The design is Laura McCabe's (for the few who don't recognize her work). I did use vintage swarovski crystals that cost me an arm and a leg (well, almost). Take a close look at the crystal next to the toggle bar - it clearly reflects the beading right in the middle of the stone! So cool! And those 24K gold charlottes are so teeny, tiny pretty!
My mental fog has been lifted and I'm working away and I thought I'd show you this pendant as the work progresses. Should I stop here or keep going? I have visions of working further, adding more rings, spiral rope, embellishments, etc., etc, etc... or go minimalist and do a simple beaded necklace.
So it's a miserable day in the neighborhood with clouds overhead, no sun and buckets of rain all day long. I've been wanting to shoot these crystals with not a window of opportunity. Lo and behold, the sun decides to stop slacking for 30 minutes, I quickly set up to shoot this photo.
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