I'm not going to be around this weekend because of shows (so excited!), but I do have a book review coming up for you folks. (That is, if Blogger behaves itself...) I've been working up a storm to get ready, finishing pieces up and organizing things.
These are going to be displayed on my table, so the pictures are really more for documentation than anything. I've been so lazy with jewelry photographs lately... shame on me!
Anyway, there's going to be an army brass band at the market we're heading to tomorrow, and a pretty park on an island, so I'm really looking forward to it! I hope I don't get stuck at my table all day; while I love socializing and telling people about my work, I like to have the freedom of roaming around a little. Same goes for the show on Saturday, which is at the edge of a beautiful bay on Lake Ontario.
We're going to take lots of pictures! :3 So expect to hear all about it sometime early next week.
Have you all been having a productive few days? What are you up to this weekend?
Jewelry can be so difficult to photograph well, something Etsy and jewelry blogs everywhere can attest to. I know I still have LOTS of room for improvement. So I wanted to share this fantastic article with all of you. While the article focuses on silver, really, the technique can be used to better photograph any kind of jewelry. All you really need is pieces of cardboard and some tin foil. I'm going to try it the next chance I get!
(And, if you haven't seen it yet, I've been compiling a list of helpful articles and tutorials here. Feel free to check it out for more tips and tricks!)
And, just so this is not a text-only post, here's a necklace I don't think I've shared with you yet:
I promised pictures from Sacket's Harbor, NY! I didn't take very many (shocking, I know), so figured why not try something new for a change? I've only ever scrapbooked once before, so forgive me if this looks a little silly!
Who knew there were kits to do digital scrapbooking?!
You can click on it to make it larger. :) I used the "Home of the Brave" kit and a kit called "Pacific Coast Dreams" by Debbie Knorr, both from ComputerScrapbooking.com. They were free!
So, what do you think? Silly? Is the file too big, does it take too long to load?
Have you tried something new lately? If so, what was it??
Nature is tickling me this Tuesday. I think it's because this place is so magnificent.
I already posted this on my family's farm blog, but it's just the cutest thing that's happened this week:
A fox family is living under this abandoned barn/shed not too far from my parents' farm; there are three babies and they are so flippin' cyoot, it hurts!!
And yesterday, we picked our first wildflower bouquet of the season:
I got a cheap-o DVD at Wal-mart over the weekend. It's a historical documentary on pirates. ...Yeah, I am that dorky. Anyway, it was totally worth every penny! I put it in while I was working and it was great. :D So I'll have some pirate-inspired stuff to share later this week.
Speaking of stuff to share, I want to give a shout-out about my friend Patty's fabulous giveaway. She won a contest over at Cynthia Thornton's blog. The theme of the contest was to create a piece using the techniques in the first project of Cynthia's wonderful book, Enchanted Adornments. Here's what Patty came up with:
Can you believe she's giving away this gorgeous piece?? Just hop over to her blog and leave a comment to be entered in the drawing!
Memorial Day weekend is coming up. Be on the lookout for brass bullet casings at the parades and salutes---you can make great jewelry pieces with them!
No bead table Wednesday post for me this week; we'll be on the road all day. :( I'm actually sad to be leaving Connecticut behind. Everything is blooming here, everything is green. They're at least a week or two ahead of western NY, where it snowed as recently as mid-April. Yuck!
I want to share some pictures and memories from CT as we head back home.
As I said, everything is blooming.
It did rain several days while we were here. On one of the clear days, though,
I had a great time with Patty on our beady playdate, and am looking forward to our next visit to this lovely New England state. Hopefully it will be sooner than later! Though, one never does know.
The little brown glass beads look like drops of our homemade syrup, and these beautiful green and red jasper rondelles reminded me of the colors of bark and moss in our woods right now. The little antiqued brass focal looks like the thin branches just starting to bud now. I'm loving it.
Also, one last picture from the museum on Thursday. Just look at this desk.
I was seriously drooling. It's an old banker's desk, but isn't it just magnificent? Can you imagine sitting there with all your beading supplies tucked neatly and within arm's reach inside all these drawers, slots, and compartments?
Even though I lost several days of my vacation to being terribly ill, these last few days have been so lovely. The weather's been warm and much of the snow has melted, which brings joy in and of itself. And how very fitting for St. Patrick's Day, everything green returning after the winter. There have been robins and phoebes flitting around the yard, squirrels dancing about under trees. We had a surreal moment when several flocks of geese passed overhead at once, just behind a thin veil of clouds so that they appeared ghost-like to us. Lovely, lovely.
Below is one of my favorite things from the museum. They had this tiny table covered with crayons and with a pile of coloring pages of the United States presidents. This was hanging up on the wall above it:
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (artist unknown)
Too fun!
After the museum, we headed down the street to see where its former Victorian owner made his fortune. Apparently he was the owner and founder of one of the first shopping malls in this country. It has been beautifully renovated since I was a kid (I was happy to see), and currently looks a little like a European outdoor market:
To the left is a charming little antique store that we went into. I got an antique key from the 1900s (1906, I think) and one of those lovely Pollyanna prisms (read: chandelier crystal). At the end of the hallway pictured and also to the left is a metaphysics shop. I picked up several stones there that I hope to wire wrap when I get some more of my favorite wire. Can't wait!
Here's hoping for a relatively healthy spring for everyone! <3
But first, just a quick reminder: my birthday bracelet giveaway ends in less than 24 hours! Go to the post and leave a comment if you want a chance to win. :3
We had the brunt of our celebration today. I wanted to go down into Niagara Falls to a bead store and go to the Niagara Aquarium for my birthday. Things didn't turn out quite as we'd expected, but it was a lot of fun!
After a rather fruitless search, we discovered that the bead store I'd found online doesn't actually sell beads anymore. This happens from time to time, and it was a little disappointing, but I knew that we were still going to the aquarium and the day was not ruined! We just had a laugh at it and continued our journey.
Although the Niagara Aquarium is a small one, it has a lot of great exhibits.
Aren't his scales simply gorgeous?
In fact, I really enjoyed all the colors and textures throughout the museum.
I'm just like a little kid, you know. XD Give me cute things or shiny things, and I am happy as heck! These turtles were adorable.
We love crabs. :D
Although it was very dark in the tank, we could see how beautifully this guy could move. So graceful. And that rich red color!
An unexpected but very pleasant surprise was the tiny poison-dart frog exhibit. I love these little guys, so I spent a lot of time walking around and around the tank. They are colored just like jewels...
There was a great little exhibit on West Coast Amerindians.
Look, scrimshaw!
Speaking of scrimshaw, this section was devoted to the unfortunate effects of hunting sea animals for their meat and body parts. Here was a display on turtle hunting. Very beautiful things in there, but very sad.
As we were leaving, I saw this huge bin of tumbled stones. Like I said, I'm just like a kid and can't resist shiny things. XD I grabbed a little baggy full and intend to wire-wrap these in the near future. My favorite are the spotted stones. They look just like the poison dart frogs, don't they??
Then my fiance took me to a winery on the Niagara Wine Trail to make up for the bead store. :3 However, I'll post those pictures tomorrow because this post is already pretty long. Hope you're all having a great weekend, too! <3
Why these beads, this color palette? Living in a northern state has meant dealing with long winters. It's nothing like the months-long night in the arctic and antarctic regions, but it is dark much of the time and sometimes too cold to venture far. (If you've ever experienced a -40 Fahrenheit morning, you know what I mean!) As an artist, I have a hard time with the darkness and with being parted with my beloved outdoors. On warmer days, we try to get outside before the early sunset to capture pictures and to enjoy the frozen loveliness. Winter is harsh, but it does have its own peculiar beauty.
This is going to be a pretty image-heavy post, just to warn you. I got the idea from like a bird's blog and thought it was wonderful and wanted to do something similar.
January
The first time I used the camera that would be mine.
February
I turned 26 and worked on my novel, received the third of my set of owls.
Alexander held the envelope in both hands and looked hesitantly up at Mr. Whitby. "I have something I must bring to your attention, sir." There was a tremor in his voice. His heart threw itself against the walls of his chest in an allegretto beat. He took a deep breath. "If you have a moment." Whitby paused in his writing but kept his head lowered. "Certainly. What is it?" "I possess a letter…" He tried to think of the most appropriate words. "A rather distressing correspondence from a pupil, one that I must make known to you. It is…Well." Now he stepped across the rug and laid the envelope down with care at the edge of Mr. Whitby's writing table. "I… I require your advice and guidance, sir." He bit his lip. Whitby raised his eyes and let them settle on the folded paper. He didn't move to take it. There was such an expression of dread in his face, Alexander caught his breath. "I will have a look," he said flatly. "And I shall notify you when I've had time to contemplate it." He turned his face down again. The quill scratched across his page.
----- ----- -----
March
I made my first pair of earrings:
And really started focusing on my etsy shop for the first time.
April
April is National Poetry Month. I only managed one piece this year. :(
The Phoenix Must Burn
A shadow rain, those feathers---
pestilence in the form of
fireweed; thunder
across the ground.
We huddled,
and in those moments
we forgot who we were.
I made and sold my first pair of chainmaille earrings with the first briolettes I ever used.
May
I made my first major three-strand, asymmetrical, pearl necklace using techniques I had been teaching myself. It feels like a milestone in my jewelry-making experience.
I also wrote what some (who I highly esteem) consider to be one of my finest poems so far:
Sleepless
His eyes are spoons,
empty and bright. He has
taken to counting the clock-
ticks in absence; pages
flutter in his lap, but
he does not read.
If I should listen
hard enough, some
old dead will find the
voice to speak into
these hours, he thinks.
Nights pass like this.
There is only quiet;
that endless tick ticking,
those pages as they ruffle
beneath his patient fingers,
the creak of furniture
like scolding old friends
around him.
June
Tried my hand at designing costumes; it was a lot of fun!
Wrote my first rhyming poem since the Christmas before, based on the story of Mary Wollstonecraft.
Mary
A bright doubloon of moon
fell upon the golden wheat
when a lady, in her gown,
went down into the lea.
All the night she walked among
the stalks of dewy wheat,
white hems trailing far behind,
footsteps soft upon the peat.
She wandered 'til her frilly robes
were laden with the sweet
nectar and the dewdrops twilight
placed upon the wheat.
The pathway to the river
was celibate and clear;
she could see the starlight shimmer
as water-lilies there.
July
Ah, July. This was the busiest month of all; it was flash fiction month, my fiance's birthday month, the 4th of July, we went to several concerts, and won some pretty hefty online honors for myself.
We saw this, my fiance's favorite band, in concert:
I won the annual six-word story contest on deviantArt with this story and illustration:
"She conquers everything with a book."
I was able to get through half the month with my flash fictions.
Love's Moment
He chose the moment that he loved her most to relive. It was crystal-clear in his memory: a Sunday morning shortly after their youngest son had gone off to college. They were sitting at the table across from each other. He was reading the paper; its pages ruffled in his hands. The house was otherwise quiet. Leaves, the first of autumn and still yellow-green, were falling past the windows. Then a sudden beam of sun poured in, turning everything a golden hue. That's when he looked up. She'd been slathering jam onto a slice of toast. Now she brought the knife to her mouth, closed both lips around the blade. She raised her eyes. He was watching her with such a reticent smile, with tears sitting in his eyes. It startled her. "What?" she said. "Nothing."
----- ----- -----
On July 15th, I signed into my deviantArt account to discover hundreds of messages for me. I had been awarded my second Daily Deviation feature on deviantArt. It was for a nonfiction piece I'd written about creating believable characters: "A Note on Writing Characters".
August
I took a hiatus from deviantArt to get myself situated and to focus on my writing and jewelry making. There was something else I wanted to do, too: launch my Jamberrysong's Creations blog.
I've since met wonderful people, whose works and thoughts I now follow. You brighten my day, and it's amazing to connect with you! I hope you all know that. :)
Photography was something else I wanted to practice. We took lots of walks and lots of pictures.
Ah, National Novel Writing Month. I used it as an excuse to keep working on the novel I have been slogging through for many years now. Cheating, I know, but I made a lot of valuable progress on it.
This month marked my first real craft show! I did very well at it, and met several amazing people. It was also a tragic month for me; my beloved HP digital camera finally bit the dust. :(
One of my flash fiction pieces was published in a project on livejournal called Fiction Mingle:
Some claimed they had seen her in the bayou, an Ophelia of the swamps. Floating on her back, her dark hair radiating in tendrils around her, white dress translucent in the water. The glimpse of form beneath her gown was enough to drive men mad; many had jumped overboard to go after her. They met ragged alligator jaws or the sharp poison of moccasins before reaching her arms.
Others did not see her, but they describe a sweet, lone voice in the darkness. And there are some who swear it was her hands that first made water lilies grow there.
----- ----- -----
My artist's block finally broke and I made some illustrations to go with my novel.
December
Here we are. This month, I embarked on a really ambitious endeavor that will carry into next year:
It is my goal to finish a piece for every one of these prompts by the end of next year. I got my new camera, which will continue to slow down your computer with beautiful images. XD
----- ----- -----
I am so happy to be able to have shared this year with you. Already, I'm so thankful for having started this blog. It has offered a creative outlet, a way to network, and invaluable inspiration. Here's to another wonderful year, and many more after that! <3
