Multi-tasking

I am in the middle of listing a couple more pieces, posting in this blog, drinking coffee and playing scrabble :) This week, while my parents have been here, we have instated ritual coffee and scrabble afternoons. It works well while the boys are having their naptime. I have also been handwrapping beads and making necklaces during these sessions. I have been a multi-tasking fiend!

I need to start including items that are in the 'favorites' section of my shop. I am always coming across AMAZING items on Etsy....

Click on the images to go straight to each listing. I am especially enthralled with the last picture, because not only do I really like the shirt, but I also love the photography.

Below are the remaining pieces that I am in the middle of listing. I ran out of some sterling silver wire so I have two necklaces that will have to wait a few days to make it to my shop.

The necklace below is one that I just adore....for a couple of reasons. I love the freeform shape, the color and also the uniqueness of the amber. It has a milky white/yellow/brown coloring that I had yet to see in amber...until I traveled to eastern Europe that is. Even there, though, I see more of the 'cognac' colored amber in jewelry. I love.love.love it!

I am going to finish listing the last two pieces and then it's dinnertime. My mom and dad are making green chile/chicken enchiladas and beans, while (another thing that I am doing right now!) I am making some Spanish rice.

Yum :)

Quick update

I made it into another treasury! :)

A bit overwhelmed...

I apologize for being a day late with this...I will be posting these three in my etsy shop in a couple of minutes.

Have I mentioned that I do not handle stress well? I really hate this about myself....and I am really working hard on balancing it out. When I get overwhelmed I can't see very well out of the cave I back myself into. So I just try to focus on marking off another item off my list and moving forward. I have to do this otherwise I am doomed because starting your own business is not exactly a stress-free endeavor ;)

Anyways, here are the three pieces I will post today:



Yesterday, instead of listing jewelry I became inspired to make more of it....so I went with that feeling. I am pretty busy on the homefront because of guests and such so I will only list these three and then tomorrow a few and on Friday I'll post the rest. I have 10 pieces of jewelry in total.

Tomorrow I'll be occupied with my son's birthday....I'll see you again on Friday :)

Visitors, music and wine

I am listening to Missy Higgins and drinking some cabernet....specifically this song. I wasn't kidding when I posted in my profile page that I love music. I really, constantly, have music playing. I used to always joke that a soundtrack would more appropriately detail my life instead of a written biography. I can hear different songs and I am instantly transported to a specific time in my life. Do music and art go hand in hand? It seems so at least for me this is the case. There are two routes that I thought I would take when I was young. One was as an artist...the other was as a musician. I played the clarinet for a good chunk of my youth. I really thought at 13 that I would play in orchestras as a profession.

Right now my parents and nephew are visiting from NM. My oldest monkey turns 4 in a few days so they wanted to make sure and come celebrate with us. Yesterday we all went to Estes Park for the day, which is only an hour's drive.

We walked around the town, had a picnic at the lake and then ate some ice cream at a local shop. It was a really nice day and the town is quite pretty.

In other news I finally ordered my signature stamp for all of my jewelry. I will include a picture of it as soon as it arrives. It has my intials and includes '.925'. We are also getting ready for my first fair for Labor Day weekend. There is SO much that we are doing to prepare....least of which is my need to increase my jewelry stores. Tomorrow I will be posting some new pieces, but I'll preview them here first.

Time for a movie and ice cream sundaes....

Caught

It is almost 10 o'clock and I got stuck reading Ottmar Liebert's diary. He writes very eloquently and I enjoy his writing, but what especially captures me are his photos. He is a gifted photographer. I remember a few years ago coming across his flickr page where he had pictures of his trip to Tibet maybe it was last year. The images were so hypnotizing....
I am in love with photography so I really appreciate seeing other's views of the world through a lens.

If you have yet to listen to his music, I strongly recommend visiting his website or here, and listening in.

I am listening to it now... It is lovely :)

Workshop pics

I finally took them.

Even though I like clean, this is definitely cleaner than usual. When working there are materials all over the tables.

That means that I better get to work....

So I designed the layout with my husband and he built the whole darn thing. It's nice being married to a handyman....seriously :) I have a more detailed description of my workshop in my flickr page. I wrote little notes to explain each area.

I have to say that my parents (mainly mom) mourned the passing of their room into the space that is pictured above and below. My workspace used to be formally known as the 'guest room'.

One thing I mentioned in my flickr page, that I'll also say here, is that I always keep my stones out in front of me. I tried putting them away in a more organized manner awhile back....but I just couldn't keep them hidden. They are so beautiful that I hate having them out of view! Plus it helps to have all of them in front of me when I am deciding on what to work on next. You'd think I missed my calling as a lapidary artist, but no, setting them is the REAL fun part.

In other news my favorite band is coming here on the North American leg of their tour and when I say favorite this means that since I was 12 years old they have dominated by cassette deck/cd player/ipod. I am going to try very hard to go see them.....

.....until then I'll have to watch this to tide me over.

This is old school....but it still gives me shivers.

Cleaning house...a.k.a. workshop

I am moving a bit slow again today. For some reason I just can't wake up even though it is now mid-morning. I even went for a run at 6 a.m., which almost always gives me an amazing boost for the day. Needless to say I had to make a nice, large cup of coffee this morning....waiting for it to kick in :)

I am in the middle of organizing and cleaning my workshop. I find calmness in the clean and orderly...it helps keep the creative juices flowing for me. I know this is a bit atypical for many artists, but I thrive on order.

I am excited to get to work on my designs today, though. I came up with some new ideas last night that really excite me...I can't wait to see how they turn out. I took a few more pics of some additional turquoise that I have. I ordered a pair of b.e.a.u.t.i.f.u.l. Kingman turquoise stones that are begging to be set into earrings.

I ordered a bunch of Chinese turquoise before I left as well and below is an example of some of what I have. Love the colors!

As soon as I get my workshop squared away I will take some pictures and post them. I've been needing to do that for awhile.

Also, I thought I would mention that while catching up on one of my favorite blogs (bliss), I became enamored with some lovely clothes that she posted from the designer, James Perse. You can find the specific post here. I have increasingly become more fond of a simplistic design in clothing. I'll take one of each please ;)

Back to work....

Back in the saddle!

My vacation is over and I am back in the swing of things. Actually more like hurtling forward! I have spent much of my time away thinking about how I am going to move forward and formulating goals. But before I 'talk shop' I am going to tell you a bit about my "vacation".

I had ups and downs while away. The extreme high of traveling is always such a pleasure. I can't tell you how much I love experiencing new places and cultures. I soak in everything about a place while I am there. The hard part was (no shocker here) traveling with little ones. My poor boys slept in a hundred different places and for you parents out there I know you understand how valuable a schedule is for a child's peace of mind. So that was really the main stress of our trip. We went to so many places and they did well considering they had to adapt to a 9 hour time difference and tons of new places to stay and people to meet. My husband and I have decided though, that we will not be taking a large trip with them like that for at LEAST a couple of years. It is just too hard on them while they are this small.

The really wonderful thing is that they got to spend so much time with their vanaema (grandma), see their vana-vanaema (great-grandmother) and uncles and cousins. Plus they got some good playtime in with friends. My husband only speaks Estonian with them so there was no language barrier for the boys with friends and family. Now I have to work on my Estonian language skills because a lot of my husband's family do not speak English. I hate not being able to communicate with them and it will just help out a lot because we visit as much as possible.

One other horrible really quite horrible thing that happened to me is that my camera died in Gdansk. This was at the BEGINNING of my trip :( Me traveling without a camera is like taking away a limb. No joke....I was in agony visiting new places without being able to document it. I took some pictures in Germany but we made such a beautiful drive through Poland, Lithuania and Latvia that I am sad to not be able to show them here. (I have lots and lots of pictures of Estonia from previous trips that I will have to share in a future post.) Here are two of the last pictures I got before the camera totally went belly up. The first is a view from our hotel room in Gdansk. You can see how the camera is already dying.

Next is of a cute little place we stayed at in Lithuania.

It's killing me not be able to show more pictures. Everywhere we went was amazing. Another down-side to the trip is that my youngest got sick when we were in Denmark so I caught really only a peek of the country. We looked around Copenhagen a tiny bit, Roskilde (saw the very cool Viking ship museum here....BEAUTIFUL town), and Helsingor, which is the site of Hamlet's castle. Luckily we are going back in April for our friend's birthday (without kids) so we'll really get to look around then. I am very, very excited about this because the little time I spent there was like a tease....

So when we got back I needed some serious time to decompress. I didn't even go into my workshop until something like 5 days had passed. And when I did I worked at a snail's pace...just kind of flexing and stretching my artistic muscles.

Below is a picture of what I have made in the last few days.

I'll be putting these up in the shop tomorrow. If I get time...possibly tonight. I am so excited to dig more into my new amber, and I can't wait to finally get my shop reopened. I don't want to close it for that long again for a long, long time!

I also got some GORGEOUS Bisbee turquoise that just came in yesterday. I am surrounded by beautiful stones. What a way to maintain some serious inspiration!

It is sooo good to be back. :)