Friday, November 19, 2010

Something's coming, something good

Bonus points to anyone who knows the song I referenced in the title of this post. 

I have been a jewelry-making fool this week.  Given the demands of my full-time job and family, I really only have nights and weekends to work on my projects.  So, I'm not getting a lot of sleep these days, but that's OK.  I have a bunch of new beads and fun chains, and I'm having so much fun designing new pieces.  It certainly helps to have semi-permanent workspace set up.  I'm working on a combination of Christmas presents and a few other surprises to be revealed...very soon.

I have completed several new pieces, but I won't be able to photograph them until the weekend.  Again, the weekday job and daylight issues, but I won't go into detail because I'm pretty sure I've mentioned that before.

The necklace below was a gift for a crafty friend who had given me a bunch of beads.  I figured the least I could do was make her a necklace using some of those beads.  This was kind of an interesting challenge for me.  Usually, I have a vision, and then I select beads/metals to work with that vision.  With this piece, I was given the beads first, and tried to create something with what I was given.  Just a different design challenge, I suppose.  These pictures were taken a few weeks ago (yes, with my old camera) but I had to wait until she received it before I could share the pictures.




Stay tuned to learn what's coming.  ;)

Sunday, November 14, 2010

They're crafty (and they're just my type)

A while back, some friends and I were commiserating about how we never have enough time for our crafting hobbies.  Someone came up with the great idea to get together for a "craft night" wherein we would each bring our respective crafting projects and we would be able to socialize while we worked on them.  I excitedly told my husband about this plan.  Unfortunately, he has been witness to our "book" club meetups where we rarely discuss the book, so he thought "craft" night would pan out to be much the same.

Undaunted, I packed up some supplies and a necklace that I had been working on for a few weeks, and went off to join my friends for craft night.  Yes, I admit that we gabbed for a good hour before we sat down at the craft table.  BUT, I did finish that necklace and was able to start another one.  So there, hubby.  My crafy friends all scrapbooked, and they are all quite talented.  Someday, I may pay one of them to organize my photos in a scrapbook.

The necklace was a gift for a special cousin, and I can share the pictures with you now that she has (finally) received it. (Please ignore fuzzies in second pic.)




We don't yet have another craft night on the calendar, but I hope we can do it again soon.  In a completely unrelated project, I decided to make some earrings inspired by fall.  I think they're kind of fun.  The earrings in this picture were made with a silver crafting wire, just so I could test out the design.  Sterling silver wire is very expensive, and I have learned the hard way that I should practice on (less expensive) crafting wire. 

Case in point, this was my first attempt.  Although I didn't have an exact shape in mind, this definitely is not what I was going for.

The final result was a bit better. Keep in mind that this is my "prototype" and the finished earrings would be in sterling, so they will have a much nicer shine to them.  I bent the wire into the leaf-like shape, and then hammered them to give a textured appearance, but I don't think this shows up well in either picture. 


In other wonderful news, I am excited to share that I have a working camera again!  I have missed my camera terribly, so I am super excited about this. However, the above pictures in this post were all taken with my crappy camera before I got the new one, so please don't judge me. 

I have one last item to share with you today.  I initially made this necklace close to a year ago, and I just wasn't thrilled with the result.  I reworked it a bit the other day, and the final piece is much better.  I love the mix of wooden and glass beads, different shades of blue/turquoise, with a few silver pieces thrown in. 




I was going to share a few other things with you, but that's probably sufficient for this post.  I have to keep all thirteen of my followers coming back for more, you know.  And now, I'm off to work on some jewelry while my son is resting. 

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

The (nearly) final kitchen redo pics

I sincerely apologize for my delay in posting the (nearly) final pictures of the kitchen.  The backsplash was just completed last week, and I had been holding out hope that I'd be able to get my camera fixed before the kitchen was finished.  No such luck.  It turns out that the nearest Nikon repair shop is an hour away from me (with no traffic) so I just haven't made it there yet.  The other option is to send it out to Nikon and be without a camera for 6-8 weeks.  So, for now, you're just getting more crappy pictures taken with my crappy old camera. 

Granite and sink installed (obviously, backsplash not yet installed)

View of the island
View of the sink
 Backsplash going in (travertine subway tile)

 Almost finished




The flash on my crappy camera really washes everything out, so I don't feel like this gives a good color representation, but I can't do anything about that.  So now we just need to do some minor finishing touches...change the switch plates on the backsplash, purchase bar stools for the island, repair the wall (above the sink) and ceiling, and paint.  We haven't chosen a paint color yet. Any suggestions?