A little quickie.....

Life gets so busy in the spring it's very hard to make myself put in the computer time needed to keep my poor blog up to date. I thought it was high time to brush off the cobwebs here and say hello! I've been busy in the studio working on several custom pieces, and in the garden. The peonies and roses have simply outdone themselves, and I've enjoyed two weeks of sumptuous blooms. Now I'm looking forward to the calla lilies, which are sure to bring some great photo opportunities. And I need to mow......always the endless mowing.....


I'm taking a trip down to Chattanooga to hand deliver a gallery order tomorrow, so I am feverishly finishing up items today. I can't wait to see what the shop looks like, and do a bit of browsing through the downtown art district. There will definitely be pictures when I get back. I'll also probably take my new dragonfly leaf piece, and get busy making another one for the shop next week.

Also made a new pinkie ring for the shop with those yummy little pink tourmalines that arrived last week.

This weekend I'll be showing you some completely fabulous work from both Etsy and 1000 Markets - the kind of stuff that takes your breath away - can't wait to see what you all think!

I'm Back from my little "Blog Vacation"....

I thought it was time to wave a virtual 'hello' to everyone! I took a teeny little 'vacation' from my computer this past week to tend to gardening and working through my backlog of bench work deadlines. I've made lovely progress in the garden, chasing weeds, trimming last year's dead flower stalks and uncovering this year's new growth. It seems my two pink rugosa's did make it through the drought after all, and they are freshly trimmed and growing beautifully. My rosemary came through the cold winter, too. New green needles are peeking out out from the brown ones I feared were dead. And my viburnum bushes are in full fragrant bloom. This weekend I'm going to plant my broccoli, radishes, and maybe even my beans.

As for meeting all my jewelry deadlines, I'm almost there - here are a couple pictures of yesterday afternoon's work in progress, and a pile of pieces nearing completion. I think I will actually be fully caught up in a couple more days, even with my custom orders - yay!


While I've been working, I've had several new ideas that I just can't wait to start working on, and I've also been experimenting more with fusing copper, since I had a couple of little fused copper hoop earrings to make. Here's yesterday's little pile of fused copper circles - only two failures, probably because the joint wasn't flush enough. I wondered if using flux would make it fuse better, but I found that it actually seemed to make it worse, which is great because it saves a step.



Another thing I noticed is that if it looks like the joint is going to pull apart, if you pull away the heat it will often "swell" and fuse together just fine. Interesting.

I hope everyone who celebrates Easter had a wonderful holiday! Saturday Night at 1000 Markets and Sunday Morning Coffee and Etsy will be back with flying colors this weekend. I've found some wonderful goodies that I can't wait to show everyone. See you all soon!

Saturday Night at 1000 Markets - 3/21/09

With the arrival of Spring, and Easter just around the corner, I thought my first spring garden photos, plus a bit of whimsy and rabbits were in order for the 1000 Markets shopping post this week. I love sweet little rabbits (unless they're eating my garden plants) and I was thrilled when I saw this great garden bench at our local salvage store a couple of years ago.

You can see what a messy gardener I am, too. I never clean up the previous year's garden until spring so the birds have goodies to eat all winter.
Isn't that a lovely reason to not do the fall 'cleanup' chores? My little tulip patch is getting ready to bloom, though, so it's time to get busy now!

It's also time to start dreaming of my wonderful fragrant Rugosa rose blooms - my sweet Moje Hammarburg is off to a great start already. Check out those thorns, too. (but I love her anyway)

Now, on to the spring shopping....

I fell in love with the whimsical art in the Blue Dog Rose shop the instant I saw it. I love the delightful creatures peeking out everywhere in her paintings. In my little dream world, this is how things would be - all the different creatures (including us, ha ha) living together in perfect harmony. My favorite painting is her Crossing the Lake limited edition print. I can just see a child's room decorated in this theme - or better yet, my studio wall! Her rabbits remind me of the rabbit in the wonderful story of The Velveteen Rabbit, recently mentioned in Nicola's last blog post.

Another painting that caught my eye is the Mushrooms and a Nap limited edition print. This one reminds me of my introduction to wild mushrooms on one of our family vacations near Rhinelander, Wisconsin. The family in the cabin next door to ours happened to be mushroom experts, and they took us on a mushroom hunt in the woods. We dined that evening on sauteed mushrooms that made me a mushroom lover for the rest of my life. One of these days I'm going to get someone to take me out hunting for the delectable Morels that everyone loves so much. Tennessee has wonderful wild plants, including great morels, so I'm hoping to find some one of these days.


Or, how about a dozen fabulously decorated Spring Mix cookies from Cake Box Cookies? I have been dreaming of some cookies from this shop ever since they first opened their 1000 Markets storefront. Not only are they beautiful, but their customers say they taste great, too, with just the right amount of soft and sweet, plus a hint of lemon. YUM!

If you're still dreaming of last year's garden, here is a perfect necklace for you from Bluhealer's shop. Called "Dreaming of Before" it is a beautiful glass vessel pendant, adorned with pansies and rosebuds. In fact, she has several other pansy pieces in her "Winter Garden" collection, and every one of them is gorgeous!

Not only does Bluhealer do lovely glasswork, she also has beautiful enamel work as well. (I am dying to try enamel myself!). These lovely "Summer Fields" earrings whisper of the warmth that is yet to come with lovely clover green enamel on 18 gauge copper adorned with dainty flower murrini.

So, that is all for now, as my own garden is calling my name. I must go out commence my new year of gardening.......see you all later!

Saturday Night at the Market - 02/28/09

Ooh, I'm late! I stayed in the studio until the wee hours (playing with fusing copper - more about that in tomorrow's post), and ran out of steam before I got to my Market shopping. Maybe I should wear this great necklace from Smoke and Feather so I don't ever forget about time again! I found this when searching with the keyword 'watch' for this week's 1000 Markets Search Engine Find. Okay, without further ado, let's shop!!

I am in full spring fever mode, and excited about getting outside and digging in the dirt, but the weather is not on my side just yet, so I thought I'd shop for garden-y things today, after being inspired by this

completely adorable little set from Maddie and Me's shop. Her shop is filled with the most unique and cute children's clothing like this great little boy's teeshirt or sweet pink dress with a matching doll's dress.

Maddie's little gardener's outfit reminds me of an old-fashioned cottage garden, much like I envision my own to be. I've designed it with birds, bees and other creatures in mind, and try and leave some spots a bit wild so there are secret places for creatures to make a life for themselves.



These great mason's bee hives from Andrews' Reclaimed shop are something I plan to add this year. Andrew makes wonderful bird feeders, butterfly and bat houses, too, all from reclaimed fences, barns, and other structures that are scheduled for demolition. I have a lot of purple coneflowers, lavender, (of course) and ruguosa roses that bees love, so I want to provide good housing for them - don't want them to have to travel too far for the day's pollen-gathering.

My addiction to cut flowers is another reason that I garden, and I was reminded of the beauty about to burst forth in a week or two when I saw this great Daffodil Garden fine art photograph in Judy Stalus' shop.



Actually I love every single photo in her shop!! I'm really looking forward to filling my house with cut flowers like the purple coneflowers in her Late Summer Bouquet photograph. I have a huge patch of coneflowers that I grow to feed my favorite little goldfinches as well as for great long-lasting bouquets. I always make sure to leave plenty of them go to seed, and enjoy watching the little finches just about all winter.


The very best one of all, though, I think, is the White Datura on Lace. This one not only inspires me to garden, but also to create jewelry. The way she has captured the beautiful curving forms in this flower have me ready to run down to the studio and make a pendant!

And now.... we resume our regularly scheduled blog!

Every year it happens at some point - I take a little vacation from making jewelry. My muse disappears, and I indulge in other things. This year I concentrated on my garden, and joined the Southern Appalachian Plant Society. A wonderful organization full of fun people that love gardening. I also started using (and selling) organic gardening products from The Happy Gardener . Great stuff! I did an organic gardening product booth at the SAPs statewide convention in June, had a lot of fun talking to people, and even sold a few things. Got my feet wet at doing a show, and even met a couple of jewelry folks - who'd have thought there'd be jewelry at a gardening show! I may have to actually try a doing a jewelry booth at a show one of these years - we'll see. Anyway, my jewelry muse finally returned at the end of July, so I am getting back to creating again. We'll see where we go from here.......