Winter Wreath

This is the first thing I made in our new house- a wreath for the front door.  It negates the ugliness of the door a little.

Spring and Summer Jewelry

I took a class at EmMi Beads from Lisa Oristian and forged this necklace.  Just the chain, not the circles at the bottom.

I had pieces left over for earrings:

Card and Gift Tag

Made for a friend’s first communion.

I cut the lily of the valley from a Martha Stewart template using an X-acto blade, painted the white bits with acrylic, and went over it all with mod podge.  Same deal for the monogram, except I cut it without a template.

Gifts, Candle, and Jewelry

For Eva’s birthday – a matching bookmark and earring set.  They are made from amethyst chips and blue goldstone.

For Derek and Meghan’s wedding – Adam and I put together this bottle opener (available at EmMi Beads) and also made them a “Jamaica Me Crazy” scented candle (not pictured).

This is my first candle ever!  The top half is macintosh apple, the bottom is pomegranate.

Here’s the rest of the amethyst chips:

Inspired by Lanvin fall 08 jewelry.  These are Swarovski pearls stitched onto dyed silk.

Crystal-pearl-ribbon bracelet:

Just some cute leaf earrings:

Some rings I made at work.  Clockwise from top they are made with 1. a mirage (mood!) bead, 2. turquoise, 3. unknown semiprecious, 4. Swarovski pearl, 5. and 6. Swarovski crystal.

Also at work, a valentine-ish necklace.  Brass, freshwater pearl, and Sw. crystal.

New Jewelry

Before November I hadn’t made any jewelry in years.  Then I started working at the bead shop…

These are sister bracelets for Sarah and me.  The chips are our birthstone, garnet, and the other glass beads represent our numbers… mine has 13 total- 6 on one strand, 7 on the other.  Sarah’s has 10 total, because her best numbers are 5 and 28.

I made myself earrings with the leftovers.

On Monday everyone from EmMi Beads had lunch and exchanged gifts.  I gave out my tote bags from the previous post, and I received some really great stuff.

Lisa (Kissing Dog Designs) gave me a bunch of really cool beads.  I’m very happy to have these in my stash!

Denise (Whirled Peas Beads) let me pick this bead out as an xmas gift (plus four more small beads for earrings- I haven’t used those yet)…

…and also gave me a goddess!

Kim (EmMi Beads) gave me a beautiful Whirled Peas bead that I had been eyeing.  I don’t know whether she knew that or not, but either way I’m thrilled to own it.  It makes me think of turtles.

(I really love these czech glass petrified wood-looking beads! )

From Karen (EmMi Beads) I received this awesome personalized beading tool pouch.  If only I had a sewing machine that embroidered…  and serged.

Totes and Pouches

I spent a few long nights putting together these gifts for the ladies I work with at the bead shop.  I didn’t make the actual totes but Iput a different lining in each one.  I also sewed three small pouches for one person.  I hand-stitched the linings in and now I know what thimbles are for.

The Opposite of a Maxx Moment?

A week-ish ago, I saw this very nice necklace in TJ Maxx, but I didn’t think too much about it because it was $80.

Then that night I went to work at my other job, EmMi Beads.  I was putting out new items when I found beads that looked pretty similar to what I had seen earlier, so I decided to recreate it:

Not bad!  And this only cost $10-12.  The chain isn’t as fine, and the beads are glass (I don’t know if the originals are semi-precious or not, though they ought to be), but the look is the same and I like it.

2008 Winter Greeting Card

I just finished making my cards for this year.  I wanted to do something knitted and came up with the idea of tiny knitted scarves adhered to cardstock.  I wanted to do all 30 of them this way but since I didn’t start doing this in June, I knew it wouldn’t work.  So I created the second card with paper ribbon instead of the scarf.  I’m happy with them overall, and I got all the non-knitted ones done in two days.

Festival of Baskets Basket

If you don’t know what this is…

“St. Louis Gonzaga Church of Utica annual “Festival of Baskets” will take place at 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 21, at Hart’s Hill Inn, 135 Clinton St., Whitesboro.

The event is similar to a silent auction, which allows attendees to place chances on a variety of gift baskets and gift certificates. Each basket is unique, includes handcrafted items and has a theme such as Christmas, Halloween, seasonal, collectibles or money trees. The gift baskets range in value from $25 to over $100.

To mark the festival’s 10th anniversary, a raffle will be held for a 50-inch plasma television.

The festival has grown from an offering of 30 baskets at the inaugural event to more than 200 baskets in 2006.” (source)

The other day we put together a basket.  This means that we picked everything out together, Adam paid for it all, and I arranged it artfully.  If it’s not obvious enough, this is a Clinton Cider Mill themed basket.

This was my first attempt at making a bow from ribbon.  I think it came out okay, considering I had the widest ribbon ever.  It helped that it was wired.  (Not a print I would have chosen myself, by the way, but it works.)

So what was inside?

-an apple slicer
-maple sugar candy
-apple cinnamon pancake mix
-pumpkin bread mix
-mulling spices
-sun-dried tomato and basil vinaigrette
-strawberry rhubarb preserves
-apple salsa
-apple butter
-maple syrup
-$20 gift certificate

And for good measure, we included little pamphlets on apples and syrup.

Okay, so at work today I was sizing/pushing mens’ underwear and came across… the iBoxer:

What can I even say?

Expired Experiment

We have a couple rolls of very expired film, so I messed around with one to see what would happen.  By the way, I now have a nikon n65 film camera.  They came out kind of grainy, I think they’re sorta old looking.  I’m glad I still have another roll to go.

Here are the digitals I took today at the laundromat.  I like doing laundry once I get there.  I listened to the first part of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets audiobook and took pictures when no one else was around.

Summer Photos

Some of the better ones from this summer:

Dark Mark Scarf

This was made back in October – I knitted the hell out of it when we went to the Hamptons.  Then I gave it to Josh, director of We Are Wizards.