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I completed this piece this afternoon and I've been working on it for a little while. A few days. My boyfriend's best friend has a "thing" for Slave bracelets, and in Western culture, it's a bracelet with a ring attached to it. Mainly, slave bracelets are popular in the umm, BDSM culture--something I have NO interest in (nor does the person this is a gift for) or the Gothic culture and they are typically made of metal links. Their real origin is Saharan Africa, for which slavers would trade copper bracelets for slaves. They were a kind of currency. This one is completely peyote and ndebele stitched one bead at a time. The bracelet and ring portion has thousands of TINY little beads stitched one by one. The gold beads are even smaller, and are solid 22k gold. This will be a for my boyfriends best friend. She's collected Slave Bracelets for 25 years and wears them fairly regularly as well. I hope she likes this piece knowing her best bud had it made for her

In addition to the 22k gold beads, this piece also features Swarovski pearls, Czech fire polished crystals, and was custom made for the gal who will receive it (it's too small for my hand pictured above). Which is a funny story... We were at this gals house having dinner and drinks, and my boyfriend wandered off to use the "bathroom"--I kept her occupied while he borrowed one of her MANY bracelets of this kind so we could measure her ring size and wrist size, as well as the distance from her finger to wrist. LOL. He managed to sneak it back into her house and back into her collection before she noticed it was gone! Whew!! LOL. I think she'll be surprised when it's a perfect fit. She'll receive it tonight (her birthday was yesterday) so I hope it's a hit! :)

This is a photograph of the new line I've been selling. I'm SHOCKED... these cute little cocktail style rings are flying off the shelves at the store I sell them through. They're affordable retailing for $40 which is reasonable for nearly any budget. Depending on the colors used, these can often look like fine jewelry from a few feet away until on closer inspection, you realize that they are actually a center bead, that's been encased in tiny japanese glass beads and embellished with crystals. These adorable little rings take me about an hour and a half to whip up. They're EXTREMELY comfortable on the finger and don't have the habit of flipping around backward like a standard metal band ring. I'm thrilled with the success of this line! They also fit a variety of ring sizes due to the slight amount of stretch they have since they're sewn on a 6lb braided nylon fishing line. They're incredibly durable.

The matrials range from Swarovski pearls and crystals or Czech firepolish crystal. I'm still shocked by how well these are selling. which is great! They're pretty quick for me to make and the materials aren't over the top expensive like they are in a lot of my pieces.

This is a special little bracelet I made today for my special girl... my daughter. I made this for her to go with her "gothic Lolita" dress that she wears sometimes. She's a member of two Lolita groups. What's Lolita? Ya, I haven't quite figured that out entirely yet, but groups of girls dress up in Victorian or Rococo style dresses and accessories and kind of go on parade I guess. They meet for lunches and teas, go shopping and I guess it's kind of a social club thing. My daughters costume is black and white, so I made this little crystal bracelet for her to go with it. It has a definite Victorian flare to it.

My daughter is tiny, very petite, and so is this bracelet. The three center rosettes are two rows larger than the side rosettes. The center stones are crusted with a Swarovski stone called Black Diamond and they have a rainbow wash on them which gives them extraordinary sparkle (and therefore very difficult to photograph!), The side rosettes are simply gunmetal colored Swarovski glass pearls crusted with little japanese seed beads. the clasp, is a simple lobster claw that's easy to put on and remove. The height of each pearl is 8mm, so this bracelet design is very slim, but at the same time, it's surprisingly rigid... like a strap.

I'm disliking winter.. it makes it really really hard to take good pictures of my work! I need sunlight to capture the detail and I need to get a clear picture! Arificial light just isn't doin' it!

My daughter loves this little crystal bracelet... which made me feel great... I love her SO much. :)

Pictured are a ring and a bracelet I completed today (I'll get a better picture tomorrow I think). The ring is totally FUN! It's made up of little japanese seed beads, and Swarovski crystal pearls. Swarovski crystal pearls the undeniably best quality glass pearl you can purchase. The ring is amazingly comfortable, with a band stitched in sterling silver seed beads. Because the band is stitched, it's flexible and it nestles right into the finger joint and just molds to your finger. I wear a LOT of metal band rings (obsession!) and I have to admit that a stitched band is MUCH more comfortable than a solid metal one. LOL. It fits, and the pearls on the top don't budge, they don't flip around backward or anything. Just perfection. Im quite tickled with this one. From a distance, it really does look like fine jewelry, close up, it's just darling and super-duper fun!

The bracelet is the same treatment as the ring... this is one of the most petite bracelets I've ever sewn. It's also adorned with Swarovski crystal pearls, and the clasp is an inexpensive silver plated ring and toggle. It's just cute.

I'll be doing quite a few of these two patterns... they are simple and quick for me to work up. While Swarovski pearls are spendy, they are not as spendy as the crystal bi-cones I use in most of my work. And, I can find the crystal pearls on sale occasionally... NEVER do the crystal bi-cones go on sale... not ever in my experience.

Yes! These are fun and easy! I can't wait to find out how well they do in the stores. The rings I'll probably sell for a reasonable price of $35 and the bracelets for about $45. In the words of my daughter "Oh mom, these are SUPERcute!" LOL

(and yes, before anyone asks... under my hand are my BF's Star Wars Light Sabre toys.... ROTFLOL... he was trying to rewire one of them that was malfunctioning until I sent him away to install the cable digital converter boxes... also shown in the picture LOL)

This is a new design I'm trying out and I think I like it!

This isn't a stitch I normally like to work with mostly because I find it unweildy It's created from a netting stitch that originates from Africa. It's extremely versitile, but I find it messy to sew with. However, this piece turned out nice and I think I'll do some more. While it looks good laid out flat like this, but it's REALLY stunning on the wrist. Because this is a new piece for me, I thought I'd take a picture of both the front and back. On the back, you can clearly see the netting effect. The front looks like bursts of crystals with a flower design. The materials in this piece are Swarovski crystal pearls (really the finest quality glass pearls available), Swarovski crystals, and the links between the bursts are a stone called Chinese Chrysocolla, which is from the same mineral family as malachite, azurmal or turquoise. I haven't yet put a clasp on this piece, I'm thinking of departing with my normal ring and toggle closure and perhaps finishing it with a lovely sterling silver clasp. This piece has some serious BLING to it. It's super sparkly (and therefore hard to photograph)!

I wish I'd been able to get better photographs. This piece is seriously pretty I think. It's super sparkly, and it's nice and thin and VERY comfortable to wear.

I like to work with Swarovski crystals, obviously, but one of the drawbacks of these crystals is that they are bi-cone shaped. Meaning they are cut like two cones stuck together creating a rather sharp edge (girdle) right where the stones lay against the skin. I'm used to wearing them now and they don't bother me, but others find they horribly uncomfortable. This bracelet design is awesome because the netting seen in the "Back" photo creates a buffer between the crystal and the skin. the small japanese seed beads used to stitch the netting are soft and comfortable.

Yes, I'll be making more of these. I haven't quite decided what I'll sell them for yet, but because there are so many crystals in each piece, I'm thinking that I'll have to sell them for about $140 to make any kind of profit. For an idea of how wide this bracelet is: the center rosette is 1 3/4 inches in diameter and the smaller rosettes are 1", so it's pretty substantial but not overly large or overly small.

This is my most recent piece and I had to finish this one on a deadline!

This is for my very best girlfriend; today is her 42nd birthday. The colors in this piece are SO her. Bright vibrant blues, real gold, and lime greens. It will remind her of her favorite vacations in the Carribean I hope. :)

This piece is something I've never really done before ... sort of. The center stones aren't stones at all, but are antique glass buttons made in Czechoslovakia sometime prior to World War I. I found these five matching pieces in a big bin in a fabric store marked "vintage buttons". I don't think the store realized how semi-valuable these really are. The color is fantastic and the floral design on the top is pretty cute. Each link of this bracelet is over an inch in diameter, so it's semi large, but lays flat and slim.

I'm very slightly concerned that the glass hanks on the back of the buttons might be annoying to wear against the skin, but I did try it out for several hours today and realized that after about 15 minutes I did get used to the odd feeling of button hanks. LOL.

I think it turned out pretty. Each button is embellished with TONS of Capri Blue Swarovski crystals, and each crystal is stoppered with a real gold bead. I think if I were doing this for anyone other than my girlfriend in mind, I'd have done it with silver stoppers, but since she wears gold/gold, I went with this color scheme.

Ok, so I'm like really annoyed.

I live in a nice little community, an older section of town, and own a little house. My house has my main driveway, a typical suburban road out front that's rarely all that busy, but does get some traffic, and on the lower portion of my lot is an easement, or a driveway that goes to the two houses behind me. I have partial ownership of the easement (although I never use it, but it's on my property) and my neighbors also have partial ownership of it.

So, about 2 weeks ago, I come home, and there's a cop sitting on the easement drive (it does look like a through street) and he's got his radar gun out trying to trap drivers. That's fine with me, we get a lot of high school kids speeding up and down the street since the HS is on my road. I'd prefer that people did the speedlimit. BUT, by law that officer can't sit on private property (my easement) and set up a speed trap. So, thinking that maybe he didn't realize it was private property I wandered down and let him know that he was blocking my driveway and my neighbors driveway. I also told him that most of the city police set their speed trap up one street down (maybe 70 feet away) and were very successful at nabbing speeders from there. I was polite, smiling and I thought I was being helpful. No sweat. I went inside and saw him move.

So, a few days later, same cop, same place! Blocking the easement, setting up his speed trap! I wandered outside, got his attention and kind of gave him the hands out, shrug, with a bit of a glare I suppose, although I prefer to think of it as that "Hey, what's up dude, didn't we talk about this" kind of look. LOL.

He radared a few more cars, then sped off after someone. Needless to say, he was back AGAIN the next morning, and rather than chasing him off, I called the police department and reported him. I've done that three times now, and the supervisor down there confirms that he's been told to stay off the driveway.

It's getting ridiculous. Should I try to escalate this? Or should I ignore his blatent bad behavior? He's being a big jerk. I can't decide if this is something I should just let go, or if I should do something more.

Any suggestions?

I like the police in this city as a general rule and have always had good experiences with them until now. GAH.

[RANT OVER] LOL.

This is the piece I'm working on for the show that is coming up in my area. This is a juried show, where artists are judged and awarded prizes for their work. Mostly, it's a good way to get noticed and recognized as a serious artist in this area.

This piece is nowhere near completed and it will likely take me another month to finish. What you see here is the base row for what will be a large collar type of necklace. Subsequent rows will build the necklace out to roughly 3" wide on either side and it will all be interconnected to form solid strands that lay over the clavical like a collar. The reality is that these collars aren't terribly wearable or practical, but they are favored by judges because of the amount of work that goes into them and how truly "royal" they look. I'm going for a semi-byzantine inspired look for this one. I'm also toying and experimenting with adding some structural embellishments to this one. Perhaps individually bead sculpted (bead sewn) leaves or flowers. I'm still experimenting with that though.. I want this piece to look fairly modern byzantine, and so far, I have no indication that natural elements like the ones I'm thinking of were popular in that style/era.

The base colors are green and bronze at this point, but as I work in the next rows, I'll be fading those colors out to incorporate light blues, sand colors, and keeping the bronze as the anchor color. (byzantine style is usually rich gold, but since this is just "inspired" I ditched using the expensive gold beads).

Subsequent rows will attach to the center stone which is a rutiallated quartz I purchased at a gem show last month. It's HUGE over 16 carats. the smaller greenish stones are natural aquamarines.

I think it's hard to explain what this will look like when it's completed (and I'm not even sure myself! LOL) but I thought it would be fun to post a piece that was "in the works" So far, I have about 10 hours into this one... I'm sure I have at bare minimum another 50 hours to put into it before it's complete.

I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it....

LOL. I just got word from TWO galleries in a funky little tourist town called LaConnor in Washington that they want to carry my jewelry and are willing to buy out my stock! I'm just stunned there there seems to be far more of a market for my work than I'd realized! I wasn't aware that it was as unique as it seems to be.

I'm mainly excited because these galleries are looking at purchasing my more expensive pieces. Typically, the little shop I've been selling through for the last year likes my pieces that are in the $25-100 range. It seems to be the price range that people will spend when they weren't expecting to spend any money. The store I've been selling through isn't really a gallery or a shopping destination. It's a shop that offers an activity. Essentially, it's a rock shop where customers purchase a bag, and select all the raw polished gemstones they can fit into that bag. The jewelry pieces that are carried in the store are very very seconary to the gemstone business. Therefore, people who decide to buy one of the jewelry pieces are buying on a whim, and not purposefully shopping for that kind of item.

The galleries want to feature my more "spectacular" work that are $200 and over. Goodness gracious, if I keep this up, I mght actually be able to eek out a meagar living as an artist! It would be a huge change from my lifestyle as a software developer, but boy it would be FUN. Maybe even fun enough to not care that I'm barely making the bills. haha.

Because this all happened rather quickly, I'm also considering getting involved with some juried art shows. Our local art museum is sponsoring a juried show in textiles in December, and I'm working on a piece to enter. If I can enter and place (or win) in the show, this could get me a name and some backing that could allow me leverage my pieces so I can sell my work through some of the bigger Seattle galleries. Cross those fingers!!! I'll post my entry when I complete it. It's a necklace, made of a 16 ct Rutiallated Quartz (clear quartz shot with spectacular rods of copper) and studded with Aquamarine. I'm working it with real bronze beads and glass.

Whew! Two more down!

The gal I work with who sells my pieces has suggested that I create some lower priced examples so I can hopefully move more of my pieces quickly through her store. These are the same designs that I have been creating all along, however, I've altered the materials I'm using to come up with some pieces that are slightly less expensive.

The first is another ruffle design, but only incorporates four of the Swarovski crystals which can be the bulk of my material costs. The toggle portion of the clasp is finished with the crystals. The colors in this one are fun. The japanese beads I've used are actually clear (or frosted) glass, but they are lined with color through the hole in each bead. This softens the color and in the case of this piece, it gives off a beautiful pastel glow. The colors are a lovely spring green , a nice lavendar, and the gold beads are frosted on the ouside and lined with a gold foil. It's a really springy looking piece. I'll sell this one for $50 since I've reduced the number of crystals I've used.

The second piece is the tennis bracelet style I love creating. I had some tubes of these bright, opaque colored beads that I never use (I tend to work with more subtle natural colors) and picked up these funny little magnasite center stones. Magnasite is an inexpensive stone and available in limitless quantities. Yes, it's essentially magnesium and almost indistinguisable from dolomite, another limitlessly available mineral. Each stone is bezeled with a different primary color, and instead of studding each stone with expensive crystals, I created navy blue bead fringe. I tried to keep it fun by adding an eye popping clasp. The toggle is studded with two rather large clear Swarovski crystals. It turned out fun, like a little party I think. It's great for every day casual wear with jeans, t-shirts etc... since this one is nearly absent of crystals, I'll put this one up for sale for $95. It took roughly 12 hours to put together.

I really need to make up some more necklaces and pendants, but I'm not feeling the artistic urge to do that quite yet... I know the shop is running low on them, but my head ain't in it right now. LOL.