I’ve been dying for a strand of watermelon tourmaline forever. It’s totally gorgeous - from a deep pink through to dark green, with light and dark versions of each, and black and white. I actually have TWO strands now - a small button strand and a long chunky chips strand. They’re both amazing.
Every now and then I take them out, determined to do something with some of it.. and then I put it back, too afraid to cut the strands.
Today I conquered my fear!
Gorgeous, no? Especially on the specular hematite.
Voila! Except for the stamp, this was all handmade by yours truly (and even the stamp I designed). I was solving all kinds of problems - keeping sets together, where to put chains, branding, coding and pricing (on stickers on the back, which I can mail merge from my inventory spreadsheet).
I’ve got ten different colours (five double-sided versions of cardstock), I’ve got production streamlined and efficient, and I think they’re gorgeous.
I think they’re rockstar and will be using them for shows and jewellery parties (rules for which are coming soon - anybody interested in hosting?).
Also of note here is the new hammered wire, my new-to-me earring designs (they’re not really that original), the beach-tumbled limestone, bottom-right, which I varnished before wrapping, a new way to wrap a stone by coiling hammered pieces together (the rose quartz), and a brand-spanking new bail I designed for holding the pendants on the chains (also new).
My parents took a little trip up to Arts North and around the Cabot Trail a couple of weeks ago just so they could drop off some work for me, see the gallery and just take a little trip! Here’s a collage of some photos they took - they’re mostly blurry so there’s no point in showing them up close.
Clock wise from top left: The building from outside; my main display! The left shutter-type-thing is Darryl MacLeod’s work, while the black-covered table and right-shutter-type-thing is mine, with my mom reflected in the mirror in between; the ring display at the counter - mine are on the middle shelf of that little glass display, and if you look closely you can see my business card there; the main area of the gallery shop, filled with the owner’s gorgeous pottery; the upstairs of the shop, with some of Shari Macleod’s baskets (I recognize her work having done their website), and some artwork and really pretty quilts.
Isn’t it a totally gorgeous place? The floors are to die for. I’m very excited, especially since my first check is coming in the mail and it’s basically the same as a week’s worth of work at my day job. Not bad! They promise that June is really slow, too, and that I’m doing really well.
Go me!
A couple of pieces I made out of my existing stash to send to Arts North (so if you want them, head there!)
I had a beautiful time on the beach with my love on Saturday. We only got a smidge burned, we had a ridiculous amount of fun, and I found my first, one and only, true piece of RED BEACH GLASS! Holy smokes! They say for every 5000 pieces of glass, only one is red. And there it was! Jewellery-sized and staring me in the face!
I also found three marbles including a black one and a yellow on e, two real live yellow pieces (also extremely rare) (one may or may not be pottery or plastic), a piece of lavendar/pink which is really old, and a whole pile of blue and aqua. Squee!
Check it out:
The tiny raspberry-looking piece was in my bag from our aborted trip to Kennington Cove. It’s not genuine beach glass as I found it on the road - so it could be called dirt glass, I suppose. It’s still rounded and pretty.
Also, I now have enough colours to do one of these!
AND I just got some jewellery glue and used it to attach the itty bitty teeeeeeeny weeny blue pieces that I’ve been finding to larger white pieces, and they’re turning out quite well (no photos until the finished pieces are ready).
I’m also on a continual hunt for the perfect lighting conditions for photos. For this I was using Laird’s stupid ultra cool camera. I didn’t put it in the light box because I was just playing around, and I figured it was bright enough from the window. I laid everything out first on a new gray fabric I just got for trying this sort of thing, and then on a super-bright white piece of bristol board. Surprisingly (sort of), the gray is much better.
The white throws off the camera’s white balance or levels or something. Quite annoying! I’ll have to re-line the inside of my photo box. Or something. The quest continues!