10/31/10

Weekend Makings

The Sky a Great Dome. Chunky Choker.
Look what 2 uninterrupted days can produce. AND 2 semi-finished necklaces and a tutorial! Oh, happy day.
The Sky a Great Dome. Chunky Choker.
The Sky a Great Dome.
The Net of Eternity. Victorian Tribal Earrings.
The Net of Eternity.
Some Victorian Tribals.
The Curve from Reach to Loss. Victorian Tribal Earrings.
Blue Blood. Glass and Millinery on Sterling Silver.
Blue Blood.
My inability to get my anniversary tattoo led me to some blue and red lust.
Blue Bloods 2. Millinery Flowers on Sterling Silver.
Blue Bloods 2.
And I'm still messing with the PS Elements.
Also, apparently I was featured in the etsy newsletter? Here I was all proud at how my anniversary sale was getting me so much action! Turns out it wasn't that at all. Also, on my announcement, I said to type in 'happy birthday' to get free shipping-- and no one did!!! Goes to show how much announcements get read. Lord knows I don't read 'em!
But yeah, I sold a butt-load. See what exposure does for you, damn.
Still haven't seen said newsletter, cuz I don't get it. If you do, send me a link or something.

10/29/10

mail love and foutoe shap elmints

Just had to share the box full of orgasmic ecstasy I received for the glorious Sacred Cake. Just to make y'all jealous.
A round scroll which will be perfect at the center of a victorian tribal extravaganza.Here we see triple-pierced grungy bone squares.
Here some scallop-set cabs depicting poseidon. 
Garnet drops, tokens, medals.
This amazing bronze faux quarter whose color is so flippin' gorgeous, I might actually forgo oxidizing!
What is this glorious pearl thing? I don't know but it's mine now and I'm not giving it back!  Not to mention this itsy boy who is so perfectly grunged.
Look! This I will oxidize. You can't tell but it's HUGE.
These are nothing like the sparrows you see all over, they are so special and unique! I can't pick what to make with them! And the ball locket is the size of a big marble.
Drool.
LOOK AT THIS TINY SCOTTIE!!
Shaped like a shield, encrusted w/teal stone chunks, slightly cracked.
And what? What happened here?
A giant screw button!  
I've never had a sign-over-jezuz charm! And the flower stem will make a fab connector, boldly sans flowers!
Look! mesh leafwings!  
All dice should come with crusty corners.   
And they all came in the cutest, littlest cigar box! It was like half a normal cigar box.
But that's not all. I also discovered the awesome automatic fixes provided by ps elements can be done entire batches at a time!  In fact, check out this amazing curved MOP cufflink. That disgusting thumb distracting? Well, check it out---->
Same thumb, no grodey dremel injury!  Ok, maybe I over softened it, but I was so thrilled with my pretty thumb!
I also got to de-pink my fingers. All the automatic color corrections left them fluorescent pink.  Look at that button!
Carved bone beauty! 
And I made another tutorial for missficklemedia, and it was much easier the second time around. Maybe cuz I chose an easier project, but, yeah. I got all kindsa photo superpowers developing here.

10/28/10

I'm a blogging fool

If the Stars Were Lower. RESERVED for dherrera6.
If the Stars Were Lower.

If the Stars Were Lower. RESERVED for dherrera6.
I've been blogging a lot- 3 posts in 2 days. But I have more to show. So here's 2 more things up in the shop. Check out those ear wires!!!!! SacredCake made them just for meeeee! They are the craziest fucking things ever and I LOVE THEM! Have you ever seen anything like that? Are they not just made for these earrings? The big secondary underloop was the perfect size to fit through the long crystal pierce.  The looooooooong ends reach the top of the lower crystal, bringing the whole design together awesomely. Yes, I just used 'awesome' to describe my own stuff. To malappropriate a South Park-ed Springerism, "It's my hot body! I do what I want!"
Was that last bit way too convoluted? It's because I'm freaking out about a special package I just got. I'll have to take pictures of it to share... damn having to go to work!
The Nine Worthies of Antiquities. Coin and Kutchi Neckpiece.
The Nine Worthies of Antiquity.
Oh, and then there's this. You've seen it, whatev. I'm freezing and it's grey out and I just wanna turn up the heat, make more coffee and just stay at home playing w/supplies.  Or figuring out the difference between filters, brushes, plug-ins and actions on photoshop. It's overwhelming.

2-Year Anniversary

GUYS! I just realized that my 2 year etsy anniversary is coming up!!! This whole time I've been thinking it's been 3 years, that's how time-confused I am. But, damn! This is awesome. My dad actually was the one who noticed, he said he wants us all to go out and celebrate it. Awwww.
Actually, I've been wanting to get a celebratory tattoo. My 1st. Thing is, I'm crazy picky about every last detail. My husband (whose arms are covered with 'em) doesn't want me to get one cuz he say I'll never be happy with it. But If I design the damn thing I will be! It's gonna be based on yr classic gypsy gal with just a touch of the ol' calavera thrown in:
traditional gypsy girl 
But just a touch! Just the ornamentation. In these stylized pictures it always looks like the teeth and jaw area are stitches and a random black glob.  I gotta try my hand at it...
My dream is a royal blue and red one with the skull-esque ornamentation barely there in a pale aqua.... And maybe instead of a gypsy scarf she'll sport one of these wacky Spanish headdresses, since I have Spaniard in me but not Roma/gypsy.

I mean, what are these things? Europe is so weird.

Oh, so I went to fix this listing because I'd forgotten to add the measurements:
Edible Poetry. Vintage Glass Berry Drops.
I was laughing about it when the hubs came to look. He was all impressed but then read the title:
Edible Poetry. Vintage Glass Berry Dangles.
         "But 'berry dangles' makes me think of 'dingleberries,'" was his comment. Which made me just about crap myself. And the crazy thing is that I wouldn't have thought of it in a million years but he hadn't even finished saying 'dangles' when right away I knew and was already crapping myself. So I changed it to berry drops.
School was cancelled tonight because of these crazy storms that blacked out the whole block around the building. Yay.
And, I just spent a year looking up images and messing with them on my old photo editing program and got this far-->
But then it should have tons of scrolling banners everywhere, maybe saying something like, 'Otherworldly' over top and 'Beloved' curving under?

10/27/10

Photoshop Elements

Seven Steps to Grace. Pale Berry Dangles.
Seven Steps to Grace.
Basically, I got ps elements and so far, I've discovered the auto adjust or smart fix or whatever it is. It pretties things up for me in 1 click. Though it takes, like, 5 clicks to save and close the damn picture!


Seven Steps to Grace. Pale Berry Dangles.Do these not look like cute little grenades?
My House is the Red Earth. Plush Necklace.
My House is the Red Earth.



So yeah, so far so good. I still wanna learn to make things glow from within like some photos I admire, not to name names. Really, I'd love a darkening border. And a lighted center. Yup. So that's next.
Edible Poetry. Vintage Glass Berry Dangles.
Edible Poetry.
Blogger, what is up with the formatting? Making me crazy!Edible Poetry. Vintage Glass Berry Dangles.Oh, I also discovered a new poet to quote from. This one's too long for a post but it took away my breath. So read it, damn you!

Insomnia and the Seven Steps to Grace

At dawn the panther of the heavens peers over the edge of the world.   
She hears the stars gossip with the sun, sees the moon washing her lean   
darkness with water electrified by prayers. All over the world there are those   
who can't sleep, those who never awaken.   

My granddaughter sleeps on the breast of her mother with milk on   
her mouth. A fly contemplates the sweetness of lactose.

Her father is wrapped in the blanket of nightmares. For safety he   
approaches the red hills near Thoreau. They recognize him and sing for   
him.   

Her mother has business in the house of chaos. She is a prophet dis-   
guised as a young mother who is looking for a job. She appears at the   
door of my dreams and we put the house back together.   

Panther watches as human and animal souls are lifted to the heavens by   
rain clouds to partake of songs of beautiful thunder.   

Others are led by deer and antelope in the wistful hours to the vil-   
lages of their ancestors. There they eat cornmeal cooked with berries   
that stain their lips with purple while the tree of life flickers in the sun.   

It's October, though the season before dawn is always winter. On the   
city streets of this desert town lit by chemical yellow travelers   
search for home.   

Some have been drinking and intimate with strangers. Others are   
escapees from the night shift, sip lukewarm coffee, shift gears to the   
other side of darkness.   

One woman stops at a red light, turns over a worn tape to the last   
chorus of a whispery blues. She has decided to live another day.   

The stars take notice, as do the half-asleep flowers, prickly pear and   
chinaberry tree who drink exhaust into their roots, into the earth.   

She guns the light to home where her children are asleep and may   
never know she ever left. That their fate took a turn in the land of   
nightmares toward the sun may be untouchable knowledge.   

It is a sweet sound.   

The panther relative yawns and puts her head between her paws.   
She dreams of the house of panthers and the seven steps to grace.   



10/26/10

i like pretties


Here's what's new:
No Happiness Like Mine. Mixed Media Talisman.
No Happiness Like Mine.
So I've been making some simpler things. Cuz my things have been getting evermore complex and maybe evermore unwearable on a day-to-day basis for your average gal, as well as the complexity leading to ever higher prices. 
No Happiness Like Mine. Mixed Media Talisman.The Sphere Of Human Thought. Soldered Quartz Neckpiece.It was a suggestion made to me by Sparrow (had to mention her, right?) and I realized that she had a point. I don't know why I felt that every detail had to be so elaborate. These simple pieces are very satisfying. And pricing things under $70 has been such a pleasure.
The Sphere Of Human Thought. Soldered Quartz Neckpiece.
The Sphere Of Human Thought.
(I should mention that this dark piece above, the tag-looking thing was blank. I wanted to make sure the cord would stay put so I riveted a cut piece of tin to the back. While I was at it, I flattened an oval crown-setting bezel to put under the front part of the rivet. Sparrow asked me if I'd made that eye, and that's when I noticed it looks like an eye!)
Protoplanetary. Antique Clay Pipe with Rifle Cartridge Stem.
Protoplanetary. 
Here's a pipe to which I attached a rifle bullet cartridge as a stem.  I do so like it.Protoplanetary. Antique Clay Pipe with Rifle Cartridge Stem.In fact I made a 5th one. Mostly completed during a very intense 2-day period... though parts were already made from other times.
I even forgot to photograph the 5th one. 
Lemme put it on the ol' scanner...
(And yes, these are all Uruguayan coins. I made 2 holes in each, then put pinch bails in the holes, jump ringing the bails together. That was the whole of my inspiration. Though, to be fair to my inspiration, I haven't seen pinch bails in coins before, especially not in a chain-like length.  Needless to say, I heavily oxidized all the coins and bails, then smeared them and the fabric with wax. Like I do to everything within my reach.)


10/23/10

new 'n' all

The Omega Point. Victorian Tribal Pyrite Pillbox.
Thank you guys for your comments, you're so supportive and it's so wonderful to know we all go through these things. I mean I know we all do, but you forget.


The Omega Point. Victorian Tribal Pyrite Pillbox.
The Omega Point.
Thank you Spirited Earth, for making me feel like less of a dork for still being controlled by my parents even though I'm in my 30s! That actually I didn't know others also struggled with!! So it's a creative-types thing? 

And Tesori, I've never heard someone say I have a responsibility to share my talent! That is a new one and I'm gonna have to turn it over in my head a few times.  By the way, if my dad said 'How's your playing with beads'? I'd launch myself at him with fangs and claws out. 

The Omega Point. Victorian Tribal Pyrite Pillbox.
Thanks Debbi for saying you wanted to get one of the doorknob ones! You probably have a day job, right? You don't, er, live off $14 a month?



Each Moments Sickle.
Each Moment's Sickle.
Each Moments Sickle.<-- Doesn't this look like I stole this from Sparrow? And not just the design, but the actual piece! Oh, well...
A Hazel Fire. Lampwork Dagger Dangles/
A Hazel Fire.
A Hazel Fire. Lampwork Dagger Dangles/
Dream of Existing. Vintage Sterling Post Dangles
Dream of Existing.
Shards and Thorns of Existence. Lampwork Dagger Earrings.
Shards and Thorns of Existence.
Shards and Thorns of Existence. Lampwork Dagger Earrings.
A Garden in Every Childhood. Vintage Applique Earrings.
A Garden in Every Childhood.
When Stars Explode. Icons on Brass Blades.
When Stars Explode.
When Stars Explode. Icons on Brass Blades.

Wandering Moon. Custom Earrings for Shessoweird.
Wandering Moon.
Wandering Moon. Custom Earrings for Shessoweird.