Makin' Machine!

2 bracelets and some earrings:

 

Instead of resting as I should have, I ended up making all day. Big surprise, I know.

But loooooook! Neat stuuuuf! So what if I'm feeling like a big sack of shit?

Brooches:

I always overdo it when I start to feel better, and then I remiss. As in remission. Though that instantly makes me think of cancer and I don't even have a cold. I'm just wore out, as my Southern hubsicle would say.

Gotta admit, it's a whole lotta stuff.

These are all in my recent simpler style. One thing about simple, it sure is a lot faster.

Maybe it just feels faster. 

Oh! Did I tell y'all? I talked to my boss and it's official: after new year's I'll be working half as much as now. I think we all know what that means. Oh yeah baby! I'll be hermeted away at home, busy and happy in my own little world. OUR world, a world of beauty and joy and the internet. (Where the horrific things  my students describe happening in Mexico never happen.)

My new most precious possession(s)

All the graphics in my banner, avatar and some of the images on my sidebar and footer come from a book I found in the depths of my grandmother's cupboards. Like an ass, I tore it up, used the images for shitty, failed collages and god knows what. The other day I recognized it's same cover on this item I quickly snapped up:

The whole set of 5 huge tomes were just $15, plus $15 shipping, they were very heavy.

They arrived today and I've been breathless ever since. Turns out my grandmas book was a Reader's Digest version, these have much much more to them. I took some quick, sloppy scans to give you an idea.

But I want to scan every single page and share them with the world! Aren't these so... me?  Or what I aspire to?

I took these all from the Asia and Middle East books. There's a Europe book, one for the Americas one for Africa.  

I'm having thoughts of opening another shop to sell images of these. Like some shops do. I'd like to offer full-sized images, one that the buyer could size as they want. Is that possible? Because images on etsy are always offered in precise sizes. Is that for convenience? Or because pdfs work that way? 

Also, why all the pdfs and no jpegs? 

Here you see a group of Tibetan nuns. They save their heads then don gigantic wigs!

Anywhoo, where was I? Oh, yeah. I could offer them real cheap b/c there's so many! Though, who'd want these? I mean, some folks might, but prolly not as much as want the ones of the friggin' Eiffel Tower and Victorian babies.

The only work I guess is the time it takes to scan the damn things.  I guess that could be while I'm on the internets. They'll have to be much more carefully done, one page at a times so we don't see that dark center crease.  

And not all wonky like this one. But these are so gorgeous to me! 

Doncha luv? If I have millions of these on-line, they could be a source of income. Since there not limited to one of each like my jewelry gig.

So, anyone sell images?

Any tips? How should I size or crop these? Square in on the pretty girl's faces, I suppose...

Sunday's Makings.

Did I seriously just spend an hour trying to make these scanned images look decent because I'm too lazy to take pictures? That's not right.

I made a bunch of stuff today. Like these earrings which I thought I could just whip up quick 'n' dirty, but of course ended up taking forever. I had to get the beads in the exact right spot then hammer everything, especially right before and after each of the 8 bead caps so that everything would stay in place. Something kinda different for me. Inspired by Sparrows new round shapes, yet not really imitative.

Another thing that's different is that these will hang parallel to the plane of the ear wire. Parallel to your profile? They won't face you in the mirror? Any of those make sense?

Now these tigereye are crazy simple for me, but I was enjoying the geometric impact of the fat wire. See, I could totally rock these. Hmm, maybe I'll keep them....  Aw, who am I kidding?

And on to the fossils. This one consists of slightly smaller fossils, Ethnic, ornate metal rounds, huge gold stone babies that have both blue and gold mixed along the glittery surface. Those are in big ol' caps, and then redish rudrakshas in a more normal size. The dark violet silk has seed bead wraps along it. It's meant to loop around the neck in a big circle, as opposed to hanging down in front between your boobages.

Same for this one. It uses larger fossils and Indian clay beads which I darkened up with paint. I still have enough fossils for maybe 2-3 sets of earrings. I still have to add links to my book board solders. I 'still have to' a lot of things.  But it's such a relief to get things made. Now I do a happy dance. (And wait and see if anyone says they like them. And if nobody does, decide they suck and do a pathetic dance.)

 

      Here's today's creation. Looks much more dominantly black in reality. We'll see when I take pictures tomorrow since there's NO WORK! Yahoooooo!

      Another Sunday come and gone and this is what I have to show for it. I mean that in a good way. Man, before I was medicated, time would trickle by so agonizingly slowly. My childhood is like a never-ending trap I was caught in that I simply couldn't see my way out of.  An imprisonment of sorts, always having to do what others told me to. Now that I've joined the rest of humanity, I finally see what people meant when they'd comment on how fast the years fly by.  People, adults, would always be making a comment about how they still felt like a youngster trapped in an adult's body or some such. And I'd always think- 'that alone shows you're an old fogie! Have you ever heard a kid say they felt like a kid in a kid's body? No. They say they feel like adults that no one takes seriously b/c they're trapped in a child's body." Duh! 

       I could always feel how impossibly distant these people were from childhood, forgetting the desperation children have to grow, blind to their own very adult seriousness- all routine, never jumping on a swing or playing in the street. I'd wonder why, when friends came over, the adults wouldn't join the kids playing in the yard. I remember wondering about this on a red tricycle in our tiny backyard in Uruguay. I imagined my parents and their friends stopping their endless chatter for once to climb our tire swing or get on my tricycle. I realized then that talking had to be playing for them, or they wouldn't do it all the time. I was quite content with my realization.

      I was 3 or 4 when that happened, though no one believes me b/c they say I couldn't possibly remember that much. In fact, I even remember getting my diapers changed, if only the one time. One of the tortures of my mind pre-medication was its instant access to every single event it had ever lived through. Hard to get up and fix yourself a sandwich when you are constantly seeing several movies of everything that's ever happened to you and that you've ever thought or heard about.  

      School teachers always had one or two stories they told at the beginning of the year then forgot the telling and told again in the second semester. I'd look around at the faces taking in the story as if for the first time and feel evermore isolated in my giant mind. The time since medication has been such a blur.  My husband will tell me about things we did together and I'll listen happily, as if to a stranger's anecdote. 

      People always say they wish they had better memory. The fools! You might wish you remembered where you left the keys or what you were supposed to get at the store, but you don't want to remember humiliating episodes from adolescence or how scared you were the 1st time your parents got mad at you. And remember it in such detail that you turn red, you find yourself covering your ears and yelling LALALALA in hopes of blocking it out. 

      One thing, though. If anyone ever said, "Where's the _____" my mind would instantly recall the last time I saw or handled whatever it was and I'd know right away, no matter how messy the room, where every single object in it was and precisely how it got there. That trick would come in handy these days with all my supplies .... Though I'd be so overwhelmed by existence I wouldn't be able to make anything so what's the use?

       Sheesh, I wonder where all that came from?

Howdy Strangers

Hope you don't feel abandoned. I've been much too consumed with seething rage at my boss to have energy to make.

I was really loving these heavy brass stampings I used here above. I liked how they created a very symmetrical thing I don't ever do. So I thought I'd sort of make my own. Thus:

and:

 That's the fun of ideas, they never turn out like anything... These second loop bits came out too straight. I'm thinking I could rubber band some pencils together and use that as a guide to wrap the wire more proportionally, and so that I'm not spending an hour trying to get the 2 bits to look like each other.  I know they sell jigs, and you can hammer nails onto a board, but, pencils! How simple is that?

Oh, it's been awhile since I tormented you with the ol' scanner... It's also been awhile since any before and afters.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

After That:

You can't tell, but it looks good. The strands were way too monotonous. I'm still trying for that Lorelei balance between pattern and random, order and chaos. Getting there.  OK, You'll believe me when I get some real pictures going...

Fraternizing with the locals

Here's one more for tonight.  The toy soldier is dressed circa WWI.  That and the bullet and Delegate pin are the military half. Then there's a lot of bone items, including the big loop at the center of the focal- it's a fishbone.  That's the beachy half.  So I imagine a soldier mingling w/the aboriginal folks of some pacific island, 2 worlds colliding.

This piece calls to mind my Father-in-Law's ex-boss and sort of second father/mentor.  He's the 90-yr-old man who gave me all the WWII era Japanese currency (which he took off soldiers that'd been killed). He  tells the most amazing stories of his time in the Pacific. He describes it like a magical time. The people in the Philippines who'd have the soldiers go out to fish w/them, telling them to throw grenades into the water and then collecting all the fish that would float up after the little boom.  The 'blackies' in New Zealand, who'd have them go hunting with them, co-ordinating their movements despite the language barrier.  The baby monkey he found in the middle of the chaos of battle.  "As big as your hand and just the ugliest thing you've ever seen." He tucked it in his pocket and forgot about it til hours later.  That monkey was to become the mascot of the troupe, and would sleep with him in his bed every night.  He showed me a partially damaged photo of himself unrecognizably young in cut-off jeans and nothing else, with her on his shoulder.  Next to him, his buddies similarly dressed, similarly skinny, sporting big, relaxed grins.
By the way, I've only send out 2 packs of ephemera, I still have tons to get rid of.  Help!

Roundup

Here's what I worked on today. It's a horrific scan but it's 11:00, so that's alls I got. The top of the focal is a metal belt tip. And I betcha can't find the closure.
I need to separate those 2 wooden branch bits...
Well, we'll see. I don't know if I like it or just made it out of a sense of obligation to use the ceramic hand from Spirited Earth...
So, I got into this treasury all about crosses, and the first comment was about how God in his infinite Godness brought Jesus to blah blah blah. So I wrote, "Thanks for including my domino necklace, even if i'm not christian. and i daily sacrifice virgins to satan. Kidding! It's more like weekly..." And now I feel like I'm gonna get in trouble!
It may have something to do w/the fact that some loon came into the school I work at trying to bless people by sprinkling water on them. She went right into a classroom and splashed a whole bunch on the teacher and caused a big distraction, to say the least. He was pissed. I love religions and spiritualities, but I hate anyone trying to force their whatever down my neck. Like, 'I don't have to try and understand your point of view, but you have to get mine'?Pushy. The treasury itself is lovely.
I Cross my Heart by 2GIRLSINTROUBLE.

Earlier today, I was put into ❃LACE❃ by Adita.

Also, thanks you guys for all the comments on my "Shimmy-shimmy" post.  It made my heart swell w/joy.  Finally, my sister is in from California and she made Pad Thai from scratch. And spring rolls and Thai salad. It was madness, a taste bud orgy. Hope y'all's Fridays have been as nice as mine.  What is up w/this formatting, Blogger?