Bright brights and also not.

Ok, among other things in this batch I made some BRIGHT ass shit.


Muitalibun
And it's because I made these wobbly-round polybabies with decoupage of a vintage floral print. That was actually on napkins. But I love them so there. And their lacquered finish is shiny! I know! I went shiny.
What's a good name for wobbly-round beads? Nugget rounds? Oblongoids?
I've had this druzy cab forever from Patroness and I finally found a home for it, yay! Look at that crazy setting. It's one of those 50s rhinestone cluster findings.
Muitalibun is Arabic for treasure hunter. I named it thus because my friend Emmanuelle said this reminded her of a summery Indian treasure.



The other crazy bright piece I did also involves these polies since I made a thousand of them, see Instagram photo.

Ludic- aimlessly playful like a kitten.
I do so love me a double-wrap with a bit of everything tossed in. The links between the druzies would have been to long and spaced out, so instead of using a regular jump ring connection, I did this wacky move with like a  hundred little jump rings:


Why yes I made that illustration myself, why do you ask?

I was actually sick for two weeks so I got back into the studio with a vengeance and made a crapload of fun stuff.

Asobu- - (Japanese) to enjoy yourself, to be idle, play, hang out
Another fun thing- this bright set I made with a bunch of the colorful cabs Teapots Linda sent me.

Some people like sets and I think these really complete each other.

Sunset for Ferdinand
Speaking of sets however, this set of mine wasn't selling even though I love it to bits, so I decided to split it up into two listings.

Live in the Sunshine
The bright colors overseen by skulls- it's like they're telling you to live in the sunshine now cuz tomorrow you'll be worm food. Y'all know- memento mori shit.

Takes a Village
These earrings have bright apple green accents against more muted browns. Obviously, 4Ophelia enamel crescents there, as well as some of the vintage glass head pins from Teapots Linda, which were the perfect solution to the dilemma posed by the unusual piercing at the top of the crescent.
Add to that ceramics from the UK and stones from who knows where, so I named the piece after the fact that it takes a global village to make these things.

Famn
The rest of this bid-nes is my usual muted tones. Like these chandeliers which use some of my faux druzies and some more Teapots goodies. Famn is a Swedish word referring to the space between two embracing arms. Now look at the top bar of these- my hammered double-ended pins- don't they look like outstretched arms about to hug you? No? Idk, they did to me.

Panglossian - given to extreme optimism, especially in the face of unrelieved hardship or adversity.
Crusty and elegant- a declaration of optimism against a cruel world. A friend told me today all my stuff can be described in oxymorons which is so right on.
Check it- druzies were a gift from Kathy Barrick, waffle cabs from Teapots and enamel drops from Georgie/4Ophelia/nearlylost. Do I actually buy any of my supplies? Why do I have such awesomely generous internet art friends?

Crepuscular
Look at these!!!! I made three of the beads and I'm damn proud. Sorry not sorry. It's not just grey I'm obsessed with, it's deeply textured grey. Also I can't stop spelling it grey even thought the American spelling is supposed to be gray. (grAy for American and grEy for England, eehhh?)
It took a long time to make those faceted turbans, I scraped the paint off (the yellowish grey where the clay shows) with a blade eeeever so carefully, to capture as much of the shapes as possible. Painstaking but deeply satisfying. Thank you to shipwreckdandy who taught me her method for making the turban shapes and encouraged me in my polymer journey.

Concatenation- a series of interconnected things or events. -the action of linking things together in a series.
More evidence of my grey fixation. Simple yet kinda perfect. I don't even really hammer these coins, I bend them using pliers. Seems easier and I feel like I have more control.
Lacustrine - living or growing in lakes

Folksy goodness. Three of the dark green/blues on the right are my polies. Tie pin clasp. Is that from Uruguay or Kathyhaul? I can't even remember anymore.
I kinda sweated over this one, adding alcohol ink to the tie pin enamel to get it to really go with the big ceramic ball bead- a gift from Emmanuelle, my French friend- hey gurl!
Look at how adorable that fish is. I feel like this has a touch of that Lorelei Eurto cuteness. A lot of this batch does, though mixed with my eclectic griminess.

Stelliferous - abounding with stars
Another leather-in-key bail. The raku horse was a gift from RomAntiqueSoul and she wasn't working at all until I snipped off the bottom tip of her neck and housed her in this screw-top bezel from Teapots, who also gave me that baguette. The crusty disco ball is my polybaby.
Sometimes I'll give myself busy work, like just stringing things on beadalon wire with crimp beads to be used for who knows what and then I quickly find uses for those bits. Like here, this strand of labradorite heishi alternating with teeny metal balls. And below.


Desert Nights
Here ok so! These strands I put together and only later realized they were perfect for these chunky connectors. They and the opal cabs from Teapots both bring out the dark iridescent colors and extend the triangle shape, as well as add a delicate counterpoint to the rough chunky. These were one of those pairs that came together perfectly even though I thought I'd never find a good use for the connectors, since I never do for polymer connectors. But! I love these.
My thing now where I make dark facets: You facet an already-baked bead using your tissue blade, then paint it black. The black soaks into the rough surface brought up by faceting. Then you polish to bring out the edges of the facets. You can use polishing papers or I also just scrape the paint off with my tissue blade. After that, you can go in with iridescent paints or powders which will pop against the black. Then you bounce up and down on your chair yelling Squeee!
Any of my poly people who try it- send me a pic of your results please! Cuz maybe when I give poly technique details I'm yelling into the void and no one cares.

You know what I haven't yet focused my thirst for cuteness on? Alpacas.
 

Llamas are awesome too.


That's all for now, smooches.

13 new things

Thanks so much for all the comments, I love you guys!  
Lord of the Stars.
And don't worry, I'm not changing the way I blog. The blog got two thumbs up. If anything, I'm making my listings more like my blog, OK?

Hear me, Lord of the Stars!
For thee I have worshipped ever
With stains and sorrows and scars,
With joyful, joyful endeavor.

-Aleister Crowley

Chthonic- concerning or inhabiting the underworld
And idk, that's hard for me. I can babble all I want here but in the shop, where I'm supposedly trying to convince people to buy something, I suddenly clam up. I'm like, "I dunno, get it if you want it, I'm not gonna twist your arm, jeez."

What is that about guys? This reticence to show real enthusiasm for what I do when I clearly am super enthusiastic about what I do. I've always had this problem.

Natural Philosophy. 
Is it some kind of intelligensia-class distaste for anything to do with commerce?
Or unwillingness to pimp myself? Insecurity?  Massive laziness?

D) All of the above.
Idk, here's some stupid bracelets.

Uxorious.

And look at them, they're not stupid at all they're awesome.





And while some commenters said if my approach to my shop ain't broke don't fix it, I think it is broke.




Ouranus.
I mean, I should be able to charge more for stuff and have it sell, that's what's broken.

Circumlunar.
I've had people say they don't charge more for their own things because "If fanci only charges X, little ol' me certainly can't charge Y."

Telegnosis.
That means I'm fucking things up for all of us and that sucks.

There's an undervaluing of our kind of art and us the makers doing it means the shoppers will do it for sure.

Blushing Apex.
So yeah, I'm trying to change stuff so that I can confidently charge more, is pretty much it. We'll see how that goes.

Mutagenic Symbiont.
Can we all just stop and look at these earrings? I'm obsessed with them. I took forever to color them, changing out colors by actually penciling over other colors repeatedly until the previous color just gave up the fight agains the newer color.  Like, many times.
I loved making these beads with shipwreck because polymer takes sooo many steps to make look descent and when someone's already taken care of the first half, you sort of enthusiastically put in tons of time without getting frustrated that you're throwing your life down the drain or whatever.
Here's what I'm working on with the rest of these beads. Not quite done yet but I couldn't wait to share cuz I'm freaking out about these stupid beads!!!!! Looooook at them!!! Now look at them some more. Now write me a comment that I'm not crazy they really are that cool. Thank you.

Ganesha.
Check out my smelli-phants. Squee!!! See, see how one of them is off-white with a brown dangle and the other is brown with an off-white dangle? And yes, yes the dangle represents their giant testicles. So that's what you'd be wearing if you bought this.
I hadn't thought they were anything like testicles until just now I thought of the term "under-dangle" to describe them. So yeah. See why I'm not good at promoting myself?

Otiose.
Here's a very found-object type one and I think it's just adorbs. Look at that spotted olive bead. I have no idea where it came from or what it is but I LOVE it.

Why do I have trouble admitting that, yes, I absolutely love everything I make. They're all my babies.

Azoth.

Here's the weirdest one of the pack. The stitched bits were more gifts from shipwreck. The top wonky beads were a co-effort. I know it looks a bit like an alien artifact but, again, I just love it.

Epicedium.
And this smaller one with the whole Victorian-tribal balance on point.

I also make this sweet baby for Teapotsandtelephones to say thanks for all the gifts, with the two elements from the hoard that she most wanted to keep- enameled bee clip-on earrings and links from the Kuchi necklace.

And I used the amazing decals she sent to embellish this mop piece and old tape measure. I don't know what to do with them from here but aren't they awesome?
Other sides...

And I put the sterling ear wire option up on all the earrings.

 I even found time to break my own heart while making this cute piece. It's one of those old toys where you try to get the little balls into the indents at the little chef's eyes.

When gluing the edge of the "glass" down, (because I saw water was seeping in) I managed to glue the two little steel balls in place. To get them out I'd have to ... drill a hole into the edge and pry them off somehow? I also got the top all cloudy. I want to cry. I'll probably keep this nearby until I can face the fact that I did, in fact, ruin it and there's no hope.





Lets have a moment of silence for the necklace that never was.

Humanity's Dilemma.
Plus I'm sloooowly retaking item photos against my new background ...

Gaudiloquent.
... and re-writing the listings.

Gratulation.
Plus I'm trying to be more co-ordinated between my shop, blog and Instagram.

Frabjovus.
So far response has been positive.

Recondite.
Now for a long nap.
Look at my parent's dumb little cats! They're so happy cuz the folks were in Cali for a week and now they're back and they're just so happy. Sleeping together without fighting. Mr. Devices and I were taking care of them and Bingo didn't like the time spent away from him.
My old dog has gone deaf you guys, it's strangely adorable.

Now watch this Koala cry like a baby after being kicked out of his favorite tree.

An if you're about to tell me Koalas aren't cute then SHUT IT.

(You know who you are, I'm not about to say your name so as not to incur the wrath of the entire Internet.)

ALL mammals are amazing. They say things like Swiggity Swooty.

Did I tell y'all the other day my 6 year-old niece said, "I like this question mark it's sorta swaggy."
And I just sat there going, "Did you just say- did you- did you just-..." Like that for five minutes.