Don't be jelli.

Lets try this again with some of my own actual pictures, shall we? 

I liked this below because it's like the street art version of my travel journal- there's old bus tickets painted there and random 80s looking graffiti over that...

There was actually a two lane street between me and the wall I was so enthusiastically indicating. I'm sitting on an over-hang sorta thing.

Enough about that. I know what you guys really want to see.

The street market and the theeengs.

 You theeeng sluts.

 You jelli? Surely not of my oversupply panic though.

I was better about not getting every damn thing though. Like this thing! Drafting tools, yo.

Here I was so focused, I didn't notice there was some kind of mushroom growing on my head? Thanks for not fixing that before snapping the pic, Mr. so-called Devices.

I got so much stuff from the above lady that she gifted me with this bizarre artifact:

With these insane buttons: 

 So looking at the back-

 We see each button is held in place with a rusty nail-

 Which I may or may not have used my teeth to remove-

 Allowing each button to pop out with some effort-

 Revealing our treasure-

Unfolding the velvet from all the paper board it was glued to and giving it a thorough wash I ended up with this insanely bright scrap-

And this which I'm already planing on cutting into jewelable bits-

And even this leettle guy-

So that's the story of one theeng. There's so many more. Haven't even begun the haul-photoing process.

As much as I love this little dolly, it profoundly creeped out my girl-cousins. There were stones to be had by the bucketful.

Nib holder, nail care kit.

Stars of David with tiny detailing.

The amount and level of medals I got this time is insane.

These for cuffs. Thinking on what to do w/all the holes though. No unused holes in my creations, goes against my aesthetic morals.

Relig, athletic and scholarship medals, gorgeous enamel plaques and leather buttons!

Teeny pin.

Check this out. It's a broke-ass box. The lid sez Roma, maybe for a pendant?

The bottom is missing.

I'll chop it up and use it for sumpin'. Doncha fret.

Got lots of medals with cool backs too.

Now here's some horses I met. 

And potato dog bravely guarding his shop. (Yes, that's his potato and his old carrot. And his bespoke jacket the lady down the street made for him.)

 Remember potato dog? (He's here, but you gotta scroll way down.)

BACK BABY

omygodimsoexhaustedimgettingtoooldforthisshitohmygod...
Wait, what was I saying?

I love this stupid little Victorianrocketship building it's the central antenna of all things Uruguay to me.

Oh, hai!!! How you all been? I so missed my lovely blog ladies always telling me how awesome I am, I swear I'm such a validation whore.

Random street veg. 

What have you been up to, same old? Me? Oh I just went to another hemisphere is all.... 

Here's a dude.

 I swear the biggest revelation of this trip has been that if you're ever feeling like such shit you're sure you need to go to the doctor just for a total system overhaul...

(Am I just stealing pix of the web cuz I'm too lazy to find my own? No... what? What makes you say that?)

...turns out what you need to do is trudge your ass across the city and just walk for three hours until you're all better. You'll be better in like two hours so the third is just to make sure or something? Ok, walk at a brisk pace and you'll only need two and you can go back to sitting on your flat ass in front of your computer sooner.

Like here's a picture of me just hanging out doing typical Uruguayan things. Exercising, you know.

I know people always say exercise will make you feel better and I've exercised just never actually personally experienced feeling better from it. Usually just grumpier and more tired.

My grungy little country.

More.

Also after playing with my cousin's ipad I realized my computer is a decade out of date and I'm asking for an ipad for my 40th B-day coming up in August (!!!!) cuz this is ridic. And also cuz I'm still a baby who asks her parents for birthday gifts she's too lazy to get herself. Soon I'll be glued to you guys and all my fave time-sucks 24/7 and it'll be awesome. Um. I'm sure there's more to report but... idk.... I need to brush my teeth now. With my fancy electric toothbrush!!!

Oh also my little country's idol and hero is some kind of vampire:(link)

You know, World Cup things...

(link)

Vacation Mode Activate!

I'm closing shop for about 3 weeks- don't wanna have to rush back into things after the trip, don't wanna be making packages tomorrow when I should be packing, you see. So yeah, tonight.
Some textured wheels from the burnt nuts batch. they came out all black and puffy but kinda cool as well.

Also made some of these mixing very moist white with very hard blue but not really mixing it all the way.

Since the Chinese factory goods I'd ordered for the girl-cousin gifts never arrived I made them a bunch of simple earrings out of me own beads. Pretty good. Good enough. Plus it's actually something I made so idk...

Last time I got them all those faux vintage pocket-watch necklaces you see all over etsy. Found a shop that had them for like 2 bucks a pop and they were a huge hit. Just having access to cheap and appealing goods is a big deal when visiting lots of family.

So yeah thank you guys for all the encouraging comments on my own beads and stuff, it really makes all the difference. We humans are such gluttons for validation, sigh. 

I'll see you in a few weeks!

Hey wanna see some more pictures of stuff I made?

So last time when I said I was working on beads inspired by ancient coral what I meant to say was that I was working on more of the ones I'd already made with just a soupçon of ancient coral.

And I made a butt-load.
There's soooo much inspiration on line. From ancient coral:

And ancient amber:

Turquoise and ivory:
To fossilized neolithic bones:

Or just regular antique bones, like in that last pic. And tons of it is actually less expensive to buy outright than to try and reproduce, considering all the time and effort it takes to make anything that looks remotely convincing. I'm not trying to copy anything in particular, I love it all and want to somehow combine all the details of antiquity into one UberAncientBeadofDeath.
But yeah so far I gots:

OMG I just counted them- SEVENTY EIGHT friggin' beads. Lawdy. How the hell to divide them up for sale?   
I also got a box of this faux beach glass from the mosaic isle at Michaels. 

And I got to sticking 'phemera on the back.

I used Mod Podge dimensional magic just cuz I picked that up at Michael's too after Shipwreck mentioned it. It's really good for transfers even though I should've been more careful and used less of it to keep it from soaking through the paper. You can see what the hell I'm talking about here in this one against dark background. And if that don't make sense too bad.

I've been so busy being lazy I'm surprised to see all these things I got done.

Can't decide if the pix against light or dark work better. Somehow all the ones against dark managed to be super blurry. Plus I managed to rub off strips of image when removing the paper pulp. 

In this one of Krishna, the image is quite visible and easy to photograph.

Others didn't fare as well, like this one which has a stamp with a gorgeous image of the three Kings following the star... whatchacallit? In Spanish we say Tres Reyes Magos. Also it said Australia across the bottom, but the thin stamp didn't stand up to the rubbing part of the transfer process and I should've stopped when I was ahead but now I have this glob. Why did I bother to solder it? Maybe I'll scrape off the paper and change it into something else.

This is another stamp that went completely transparent, making the image almost invisible. Even worse against the dark background. It's a chick holding a sheaf of wheat. Sheaf? Is that a thing? OMG- I just looked up sheaf and sure enough- it's 'a bundle of grain stalks laid lengthwise and tied together after reaping!!' Dang, I'm good!!

(See- I celebrate these small victories not because- as Mom thinks- I'm just obnoxious, but because I loose the war against my own gross laziness and general immobility everyday. So you cheer the little things. My younger sister who's getting her PhD despite considering herself the 'dumb one' of the family says she jumps and hollers when she accomplishes any little thing in the lab. All these brilliant Asian students who already knew how to do whatever it was stop to look at her curiously. In her evaluation the prof said, "You bring a lot of joy to the class.")

Some are sort of visible but the camera wants to focus on the top of the glass, not the back, which your eyes instinctively know how to do. This is an old confirmation card from Uruguay.

So yeah I guess for these the light background works best. This one's a section of Indian currency. I also did some where I glued iridescent flakes on the back as you can see below.

I decided to do earring pairs. So here I'm thinking that the dark backgrounds work better. Too bad about the friggin' blurry.

Here's a big pendant one.

And some teeny earring pairs.

I purposefully avoided any overly-matchy pairs.

There was a lot of glass in this little box. I still have more pairs picked out.

I didn't even use any of the purple tinted glass. It offended my sensibility to see purple on beach glass, however faux it might be.

Anyways, three more pairs...  I wonder if I should just offer them like this instead of finished earrings.

A few more picture pendants.

As well as some picture earring pairs.

Including these below I fucked up by rubbing off the Mary face in a Joseph and Mary pair from tiny icon images.

Meanwhile I managed to sell a pair of caged bead earrings before I'd either listed or blogged them.

 Made this set of white earring pairs that sold, and this set that's still available:
The Doves. Set of 35 earring pairs
Now look at this: