cserpentDesigns - Artisan jewelry and a whole lot more!

Some Valentine's Day selections from cserpentDesigns

2012-01-24T12:21:00.000-08:00

I'm adding new items to both my Etsy and Artfire shops and refreshing some others. Here are a few design selections that would be perfect for you or your sweetie on Valentine's day!


Berry Blast! Earrings	Cranberry Petals Earrings


Chocolate Love Bracelet	Pink Tourmaline and Pearl Necklace

New designs for the new year!

2012-01-23T22:13:00.000-08:00

I started the year moving more design/inventory information from my spreadsheet to my database. I have almost all my Christmas earrings entered into the database - now that Christmas is over! LOL! But database entry gets a bit tiresome so I took a break and took some pictures. Here are some new listings in both my ArtFire and Etsy studios ...

Happy shopping!

2011 is winding down, get ready for 2012!

2011-12-28T02:14:00.000-08:00

2011 is winding down and I don't think I'm quite ready for 2012. November and December were busy months at cserpentDesigns and in my engineering consulting work so I'm taking a little downtime right now. I'm reshooting pictures on some of my designs to freshen them up online. I also have some new designs in need of a photo shoot - and hopefully I'll get those taken before the year ends. Here are some pretty, new pearl post earrings I made. I just LOVE the lattice setting! And, even though Christmas is over I wanted to share these wonderful Swarovski crystal snowflake earrings. I just love the sparkle and they're perfect for your winter wardrobe!

Enjoy these last few days of 2011 and I wish you all the best in 2012!

Cyber Monday Sale! 20% off all bracelets

2011-11-28T02:03:00.000-08:00

If you had your eye on any of the bracelets in my ArtFire or Etsy shops today is the day to snap them up! All bracelets in both shops are 20% off today only. The sale ends at midnight PST. The prices are already reduced. Happy shopping!

Jewelry Design Challenge

2011-11-20T12:52:00.000-08:00

The Jewelry on Etsy team is having another design challenge and we want your vote (feel free to vote for my design!!). This time we had to come up with a modern Christmas design. I made these garnet and tsavorite sterling silver earrings for the challenge:

You can see all the entries and prizes at the JET blog. My Etsy shop is cserpent so if you want to vote for me - select cserpent! There are many beautiful designs to enjoy! There are also many ways to get an entry for the prize drawing so read about all those too.

It's time to start holiday gift shopping!

2011-11-19T00:07:00.000-08:00

I just delivered my designs to the Fallbrook Art Center for their month long Art of the Holiday show. If you're looking for Christmas presents and are in or near Fallbrook be sure to check out all the gorgeous designs as the Art Center. A portion of every purchase goes to support the Art Center. Here are just a few of the designs I have for sale there.

It's beginning to look like fall at cserpentDesigns!

2011-10-21T22:59:00.001-07:00

I have some wonderful fall designs in my Etsy and Artfire shops. Here is a sampling ...

Art crawl - jewelry combos!

2011-10-17T00:35:00.000-07:00

My Jewelry on Etsy team is continuing with our cross promotion "art crawl". It's fun to find something in my shop that complements a design in another designers shop. This week my promotion partners are DonnasArtisanDesigns and SendingLoveGallery.

Donna and I are cross-promoting this wraparound pink and aqua bracelet and these pink lucite flower earrings.

Phyllis and I are cross-promoting this fun, flip/flop and sun themed sterling silver bracelet and this aqua art glass and sterling silver bracelet.

If you like what you see - please browse around in all our Etsy shops!

A few new things ...

2011-10-03T22:46:00.000-07:00

I've added some new things to my Etsy studio. A necklace made with pink leopard skin jasper and sterling silver and gorgeous AAA green amethyst and sterling silver earrings.

Wonderful lampwork beads with a silvered ivory ribbon sterling silver earrings and gorgeous AAA black pearl sterling silver post earrings

You can see these new items and more at cserpent on Etsy

American Craft Week

2011-10-03T11:41:00.000-07:00

This week is American Craft Week. Some of my fellow Etsy jewelry designers and I decided to cross promote some of our designs that complement each other. My 2 partners are BrookeJewelry and DesignsByCher.

Brooke and I are cross-promoting this wonderful set of stacking rings in sterling silver and brass and this teal wraparound bracelet with artisan lampwork.

Cher and I are cross-promoting these hammered, flame colored copper and sterling silver earrings and this fun, chic fringe mixed metals necklace

If you like what you see - please browse around in all our Etsy shops!

Catching up!

2011-09-29T00:29:00.000-07:00

I had a blast at the soccer tournament! Did we win? Not even close! Did we have fun? We sure did!

I forgot to share my Cupcakes for Critters donation. I made one donation aimed at cat lovers and one aimed at dog lovers. Here is the dog donation - a collar tag for the dog and a necklace for the person ...

And here are some new designs I just finished up. Some golden yellow Czech glass earrings and a gorgeous sterling silver necklace with AAA grade kyanite. The earrings are available in my ArtFire shop. The necklace is at Gili Anna's in La Jolla.

Senior Games Art Fair (and soccer tournament)

2011-09-07T12:29:00.000-07:00

I'll be selling at the Senior Olympics Soccer Tournament again this year. This year I'm old enough to play too! Here are some of the gals who will be selling with me:

We'll be at Hourglass Field in Mira Mesa (just south of Miramar College). Park in the Miramar College parking lot. We'll be there from 9-4 on Saturday and from 8-3 on Sunday. Here's a mapquest link if you need it: Hourglass Field. Hope to see some of you there!

Here are some of my latest creations that you can see in person at the craft fair!

Smile!

2011-08-21T13:36:00.000-07:00

OK - so strange things inspire me. This time it was a very happy pig! I love the glass creatues made by Gelly of Gelly Beads. Her Porkchop with bling glass pig inspired me to make this collection of smiles!

And the smiles have it!

Curated By: cserpent

ArtFire.com

Fine Art Paintings

Now have a happy day!

Do ya like cupcakes????? Well do ya??

2011-08-20T17:02:00.000-07:00

I do! I've been keeping tabs on "Cupcakes for Critters", a fundraising event in many places, but specifically the one here in San Diego. I'm going to donate some auction items and hopefully attend the kickoff so I can get some yummy cupcakes! That event and a glass cupcake made by a fellow California artist Joy of GlassSculpture.org inspired this collection of handmade cupcakes - edible and not...

For the love of cupcakes ...

Curated By: cserpent

ArtFire.com

Handmade Gifts

Fall is in the air ...

2011-08-18T10:28:00.000-07:00

I'm seeing more fall inspired creations in the shops on ArtFire and a collection of these which includes my rainbow agate and copper bracelet made it to ArtFire's front page! Here it is:

It was created by one of my fellow Jewelry at ArtFire Guild members Mandy (aka beadsme) and 2 other guild members designs are in the collection. Check out the beautiful pincone and shell wreath and lovely tiger iron and picture jasper necklace!

Enjoy this wonderful gathering of fall colors!

Fun with pins ...

2011-08-07T13:01:00.000-07:00

I sometimes use my odds/ends beads to make fun things. This time I made some pins. Here are a couple ...

Dangles and Charms Galore!

2011-08-04T18:07:00.000-07:00

My Mardi Gras bracelet is part of this collection of jewelry made with dangles, baubles and charms!

Handmade Charms and Dangles

Curated By: dianesdangles

ArtFire.com

Handmade Soap

You can see more dangles and charms in Diane's blog.

It's a celebration!!

2011-07-25T00:50:00.000-07:00

I just listed the 100th design in my ArtFire shop! The 100th design is these cute flip/flops earrings

In celebration of hitting 100 I created a first-come, first-served discount coupon. It can only be used once so if you want 20% off your order from my shop - get online and use it now! The coupon code is 100-PARTY. Happy shopping!

Another week of new things ....

2011-07-24T12:04:00.000-07:00

I want to get back to designing but I'm going to diligently get ALL my existing designs listed before I make more. So I'll share a few more of the latest listings ...

Luscious reds ...

Gorgeous pearls!

And a few more ...

A few new things ...

2011-07-17T23:58:00.000-07:00

I'm taking pictures and steadily listing all the new inventory I've made. Here are just a few in blue ...

purples ...

and pinks ...

You'll find me in Oceanside this weekend!

2011-07-07T22:38:00.001-07:00

If you'll be in north San Diego county this weekend and want to go shopping for handmade items be sure to stop by the Christmas In July Art Fair under the trees on the beautiful grounds of the historic Mission San Luis Rey Parish. I'll be selling my jewelry and sharing a space with my glass blowing friend MJ. After you shop be sure to tour the Mission - it's absolutely lovely!

Happy 4th!

2011-07-05T10:56:00.000-07:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful, celebratory 4th of July. We had a very nice one here. I had some time to continue making jewelry for my show next weekend in Oceanside and we had my mom over for shish kabobs. I started out the day with my earrings on the front page at ArtFire in this lovely collection of red, white and blue:

Of course Becka came over to visit with my mom and she had on such a cute USA dog shirt! We had to get a picture of the 3 dogs in their 4th of July finest:

And now ... back to making jewelry!

Hanging out in Montana

2011-06-25T07:04:00.000-07:00

I'm in Montana right now, enjoying the beautiful (and green!) scenery. One of my very distant relations (General Marcus Reno) survived the battle at Little Big Horn so our Reno-Reneau clan had its periodic reunion in Billings Montana so we can do some historical sight seeing and learn more about another one of our "cousins". We've had fun so far! Here's a picture of some of the beautiful blue sky country as seen from the Reno-Benteen battlefield site.

Today we'll see a reenactment of the battle and will take more time to visit the battlefield sites.

Another cousin told me I also must stop by a couple of shops in Crow Agency to see the Indian beads.

Some of my latest creations ....

2011-05-20T23:19:00.000-07:00

Something completed from my stack of TBD boxes where I put beads that I think will make "something" and here is one of the somethings I made!

A simple necklace design with some gorgeous ametrine and some fun flip/flop earrings ...

Fun with Westies!

2011-05-18T16:17:00.001-07:00

My mom and I both got our Westies from Westie Rescue of Orange County so we went to the yearly picnic in Orange County this weekend. It was fun, the Westies and Gino had a blast and it was a VERY quiet ride home since all 3 dogs were sound asleep! I donated this necklace to the cause.

Out of this world ...

2011-04-19T23:37:00.000-07:00

The gem faire was in town last week and I was in search of some sterling chain, ... from some of my regular vendors. Unfortunately 1 vendor was bought out by another company and they no longer carry sterling silver (what???), another no longer carries that chain (double what???) so I had to go in search of new suppliers ... Well what happens when one goes wandering around a gem faire .... one buys things! I found a place with some nice sterling chain (www.majestab.com) and as I continued my wanders I found another cut stone vendor (eidos) based in San Rafael (where my MIL lives) with some cool stones. I'm a sci-fi fan so when I saw these interesting meteorite pieces from the Campo del Cielo meteorite and they told me they could be soldered I thought - how about diamonds and meteorites??? So stay tuned to see if I can join these little diamonds to these cool meteorites ...

Spring is hopping out of my design table ...

2011-04-12T16:16:00.000-07:00

I've got flowers blooming all over my yard (and weeds too!). I guess the colors of spring are getting into my brain since my designs are looking very colorful. Here are 2 new earrings sets for sale on ArtFire.

Hitting the ArtFire Front Page

2011-04-08T12:27:00.001-07:00

I enjoy making collections of items for sale on ArtFire and on Etsy. Sometimes the collections I make even hit the front page of those handmade selling sites. My latest to hit the front page on ArtFire was "Raspberry Beret".

Larimar Brio Earrings

2011-04-05T23:02:00.001-07:00

Another design using some of my Tucson finds. Larimar is such a beautiful stone! These are available at Gili Anna's in La Jolla.

Fun with wire wrapping dangles!

2011-04-05T11:17:00.000-07:00

I got some strands of little 3mm rondelles in Tucson and decided to make some earrings with LOTS of little gemstone dangles. The first thing I had to do was make sure all the holes would fit 26 gauge wire and use my diamond bit to enlarge a few of the holes. Next on the agenda was to make a LOT of 26 gauge balled headpins. That means cutting wire and balling it with the torch. The final step is wirewrapping all those sparkly little gemstones onto the chain. Here are 2 of the results. Both are available for sale at Gili Anna's in La Jolla

New pink and cranberry!

2011-03-31T16:45:00.001-07:00

I'm trying to catch up on pictures. I've had these earrings hanging out just waiting for me to share. Pink flowers and wonderful cranberry pearls!

Thoughts of summer ...

2011-03-28T13:05:00.001-07:00

I was digging through my Kazuri bead stash to design a necklace and earring set and the colors of summer - aqua, white, silver - pulled me in. I made this design and named it Kazuri Summer.

It's for sale at gem shows from Jan and Gary at GlobalMarketplace.

Some new things!

2011-03-19T23:46:00.000-07:00

OK - so I got busy in my engineering work and had a soccer tournament and some beautiful days so I just HAD to be out in the yard planting plants, weeding, ...

I finally made some new earrings with some of my Tucson beauties. Here are some 8mm lapis lazuli stud earrings that already sold ...

And some beautiful 6mm charoite studs ...

I've got a few things designed for Gili Anna's and I'll share those once they get delivered ...

The final day in Tucson

2011-02-17T00:55:00.001-08:00

I've been home quite a few days already and finally have some time for my last post about Tucson. Friday was our last day and we only had a couple of hours for fun. We went to the Tucson Gem & Mineral show and saw some gorgeous gem and mineral specimens. Here are some pictures of the wonderful things you can see.

I also made the acquaintance of a fellow San Diegan who has gorgeous cabachons for sale. I already busted my cab budget but I did get his name and number so I can give him a call once my budget recovers.

I hope you enjoyed a peek into our Tucson adventures. Be sure to keep an eye on my blog to see some of the designs I make with the gorgeous beads and stones I picked up.

Day 5 - are we done yet?

2011-02-12T10:43:00.000-08:00

We started out the day (Thursday) eating another breakfast at the Waffle House on E. Irvington. This is where we had the BEST service in all the restaurants we ate at in Tucson. In fact I think Waffle House should give lessons on proper restaurant customer service to quite a few other places in this town. I don't know if all Waffle House restaurants are this inviting - but I hope so! When you walk in all the staff sings out a hearty "Good Morning"! They do this for everyone who walks in. They sit you as quickly as possible (but when the place is full you may have to wait a bit for a table). They quickly bring you coffee or juice or whatever you want. Your breakfast is made to order and if you need something cooked a bit more they happily take it back. I know this because I like my scrambled eggs cooked well done and dry, bacon and hashbrowns cooked well done and crispy and they err on the side of not quite as well done as I like. But they took it back and cooked it some more until it was perfect. I absolutely enjoyed my breakfast all 3 times we ate there. And their cinnamon raisin bread is great! It is loaded with cinnamon - just the way I like it.

Some folks call them "Awful House" or a greasy spoon - but I expect some grease (or oil) when I'm eating bacon and hashbrowns and I hate greasy food but thought my breakfast was delicious. My eggs weren't at all greasy. They also didn't put a pound of butter on the toast - just a light swipe with more on the table if that wasn't enough. So - I highly recommend the Waffle House on E. Irvington for a hearty, welcoming breakfast. They are open 24 hours so you can try them anytime. I didn't try a waffle - but they have maple syrup which gives them another plus in my book! Here's a picture of the morning staff and the front of the restaurant.

Our next stop was Electric Park. This place ended up being a blast. They had boxes and bins of rough, polished chunks, petrified wood, tools and I don't know what else. There aren't a ton of high grade gems here - but one of my favorite gemstone dealers, Royal Quality Gems, was here and I had to pay him a visit. I also met one of my online friends, Robyn Hawk. She has a running blog about Tucson, Tucson Gem Show - Live!, every year and it is always interesting. And, since my mom grew up in Barstow, we had to stop and say hi to Diamond Pacific Tools. They have some awesome looking tools - tumblers, grinders and polishers, grinding and polishing wheels and lots more. And, small town that Barstow is, Don Depue (technical director) knew some of my mom's cousins who live in Barstow. Here's a picture of Robyn and I and one of Don and my mom with some tools in the background, of course!

We next wanted around the pavilion and found a company that uses pressure to inject gold, silver and copper into quartz. This creates some beautiful stones! The company is Gold in Quartz. I absolutely loved the cabs they had for sale and my mom had to buy the cutest seahorse! I'll get a picture of it to share with you next time I visit her. I should have saved some cabachon budget for this show! But I have their card so I can give them a call once I have some sales from all the beauties I bought in Tucson this week. Here's a picture of Onnik Arakelian and his wife at the show.

We wandered through all the outdoor tents and I made a stop at Peru Minerals where I got some pyrite cubes and hearts (including a broken heart!) and some rhodocrosite hearts. They had many carved animals, hearts in many sizes and stones, tumbled rocks and lots more.

We wandered around more, talked to some vendors, saw a LOT of beautiful polished and unpolished stones and generally enjoyed ourself. We went back into the pavilion to say goodbye to Robyn and the one booth she kept trying to visit was finally open. This was Miland Tools and, darn her, she got me hooked on more tools. Miland Seuss is the tool maker. He will gladly demonstrate any tool you want to see. I bought a texture hammer (rain pattern) and cuff making plier today (synclastic). Both Miland and his son are so very gracious and helpful and love to talk!

After Electric Park we went in search of food. The food situation in the southern part of Tucson is really pitiful if you don't like a lot of fast food. We hoped that if we drove toward downtown we might find something that looked good. We both like taquitos so we stopped at The Taco Shop Co. It doesn't look like much on the outside but the taquitos were fresh cooked, the guacamole was good, the lettuce and tomatoes were fresh and they had Dr. Pepper to drink. We spent a total of $7.50 on a not too filling, but still tasty lunch for two. You can't beat that!

Our next stop was back to Holidome. I had a list of places to see and did a pretty good job of sticking to it. Our first stop was Opex Opals. I bought some gorgoues 5x7 cabs. I also found out the 2mm beads I looked at earlier were actually synthetic so I passed on those. We then headed into the big tent in search of some center drilled keshi and apatite rondelles for some gem friends. I didn't find the pearl place initially so we cruised by booths as we looked for BV Gems. My mom slowed down at a place with hair jewelry and I found BV Gems and started shopping. I picked out the apatite rondelles and then started looking at other beauties. I snagged bags of rubies, tourmaline and amethyst rondelles from the $10 sale box. I also picked up 2 strands of pink topaz long beads - beautiful! Here's a picture of Sunil and his wife and some of the beautiful gems I bought.

Our final stop was Ta Pearls. Another gem friend had already picked through the center drilled keshi so by the time I got there most of the good strands were gone. I still dug through and was able to get a nice looking strand of white and bronze center drilled.

And that was it for the day. We ended our day early and went back to the hotel to rest a bit. I thought I would do a quick stop at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show - but I just didn't have the energy. After several hours of just vegging we drove north for dinner at California Pizza Kitchen (good food, so-so service) and called it a day.

Day 4 - and we go some more!

2011-02-10T16:34:00.000-08:00

I may actually catch up on my posts today. Here are our adventures from yesterday.

We started out at GL&W at the Grant Inn. This venue has an interesting mix of sellers. Outside you could buy inexpensive beads, shells, purses and wood carvings among other things. Inside the wholesale pavilions you could buy the normal variety of precious and semi-precious stones and beads in addition to jewelry, gems and minerals from Aghanistan, Africa, Pakistan, India and many other locals. We wandered among all the booths and were drawn to one selling fossils from many locales including Morocco. We live in Morocco for 2 years so we struck up a conversation with Joe Aaronson at Pangaea Industries, Inc. It turns out we lived in Morocco before he was even born! Now does that make me old?? LOL! We did buy some fossil coasters and pendants that were both found in Morocco since they really do look cool and who doesn't want to have a 350 million year old ammonite hanging around ones neck? Here's a picture of Joe and of some of the cool fossils we got from him.

We made a short stop in the 2nd pavilion and bought some cabs - malachite/azurite for me and bloodstone for my mom since it was one of my Grandpa's favorite stones. Then we headed out to meet some of my mom's old work friends at the Old Pueblo Grill. We had a wonderful lunch. Good food, wonderful company and great service. It was a nice change from our dinner the night before! Here is a picture of our wonderful and patient server.

After lunch we went back to GL&W at the Grant Inn. I found Kalpataru at this location (they often have something different at each venue), got some really neat sterling and gemmie beads and then we headed down to Globex at the Days Inn and the Pueblo Gem and Mineral show at the Riverpark Inn so I could look for some cabs for some friends. We first wandered through Globex and it reminded me of a middle eastern bazaar. There were folks selling barrels, buckets and boxes of rough stone along with polished cabs and strands of gemstones. We saw scarves, leather shoes, interesting hats, carved statues from wood and stone, giant slabs of stone with gorgeous pictures from the stone patterns - all for sale. And there were gyros, arizona fry bread, lamb kabobs, kettle corn and much more available for eating. It was pretty amazing!

Our next stop was our final visit to the Pueblo Gem and Mineral show at the Riverpark Inn where I dug through cabs at Magic Mountain Gems (again) and fortunately was able to find some nice ones in the right price range for my friends. By the time I was done with that we were done in and ready to eat and go back to the hotel. We ate at Chop Stix which is near our hotel and headed back to the room. We were amazed to see the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile in our hotel parking lot. That is not a sight you see everyday. Here it is the next morning ...

And that ends our adventures from yesterday.

Day 3 in Tucson (written on day 4)

2011-02-09T23:02:00.000-08:00

We started out the morning at JOGS since that was the last day for the show. My first goal was Sunwest Silver since they had good prices on bezels and decent prices on charms. Their selection of charms is HUGE!!! However, just as we went in the door we noticed a mad rush to buy things at the first booth area. Well - we just had to see what all the fuss was about. So we started checking out the various tables ($10/strand table, $8/strand table, ...). My mom wants an multi-strand necklace inspired by one she saw at River Park but hers is going to be really eclectic based on the "ingredients" she has purchased for it thus far. So as she was digging for beads for her necklace I was looking for good buys. I found a few, she found some strands she wanted, we paid and continued into the depths of the show.

The next distractions were EARRINGS!!! My mom loves southwest style jewelry and is quickly sucked in when she sees turquoise! Needless to say there are MANY jewelry vendors and most have turquoise. This time she found some beautiful inlay jewelry (and yes EARRINGS!) at Select Lines. She was tempted to buy several pair - but we decided to wait until I heard back from a colleague to see if she wanted any for her stored. So we went on to Sunwest Silver (finally!). There I got bezels and charms and my mom found more EARRINGS! She did manage to resist temptation so we left with only my sterling findings in hand.

Sunwest Silver was the only booth I had on my to-do list so we decided to do a bit more looking around, coupled with a bathroom break, before heading over to the Gem Mall. As we headed to the restrooms what did my mom's eye behold??? EARRINGS!!! Now these earrings actually stopped me too. The design was all in wire with pearls and CZs and other beads. It was very free flowing and so artistic! The artist is Alex Simkin and I was enthralled and inspired by his design. The company is Designs by Alex Simkin and Alex makes the most wonderful combo of earvine and drop. Now Alex's wife, Cynthia, is a wonderful salesperson. She must be if she sold me a pair! She immediately started talking with us, somehow figured out I was the hard sell and offered to put some in my ear to show how they look. I was absolutely intrigued by them so I gave in. She found a wonderful pair for me (vine and dangle) and out went my little turquoise posts and in went these fun, fancy and sparkly ear vines with dangle. She pointed out the dangle could also be worn behind a post earring to add a bit of flair to a plain post earring. I loved them! I looked at all the other designs and even tried on a few and the ones she first picked were perfect for me - just CZs and silver. My mom had her eye on a much more elaborate pair, a lovely ear vine with pearls and then a swirling cloud of wire and pearls for the drop. Cynthia found a vine that would wrap around my mom's second piercing and we were hooked. Here is a picture of Alex and Cynthia in their booth:

Aren't they a cute couple!

With new sparklies in our ears we headed over to GL&W Gem Mall. I checked out a seller of vintage beady items - Sandy Schor Co. A neat place if you're looking for steampunk things or mixed media. I was hoping to find some brass bead caps in a certain style but had no luck. I did get to dig through bin after bin after bin of vintage rhinestones (and thank you Mom for helping out!) looking for some rosaline octagons and and cardinal rhinestones. Unfortunately our search only got us dirty hands ...

We then wandered around just to see what else drew our eye. Not surprising turquoise pulled us both in next. Turquoise Jewelry Mfg., Inc had gorgeous turquoise from Kingman, Narcozai, Bisbee and many other famous mines. All was guaranteed that it wasn't colored and it was all gorgeous. We wandered here, there through the show and then I had to do a quick run through SII Findings. I've purchased a few things from them and yesterday I found a great price on 2mm round, seamless, sterling beads. I snagged those along with some interesting bails. And then - LUNCH!

We had a quick bite at the one of the little food tents outside the Gem Mall tents. After that we went into the other Gem Mall tent where I visited my favorite sterling seller Kalpataru who always has some of the best prices and interesting beads. We wandered around for a bit and then headed for Holidome. We did a quick pass through Lucky Gems (on the suggestion of some fellow residents at our hotel) and then on to Holidome. We only had about 45 minutes there so I made sure I visited CGM Findings and Opex Opal. We got some gorgeous boulder opal there in years past - but they were very picked over by the time we got there this year. However ... they have some GORGEOUS, FIREY opal strands and I may have to go back and get some of the 2mm beads. Even in that small size they are full of flash and fire. We did a quick walk through the big tent and I did visit Tripps to see their settings since I contemplate buying from them regularly. They didn't bring sterling settings with them, but I did buy a prong setting tool. As we left the Holidome tent I was again amazed to see trays of precious gemstones sitting on tables. All the colors of the rainbow with so much sparkle and just laying out for the world to see and for anyone to run their fingers through! A moment at the Tucson gem show can be just breathtaking!

Since I've been quite verbose tonight I'll do a quick recap of dinner. If you have a lot of time to burn then eat at the Javalina Cantina. The food is good but the service is not. I did like the saguaro glass they used for the margaritas and my mom did enjoy it!

And here I am posing with the glass and a picture of the beautiful food presentation!

And that's it for now. I'll tell you all about todays happenings tomorrow!

Day 2 in Tucson (written on day 3)

2011-02-08T23:03:00.000-08:00

I remembered to take pictures yesterday! So now you'll see some faces to go with the places. We started off the day at Magic Mountain Gemstones at the Pueblo Gem and Mineral Show. I found some more cabochons I just had to have. But, when they figured out my total, there were some I didn't need so bad since the total was a bit more than I budgeted for. Nevertheless what I got is wonderful and I can't wait to use them in designs! Now, silly me, I didn't get a picture of Colin - the guy who patiently answered my questions and waited while I agonized over what I couldn't afford and then kept track of my running total - LOL! At least I hope his name is Colin since I'm terrible with names, but that's the business card he gave me ... Here are pictures of the wonderful cabs I just had to sit and pick through ...

And I just had to share a picture of the very vibrant bumble bee jasper. A beautiful yellow and black!

Next we headed just down a few booths to Larimar Conlight. Jens and Cynthia are the owners but Cynthia is the sales person. She is absolutely wonderful to work with, is clearly proud of what she designs and sells and has wonderful things in all price ranges. I was looking for larimar since it is a beautiful stone and sells well in San Diego. I had an idea of what was "good" and what wasn't but wanted to check with her just to make sure my ideas were right. Fortunately - for those of us who just can't afford the price point of absolutely round beads, she had some nice faceted, not-quite-so-round beads, nice cabs in a range of prices and quality and some loosed beads which allowed me to get some different shapes without buying an entire strand. Here is a picture of Cynthia and my mom.

Aren't they both lovely ladies! And here are some of the lovely larimar necklaces and pendants available at Larimar Conlight.

After I did my picking and choosing of larimar we wandered through the show to see other vendors I thought might be interesting. I wasn't doing well at choosing vendors from the book description, but during the wander to find them I did find some other interesting vendors - including one where I got some nice diamond files and diamond tipped drill bits. Then we had lunch there at the show where they were barbecuing hamburgers/hot dogs/veggie burgers fresh on the BBQ. I do love a fresh BBQ'd hamburger and these were good.

Our next stop was at the Tucson Bead Show where I hoped to reconnect with one of my favorite lampworkers, Colleen Girard. I just LOVE her twisty beads!I wasn't sure I would find her there since the website for the show and her website disagreed on whether she would be there. Alas! Colleen was not there, but the visit wasn't a total waste.

On our way to look for Colleen we walked by PJ Tool Supply. I couldn't think of any tool I just had to have, but my mom wanted to check out the metal stamps. I'm so glad she did because we found the funnest stamps for sale there. I'm not going to tell you what they are since I'm going to use them for some future designs. But they are unique as far as I know. I did get a picture of all the helpful young men (am I dating myself by calling them young? LOL!) working hard to answer questions, help customers out, run a cash register (this was their first show with a cash register so they didn't know all the ins/outs of it yet), dig out inventory, ... As I was waiting for them to total everything up I did find a tool I had to have - a small brass caliper. Magic Mountain let me use theirs to measure beads/cabs and it was just so handy. I have a larger digital one at home - but this one I can leave in my gemshow bag (along with my loupe) and no batteries are required. Here are all those helpful guys!

I checked out the clasps by Star Clasps to see if I liked them, totally forgot to stop by Ezel findings (drats!), my mom found the gal who does beautiful beadwork. A few years back my mom bought one of her gorgeous, mega-beaded bracelets at the Pasadena Too Bead True Blue show. Next we were off to JOGS!

I specifically went to JOGS to find You and Me Findings since I hit them up for sterling beads and things at just about every show I go to. I looked them up in the JOGS show pamphlet and couldn't find them. I asked about them up front and fortunately one of the JOGS people knew where they were located in the building and led us there. Apparently they changed their name ... to Merico Corp. Unfortunately they were already packed up!! What was up with that??? The show still had another day to go. Not only were they almost completely packed up - the guy doing the packing had no idea if they were showing anywhere else. I was not happy and made sure I sent them an email about this when I got home. I haven't heard back from them yet - who knows if I will.

And that was it for day 2 in Tucson. Well we did have a very nice dinner at the Metropolitan Grill. Good food, nice atmosphere and the only issue was a very pleasant server who was in a hurry to leave - even if we weren't done talking to her yet. A little odd (she rushed off, after asking for our orders, before my mom gave her order ... kind of strange since what would she have served my mom if she didn't take her order?), but in every other way the service was great.

Day #3 will have to wait - the sleep beckons ...

I'm in Tucson!

2011-02-06T21:13:00.000-08:00

I'm here! Yay! I already did some fun shopping too! My mom is with me for another great Tucson gem show adventure. I'm sure I'll wear her down with all the venues I plan on visiting. We landed this afternoon and by the time we got our luggage, car and checked in at our hotel it was 5PM. I checked the show listings earlier and found that the Pueblo Gem and Mineral show at the Riverpark Inn was open until 7PM. It is also a show recommended by a fellow gem-aholic Robyn Hawk. She talked about it in her blog Tucson Gem Show - Live!. I just love reading about her daily experiences in Tucson. She showed pictures of some cabs at Magic Mountain gemstones so I had to go there. They have some gorgeous cabs! I have a tray set aside so I can finish looking tomorrow morning. Can you imagine they actually wanted to close up at 7PM tonight? LOL!

I also visited several of the opal vendors, including Hopkins Opals where we bought some gorgeous cabachons and Opal My World. We also stopped by Opalcolors/Outback Sunstone Mining Co. where we bought some gorgeous Oregon sunstone briolettes. We picked out sets with a prominent reddish-orange spot in the center of the brio. They look nice against a white background, but the color really pops against your skin!

Since everyone was closing up their booths we figured it must be time to leave and find some food. I actually planned ahead and did a google search for food places near this show. As I looked through various restaurants Caruso's popped up as a promising Italian restaurant. It had great reviews, has been around since the 1930's and seemed like a perfect spot to eat since I knew we wouldn't get lunch today and we would be hungry. I'm glad to say the reviews are spot on. We both had the only salad offered - Italian and it was perfect. For the main course I had the pasta special for the day and my mom got spaghetti. Both were delicious, as was the garlic bread they provide. We both love to eat the heels of bread and when we asked for just garlic bread heels our waiter gladly brought us some. The only thing they lack is a good selection of black teas. If you like the generic black teas (aka Lipton's, Farmer's) you'll be happy. However, if you like other types like Earl Grey or Darjeeling - bring your own tea. They will gladly provide you with hot water.

Tomorrow I'll try to take pictures to share. Goodnight and have sweet, sparkly dreams!

Some new things to start the new month ...

2011-02-01T12:27:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it is already February! What happened to January? It flew by. I've got some ambitious plans for 2011. The most time consuming will be moving my entire inventory of beads/... from a spreadsheet into a database. I already started and so far every sale this year is logged in the database. I try to add in one new design a day. So far I'm keeping up the pace. But - since I design jewelry to sell I figure I better start taking pictures and listing all the beauties I made at the end of 2010 for the shows. I'm starting out with earrings and here are a few ...

I'm so excited to be going to Tucson for the gem show again this year. I've got my venues mapped out and can't wait to see all the beauties over there!

Gorgeous pink and porcelain

2011-01-26T23:42:00.000-08:00

I found a pair of my earrings in another gorgeous treasury on Etsy. I absolutely love everything in the 2nd row. Please enjoy!

For all you fellow PURPLE LOVERS!

2011-01-24T21:15:00.000-08:00

Here's a wonderful collection of gorgeous PURPLE designs on Etsy - including my amethyst and gold necklace.

Chocolate and Cherry!

2011-01-24T21:07:00.001-08:00

A great combo for Valentine's Day (or any day in my opinion). Here's a wonderful collection of California made chocolate and cherry treats on Etsy. My glass chocolate heart bracelet is part of the collection!

A few more holiday designs and some other fun things ...

2010-12-15T15:09:00.000-08:00

Well - I have a Christmas tree in the house - but that's about it. No decorations up yet. I have to get working on that since I'll have friends over on Sunday for a Christmas party! Work is getting in the way a bit - since a project just poppped up and, of course, they want it ASAP. In the meantime here are a few more things I listed ...

Just click on the pictures to find them for sale!

Last of the holiday and winter designs ...

2010-12-08T23:34:00.000-08:00

Our days were getting colder and more like winter - but now we've warmed up again. It's just cool enough that Gino and Max go out to sunbathe. Max just got over an infection and is back to his raucous, rambunctious self! Gino sure is happy - he didn't like it when his "bro" was just sleeping in his basket. He did enjoy eating all the food Max wouldn't eat when my back was turned! We have to be careful to keep Gino from turning into chunky Gino. He does like to eat!

Here are a few of the new holiday and winter designs I've just listed. More will follow as I take the pictures.

Have a great Christmas and a wonderful new year!

cserpentDesigns at the Fallbrook Art Center

2010-11-19T23:06:00.000-08:00

I delivered my goodies to the Fallbrook Art Center. It is undergoing major interior renovations right now in preparation for the show. I'm going back up in early December to see how it all comes together and to check out all the other gorgeous art items for sale. Here are a few of the designs I made for the show ...

Click here to see more of what will be selling in Fallbrook.

Where you can find me in December ...

2010-11-03T17:13:00.000-07:00

I got accepted into 2 shows in December. Many of my designs will be for sale at the Fallbrook Art Center Art of the Holiday show from 12/1-12/23. Entrance is free and many other artists will be selling their items as well.

On 12/4 I'll be selling at Artisan's Alley in Coronado. I'll be in booth 100. I'll be sharing the booth with my glass blowing friend MJ. So if you're looking for handmade Christmas gifts pop into either place and I'm sure you'll find plenty of beautiful gift possibilities!

And - here are some recent creations to whet your appetite ....

Random II Bracelet

Purple Melon Earrings

Pink Peppermint Earrings

And some recent pretties I've made ...

2010-10-11T13:20:00.000-07:00

Earrings in both my Etsy and Artfire shops ...

A dog's life ...

2010-10-11T13:17:00.001-07:00

As I sit at my computer editing picture files I notice my little Westie, Max, snoozing across the living room in one of our chairs. He's a very relaxed little dog! I just had to get a picture of him as he snoozed - except he woke up as I turned on the camera - surprise!

Rain, Thunder and Lightning Oh MY!

2010-09-30T23:40:00.000-07:00

We had a wonderful day filled with rain, thunder and lightning. This is a rare occurence in San Diego so I loved it! It was a new experience for our Westie Max (he joined us in February) so he had to run outside and bark at the thunder everytime he heard it - LOL! They both got haircuts last weekend - aren't they cute?

And here is Max up close and personal and a happy Gino after chasing his bro around the yard ...

And here's the rainbow that showed up after the rains finished up ...

Senior Olympics Soccer Tournament Craft Fair!

2010-08-14T16:22:00.001-07:00

I'll be selling at the Senior Olympics Soccer Tournament again this year. I'm still too young to play but at least I'll get to hang with my teammates this way. Here are some of the gals who will be selling with me:

We'll be at Hourglass Field in Mira Mesa (just south of Miramar College). Park in the Miramar College parking lot. We'll probably be there from 9-4 - but the schedule may change once the games schedule is known. Here's a mapquest link if you need it: Hourglass Field. Hope to see some of you there!

Here are some of my latest creations that you can see in person at the craft fair!

Published!

2010-07-26T23:38:00.001-07:00

My California Girl bracelet is now published in the August edition of the Bead Trends magazine. This sterling silver charm bracelet is filled with colorful lampwork beads, flip flops and sunglasses charms. This bracelet is for sale in my cserpentDesigns Etsy shop.

Tube beads!

2010-07-16T15:51:00.001-07:00

My brown Ghana tube bead bracelet with yellow opals was one of the designs featured in this beadingtimes.com article on using tube beads.

Rhinestone Cowboy!

2010-06-21T21:43:00.001-07:00

Ok - sorry - no cowboys here - but I can't help think of that song when I talk about rhinestones - LOL! A friend asked me to make some earrings to go with a rhinestone necklace she bought. I had never done anything with rhinestones so, of course, I had to dive into it with both feet! I now have a LOT of rhinestones and settings so I'll be doing more with rhinestones. She need hers done in brass so that's what I'll be using for all my new designs. Here is the final creation

It involved 22 soldered components, oxidized the whole thing, set all the stones and - voila - earrings!

Haircut Day!

2010-06-06T22:08:00.000-07:00

Since my normal groomer (mom) had hand surgery I had our neighborhood mobile groomer come by and give the doggies a haircut. Max sure looks good but I didn't recognize Gino - LOL! I asked for a Schnauzer cut, didn't realize he would be sheared! Good thing hair grows back - we want him back to his fuzzy, snuggly self as soon as possible.

Before:

After:

Time flies!

2010-06-04T16:11:00.000-07:00

Wow - where did May go?? And now we're well into June. Here are some recent earrings I finished up. My goal right now is to finish up all the partial projects I started so I can clear more items off my bead table. We'll see how successful I am - since new things always send me off in another design direction ...

May Gray!

2010-05-18T10:16:00.001-07:00

I'm enjoying our May gray weather here in San Diego. We'll have an unlimited supply of hot and sunny weather soon enough so while we're cool and cloudy I'm going to enjoy it! Here's a necklace to honor the weather:

A beautiful combination of handmade, twisted and etched lampwork beads and silver needle agate.

And now - some more new things that I listed in my Etsy shop.

A copper necklace with a substantial snakeskin jasper pendant and a luscious tan, coin pearl necklace in gold.

Enjoy!

New creations ...

2010-05-11T23:53:00.000-07:00

So I have a LOT of designs to list after the craft fair and the listing has begun! Here are just a few of them:

A fun and colorful bracelet in purple, yellow, turquoise and some summery aqua art deco style earrings

A fun, purple wrap bracelet with gorgeous furnace glass and a chocolate lover's delight bracelet

You can find all my jewelry designs in my Etsy shop

Encinitas Street Fair

2010-05-11T00:14:00.000-07:00

As some of you know a glass blowing friend of mine (GlassByMJ) and I (cserpentDesigns jewelry) shared a booth at the Encinitas Street Fair. Here is our booth.

This was not a successful street fair for either of us. From what we could tell folks were buying pet things (the guy selling dog hats behind us seemed to have a lot of customers and we saw many a bag with dog prints in the hands of people), people hats (the gal behind us selling hats did OK - but not great) and food. It was a beautiful, sunny day and it seemed that folks were out to walk and eat and not so much to shop.

I did see one issue with our setup - we didn't have sides on the canopy so it was hard to see our items with all the hats and things behind us. If we do another show we'll be sure to put some sheets up in order to block any distractions behind or beside us. Our setup needs some tweaking too - so we'll do a prelim setup (with 2 6 foot tables next time instead of just one) and get some critiquing from friends/family.

How I store my beads - part 2!

2010-04-15T11:23:00.001-07:00

I posted a while back on how I was storing my beads. It involved Darice bead boxes and file boxes to store them. Here was a picture:

Behind those boxes is a bookcase and a closet! Needless to say I couldn't get to the bookcase easily and I could really only get to one side of the closet. Earlier this year I saw some bookcases for sale on Craig's list for a good price and they had a nice interesting design so I bought them and hauled them back home. Thank goodness for my SUV! They slid right in and a bungee kept the hatch down. Here they are after sanding and prep and before painting.

It took many coats of paint and some help from hubby to get them upstairs to my beadroom - but here they are in place and full!

I'm still reorganizing some things on the shelves and need to finish tiling glass mosaics into the insets on the doors (I have 2 insets done on the bookcase on the right - if you look REAL close!). But they sure have cleared the floor space in my bead room and the bookcase on the right has a pull down "desk" which gives me a place to package things when my desk is full - or 2 beading places when my mom comes over and wants to make something.

Ok - back to beading. I'm doing a show on April 24th (Encinitas Street Fair) so I need to build up inventory! If you'll be at the Encinitas Street Fair that Saturday be sure to look me up. I'll be near G Street.

Got Wine?

2010-03-24T01:41:00.000-07:00

Another fun beaded item I make are wine glass charms that hang on a beaded bottle decoration. It's a convenient way to store the glass charms so they are easy to find for your next party and you have a beautifully decorated wine bottle. Here are 2 glass charm/bottle decorations that are up for sale ...

Is it Easter yet?

2010-03-16T14:07:00.001-07:00

I have some neat lampwork easter eggs and am finally going to make some into jewelry. Here's a necklace using the easter eggs.

And here are some cute bunny earrings!

Max is in the house!

2010-02-09T22:13:00.001-08:00

So I'm a sucker for a rescue dog and for Westies! And I talked my husband into getting Max - the 1 year old rescue Westie from Westie Rescue of Orange County You can see Max on the adoptable westie pages - unless you're reading this in the future - in which case he should be on the 2010 adopted page. Here is a picture I took of him sleeping with his blanket in my bead room and another of Max and Gino out playing in the yard

He is a little hellion - talks a lot, is a bit too nippy during play, loves to destroy toys, ... Needless to say he's going to need a lot of work to turn him into a better behaved little dog! The nipping part will be the toughest since he mainly does that when he plays with Gino - and they're usually moving too fast for me to time the correction properly. And Gino is just too nice and gentle a dog to correct him unless he gets REALLY nippy or annoying.

Fire Diva Challenge Winner!

2010-01-23T00:24:00.000-08:00

I'm so excited - my Blue Moon bracelet was the winner in the Fire Diva Designer Challenge. I was out of town for the voting and didn't realize it happened until they told me I won! Here's my winning bracelet ...
There were a lot of beautiful designs entered and I'm honored to be the winner!

Fashion colors for 2010

2010-01-20T17:45:00.000-08:00

A fellow team member and jewelry design, silvercanyons, is blogging about this years Pantone color report. She included my Viola earrings in the Tuscany (aka stone grey) report. If you want to learn more about this year's fashion colors keep an eye on her blog.

Enjoying the snow and season in Paris

2010-01-07T13:37:00.000-08:00

Just a few pictures of the festive lights in our neighborhood in Paris

and a shot of it snowing outside our apartment ...

Blue Moon ...

2010-01-03T03:19:00.000-08:00

We had a blue moon this month in San Diego (2 full moons in one month) which inspired this bracelet and earring design:

I used gorgeous lampwork beads by Marilyn of Novelty Beads, sparkly Swarovski crystals, luscious amethyst in the bracelet and sterling silver beads and clasp.

A bit of this and a bit of that....

2009-12-27T21:11:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful Christmas. Bro came down, brunch at our house, dinner at my mom's. All the food was fresh and absolutely delicious! Here's a picture of Gino in front of the tree. He wasn't quite sure what to do with all the strangeness going on. He got worried enough that he didn't eat breakfast Christmas morning. However with fresh turkey scraps mixed in at dinner, he scarfed that down! One special present I got was a hand knit scarf from my mom and knitted by my cousin. My cousin knitted gorgeous scarves for my mom and I earlier this year with some wonderful yarn we bought at a show (and found some more at a local shop - Black Sheep). We loved the scarves so we bought some of this yarn (in gorgeous lavendar/grey/white) to send to my cousin for a thank you. I REALLY liked that yarn too. My sneaky mom bought some more and sent that to my cousin to make me another scarf. It's gorgeous - and I need to get a picture with it on.

On the jewelry side of things I made some earrings using the gorgeous AAA pearls and wonderful new findings I got for them. Here are 3 that I made (and all 3 are already sold locally!)

Ho Ho Hell has arrived!

2009-12-19T21:05:00.000-08:00

Or so my hubby says - LOL! I sent out the cards to far away places, got the lights up outside and now I'm decorating the inside. I love decorating for Christmas - so many little knick-knacks with lots of meaning. Tomorrow we'll bring in the tree and start decorating it. Gino isn't quite sure what to do with it all - he did NOT like hanging outside while I put up the lights. The staple gun sound really bugged him. Eventually he'll get used to our family ways. Hopefully he won't decide that the stairway decorations are his play toys ...

Yay - the rains have come!

2009-12-07T22:47:00.001-08:00

It was a rainy, blustery day today and tonight the blustering of mother nature continues. It is a wonderful change from our normal dry, sunny weather. We need rain so badly here - hopefully it is coming slow enough so it can start sinking into the ground instead of running off into canyons and streams.

Gino and I went walking in the rain. He didn't care and I was all bundled up so neither did I. We turned on the fireplace to dry out and Gino loved it! He was quite happy to take a snuggly nap in the basket next to the warm fire. I love having the fire place going - it is an added benefit to cold, stormy weather.

Now Mr. Gino is napping on the couch with a Tony t-shirt keeping him warm. The fireplace is going again (the benefits of a gas fireplace - instant on and off!) so the family room is getting warm and comfy.

Goodbye to our stately old man ...

2009-12-02T23:38:00.001-08:00

Our dog Kirby crossed the rainbow bridge today and should be romping with his "bro" Oscar - both of them healthy and full of energy again. We almost lost him about 5 months ago - but he wasn't quite ready for the great beyond. He came back with a small roar despite the tumors in his little body. Unfortunately he eventually started losing control in his back legs (either his arthritis got a lot worse or tumors were spreading) and for the last 2 weeks he has been on pain pills.

We got Kirby way back in 1999 - not too long after we got Oscar. He was 5 and was saved from a not too caring owner by Westie Rescue. When they got him his front legs looked like hamburger because his skin allergies were so bad. They got him all healed up and we got to adopt him. In my research on the web I found some information linking Westie skin allergies to high protein. We put him on a low protein diet (Nutro Lite food was the lowest protein percentage I could find) and his skin problems only showed up when he managed to sneak some of Oscar's food. He absolutely adored Oscar! In their younger years they enjoyed wrestling together and sometimes even played tug-o-war with each other. Kirby was the only one who could get Oscar to play.

Kirby was always the mellow "older" brother and he REALLY loved rolling in the grass and laying on nice cool dirt. Here are shots of him doing both

He also loved sleeping - especially in his basket - but not just there

Kirby also managed to need a surgery I hope I never need - he had to get the doggie equivalent of an ACL repaired. Here he is with his leg all bandaged up and enjoying his favorite activity - LOL!

He loved to play with toys - often by himself. And some of his favorites were some tug toys I got at the $1 store - the pink pig was especially cute against his beautiful white coat - whether he was playing with it or using it as a pillow.

And more shots of him taking naps - anywhere

We sure miss our little old man - but I'm glad we got another 5 months with him so he could teach Gino a few things - like how to really enjoy a car ride by smelling out the window!

Some new designs ...

2009-12-02T23:30:00.000-08:00

I listed a couple of new designs and one already sold - YAY! Here is a luscious cranberry and gold bracelet with a little pop of spring green ...

You can find this bracelet for sale in my Artfire store

And here are some fun holiday earrings that I made and sold ...

Aren't they cute?

Misc musings ...

2009-11-24T00:51:00.000-08:00

Got my consulting work done and once the customer gives it a try I should be off the hook until after Thanksgiving!

Finally designed a new bracelet - YAY! I've been in a bit of a slump. Partly due to the gem order I had to sort/ship, part due to losing Oscar. Now to just finish it off, take pics and get it listed!

Gino continues to entertain us! I have yet to successfully keep him locked into the kitchen when I leave. Today I put up all the crunchable/edibles but he managed to find a plastic cup Tony had and left teethmarks in it, moved one of Tony's shoes, pulled some OLD paperwork out of a file on the table and partially shredded it - I put all of it in the shredder since it is actually trash. He also found some headphones somewhere - I forgot to ask Tony where they came from ... This time he jumped over the barrier that didn't have chairs in front of it. Sigh!

Here are some more recent pictures of him and of Kirby ...

I still have no clue what breed he is exactly. Schnauzer I'm sure - but he has real curly hair from some other kind of terrier.

I also got to watch my friend make a bowl/plate at her glass lesson. I can't wait to see how the color comes out. It was fun watching her make it. I got to help with a little blowing in the pipe. Her instructor is Kathleen Mitchell and she makes GREAT glass gourds. I picked up 2 more for Tony's mom - in blue - which we'll be taking up to her. Hopefully she likes them!

The adventures of Gino ...

2009-11-16T22:44:00.000-08:00

Let's see where we're at with Gino's personality development. One thing I know - if he has been outside by himself for a while and is being quiet - go see what he's up to. LOL! He's a sometimes digger. I found a rather deep hole he dug while hubby was talking on the phone nearby. It was about 8" deep and probably 8" wide. I have no idea what he was digging for. Tonight I go check on him and find him lolling in the grass chewing on a bone. I have NO idea where he got a bone (a neighbor must have tossed it over the fence for some reason) but he was having a great time with it. Needless to say I took it away and threw it out.

We went to the dog park today and Gino had a blast running!!!!! Kirby had fun too - he refused to sit still with me and wanted to go sniff dogs and many points around the dog park. They are both exhausted and Kirby is having tremors so he really overdid himself. After giving him an anti-inflammatory pill and some honey the tremors seem to have stopped. I don't know if I'll take him there again since he seems unable/unwilling to just lay down, relax and be an old dog. He had fun, but he's paying for it tonight.

I do need to remember to take pictures though! Gino runs flat out - all legs stretched and extended to the max. Oscar used to tuck his tail (or what bit of it was left) under him and ran low to the ground.

If he's being quiet he may also be dragging things to add to his pile. Can we say "hoarder"? I've found my socks in the middle of the hallway, Tony found the dog basket pillow halfway down the stairs and dog blankets trailing behind all the way back into the bedroom - LOL! He regularly takes the dog toys out of the basket and either piles them up on "his" rug in the kitchen or takes them out to "his" rug out on the patio. A westie squeaky toy (with no more squeak) was on his inside rug one day, on his outside rug the next, then disappeared for a day and then reappeared in the grass near where he was chewing on his bone. I have no idea where it disappeared for a day - I searched the yard and couldn't find it anywhere ...

I can't wait to see what other personality traits develop ...

Oh wait - and he has the potential to be an escape artist. He did get out the front door today when I wasn't being too careful. Fortunately he stayed on the front porch and when I rattled the leash he ran back into the house. I MUST be more careful when going out the front door. Hopefully he won't figure out he can dig a hole under the fence and get out that way.

An Etsy memorial to Oscar

2009-11-16T22:39:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to get an Etsy treasury for weeks. I finally got one and here it is:

It is also fun to find what unique items are available for sale on Etsy and especially when you're looking for a particular type of something.

More on Gino

2009-11-13T12:31:00.000-08:00

Gino's personality is asserting itself more and more as he feels more secure. He's rolling over for belly rubs, loves his walks, will jump up so I can lift him into the car, ... He was left alone at my mom's house (with 2 other dogs so he wasn't lonesome) yesterday and didn't get into too much trouble. Today he'll be left home with Kirby while I run some errands so I can see how he does at our house. I'm guessing he's going to knock down the barricades but I'll close up all the rooms where he might get into trouble and will pick up any trashcans that he might find of interest. Hopefully he'll just hang with Kirby and take a nap. Fortunately he learned how to use the dog door and knows to do his business outside so the house training finished up pretty quickly.

More on the adventures of Gino later ...

Meet Gino!

2009-11-08T22:30:00.000-08:00

We added to the Estrada pack yesterday. I dragged my hubby to see Gino yesterday and I couldn't resist such a cute terrier and Tony couldn't resist me - LOL! So Gino came home with us yesterday (after a trip to Costco). Today he got to spend time with my mom and her dog Becka since both Tony and I had to play our respective sports (baseball and soccer) and I did not want to leave him by himself when he hadn't even been with us 24 hours. Here's a picture of him tonight in one of the many dog baskets we have scattered throughout the house. He is quite a basket boy - he probably didn't have one down in Baja. He's starting to play too. Tonight he decided he didn't like me being upstairs and Tony being downstairs so he would grab an upstairs toy, give me a little growl and when he saw I was coming over to see what was up he would run downstairs with the toy. The first one didn't get me downstairs so he did it again. I followed him downstairs and played tug-of-war with him for a while. Then we ALL went upstairs and he was more content. LOL! We're still working on getting him to use the dog door too. He doesn't nudge any doors with his nose so I think it will take a while to teach him how to use it.

Fall is here! (I hope it stays)

2009-11-06T22:25:00.000-08:00

Ah - finally cool weather in San Diego. I'm loving the coolness, but not the switch off daylight savings time. It just doesn't seem right to leave my jewelry class at 5:30 and it's almost dark. Icky! I've been doing OK after losing Oscar - at least on most days. Today was a tough one. I had to go to the vet to get Kirby some pills and the only thing I thought of to/fro was our last trip to take Oscar there. Needless to say it was a sad trip and I'm still down in the dumps.

I'm going to check out a rescue dog tomorrow - Gino, from the Baja Animal Sanctuary. He seems like a cutey and I can't resist a terrier. The first requirement will be that he can be gentle with Kirby. I don't want Kirby's last days to be messed up by a new dog - so if we get one it will have to be gentle and nice to our "old man" Kirby. If Gino is too energetic I've seen a couple of possibilities at the pound as well. I have no doubt that when the time is right we'll find the right dog to give a new home to. That's the best way to honor Oscar's memory - give another loving doggie a good life with a new pack.

The heat is still on!

2009-10-26T12:37:00.000-07:00

I can't wait for tomorrow or the next day when it is supposed to cool down. It's still hot today here in very sunny San Diego. Hopefully the heat, dryness and back country winds don't cause another fire problem. I've been looking at cute little terriers on http://www.petfinder.com So many cuties to see! I have to resist though and give Kirby the love/care he deserves until he goes off to join his bro. Who knows when that will be though since he is a tough, old Westie! I may have to visit the pound/humane society compound regularly though. It takes a while to find terriers at those places and they get less press than the rescue groups do.

The passing of my little shadow

2009-10-22T07:02:00.000-07:00

Back in 1999 I spent many months visiting the pound and humane society looking for just the right dog. It was often a hearbreaking visit since our pound was not well maintained in those days and seeing all those dogs jammed together in kennels and needing homes was quite depressing. Finally, on one visit to the Humane Society (not a depressing place like the pound), I saw the cutest little terrier who came right up to the gate and licked my hand. I got him out of the run and all he wanted to do was lick me. He had already been taken home once and returned and by the way he acted someone had beat him at some point in his short 2 years of life. His name when I found him was Pele, but my hubby decided he was really an Oscar as we took him home. Here he is in the early days of his life with us:

Oscar was a scared, timid, loving little 15 pound dog when he came home. From his looks we think he was part Cairn terrier (one little girl who saw him during a walk said his face looks just like Toto in the Wizrd of Oz) and Schnauzer. His torso was definitely all Schnauzer. His hyper personality when outside the house matched both Cairns and Schnauzers. He had a lot of anxieties when we got him. He would throw up every time he went for a ride - probably thinking we were taking him to the pound. He would start panting and salivating anytime he was locked in a cage. He eventually came to love rides - but never could handle being in a cage. Ah one episode we've never forgotten. Just a few days after we got him Tony brought home a "monster" burrito from his favorite Mexican fast food restaurant. He cut off about 1/3 for himself and left the rest on the counter. We were sitting in the family room and heard a rustling coming from the kitchen. We peeked around the corner and there was Oscar greedily eating all the chicken, beans, cheese out of the rest of the burrito (and carefully leaving behind all the lettuce and rice). We started cracking up - and that scared him. I'm sure he thought he was in trouble. We just had to laugh because Tony had left a corner of the wrapping paper hanging over the counter, Oscar smell YUMMIES and since he was very underweight he was also very hungry. Yummies were in reach so he snagged them! We let him finish up the burrito. That was the only time he ever did something like that - but then we gave him as much to eat as he wanted since he never would eat enough to get fat.

When I started looking for a dog I also applied to Westie Rescue to get a dog. Not too long after we got Oscar they called to say a 5 year old Westie was now healthy and available for adoption. We took Oscar to meet Kirby and since they got along we added Kirby to our pack. Here's a picture of both of them around Christmas time in 2003 ...

After about 2 years Oscar was used to rides and had come out of his shell completely. He gained 10 pounds and was a life loving, happy, energetic, frisky friend to all. He was always my shadow and companion in the house, in the yard and in the car. He loved belly rubs and was free with his kisses. He figured if you were using the bathroom you had nothing better to do than rub his back or his belly. Here are just a couple of pictures of him saying "RUB MY BELLY" ...

He was empathetic (or he liked the salt in tears) since he would always come up to lick my face when I was crying - no matter how quiet I tried to be. If he found something interesting in the yard (snake, dead or dying rat, ...) he would find a way to let me know there was SOMETHING TO SEE!!!! Come SEE!!! He definitely had the hunter instinct - he LOVED to chase lizards, rats, squirrels, cats, rabbits ... He only got the tail off of one lizard in all his "hunts" but he never stopped trying. I remember one time when the fountain in our yard was running and something was making bubbles form and pop on the surface of the water. Oscar would stare intently at the bubbles and touch them with his nose to get them to pop. The pop would startle him but he would continue to watch the bubbles with seeming fascination.

Another thing he would regularly do was walk up to you and put his chin on your leg hoping for pets or treats or ... He was such a cutey when he did that!

His "brother" Kirby absolutely adored him, but not so much in the other direction since Oscar was attached to me more than anyone or anything. Nevertheless Oscar would not play with me but loved to wrestle with his brother. My mom has a bed with a big space underneath and Oscar and Kirby would play with Kirby under the bed and Oscar trying to "get" him from outside the bed. Kirby would also try to keep up with his buddy during walks and play time out in various fields. He couldn't run or walk nearly fast enough, but he would sure try! I guess that's a recurring theme that we can all learn from dogs - keep trying and enjoy the effort!

Oscar absolutely LOVED to run. Unfortunately his hunter instinct meant I couldn't let him run unless it was a fenced in area since any rabbit or squirrel would send him chasing. When I was working long hours I used to take Oscar and Kirby for walks late at night and for a while I would let him run off leash since not too many cars were driving around at 10PM in our neighborhood. Well one night he saw a rabbit and followed it under a gap in the canyon fencing. Fortunately I could hear his collar jingling as he chased that rabbit around the slope of the canyon. Fortunately I still had a hold on Kirby. Eventually Oscar tired of the chase and decided he wanted to come back. It took a while to get him to come back near the hole he scurried under and then get him to crawl back under. After that little scare (we do have coyotes in the canyon!) I no longer gave him the opportunity to run around our neighborhood.

Despite my careful watching Oscar would sometimes scoot out the front door when someone gave him an opening. Fortunately he would usually come home fairly soon or would eventually come running back to us when we went looking for him. A few times we had to get in the car and go looking for him and then he would RUN into the car so he could go for a RIDE!!!! Tony's mom and dad came to visit us once and didn't really know about his escape tendencies so they left the door cracked as they went to get their luggage. Sure enough - Oscar was off and running like a shot. They couldn't believe how fast he got out - LOL! So they dragged the bags in and by the time they came back to the door to go out looking for him he was already back, sitting at the front door, happily panting and waiting to come back in and say HI! Boy were they surprised. Here he is enjoying a ride. It was really a sight in the side mirror when he and Kirby were both sniffing out the window.

Over the years Oscar had many health problems. Apparently he was a mutt who got a lot of the bad genes from his parents. We had his hip socket fixed when his back leg kept popping out of its socket. Now if this happened while he was running he didn't stop - he just kept running on 3 legs. Something in his early years made him quite paranoid about cages. He would totally stress out anytime he was put in one. When I took him in for his leg surgery I asked them to just tie him up outside the cage so he wouldn't get so stressed. They didn't do that initially and even in his post-surgery drug hazed he managed to push hard enough on the door to get it open and he fell out. When I heard that I told them they HAD to keep him out of a cage and he would be fine. They finally put a pad on the floor and tied his leash to a cage and he stayed quietly in place until I came to pick him up.

I took him home, with his 3 good legs and one bandaged leg and a bag of meds. He was still in a drugged stupor so I figured it would be safe to leave him on the front porch in his basket while I went to get the rest of his stuff out of the car. Silly me! When I returned to the front porch with everything in hand there was no Oscar in sight! I couldn't believe he walked away! So I went looking for him and found him already out of our court and staggering down the street on our normal walk route - LOL! Even a drugged stupor and three legs couldn't keep him down.

He also had regular ear infections. One finally got so bad that he ended up going to the doggie ER. At the time I had no idea it was his ear. He was throwing up and couldn't walk. Unfortunately this started on a Saturday and our vet wasn't open on Sunday. I did get some liquid food from the vet on Saturday in hopes he could keep that down. By Monday it hadn't stopped so I tried our vet when they opened and found the doctor wouldn't be in for another hour. Since Oscar was so dehydrated and doing so bad I just took him to the ER. After quite a bit of time waiting and discussing various possible issues they asked if he had any ear problems. I told them he had regular ear infections so they looked into that as a cause and sure enough he had a REALLY bad ear infection. Since it was recurring and he had not been able to find any root cause my vet asked them to recommend a specialist to look into it. They suggested I try an allergy vet and fortunately they had an opening that afternoon. So they pumped Oscar up with subq fluids (he looked like he had 2 saddle bags on either side of his back) to reduce his dehydration until I got into to see the allergy vet.

The allergy vet was very helpful and immediately could tell what his problem was. We scheduled an ear surgery for the next day so they could go in and clean out the ear and see how bad it was down deep inside. Fortunately they did have some anti-nausea medicine so he could eat. But until they cleared out the ear his dizziness would continue. It turned out his infection was so bad it burst his ear drum. Once that got cleared up we did testing and found out he had allergies to a lot of the things I'm allergic to - LOL! So we started giving him allergy shots and with that a few key meds we kept his ear problems under control most of the time.

(shh - sleeping dog)

Oscar really loved every moment in life. When most dogs would be layed low be some sickness he just slowed down a little. He REALLY loved the UPS man. His highlight of the morning was the arrival of the UPS man with a treat. Here he is watching from the bead room for the UPS man to drive up (and a shot of him hanging out in a suitcase - he loved to snuggle in our things!)

Unfortunately this year Oscar was diagnosed with kidney failure. He was never a big chow hound, food was not his top priority, so getting him to eat kidney specific food was a challenge. He dropped from 25 pounds down to 18 but was usually the same happy, energetic dog. He started eating a lot less in the past month and it got so bad while my mom was taking care of him that the vet finally started giving him subq fluids. Those helped for a while, but not too long. He kept going just long enough for both Tony and I to get back in town and spend a few days with him. Unfortunately 3 days ago he got really sick and fluids didn't help. 2 nights ago he spent a lot of the night throwing up and having diarreha and hadn't eaten hardly anything for 2 days. He was not doing well. So yesterday morning Tony and I took him for his last walk and his last ride and sent him off to doggie heaven. Here he is in the last few hours ...

He passed away quietly yesterday morning surrounded by his pack. I miss him tremendously and keep expecting to hear the tick-tick of his little feet on the tile behind me. I know he's off playing with my Dad (who he never met) and Tony's dad (he would always stick his head under big Tony's hand to get a pet), but I wish he was still here being my little shadow.

Fall is in the air ... somewhere ...

2009-09-15T14:23:00.000-07:00

The weather here isn't very "fall"ish yet - but I know it's getting that way in some parts of the country/world. Since fall is approaching so is Halloween! If you like pumpkins and bones here are a few of my new listings ...

Time flies ...

2009-09-04T15:57:00.000-07:00

Wow - a month since I last posted. What have I been doing? Part of it was spent pulling in orders, keeping up spreadsheet for another gem buy from India. I can't wait to see everything when it arrives! Many new things are being ordered that I haven't yet seen. I created new jewelry too. Here are a few of my new pretties ...

I bought a new beading magazine and one of the projects was a ruffle in bead weave. I thought it looked cool so I started with that, embellished it and made a few tweaks so the ruffle would look more like ribbon coral (at least that's what I call it). I wanted the "coral" to surround my sea theme additions to this gorgeous beadwoven bracelet.

Ah cooler weather ...

2009-08-07T19:21:00.000-07:00

Not sure how long it will last - but finally it cooled down. I've got quite a few new earrings made up - need to take pictures to share with everyone! But now - I must take Oscar out for his daily constitutional! Hopefully it will perk up his appetite. Having a dog who isn't really into food and has kidney problems which limits his food supply makes for a challenge in keeping weight on him ... He has dropped 5 pounds over the last 3 months ... Hopefully he doesn't drop 5 more ...

Enjoy the weekend!

Cupcakes!

2009-07-23T22:32:00.001-07:00

I haven't had a cupcake in ages but I keep seeing them around on the web so I decided to show some cool cupcakes I found on Etsy ...

Cute little earrings by OnBeyondZebra

Cupcake painting by Roz

Cupcake Doggy Bone Charm by theGlassChef

Are you heading into the kitchen yet???

My Etsy picks made the front page!

2009-07-21T10:39:00.000-07:00

One fun thing you can do on Etsy is make a "treasury" of items for sale on Etsy. Most people do a theme for these treasuries. I recently created one with a theme of "Where did June Gloom go? (I want some clouds and grey in that blue sky, it's just too dang HOT!)" and it made Etsy's front page! Here is a screen shot:

I really liked all the cloud items I found for sale! Here are upclose shots of the various items in my list in case you want to buy any.

>

And some more new bracelets ....

2009-07-19T17:04:00.000-07:00

Here are some bracelets I added in my Artfire and Etsy shops:

Circle in Circles

White Caps

Matching earrings will be added shortly ...

Woohoo - starting to catch up on my jewelry - LOL!

2009-07-12T18:39:00.000-07:00

I've had this necklace finished for a while but really procrastinate when it comes to taking pictures. Finally I got pics of this one (now I need to get pics of the 2nd set of earrings that match ...). I really like this pendant - purchased from Kazuri West. I also purchased the bronze ceramic beads used in this necklace from Kazuri West. Jan and Gary are just the nicest people! They call me up to let me know when they'll be at a local show and when they find they can't make it to a scheduled show. Both this necklace and the matching earrings are for sale in my Etsy store

Have ya missed me! Well here's a fun new design!

2009-07-08T15:59:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged recently but I have made a few things ... Here's a fun bracelet I just finished - California Girl! Lots of color and fun California beachy dangles!

Love all around!

2009-06-15T11:07:00.000-07:00

Someone saw my Dropped Hearts earrings and added them to their love filled treasury. What a great combination of hearts!

Click here to see it live on Etsy!

The finished pendant!

2009-06-08T23:24:00.000-07:00

Other than the final polishing and a little more work on tightening up the bezel the pendant is done! YAY! It was a fun project - now to work on the matching earrings - yikes! So here is the pendant with all parts firmly attached - LOL!

A bit more progress

2009-05-29T00:23:00.000-07:00

Got the pendant cleaned up after the big soldering session and started on the bail. Need to do a bit more sanding to get rid of tool marks and then I'll try soldering it at home. It will be different since butane burns cooler than acetylene - but it will melt solder. Heck I might even try soldering the bezel on ... Our last class is next week so I want to get the stone set while I have a teacher to help me! Then I'll go like gang busters and see just how well my little torch works. If it is too hard to control then I'll have a torch to add to my Christmas list - LOL!

Tomorrow I'm hoping my mom's window estimate folks come by early enough so we can go see the Cow Parade in La Jolla (http://www.cowparadelajolla.com/). I saw a few when I was down there a while back to see where Gili Anna, the gal I consign designs with, moved to. Her new shop is GORGEOUS and she's right near a fancy restaurant so hopefully sales will go up!

OK - now to make up a few more things for Gili to check out ...

My class project - faberge egg inspired pendant

2009-05-22T00:43:00.000-07:00

So ... I've been in my metal jewelry fabrication class - 6 weeks?? - something like that and my assignment (since I'm a newbie at making bezels) was to make a design with a cup bezel. Now I'm not a big pendant person, earrings and bracelets are more my passion, but I figured that bigger is better for a beginner. So ... I decided to make a pendant AND earrings. I'm focusing on the pendant, but the earring bezels are also in progress. The first step is ... DESIGN IT! So I flipped through some books in class and found a cool lapis colored faberge egg with criss-cross gold patterns. I canNOT find that same egg anywhere on the web - so you'll just have to imagine what it looks like. Here is the drawing I came up with for my pendant ...

Next! Make the bezel. You start with bezel wire, shape it to fit around your stone, file the ends flat and solder them together ...

If the bezel edge is too tall you then have to sand it down, and down, and down and ... (can you tell I had to do this for the earring bezels??? still have some sanding to do on one of them ... sigh ...). Next you cut out a piece of sheet metal and solder the edge to the sheet to create a cup. Important things to remember here - make sure your bezel edge AND sheet metal piece are FLAT! Yes, I learned from my mistakes - LOL! Then you cut the sheet very close to the edge and file, sand, ... until you have a smooootttthhhhh seam which doesn't even look like a seam.

Next you create the pendant frame and the lattice structure. Here's the wire used - square for the frame, round for the lattice. Unfortunately I didn't get pictures of the pendant frame before I got it soldered to the lattice - just imagine the 8 wires of the lattice all soldered at the bottom and sticking out in all directions ...

And here is where I'm at. I got the lattice soldered to the frame today. I did run into some problems - 3 solder attempts required to get all the lattice wires soldered down. During solder run #2 the brass heat sink I was using to protect the lattice wires from overheating got itself soldered to one of my wires ... :( ... When I heated it up to unsolder it a piece of the wire came with it ... :( :( ... So I had to cut out ALL the pieces of the wire (fortunately one end didn't get soldered down) and sand down the portion that did get soldered to the frame ... :( :( :( ... I then cut another piece of wire, placed it, soldered it and FINALLY had good solder joints all around. I then cut off all the excess wire and now I have to sand/file to remove all the excess solder, smooth out the rough edges of the cut wire, ... Here is the pendant as of today with another shot showing how the stone and bezel will be placed next.

Isn't it going to be purty??

And ... just for a laugh. Here is the initial test run for the wire lattice. When I showed it to the teacher, Deb Jemmott, her first comment was "those wires are kind of thin aren't they" - LOL! I told here these were only a template so I could get ideas from her on how to put the whole thing together. Her great idea - solder them all at the bottom first! That made the entire thing pretty easy to place.

Next is the danged heat sink - with the wire still attached ... In fact I think I've gotten it hot enough that the silver wire is starting to melt ... hmmm - well soldering does require practice ...

Inspiration from a clasp

2009-05-17T01:26:00.001-07:00

I did a clasp swap in a bead group and my partner sent me gorgeous seedbeaded toggle clasps. I made this bracelet for my mom using one of them:

Since the clasp looked lonesome without more seedbeads I added the spiral tube and the beaded bead. It was a fun project! The next clasp will be used in a design for me!

Thanks to June, my clasp swap partner!

susan

Some new designs ...

2009-05-12T13:52:00.001-07:00

A gem/pearl group I'm in had a challenge - make something with all those gemmies and pearls we buy! Such a simple idea! LOL! So here are the creations I made ...

Green with a Twist earrings - GORGEOUS AAA green amethyst twisted briolettes and argentium silver (a variant on sterling silver that doesn't tarnish) bead cage and earwires made by me!

Golden Sunrise Necklace and Earrings - Beautiful tan AA coin pearls, gold filled beads and Czech glass rondelles

And finally ... Amethyst with Canes - chunky amethyst rondelles, lampwork beads by Bill Grout, moonstone and amethyst dangles and sterling silver

Nothing like a challenge to get me working!

The magic, secret ingredient ....

2009-04-23T21:37:00.000-07:00

Years ago my hubby and I went to Montreal for a little vacation. Just before leaving I had terrible sinus congestion, leading to a massive headache so hubby wanted to give me a treat and take me to a Japanese restaurant that served sushi. He can't stand the stuff but he does like tempura and teriyaki chicken so we both get to eat something we like..... Anyway - in addition to eating some wasabi (I normally don't touch the stuff) in hopes of clearing my sinuses (it didn't) I also had the most WONDERFUL green tea. It just had this delicious and unusual undertaste (background taste?). I couldn't drink enough of it - it was soooo good! I tried to get them to tell me what kind of tea it was but they either didn't understand the question or weren't willing to divulge a secret. We never could figure out which was the reason even though hubby does speak French and asked politely in French too.

I never did forget that tea or that taste and was always in search of it.

Well last week after a long morning and early afternoon at the gem show (where I got those gorgeous cabs!) I decided to treat myself to a late lunch of sushi at one of my favorite sushi restaurants - Todo - in Scripps Ranch. Since it was around 2:30 the place was almost empty. The sushi was great (as it always has been when I've eaten there) and the sushi chef was pretty friendly. After enjoying a few dishes and a cup of the "regular" green tea the owner asked if I wanted to try some "burned brown" tea (I think that's what she called it). I said "SURE" and she left a pot with me. When I smelled the tea I was so excited - this was THE tea I've been looking for for so many years!!! Then I tasted it and .... ahhhhhh .... it was sooooooo good! So I savored the tea and the sushi finishing off the meal with that sweetened egg sashimi (tamago nigiri) and more tea. What a grand day I had - beads, sushi and absolutely luscious, delicious green tea ....

I asked the owner where you get the tea and she said it was just available commercially for restaurants. Well I just can't take no for an answer so when I got home I started doing some google searches on "burned brown green tea". What I found were references to genmaicha where they talked about combining roasted brown rice and green tea. So I did more searches on brown rice and green tea and based on that information I was pretty sure that roasted brown rice was the magic ingredient - especially based on what the tea leaves looked like in the pot I got at Todo.

So, tonight, on the way home I bought some brown rice. I toasted some in my toaster oven, put it in the bottom of my little tea strainer, added some Japanese Sencha tea leaves on top, poured in the hot water, let it steep and, VOILA!, the luscious tea was created. I'm savoring my 2nd cup as I write .... yummm ....

So, if you like green tea but want to add a new dimension to it - brew it with some roasted brown rice. It is just TDF!

Got me some cabs!

2009-04-17T22:48:00.000-07:00

No - not taxi cabs - LOL! I'm taking the intermediate jewelry fabrication class and we're going to be making bezels and setting stones. My homework was to go buy some cabs and the gem faire is in town!! How can I NOT do homework that involves shopping for gemstones??? Needless to say cabs aren't all that I bought - I had to get some sterling too - chains, spacers, and some toggles. Here are the cabs I bought from Janu Gems -------->

Garnets are at the top (they are for later - when I get experienced enough to set faceted stones), a mystery stone in the middle - I just liked its colors, and I got lots of amethyst - my favorite color and it goes so well with sterling!

Ted, the owner was very helpful, had some GORGEOUS stones that were for the expert stone setter and provided me with bags of less expensive stones/cuts to dig through to find something I liked.

I also got some cabs at one of my favorite local fused glass art sellers - Fusionglass Co in La Mesa. I've always admired their art but haven't purchased any pendants since that was mostly what they sell. Since I'll be able to set my own cabs soon I decided to buy some of theirs. I already have a bracelet design in mind for the light green cabs - I've got the silver already textured and just waiting for me to cut out the links. I loved the color in the clear cab with purple, dark blue and a coppery/gold spash - it should look great in a copper pendant! And I loved the fuschia and pink with that black streak and moonstone looking dichroic. I just got some gorgeous moonstone rondelles which will look great in a necklace with this cab as the focal. And those smaller purple and black cabs? Those are for something for ME!!! Probably a cuff since I don't wear much jewelry and when I do I like it to be no muss, no fuss.

If you're in town or visiting in town Paul and Debb at FGC want you to come visit! I'm going to have to plan a visit to their shop once I've got some designs finished with their beautiful art glass!

Chocolate yummmmmssss!!!

2009-04-15T16:32:00.000-07:00

My bro lives in Seattle and was kind enough to get my mom and I hooked on Fran's chocolates. These chocolates are just to die for!!! They are also quite pricey, but worth the price - when you can afford to splurge. I got myself and hubby a present at Christmas of some Fran's chocolates and rationed them carefully over the last 3 months. We just finished off the Christmas chocolates last week. Needless to say I wasn't planning on buying more anytime soon but, lo and behold, look what FedEx brought me yesterday ....

A BEAUTIFULLY wrapped (in purple - my FAVORITE color) box of Fran's chocolates. My brother sent them to me for Easter - isn't he a sweetie? And .... here's a peek at the luscious chocolates themselves ...

And, yes, I did grab the beautiful chocolate with the little bit of purple on top - it was deeeelllliiiiccciiiiooooouuuuussss .... and another disappeared last night and this afternoon. Now I need to start rationing them!

Pretty little awareness earrings!

2009-04-02T00:38:00.000-07:00

A gemmie friend was trying to sell of some of her "extras" so I bought some beautiful rose quartz briolettes. I topped them with some gorgeous pearls using ball head pins I made myself!! (Yep - I'm having fun with my butane torch!). Then I heard that another bead friend was going through chemo for breast cancer so I just had to send these earrings to her. My gemmie friend donated the brios when she heard what I was going to do. Then I added awareness ribbons that I made myself (using my trusty little hammer) and - voila - gorgeous breast cancer awareness earrings. She doesn't know these earrings are coming her way so it should be a nice surprise.

Metalwork class project!

2009-03-13T01:25:00.000-07:00

I've received the metals I need for my class project - 20G argentium sheet and 18G copper (well I might use a thinner gauge - haven't decided yet) and 14G argentium wire. Ya think this will be a bit on the chunky side?? And this week I did sweat soldering since that's what I'll do on my project. It took 2 solder sessions to get the piece almost totally soldered down. I didn't want to waste the solder finising it off since it's just a test piece. Next is to cut out a template to see how to cut the argentium sheet. At $38 for a 2" x 6" piece I don't want to make any mistakes when I cut it! I'm also thinking of ways to embellish it with gemmies. I have so many pretty ones! Maybe I'll cut a hole in each link and bead a wire into place. I just don't know yet! But I better figure it out since I would like to finish it up before the class finishes.

I've been sorting gemstones!!!

2009-03-11T13:08:00.000-07:00

I'm in a gem buying group and we're trying to rotate the job of receiving/shipping orders among several people since it's a LOT of work. I volunteered to do the last order and I finally received and sorted the first half of the order. Here are some of the gems fresh out of the box and all packaged up. Those are apatite rondelles up in the left corner. I haven't a clue what the other things are - maybe some green amethyst right in the middle.

And here are just a few of the BEAUTIFUL gemmies received - pink and dark purple amethyst in a gorgeous cut! Aren't they beautiful! To see more you'll just have to wait until I use the gemmies I ordered in my designs!