Fundraiser for a really good cause

A few months back a good friend and sorority sister of mine, Emily, was hospitalized because she came down with the swine flu pneumonia and other complications. After over 2 months in the hospital the infection left her system and she's now been in rehab for a while.

My sorority wanted to do something to help her and her family out with her medical bills and other associated costs.

We're doing a dinner and silent auction for her on October 10th in conjunction with her EMS Rescue Squad. Our part is the auction with all the proceeds going to Emily.

I mailed about 17 different things for them to auction off. It's all stuff that I've had laying around for a while and haven't gotten around to listing yet. It's a nice mix of sterling, gemstone, glass. I have sets, bracelets, earrings, the works. In the short run I'm hoping I get some sales.

I really do wish that I could be there but everyone is in New Jersey and it would be very difficult for me to be there when we will be heading up there for Thanksgiving to spend it with my family.

What a great day to stay in and craft!

It seems like it's been raining for days now..... Not continually but for the better part of the day most days. With all this rain who wants to go outside at all?

I'm thinking about getting a jump on the pendant for Anne. She picked out a green glass that really looks like periodot. She's also getting it made with gold wire. I probably should re-string that necklace for my co-worker. My one co-worker, Peggy, will give me necklaces and earrings and stuff that have broken for me to fix. I don't mind doing the fixing but I don't want it to become to big of a part of the business.

I think that I'm going to get started on that pendant.

Found a really cool tutorial in my email this morning

So I open up my laptop this morning and I've got a couple of emails from http://www.how-to-make-jewelry.com/ Christine sends out a newsletter semi-regularly and there was this really cool earring wire tutorial on it. http://www.how-to-make-jewelry.com/earring-wires.html Very simple and pretty easy to do. I've made earring wires that are similar to these in the past. I'll have to play around with it. Instead of 20 gauge wire you could also use eye pins if you can get the right length and gauge.

Now I just have to make my pasta salad for the party tonight.

Happy Friday!

So it's Friday (Yay!). I'm excited about the weekend for a few reasons.

The first? My friends Ana & Monty had there baby girl a little over 2 weeks ago and tomorrow is the Welcoming Shower for them. Hopefully it won't rain but we'll make the best of it.

I just have to remember to bring the glass pieces for Anne to look at for the wirewrapped pendant necklace that she wants me to make her. I have 2 that I've made for myself and about 5-7 more that I have done but never had gotten around to listing yet. (I really need to get on that)

By the way Anne has a really great blog that you should check out. http://estreetanne.blogspot.com/ She talks about her dogs, her cat and living with MS.

I'm quite frankly surprised about how many people have really liked the pendant that I wear most often. It's a rectangle of mosaic glass that I've wirewrapped with copper wire. The glass is an amber color. I have it strung on a simple black leather cord. Simple and really fun to make. I never know how it's going to come out until I'm finished because the design has a tendency to take on a mind of it's own. I'll have to snap a pic of it and throw it up here when I get a chance.

And I have to remember to go to the store tomorrow morning and buy the ingredients that I need for the pasta salad that I'm bringing.

Oh, and football. The NY Giants are playing the Dallas Cowboys Sunday night. It should be a really great game. I hope that my G-men wipe the field with the Cowboys. I just have to stay up late enough to catch most of the game.

Interesting form of inspiration

So last night I went out with a few girlfriends to see the movie Julie and Julia. Really great movie by the way. It's really funny because we've been trying to get together to go see it for like a month at least. Most of you I'm sure have heard about it but the basic premise is that this girl, Julie Powell, decides to actually do something with her life and cook all of Julia Child's recipes from her cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in a years time. She sets up a blog about it and posts frequently about it.

Well, I'm getting away from myself, let me get back on track. Watching this movie last night made me want to do 2 things. The first was to make that damn beef stew that she burns in the movie (I conveniently have a dutch oven that's brand new to use) and the second is to really get back to my blogging.

So here's the deal, I'm going to attempt to post to my blog 4-5 times a week on various crafting related topics and occasionally throw in some stuff about the rest of my life. Now I'm not doing this to get some kind of recognition I'm doing it to get myself back into good habits about keeping up with my jewelry business.

What could be easier than blogging? (please don't answer that, it was a rhetorical question)

So stay tuned fellow followers, strap in, hang on it's going to be a fun ride...

It was time for a change

I've been playing around with getting my hair cut for some time now. I finally decided to do it last week. I normally have shoulder-length hair. I've been told for at least 15 years that I'd look great with an angle cut. I've been putting it off for a while (like I said, at least 15 years). Last week I finally decided to just do it. I checked with the hubby to see if he'd be ok with it because he likes long hair. We found him a picture of exactly what it would look like and he said to go for it. So I decided to share with my fellow bloggers the final result. Enjoy.

Life gets in the way...

When you have a full time job and a 'part time' job that's really more of a hobby the life that pays the bills often gets in the way. I've taken a hiatus from the blogging and handmade worlds recently because there just hasn't been enough time to devote to my 'part time' job.

Has anything really suffered? No, but it's disappointing to myself that I cannot devote the time that I really want to my jewelry business. I have done another sample box at the Spotted Box again that went out in August. I wanted to do June but due to a death in my sister-in-law's family things got a bit de-railed. I'll have some $10 gift certificates in next month's box. It's a special anniversary box, TSB's 2nd so that should be fun. I'd like to do another Spotted box in October, I'll have to get working on a Halloween theme.

I really need to update my artfire studio as well. I have several items to list and others waiting to have photos taken.

I've had a few sales during my break which have been really great. One was for a set of wine charms that was purchased off my artfire shop and that lead to 2 more sets for similar charms. I've also had a custom order from a good friend of mine (thanks Stacy) for a really beautiful necklace that we designed together. It started off as chain then went to beads and finished in a eagle charm. She's a high school teacher and the school colors are green and white and the mascot is an eagle. It came our very nicely. I may use that same premise for a line for my online shop. I've also had a few sales in the form of jewelry repair. Mostly re-stringing necklaces that have broken. That's fine and I don't mind doing that kind of thing so I'll probably only do it for friends and family.

The last thing that I have been up to has been presented to me last night. My sister-in-laws birthday is coming up in a few weeks and she wants me to make her something. She gave me some good ideas and showed me her current collection of jewelry so I can get an idea of what she likes. She'd like an anklet or a necklace. She doesn't read my blog but I'm thinking that I'm going to make her one of each. I really do like to do custom orders. It's so much fun to create something for someone that no one else has and they like to help me design the piece as well.

Anyway, my current project at work is wrapping up this week and I'll be headed back into the office again starting on Monday. I'm really quite excited about it. What it means for me is that I'll have a nice normal schedule again and my days will be somewhat predictable again.