Last Couple of Days Jewelry Sale!

Silver River Jewelry
Just a quick note that my 10% off sale will be over on the 1st of September, so if you have your eye on something in particular now is the time lol! Just click on the link or the picture!

What a Treadmill Is REALLY For

At least according to our cat Dragon. I couldn't resist these pictures, he looked so peaceful lol! Now if I could exercise like that and it would actually work (you notice how trim he is ?) I would be a happy camper!

The Rest Of Our Zoo Trip

So we are now moving on to the Northern Trek portion of our zoo visit. And trust me its definitely a trek lol! Uphill the whole way and it just kept getting hotter and stickier! So our first stop once we stopped gasping for air was the bald eagle. He was definitely a majestic bird and was almost close enough to touch. What a magnificent bird! Bonus, the gift shop was air conditioned by this exhibit lol! We didn't buy anything but we spent a half an hour cooling off, I mean browsing. We passed this white tailed deer wallowing in a mud hole. He looked a whole lot cooler and more comfortable that we were. (and yes I was hot enough to be tempted lol). Onward to the polar bear. I love polar bears, they are stunning animals and HUGE lol! Did you know that their fur is really clear not white or cream colored? This is my first trip to the zoo in years where he was actually up and moving. I hope you have enjoyed my trip to the zoo, we did see a bit more but skipped several parts due to the heat and the need to get home and do some of the to do list that we dumped to go to the zoo lol!

Work In Progress

I thought I would show you a time lapse kind of thing on one of my beaded necklaces. This is about 3 hours worth of work (with frequent interruptions by the dogs, the husband and the occasional blank stare at the TV lol) This is a bead necklace made with a St. Petersburg Chain weave using a needle and thread. I am using peachy seed beads as the base and man made coral bits dyed a pretty peach and peach dyed fresh water pearls as accents. The focal bead is an agate that is a creamy white with pale peach swirls in it. This turned out to be much more lacy and delicate than I had originally thought but I am really liking it. And the purple bead on the end is my stop bead, to keep my first couple of beads on the thread til it holds together on its own. I added about another two inches and had to stop. Once you are too tired to see the seed beads its time to put the needle down lol! I haven't had a chance to finish this one yet but sometime this week it will get done and the clasp will be added.

Another Peek At Our Zoo Trip

Moving along from the Australian Exhibit we have some pictures of beautiful foliage. Not what you were expecting is it lol! Actually on of my favorite things at the zoo is all of the different, exotic plants that seem to thrive in spite of being out of their natural habitat. (good job grounds keepers lol). Of course in my back yard the only thing left standing is the occasional blade of grass due to the three large dogs that think they own my yard lol. (apparently they do since I can't grow a darn thing back there!) Any way we move on from the pretty greenery to the giraffes. I am betting this guy is happy it not winter, I don't know how they would unstick his tongue from the pole! Onward to the butterfly house! (Right next to the giraffes) I know, I know, silly thing to get excited about lol! But they are so cool! This first butterfly doesn't look like much color wise but it is bigger than both of my hands together with all five fingers spread out. Now that's butterfly lol! And last but not least for this segment of our zoo trip are these bright colorful birds. I know what they are called, but the name escapes me, mostly because I need to remember it Right Now lol! Any way they are beautiful and you can buy cups of nectar to feed them. They will hop right down and try and take the whole cup from you. They also tend to squabble amongst themselves when presented with only one cup. I hope that you enjoyed this part of our zoo trip. Check back again and I will have another post up. The next one should include the polar bear who was actually up and moving, not curled up in a corner sleeping.

Designs by Leah Best

I found this great little shop on Artfire that does the neatest soldered glass pendants. DesignsByLeahBest. My favorite is the white rabbit but her entire series on Alice in Wonderland is stunning! And she has several vintage feel pendants that are just lovely! I have tried my hand at this type of pendant and it isn't as simple as it might seem. Even though the photos are between glass you have to be VERY careful not to let things get too hot as it will discolor the pictures and ruin your pendant. All this while handling a hot torch and melting the solder evenly so that it all holds together. Go and check out her shop, her items are a perfect gift for Christmas or just because you want to treat yourself!

Trip to the Zoo

Went to the zoo with my hubby and mother in law on Sunday. 90+ degrees and sticky, I don't know what we were thinking lol! It was a good time anyway. Not what I had planned but my husband decided he wanted to go do something since summer was almost over so off to the zoo we went. This post will be mostly pictures with a couple of comments. Enjoy our trip to the zoo! Wallabee --->

Cute isn't he!

Did you guess that we went to the Australian Outback Exhibits first lol! I could just pick up that cute koala and cuddle it. But I am pretty sure that it bites lol! I am also pretty sure that if those kangaroos REALLY wanted to they could easily hop the fence. All the animals were really active while we were there which is really odd since it was really hot and really sticky. And not just the animals in this exhibit but almost all of them. It was nice to see them up and moving around. Although the elephants are gone until 2011 as they are rebuilding the exhibit. I was sorry to see that (not because I don't want them to have a better home of course but the elephants are one of my favorite animals to see). I realized as I was editing photos that I have waaaayyy to many pics for just one blog post so I am going to do several, so check back in a day or two for some more!

My First Lamp Work Bead Making Class

So I took my first lamp work glass class last Saturday. Can I tell you I am soooo hooked lol! (Thank you Mary for your patience and generosity, you were a great teacher!) I bought the HotHead torch on the spot (thank goodness it was only $40 and hooks right up to the canister of map gas $7.95 at Home Depot) I already have proper venting for my metal work so I was good to go. My teacher was generous enough to send me home with a couple of rods of glass and a couple of mandrels etc to get started so I was playing with glass for the last couple of days. I was also lucky enough to discover that Franz Art Glass is having a sale (60% off!) until the 21st of August. (go check it out I got way more glass than I thought I was going to be able to). So I am eagerly anticipating the arrival of my stuff! I am going to post pictures of my first beads that I made at home so try to hold your laughter. I am still working on getting them round and symmetrical. Some are close, some not so much lol. Also just playing with dots and lines, the basics so to speak.

Live Laugh Love Soap

I love hand made soap. I am totally and completely hooked on hand made soap and won't use commercially made soap at all anymore. I am on a tight budget. In fact my budget is so tight you can usually hear it screaming from a mile away. I will save up for hand made soap and do without the cube of Coke to be able to use handmade soap every day. I also recently tried toothpaste soap. Sounds gross right? Brings back memories of swearing and the whole "i'm gonna wash your mouth out with soap thing" when you were a kid I'll bet. Lol at least it did for me! Well I bit the bullet (or the soap as the case may be) and tried some. WOW! What a difference in the way my mouth felt! And my breath is so much better! Does it taste nice and minty? Not really. Maybe just a hint. But I can tell you my mouth felt clean all day, things tasted better, and my teeth started to get whiter. Plus the stuff outlasts about 3 tubes of toothpaste and doesn't drip all over the sink in nasty, sticky green streaks. You should at least give it a try. Go check out this website, she has beautiful hand made soap AND toothpaste soap. LiveLaughLoveSoap.com Really good stuff! Don't even get me started on the handmade sugar scrubs! All pictures are clickable and will take you directly to her shop!

Gaurdian of the Beads

Just had to share these pictures. This is my cat Dragon. He is a pound rescue that I got when he was about 4 weeks old. He is now 5 years old and a most loving cat. As you can see he like to sleep on my desk when I am editing photos etc. He is guarding the jewelry to make sure that it doesn't get away from me lol! True to his name he hoards pretty things.

A New Wire Wrapped Pendant Necklace Life At the Beach

So as everyone knows I like to do a wide variety of things inside my chosen field of jewelry design. (yes, I bore easily, and I am fortunate that there is such a wide variety of things to do when designing and making jewelry lol). One of my first loves is wire wrapping and is in fact one of the first things that I taught myself to do when I got started. I haven't been doing a lot of fancy wire wrapping lately, between summer, some home projects (cleaning out the basement to make more room for me to work in lol) and just everyday life, I haven't had much time to do more than the basics. I finally sat down at my desk the other night and designed and made this piece. It didn't start out looking like this but kind of evolved as I went along lol! I was relatively pleased with how well it turned it out since it has been a wee bit since I have done anything along these lines!

Sale Ending Soon!

Just a quick note that my 10% off just because sale will be ending soon This will run til the end of August. This is a great opportunity to pick up some early Christmas gifts! I am converting my entire Artfire shop to free shipping (the jewelry shop). This will be permanent. I also now have over 300 items listed so there is plenty to choose from! Have fun shopping!