I'm Like a Greyhound

...okay, not exactly. I'm not that lean, and I don't have the big, soulful eyes. And I am (hopefully!) slightly less neurotic. But it seems like all I do is run, run, run...I get why those dogs are tired.

Brett and I arrived home late Monday (later than expected, due to equipment problems on the plane), only to find that the air conditioning was out AGAIN. I'll spare you the details, but it pretty much goes out several times every summer. Long story short, we got it fixed yesterday around 5 p.m. Guess who works from home? Guess who spent two full days with no air?? It was a little uncomfortable, to say the least. I like working with a HOT TORCH much better in the winter.  :)

But I did manage to get several pieces to the clean up stage this week, and I'm pretty happy about that. Of the big grouping I started two weeks ago, I have fully finished four (plus one designer piece), I have seven partially done, and eight more to go.

It's going a little slower now because I'm doing earrings. And for every sale-able pair, I need to double the work of  making one pendant. Less efficient, but so much fun when they are finished.  :)

The above quick-n-dirty bench photo is of two pendants and a pair of earrings. I LOVE how the pendant in the upper right corner came out! You can't quite see the top details, but it went together exactly how I'd imagined. Which doesn't happen as often as you'd expect (or as I'd like).

The middle two are going to be biiiiiiiig earrings. Those bezels are built for these babies:

Mmmm...hiya, big guys. I can't wait to get them set and cleaned up.  :)


Then there's these:

Two more pendants, one for a Kingman (upper right) turquoise, small oval with cute little streamer-like embellishments, and one for a Morenci (lower left) turquoise with a sort of Asian feel to the top embellishments. And the two pairs of earrings are both chrysocolla. They're fairly small stones, so I wanted to do something a little more exciting than what I used to do last year:

All I did for every pair of earrings last year was add a jump ring. Woo! I was a beginner...and just adding that friggin' ring at the top was hard.  I file a flat spot on my jump ring attachments, so that they join better (more surface contact means a stronger join) and it took me so long to be able to file straight / flat. I swear, sometimes I think I must be the MOST remedial of learners when it comes to jewelry fabrication. But I've done it so often now that I don't even have to think about it.  :)

So my earring designs are advancing...thank goodness. I feel very comfortable with pendants for the most part, but getting creative with earrings (and not adding too much weight with the sterling or making them too oversized to wear) has been a challenge.

Next up...rings. It's a whole other scenario, with shanks and all that, but I think it's almost time to start playing with gemstone rings. I've been waiting to get my skills competent enough but I think rings are moving to the top of my 1,587,652,213 things on my list of "design and create".   :)

Sneak Peek

My life is about to change...I have No. Firm. Deadlines. ...at least, for a while.

My last show of the year was December 15th. My last holiday order went out the door December 18th. And I don't have an art festival looming for three full months. Yay! and also...Yikes!

But more on that shortly. Today I want to show you a sneak peak of a VSP - Very Special Project. Someone in the Blue Piranha household *might* be getting a piece of custom, handmade jewelry...and since I'm not keeping secrets from myself, that leaves my husband.  :)  His birthday is tomorrow and I am just going to make it under the wire to get this done!

The good thing is that he doesn't read the blog, so I can share the details here:

Curious?

It's a fossil tooth from (what we believe to be) a Mako shark, found while beach combing on Sullivan's Island, S.C. Brett and I went on a vacation to Charleston in late September, and one of our outings was to Morris Island - which I highly recommend if you're the beach comber type and also like a little history. The captain of the boat / beach hunting tour is FANTASTIC. Lots of history of and around Charleston and the island(s), shared in a fun, completely un-dull manner. If you're interested, here's the link:

Adventure Harbor Tours

Anyhoo, we found some teeth during our hunt, and this was the largest / nicest of the bunch. Brett has been wanting a Blue Piranha necklace for some time now, so I thought I'd surprise him and set the tooth. It's also a learning experience for me, since everything I've set has been flat-backed and mostly symmetrical with soft corners...uneven height, asymmetrical shape, and sharp corners all make a bezel set more difficult. I did say that I wanted to push myself, so this will be interesting!

Here it is without the setting:

It's just about an inch and a quarter long. Pretty cool, huh? Okay...some of you might find it weird. But my husband is still a little boy at heart, and I'm the girl who wanted to grow up and be an archaeologist, so we're both fascinated by this kind of stuff.  :)

So far the bezel-making went well. It took quite a bit of sanding to get it to fit onto the back plate, but it soldered up nicely and now I'm ready to start getting creative with the mosaic pieces. I think I've done the easy parts so far...the actual stone setting will be a challenge.

Stay tuned...

Blue Piranha 2.0 (or 3.0). I Know, it's Hard to Keep Up

I began my business in 2003. And now, nearly ten years later, I am beginning it again.

Okay, that's not entirely accurate. I've been beginning it again now for a couple of years. It's seen more revamps and changes than...well, let's just say it's seen a *lot* of changes.  :)

Back in 2003, I was stringing beads, as I had been for most of the eight years prior (my love of jewelry design was a hobby before it was my livelihood). My first show - it did not come close to qualifying as an "art festival" - was in Woodstock, Georgia. A bit off the beaten path. It was, as you may suspect, rather sparsely attended. Hell, it was sparsely populated with artists - I think there were a total of thirty of us. We mostly sat quietly in our booths, wondering, waiting, and hoping. It was a long weekend. Oh, and it rained. My business was off to quite a start!

My first display was rented tables and cloths. Shiny satin-like cloths, in what were supposed to be a nice, neutral cream color, but turned out more like a light yellow. Do I have to tell you that it was not good? It was not. I had shells out on the tables for display stands. Why shells? I had some vague idea of piranha = fish = water = shells. The shells *did* look good...in fact, they looked so good that people kept asking to buy them. Oh, they bought a little jewelry too, but they really liked the shells.

In hindsight, maybe I started selling the wrong product?  :)

Anyhoo, one of my best sellers at these early shows was the Harmony bracelet. I'll show you the last remaining one, from my personal stash:

So now you know...I did have the humblest of humble beginnings! When I talk about "starting from where you are" I really mean it. I began with the basics. There was really nowhere to go but up.  :)

When I did research at juried art festivals, I realized just how much beaded jewelry was out there. Seeing that made me think about how I was going to differentiate, how I would compete, what I would offer that was unique and unusual. And I didn't have any happy answers. I knew I loved color; that's been a constant since I can remember (note that the bracelet above is chock-full of color), but other than that, I was so not unique.

I knew I wanted to play around with metal, so I started messing with wire. I shaped it, I bent it, I curled it...and eventually I had some designs I thought were pretty good. Around 2005-2008, I had a booth of mostly wire and bead designs. Shows were crowded, customers were happy, and I was making some decent money. I even had people occasionally say things like, "Where did you go to school for this?" and "You've really done something different!" (the ne plus ultra of design, at least for me). I was pretty pleased with myself. Pleased enough to try and ignore the nagging question of....what's next? 

 mid-Aughts bracelet design

Because I didn't know what was next. I felt like I had no ideas. I was frozen, paralyzed. I had a lot of sketches in my sketchbook but no way to make them happen. Well...no way to make them happen in the clean, modern style that is part of my design aesthetic. And so began the long, long, looooooong journey into fabrication. You may have read about it on this blog.  :)

from the bracelets above...to this...I could not be happier. Charoite pendant

Jumping ahead to 2012:  I had a bit of a design breakthrough earlier this year with the mosaic pieces. And I'm still working through what direction I'm going to take those designs. So far the direction looks like bigger, more intricate jewelry. Also maybe bigger mosaic metal pieces. Those tiny buggers are so labor-intensive and hard to handle with my hand tremors. And I just designed that B-I-G necklace and really liked the feel and size of it...I'd like to make a B-I-G mosaic necklace... bracelets...rings...there's so much more to come!

Upward. Always.

A little over a year ago, I was at a small local show. I'd just finished setting up the booth, and was giving it a once-over. I wasn't very happy. I felt ashamed of my work. I know I go on all the time about, "Begin where you are" and I talk about the process, but I am an impatient soul. I wanted to BE there already. I felt like my current work didn't represent who I was, or who I was becoming. And I wasn't sure I'd GET to who I was wanting to become. What if I couldn't "do" it? Good design, sale-able design, is not easy. I always want my first design to be *brilliant*...and like most processes, it takes several iterations before any "brilliance" shows through.  :)

So there I was, feeling down on myself. Remember how I've talked and talked about the life of a creative? This was a trough. Eventually, I started chatting with the man in the booth across from me, who was also selling jewelry. Most of our discussion was casual, immemorable, but he said something that stuck with me. "Don't go backwards. Look up. Look forward. Always."

At the time, I felt frustrated by this advice. Looking forward was like staring into an abyss! Nothing was working. I wasn't creating what I wanted to create, and I was unsure that I could create anything worth the effort.

Well, eighteen months or so, lots of hair-pulling, teeth-gnashing, and sailor-like language later, and I might be getting there. I realized this week that my "cold work" table, where I do things like wrap beads, make wire shapes, and do other non-torch-related work, has been very neglected lately. Why? Because I am creating at the other table. The fabrication table. Where I do the metal work with the torch. And I've started to shift from colored stones being the focus of my designs, to being accents. Which means that the metal work is slowly coming to the forefront.

 turquoise

I've mentioned in an earlier post that when I went to Sedona for a festival a few weeks ago, I felt like  my work was too small. And I think that subconsciously, that's been an issue for me for some time now. I've always worn the largest-scaled of my own designs. And most other jewelry I own is not for the shy or subtle. So why haven't I pursued that in my own creations?

 green aventurine

Several factors, I guess, the biggest one being fear. Fear of putting too much materials cost and labor into something that might not sell. Fear of taking a big risk and losing. But you know...the way *I* shop is kind of pricey. I don't shop often, but when I do, I'm not a cheap date.  :)   I buy big, and big costs more. But I don't mind paying more because I like a statement bag. Shoe. Bracelet. You get the drift.

So I decided to take a design leap and create a design that is physically larger and more statement-y than my normal work. I started sketching a necklace which would be three pieces, separate to one another but related in their design elements. I went through my stone stash for the right sizes (note for next year's buying trip: more smaller stones!) and found three that would complement each other. And then I got to work with the torch.

I hand fabricated even the chain - in fact, everything but the clasp - and made a custom tag for the back. I used over an ounce of sterling silver in the construction of this necklace and you can feel the weight.

Peruvian blue opal

The photo above shows how thick the sterling silver border is. It's hard to see in most of the photos (best seen in the first two shots) but I cut the insides out to leave some open space, and then added additional wire and sheet elements to frame the stones. 

Here's the whole piece:

The back plate is heavily oxidized for contrast against the shiny wire and sheet metal elements, and the stones really jump out, especially that gorgeous opal. The green aventurine has the softest color, so I added more silver around it to brighten things up.

It feels good. It looks good on. The day I test-wore it, it definitely got noticed. And I learned so much while making this piece. While not everything I design will be this substantial, I think I'm addicted to making some larger designs. I'm looking, and moving, and creating, forward. Upward. Always.  :)

Oh, What A Month!

October, one of my favorite months of the year...most years, that is. My last post was on the first day of the month, and I've not had a chance to blog since. I've barely even had time to catch my breath!

Last  weekend's art festival in Brookhaven was my third in a row. And the last one was in Arizona, which meant I spent five days away for a two-day art show. Travel, set up, show, show, travel...sometimes that's how it works. And then I got sick, so I kind of lost two and a half days this week. Great timing...but I suppose not really surprising.

I'm at Chastain in two weeks, and I could use a little regrouping time...which I have a bit of this week and next, and I'm making the most of it.   :)

In the meantime, I managed to make this:

Gorgeous, no? I love it. But I didn't get to enjoy it long...it has already gone to a good home.  :)

I made a few other goodies too, that I'll show you shortly. And I had a bit of an epiphany at my last festival, in Sedona. If you've never been to Arizona, and you expect it to be all palm trees, cactus, and dry desert, you'd only be partially right. The Northern part of the state has mountains, forests, and skiing. Yep, that's right - Northern Arizona looks a lot like parts of Colorado, Montana, etc. As shown:

Anyhoo, Sedona has these gorgeous red rocks and a very southwestern flavor. It reminds me a lot of Santa Fe. There's the usual tourist-y stuff, but there's also a lot of Native American and southwestern jewelry on nearly everyone who lives there. I saw everything from fetish necklaces to squash blossom necklaces  to stunningly beautiful NA rings, belt buckles, bracelets...and the Sedona folks like their jewelry on the large side. 

Living in the southeast for so long, I'd kind of gotten used to the standard style here. Southern ladies like their jewelry dainty and feminine, as a rule. But southwestern women are quite comfortable wearing jewelry that could almost be considered unisex. I loved it! And it made ME want to design bigger, bolder jewelry. It's funny - I wear big jewelry. And many times, I feel that the jewelry I create is too small for my OWN taste...but I think that's going to be changing.  :)

Good Times

How fortunate can one girl get? Don't hate...it's been a long time coming. But I am loving, if not everything in my life, most of my career right now. It's not all smooth sailing - jewelry design is hard! - but I am really trying to squeeze the most FUN out of it all that I can.  :)

So we know (because I've told you, right? Somewhere along the line, the peeps who know me know that color makes me HAPPY). And I *know* I've told you relentlessly how much I love turquoise. So I guess it's no surprise that three of my early pieces in the mosaic line have turquoise as a focal point...

I've shown you this one, which sadly has been lost.  :(  I'm trying not to be too broken up about it, but I do not think it will return to me and so I'm working on some others. I have so many ideas for this collection! But as I've mentioned, the original designs are very labor-intenstive and there's only one of me. So they're coming out a little more slowly than I'd like.

However...I did finish this one late last week:

Hel-lo, gorgeous! This stunning stone has everything I like in a turquoise: the soft, western-sky blue, the slight brown and green matrix (a bit more iron than copper adding to its coloring), and...well, okay,  I *don't* love square / rectangular shapes all the time. But I do love this one. It was a bit of a challenge because my design preferences tend toward round and curvy shapes, but I am really thrilled with how it turned out.

I was originally going to go all out on this and surround it with mosaics like the piece above, but when I laid out more pieces it started to look a bit overwhelmed. And this is a pretty big stone, with a fair bit of sheet backing, and it would have gotten rather heavy. So I decided to just frame the opposing corners instead. I think it's *just* enough.

Plus there's a bonus:

I can't believe I spent most of the year *not* sawing out windows in the backs of my pendants. Because I'm really loving the effect. I've mentioned before that not all stones are suitable for this, but on the ones that are, I really feel like it's a little extra treat.  :)

* Don't think I've forgotten that I said "three" of my early pieces in this line...the third isn't finished yet. But I'll show it to you when it is. :) 

It Sneaks Up on You

I recently made a stone-set pendant, after not making any for almost three months (!!). It involved crafting two bezels, two back plates, soldering them together, soldering on three jump rings, cleanup, and stone setting. This seemed like a quite a bit of work  when I started it...

...but I worked steadily on it in the studio, and when I was getting ready to set the stones, I glanced at the clock. And thought, "Wow!" Apparently I've gotten a bit faster at this type of work! I was a little amazed. Especially after not making any stone-set pieces for a while. I've spent all year feeling like I'm so slooooow at this kind of work. Sometimes the learning curve sneaks up on you though.  :)

Stone setting, for me, has been a bit of the ne plus ultra of jewelry fabrication. For those of you wondering what the heck a "ne plus ultra" is, it's defined as:

1. The highest point, as of excellence or achievement; the ultimate.

2. The most profound degree, as of a condition or quality.

 

I felt like stone setting was THE mountain. Well...the most PROFOUND mountain. And from where I was standing, at the utter bottom, it seemed nearly insurmountable. Remember this post? I couldn't even make bezels at the beginning of this year. But I'll bet I've made over 100 of them by now. And yes...they've gotten much, much easier (and thus faster) for me. 

So I don't think I'm at the top of the mountain yet, but I've at least notched a couple of steps toward it. Now I'm starting to think about faceted stones (yes!!). But one thing at a time. I still want to make stone rings, bracelets, different types of necklaces and pendants....the list never ends.  :)

I'm also trying to figure out a way to be faster at stone setting, but I think that's just one of those things that really can't be rushed. (Or maybe I just haven't figured it out yet). Stone setting is nearly the last step of the process and it would be devastating to rush that and ruin the stone after putting in all the work on a one of a kind creation! 

So are you ready to see this happy new necklace?   

When I found this labradorite, I knew that it was going to be my next creation (despite the absolute slew of labs I bought at the same time). Something about it just spoke to me and I felt like I imagined this pendant, in its entirety, on the spot. That never happens. But I sat down to make it and it really felt like it came together so quickly!

The top back plate behind the garnet is softly textured with a satin finish, and the bottom plate has a light line texture, polished to a high shine. I'm loving the contrast. 

The back:

The top has an open back, so you can see the color of the garnet more clearly. The last garnet I set was gorgeous but without the light coming in it almost looked black against the metal backing. The customer who bought it loved it, but it bothered me. So I made a change for this one.  :)

Here's the previous garnet:

You can see the color in photos, but it was harder to tell what stone it was in real life. So the new one got a window in the back.

Not bad, eh? I'm pretty in love with it. Of course Blue Piranha loyalists know that garnet and lab is quite possibly my favorite stone combination. I've been using them together for years. 

But let me just say....wait until you see the *next* pendant I made...it's really, really good fun.  :)

Oh YES! What a Thrill!

I recently alluded to my breakthrough in this post. And then I got busy and also took a small vacation. But I'm back and ready to share! I know some of you are eagerly anticipating the money shots, and I won't keep you waiting:

Here's the full shot of the turquoise pendant I posted earlier. At least, it's supposed to be a pendant. I am having bail issues (but no worries, it will be fixed shortly). I went a little crazy with the detail but I LOVE it. I feel like this is taking my work in a whole new direction and I can't wait to make more of these designs.

I'm also working on some pieces without stones, to be cast, but don't have photos of those yet.

Here's the piece that started me down this path:

A glorious piece of mookaite from Australia. Unusual coloring and composition for a mookaite. It was the breccia in the center of the stone that gave me the idea. I wanted to continue the brecciated look onto the metal backing, but didn't want to etch or make a textured pattern into the metal. I felt like that wouldn't have the "punch" that I wanted for this pendant. So I layered metal pieces on top of the back plate, and voila! A whole new design direction.  :)

I haven't decided yet whether or not I'll sell this one. I feel like it might have to be part of my own collection because it represents so much of what I've been trying to create. The asymmetrical design, the jagged-ish edges, the mosaic-look, the soft texture on the plain part of the backplate, and the subtle "pop" of the silver blackener inside the small mosaic pieces. And of course a fabulous center stone. I feel like this piece is so me and I am beyond thrilled.

When my husband came home from work the day I made these pieces, I put them in his hand and was jumping up and down (yes, literally) while he examined them. Brett is not the guy to tell me what I want to hear. In fact, I often tease him - in twelve years of marriage, couldn't he just *once* tell me what I want to hear?? But no. He's honest to the core. He examines things very critically and analytically and often he could be called *cautiously* enthusiastic. So he wasn't jumping up and down...but he did like them.  :)

So...what do you think?? 

Natural Wonders: Peruvian blue opal

Peruvian blue opal (there's also a pink version) is relatively rare. It's found only in the Andes Mountains in Peru, South America. The blue version ranges from a very pale, translucent light blue, to an opaque, rich teal. The deeper teal versions often seem to be cut like boulder turquoise, with the host stone included in the finished product.

"The host stone is usually cut one of three ways - clear, to showcase that Caribbean color, - scenic, to show varying degrees of color, or dendritic - to highlight the black fernlike inclusions oftentimes found in the material." source

It may have many "faces", as referenced above, but it's always an attention-getter, as some recent purchases indicate:

This cab has what looks to be the host stone included (the brown stripe at the top) and shows the color range in just one stone. Also in the center you can see the "fern-like inclusions" mentioned.

This one...this is a stunner. A little reminiscent of chrysocolla, with the green bits, but the shape, range of colors, and the translucency (which I couldn't quite capture with the camera) make this stone a standout.

Here are a few I've set:

and some earrings:

and more are waiting on the work table. The nice thing about working with Peruvian opals is that they're not as fragile as "regular" opals, which have a tendency to fracture under the pressure of setting. So that makes for a happy jeweler.  :)

Anatomy of Fabrication

Ever wonder what goes into a piece of handmade jewelry? I thought I'd document a piece in action and show you. Of course the steps / processes will vary depending on what's being made...but here's what goes into a fairly " basic" cabochon design for me.

First, the stone needs a bezel. Stones, like anything natural, vary widely Some are quite tall (high), others can be very low. Bezel wire comes in various heights to accommodate the different stone heights.

This is a Peruvian opal getting its bezel made:

The bezel wire gets wrapped around the stone and measured to fit. Then the wire is shaped to the stone and the ends are soldered together:

I didn't take a picture of the bezel right after soldering, but the above shot is after it's soldered (if you look closely you can see the solder seam just in the front, toward the "bottom" of the photo). The next step is sanding the bezel to fit the back plate. The two pieces must join evenly for the solder to flow and hold them both together.

But hang on, I'm getting ahead of myself.  :)

Before the bezel can be soldered to the back plate, there must BE a back plate. So:

The back of the settting is made from  sheet metal, meaning literally that - it comes in the form of a sheet. This is a rimless design, meaning that the back plate and the bezel will meet each other with no extra back plate to be seen around the stone. I trace on the metal with a Sharpie, tracing around the bezel and stone, then use a saw to cut out the shape.

Here's the cut out piece from the sheet. I've marked the top and the next step will be to texture the back and add my maker's mark and the metal content:

 

I have textured the backs but not yet added the blue piranha and .925 (sterling silver) stamps.

Now that the sheet is ready (cut out, textured, stamped) and the bezel is ready (shaped, soldered, sanded), it's time to put them together:

This is the back plate and bezel ready for soldering. The small pieces inside the bezel are the solder bits. I will heat this up and flow the solder all around the bezel and sheet to join them.

But before I do that, I will have checked and double-checked and triple-checked my bezel to be sure it still fits my stone! All the sanding can get the bezel out of shape, so it's crucial to check and re-check that the stone still fits in it before it's soldered down to the sheet. I did *not* remember to do this on one of my very first pieces. and let me tell you...I won't forget it ever again. Nothing like doing all the work and then getting to the last step - the stone setting - and realizing you can't put your stone into your bezel...some choice words MAY have been used in the studio that day.  :)

Checking the fit:

Looks good so far. So I went ahead and soldered.  :)

Ta-dah! 

 

The next step is cutting away the excess back plate (there's always a bit of overlap since I Sharpie-traced around both the stone and bezel. Better too much than too little! Too little means that you have to start over. I didn't take a photo of cutting away the excess sheet because it's just filing until the edges of sheet and bezel are smoothed out.

Once the excess sheet is gone, this earring needs to hang somehow, so I soldered on a jump ring:

And now it's ready for clean up and then the final step, setting the stone.

No photos of the stone setting process because my hands were busy setting (stone setting is a very phyisical process - you have to use a LOT of pressure to close that bezel around the stone) but these are the tools I use:

This is the pusher. It's used to push the bezel wall in toward the stone.

This is the rocker. The little T-shaped part on the front gets rocked around the bezel once the pushing work is done. While the pusher is used in small incremental steps around the bezel, the rocker is used in a continuous motion.

And finally, the burnisher. I love burnishing but it is SO hard on my hands! It requires a LOT of pressure when you use it. This tool is in a smoothing motion around the bezel too. It gives a shine to the bezel metal and also a nice "lip" around the stone. It has a curved tip so you can really get an angle on the bezel:

And the final result:

See how the bezel curves over the top of the stone? That's the "lip" I'm talking about.

So that's the basics of fabricating a bezel setting. It's fairly time consuming to set stones (not including the design time involved before any metal gets touched) so now you know what keeps me working those long studio hours. I don't mind though. The results are worth it.  :)

Busily Building

I'm trying to update the blog more often. I don't keep a journal, and the blog is slowly becoming more journal-like for me. I'm on Facebook, of course, but it seems really odd to post some of my more mundane life stuff there. So I'm sort of journaling here instead. :)

I slept straight through my alarm this morning - I had a horrible dream. It comes in variations over the years, but it's always the same theme. I have to get somewhere and I can't, for various reasons (depending on the dream). Once it was that I had to be at a festival to set up and it was a nearly impossible drive through the mountains and I had to set up on the edge of a cliff. Once it was the same thing - show set up - and I ended up in a warehouse all by myself...I was in the wrong location. This time I was in New York City and I missed my flight home. My luggage went, but I had to catch a MARTA bus to the airport (funny, there's no MARTA in NYC). And a bunch of situations kept me from doing so...first I hadn't packed up my jewelry inventory (though I was not in NYC for a festival) and I missed the bus. Then someone wanted  to buy a piece of jewelry and there were all sorts of issues around that. Then I caught the next bus but they wanted to charge me $10 and somehow I'd packed my purse in my luggage...

This has gone on in different variations for years. The dreams are incredibly stressful and I'm not sure what drives them. I have stresses in my life like everyone, but I aim to minimize them when possible and I didn't feel stressed when I went to bed last night. I actually felt good about the productive day I'd had.

So anyhoo, I started off late this morning. Which really, really doesn't matter because I set my own schedule, y'know? But I really don't like starting my day late, it seems to throw my productivity off. But I got myself on the (hot, so, so hot) skate path and worked out. I pushed my legs as hard as I could (and they're tired, this is the third day in a row on the path) and got a good workout, though my time doesn't indicate it. I think that has to do with those tired legs. But tired in a good way. I am trying to get myself up to regularly exercising four to five times a week instead of my previous three-day-a-week schedule. And it hasn't been easy. My fortyish body is tired. But I'm a stubborn old girl, so I keep on keepin' on.

And now I'll show you new goodies:

The Storm Cloud necklace. The labradorite in the pendant looks to me like a big storm cloud lingering over the land and I designed this pendant around that idea, sawing a cloud shape and adding a dark patina. The back has a raindrop texture.

Change means growing pains, turmoil, and sometimes heartbreak. No one ever wants it, but the restless soul always strives for growth, and growth cannot occur without change. When the clouds gather and the days are dark, know that the low points will give way to peace as the new and reborn self emerges into a place of respite after weathering the storms that mark it. Evolution and wisdom are worth the darkest days it takes to get there.

This is such a glorious labradorite and I am enjoying working with "labs" in my designs. When I used mostly beads, it was a struggle to find several beads on a strand that had enough of that beautiful flash. Mostly they were dull gray. I love these cabs and can (and do!) spend hours at gem shows picking out just the right stones.  :)

Here's the back:

The pendant hangs from a hidden bail so the top of it lifts off the skin slightly and slides freely on a rolo chain. When I first started designing I used the tube bail a lot and then went away from it for a while. But I love the look and now it's back.

Wishing you a happy and productive Tuesday! Tomorrow's the Fourth...are you getting ready to celebrate?   :)