Happy New Year!!!!

Happy New Year!!!!


Today is the day everyone opened my gifts, and looking at what’s been given so far, I may have gone a little overboard. But that’s okay; I don’t think anyone will complain! ;-) I mostly did necklaces, because I wasn’t sure if everyone wore earrings, and it just seemed like earrings were too….easy. Maybe that’s because I can whip up a pair in less than five minutes. Hmmmm.  A couple people did get earrings though, and I think there were two bracelets; I was a little leery about measurements and such to do bracelets for everyone, but the ones I did do were memory wire. That and I didn’t have enough of the same types of beads to do 11 memory bracelets!

As far as the necklaces go…. I suppose it was a bit of learning experience. Not a bad one, by any means. When I was surveying my stash of beads, I remembered a three-strand necklace I’d recently finished and I knew exactly who to send that to! I wasn’t sure I really wanted to put it in my shop because I thought about giving it to my mom for Christmas, but them my dad came and bought a bunch of pieces for me and I decided she was getting plenty of my jewelry ;-) I actually stood in Michael’s and planned that one out in the store, so I was surprised at how fast it came together. Except I couldn’t find my other strand of beads I was using as spacers, so the spacers for the smallest strand took a little doing. I found the other strand in the bottom of my box a day or so later. Grr. For the other necklaces, I chose pendants that had been sitting in organizers FOREVER waiting for me to be inspired, so I went out and found more pendants after seeing that my stash was decidedly lacking in the focal department. Necklaces come together so much faster when you have focal beads!! I just turned on a “soundtrack” of The Mentalist DVDs and had a ball.

SO, I’ve learned that I need to stock up on pendants and other focals for faster necklaces that just seem to look more put-together. Putting the gifts together was really fun. Thanks, Lorelei!

ALSO: I’m headed out for a few days, so I’m taking the remainder of my gifts with me, and I’ll put them in one big post when I get back. For now, here’s links to the other participants that have blogs/shops:

1. Lorelei Eurto
 
2. Jennifer Heynen
 
3. Deb Boschert
 
4. Jodie Marshall
 
5. Amy Freeland
 
6. Katie Nelson
 
7. Amanda
 
8.  Me!
 
9. Emanda
 
10. Melissa
 
11. Charlie
 
12. Lori
 
Enjoy!

Okay, so I jinxed myself!

In my defense, it's been a rather crazy past couple days with all the tearing apart going on around here.  And I rented a game to play on my kinect because I wasn't sure if I'd like it.  Well, from the sore muscles, I'd say I definitely like it!  Anyways, back to the past couple days' worth of gifts!

Day 3-  a handmade pincushion from Deb Boschert.  Thanks, Deb!

 4th Day of Christmas gift from Jodie Marshall:  handmade keychain, bead, and notepad.  Thanks, Jodie!

And today, FIVE GOLDEN RINGS!!!!  Or, this cute pair of earrings from Amy Freeland.  LOVE the kidney-shaped earwires!  Thanks, Amy!

The second day of Christmas....

One the second day of Christmas, Jennifer Jangles, gave to me....

A ceramic snowman ornament!  He is so adorable, and has already found a home on the tree!

Isn't he adorable?!

This 12 Days of Christmas might actually get me to blog for twelve straight days before I abandon it for a solid month again ;)

On the first day of Christmas....

Merry Christmas, everyone!  I participated in a gift exchange hosted by Lorelei Eurto, who had the idea for a 12 Days of Christmas gift exchange, with 12 participants.  Well, today was the first day of Christmas, and from Lorelei, I recieved:  A cute button bracelet!  I literally wore it all day.  I think my mom is jealous, because she's a button person.  I just love the different earthy tones in the buttons, and the little LE/owl tag is just so CUTE!  My mom got a fancy new camera and a lens and I got to play with the lens while her camera charged since it'll fit on mine.  I'm jealous.  This thing takes closeups from across the room.  It's awesome.  Takes a steady hand though, definitely.  Enjoy the pics!  Thanks, Lorelei!



Closeup of the cute owl tag





the full bracelet, with the L.E. side of the tag




another closeup



closeup again; I was having fun with the camera lens :)

all 11 gifts--they managed to not get crushed, at least!

My dad was like, "Aren't you going to open the other ones?"  "It's the 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS.  One for each day."  "Oh."  I'm pretty sure I had explained it before.  Looking forward to tomorrow's, from Jennifer Heynen.  Hope everyone enjoys the rest of their holiday!

Seriously, I need to organize my stuff

I somehow managed to either lighten the bead load or just sucked it up and hauled the container down a couple flights of stairs to my car when coming home for Christmas.  Then I spent a while yesterday looking for pliers and half-finished projects and missing containers....yeah, not very fun.  I was pawing through one of my containers when I noticed that I had heavy colonial jasper nuggets mixed in with my precious breakable, chippable, otherwise fragile apatite briolette babies.  So I emptied out a container compartment and picked out every single tiny teardrop.  Then I did the same with my citrine briolettes that were also in there, and my sunstone rectangles.  What was I thinking, piling heavy stones in there with fragile gemstones?!  Then I stopped stalling (I organize when I'm procrastinating) and made a pair of earrings with some Diane Hawkey bird beads I've been hoarding.  They're a very different style than what I usually make to sell, but I decided to make some jewelry for myself for once.

I've recieved all of the 12 Days of Christmas gift swap goodies from the gift swap Lorelei Eurto is doing, and I AM SO EXCITED!!  I'll post a picture of under the tree.... maybe tomorrow, but I'm not making any promises! ;) 

I think I actually learned something about getting over an inspirational slump from this gift exchange.... and I've discovered that I need to get more pendants, because that just seems to make things more fun.  I about went nuts in Michael's and ended up putting most of them back when I was looking for ideas there.  I had one gift partially thought out already, meaning I'd been planning on doing something with it for quite awhile.  One gift I had already made a few days beforehand, and the colors and style looked similar to one of the fellow gift swappers.  I'll let them decide whose it was! :-)  The rest, once I sat down and started working instead of procrastinating, came together really fast, although I had a slight freaking out moment when my boxes wouldn't fit my bubble mailers!  Then I carted the rest of them to the post office, but didn't make it there before they closed and stood there at the automated stamp machine for like 20 minutes getting stamps for everything.  It was fun; it really was.

I broke down and bought some resin finally, to try an experiment with this semester's campus newspapers that were piling up in a drawer.  I got the idea off of a FusionBeads inspiration page.  You can get my general gist here.  Then I bought some scrapbook paper to make more circles when the mini-Michael's I went to didn't have any bezels, because I don't want to waste any resin.  I've been systematically sealing the papers and gluing, and I THINK I'm finally done stalling.  I just don't want to mess it up and waste a batch of resin.  I've got one more sheet of paper to punch out and seal, and after that I think I'll be done procrastinating and ready to mix up the resin.  I really hope this turns out well....