It's Monday already! Yikes!

Happy Monday! All of us here worked really hard on the yard yesterday. We had 4 yards of top soil delivered and spent the day spreading it around the yard to fill in the tire tracks from having the walkway poured. I spent so long making sure it was all even and this morning I woke up to footprints all in the dirt. It just so happens that right next to where we were working there is a crab apple tree and deer love crab apples. Enough said! Ugh!

Frozen Lake Tilicho Bracelet
Well, I'm adding one to the shop today. This bracelet has several different elements to it. I just love the spiky silver ball. That's my favorite part. It also includes a lampwork bead by Java Bead, a Swarovski square crystal ring, apatite, yellow turquoise, rhyolite, and lots of silver. It's a bit delicate since this is made with 24 gauge half hard wire but I like the look.

I'm trying out something new. I paid to promote an item on Etsy on their bracelet page for today. I would be astonished if it created a sale but I would at least hope for looky-loos. I'll let you know the results. It was $7 to promote which seems pretty steep but if it adds more traffic to my Etsy page then it was well worth it. Mama needs to bring home the bacon! hehe I'm also on Facebook now but I'll be posting the same thing each day as my blog. Where do you gals sell your jewelry? Anyone do anything other than Etsy? And what has worked best for you? I'm new to this so I love advice!

Oh, and here are some photos of last weeks "girl day". They are a bit on the blurry side but it's pretty hard to take pictures in a place that's so dark. We had sushi for lunch (yum) and then headed over to Monster Golf! This place is so cool. The whole place is dark when you walk in but soon you see why. Everything is painted to glow in the black lights and there are monsters that move and make noise throughout. It's a bit distracting when you are trying to get a hole in one. Enjoy your morning!

New Items for Thursday

Fixing the yard was quite an experience yesterday. My back is feeling it this morning but I think I leveled out most of the dirt and covered all the tire tracks. My daughter and the neighborhood kids decided they wanted to "help out". They worked for about 5 minutes and noticed that the boy across the street was watching them (they are all girls). So, needless to say, they lost interest in helping and decided to make a "fort" out of the bushes I was discarding. And when I asked them why they needed to build a fort they said "to hide from the boy staring at us". Two of the girls hid behind the fort while the third paced back and forth yelling, "Don't look at us! Don't look at us!" It was a real treat.

Ok, here's the two items for today.

Zen Mountain Cuff
Yellow turquoise with lots of variation. Greens, yellows, blacks, and even some blues are all in the mix. All held together with sterling wire.

Biltmore's Bleeding Hearts
Here I go once again with tourmaline. It's my favorite. A couple of pearls thrown in for some shine and an interesting clasp that reminds me of lily of the valley flowers for some strange reason. Feminine and classic!

Just one more day left until the weekend. Enjoy it!

Playing with Wire

I've seen some really fantastic pieces with elaborate wire work. The best ones in my opinion look like the artist hadn't a care in the world and simply kept wildly wrapping and wrapping. Unfortunately, my skills are rather limited but I figured I would try my hand at a few simple designs to pass the time.

This first one was made with copper wire and China chrysocolla cubes. These little cubes have wonderful blues, greens, and even sometimes a rust color streaked through them. The brilliant glow of the copper really pops next to the subdued tones in the stones.

The next one is a silver cuff bracelet. Yellow turquoise is great if you're looking for a stone with some character. Each one has it's own unique color and variation ranging from bright yellows to blues or even blacks. With such variety from stone to stone, this bracelet only needed one type of stone to keep it interesting.

The last one is a charm type bracelet. Little salamander and toad charms adorn this piece along with lots of Vintaj brass components and a large twisted brass colored wire bead. Two large Feldspar stones and little seed beads add a calming teal color to the piece.

If anyone has any tips or can suggest a good book to read on using wire, please let me know. It's loads of fun and quite addicting!