Sweets...

Eye candy and sugar rush sweets too!


This is how I have spent a large portion of my weekend...dipping dozens of devil's food cake pops in preparation for a little neighbor get together this evening. They're quite yummy and very cute but I think they're a little more trouble than they're worth! If you're interested in having people ooh and ahh over the cuteness though, there's even a book:



I was the lucky winner of a BEAUTIFUL bracelet from Mary Newton last week...look at all this gorgeous shiny silverness!


What I love the most about it is that it's totally my style and I've already worn it twice this weekend. Thank you so much Mary!! I've added a few new things to the website and my etsy shop over the past week...unfortunately there are also a bunch of items...like these two...that I have in my added folder but they don't seem to have saved to my website :( I think this means I'll have to go through my rather large dish of new pieces and check them all one by one to see if they're on the site. I suspect that I need to begin doing updates at scheduled times so there isn't such a slow trickle of new work...what do you think?

Rain on the Way...

or so they claim for Saturday...The upside is that I will likely get to wear my most fabulous rain boots to visit the dog show tomorrow, the downside is that it will be gray and cold and sad outside. But, don't you worry, I will be surrounded by fluffy fuzz puffs of canine happiness and that combined with my ever so cute rain boots will make for a most fantastic day!

Now although Pupper will not be able to join me at the dog show, I did get some glamor shots of her this week with my new camera. We've had a very old and mediocre camera for quite some time now but Kelley was the most horrible influence on her last trip to SD and caused us to long for a lovely camera like she had...

I have such plans for it! First, I need to figure out how to use it...

I took some new pendant pics on the most gorgeous textile-like paper that I have been hoarding for (literally) months... What do you think of the monochromatic pics? Too much distraction with the patterned background? I love these patterns though...lots of ideas for pendant designs here...


A pile of some nifty pieces I need to get on the website... A few in my matte foam glaze that turned out to be perfection!


Another peek at a lovely customer's finished creation... Cynthia came up with this lovely combination matched to my peacock glazed pendant.

Sadly you can't find Cynthia online yet, she's a brick and mortar girl, but you can pop by her blog to say hi.

Hopefully come Tuesday I will have some super cool (for me) news to share!
Have a most wonderful, dry and warm weekend all...

Change in Plans...

Today WAS to be devoted to whipping up the cute little apron I showed you in my earlier post. Instead you get to see the crazy fabric combo I decided to select. The main fabric for the apron will be this awesome floral explosion... the pocket and ties will be all dotty! The pics here aren't as great of a representation of how vivid the colors are in the floral...I'm pretty sure you'll be able to see me baking from a mile away!Unfortunately I am convinced that I have an infestation of gremlins in my home...I have now been unable to located two or three random (not frequently used) items, in this case my rotary fabric cutter. I have determined that I am unable to cut a straight line from a bolt of fabric, so I decided to not start stitching until I actually have squares that are square! Tomorrow a trip to Michael's (or some crafty variation thereof) to buy yet another rotary cutter (making it inevitable that I will find the original one on Monday) will be necessary and hopefully I can get the apron finished before the weekend is over.

In other news, I finally committed to a new full size kiln after quiet a few months getting by with just using my little bitty baby kiln. Of course it won't arrive for a little while but there will be beauty shots once it does! I was really pleased with some of the pieces from the last baby kiln load, including this key... Now for something cute... any suggestions for the caption that would go with this photo of my nephew and his furry brother? All I can come up with is the night after a Milk/Milkbone bender!

Happy New Year...

and a look at some lovely completed pieces by others that have been sitting on my computer screen for way too long!
First some pieces by Gunilla that are so warm and toasty looking...She has more on her blog, go check them out!

Next, Marcie of La Bella Joya did a little seed bead magic for me with a couple of my cabs (did you know that anything I do in a pendant or charm I can do in a cab?). I realized that I didn't have any examples of my components used as a cab so I sent Marcie a little package and gave her carte blanche. Here are the results...that she even finished with braided ribbon!
Didn't she choose the perfect seed bead colors to coordinate with the glazes?I've been slow to add items to the website with the holidays (and an unfortunate unanticipated overnight stay in Denver due to massive Canadian airline security delays) so at least here is a preview of what I should be working on adding today (in between spending a ridiculous amount of time playing on our new Wii Fit). These have all been tucked into kiln loads of custom and made to order items so there aren't as many as usual. As always, if something strikes you, feel free to stake your claim in the comments or send me an email!

Posies for your ears

For the longest time I've been conflicted about offering finished jewelry with my ceramic beads and pendants. First, I seem to get a serious creative block with my own components, I always like what other people do with them better than what I would have come up with. Second, I felt like making jewelry with those pieces might give jewelry designers a bit of a bad vibe as they might not want to have "competition" (although again, I have that issue with thinking other people's creations with them are better!). Also, having the finished jewelry items on the same site as my pendants creates a bit of a pricing conundrum- I value the time I put into making jewelry pieces and also value the level of skill I've developed as far as wire work, etc so it's tough when someone can then go to the pendants section and see what I have an individual pendant priced at.

I decided the only way to do it is to put my finished ceramic jewelry on a separate sales venue but Etsy is so jewelry saturated and there are so many sellers who devalue their labor and sell at fire sale prices! Soooo I think I've finally figured out the solution(s)... I'm just waiting on approval for my 1000 Markets shop, it's visually so pretty and the site is user friendly. The other solution is that I am going to make some charms/pendants that are just for my finished jewelry. Then I don't have to feel like I'm undermining my jewelry designer customers. I"ll still probably have a few jewelry items that I've made with pendants or charms that are for sale individually but I plan to keep them few and far between and they'll primarily be jewelry pieces that I've submitted to beading magazines for publication.
Here's a peek at the first items- feedback definitely welcome!!