Save the Date

February 7th, 2009

My website, www.summersunjewelry.com, will be up and running on that date. I chose that day mostly because it's my birthday and what a way to celebrate! My mom has so sweetly volunteered her house for the grand opening party. My house was not designed for entertaining.

So, I bought my website location through Yahoo's small business plan earlier this month and I've been fiddling with it nearly every day since. I ran into a snag trying to set up my merchant account through PayPal though. I have to re-fax them a document and hopefully that will take care of things soon. I have a lot of pictures to upload into my catalog, prices to set, and descriptions to hammer out. Basically, there's a lot to do in the next couple of weeks.

Sunday, February 8th, our church's preschool is having their annual silent auction fundraiser. This will be my first year to participate and I'm so excited! I made a very Valentine's-y necklace and earring set that I hope will attract a lot of attention. Both my girls went to the preschool (youngest is still there) so I feel good about helping out. I'm going to display the set at the celebration the day before to get some interest in the fundraiser. I haven't taken a picture of it, so I can't show it to you just yet.

Today, I finally received one of three books I ordered earlier this week. This one is "Succeeding At Your YAHOO! Business: How to Manage a Successful YAHOO! Store". Glancing through it, it appears to be very helpful. I have some serious reading to do. But not right now. I'm getting ready to go shopping with my mom. :D I need/want a slinky, black dress for my birthday gala!

A Day Late

Moving right along, here are the four projects I promised. First is a strand of garnet chips playing off the darker striations in a dyed shell pendant. I gave this set to my mom.

This set is mostly Czech fire-polished glass in soft, pastel hues. There are some freshwater pearls and silver beads strung in for some texture. The three silver beads at the center-front of the necklace are embossed with little butterflies. The toggle closure has the same butterfly pattern. This went to my Aunt V--along with the one I showed you earlier, "South Pacific Postcard."

Next, is the one I mentioned a while back that had a working title of "Cosmos." Well, it didn't turn out as cosmic as I thought it might. There are a lot of images that come to mind making a name hard to pin down. "Between Earth and Sky" just now came to me, so that's what it shall be.

Finally, I played around with some copper wire having been given some fresh inspiration from a magazine. I hammered the wire to make it less flexible, but decided that I'd love to get a ball peen hammer (versus my tiny rubbery mallet) to add texture to these wire-workings.

That's all I have for now. I have a project that I can't wait to start. I found a Jack Skellington charm (from The Nightmare Before Christmas) that I want to make into a Y-necklace for my sister. I'd love to keep making stuff and more stuff, but I really need to use the time I have left for getting the business end of the business taken care of. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! If I don't get back to you beforehand, have a fantastic New Year!

HO! HO! HO!

Merry Christmas!! I have four new jewelry photos to share with you; two are Christmas presents and two are for my inventory. I won't be able to post the pictures until Friday what with Christmassy goings-on and such. I have to make sure the living room is presentable for a certain (ahem) drop-in guest tonight as well as pictures tomorrow morning! The girls are in bed but I don't know if they've got those rascally sugarplum visions bouncing about in their noggins yet.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

YAY!

New stuff to show! The blossoms and leaves are lucite. The stretchy bracelet has clusters of large flowers and leaves spaced out with itty-bitty flowers and leaves. It was the most time-consuming of the set. I originally had the image of Asiatic lilies in mind when I sat down to start the project. When I had a good chunk of the bracelet strung, it started looking more tropical--kind of like a lei. One of the colors of the flowers really started screaming "HIBISCUS!" at me. Well, it didn't actually scream at me. That would be rather startling. Anyway, I named the set "South Pacific Postcard."

This set is going to be a gift and I have some other gifts to make yet. Eventually, I WILL get back to the one I mentioned earlier, "Cosmos."

I finally get to go see my Mr. Bond movie! I'm so excited! So, I've got to run to get the girls to my parents' place and back. Woo-hoo!

She turned me into a newt...

I got better. Okay, you know this is sad when all my posts start out with some excuse for not posting earlier. Thanks for stickin' with me anyway! I actually haven't been able to work on any new stuff since I last wrote. I did a repair job on a necklace this afternoon, though. With Christmas rapidly approaching, I guess I otta start working on my jewelry gifts. I just started working on a lucite flower bracelet that is going to be beautiful. I'm thinking about making a Y-necklace to go with it and, of course, earrings. I got some garnet chips to go with a shell pendant that will make a great necklace. I hope.

I added a widget thingy to my blog for twitter.com. I haven't twittered much, but the addiction is creeping in. I was stringing the lucite blossoms and suddenly felt the need to "report in." Huh. Anyway, I did but it had nothing to do with the jewelry. My husband got the dern computer to let me listen to pandora.com and the station I had selected for one of Muse's songs (from Twilight) started playing a song from Elefant and it was wonderful! 'Course, the rest may stink, but for now they're GREAT! That's what I had to twitter to the world. I don't know exactly how it works, but you can "follow" me. I like followers! I also like henchmen. Remind me to get some of those.

Is it too obvious that it's past my bedtime?

PS--Thanks, Jannie, for boosting the ol' ego...You so totally rock!

The report of my death is an exaggeration.

Howza! It's been more than a month since I last wrote anything! Sorry about that. I thought about checking in to say that I was still alive and well, but I, uh, didn't. I had some projects that I wanted to share, but my pictures came out all crummy. :(

Today is the opening day for the vampire romance movie "Twilight." I read the book (actually the first three of four books) and it's very good. I'm still scared to read the final book because my trusted friend says that it's a terrible disappointment. I'm afraid it would be the literary equivalent to leaving a bad aftertaste. Anyway, I would love to be able to see the movie tonight, but I think it's going to be packed with its target market: 13-year-old girls. Hopefully, I'll get to see it next week. So why bother you with all this? Well, I made a "Twilight"-inspired necklace. I call it "Star-Crossed."

All the beads are glass with some cat's eyes, moonstone (opalite) and crystal thrown in. If you are familiar with the story, you'll probably understand my bead choices. It turned out so dramatic, I love it!

I love movies. My husband figures that Kansans love movies more than most because there's nothing else to do. He's from North Carolina. I just "ppfff" at him and roll my eyes while I secretly think that's he's probably right. At least to some extent. Last week, the latest James Bond flick opened. I've been a 007 freak for as long as I can remember. I even tolerate the lamest James Bond movies ever made (like "Thunderball"). It was hard not getting to go see "Quantum of Solace" on opening weekend, but I've got discount tickets that can't be used until this weekend. So last week, I made an homage to Bond necklace. It's pretty darn simple. I wish I could say that I made the glass pendant, but I just bought it. Here is "Shaken, Not Stirred":

Okay, moving beyond the Silver Screen, I have several other objets d'art for you. First are some earrings that I did not design. I took them out of a book, but going through the steps of making these gorgeous earrings, I became inspired to make a necklace using seed beads encircling a large glass disk (similar to the one in "Star-Crossed"). I've started working on that project, but I couldn't pass up showing you how lovely these guys turned out! I also like the way my photo turned out. :)

Second, a multi-strand necklace made up of glass beads in green, blue and light brown. The hook and eye clasp is placed to the side of the necklace. This is "Bird of Paradise" with it's matching earrings:

Next is "At Water's Edge" focusing on twin dragonfly pendants suspended by a mix of ribbon, hemp and glass beads. I don't usually bring out so much blue in my designs so this feels refreshing to me. I think the color scheme works great for autumn. Okay, maybe the brown leaves have something to do with that.

"Nebulae" is longer than most of my necklace designs and was inspired by a design in a book (as were the earrings). It's absolutely beautiful when worn with purple. It's received a lot of compliments.

I loved this pendant so I had to snag it! I added itsy bitsy Swarovski crystal cubes in purple velvet, green opal, and silk (not clear as it looks in the photo). This is "Geo Formations":

Those are all the new, completed projects I have right now. As I mentioned earlier, I have one more that is in the very early stages of creation. So far, the design looks a little outer spacey, so the working title is "Cosmos." We'll see how it goes.

It's 5PM, the kids are doing who-knows-what and my Studmuffin hasn't come home from work yet. I still have to come up with something for dinner. If I don't, Studmuffin will suggest going out to eat and how could any stay-at-home mom resist a suggestion like that?!

I Promise To...

A great big thanks goes out to a talented friend in TX for her vote! That lady is craaazy, so somehow must be related. I just got back from reading her blog/website and had to pick myself off the floor and dry my eyes from laughing so hard. Yes, you know who you are. Let me know if I can post your website to share with the bazillions of other people that follow my blog. Okay, 2 other people. And they're related. And I owe them money. Oh hey, the polls are still open for a few more days. Pay your friends to vote for #96!


I have photos! Aren't you excited?

This necklace is Night Storm and is made up of labradorite nuggets and pendant, Swarovsky crystals, and sterling silver. Taking the picture in direct sun was the only way to get the pendant to "light up." I love that blue flash in the gray stone--like lightning.



This next one is October and it's pretty obvious why. The orange stones are red aventurine, the black beads are stained wood beads (that can NOT get wet), and the pendant and rounds are picture jasper. It started out by falling in love with the pendant and then trying to find beads to coordinate. It's got a great autumnal feel to it without necessarily being just Halloween-y. I used mostly--but not all--sterling silver in this set. The earwires are sterling. I'm not too impressed with them. They're too soft and earwires take a lot of abuse, especially when used with earnuts. I think I'll stick to nickel-free and just use sterling upon request. Does anyone have any suggestions on this? Oh, all the rest of the pictures are in direct sun also because I was too lazy and cold to get up and find a new locale.


Next up is Tea Rose. The pendant is wood (its water-tolerance has not yet been tested) and the rest of the necklace is made up of copper-colored glass seed beads and faceted Czech glass. I decided to try some memory wire to make a ring, but it came out too huge for me. I bought a ring-sizer last weekend and found out that it is a size 9.5 (I wear a 5.5). I haven't played with the wire enough yet to figure out how to make smaller sizes. Something else to add to the to-do list, I guess.



Caliope (kuh-LIE-oh-pee) is a wear-with-anything set. The short necklace uses very brightly-colored Czech glass beads, but remains surprisingly capable of going with most outfits. The long necklace works well with just about any short necklace.



And we finally get to my recent favorite, Davy Jones's Locker. I made this in honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day, but I didn't want it to be super-obvious that it was all about pirates. I chose stormy-colored glass pearls interspersed with gold dagger pearls and aventurine. The three large gold "coins" are foiled, frosted glass. I chose an interesting array of charms to complete the Davy Jones feel: fish and fish bones, an octopus, coins, a lock and key, and skulls. I love it!




I have to mention that my aunt and I went on a bead hajj (as my aunt put it) last weekend. That's when I got that ring sizer/mandrel. Anyway, I found a lovely pendant of carved bone and some carved bone beads to go with it. I also got the most beautiful, yet small, piece of ocean jasper. It was a loner in its beauty, so now I need to work out a way to make it really stand out on its own as a focal piece. I also bought some really cool yarn--oh, excuse me--FIBERS to add to some jewelry pieces down the road.

I'm hoping that the economy (gasp! I said the E-word) doesn't get much worse by the time I plan to open my internet store. I guess that January and February are notoriously bad months to start a business in any economic setting, but I still plan to be up and running in February (it's my birthday).