6/27/2009

Summertime and fruit salad

This day was not very summery. In the morning we had a six hour thunderstorm with heavy rain, but mostly lightning and thunder of which one was so loud it almost threw me out of my bed!
At least this treasury that I scored today seems a tad more like summer. It's called Fruit salad and a little cream and with help from my "little" (not!) brother I even managed to solve the secret of screenshots, mwahahaa!
If you want to show it some love and comment on it, go right ahead, I would appreciate it :-)

Sore throat and WIPs

Unbelievable, but true - even feeling bad can make me get creative. New to me, but a pleasant surprise.
From the beginning, though. On Thursday I had to drive my sister somewhere. The car had been baking in the humid, hot sun all day and it was hard to even breathe in there. I am a smart girl, I turned on the AC. Obviously for too long. Yesterday I woke up with a runny nose (TMI? ;-)) and sore throat. After going to the vampires for my monthly control and listening to some swine flu jokes from my doctor who promised me I would be the very first person to get vaccination as a test person, I went home without feeling up to do much.
I snuggled into my chair and apart from taking a short nap I am proud to say I finished a few WIPs. Don't you hate WIPs? I mean, procrastination is my middle name (not much worse than my real middle name), but that doesn't mean I feel good about it.
This time it was just perfect. With my brain not working properly it was nice to just finish something. Here a toggle, there a bead, some work on a setting and in the end I had seven pieces. Who'd have thought that? I even tried to take pictures, but that did not quite go as well. We've had thunder and rain for the last five hours, so I have not much hope they will turn out much better today. I'll show you what I've got so far.

Faceted rock crystals in a crochet setting with handmade earwires (I am very slowly getting better at making them, don't you think?)



Crochet silver wire drop with little rubies. They come out darker in the picture than they really are, another reason to take the pictures again.



A fossil coral in sterling silver wire crochet setting. I love fossil corals, they are beautiful. This one is about 2 inch long, quite impressive as a pendant.



Of course they will be listed, so if you like something, check out my shops.
Don't forget, today and tomorrow there is still my birthday sale going on with 15 % off selected items. Have a look!

6/22/2009

Another Treasury West!

Finally did it again, now if I only learned to make my own screenshots, they would be online earlier. Oh well, it's not over yet.
I present Dancing on the rainbow's colors, in order if you didn't notice yourself ;-) Still possible to comment for 19 more hours.
That reminds me I have to get together a new poster sketch and check out when the next treasure chest will open. I want my stuff to be in it!

6/21/2009

Birthday sale - 15 % off selected items!

Yes, it's my birthday this week and it will be a "Schnapszahl" as we Germans say, meaning both digits (didn't make it to three with my age yet ;-)) are the same. Usually that means the next round of drinks would be on me, but it's hard and not really fun to drink virtually.
In some countries the birthday "child" gives presents to her/his guests instead of the other way round.
I can't hand out presents around the globe, what I can do, though, is offer a markdown on some of my items in all of my shops. Yup, on Etsy, ArtFire and DaWanda. 15 % down on selected items, go and check it out!

And if any of you would like to drop me a piece of cake, just go ahead. At least the virtual kind is going to be calorie-free ;-)

Oh, forgot to say - this sale is not just for the one big day, but for the whole week from the 22nd of June through the 28th!!

6/14/2009

Behind the scenes

We have a little zoo in Göppingen, I have mentioned that before. And we have a very big zoological/botanical garden not far from us, about 25 miles, the Wilhelma in Stuttgart. Our club president has connections to the Wilhelma as we are sometimes coached by them, the vet has helped us out with medical treatment when ordinary vets in the area couldn't help anymore and so on.
So today we were taken behind the scences by one of the curators. Unfortunately he didn't have much time, so we could not go where the animals are. No cuddling the baby chimps or the tigers! ;-) We saw and heard about the technical side, though. It was very interesting and he is a good story teller. For example I hadn't known that the Wilhelma has the world's largest collection of zoo posters in their food preparing area. He said they hadn't known, either, but when one of the seasons of a zoo show was shot there, the TV people were amazed about all those posters that come from all over the world and had somebody from the Guinness Book check it out. Shhh, just between us - I would have loved to take some of those posters home, especially the old Stuttgart ones.
After a while he had to go to supervise an arriving animal transport and "released" us. We split up in two groups, the adventurous one wanting to see as much as possible and the one I initiated, the slow one checking out only a few things (I had been there a short while ago and love to sit in front of an enclosure and just watch, my favorite are the Keas). As always when I visit a zoo, I had to buy a t-shirt and it's a real cool one, too. It has a big lizard on it. To work I usually wear my animal t-shirts, it's my trade mark.
It was very humid, the kind of weather I can't stand very well. Also I only had four hours of sleep (thanks, Ponder, grrr), so I am tired now and will probably meet my old pal Morpheus as soon as my head hits a pillow.
I was not all unproductive today, though.

One idea I had for our zoo, I only have to make some more samples, is to sell my animal pendants there and split earnings between the club and me.
Today I made another kitty and because a nice lady from SJA recommended a Siamese, I gave it a try. Here is the picture I took in a hurry (as you see, complimentary real cat hair is included ...). Pictures of the other critters will follow as soon as I have a bunch together. By the way, suggestions for possible pieces are still welcome!



6/13/2009

Treasury hunt - part two

So, as promised, here is part two of my treasure hunt yesterday, a Treasury West called Tiny pieces, big impressions if you want to comment. It's about miniatures. I adore miniatures and am constantly amazed how people do it. My eyes hurt just thinking of it!

6/12/2009

Second profession - treasury hunter

It took me so long to understand the concept of creating a treasury, but now - "My God, she's got it! The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plains." Ah, good old times in the school choir. Oops, sorry, digressing. My brain does that a lot which may be a reason why my mouth is so hard to stop.
Despite of burning and itching eyes I took the chance last night. I don't work today, so I could stay up a little longer and curate this honey and bear treasury. The treasury West I just caught will follow. I admit it. I had to steal this screenshot from SJA, my jewelry forum. I can make a normal screenshot, but as my screen is not big enough for the treasury, I have to figure out first how to do it then (two guys could not shake it out of the sleeve for me and they call themselves experts, pah!).
At any rate, here it is, enjoy while it's there. And if you want to comment, here you go:
And the only reason for making ...

6/05/2009

Stamps via internet

It's my own fault. I am lazy. I love the internet, I love to order things, I love to be able to print out package labels, stamps, it's just a pity I can't print out pizza yet.
So when I needed stamps today, I was in best mood. Until the site told me the payment hadn't gone through yet and I would hear from them. PayPal tells me the payment has gone through. Now what? Give it another try and maybe fail again? Try to paint a stamp myself? Should be fun to scribble all those little squares on the code. Creep to the post office?
I called support. He couldn't help me, but he sounded very seriously being sorry ;-) I could call technical support now, but that would probably raise the cost to double the stamp price. I'll just wait patiently a few more hours longer and then start writing insulting emails. Just kidding. I'm in service myself and I know how much such emails can hurt even if they don't mean you personally.
So I'm waiting ........ waiting ................ waiting ..............

But hey, I began organising my stash, so the day is not all wasted, right?

6/03/2009

More spool knitting

Sciatic pain, lumbago, whatever the exact word for that what I have since yesterday, it's annoying. I can't sit for very long, I can't lie for very long and it is so embarrassing to say where exactly it's hurting. Wipe that grin off your face, I won't say it out loud.
At least I got a few things done today that I could do in my now favorite half-lying position.
I started out with this blue rose pendant. To me it looks like a rose, if you see something else in it, go ahead and let me know. The first stitches are knitted, the rest is crocheted, both times with fat needles. Actually it was supposed to be something totally different, but as always I trusted my needles to take me the right way.



A few days ago my new knitting spool has arrived. Six hooks instead of four and a bigger hole which means I can work beads in. In this case I only used three of the six hooks to give it a really airy structure. I am looking forward to try different things with it and I am lovingly looking at other spools now with up to 24 hooks, although I think 12 will make the most sense for me.
I used fluorite (wow, it was the first time ever I wrote this word right at the first try!!) beads on the earrings and pendant because I love the different color shades.
By the way, these are not the pictures I will use when listing them. If you wonder about the net, it is a cat net as we have it in every room but one. Ponder helped me taking the photos by trying to steal the pendants, but I didn't let him get close enough, haha! :-D