Will I ever learn? Don't even bother, I'll tell you. The answer is NO, NEIN, NON, NEE, NEJ (I could keep going, but you get the idea).
The worst thing about it is that I had a plan for the Art Elements Design Challenge and Blog Hop for which Caroline gave us the topic "Faerie" - which should have given me hundreds of ideas -, not at the beginning of the month, but last weekend. It came sudden and I didn't jump on it right away. Because I never do. Because I have to roll it around in my head first and let it grow on me.
That's how my brain works. It takes a very basic plan or vague idea and then it grabs bits and pieces out of the air and adds them to it or discards things again. Imagine a manikin. You put a basic dress on it and then you start adding a scarf, a belt, gloves, you don't like the scarf and take it off again, then the belt, then you add a shawl, maybe take the gloves off and add a bracelet instead - only my brain uses colors and shapes.
That sounds creative, doesn't it? Instead it's mostly chaos that finally spits out something, and if I'm lucky, it's something good - if not, it ends up behind the summer house like Mr Mo's poor plasticine wife (see "Mary Poppins in the Park", a book that I love very much), well, actually my infamous WIP drawers.
Unfortunately life got in the way over the last week. Work, a crafts class, and then I got sick which sucked up the last bit of motivation. Since Wednesday I have been thinking about opting out of the challenge, I even started writing the email once.
Instead I pulled myself together yesterday and ended up with a variation of my idea because, let's be honest, this was bound to go wrong at some point or at least stray from the original plan which had been a small fairy that I wanted to put on ... no, I'll keep that one to myself, it may still be happening, who knows.
Small, yes, as small as I wanted my fairy to be, no. The proportions had been slightly off, enough so to make me uncomfortable about it when I was looking at her, so I needed to add to the arms and legs which meant I needed to add to the head and body.
I don't know yet if she's a WIP. Maybe she needs some wings after all although I don't think so at the moment. After all she could ride the ladybug, he may look a little small for her, but he's tough through and through (and reminds of the time when I dabbled in polymer clay). Or she could take the "Exotic Butterfly Airline" (I made that strange looking butterfly after I won that box of Twin Beads and ran out of ideas for them) ? ;-)
Now let's see once again how much more organized our other blog hoppers were! :-D
Guests
Alison - Alysen - Cat (aka me) - Divya - Hope - Kathy - Sarah - Tammy - Vic
AE Team Members
Caroline - Cathy - Claire - Jen - Jenny - Laney - Marsha - Niky
Before the last family dinner my sister called and asked me if I'd like some pumpkin soup for a starter. What kind of question is that?? I love pumpkin soup! And I hate cutting pumpkin just for myself!! I really do, you know, so I would never turn down an offer like that.
Yup, pumpkin season is upon us (and pumpkin spice season ;-) although that is not such a big thing here in Germany, so the squabbling between fans and people who hate it leaves me unfazed), so that will be the topic for today's Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge, too.
Not everyone makes actual pumpkin jewelry, though, so pumpkin colors were allowed as well.
1 and 10 Jewelry Art by Dawn
2 and 8 The Crafty Chimp
3 and 5 MC Stoneworks
4 and 6 Cat's Wire
7 and 9 RioRita
Last Saturday I told you a story about my friend and myself going to the local office supply store and buying sealing wax and stamps.
Today I'll tell you a story about one of our jewelry stores that took place around the same time, in the late 70s.
That store was called "Jewelry Chest" and, honestly, once I was grown up enough I felt a little sorry for the staff there. The "Jewelry Chest" had a sister store called "Jewelry Safe", an ordinary jewelry store. Ordinary at least to us teenagers. They sold the real stuff, gold, gemstones, watches, way out of our budget.
The "Jewelry Chest", however, had little trinkets and decorations, from small animals carved from quartz to what we would call boho jewelry today, affordable silver pieces and more. It was heaven for us teenagers. I'm surprised I never stuck to that window with my nose because I couldn't resist it. Of course we bought friendship rings there (there may be another Saturday story in there) or we went just in to browse a little which I can't remember ever being discouraged, by the way, no matter if we bought something or not.
One day I finally had the money to buy a special birthday gift for one of my friends, a pair of dangly earrings from sterling silver (much of the silver jewelry still was 835 instead of the 925 at that time) that cost me incredible 32 DM. That was a lot of money for me back then, but my friend's family had always been so nice to me. They even took me with them for a vacation once, so I wanted to show that I appreciated it.
I had been so excited about these earrings. I had to go there all the time to see if they were still there. I loved them so much that I couldn't imagine anyone else not loving them. There was one little silver ball with two more little silver balls dangling from it on chains. Nothing that unusual, you may think now, but apparently I have always had a thing for dangles!
To present them in style I knitted a doll with yellow yarn braids and stuck the earrings in the head at the spots where the ears would be.
The birthday came and guess what. My friend didn't seem excited at all. She barely even looked at them. I don't know why, I really don't remember anymore if that was a style of earrings she never wore and if I had simply chosen what I liked instead of what she might have wanted. Then again I was only 13 and not always very wise. Okay, I'm still not always very wise, but maybe a little more than 40 years ago.
I wasn't mad at her, by the way. Maybe I regretted that I couldn't take the earrings back to keep them myself, but I never forgot that feeling when I walked out of the store to look into the little paper bag, and it's a good memory.
So why have I told you that story at all? Kudos to you if you made it all the way through. Dangles were this week's topic at the Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge, just what I like :-D
I hope you will, too.
1 and 8 The Crafty Chimp
2 and 7 Jewelry Art by Dawn
3 and 5 MC Stoneworks
4 and 6 Cat's Wire
The time was the late 70s. My best friend and I were on a mission to shop. We came packed with money, well, what we considered packed. After all we were teenagers and on a rather tight budget, so we had to choose wisely, think twice. We couldn't afford to regret.
Don't get fooled by the title of this post. We didn't go to a jewelry shop, we were at the local office supply store. Not one of the department stores, but the place where they had the good stuff, the special stuff. Beautiful pens, stationery in all colors of the rainbow, and what you needed for the latest hype at that time. Seals and wax.
The seals were easy to pick, our initials, a U for her, a C for me. The wax was not so easy, though. I can still see the display before my inner eye, all the beautiful colors lined up, but we knew we couldn't have them all.
A classic choice was the red of course, and if my memory doesn't fail me, that's what I picked in the end.
Those were the times when we still had pen pals. I wrote letters, between five and ten pages long. EVERY day. Today my wrist starts hurting after one page, but as a teenager I had pen pals in Belgium, Australia, Ireland, England, Germany and for a very short time a fellow in the USA who became a foreign exchange student very quickly after we started writing, came to Germany and sent me a letter every day - on a differently colored stationery for each letter.
Today I still feel the excitement when I get one of those elusive hand written letters, maybe even more because it is such a rare event.
And now I could send my own letters in royal style. Here you go, that's the title explained. I stole it from a friend of mine, by the way, who mentioned feeling that way when using her own seal in the old days.
I don't know where I first got the idea to have my logo as a seal, but it has been a while. Then I forgot it again, browsed a little more, forgot it again, and that went on for some time until I got my tax return and thought that now was the right moment to just get one.
This week it arrived, and wow, within seconds I turned back into 13 year old me and had to try it out immediately although part of me said nooo, it's too pretty to use!
Actually this is a rich, dark color, but the flash and the fact that purple likes to turn bluish in pictures didn't help here. Isn't my little cat cute, though, playing with her wire and beads like that?
Now where did all my pen pals go? ;-)
