4 x Jack

To some people, San Francisco means the Golden Gate Bridge, the Painted Ladies, Fisherman's Wharf, cable cars, and the Fairmont - just the first few things that popped into my head - but when we first made it to the USA, to the ex and me it also meant FAO Schwarz whose connection to Steiff was famous among collectors thanks to some special editions.
On our first visit there, we didn't have that much time which was probably better for our bank account. Through FAO Schwarz we got in contact with a lady who had done some Steiff repair jobs for them, and when we came to San Francisco some years later, we went there again, with the lady who had by now become a good friend.
Oh boy, we were like kids in a toy store. Wait, we actually were in a toy store ... Okay, we were big kids for sure. We really tried to be good, but you know how it goes sometimes.

Of course we had expected to buy some Steiff, but then we also came across Jack, four to be precise, and couldn't resist.
It was a set of four Jack Skellingtons from "The Nightmare Before Christmas" - one in his striped suit, one as the scarecrow with the pumpkin head, one in his pyjamas (his book is in a different cabinet right now, one of my Kens is reading it to my Skippers and other family members ;-)), and one as "Sandy Claws" in a Santa suit.
For those who have never seen the film ... Jack, the Pumpkin King, is the king of Halloween Town and he's bored and struggling from having to prepare Halloween over and over. By chance, he discovers the door to Christmas Town in the woods and he's overwhelmed with joy about this wonderful holiday. Despite the warnings of Sally, the rag doll who is in love with him, Jack decides to have Santa kidnapped, so he can take his role. He includes all the inhabitants of Halloween Town to prepare Christmas in their own style.
Things don't quite work out the way he had hoped, though. Children and parents are shocked by gifts of shrunken heads and monstrosities and the military is called in to shoot Jack down.
Meanwhile the little monsters tasked with the kidnapping by Jack have taken Santa to their superior Oogie Boogie, a bogeyman playing with Santa's life - and Sally's because she has tried to resuce Santa.
Jack gets shot down and is depressed about his failure for a bit, but then he finds this is giving him great new ideas for next Halloween. He returns home and rescues Santa and Sally by defeating Oogie who loses his sacklike shell and falls apart into a load of bugs.
Santa hurries to save Christmas, but also lets it snow in Halloween Town to show Jack he has forgiven him.
The film ends by Jack and Sally finally declaring their love for one another.

Here's a confession, the movie is not on my regular Christmas watch list. Although I'm fine with musicals in general and really love the songs "Jack's Lament" and "What's This?", it's a bit much singing for me here for a movie running only 76 minutes (I can't watch "Frozen" for the same reason, but that's a different story).
So I only watch it every few years and this year it was time for that again.
I'm totally in love with Jack, however.
I even designed a bracelet with him, but it was more fun to hang him on my wall than leave him in a jewelry box or drawer.

It has been a long time running joke with a US friend of mine that I should send it to her. I just can't part with him, but made a little something for her instead, a tiny beaded bottle.

My four Jacks are sitting behind glass at the moment, but I'm thinking I should put them on one of the cabinets der Dekan can't get to. They would look pretty cool up there.
I took them out for a photo shoot and found that Santa Jack had a dislocated arm, probably from tree hugging. Luckily, it was easy enough to snap back in.

Tree hugging? Well, when I decided to buy a little tree because Ponder was old enough to be a good boy around it, my sister suggested making Santa Jack the topper. I loved the idea and Jack protected the tree for years. See how excited he was to say hello to Ponder, and Ponder, despite being the occasional ornamentnapper, never did anything to Jack. I miss my big boy so much.

I'm sure that in about 30 or 40 years Gundel and der Dekan will have become calm enough to be as nice to the tree as Ponder was.
What do you think my chances are for that to be happening?
At the moment my bet is on 0% because der Dekan has been jumping around and into the tree for almost an hour now!

Santa Claus and Rudolph - The twenty-fifth door

Has Santa Claus come by your house today and left you something from his sack of gifts? If not, I have a little Santa Claus and Rudolph here who are more than happy to step in - if they can find their sleigh.
Well, actually, there wasn't enough space for a sleigh.

I won't tell you a long story this time (please stop cheering ;-)) and let those two speak for themselves instead.
Merry Christmas!

Art Elements Design Challenge and Blog Hop - Fossils

The first thought when Niky announced "fossils" for the new Art Elements design challenge in November was obviously to look into the mirror.
I have been calling myself a fossil for a long time as I sometimes have the feeling I don't fit into this modern world very well ;-) Now that I'm sitting here I think I should have tried to do something with the idea, just for the heck of it, but the days have been slipping through my fingers in a most unproductive way, so it was much too late for it.
In fact I was late, anyway. Somehow I thought the month was much longer and that the reveal wouldn't be before the end of the month. When I was reminded of the actual reveal date, I almost panicked. It meant I HAD to make something on the weekend before because there was no chance for a last night action this time.

I did have several ideas, but a problem with the execution. Do you know those days when you feel time is running out and you just keep messing things up? Believe it or not, I started three pendants and cut all of them up again because I didn't like the asymmetry here and the setting there and why didn't that ammonite want to stay in there the way I wanted it to? I think I was just pushing it too hard, so I put both wires and the fossils away - ammonites in different sizes and a beautiful fossilized coral cab.

When the reveal date started hanging over me like a Damocles sword, I gave up on the wire.
Instead I took out a bottle and my Delicas. I have been making quite a few of those little beaded bottles lately, but the pattern I had in mind needed a bottle that was a little bigger.
I have been fascinated by dinosaurs forever. Which kid hasn't been? One of my favorite books was "Mamal" by Niels Meyn, a Swedish children's book from the 40s about one of the first mammals on Earth. I can't say how often I checked this book out and I was devastated when the library took it out of their stock. Thanks to the internet I own it myself now and can take a look at my favorite illustration, the fight between the T. Rex and the Triceratops. Sorry, Triceratops, children can be cruel and I know I didn't show enough grief for you having your belly ripped out by the T. Rex in the end.
Then there was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World from 1912. I read it back and forth and all over again.
I don't remember the title of the book with the girl and the German Shepherd that I think I got for Christmas. I do remember that the dog was supposed to be taken away, but wasn't in the end because he helped the girl finding some kind of fossil, not the crocodile she had hoped for, though.
You see, dinos and fossils everywhere!

I live only 10 miles from the Urweltmuseum Hauff, and my area has a lot of fossils to offer. One of the most amazing exhibits at the museum is the world's largest colony of sea lilies, but of course there is more. Even a crocodile! ;-)

So instead of using a fossil for a design, I decided to bead a fossil, inspired by my dino fascination and by the Jurassic Park logo showing a T. Rex skeleton.
Unfortunately I didn't stand a chance to finish it in time, so all I have to show today is a WIP. I'm still happy I got that far considering that I only had Sunday evening and a little time after work on Monday and Tuesday.
I chose a black background for the contrast as I used a mix of two slightly different beige colors for the fossil itself. I liked the look better than the idea of bleached white bones.
With more time on my hands I might even have tried a Triceratops fossil on the back to honor the fight from Mamal! ;-)

This is a blog hop, so please hop with me to all the other participants' blogs, so we can check out their posts and "fossil creations" together.

Guests

Beth and Evie - Cat (that's me ;-)) - Dawn - Divya - Kathy - Michelle - Sarajo - Tammy  

AE team members

Jennifer - Jenny - Lesley - Niky - Susan

Wanna go for a swim?

I have been annoyed by a head cold for almost a week now. I'll spare you the details, let me just say that I have been quite knackered. I didn't feel like getting up much, so mostly I slept, watched TV, and played with wire or Delica beads every, now and then.

The little bottle was a spontaneous idea. I have several of them that I got from my sister. They used to hold beads, so it somehow made sense to bead around them. My first plan was to make something for one, possibly two challenges, but that got put on hold when my muse decided to give me a new idea.

I have been a shark fan since I was a child, thanks to my oldest brother's fascination with sharks. He showed me pictures and told me about them, and in 7th grade when we had to make a kind of magazine for German class, he wrote a whole article for me about sharks (it was a magazine about animals, what else). Keep in mind that these were the 70s, we didn't have internet and it wasn't that easy to find suitable pictures - which is why I think that the shark pictures in the local library's "Grzimeks Tierleben", volume 4 from 1970, were probably missing because someone else did a report about sharks. I didn't get to see those pictures before I started my training at the University Library in 1983!

In an article I read that no one can forget when they saw Jaws for the first time. I guess I'm "no one" because I have no idea. I know it wasn't at the cinema, I was too young, but I remember my brother coming home and being all excited about it. He didn't see it just once. I also remember reading about people's reactions to it, for example the father who wrote that his daughter first refused showers because of Psycho and now swimming in the ocean or the lady that saw it 20 times and threw up each time.
At any rate, half my family are still fans, we often just call it "the fish film".

Enough talking, here's a picture now. Not perfect, but the best I could do in such a small space (the beaded part is not even 1 1/2 inch) and with such a fried brain ;-)

The idea for the sea foam - I don't like the decreases and thought about covering them with small pearls, not a peyote expert here, people - came from my friend Caroline, thank you for that!!

Bruce, this is for you :-D

Trying something new

Peyote stitch and I - we are still no real friends, but we are trying to get along. At the moment we are working on a project that is supposed to prepare us for another project that is supposed to take us to new heights together in turn. The jury is still out on that one. We won't know before we finished this one, and we are still in a very early stage (as I am not quite over my obsession with knitting Easter eggs yet).
This month's the blog carnival at the Jewelry Artisans Community, however, is about what new things we'd like to try this year, so I'm forced to drag our collaboration out in the open already. After all it's about what we'd LIKE to try even if it may not happen due to one or the other reason.

At least I can show you my little WIP and tell its story.
Every, now and then I like to have some gin and tonic. Two friends know that and gave me some Black Forest gin for different occasions, one bottle being a miniature, one the normal size. The bottles look so cool, like old medicine bottles you would find in a pharmacy, with a little cork. I knew I would finally want to try beading around them, and the mini bottle would be perfect for a first attempt until the big bottle - which holds ten times as much - is empty.

As for the beads, I didn't think this through. I guess I was influenced by the February challenge on JAC which had the topic "pink". Not only will I not be able to finish the bottle today to make the challenge, but I don't even have enough beads in these colors to try at all.

I see a bead order in my future .... and of course I will be back once this project is finished, and hopefully I will be also be back with the big bottle eventually, maybe even still this year!

Curious what the others have on their lists for this year? Check it out here.

Violetmoon's Corner
Jewelry Art by Dawn