What's up with the silence?

It's true.  You haven't been hearing from me much lately....  

Well, it's the summer!  School got out in May, and since then we've done the following:

May 21: Indiana - Cincinnati

May 22: Cincinnati - Bryson City, NC (we took the scenic route)

May 23: Poke around the Smoky Mts, and end up in Knoxville, TN

May 24: Knoxville

May 25: Knoxville - Nashville

May 26: Nashville

May 27: Nashville - St. Louis, MO (through the land b/t the lakes)

May 28: St. Louis

May 29th: St. Louis - Dallas, we cut through a corner of Arkansas, because we haven't been there before.

May 30th: Dallas

May 31st: Dallas - ALBUQUERQUE, NM!!

Since then, we've been in New Mexico, everywhere from ABQ to the Jemez Mountains, camping in the Pecos wilderness, waaaay down to Las Cruces, to Socorro, Magdalena, Manzano mountains, etc.

And coming up next:

June 17th: to Florida

June 20-something: into New York, rent a car, drive around New England (never been there before!)

June 25-28: Near DC for a wedding

June 29: DC - New York - London (for 12 hrs)

July 1: ARRIVE IN KENYA!!

July 1-15: go all over Kenya.  To the coast, to the North, to the west, etc....

July 15: Nairobi - London

July 16: London - Barcelona

July 16-21: Barcelona - Santander, hang out in the Pyrenees in between!

July 21: Santander - London

July 22: London - New York

July 23: New York - ABQ

then, up to Yellowstone/Grand Tetons (Wyoming), across to South Dakota, and eventually wind up back in Indiana mid-August.

Sometimes I have good internet, and sometimes I don't.  Sometimes I don't have more than a couple minutes to spend on the good internet.  Soooooo....  I've been a little quieter.  I think you can forgive?  :D

In other news, I just found out last week that this necklace has been accepted into the second round of judging for the Fire Mountain Gems contest!  Woooooot.  I need to get it in the mail soon.  Like Monday.  That's chips of tourmaline I used in it.

A bowl

It's a bowl!

I created 18 individual peyote triangles, and then sewed them together to form the little bowl. You could use it to hold a few special large beads, shells, little wrapped candies, your rings while you sleep, or a myriad of other small and precious items.  

I liked making something different, something not typically made with beads.  No two triangles are the same in this little bowl.  In fact, no single color was used in more than one triangle (though the gold beads in the rim were used in a triangle).  It was fun watching this come together, and experimenting with joining the pieces.  

This is, as always, available for sale at my 1000 Markets store and my Etsy store.

Entangled

This is my entry for the first Colorworks challenge, "Tertiary triad."  The challenge was to use shades of green, purple, and orange to create a piece (though, if I remember my elementary school art classes correctly, green, purple, and orange are secondary colors... )

However it is, I love how the colors work together and jumped at the chance to use them!  Here's my entry, "Entangled," which features a mix of purple beads in a three-drop peyote base, and embellished with mixes of green and orange beads.  I created a polymer clay button to work as the closure.  

I like it, and I guess we'll find out if they do too sometime next month! :)

Hollywood Red Carpet Challenge

The entries are in for the Etsy BeadWeavers May challenge!  Head on over to the EBW blog to find links for all the entries.  Voting opens May 9th, and continues through the 15th.

Cascade

This month's Etsy Beadweaver's challenge was themed "Hollywood Red Carpet Creations".  I wanted to create something classy and elegant, while still standing out from the crowd. After a number of sketches in the margins of my notebooks (by which I mean doodling during class - with purpose!), I came up with the concept for this necklace which, in my opinion, fits my criteria exactly!  It's long, draping, and definitely one of a kind!

I used alternating mixes of sapphire blue and garnet red Czech seed beads to create looping herringbone tubes, attaching them to each other as I went.  Originally, the wide strip was supposed to lie flat.  Well....  the beads didn't cooperate, and the necklace was flipping in funny directions.  As I was playing with it, I realized that if I folded the strip at the bottom of the v, it would lie well without flopping, twisting, and otherwise looking not as great as I wanted.  

So, I went back to my work table, searched through my stash, and found a brown bead that would work great for joining the two sides.  And voila!  No more funky flipping.  

You can find it both in my Etsy shop and 1000 Markets store.  

Then, starting on May 9th and continuing through the 15th, head on over to the EBW blog to vote for your favorite challenge entry!

Dreaming in the Garden

Last Friday, the art department sent out an email to the whole school looking for submissions for this year's student art exhibit.  One of the categories listed was jewelry, so I sent an email to the department to get more info, and started thinking about what to submit.

I thought about submitting something I had already made, but I didn't really want to pull anything out of my Etsy or 1000 Markets stores, so I did a little brainstorming about what I could make new.  I then spent the weekend making this lacy, flowery cuff.  Come Monday morning, I get an email back from the art department, telling me that the department chair wants to limit the exhibit to undergraduate students.  I was kinda bummed, but now I've got this spiffy cuff in my stores.  Not just for your viewing pleasure, but also for your purchasing pleasure, right?  ;)

on Etsy and on 1000 Markets.

Reusable shopping bag contest

Kroger is sponsoring a reusable shopping bag contest, and I decided to submit an design.  The photo is from sunset at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in central New Mexico, as the wintering cranes came in for the evening.  I'm gonna give credit for the photo to my husband, though we were passing the camera back and forth enough that who knows who actually took this specific picture!  

The contest allows one vote per bag per browser per computer per day, until May 15th.  After that, a panel of judges picks 10 finalists, taking voting strongly into consideration.  Here's my design, and I'd love your vote here.  

Otherwise, I've got a few things in the works...  I started on a bracelet for a student art exhibit, but just found out that it's not open to grad students, so I'll be listing that as soon as it's done!  I'm also hard at it on my entry for the EBW May challenge.