Vacation Creations

I took a couple of wonderful, glorious (and surprisingly productive) days off leading up to Labor Day weekend. Not only did I get to catch up on my sleep (thank God!) but I got oodles of laundry done, and I sorted out two car loads of household “crap” (books, kid toys, kid clothes, etc.) to donate to Goodwill in order to make room for my NEW! LEATHER! SECTIONAL! I’ve wanted to put an L-shaped sectional in my family room ever since I bought the house 10 years ago! I finally got around to it and the couch arrived this weekend. After a few more touches (built-in media cabinet, window treatments, pillows and area rug), I will finally have ONE ROOM in my house that’s suitable for viewing and use by family, friends, random visitors, etc.

But, as per my usual, I’ve wandered completely off track.

The other thing I managed to do over Labor Day weekend was put in some serious jewelry-making time. Yay!

Here are the results:

These are just a quick, sweet little pair of earrings using some fun, sterling silver and enamel earring findings and then adding some Swarovski crystals, freshwater pearls and Bali silver.

Now for the more complicated stuff:

This fused glass cab has some strange colors in it: emerald green, metallic orange, hot pink and even a metallic purple. After seeing all the Halloween decorations already hitting the stores, I decided to highlight the orange and the green in my bead embroidery bezel and again in the necklace and then tie everything together with black. The beads in the necklace are vintage glass and Czech glass.

The next cab I worked with is a stone cab (an agate of some sort, I believe) and had a much more subdued color palette of browns, beiges, gray and black. It looks great with these golden glass pearls and matte steel gray Czech crystals for some subtle sparkle.

This is a close-up of the pendant to show how pretty the markings are in this natural stone.



This necklace is composed of materials that were originally purchased to go with the cab shown above, but they didn’t work so well with that piece and I ended up creating a separate set using steel gray glass pearls and champagne-colored Czech crystals. I think it’s no surprise that this romantic and classic-looking piece came to mind just after I had finished reading “Pride and Prejudice.” I can just see one of Jane Austen’s heroines wearing this to a ball or a concert with a beautiful dress and long, white gloves.

Lastly, I made a bracelet lush with tons of dangles to accent this exquisite set of lampwork beads from an artist whose name I just cannot remember. Stupid, 4_- year-old memory! I feel terrible about that because really, the design work on these beads is just so intricate and extraordinary. I wanted to put a lot of detail on this piece and yet not detract from how lovely the lampwork is and hopefully I’ve achieved that balance. The dangles are made of 4mm onyx rounds, 6mm Swarovski bicones in Caribbean opal, lavender Swarovski pearls, purple Swarovski cubes and lavender Czech crystal rondelles. Sterling silver beads and Bali silver spacers and toggle clasp add the finishing touches.

It felt so good to clear some of these projects off my desk and out of my head. I only wish I had more time to keep working on things. But, even though two carloads of crap was a lot to get rid of, shockingly, there’s still more to be done.

Like the closet in the kid’s room which has my ex’s old high school suit, several bridesmaid dresses and my own wedding dress stuffed in the back half of it. Why? I don’t know.

Then there’s the three different shelving units full of books in various locations throughout the house that still need to be purged.

And don’t even get me started on the so-called “office” – which is getting so bad that I can SEE the other side of the room from the doorway, but I can no longer GET to the other side of the room.

Well, without stepping on stuff, that is.

But, I will get there.

Eventually.

Sometime between now and 2010.

One small bit of cleared floor at a time.

KJ