Realistic Heart Earrings

Last year you gave me a heart.  This year I'm returning the favor.

 I don't know about you, but every now and then I'll look at all the hearts and flowers and think to myself... "Well that's cute and all, but that is not what a heart looks like." and when I was a kid if I had actually said that out loud (and I did, because I don't have a filter) my Mom would give me that look that says "Lord, why did you give me such a strange daughter?" mixed with "I'm going to smack you if you keep this up".  Luckily for me my Mom was not really into smacking, but the look was believable enough to make me shut my mouth. 

Now that I'm older.... I will not say grown up, God just might smite me for that big of a whopper... I can say all sorts of things and better yet make them.  So with my heart full of joy I looked online for some anatomy drawings found one I like and simplified it (the charms are about the size of a nickle so to complex and I can't draw it that small).  So now for your pleasure I present Real Heart Earrings....  Wahaha  

I Know that you want them.  You are looking at the earrings feeling your heart-rate picking up and your eyes turning into dinner plates.  So I say don't deny yourself, give into your urges and buy these earrings.

Pretty Red Earrings

I wanted to name the First pair of earrings in this style something poetic like "A drop of water on an open lotus" because it kind of looks like that... if you squint a lot, but that was to long *sigh*, so I came up with the rather prosaic, but true "Pretty Blue Earrings".   To keep the theme of a really cool name that I'm not going to use I dub these earrings "Fire on an open Lotus".  In reality this name is not to long to use, but I already started the boring naming convention with this style of earring so I'll stick with it.

Crazy For Earrings 

It's the beginning of the Month and that means it's time for a new special.  YEA!

This month all earrings are 20% off with the coupon code:  Crazy4Earrings   capitalization does matter so feel free to just copy and past.... it's what I do. 

All categories of earrings are on sale so now is the time to stock up.

Earrings of Awesomeness, Small Earrings, French Hook Earrings and More.

Purple Moon Bracelet

One of my friends is a BIG "My Little Pony" fan and because of that and a few other things I ended up spending over 6 months trying to make a Nightmare Moon/Princess Luna pendant (and succeeding with resounding success too...finally).  All that being said I had Nightmare Moon on my head when I was making some bracelets and this one just kind of happened.   Weather you are a big MLP fan or not hopefully you'll enjoy the purple and black/gray combination.  My favorite thing about this bracelet besides having a ton of purple hues so I will go with most purple things with a dash of black and dark gray to dress it up, is that none of the beads match.  Fun and artsy that me. 

I know you are all wondering who is the supper cool person  that I am interviewing this month.

Presenting: Sharon Stogner

I meat Sharon at Con Carolinas back in May,  I found her to be fun, witty, charming, and super smart and on top of all that she was nice enough to do an interview with me.

She is ​a co-owner of the speculative fiction review site I Smell Sheep.  They have won the Editors & Preditors Readers Choice Best Review Site 2014. ​http://www.ismellsheep.com/  A very cool blog that reviews books and movies and has interviews with authors... you know well done and insightful interviews.

She Is a wife and mother of two and because she is a crazy busy lady she also is a freelance editor.  Her website is http://devilinthedetailsediting.com/

Something I found out while we where working on her interview was that she lives only 45 minutes from me and since I don't really live close to anything that practically makes us neighbors.  Some days I realize how small this world is.

Q&A with Sharon,

1)  What is your favorite color?

Yellow!​

​

2) I know you have a Cocker Spaniel named April.  Would you tell us about her?  Please feel free to share pictures.

3)  If you could invite four famous people to dinner, who would you choose and why?  For the purposes of this question they can be alive or dead and we will pretend that they are not zombies, skeletons or any other type of undead.

But I like the undead! ​ 

   Alexander the Great for insight into that time period

   David Bowie because he has a voice like butter.

   Chris Hemsworth because OMG have you seen him?

4)  When was the last time you got the giggles at an inappropriate time?

I don't know...probably when my youngest daughter told an inappropriate joke​ .

5)  What was the last thing you geeked-out about?  Where were you?

6)  What is your favorite childhood injury?

Do people have a favorite injury?! I had nothing traumatic enough to remember...my first broken bone was my foot when I was in my 30s.

7)  What is on your Bucket List?

​I've honestly never think of things in terms of doing something before I die... I want to visit historical places in the US and world wide. There is so much of the US I've never seen. I want to see the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls next.

8)  If you where given the opportunity to have a super power, but you had to choose between being able to control Fire or control Water.  Witch if either would you choose and why?

9) How fast do "hotcakes" sell?

​On a weekend morning or 2 a.m., probably close to mach 1.

10) Tell us about a unique or quirky habit of yours.

Sharon Thank you so much for your time.   It was an absolute hoot working with you and keep up the good work on your blog it is really fun to read.

You can Follow her blog at http://www.ismellsheep.com/

So I started a thing with my first interview where the interviewee could choose a special piece of jewelry that I would design in honer of them being really cool and doing an putting up with my silliness.  Sharon choose jewelry with a classic movie monster them.  If you like what you see you have Sharon to thank cause even though Chance has been on me to make something along thous lines for 4 years now I just had not done it.  She even picked out the colors!

It's Classic Movie Monster Time

The movie monsters from 40's and 50's are some of my all time favorite in the horror genre, so in honer of terrors of the Silver Screen I have put together this Funky Bracelet.  I piked from some of my favorite movies for the charms... The Creature From the Black Lagoon, Dracula, The Mummy, Frankenstein, and Wolfman.  Then dressed in up in black, white, and gray since they are all black and white films.  The silver is for the "silver screen" and of course a drop of red because they are horror films after all.

I have also made 2 pairs of earrings to match Frankenstein's Monster and and The Wolfman.  I was a bad girl and did not get the 2 pictures for the earrings cleaned up in time for this blog post, but I will have them up later on Thursday.  I'll update this post once they are up on the website.

It's Raining Money

This is just a reminder of Augusts sale your almost out of time. 

 Ok Lets recap: Buy 3 items and get $10.00 what could be better.

To see the full details please view the blog post on August 3.

Also I know August should not have the possessive comma, but I'm to lazy to fix it.

Simple Tortoise Earrings

Sometimes I just like simple and these earrings qualify.  They are lightweight because I don't like heavy earrings and are just a simple rectangular amber glass drop with accent beads above and below.  The name  comes about because they remind me of tortoise colored sunglasses.  I know, I know not as romantic or turtle filled as it could be, but I think I use up a good chunk of my loquaciousness last week. 

You might be asking "Why are you putting brown earrings up at the beginning of August instead of the end?" and that would show that you are far more thoughtful and conscious of the seasons than I am.  Go You!   Really my thought process this week went along the lines of..... ooh pretty little earrings... cool.  Hope you all love them.

Green Sea Bracelet

This originally started out as a new product post, but I went on and on about the differences in Sea Glass so, first.  Look!  A cool new thing.  Then some interesting information you never knew you needed to know about sea glass.

I Love walking on the beach and finding a treasure laying there in the sand with the waves crashing beside me, the wind wiping my hair and the gulls calling above, it's the ideal picture of summer that stays with me all year long.

This bracelet is comprised of small (8mm x3mm) square sea glass beads separated by small (3mm) silver plate round beads.  The sea glass makes for a soft feeling bracelet that flows over your skin like gently caressing waves. The light bluish-green color in a moving variety of shades (AKA: Hurricane) mimic the shades you would see in the water (yes we like to pretend that water is blue, but for a lot of places the water is mostly shades of bluish green).

Let me tell you a little bit about Sea Glass when it is referenced in jewelry.  Genuine sea glass is created when some glass falls into a large body of salt water and over a period of 20-50 years is crashed around in the sea and is naturally frosted and all the corners and sharp points are rounded, this gives it it's well known soft texture.  Most sea glass you find on the beach will be from broken bottles or other glassware, it is extremely rare to find beads this way and even more rare to find 2 pieces that match in size, color, and shape since it's all a natural process. 

In jewelry when someone calls something Sea Glass they don't mean that it was actually found on the beach there is not enough genuine sea glass in the world to satisfy the demand.  These days (in Jewelry terms) Sea Glass means that it is a mat-glass where all the corners and edges are smooth, this is achieved by either immersion in an acid bath or tumbled in a tumbler with water and some kind of abrasion.  20 years ago this process would have been referred to as Frosted (today frosted and sea glass have slightly different meanings), much like 10 years or more ago Ombre would have been referred to as gradiation of color (I have to admit it's nice to have one word that is easy to understand).   The good thing about man-made sea glass also know as Cultured Seaglass is that you can make a batch of matching beads and you can create them in large quantity.  Your also not limited by anything as far as color, size, or shape  which can not be said for genuine sea glass.  Most genuine sea glass has to be wrapped, either with wire or some type of fiber.  Unless you happen to find an extremely rare bead, if you want your genuine sea glass to be a bead you'll need to drill the hole.  As you might imagine you need a fairly sturdy piece to do this so all delicate beads are right out the door.  This brings us back to the greatness of man-made since the beads can be made in the normal way then they are dipped or tumbled depending on who's doing it and the item being turned into sea glass.

I truly love sea glass both the man-made and natural.  The feel of the glass is just all soft and wonderful, and to make glass soft is a neat trick.  They both have there place and I love them both for there strengths and weaknesses. 

All this being said it's important to know the difference when your shopping.  Genuine sea glass in much more rare these days because of dumping regulations (don't use the ocean as a trash heap please), so each piece should be valued for the wonderful treasure it is.  because of this and the fact that finding even one bead is hard, much less finding enough for a bracelet,  most jewelry will be made with man-made sea glass.  Most Jewelers will use the term Sea Glass because this the term used to describe the treatment the bead has undergone to give it that particular look expecting their customers to know that it is not the genuine thing.  However some jewelers just don't understand that the frosted bead or unwrapped pendant they have is man-made and not genuine sea glass so they will claim it to be genuine, because they think it is.

If you find a piece of jewelry that is labeled genuine sea glass go down this mental check list to determine if it's the real thing.  If it is the real thing it is most likely going to be expensive so you want to be careful, if you are paying a lot of money you want it make sure it is what the vendor is telling you it is.

1)  Is it a free form shape or a regular shape?  Most genuine sea glass has a free form shape.  This comes from the glass being bounced around at the bottom of the ocean for 20-50 years or longer.  It takes 20-50 years to get the frosted soft look, but it could take much longer to wash ashore, the piece of sea glass you found on the beach could be 400 years old, probably not, but it could be.

2)  What color is it?  Since the largest portion of genuine sea glass is made from bottles the most common colors will be Green, Brown, and Frosted Clear.  What I'm saying is that the bottle tossed overboard by a drunken fisher is the most likely thing to come back ashore.  Sea glass can come in different colors it's just less common.  The next most common color is blue, dragging behind that is red with yellow and orange even further down the list is purple and pink in dead last.

3)  Are all the pieces different shapes or is there a twin sitting right next to it?  Since genuine sea glass has been tumbling around at the bottom of the sea for a very long time the shapes will be very irregular, it would be like finding 2 identical rocks.  It's possible but not very likely.

4)  How much are they asking for the item?  This is only a weak indication so you'll need to take into account lots of factors.  Are you at the beach in an area know for sea glass washing ashore?  If so the person could be picking the glass up each day on their morning walk so the value is low for them.  Is it clear, green, or brown?  Well that's fairly common so it could be cheep.  Is the person new to selling jewelry?  If so they might just not know what they have or how rare it is.  If you find the genuine article and it's cheep bless your good luck and enjoy the trill of finding a good deal.  However for the most part the item having a higher price tag is what you would expect if they are using genuine sea glass.

5)  Can the artist/crafter tell you how or were they found the piece or did they buy it?  You can buy sea glass.  There are people that live at the beach in areas that get a lot washed up on shore and they will sell it on etsy or Ebay or even at their local bead shop or gallery.  However glass bought from a company online is almost certainty man-made.

After asking yourself all these questions there is one more you need to ask.  Weather it is genuine sea glass or not, is it worth to you what they are asking.  If yes then buy it and love the item.  If not then if you are at a craft show or in a gallery tell the sales person or crafter to have a wonderful day and go on.  If you are online keep looking till you find that thing that makes you happy.  Jewelry should make you smile not stress you out.

One thing I have noticed recently is a trend to call man-made sea glass Cultured  Seaglass.   Don't know if they are trying to trick people or just trying to make it sound cooler, either way it's still man-made.

Princess Death Earrings

They say "it's good to be the Queen", but I would say that being a princess is better.  You get most of the benefits and only a quarter of the work.   Since I am really into the happy skull theme and love being treated like a princess (by my honey-bunny); OK I really like being treated like a Goddess, but I'm trying to not be to picky, I figured that a skull with a crown was a very happy thing.