LOTS of CHANGES

Oh goodness! What a day it's been! I can decide where to begin! Wow. I've had a lot of things I've been wanting to get done for a long time and I got so much of it done today! Maybe I should just list it...

Cleaning:
1. Kitchen
2. Bedroom
3. Some of the living room

Design:
1. THE BLOG - I'm going for red and green right now in honor of the upcoming holiday - can you tell? LOL
2. I also created and updated both banners and avatars (and on Artfire the color theme) in both my shops.
3. I made the little section headers I wanted to make! You'll see in a minute ;)

Cooking:
1. Breakfast: pancakes and sausage :D Don't worry I really was behaving! I used sugar-free syrup and they were turkey sausages :P
2. Dinner: (breakfast was at lunch time) BBQ Pork loins, mashed potatoes, and broccoli.

Wow - it was a full day! Now on to the things in my shop and and the crafty stuff I got done yesterday!

Wood and Tubes Spirals

These babies are on CLEARANCE!!!!

Pink Delight Bracelet

Wouldn't this be the perfect Christmas present?

Mexican Peso Necklace

This would be perfect to add a bit of travel flair to your

wardrobe - and perfect to wear at Christmas! 

This necklace is a commission for my friend Gypsy :D

If anyone's interested in something similar just let me know! 

I made something else yesterday too - but I didn't like how it turned out :P 

So it's being scrapped and no picture! 

Until tomorrow ~ Ruthie

A Hand Made Christmas

Before I say anything else - I want to say Merry Christmas to you and yours!

This year at least half (maybe more) of the presents I gave were hand made, and it was so much fun! I still have a few more to give (and finish making lol), but the one's I've given at a party earlier this week, and at my in laws today, made people's faces light up! Its fun when you can see that when you buy them the right present, it's even better when it's something that you've invested your time and energy into!

I don't think I'll ever go totally handmade, some times making people's faces light up requires a visit to the store, but I'm definitely encouraged and excited to do the same thing next year! Ok...with different presents though :P

Did you give any hand made gifts this year? Was it a lot of fun?

Snowflake - The First Attempt

In looking around at blogs lately, and talking to various sellers, I've started thinking about Christmas a little bit. Last night specifically I e-mailed Mom to see if she wanted to make some crocheted snowflakes for the upcoming Christmas season. Well that got me thinking - why can't I make something like that in beads?

I rejected my first idea. I've seen some lovely snowflakes made from wire frames that you simply string the beads on, and sure, I could do that but...

What I really wanted to do was make something that was made from seed beads. I wanted to make something up that was all my own pattern. I wanted to experiment. Here's the first attempt.

Sorry it's a little bit blurry, but my hands are kinda shaky from asthma meds right now. I think my basic principle is sound, but I'm going to make some changes whenever I attempt the next one.

First of all, I want the initial "circle" to be closer in to the center. I also want there to be some "spikes" come out more on the outer rim, and more "lacy bits" in the center...

If that makes any sense to you - kudos!

All in all, I think my first attempt at least looks snowflake-ish, and I learned a lot from the two hour process of fighting with it! What do you think?

"Past all thought of 'if' or 'when' - no use resisting"

To spice things up today - I'm offering you an opportunity for TWO extra entries into my top commentators contest today! The first is the one your used too, just tell me which item below is your favorite and why :) The second... The title of this blog post is a quote from a musical - can you tell me what musical?

Queen of the Crafty ADD

I've told you before that I'm very Crafty ADD. I jump from project to project to project... Anyway - I thought I'd prove it to you guys :P This is what I've been working on the last two days!

What you see above is a hemp bracelet and a beadwoven St. Petersburg Bracelet. I started the bracelet a couple days ago, but I wove about half of it in the last two days. Not that it's a project that takes me very long, I just picked it up for 15 minutes here, and 15 minutes there!

I've also been working on a lot of hemp lately. I have a bunch in my box to take photos of! Things have just been to busy for me to get the photos taken yet though. That and I haven't been feeling that good today. Ok, really not feeling good today. I've spent most of the day watching Star Gate and crafting :D

Mom started teaching me to crochet yesterday! The picture above is of granny squares. I did the first one and started the second one with Mom yesterday, finished the second one last night, and did the third this morning! I'm going to make a baby blanket :D There are going to be 4 more colors in it. Not sure how I'm going to arrange them, just making a bunch of squares and then I'll play with laying them out and see how the inspiration strikes me.

And for anyone getting excited, no, I'm not pregnant :P I'll donate this when it's done. Probably to the Pregnancy Resource Center. It's a local organization that provides free pregnancy tests and provides counseling on the many options out there other than abortion.

Over the last 6 months or so I've started always having a cross-stitch project going. This is the current one! It's going to be a bookmark of dancing penquins. It'll be awhile before it shows up in the shop though. I tend to work on it like crazy for awhile, and then not pick it up at all for awhile :P Plus I'll probably fit 4 bookmarks on the fabric before I cut it up... Anyway, I sewed half of the penquin outline today!

So what's next? Well...I need to make some more strand bracelets to take into my consignment shop...but since that requires moving the bead boxes and stuff around so I can decide on patterns that will probably wait for tomorrow. My asthma's acting up today and I'm doing fine as long a I sit still, but that would probably be too much movement. So I think I'll crochet another granny square and try to decide what my next beadweaving project should be.....

Just a reminder - it's Christmas in July! Follow the links below to check it the sales :)

Kindred Spirit Treasures

Rose Works on Etsy

Rose Works on Artfire

12 Days of Christmas - Part 2

Continuing on from yesterday's post, here's the second half of The 12 Days of Christmas - etsy style!

"On the seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me - seven swans a swimming..." Isn't this swan incredible? Bellacrochet has incredible talent and she's selling the pattern to make this swan for only $6.95!

"On the eight day of Christmas my true love gave to me - eight maids a milking..." I love the detail on this vintage ornament that smalls4utoo is selling for $15 dollars!

"On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me - nine ladies dancing..." I saw this card by paulapaula and just knew I had to feature it, not only are the ladies adorable in their whimsy, I love the fact that they aren't skinny! *wicked giggle* And only $3 for such fun? That's a steal!

"On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me - ten Lords a leaping..." I'm one of those crazy artists who always loves learning new crafts - and so I love seeing the different "make it yourself" kits that show up on etsy! Isn't this $3.95 card kit by popupcardmaking cute?

"On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me - eleven pipers piping..." Talk about innovative - this piper is painted on an old eyeglass lens!  I don't know where lowercaseg came up with this, but I can't believe it's only $10 for something so detailed!

"On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me - twelve drummers drumming..." Ok, so this drummer is from the "Little Drummer Boy" song...but that's one of my favorite songs...so hey! Who cares right? $65 for this lovely piece by Mysweetpumpkins :)

Thankful for Etsy :)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Now, I know, that only counts for those of us in the USA  - but it's still an excellent reminder to be thankful for all the good things in our lives.  I, for one, am extremely for having found www.etsy.com! To give a little back story:

I love jewelry, despite the fact that I grew up a tom-boy! I first learned how to do wire-wrapped jewelry around 10 years ago, and I remember spending hours and hours working making chains of links, and dreaming of someday selling in a craft fair or open market.  I never really thought it would happen though.  At the time I still wasn't very coordinated and it took me a LONG time to make a bracelet or necklace!

Fast forward - time goes on - and I learned some new jewelry techniques and began to seriously dream of selling jewelry.  This was about two years ago.  I wasn't really sure what to do though.  I had some friends and family really encouraging me, but I didn't have any idea how to start!  Plus life was really busy.

Then, about a year ago, I started getting really sick. That's a long story, but the result was that I had a lot of time on my hands where I ended up making jewelry, because it was something I could do sitting still.  After a few months of that, one of my friends introduced me to etsy, and the rest was history!

Ok, not quite, it's been a lot of hard work and I've learned a LOT since I opened up shop in May. It's hard to start making a dent in the jewelry world, because there are a lot of other artists out there, but I have had sales on etsy!

I'm really thankful for having this opportunity, especially since my health problems have continued! I'm also extremely excited, because I know I've learned a lot in the last year about my craft - here's a few of the pieces I'm the most proud of!

I know I have a lot more to learn - but see - that's something else to be thankful for! Because I have another year ahead of me with lots of opportunities to learn new things, expand my business, and make new friends!

Want to know what else I'm thankful for? Check out what I said on my other blogs!

Thankful for friends.
Thankful for family.