Two things!

1. SALE! I haven't had one in ages, so I guess there's no time like the present! Take 20% off Winter Holiday items and 15% off regular items! Sale lasts until October 31! Limit four discounts per order.

2. After a long week (I had five tests this week. FIVE. What the hell, college?!) I finally got a paycheck worth celebrating (in that it was more than $7, for the first time since June) and so I had to go to the bank to deposit it. Which is in Walmart.

Is it just me, or did America take a stupid pill this morning? I nearly got hit four times: once in the garage at school, once turning onto Ludlow, once in Walmart's parking lot, and once turning into my neighborhood. I can't count the number of kids who were screaming and running out of control while their parents looked on with bored faces or just ignored them. I heard a million stupid questions asked ("Hey there, guy in Walmart uniform wearing a Walmart nametag, putting away a cart full of merchandise. Do you work here?" /facepalm).

I witnessed one child hiding in a display of boxed (very large) TVs on the floor, fiddling with the security devices and trying to push the 72" TVs over. I told an employee, but the brat got away with it.

The screaming and yelling gave me a headache.

My request? It's this: Parents, control your damn kids and take responsibility for them or do us all a favor and keep your legs closed and don't reproduce. If you don't have the brain power to discipline your kids and force them to behave in public, then FFS, DO NOT HAVE THEM WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU AMERICA?!?!?!

/deep breath

Wooo. Just needed to get that out.

A Beginner's Guide to Throwing Pottery

Step one: Wedge up a small ball of clay, but do it badly.
Step two: Don't realize this until it's on the wheel already. Get up, re-wedge it.
Step three: Put it back on the wheel and take ages to get it centered.
Step four: Spend about half an hour trying to get some height out of it once the floor is made.
Step five: Give up at just shy of the six inches you need to get for class, because it's a cute shape and it'll collapse if you go any higher.

That's my Tuesday and Thursday nights. o_o

Oh geez...

So I haven't even looked at this thing in forever, and I'm thinking of using it to post about more than just jewelry, otherwise it won't get used. Just a quick life update will do for now, I suppose, as I'm waiting for Chloe to get out of her Horror Lit. class. My German class (and therefore test) was canceled for today. \o/

Well, here's what's been going on:

1. school: got a B (somehow) on my first algebra test, and a 98 on my first German test. Love all my classes, but it's a toss up between Zumba, German, and Ceramics as to my favorite.
   
2. work: i want to kill half of my students. ~_~
   
3. home: still living in the same place, unfortunately.
   
4. car: needs an oil change and the power steering and transmission checked out.
   
5. cats: are still fluffy and adorable.
   
6. love: it will be five years for Chloe and I on November 1st. That's awesome. We're talking about getting married anyway and then suing the state of Ohio to recognize the marriage... but that sounds hard and time-consuming and we'd like our primary focus to be on our grades.
   
7. health: i've only had one terrible 'attack' with my stomach lately. :D that was yesterday, and i had to call off work AND miss math, so I'm basically fucked.
   
8. art: the only time I've had to do any kind of art is in Ceramics. I've had no time for jewelry. :( But in class I'm making a steampunk box that can be a candle-holder or something. Hopefully it comes out super-cool!
   

Hope you guys have been good. :)

Just a quick note!

FYI, the shop will be closed from June 24th until probably the end of August and all stock is coming with me to the conventions. If there is anything in the store you really want, I recommend getting it before then.

Sale!

Before I forget, let me tell you about this, and our first ever contest!

Half-off sale! Buy any item and get half off of any other item of equal or lesser value. See site for details. Tell me how you've spread the word about the sale in comments, and two lucky people (chosen at random) will receive a $5 off coupon or free earrings (winners' choice).

To see the items, just click the title of this entry, or any other link on this page.

Little Irritations

Do you know what really bothers me? Though I consider myself to be a well-educated woman, knowledgeable about many topics, I, for the life of me, cannot learn anything about cars or car repair. It's not that I haven't tried; I have, really. My Uncle Wayne and all of his boys are geniuses with car repair, and everyone considers them to be the family mechanics. My cousin Kevin is usually the one who works on my car, but he doesn't do any of the things I need done this time around: the check engine light is on; the brake light keeps turning on for some reason, only to turn off when I actually brake; the oil needs changed; the AC is screwed up (and have I mentioned that our heat index is regularly hitting 100F here?), and I have a squeaky belt that needs changed.

All before Otakon.

Finding a mechanic in my budget is frustrating and time-consuming. I need this car to make it to Baltimore and back, and I need to still have the money to garage it in the city after the repairs are made.

So I guess what I'm saying is that any advice on mechanic-shopping would be appreciated.

I was going to post pictures of the new items for the conventions today as well, but my camera is completely dead and its beautifully bright green emergency replacement isn't here yet.

Utter boredom?

I think I've finally hit the lowest point of boredom physically possible. Right now I'm sitting in my BIS class. It's called Intro to Word, Excel, and Power Point.

We're learning how to highlight text.

Yeah... I've been able to do that since PCs first came out. Tempted to sit back here and work on friendship bracelets from Otakon.

How are you guys?

Artbeads Product Review

School's out well, until tomorrow, the bees are buzzing, the leaves are back on the trees, and the cardinal that likes to sit outside my bedroom window and tweet loudly at 6am is back: summer must be close!  This time around I'm all about earthy tones and using materials and colors that reflect my mood for the season. Example:

 Exhibit A

This bracelet was made using copper chain and jump rings from a local store, and the beautiful copper-plated pewter charms. When I think of summer, I think of earth tones, animals, and all the irritating insects nature can throw at you (as you can probably tell, I'm not really an "outdoor person"). I also used Artbeads.com's swarovski crystal pendants. 

A lot of time went into making the necklace, and I think it ended up with kind of an awesome steampunk feel to it. I twisted the chain a lot, and left some loops at the end to add more texture and character, and I think it worked out really well. I like it a lot better than the chain I was originally going to use. The smaller chain added without overshadowing the charms and crystals like the textured chain would have done. 

As for the Artbeads products themselves, I am especially impressed with the charms. I don't usually like copper (I associate it with dirty pennies) but these charms are very cute, very shiny, and very sturdy. The plating seems to be staying on rather well, despite the fact that I wear this thing every chance I get. I'm pretty hard on my jewelry too, so it's important to me to have sturdy, well-made charms like this. I am also head-over-heels in love with the crystal flower pendants. They're so cute, so fashionable, so hard to break, and they just work so nicely with the copper. The only problem I had was getting a small-size ring onto them to attach the charms to the chain. 

One last photo (because I want to show off my raku vase):

Isn't it beautiful?

(Let's go ahead and put the legal stuff here, shall we? I am not being paid by Artbeads.com for my opinion on their items. I have received the above pictured items free of charge and am reviewing them honestly. Anything else in these photos was bought and paid for by me from other locations.)

A Haiku

The sale is ending
Have you gotten your good deal?
I hope you will buy


It ends tomorrow, ladies and gents! You'll save a lot with this one, especially because I marked down a lot of the stuff in the Lucky 13 category.

Photos will happen probably next Friday. I had planned for this Friday but it turns out I have to do grocery shopping after work then run all the way to my mom's house and then run to Fairborn and then go to the Zombie Walk. It will be a terribly busy weekend and I still have to find time for homework. :/

A Few Changes

You may have noticed that I've taken the word "Jewelry" out of the title, and the reason for this is that when I blog about my jewelry during the school year, there's just too much going on for me to actually post. However, if I have a place where I can write about my life as well, then that means I'll likely update a little more often.

Likely.

We'll see, right?

This weekend has been a crafty one, thus far. Earlier in the week I got my latest order of beads from Artbeads.com, and I'm working on putting together my blogging for beads project. Then Friday, my darling future wife and I went over to my parent's house for dinner, a trip to Crafts 2000, and then my mom taught me how to make these cute hair bows she knows how to do. So now I have a bunch of ribbon and cutting to do to get these bows ready for summer conventions.

But first, I suppose I should buckle down and get through my school work. I've got a ten page research paper on the morality and ethics of stem-cell research to do, and then I need to pick a Latino woman who works in entertainment and prepare a 400 word paper and presentation on her for my Spanish class.

Thankfully, this batch of classes will end in about three weeks. Of course, once that's out, summer quarter will start three days later. Oh joy, right?

Hurray!

Yesterday while I was out with my future wife, we stopped in at Jo-Ann Fabrics because there is a super store conveniently placed behind our favorite restaurant. Since we're going to Otakon this summer, I was really excited to find some Asian-style charms and findings on clearance. Today I made a mountain of cell phone charms out of them.

It totally made my day. :D

Blog death?

Not so much. The blog isn't dead; its owner is just buried under a pile of schoolwork.

We'll return you to your regularly scheduled jewelry postings after this degree is earned.

@_@

Yeah, school's killing me. I did make a couple new items, and I want to post them, but my brain keeps trying to revert into Spanish or into business terminology when I write. It's killing my creativity, ladies.

Product Review

Hello, readers! I hope everybody enjoyed their weekend. I have some new items to show off today, though none of them are as of yet available in the store. These items were all created as part of a challenge to show my interpretation of Spring.



This item was created using swarovski crystal beads in the shape of butterflies. I absolutely adore these beads. They are only 6mm, so the charm is kept thin, and the crystal is very durable. I also used a cell phone strap from Artbeads.com. I like the jump ring straps, and purchased them in gold and silver. I'm only going to show the silver here.

The jump rings are easier to open and close than the ones with split rings, and they're very durable. The strap is very thin which made it easy to add onto my cell phone charm collection.

The other type of bead I used are 4mm twisted sterling silver beads. I love, love, LOVE these beads. They are durable, cute, and add a fun element to the charms.



I've had a thing for cameos lately, and I'm slowly falling in love with copper. This piece uses a cameo from Artbeads.com as well as copper-plated chain and copper leaf bails. The setting came from Cathy's Jewels on Etsy.

The bails look great, but I have some doubts as to their durability. One of them broke in the mail on the way to me and I had to have it replaced. The replacement broke a little as I was very gently putting it on my other cameo set and had to be epoxied into submission.

Aside from that, I really, really love the bails. And the chain. And that cameo, oh my goodness! The chain is slightly textured, which is pleasing to me, because I think it adds to the beauty without taking away from that gorgeous cameo.


That's all I've got for now. There's a big gray cat on my lap who keeps looking at me as though she's wondering why I'm typing when I could be petting her instead.

Since it's spring break, there should be more photos coming soon. I have two more bracelets and a necklace set to show off, and my wife and I just went to Trader's World where I bought necklaces to take apart and recycle into other, cuter jewelry.


Legal stuff: I am not being paid by Artbeads.com for my opinion on their items. I have received the above pictured items which I am far too lazy to list at the moment free of charge and am reviewing them honestly. Anything else in these photos was bought and paid for by me from other sites.

Busy, busy!

Later today I'll be putting up the new Blogging for Beads photos. Right now I'm busy dealing with my partner's now-ex employer.

Been awhile, huh?

With finals just around the corner and all of these last minute projects, papers, and speeches due, I'll admit that I just haven't really had the time to photograph any of the jewelry I've got made, much less make a ton of new stuff.

No, my friends, that will happen during Spring Break. I have all the Artbeads stuff done and ready to post, I just fail at having free time.

But you can expect to see a preview of the stuff for the summer conventions at which I'll be selling.

I am proud to announce that Eclipsical Jewelry, in conjunction with Espirit Studios, will be going to Otakon in Baltimore, Maryland and Matsuri Con in Worthington, Ohio! Otakon is the last weekend of July, Matsuri Con is August 13-15. There are a couple summer festivals I'd like to sell at, but I think I may have my hands full just prepping for these two big events.

So if you don't here from me for awhile, it's alright. I'm just up to my ears in work.


One last thing, and that is that I am currently having a 30% off sale until March 20th. Order and get 30% off your total!