Sleepy Squishy Nakee Nora

Shey came out yesterday to take newborn photos of Nora. Shey's amazing; so patient and calm and lovely and made us all feel so comfortable. Oh, and she takes pretty good photos, too.

Seriously, I might have started bawling when I opened the link and saw the above photo.

I also might have squeaked out, "That's my baby!"

I mean, look at those squishy lips! [Headband by Harper and Eden on Etsy.]

And her daddy's hair!

And you cannot believe how soft her skin is; I rub her back sometimes while she breastfeeds and this photo makes me want to go wake her up so I can touch her back right now.

Stop it with this hat, ohmygoshIcan'thandleit! The pink and her skin and oh my stinkin' heck, it's all too perfectly beautiful.

Even through the lack of sleep and figuring out a newborn, she has brought such contentment to us. Our family.

Shey, thank you so very much for capturing our precious Nora and our now family of three.
I'll treasure these images always.

[Shey posted these images on her blog and gave me permission to use them here.
The title of this post is thanks to a tweet from my friend Ryley.]

A Different Ending (Part 5)

[This is Part 5 of a series of 6 (I think). Part 1 can be found here, Part 2 can be found here, Part 3 can be found here, and Part 4 can be found here. I fully realize that this is faaaaar more in-depth than most people care about, but I'm having a lot of fun going back over the past year and choosing photos and telling snippets of stories. I'm also realizing that some of these photos I uploaded to the computer and then never even looked at, so this is a good and much-needed chance to catch up and document our 2010. Thanks for bearing with me!]

Continued....

When she flew home from Orlando it felt exactly like someone had flipped a switch from summer to fall. She loves fall. Fall colors, and turtlenecks and sweaters and knee-high boots and corduroy and tweed. But especially fall colors.


Driving in the rain one day, she saw her favorite license plate ever. She is somewhat of a license plate connoisseur and her previous favorite had held the record for many years, so this was kind of a big deal. She pulled out her handheld camera and snapped without looking, hoping for a decent shot.

She says this several times a trip when she has to drive any distance here in Northern Virginia. "OhmuhGahd goooooooooooo!"

She and her husband decided to give their German friends, Danny and Sophie, an American experience by taking them to a corn maze.


As it turns out, Danny and Sophie had already been to that exact corn maze a few weeks before, but they all had fun anyway.

Afterward they went wine drinking wine tasting at a local winery and had even more fun.


She celebrated Thanksgiving with her husband at Danny and Sophie's house, and they all ate way too much food and drank a little too much wine and beer.


They played Wii, she fell in love with a Snuggie, they played Loaded Questions, and they laughed A LOT.


A few weeks later they went to a Christmas Market hosted by the German Military (for whom Danny works). It was great and made them miss European Christmas Markets so very much.


She continued making jewelry-jewelry-jewelry just as fast as she could.

Christ in the Center custom necklace.

She came out with some new designs.


She fulfilled custom orders and made ready-made pieces for her show stock.

Stamped & oxidized, before polishing & finishing.

She purchased a table at a brand-new Christmas Bazaar hosted by a local private school. She was still fairly nervous since this was really her first season doing shows, but she did really, really well, and was so happy and proud of herself for all her hard work. She loved connecting with everyone who loved her work, and it made her heart glad.

She showed for the first time, too, at a very cool show called Chick's Picks, where Hillary turns her home into a very very cool store for three days at a time. Artists bring their work and Hillary sets it all up in her house like an amazing boutique and women come in droves to shop. Because this artist features custom work, she was asked to come and take custom orders for one of the three days. Her table was in a corner in the basement. She had a lot of fun talking to customers


and shopping. And even though she was in a corner in the basement, she did very well.


Between the custom orders from her shows and from Etsy, she was working between 14 and 17 hours per day, 7 days per week, for the first two weeks of December.


She was glad and grateful for the business, but she was tired.


With the last of her orders dropped at the post office on the way to the airport, she and her husband were once again traveling to--where else?--Oregon.

They flew Delta because they are idiots haven't learned their lesson are masochists had some miles they could put towards the tickets. It took them a long time, but eventually they made it to Oregon, where everything seemed better because her mom had made butter cookies.


But it wasn't time to relax, no, not for her, not by a long shot! She was hosting two days of Open House jewelry shows at her parents'! She got to see a lot of old friends and somehow, magically, people trickled in and trickled out so it was never crazy and never dead and she got to chat and fulfill custom orders while people waited. It was kind of perfect!

That night she went on a double-date with her husband and his cousin Brad and his wife Ingrid. They went out for Peruvian food for dinner, and then they went to see an awesome taping of Live Wire, a Portland live-audience radio show. It was a tremendous amount of fun and made her want to live in Portland because it is such a cool city.

Even though it was less than a week before Christmas, she was still fulfilling last-minute custom orders because she's a sucker she's super nice and loves her customers. She took over her parents' dining table [and kept waiting for her dad to throw a fit but he never did].


Somehow, she managed to write their Christmas letter [it was not as good as in previous years and she wanted to rewrite it as soon as she finished it, but instead she just hit print and stopped thinking about it, mostly, except it kind of still bugs her] and got it copied and folded and stuffed and stamped and dropped them all in the mail.


The next day she headed into Portland to meet up with her husband (who'd spent the previous few days with his family) and go to their favorite Portland places. They had lunch at Kells


and they shopped at the Portland Saturday Market's "Festival of the Last Minute," where she bought some gorgeous handmade glass beads. Then they headed up to the very best bookstore in the world, and then over to Deschutes Brewery. [She would very much like to hear you all attempt to pronounce Deschutes.]

Pretty soon it was time to go to the home of Jenny (her husband's cousin-ish), where there was a big family reunion of their generation of cousin-ishes (maybe second cousins? Third? Second-once-removed? She cannot recall, can never remember, will not ask again).


[It was very fun and everyone is very nice, but she is an introvert and at a certain point would have very much liked to go play Legos with the kids in the other room. She may or may not have spent ten minutes hiding out in the bathroom, tweeting with friends on her phone.]

The next day she went wine tasting to many wineries with some of her husband's family.


The following day was a mostly quiet day at her in-laws' home, and she spent it catching up online and recharging and making earrings from some of the handmade beads she just bought at Saturday Market.


She decided she liked them so much that she called the artist (they had exchanged information) and set up a time to come buy more beads the next day, on Christmas Eve morning! She bought a lot more beads and hopes the glass artist sets up her online wholesale site like she's intending.

Then they went over to her parents' house for their annual Christmas Eve party. Somehow she managed to not take a single photo of the gathering! But she enjoyed her parents' homemade clam chowder, and the barbecued salmon that her dad caught and cleaned and cooked, and all of the other yummy treats her family enjoys every year on Christmas Eve. [It never feels like Christmas Eve to her without homemade clam chowder.] And she visited with cousins, and met her cousin's fiancé, and hung out with her favorite aunt (who used to live in Northern Virginia and now lives in Oregon), and missed her sister's family (who can almost never come home at Christmas because she's a nurse and her husband's a pastor).

Later that evening after everyone else left, her family exchanged presents. Her husband gave her a very cool fisheye lens, so of course she had to test it out right away.

Those are her purple-pajama'd knees at the bottom of the photo.

Then, like most photography buffs who get a new lens, she over-used it on everything, including breakfast the next morning. This breakfast is called Froobles, and it is a family thing and tradition and kind of weird but also awesome. She had it every Christmas and every Easter (and some other times, too) when she was growing up, and having it on Christmas morning at her parents' house makes her happy in a place deep inside, in a tucked-away spot in her heart reserved for reliving family traditions.


After breakfast they got ready and headed over to her husband's aunt and uncle's house for their big family gathering. She was put in charge of the salad.

She kind of loves this photo.

Everyone ate and then she took a photo of the table because they wanted to see how wide-angle the lens was.


After lunch everyone plays games until dinner, and after dinner everyone plays more games. Mexican Train is very popular. [She feels it necessary to say that they did not make up the name.]


As is Pinochle. She tries to make sure she's not standing around when they are trying to put together a game. [She's not very good and they are serious about their games; she doesn't like to let her partner down.]


While the grownups are playing games, all of the kiddos hang out and run around and play in the middle of the floor.


At some point, all of the middle generation of cousins and significant others might actually be in the same place at the same time, and everyone is rounded up for the annual group photo. Getting everyone to look at the same camera at the same time is like herding cats; she supposes that they are all actually in the photo is miracle enough.


The gaming continues and continues. This year they played a card game one of the cousins invented, and it was totally fun. Then she took advantage of the family sauna, and then showered and changed into pajamas and slippers (since her luggage was in the car). Properly buzzed and relaxed, her introvert self fell asleep in a back bedroom. She was woken up around midnight to drive home to her in-laws' house, where she exchanged gifts with her husband's parents and sister in a semi-zombie-like state.

The next morning when she woke up and got ready to head over to another aunt's house for their annual Ladies' Tea, she realized that she left all of her jewelry and her only shoes in the changing room outside the sauna. Whoooooops. Luckily that aunt hadn't left her house yet and brought everything with her to the Tea. In the meantime, she wore her slippers.

The Ladies' Tea was lovely, as it always is. They ate delicious fancy cheese and pear sandwiches, and cranberry scones with lemon curd, and curried chicken and pasta salad, and drank fancy teas, and sampled fancy desserts.


They all exchanged small gifts, and chatted & chatted & chatted. It's always a highlight of Christmastime.

The next day she re-packed suitcases, and packed boxes full of whatever didn't fit (which was a lot) and mailed them to herself, because it was time to leave home (where she's from) and fly home (where she lives).

They had quite an adventure getting home because, after all, they did fly Delta which might possibly be run by the devil's minions. She will not recount it here, but suffice it to say that 1) by the time they arrived home they had a collection of twenty-six different boarding passes (not all used, of course) to get them back and forth across the country, and 2) the priority mail box she shipped herself almost beat them home. [And then they signed up for a different credit card rewards program because they are just done-done-done with Delta.]

When she arrived home she did what she usually does after a Christmas in Oregon. She slipped into hibernation/recharge mode, and once she had quiet and time to think, she lamented and beat herself up for her fierce introversion, which becomes a problem sooner or later every Christmas. She laments that she is physically-mentally-emotionally-psychologically unable to keep up with the scheduling demands and socializing and huge groups of people, but she is a people pleaser and her very extroverted husband loves it, so she tries and sooner or later her brain is totally overwhelmed and can't take one more thing, and she snaps.

She does not like to snap, but it happens, and then she is embarrassed and frustrated and she doesn't know how to stop the cycle. She imagines what people think of her when they see her snap, and she wants to fold in on herself. Sometimes she get angry, because she tries to plan ahead, she makes requests for her needs (and they are needs, not wants) to be accommodated, to leave at a certain time... but in the thrill of the party it's "one more game" or "one more drink" or "ten more minutes" (which turns into hours). So she feels neglected and dismissed and misunderstood and angry.

She wonders if it will ever be different, or if it will always be this way. She feels frustrated and sad, and she wants Christmas to be wonderful and relaxing and not stressful. She wonders if this is delusional, if anyone experiences a not-stressful Christmas. She feels ridiculous and ashamed that she is loved by so many people that it is too many (or just too many all at once) for her and she feels selfish for needing and wanting to be loved in a different way. She vows to do things differently next year, to take care of herself better, although she's not sure how; she knows something's gotta give but she doesn't know what.

She tries to cut herself some slack and accept herself the way she is. She sinks happily, lovingly, deeper into her annual much-needed, post-Christmas hibernation.


At some point in early January she turns on the CD player in her bathroom as she steps into the shower, and Christmas music--leftover from before her trip--starts to play. She realizes, suddenly in a tidal wave that hits her smack in the face and rains down hard over her, that in her busy-ness, her preparing so many gifts of jewelry for other people to give, her checking Christmas things off her never-ending To Do lists, her working whenever she was awake and never taking a minute to stop and breathe, she never once felt the Christmas Spirit, not for a moment. She cries in the shower, and she makes a vow.

Somehow, somehow, somehow, next Christmas, things will be different.

Favorite {Photo} Friday--I See The Moon and The Moon Sees Me

This has been a rough week. I mean, a really, really rough week. Monday started out incredibly well with a dinner with some friends; I got some much-needed face-to-face conversation with women and it was amazing. But everything slid downhill fast fast fast after that. I'm fine; I'll be fine. I'm not dying, Jason and I are as strong as ever. But I'm not going to say any more than that, except to ask that if you have any spare prayers or positive thoughts laying around, I could really use some sent my way. Thank you.

Tonight was the Wolf Moon, as I just learned thanks to Twitter, so I put on some gloves and grabbed my tripod and took my camera out onto the back deck.


I'm still learning photographic tricks and I'm still learning my camera, but I'm pretty happy with this one, all things considered! And by "all things" I mean that my tripod was balanced on three different objects and I was perched on a stool and it was freezing cold out and I had gloves on and couldn't see any of the buttons on my camera so I kept pressing the wrong ones. LOL!

We're supposed to get a bunch of snow tomorrow so we're cuddled in hoping to stay warm, and the fridge is stocked ! Have a great weekend!

Project 365, Week 4

I'm still totally loving this whole Project 365 thing! (As always, click on the photo if you want to see it much larger and read the journaling. Then click back to this post, please!)


This project is definitely teaching me some things. This week I learned that I need to get out more, and that I eat a lot of fruit and like photographing it. :) I also learned that just because you design and sell Photoshop templates online, that doesn't mean you know how to do math. I'm sure you can't notice it on here, but the two middle photos and journaling spots (the coffee mug and the dead rose) are slightly thinner than the others. In fact, all of the strips are slightly different widths. This kind of thing totally annoys me; I mean, can't you do the math and make all the strips the same? It would be really easy to do! So easy, in fact, that I'm considering redoing this template before I use it again, just so all the strips are even. Yes, I know, I'm a tad anal detail-oriented; it's quite charming once you get to know me. :)

In case you're wondering, I usually upload photos and add them to the template every day or at least every other day; I don't want to ever feel like I have to "catch up" because then I will just say, "Aw, screw it!" and I'll stop doing the whole thing and just have some random unfinished album with a few weeks of these layouts, hanging over my head as yet another sign that I don't finish everything I start. And we don't want that! :) It usually takes me about ten minutes per day to upload photos, fix them if need be, add them to the template, and write out my journaling. Towards the end of the week I start choosing the colors for the journaling spots based on the colors in the photos, and that can take ten minutes or an hour depending on how I'm feeling and how much free time I have and whether or not Jason is watching football. Then when I'm all done with each week, it takes me about ten minutes to save the file as a jpg, upload it to Costco, order two prints, and then re-size the original image for posting here. So, all told, it takes me about an hour and a half per week I guess. That sounds like a lot! I think I could do it faster, but I enjoy the process so I like to take my time.

Thanks for looking, and let me know if you have any questions!

Favorite {Photo} Friday--SOOC

I think I'm going to like this new camera, oh yes I do!

I realize that this is not a prize-winning or inspiring photo, but if you'd ever used my old camera you would understand how excellent this is.


This photo is straight out of the camera (SOOC). I didn't have to edit the brightness or contrast or color or anything. And it's of food. Often food will come out looking less-than-appetizing when photographed--that's why they make the food inedible by coating it with sprays and lacquers when they photograph food for magazines!

This is our lunch at the airport when we flew home from Oregon to DC. The Portland airport (PDX) was ranked the best airport in the country by Conde Nast Traveler... for three years in a row! 2006, 2007, and 2008... in 2009 it slipped to second place. Growing up in Oregon I didn't travel by plane a lot, but obviously the airport I spent the most time at was PDX, even if it was just to pick someone up. Remember the time before cell phones and the internet (and the internet on cell phones!) when you had to wait around airports for delayed flights? Ah, childhood. Anyway, PDX was my reference for what airports were all about, so when I grew up and started traveling around, other airports shocked and appalled me with their lack of recycling or their griminess or their waaaaaay overpriced and/or totally mediocre food. Portland rocks. And this meal was no exception; totally delicious salads, onion rings, and dark beer, for reasonable prices, and with excellent service. Imagine!

But back to the subject, I really think I'm going to like this new camera. And I've almost completely gotten used to the redness of it; I don't even say, involuntarily and out loud, "It's RED" like I did for the first three days whenever I saw it. :) I need to put my 50mm 1.4 lens on her and see what we can do then, wheeeee!

I'm getting sick so I'm going to save my "Hooray for 2010" posts for later this week, but they're coming... hopefully, assuming this cold doesn't knock me down and out! I'll also be announcing my One Little Word and a special necklace deal!

Happy New Year!

Favorite {Photo} Friday--Yes, It's Red

If you follow me on Twitter or we're friends on Facebook or you've come within 500 feet of me while I'm trying to take photos, then you might've heard me complaining about my camera. It's a Pentax and nobody else uses Pentax, which doesn't bother me that I'm not a "cool kid" with the same camera as everyone else, but does bother me because there's no one else I can turn to when I have Pentax-specific questions, or to offer-up Pentax-related tips and tricks like so many people with Canons and Nikons do. What does bother me is that it takes forever to focus if anything at all in the viewfinder is moving; I can't use it to take photos of my nieces since those beauties never ever stop moving. As if that's not bad enough, the camera makes these really annoying noises while it's refusing to focus, noises that make me want to throw it, as hard as I can, through a wall. Yes, not even through a window, but straight through the damn wall and onto the lawn outside, like I'm Superman. And there are some other wonky things that piss torque me off about it; the more I learn about photography, the more my camera pisses torques me off.

Jason has heard, more than 18 zillion times once, about how much this camera annoys me. How I have to wait for just the right light and put the camera on a tripod and jump up and down on one foot while crossing my fingers and singing the Latvian National Anthem, just to get decent shots of my jewelry. And then run downstairs, upload them to my computer, see which of the 1400 I took came out okay and which I need to re-take, and start all over again. And then edit EVERY SINGLE PHOTO for contrast and brightness, because I just CANNOT make the camera do what I want, no matter which settings I try and how many practice shots I take and which Eastern European countries' national anthems I learn.

The problem is that I have all these nice lenses that I've acquired that fit my Pentax [like this one and this one, both of which cost a lot less when we got them than they're listed for now, holy crap cow, I'm glad I looked these up to link them, I feel rich now! :)]. And when I looked up the later-model Pentaxes, specifically the K20D, the reviews of it list the exact same problems that I have with mine (the ist DL). But when it comes right down to it, my camera is holding me back in my business; I hate listing new things because it's such a dang process to take photos of all my pieces. So I was just about ready to give up and go ahead and buy something totally and completely new. I decided on this back in, say, September.

Except I'm a Maximizer. I can't make a decision about a purchase this big without researching it to the Nth degree, and I haven't had the time or the mental energy to devote to an Nth degree search, so I just haven't done it. I've dealt with the annoying, I-want-to-throw-it-through-a-wall camera, and tried to focus on how lucky I am to have a nice camera, and how I'm learning to use it better, and blah blah blah I hate my camera.

So imagine--I mean, seriously, just try to imagine--my surprise when I opened up my Christmas present from Jason on Christmas Eve, and found this:


Yes, it's fluorescent red. I realize it's hard to tell in this photo, so here's another shot:


Here it looks sort of fluorescent coral. It kind of changes depending on the light, but if you remember the 80's, then you remember this particular color. Fluorescent red; in some lights it looks almost hot pink, except there's a little too much orange in it. That drink glass next to the camera, in case you're wondering, was to help dull my senses.

Here's another photo from the Internets:


So, I must admit, quite frankly, that the red freaked me the heck out. I love red, but aren't cameras supposed to be, you know, not fluorescent black?

But sweet, sweet, Jason did the researching for me; this is a brand-new model from Pentax. So brand-new that he didn't even know if it would arrive in time for Christmas!! The initial reviews are much, much better than the reviews for mine or the K20D. I didn't have any small children handy, so my awesome mom ran back and forth across the living room, and holy crap, this baby took her photo! And it didn't make any noises that made me even think about throwing it through a wall! It just took her photo as she zigged and zagged across the living room! [And really, how many moms of 34-year-olds will zig and zag across the living room late at night on Christmas Eve? Awesome.]

Obviously I have a lot to learn about this new doll, and I have to get used to the fact that she's fluorescent red, but I'm super excited to work with her and see how she does. And Jason's already promised that if I don't like it I can sell her on eBay, LOL! :) Actually this model is available in America in black and white, and limited edition colors of (fluorescent) red and navy; in Japan it's available in customization of I think 20 different body colors and 16 different grip colors... now that would be something to get used to! I guess our boring old black cameras are going to be a thing of the past... does that make me a trend-setter? LOL! :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Favorite {Photo} Friday--In Search of Photobooths

It seems like years ago that I went to Orlando to visit Lori and go to CHA, but it was only the end of July! The past week or so I've been itching to work on my mini-book for Orlando and then Anke posted some of her photos from that weekend on Facebook, so I decided to go through my photos and start to pare them down to edit and send them to print. Looking at the photos I was reminded of a funny common theme so I thought I'd post some of them for this week's Favorite {Photo} Friday!

[Note: I could go on and on and on about how I met Lori, how we became friends, how my trip to visit her was serendipitious in eight ways and totally needed in eight zillion ways not even known when we booked the trip, how much she means to me, how much I love her and her friend Anke, how I want to move into a cul-de-sac with them both as my neighbors, and how I'm already plotting my next visit with them... but it's 10 p.m. on Friday and I need to get this posted so I can spend some time with my husband! So here is the quick & dirty version, okay? :) Keeping in mind of course that I'm neither very quick nor very dirty, but we're speaking comparatively, okay?]

[Also note: click on any of the photos to view them larger.]

So: When we were in Orlando Lori took me to Cafe Tu Tu Tango. They had a photo booth and we thought it would be super fun to get our photos taken after dinner, so we scrounged up enough coins and sat down to take our photos and had a blast.

And then we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

No photos. We asked inside and they told us that it happens sometimes; they gave us our money back, but we were still disappointed.

So I decided that we should take our own photos in the photo booth! So we sat in the photo booth and I held up my little pocket camera about where the camera was and snapped four quick photos.

Tonight as I was going through the photos I found these four photos and decided to try to make my own photo strip with them, so a Google search came to the rescue and I found this post with a free Photoshop template and brief tutorial (assuming you 1) have Photoshop Elements and 2) sort of already know how to use it) to make a photo booth strip! Hooray!


Isn't this CUTE for a faked photo booth strip? [So yeah, I know I did something wrong and the proportions are a little off, but it makes us look thinner, so pretend you didn't notice, mmmm'kay? Thanks!]

Then we went to CHA and the DCWV booth had a photo booth! So of course we snapped up the chance to have our do-over and get our photo strip. But it didn't come out as a strip, and it had advertising in the middle.


So we were still excited, and the photos are cute, aren't they? And I love how the bottom corners of each photo are rounded, but the top corners are square... sort of random and cool! But it wasn't quite the same. We were banking on Photoshop to help us out when we got home.

And then, randomly, we decided to go back to Cafe Tu Tu Tango because Claudine had an hour or so to go out to lunch with us, and it was close by and yummy.

As we walked in, I happened to look down and spot this:


It printed out! Who knows how long after we left, and I'm actually surprised it was still there and didn't get thrown out or stapled to the abandoned photo wall (yes, they have an abandoned photo wall!).

In any event, I'm so glad that we have three different versions of photo booth photos! :)

****************************************

Lots and lots and lots and lots going on this weekend! My day tomorrow is full to overflowing and Sunday I need to catch up on a ton of Etsy orders--HOORAY! I have a TON to share (with photos, even!) and I'm hoping to fit it in at some point very soon. Fingers crossed.

Have a great weekend!

A Few April Creations

I've been writing so many text-heavy posts lately that I thought I'd throw up an image-heavy post for a change with photos of some things I've been working on lately. :) Which I can DO since our big computer is back up with new photo-editing software (which I am slowly-but-surely getting used to!)!! Hooray!!!!

Here are some more charms I made for another swap with some Inspired ladies. (And oh my goodness I love my 50mm 1.4 fixed lens! Which I only used for this shot out of all of the ones that follow, for some reason; I need to play with it more.)


Another Inspired swap. This one is for art journal pages, designed for people to be able to draw and write on, focused on our personal One Little Words for 2009. It's hard to tell in the photo but the pattern is made by glimmery-inky spray (made by me) sprayed onto each page over a flower template (Maya Road Sheer Sheet). It's really shimmery in real life; see how there are variations of greens and yellows in the photo? Really it's just one color but the more yellowy parts are where it's reflecting the light more. Then I stamped my word on top.


I kind of wimped out on the back and did the definition on the printer instead of by hand, but as you may know I'm kind of anal precise about words and their definitions and I just imagined myself writing all this out 31 times and I almost passed out. So the printer won out, and then I stamped flowers in the top corner. Also, the outside edge is punched with a new EK Success mini scallop punch which is apparently so new that it's not even on the EK Success website until May 1 (as I found out when I tried to embed the link and there isn't one). Little did I know I'm such a trend-setter, ha ha! (The slimline punches are all AWESOME, by the way.)


Sweet, sweet Claudine lost her beloved adorable puppy Toby to cancer this past Thursday. Claudine was an instructor at Inspired last year and we've stayed in touch via Facebook and Twitter. (Yes, for real.) For the past few months I've been reading daily (and sometimes hourly) updates on Toby's status and was so, so sad for Claudine when she announced that he'd passed. She was so, so good to him and she is such an animal lover that I wanted to do something for her. This is a photo of Toby that's mounted in a sterling silver bezel setting and then covered in epoxy.


I gave this to her at the class Michelle and I took from her on Saturday but told her not to open it until she got home (she was doing a remarkable job--via avoidance--of staying upbeat and super-professional considering she lost her dog two days before!). I got an e-mail from her later saying that she loves it and was wearing it non-stop. Man-oh-man do I love to give gifts that touch people and that they enjoy.

Speaking of gifts, I've been busy fulfilling orders for Mother's Day. Here's one I just made (ordered by the grandma) for a mama with four kiddos. The crystals represent the kids' birthstones.


Here's another order for Mother's Day that my sweet friend Marliss ordered for her daughter. David is the husband/father and the three little hearts each bear the first initial of her triplets. (Triplets? Mamma mia!)


Remember when I had to get industrial? When I tried every-damn-thing and still couldn't fuse until I broke down and got propane? GUESS WHAT?!?! It was the stupid brick I was fusing on. Long dumb story, but I bought a new brick while I was in Seattle and now I am a fusing freaking expert. Okay, so maybe not expert. But holy crap, what a difference! I've been so busy I hadn't even had a chance to try fusing until this week and within a short time of using my new brick I'd made this sweet bracelet:


I freaking love it. I made it out of silver wire! It was a spool of silver wire and then a while later it was a bracelet! That's so freakin' cool. I put three little birds (which I did not make) on the end of it to remind me to not worry (if anyone knows why this is you get a prize. No, really, the first person to comment with the correct reason--and why they know it, and Google does not count--gets a prize!) but I'm going to have to take them off because they get caught on everything. Seriously. Today I was driving and when I went to click something on the GPS the birds got stuck in the air vent. The light was turning green and my right hand was stuck to the dashboard, which was a problem considering I drive a stick shift! I had to reach over with my left hand and unclasp the bracelet to change gears. So the birds are coming off. This is also a good reminder that I should personally field-test all my new designs before I sell them! :) But I still love the bracelet.

I took these last two photos while walking my 10-mile training walk on Tuesday. I love walking under these trees. I'm so tempted to bring a chair and a book and a glass of wine and set up camp under these trees!


I don't usually pick random people's flowers, but I must admit that on my way back home I snapped off one of these beauties.


They're this gorgeous for such a short time and I wanted to enjoy it fully. I kept smelling it and putting the blossom up against my cheek. Divine. Soft and fluttery against my cheek and all the more gorgeous for being so short-lived.