Great Giveaway!!

Some of you may know about my obsession with Green Girl Studios pewter and sterling beads and pendants. A blog I follow is offering a great Green Girl Giveaway, with five different pewter frog-themed pieces. Lorelei's Blog: Inside the Studio is an interesting blog by a fellow jewelry artist, and she is celebrating the release of Cynthia Thornton's new book (one of the Green Girl artists) and the inclusion of one of her own pieces in the gallery section. Awesome! I'm really looking forward to the book, called "Enchanted Adornments", which is getting great reviews in the jewelry/bead art world. Go to Lorelei's blog and leave a comment and you're automatically entered to win! I really hope it's me, tee hee.

Below is a picture of some pieces I bought from Green Girl Studios earlier this year.

Changes, Opportunities, Beginnings

This past week has been a challenge for each role I perform daily; I grew as a mother, wife, and artist. I am glad to take a moment to reflect on that, and acknowledge the stress life can sometimes bring. This week brought a new school schedule for my oldest daughter, a change in work schedule for my husband, and I found out I have three classes booked for the month, which is a VERY good thing, particularly in the artist budget arena.

My family needs me so much, but they inspire me every minute. For example, the Mermaid necklace is inspired by my little water babies, who swam this whole long weekend! We had a blast swimming in the beautiful Gulf, at the Treasure Island Public Beach. We saw so many fish! I'll have to do a necklace with all of those magic fish as inspiration.




This necklace was made with Glass seed beads and little bits of Labradorite and moonstone. The center piece is a magical mermaid from Green Girl Studios, a favorite of mine for many years. The back has an inscription that reads "even lovers drown".




I've also included pictures of a necklace I call "Montana Blue Bird", with a more modern birdie motif and lots of freshwater pearls, Swarovski crystals, and Iolite beads woven throughout the seed bead base.





I wanted to include both of these necklaces in one post because they were made with the same basic technique, which is a (very) modified Zulu stitch. Zulu is fun and easy. It is also great for those times when you need to just go with the flow and design as you go along, making the beadwork more or less full, as desired.