Reveling in the Holiday Spirit

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas. Hubby and I took a little trip after Thanksgiving and headed down South to New Orleans to take a couple of cruises out of their port. I think I was more impressed with New Orleans than the cruises but we had a great time even though it took away from my holiday creating and planning. 

Here we are on Grand Cayman which was our second stop on Royal Caribbean.

We loved the Royal Caribbean ship. It had a central promenade with windows from upper cabins that looked down over it. Reminded us of a little city.

You can see a little bit better here how there were shops and pubs throughout the central core of the ship.

We were able to take one excursion at Costa Maya (our first stop on the Norwegian cruise) and visited the Chacchoben Mayan ruins there. They were amazing.

Here we are nice, hot and tired in Roatan, Honduras on the West side.

An Iguana Farm where there were hundreds just walking around.

Another local wild life park in Roatan where we saw Capuchin monkeys and exotic birds.

In New Orleans we took time out for a cooking demonstration at the New Orleans School of Cooking. We learned to make Gumbo, Jumbalaya and Pralines.

Another highlight was eating the beignets at Cafe de Monde.

I think one of the hardest parts of the trip was seeing all the houses that still need renovating in the part of New Orleans that flooded. I just love the history and the architecture of the buildings from the French side to the American side. Amazing old buildings that they have kept and preserved.

The holiday with family was of course the best it could be and we hope to see all of them again next year. 

Coming up for me is more art and jewelry designs along with classes that will be new for 2013. I'll be teaching my Hammered Pendant along with my other two jewelry type classes (Simply Findings and Falling Leaves) at Shipwreck this coming year and I may sneak a new gem tree design in.... who knows.

Have a great New Year.

Finished for the Year

We are finally finished with all our demonstrating at gem and mineral shows for the year. Since we will be traveling so much we don't have anymore scheduled until the first weekend in June. Quite a big break for us as we usually do one in April and one in May. I think 2013 will be our mega travel year with a long extended vacation to Italy. I'll definitely be blogging more about that as we get closer.

I worked on some metal pieces this weekend along with some bullet charm/pendants. Both are selling well and I have a class scheduled at the gem and mineral show this coming Saturday to teach this technique. Funny, I have more men in my class than women. Since it involves a lot of hammering, I would have thought that would have appealed to women wanting to get out their aggressions...I know I do. It really does make for a better marriage if he can handle all the noise. ha

So here are a few pieces from this weekend.

I did four Mexican Fire Opals (second photo) in copper, the Ammonite in copper, Tiger Eye in brass and the unknown lovely blue stone (may be Shattuckite but definitely a copper mineral) with copper flecks mounted in copper. My favorite is the Tiger Eye in brass even though the brass was a bear to work with even when I annealed it using the torch.

Here is an example of the bullets with Mexican Fire Opal glued inside the bezel. They've been cleaned up a bit since I took this photo this weekend and the lighter one sold as well as one I made as a special order for Johnny of Tipps Gems who brought me over this wonderful faceted opal and wanted it mounted in one of the bullets. It turned out great but unfortunately I didn't get a photo of it. Since it was a trade for services, I did receive a faceted sunstone, faceted citrine and a piece of faceted red glass....all will look great mounted in the bullets.

Faceted stones look great mounted.

I'll be sure to take some photos of my class this weekend and their creations...I'm sure they will be great.

Cheers, Dana

Spooky Bracelet and a Blog Hop

As promised yesterday here is my Halloween bracelet I made with the charm swap hosted by Thespa at Vintiquities Workshop.  This first picture is of my pendant. I had charms left over so I fashioned the word "Boo" from wire and then attached the charms at the bottom. Now I just have to add my chain. The charms were all awesome and creative. Thanks to Thespa for organizing.

Now if you would like to see all the others bracelets created by the participants click HERE. She also has some fun Halloween printables that would be fun to play with.

Happy Halloween everyone and let us all remember the folks affected by the huge storm Sandy on the East coast. My thoughts and prayers are with you all.

Are you Ready?

For Halloween that is.....

Such a spooky time with all the kiddies out and trick or treating and all the houses decorated. There are some that even get the dogs involved now with costumes. We haven't but I have thought about it. Well I will have a special post tomorrow with my spooky Halloween charm bracelet and a blog hop hosted by Thespa over at Vintiquities Workshop. We had some really fun and spooky charms created by all the participants.

Here is a look at some of the charms I have created for Halloween this year.

I had fun creating the word art with the copper wire. I know it's hard to tell but the top charm is a skull bead with a hammered piece of copper wire and crystals with handmade head pins. Lots of cool charms to come.

We were traveling for 3 weeks in the motor home so being home has been nice although I'm still not caught up with cleaning and laundry.

I was able to capture some deer photos as they roamed the campground we were at. They were almost tame as they really didn't care if you were there or not. I stayed my distance as I have heard that they can get pretty mean if they are used to getting fed by people and you don't feed them.

Our last little trip was to Oregon's wine country and to go to the Evergreen Air and Space Museum. It was a great week. I don't think I have ever tasted so much Pinot Noir in my life, some good and some not so good.

These were taken by my husband with a little point and shoot and they turned out really well.

At the Space Museum the Titan 2

One of the very first passenger planes.

It's hard to imagine how large this plane is. It is the Spruce Goose the largest wooden float plane. It is massive.

Fun trip but yes we are glad to be home.

Wrapped and Tabbed

I can't believe it's been a whole month since I posted here. Wow, it has been busy. I did post on my Art blog so you can always find me there if I'm not here. In fact, follow them both and then you'll find out everything that is going on in my artsy little world.

This week has been all about pendants. It started as a desire to create a tutorial for the newsletter of a gem and mineral club I belong to and has morphed. I found a picture of a Linda Larson pendant that doesn't use solder and thought that would be perfect for those not wanting to learn to solder or afraid of using a torch.

My first design was to just use 12 gauge wire and hammer the dickens out of it and then punch holes and use wire to sort of wire wrap the stone in place. Fun, fun, fun. I love hammering. So, I've now made several with a couple of different wrap designs and think I have a good handle on the tutorial part as I try to streamline the process.

My second design I just finished today and was inspired by one of Linda's pendants...you can view it HERE. It is a piece of copper sheet, cut and then tabbed to hold the cabachon. It's really my favorite but does take some time to cut, shape, file, hammer and fit the cab.

Well, I will be taking a break from working with wire tomorrow as we are headed to the beach for the day. Maybe I'll even remember to take my camera and get the dogs in action on the beach.

Death of a Schoolgirl, a Book Review

I recently had the opportunity to pre-read the newest book by Joanna Campbell Slan this past week and boy was it good. Joanna writes the wonderful Kiki Lowenstien Scrap-N-Craft Mysteries.

This is a great Summer read. Here is my review.

Death of a Schoolgirl by Joanna Campbell Slan

The classic story of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte continues in this new book by Joanna Campbell Slan. The story starts out with Jane and Edward Rochester living happily with their newborn son set in 1820 which is just a little after where the original Jane Eyre stopped. Things appear to be going well until they get a disturbing letter from Edward’s ward who was sent to a girls boarding school in London. With Edward not able to travel, Jane sets out for London to check on the girl. In route, Jane runs into all kinds of problems and they don’t stop when she finally reaches London. Her first visit to the boarding house has her embroiled in a murder mystery that she can not help but try to solve.

In classic Jane Eyre fashion, Joanna has spun a story that will keep you turning the page to find out what will happen and who did it. The book is so well written that you could have just read the original Jane Eyre and then picked up Death of a Schoolgirl and continued with her story and not lost a beat. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and look forward to the continued escapades of Jane.

This book will be released to the public August 7th. Here is the link to it on Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Death-Schoolgirl-Jane-Eyre-Chronicles/dp/0425247740/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343339798&sr=1-1&keywords=death+of+a+school+girl

Please note that I was not compensated for reviewing this book but I did get a free Ebook copy to read.