I had a delightful weekend for my birthday celebration, and it has taken me a few days to get back into the swing of things. I am keeping busy with orders and getting ready for holiday sales, but I wanted to take a quick break to write about a new book that is on bookshelves. Cynthia Thornton's Enchanted Adornments has finally come out! I have been eagerly awaiting this book release, and not just because I was fortunate enough to have my Queen Mab necklace below added to the gallery section of the book. That was quite an honor. I knew this book would be great, knowing Cynthia and her magical work. And it certainly is great... it is absolutely gorgeous! There are all sorts of enchanted sketches and drawings throughout it, and the projects are wonderful! I was definitely inspired to want to try new techniques after just a quick flip-through. Just like Cynthia's delightful Green Girl beads, the book is full of fantasy and steeped in traditions of fairies, stories, and magic. It is a breathtaking journey through her creative process, and I think that readers of this book will be in for a fantastical treat!

You can enter to win a copy of Enchanted Adornments and a selection of my new beads! They are some of the prizes offered in the Art Bead Scene challenge this month. Create your own enchanted fairy themed jewelry using some art beads, and enter to win! Details over on the Art Bead Scene.

I sent out my newsletter last night announcing my new beads in the etsy shop, introducing readers to Now Showing, and a big sale at my website. If you aren't on the newsletter mailing list, you can view the newsletter here and take advantage of the sale too! For those of you who did get the email... did the mini-etsy shop at the bottom come through in the email, and did it work properly so you could click to etsy? I would love some feedback on that, please.

I still have a few more hearts and the keys and locks to list today. I am also working a bit on another etsy shop (I know! I am crazy!) This is one I set up a while ago for my tile and ornaments, but havent' really had a chance to utilize much. I thought I would revive it, call it the Earthenwood Ceramics Galleria, and start listing some of my finished jewerly in it. Maybe some tiles and ornaments if i can get some made for the holidays. I just don't like to mix it in with my etsy bead store for some reason.

Well, there is much to do today. And the weekend is every full with social gatherings. Sunday is my birthday! YAY, me! I will be off celebrating! see you all next week.

I wrote a big post for Art Bead Scene today all about the Fairy Feller painting, so I think I will keep today's blog here short. I wanted to show some of the new small dragonfly charms and links alongside the big ones. I am really in love with both of them, and I am dying to play with them! I have ideas for bracelets with the links and the charms. Maybe today I will get a chance to play!

The links, charms, and pendants with holes (instead of wire loops) are sort of new for me. I designed them so that I can put holes in them this time. I have to make that consideration in the design, so it doesn't look like the hole interrupts the design. The wires are less conspicuous, but they have their own design and construction problems, so I figured I would give this a try. So my questions to the beaders out there is: Which do you prefer? The wire loops for charms and links, or holes. Also, I would love to hear what you would make with these little dragonfly links with two holes. Do tell!

I promised yesterday that I would show the prize for one random winner who enters the Art Bead Scene November Challenge using an Earthenwood bead or component. Here it is! It is a selection of four of my newest beads, all in a pretty peacock color. The small Dragonfly Rising link is about an inch round. I love this new design and can't wait to do some beading with them! I also made a smaller version of the scarab, and made that a link too. I think it will make a cute bracelet, or a necklace with a little charm dangle. And this is the first time I have shown the new Heartkey and Heartlock pendants, which I really adore. I think they would be fun for a pair of friends, with one of each of them getting one and making matching friendship necklaces!

Tonight, I edited all my pictures and listed a bunch of new Dragonfly Rising pendants on Etsy, both small and large. I also listed the Spiralling Mayfly pendants. Whew that was a lot of work. I have pics of the new hearts to list next, but I am starting to fall asleep at the keyboard here!

All this hard work is leading up to my upcoming newsletter. I have my annual big sale planned, so I hope you will sign up for the newsletter to get the news! I only sent one or two emails a month, so it is a good way to keep up with me. To sign up, you can use the form on the homepage of my website.

I am honored to have been given the opportunity to choose the source of inspiration for November's challenge over on the Art Bead Scene. It is the painting shown above, The Fairy Feller's Master Stroke by Richard Dadd, which is one of my favorite pieces of art. I hope it will inspire others the way it has inspired me. It is full of very detailed imagery, with many fairies and flora and fauna. I will be giving away the prizes below to the winner of the challenge, and will be popping in as a guest blogger during the month!

I thought it would be fun to offer a secondary challenge to those of you who enter the Art Bead Scene challenge! I will offer a separate prize of some of my newest works to one person who submits a piece to Art Bead Scene using an Earthenwood Studio bead or component. To be considered for this prize, you must first add your photo to the Art Bead Scene Flickr group, following their rules. Then add your photo to the Earthenwood Gallery Flickr group. At the end of the month, I will randomly choose one piece as the winner! Time to finally get those fairy beads out of your treasured bead stashes and make something with them! Come back tomorrow for a picture of the prize. And also check out the brand new Dragonfly Rising, Lotus Butterfly, and Spiralling Mayfly pendants that I have recently listed in the Earthenwood Etsy shop.

I hope you had a happy Halloween! I had a great time! Today is part of the celebration of the Day of the Dead! I figured in the spirit of the weekend celebrations, I would show the tiny sugar skull charm pair that I made for a special order. There is one pair left, in the Etsy shop, if you want them. I think they would make an adorable pair of earrings.

I also listed some of the new Dragonflies and Scarabs if you have been waiting for those. I have more to photograph, plus some new butterflies that I am in love with! My kiln with the first batch of butterflies overfired, so the glazes look really different, but they are still really neat and I will photograph them and list them this week.

Whew! It's November now! This is probably going to be my busiest month of the year, but I am ready to take it on! Let's start with this week's Extra Links:

A Bead A Day
Looking for a great way to commemorate a special moment or gift? Design a piece of jewelry!

About.com Jewelry Making
It's like Wal-Mart, only you want to be there in this virutal tour of Shipwreck Beads.

Art Bead Scene
Art Bead Scene is having a book fair. Read up on your favorites!

Carmi's Art/Life World
Carmi has finally discovered how great polymer clay is.

Cindy Gimbrone aka the Lampwork Diva
Not thinking about your holiday gift list yet? Cindy helps get you started with a Knot Ready for Prime Time Lucky Knots and Friends Projects so you can get started now!

Jean Campbell
Jean celebrates her favorite holiday by showing off her costume and some very cool baubles

Jewelry & Beading
Krystal Backer, beading artist, shares her creative inspirations with Cyndi.

Lorelei's Blog: Inside the Studio
Have you been following Lorelei's Necklace Round Robin? Come take a look at the finished pieces!

Snap Out of it, Jean! There's beading to be done!
Jean reviews a delightful book by the editor of BeadStyle: Cathy Jakicic

Strands of Beads
Melissa shows off her favorite necklace created for Cynthia Thornton's Enchanted Adornments and winner in the metal clay category of the British Bead Awards

Well today was a busy day of working. Whew! Running Earthenwood and starting up Now Showing Studio is quite exhilarating! I think that starting something new is just the thing I needed to give me some new energy for my regular work. One thing that has been a huge help and change for me is having people do some of the tasks for me. Having a shipping assistant come and pack up my orders saves me so much time (plus we have a blast working together). And having a packaging and assembly helper is awesome! All the little things that you don't really think about that need to get done in a business... well, I have her help with those, and we work, and watch movies, and *poof* they are done! These are things that I was doing all myself, when i could have been spending time on the creative parts of the business, or the things that I can't really have someone else do. I hope, in the end, that hiring this help makes it worthwhile for all of us. I am enjoying the experiment, and I do think it will be good for business.

Above, is one of the new Now Showing necklaces. This one was cut from a Creepshow dvd backer card. Spooky, huh? I have been working with various horror movie cards, but I think I am going to move on to the anime cards soon, because I think the horror themes might be a little limited to Halloween, and the Anime ones are super fun to do. I just listed a bunch of pieces cut from a Dragonball Z card!

Ok, I think I am done with being all super secret about the new project I have been working on! Alex (drummermc ) and I started a little side business based on some cool items we found at a video store that was going out of business. We are recycling DVD backer cards into really neat jewelry! We have called the business Now Showing Studio, and have set up a new Etsy shop and a blog and have been working hard to get some pieces designed and listed in the shop. There will be many more to come, and I will blog about it occassionally here on the Earthenwood blog, but please go and bookmark the new sites, because the news will go up there first! Help spread the word if you like what you see...

Thanks also to Skennedy, (atdt1991 ) who made the graphics for Now Showing!

Oh, and I set up an LJ feed for the Now Showing blog, but LJ seems to be wonky and is not updating feeds properly (according to the LJ known issues).  Feel free to add it to your reading list, and let's cross our fingers that I did it right.
 

Hey! It has been a couple of days since I last blogged. I have been busy working on clay work for several orders, which I finished this afternoon (at least the wet work is done). I also appear to have caught a little cold, so I have been resting and watching movies and doing clay while working on the still secret new idea! I am totally re-energized with this, and I can't wait to show you! But first I need some help with research.

I have recently become very interested in film and movies. Not that it didn't interest me before... I like movies, of course. But I have recently begun to really think about them and how much they add to our lives. I have also been looking at film and movie theatre imagery and movie poster artwork, and have been feeling the romanticism of the cinema throughout time. It is a fun new source of inspiration for me!

I wanted to ask all of you who love movies for some help with finding links to good film sites. Blogs about movies, review sites, that sort of thing... share with me your favorites! This info will help me with part of the new project, which I promise to tell you about next week. Thanks in advance!

The image above is a filmstrip stamp that I ordered from Simon Says Stamps, which will work its way into some of the packaging and display for the new project. It's a Tim Holtz design... wow I love that guy! I got a few of his stamps and supplies, which is really great stuff.

Today has been an odd day of constant movement, but I don't feel like I really did anything. Looking back, I know I did... I got quite a bit of stuff done, actually. Its sort of odd stuff though, bits and pieces here and there. It adds up, but it can be hard to see it as a big accomplishment. One of the small tasks I did was listing a set of beads, shown above, in my Etsy shop. Two sets, actually, as one was requested by a customer, and I made a few extra. These beads are the ones used in the Treasured Secret necklace design that was created by Jess Italia Lincoln that appears in the Best of Stringing Magazine special collectors edition magazine, shown below. It is a lovely piece, made with lots of Vintaj brass and glass beads along with my porcelain pieces. I love the asymmetry of the design and the way the bird is used as a toggle. I also love the combination of the pale milky glass and my pewter glazes against the brass. Nicely done!

Speaking of secrets and treasures, I have a little bit of both of those today! Yesterday, I was out on a lovely window shopping date with Alex and we came across some unusual materials in an unexpected spot. We both immediately knew we had to have them and spent much time picking out our treasures. They were plentiful and cheap items, and although we didn't know what we would be doing with them, we knew they would be a great crafting material. Today, I made a sample of something that we are going to start to make, and I am super excited about it. But alas, there lies the secret... because I don't want to show or tell any more about them until we are ready to sell them! It might turn into a little side business... just what I need! hehe. If only I had enough hands to keep up with my ideas. Anyway, keep checking back... I will reveal it someday soon, before the holidays!

I am taking a break from a great autumn weekend to tell you about an event I am planning for next week. I am participating in the Beads of Clay Open Studio Event. It will be a day of several ceramic bead artists blogging live, sharing their studio spaces and stories, and having special deals. I am not sure exactly what I will be doing, but I am brewing up some fun things. I know I will be showing my new work for the first time, and will have a couple of giveaways and specials. So stop by the Earthenwood Studio Chronicles Blog next Sunday, October 25th, from 1-4pm. This is the first time I have done something like this, and I am really looking forward to it.

Wow, it was an insanely busy week! The BOGO Etsy sale was a huge success (it is still on, by the way, until tomorrow night!) I even added a dozen or so more new sets to the sale late last night. Two days were spent on shipping this week, with help from my awesome shipping assistant! Whew! I hope to have everything shipped by Monday. Just another quick round of shipping today and I can take the weekend off! Tonight I am planning sushi and going to a Halloween party, and tomorrow I am hoping to go to a pumpkin patch! Maybe a hay ride! YAY I love autumn. Hope you all have a great weekend, too.

This is a new necklace design I put together using one of my Message Stick links and a Muse Stone tablet. I had two short pieces of gunmetal chain scraps lying around from my last beading session, so I came up with this design. I really like the little piece of smaller chain on the side of the Message Stick! I also like the asymmetry of the design, the side clasp, the little bit of sparkle from the crystals, and the contrast of the dark gunmetal against the pale pink porcelain. It's surprising sometimes how just messing around with beads and scraps can lead me to coming up with unexpected designs that I end up really loving.

I wanted to use this combination of porcelain components because I have several listed for sale in the Etsy shop, and I wanted to show one example of something to make with them. I will remind you that I am having my big BOGO sale in the Etsy shop, from now until Sunday. It has been going very well so far, and I am adding more stuff tonight.

I recently received some exciting beads from the fine folks at Rings and Things. As a Blog Partner, I was given the opportunity to choose something fun to use in my designs. With autumn here and my love of earth colors in high form, I decided to try some wooden beads. I have many, many earth toned beads in my collection, but they are mostly ceramic, glass, and stone. I really don't have many beads in wood or other natural materials. First on my want list were the Wooden Charm Connectors shown above. I love the detail in these laser cut discs! And the designs I chose are very contemporary and natural, which I think will look great with some of my own pendants (especially my newest line that is coming out this fall) After I ordered, Rings and Things announced some new Wooden Donuts, which I also would like to try next time I order. I already made one piece, the Woodland Mermaid, using the connectors, and am looking forward to making more.
I figured some accent beads to go with the wooden connectors would be good, so I picked out some Rudraksha beads. These unusual beads are the seed of a fruit and are used in traditional Hindu malas. I have always loved the look and texture of these beads! I also picked up a strand of round wooden beads that look a little like pumpkins or basketballs. I was impressed with all of these beads, as well as the rest of the selection of natural beads that Rings and Things has to offer.

Finally, due to a new FTC ruling, I need to specifically mention some info about the items I have blogged about here. I will be adding this little statement to some of my future blog posts, since I sometimes use items that are given to me from some of the companies that I associate with, and I need to mention when I am given free products for the purpose of blogging and review.

All items in the previous post, specifically referenced as from Rings and Things, were provided as promotional gifts by for review or design partnership purposes.

Well, I have been trying to blog all week, but it has just been too busy! I have a bead show tomorrow... The Bead Bonanza! I realized a couple of weeks ago that I would not be able to restock or have my new work done in time for the show, so I ended up cleaning out the studio and I am having a giant sale! I unearthed some beads I made a LONG time ago, some are almost 10 years old. It is kind of neat to see the old pieces, and to see where I have been and where I am going, artistically speaking. I think some of the themes repeat over and over through the years in different ways, which is really neat.

While I have been working on all the cleaning, I have been chipping away at some new work. (heh, literally chipping sometimes...I have been trying new things and have had some breakage, which is frustrating). I am super excited about the new pieces that are coming out! Unfortunately I was just a little too slow, and I won't have these new things to show this weekend. You can see a peek at the wet pieces that I just finished yesterday in the picture above. But I will have them done soon, and will be making a big deal about them in the next couple of weeks.

Anyway, that's what has been happening here. Time to finish getting ready for the show, and if you are in the Metro Detroit area tomorrow, I hope you stop by the Bead Bonanza and say hello!

One of the things I have come to love about my job is how flexible I can be with my time, and how portable my work can be. On more than one occasion, like today, I have been able to take part of the day off or travel with my work in order to help a friend. I can bring my sketchbook or a spool of wire and pliers, and spend time sitting in a waiting room. Its actually something I enjoy. Um, not my friends getting sick and hurt... but being forced to sit and sketch. My sketchbook and pencils are tools that I don't use enough, but I have been carrying them around with me much more lately. I have even been carving from the drawings! So forcing myself to sit still and just doodle is great. Plus it is good to be able to be there for friends.

Speaking of friends, I also wanted to share a picture of the Love Bird Necklace, by my very talented friend Jean Campbell, which uses one of my heart pendants in metallic pewter. I noticed this piece in the recent issue of Creative Jewelry at the bookstore. It is a beautiful magazine! I was reminded of it today when I got my Beading Daily newsletter, because Creative Jewelry is now available as a full download on the Interweave online store!

Well, that's all the rambling randomness for today. Time to turn off the computer, make my buddy with the hurt back a grilled cheese sammich, and make some beads tonight.

Finally, I am at the end of my Crystal Week with one final necklace to show. I used a Sprig Coral Pendant from Art Beads as the seed of inspiration. It is a lovely transparent tan color called Crystal Golden Shadow. Of course, I love brown, so it was pretty easy for me to start working with. I like the twig-like shape of it, so I paired it with some great laser cut wooden discs from Rings and Things with branch designs cut into them. But I wanted to make sure to use more pastel spring colors with the browns. I chose to use one of my mermaid beads and a seafoam bubble bead, both with seafoam coloration, and I used pale aqua crystal beads in transparent and opaque to accent them. Then I contrasted with a bit of lime crystal, for a little something different. The asymmetrical design seemed to come naturally as I designed it. Perhaps breaking from symmetry comes easier with practice!

I hope you have enjoyed seeing the pieces I made for Crystal Week as much as I enjoyed making them! Next week I hope to show you some new goodies I received for a new blog challenge, along with some pictures and thoughts about the new carvings I have been doing.

Of the awesome machinery of nature" -Carl Sagan

Today's necklace design is another exploration of steampunky and mechanical/industrial looking beads, but with a bit of a twist. I received the Olivine Swarovski Orchid pendant from Art Beads, and I knew I wanted to make something with it that resembled a propeller. I fumbled around with it for a while, but ended up wire wrapping it to a hammered silver ring. Naturally, I paired it with my Propeller Steam Stone and some additional steamy beads in the rich green Desert Pine color, to go with the olivine. I used some Vintaj brass washers and some hammered pewter rings, along with some Tim Holtz gears to give it a machine like look. But after watching the video below, I was inspired by the quote above, and it gave me just the thing to complete the necklace... a few natural references like the leaf pendant from Mamacita Beadworks, the scrolling Botanical Link from Green Girl Studios, and a few pewter oak leaf discs. It's a rather fun necklace, that makes a lot of noise and has a lot of movement, which I love.