Let it go... and breathe.

“If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together... there is something you must always remember. you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we're apart... I'll always be with you.” 

― A.A. Milne, Christopher Robin to Pooh

I have been a very, very naughty blogger.  I know.  I really have.  Did you ever have a space of time where you just had to keep telling yourself, breathe?  One day at a time.  One step.  One moment.  One breath.  That has been my summer.  My beloved husband has been gone on an internship since the beginning of May and will not return for another week and a half.  I have three small children, my parents are over two hours away, and I have only two close friends in my town.  I grew up a Navy brat, as I've confided before, so I am no stranger to life without Daddy for stretches (even long stretches) of time.  But I have never had to do without my husband, the father of my children, my best friend, the man who tells me when I'm acting silly, the one who holds me when I cry... never for so long, not since we have been married.

What have I learned?  I have learned that I am indeed, as Christopher Robin tells Pooh, stronger than I seem.  I am also braver than I believed.  Whether I am smarter than I think is still up for grabs ;).  I have learned that I can do it on my own, but I am so very grateful that most of the time I do not have to.  I have a new appreciation for what my mother, and all other military wives, went through when I was growing up.  I do not even know how to put into words how incredible their sacrifice is, how much I admire them, how much I appreciate them.  (that goes for single moms and single dads as well, even more so, you are all HEROES).

Where does the odd title of this ramble come from?  My struggle this summer.  I tried the first week or two to continue as I had, making jewelry at night, photographing, listing, updating my store.  But as everything fell upon me, the grocery shopping (with three children ages 6, 4, and 2), the store runs for other necessities, the normal things, the cleaning, the dishes, the playing with the kids, mowing the lawn, weeding my plants, sending packages... on and on.  It started to overwhelm me.  Until I realized something.  This insanity?  It is, praise God, temporary.  So guess what?  I decided to let it go.  To breathe.  Instead of staying up until 2am (before a 5am wake up call by my son) trying to make jewelry after staying up late to sweep and mop... I went to bed at midnight.  I chose to read during some of the time the kids were sleeping, some nights?  I was truly naughty and didn't do my chores before bed either.  I have gotten some pieces done, but only when I was ready to do them.  And honestly, the pieces I have made?  I really love.  I really felt inspired.  I let the blog go too, which I feel a bit guilty about, but I knew, being the wonderful friends you are... that you would understand :).

So, let me share with you some of the pieces I have done.  This first is a favorite, I used all of the silks from my palette for Marsha Neal's silk color challenge:





I paired the silks with some gorgeous Fallen Angel Brass, swarovski crystals, and three gemstones out of my stash.  I love the way it turned out :)

Here are a few others...


Featuring FAB and a gorgeous boro from Amanda at Seashore Glass


More Fallen Angel Brass with beautiful ceramic tiles from Marsha Neal Studio.

Last, but surely not least, a special order I did for an incredibly special and lovely young lady:



Fallen Angel Brass, gorgeous sari silk, a Vintaj blank, czech glass and swarovski crystals :)

The end is in sight, my husband will be home the middle of this month and hopefully all will be back to normal!  ;)  Oh!  And I'm having a sale in my shop for a limited time!  20% off anything in the shop if you use the coupon code:  SUMMER  at checkout (you have to make sure to use the coupon code box in Etsy or the code doesn't work).

http://www.etsy.com/shop/SoulsFireDesigns

I hope you are all having an incredible summer!  Once I hit 100 sales in my shop I will have a fancy giveaway, any ideas for the giveaway?

~Jenn

I'm a finalist!!!

I am so so excited!  Marsha's husband Dave was the special guest judge and he chose my palette!  I couldn't believe it!  I still can't quite, but regardless, I am so excited.  And Marsha has put the bundles up on her Flickr and in her shop :)  Ready?  Here it is:

I am so pleased, when I was sorting out the colors from the painting, from my inspiration, I really wanted the gold to shimmer against the darker, cooler blues.  Here is the painting again:

Pandora's Box by John William Waterhouse

See my original post about my palette HERE if you missed it :)  Now that my palette has pulled all gorgeous like (thank you, Marsha :) ) you can purchase it in Marsha's store!  http://cart.marshanealstudio.com/silkbundles/2mmSilkBundles

She will also have them up in her Etsy shop soon :)
http://www.etsy.com/shop/MarshaNealStudio

So what's next?  Quoting the lovely Marsha's blog:

"1. Purchase silk knot bundles for projects, giveaways, promotions, etc.
2. Create and photograph projects using these silk palettes (round 1 and 2 all apply).
3. Blog or share those photographs about the projects and your inspirations.
4. I will be hosting some design challenges/ blog hops around things you make with these silks so you can show off your stuff!"

Read the whole blog post (with all the other finalists and their amazing palettes)  here:

http://www.marshanealstudio.blogspot.com/2012/06/finalists-palettes-and-giveaway-winners.html

And if you'd like to see how the challenge works and what the other finalists and I are working for, you can learn more HERE.  Thank you so much for all of you that voted for my palette! 

I have been enjoying more family time the last couple of weeks, spending time with my little ones, playing in the backyard... enjoying the (sometimes) warmer weather :).  We are going on a little vacation starting this Thursday to spend the 4th with family down in Brookings.  Since I won't be here over the 4th itself, I'm having a sale from today through Wednesday night in celebration instead!  20% off anything in my shop using the coupon code:  4THOFJULY  .   I will get everything packed up and shipped out Thursday morning on my way south!  I will have a few items going up hopefully today, if I can get the littles to give me some breathing room ;).  

Hope you all have a fantastic week and (in case I don't manage to get back on here before) a wonderful Independence Day!  

~Jennifer

Marsha's having another challenge...

And I'm in!  I was so bummed I missed out last time, so the second I saw this up I started obsessing over palettes :D.  My inspiration for my palette was a bracelet I made a while back... which was inspired by a painting and a tale...



Pandora's box...  you can find the bracelet HERE.   The painting is by John William Waterhouse (1896).

                                                            (Image borrowed from HERE, thank you!)

I took some liberties with the original palette and focused on shades of blue and copper, with bursts of rich gold.  I am really very pleased with how my palette turned out and am of course... calling it Pandora's Box.

In case any of you don't know the tale of Pandora, here is Wiki's short version:

"In classical Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman on Earth. Zeus ordered Hephaestus, the God of craftsmanship, to create her, so he did—using water and Earth.^[4] The gods endowed her with many gifts: Athena clothed her, Aphrodite gave her beauty, andHermes speech.^[5]

When Prometheus stole fire from heaven, Zeus took vengeance by presenting Pandora to Epimetheus, Prometheus' brother. With her, Pandora was given a beautiful container which she was not to open under any circumstance. Impelled by her curiosity given to her by the gods, Pandora opened it, and all evil contained therein escaped and spread over the earth. She hastened to close the container, but the whole contents had escaped, except for one thing that lay at the bottom, which was the angel of Hope named Astrea. Pandora was deeply saddened by what she had done, and was afraid that she would have to face Zeus' wrath, since she had failed her duty; however, Zeus did not punish Pandora, because he knew this would happen."  Wiki article HERE

I hope you all like my palette :)  Interested in joining in the fun?  Here is the link to Marsha's post!  

http://www.marshanealstudio.blogspot.com/2012/06/june-13-link-up-your-palette-post.html

~Jenn

Pretties...

I know, I owe you guys a really good post... but I've been sick and I'll be honest, my brain isn't up to it lol.  So instead, I am going to make this picture heavy and show you some of my new pretties :)  I've finally been able to get to work with my new Marsha Neal goodies! Marsha has such incredible talent, each of her ceramic pieces, pendant or tiles, is just filled with beauty.  And each one is so unique!  I love her glazes, each one has its own appeal, this set of earrings I'm calling "Caramel Toffee"  can you guess why? ;)

"Black Magic"

"Peach and Raspberry Sorbet"

And some gorgeous enameled beads from Sally Russick of Wireworked, they have this delightful crackle finish to them, it is just amazing!  I'm calling them "Sweet Sunshine":

A gorgeous tile from Marie Cramp of Skye Jewels (this one I dubbed "Queen Bee") and Fallen Angel Brass Co. brass.  Marie's tiles are always so lovely, this one has the prettiest soft green color, and I love wrapping her tiles in Fallen Angel Brass filigree!

Click on any of the pics to be taken to the Etsy shop for more images and a description!  Hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season :)

~Jennifer

Pre-Holiday Fair Madness

I have never done a craft fair... I've been to a handful over the years and always thought how amazing the vendors were.  To be able to make beautiful and or useful things with their hands seemed so wonderful to me, still does :). So now, to be doing this myself is just crazy to me, but exciting :)  Doing all of this prep for it has been a bit exhausting and I'm still nowhere near done, it's amazing how the smallest tasks take forever when you have three littles lol.  I've got about a million ideas for jewelry pieces in my head right now and I've started acquiring ways to display my jewelry, thank you second hand stores!  Unfortunately they need to be sanded, which I started last night and I had forgotten what a pain that is to do by hand...  hopefully I'll be able to paint tonight or tomorrow.

I thought I'd show you what my bead table looks like at the moment, to give you an idea of the chaos reigning ;)  I have finished pieces mingling with barely started ideas...  Marsha Neal silk ribbon... KAS ribbon.... tons of Fallen Angel Brass Co. brass... charms, chain, jump rings... swarovski crystals.  Yup, a royal mess LOL.

It's actually much better today than it was last night... sad as that is LOL.  And I won't even show you the floor which is even worse... boxes of beads, packaging, silks, my metal working stuff... it's a disaster.  Here's one of the things I picked up to use for displaying, it needs a bit of work, but it has potential.  I was playing around with it last  night trying to imagine how I was going to use it.

It's a nifty cork board with a wood frame that appealed to me, I really like its length.  But it definitely needs a little something, so we'll see what I end up with when I'm finished jazzing it up.  I also got that pretty little tray in the first pic above on the left.  Sorry these pics aren't the best, used my ipod lol.  See those earrings in the middle pic?  I got some new and insanely gorgeous lampwork beads from one of my favorite artists (Iris Glass Art) within hours of getting them earrings made themselves, I swear it!  

I had big plans for taking the kids and the camera and getting pics of them in the leaves this weekend, but... didn't happen lol.  They've all been fighting with a bit of a cold and I decided we'll try maybe after school tomorrow :). How was your weekend?  Did you do anything deliciously autumnal?  Or is Old Man Winter nipping at your ears already?  Whichever it is, I hope you had a lovely weekend and it leads to a fabulous week!

~Jennifer