New Rings

Well, my little time management experiment was mostly successful. I have a little over a dozen rings in the completed or nearly completed stage, and about eight more in the half-finished stage. I'm just about caught up on custom orders, which is a relief, but now I have to find time to fill all the new orders I got in the last few days - eek! Hopefully Carlos will nap today and I can at least get my bead orders shipped - jewelry orders may not go out until tomorrow.

Here are a few of the rings I've finished so far, to be listed in my Etsy shop whenever I can find the time...

Prehnite & sterling silver ring, size 9 (maybe spoken for already; I'm not sure though)

Faceted labradorite & sterling silver ring, size 9.25

Pink tourmaline & sterling silver ring, size 8.5

Another pink tourmaline & sterling silver ring, also size 8.5

Custom order cloudy aquamarine & sterling silver ring

Trying Something New

Ever since I learned how to solder and bezel set last year and my rings began to sell well, I've had a bit of an ongoing problem - balancing my need/desire to work in my metal studio with my need to keep up with my indoor tasks (making beaded jewelry, filling orders for ready-made pieces, filling bead orders, maintaining my Etsy shops, blogging, Flickr, etc. etc. etc.). And of course, all of these things must be balanced with time spent with my family and doing other things that are meaningful to me - volunteering, exercising, cooking, reading... I'm sure you can all relate - life is hectic.

Well, things have been getting especially intense lately. I'm so grateful for the increased sales; I don't know how to express how happy it makes me to know that people are enjoying my designs. I don't mean to whine. But something's gotta give! So for the next few days, I'm going to try something a little different and see how it feels.

For the next several days, I'm planning my time more carefully. I'll either be spending full days in my metal studio getting caught up on custom orders, and perhaps even making some new pieces for my shop, or full days devoted to family time and household projects. I've put notices up in both my shops to let people know that they won't be hearing from me during that time. I'm going to unplug (as completely as possible, although I doubt that I'll manage to stay totally off-line) and not worry about filling bead orders or any of those other things that suck my time up like a big sponge. Any orders (for either jewelry or beads) that I receive between now and Tuesday (3/11) will be shipped on Wednesday (3/12). Any Etsy convos or emails will be answered around that time as well. I feel the need to really devote some intense energy to my work - my actual work - the pieces I create - not all the other stuff. I know it's all important, and I'll get back to it soon, but for now, if you need me, you can come find me in the garage with my torch. I'll talk to you all soon.

xoxoxoxo

Vegan Bridal Earrings

Here are some earrings I made last night for my dear friend who is getting married later this month. I also made her a matching necklace but (silly me) forgot to photograph it in my excitement to give it to her. I'm going to have to try to pry it from her steely grasp long enough to get a decent photo of it.

The flash of the labradorite didn't show up well in the photo, but they are pretty in real life... Swarovski simulated pearls, labradorite, aquamarine, and sterling silver.

Success???

I think I might have finally resolved my shoe conundrum. They are not my favorite ever, but they're pretty cute, and they fulfill all of my requirements (vegan, closed toe but still some element of 'strappiness', some heel but not too high since I am not so graceful). What do you think - should I order them? The wedding is only two weeks away so I need to do something. If I don't buy these, I guess I have to schlep myself over to the mall - yuck.

(Those of you who don't follow the minutiae of my barely-existent fashion life, they are to wear in a wedding with this dress and these stockings {maybe, if I like them with the dress and shoes when I try it all on together}.)

I've discovered I don't hate eggplant after all...

...apparently the trick is soaking it in gobs and gobs of oil, frying it, breading it, and stuffing it with tofu 'ricotta'. My friend Katie brought this to a recent vegan pot luck at my house, and I got around to making it myself the other day. I was quite horrified by the amount of oil it called for, but I figured since my diet is normally pretty low-fat, it wouldn't kill me to indulge once in a while. And of course it's better than saturated, animal-derived fat, or that nasty hydrogenated crap.

I didn't take a picture because it wasn't that photogenic, but it sure was tasty. Matt liked it too. I am frustrated by how hard it is to decently print recipes directly from my blog, so I've formatted it as a pdf file, which you can download and print in a very printer-friendly format. Enjoy!

So cute!

I am trying to do better with my vegetable gardening this year... we're going to build some nice raised beds (instead of the inadequate wine barrel planters I have used the last two years) and I've actually started some seeds already. I made an effort to choose to plant things that I actually use often in my everyday cooking, to hopefully help shave some dollars off our summertime grocery bill.

I wanted to go low-budget and low-impact, so I re-purposed some old worn out metal baking trays, set my planted peat pots on top (each pot labeled with permanent marker), and put some inverted clear plastic tubs over the top (old storage bins that were no longer in use for anything important). Matt drilled a few holes around the sides of the plastic tubs to allow some circulation in my makeshift hothouses, and I was good to go. I've been watering them from the bottom (by just putting some water in the cookie sheets) to encourage their little roots to grow downward, and I mist them occasionally from above. They are in a fairly warm indoor location most of the time, and when the sun comes out I set them out on the porch for a few hours at a time.

My track record with gardening (especially with indoor plants) is not exactly stellar, so I'm a little nervous... imagine my surprise and delight to find these sweet little babies poking their fresh little green selves up towards the sun yesterday, just five days after planting!

broccoli babies

zucchini babies

So far my broccoli, zucchini, basil, spinach, and lettuce have already made appearances. I'm still waiting on the tomatoes and bell peppers, but I'm hopeful... the guy at the feed store said I could plant the carrots, onions, and snap peas directly in the ground.

My plan is to start a second round of seedlings after I've set these first ones outside in the raised beds, so I can have several waves of ripe produce throughout the season. If any of you seasoned gardeners have any tips or pointers for newbie veggie gardeners like me, feel free to pass 'em on!

What's Willy Building?

This is Willy, our trusty contractor. And this is our house. Well, technically, part of our garage.


I'm sure my regular readers have noticed that I have been remiss in offering my usual monthly giveaways these past few months. The only excuse I have is extreme busyness (is that a word?)... but I'm ready to get back on track. I like to make you work for your prizes (especially by guessing random and obscure things about my life - hmm, self-centered much?), so here's your assignment - leave a comment on this post guessing what Willy is doing to our house. After a few weeks, I will randomly choose from those of you who guessed correctly and one of you will win $25 to spend in either my bead shop or my jewelry shop.

The fine print: If you know me in real life and I've already told you what's going on, no guessing for you!!!