I ruined a masterpiece!

I was working on a pendant for me... wanted to call it my new masterpiece and I have managed to break a piece of sea glass. I love purple, so the rarity of finding a lavender shade of sea glass was just amazing, and while wrapping it in sterling wire, I managed to break off a corner (there was a "fault line" running where it broke when I started wrapping it). I guess I will use supper glue and some more wrapping to hide the fix when I wear it around.

Two-Day Pumpkin Carving Project

Here is the gigantic pumpkin I bought at Gross Farms. It did not look nearly as big as it is while sitting amongst the other pumpkins... I openned the pumpkin and was surprised by the icky, spider-like, goey insides - surprised because it has been more than 10 years since I carved a pumpkin and I'd forgotten how icky the insides really are. After, I finally got it cleaned out, I wanted to come up with a unique design... looking at my fridge, I saw my sea shells. So what better for me, than a sea shell halloween pumpkin. I got out some computer paper and created a pattern:

And here is the final result:

At least no one else in my community will have the same design :) even if they all think I am weird.

My "New" Mini Display

Some days, I feel like I'm really lucky. Recently, my chiropractor liked a piece of jewelry I wore into my appointment... she REALLY liked it and offered to have a display at her reception desk. After weeks of looking at the plywood in my garage and having images of my jig saw creations, I finally came up with something that I think will work!The back piece is a salvaged cupboard door - not high quality wood or anything, but the cherry stain made it look nice. I glued cork to the inside piece to make it look like a frame and put some dark brown grossgrain ribbon around the edges of the cork. To hide the hole where the knob used to be, I glued on a few of the sea shells from my stash: It sits on a simple picture easel that I had bought at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, but had yet to use. In front of the easel are two of my vintage pewter pieces - a mug holding lots of bookmarks

and a small plate holding stretchy bracelets and my business cards. I love having pewter with my jewelry at craft shows - the picture here definitely does not do it justice. The pewter compliments the bright and shiny silver by being of the same base color but never competing with it. How do you think my display turned out? Speaking of my chiropractor, are you near Sanford, NC? Need your back adjusted? Have neck pain? Want your hips realigned? I can highly recommend the small-town, friendly atmosphere, and individual attention you will get at Thompson Chiropractic, 317 W Main St, Sanford, NC 27332, (919) 776 - 1o2o.

9 Posies down...

Only 291 to go... So here is my first try at branching out from only square paper items and I've managed to use 9 of my posies. And if I think of it harder, I believe this is the first time I have made gift tags that are not Christmas-themed - wow, I'm making progress of breaking out of that mold...

Looking at the tags more, I think I need to find something to be the stamen for the flowers, but I have time to figure that out (since there are no birthdays or other events coming up for me to wrap gifts for a couple of months).

Weaving a Magazine Coaster

Last week I was browsing the web for oragami patterns (I never actually end up where I am planning to go...) and came across a blog post on weaving coasters from magazine pages.

I decided to try it on one of the magazines I had lying around. It took me about 4 hours to get this far, but it felt nice - with unpacking boxes, yard work, building projects, etc, I haven't had a chance to really feel productive creatively.

Mine shows a lot more wear than the pictures on the other blog post, but I guess it is one of those practice makes perfect things...