Making New Jewelry

Originally posted 1.7.09
I've never thought of myself as a jewelry maker. I dabble in many things....and jewelry making would be one of them. Mostly I like to make things for myself to wear that no one else has. Then Vero at The Naked Art Gallery saw my nesting jewelry series in a blog post and asked if I wanted to sign on at her gallery as a jewelry artist. Right now she carries my paintings and porcelain jewelry line like below. The porcelain has my original paintings embedded into them with a bail glued on. Not really much thought to making those. Like mini paintings on your neck! And ears!

The nesting series I did a few months back was tedious but quite rewarding for me. First, not one piece was alike. I made about 10 pairs of earrings and 2 necklaces from these nest-like beads I found in New York. It took me hours to put them all together. So today I have 3 pairs of earrings left and 3 rings. I hand delivered them to Vero last week and her first reply was, "You are making more?" Well, you see those beads came from NY, and I have no idea where. So today I ventured into etsy and put in...materials....findings....and guess what? I think about 10000000 hits came up. Yikes! I opened the first shop that looked appealing called PatinaQueen. And there I became so inspired that I can't wait to put my new series together. Since I paint mostly birds and their environments I think my jewelry should reflect this as well. Everything I chose was brown, teal, turquoise, amazing greens, and a dab of pink. I already know the line's name, "Nestlings". So be looking for a new post soon with some sweet birds and nests that you can wear similar to those below.

Look What I Cleaned Up!

Wow. The long weekend flew by here in the Horne household. And what a pleasant one it was! Mailey and I had our first Brownie trip to real Girl Scout Camp on Saturday. The entire day was about Fairies. And for a little girl (and Mommy) with giant imaginations, it was awesome. I know, to many of you it sounds a weeeee bit silly, but seriously I think Holly and I enjoyed the day as much as the 6 little Brownies we took along. After church and yummy lunch on Sunday I spent much of the day cleaning this room: This is a peek into my art studio. It's a 10'x10" sunroom right off our kitchen. I love it. It's so homey and fun, and inspiring. Except it wasn't so inspiring on Sunday when I entered to work and saw the piles and piles of junk. And I really can't be creative with piles of stuff everywhere. It took Sunday and Monday to get everything cleaned out and cleaned up. I have a luv relationship with my spray bottle of Lysol, and it was really put to the test. The cabinet above....well I found dust particles that seriously I wonder how they made their way in. Magazines were tossed, and I didn't even look through them first. Tossed a ton of scrap papers, junk paint brushes, old paints and more. 4 kitchen trash bags later and a new area rug put into place it was sparkly. And I said ahhhhh....

I also found this handy rolling file holder at Office Depot. And of course some robin's egg blue hanging file folders to place inside. Now everything is filed and labeled. No excuses to miss a deadline! It was also fun to purge though all the old ideas I had filed away. Some are not my style anymore, while others made a spot on the inspiration board above. Now, I have to admit, it didn't take like 2 days straight to clean the room up. I did take breaks. I recently found this channel on our TV called LMN (Lifetime Movie Network). If you have this channel then you know where I am going with this......it totally sucks you in. These low budget films, some based on true stories, some not, are like total time warping to me. I usually say, I'm just going to see what this one is about, then 2 freakin' hours later I am like, now that was a waste of time!

While on my "breaks" however, I didn't totally waste time. I made a series of little wirey nests for a new jewelry line idea. Mailey came in last night and said, "What is all that on your bedside table Mom?". "My little nests, come see." "Oooooo...Mom can I make one?" "Sure. " And today she is wearing her little nesty ring. So sweet.

Yep, lots of little nests waiting to be attached to their chains. Can't wait to start, in my newly cleaned up studio. And what are some ideas for these? Looky here:

So the blue egg is William, the pink egg Mailey. And yes, my heart is VERY full.

I'll Be Nesting Awhile

"Green Apple"
"Bubble Gum"

I've not shared any pictures of my newest little babies I realized! Here are the two nesters. Bubble Gum found a home to an adorable teenager during the Wesleyan Show, Green Apple is currently residing in my fabulous new giant bird cage. This cage is slated for upcoming holiday shows, but of course Mailey has found a use for it right now. In the future I can see it filled with white birds at Christmas time. So lovely.

Anyhoo.....went to the doc today about the hand issue. Here's the lo-down. I may have some tendon........long winded word thingy. And? This means drugs (the legal kind of course), wrist contraption and resting the hand about two weeks. Hahahaha. Like that will happen. To me "nesting" means to re-do something. I am the crazy nester who starts one clean out and ends up doing the entire house! I have realized since feeling this intense pain shooting down my thumb to elbow that I am SO right handed. Maybe the contraption thingy will help this. Who knows. For now, I'm just going to enjoy my cold beer and some family game time. I think Littlest Pet Shop go fish is next on the agenda. Hope you had a terrific Tuesday! Tomorrow though, I do intend to mess up this super clean art studio, left handed. I'll let you in on on the results. They'll probably be pretty primitive!

New Little Tweets

These one-of-a-kind little "Tweets" were made by my nibble little fingers with tons of love. There are earrings, necklaces (that have leaf earrings to match) and rings for you to choose from. The nest beads were a special purchase during a February trip to New York with Valerie. There will be no more, so if you are interested let me know. Otherwise they'll be making their debut in Norcross next weekend. Hope you are having a lovely day! Things are going steady here in the art studio!