A Sassy Conspiracy

Remember that Simpsons episode where Ralphie gives Lisa the valentine that says “I Choo-choo-choose you, valentine”? I think of that every time Valentine’s Day rolls around. I thought this was a cute twist on it :)

China Glaze Liquid Leather and Purple Panic. Happy Valentine’s, Wing Day or whatever else you celebrate!

Gifties from the talented Aeramel, which are seriously overdue for posting!
i <3 them so much!!

I’ve begun the tedious process of wiring up all my carefully collected bits of jewelry for my bouquet. Over the weekend I managed to finish about 30 of them and I’ve definitely got the hang of it now, but there are still 20-50 left to go, depending on which internet tutorial you believe. I picked up packages of precut 18 gauge florist wire at Michaels (mostly because its just more convenient and they were having a 25% off sale) as well as three rolls of green florist tape and a roll of 20 gauge wire. It took three or four tries to figure out how I wanted to do it but i settled on this: I use a length of the 20 gauge wire to create a 2-3″ twisted wire stem on the back of the piece of jewelry (usually anchoring it to either the two ends of the pin back or any other concealed bits of metal), and then use the florist tape to attach it to the precut 18 gauge wire. It also took a few attempts to figure out how to use the floral tape which leaves waxy residue on everything and is just generally obnoxious. It seems to work much better when wrap multiple wires together, like with some of the heavier pieces of jewelry.

Slightly worrisome discovery: the flowers are heavy. You don’t notice when you’re working on one but if you grab a handful of them, it’s quite surprising. The internet made no mention of this though I probably should have figured that out on my own. Its heavy and pointy and maybe even a little dangerous… but it sure does look pretty :) I wonder what the people in customs will think of it when I try to carry it on with me.

Some time last year there was a tutorial on Craftster for making ear cuffs (sorry Craftster person, whomever you are, that I don’t remember your name to link you but your tutorial was great!!). I had never thought to try making ear cuffs before. Personally I find them uncomfortable (i think i have weird ears) but I love the look of them. Here is the cuff I made following her instructions, which i then incorporated into an asymmetrical pair of earrings. All components are sterling silver with Swarovski crystal.

I made this for Nven for Christmas last year, my first attempt at the popular tree of life design. I ended up being really surprised by how easy it was to make (and by this I mean I had worried all week that I wouldn’t be able to figure out how to do it at all, or that it would turn out horribly). The diameter of the circle is about 1.5″ which ended up being the major hiccup in my design – after soldering the circle I realized that the diameter was larger than my ring mandrel so it was a pain in the butt to make it nice and round. After that though, it was a lot of fun :) All the wire is sterling silver, and the stones are lovely drop shaped garnets. I’m quite pleased with the results and have another circle all ready to go, just trying to decide on what stones to use.

Chamberlain family pumpkin carving lessons: 1) power tools make for awesome carved pumpkins; 2) wine makes for awesome carved pumpkins; and 3) toothpicks – who knew?

Mine is the pumpkin eater, and boy did the jack skellington and the big guy bearing his teeth up near the top  :)

Just wanted to share my Halloween manicure. Nail art is art, right?
Deborah Lippmann Naked with OPI Vodka and Caviar (plus Seche Clear and Seche Vite).

Happy Halloween!!!

This is the birthday card I designed for the boy’s 30th birthday. There was a coupon for each day of the week of his birthday, for things such as “exotic treasures” and “gastronomical miracles”. There are a few things I’d change in the layout, but so far my typography experiments have been a lot of fun! They are deceptively simple though, always a lot more time tweaking fonts than i ever plan for. :)