And the winner is.....

The winner of my recent name the necklace contest is Rain Pope, or rainfeather13 as she is known on etsy. Her shop on etsy is Rain's (Obsessive) Stitchery. Rain describes herself as "A happy kitchen witch in Nashville that does sewing, machine embroidery and other fun needlecrafts with her cat. Incorporating designs from many spiritual traditions, her products are designed toward the purpose of "bringing the common and sacred into agreement" and include kitchen towels, altar cloths, tarot bags and eclectic ornamental pieces."

Rain (and her husband) suggested the name Tonantzin. Tonantzin was the Aztec goddess of the harvest. Given my mother's love for gardening, both flowers and vegetables, I really liked this choice of name for the necklace I made using a part of one of my mother's favorite pair of earrings. A very fitting tribute to my mother, I thought (see my post below concerning my mother).



I am lucky enough to own not one but two of Rain's lovely pieces, both given to me as Christmas/Yule gifts last year. One of them features her fire goddess, as seen here.









Her tarot bags are beautiful. Done on silk, each has a lovely design embroidered onto the front. My favorite is this one which she has covered with gorgeous, brightly colored Celtic beasties.



In addition to her machine embroidery, Rain also makes beautiful hand-painted eggs. She uses bright colors and they look as if they were made of stained glass.


For a visual treat, please do stop by her shop and take a look around!

Contest

I have been a terrible blogger and not posted anything new in months. I am finally over my creative dry spell, however, and have been making and listing new things for close to a month. My latest creations come from a pair of earrings that were my mothers. I made two necklaces using each earring as a focal. I will be listing one necklace and the other will be the prize in my contest.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to come up with a name for this necklace:

The focal is made of polymer clay, glass and carnelian beads and wire. The beads used in the necklace are: agate, black glass, amber, turquoise, jasper, unakite, carnelian, serpentine, and green glass.


The prize uses the matching polymer clay, glass, carnelian and wire piece. It is strung with black glass, orange glass, yellow turquoise, serpentine, carnelian, ceramic, and wooden beads. Both necklaces measure 22" in length and the focal is just shy of 3" in length.

If you would like a chance to win the second necklace, please type your name for the first piece in the comments section for this post. I will choose the winning name on Wednesday, May 13 and will post it here on my blog and will let the winner know via email or etsy convo.

Thanks for entering and good luck!!!

Winter Blues

It's been a while since I posted here. Two days after my last post I was let go from my job of almost 10 years and spent the next few weeks dealing with my mother's estate as well as the loss of my job. Then the holidays were upon us! We drove to Georgia and got to spend Christmas with my father, as well as my brother and his wife. Now I am back and busily trying to get myself employed again. I haven't been creating anything new, sadly, but I am hoping that I can get back into the swing of things soon.

Holiday Sale

The Earthpath Artisans Street Team (EAST) on etsy is holding their 2nd Annual Winter Wonderland Event now! Running from Nov.28 thru Dec.15, EAST member shops are celebrating the season with special sales promotions, and crafting unique new items! Search Etsy using the WWEE tag to find participating items. My WWEE items are marked down up to 33% and have free shipping! So stop on in for some great buys and shipping!

I will also offer free shipping and a 10% discount on any item in my shop to the first person to make a purchase and mention "blogspot" in the notes to seller.

Goodbye to an amazing lady

My mother suffered a massive stroke nearly 13 years ago and has been living a half life since then. The woman who was so full of life and creativity, independence and adventure became almost totally dependent on others. Early on the morning of November 25 she was finally released from the shell of what she had become. I grieve for the loss of my mother, but have really been doing that for over a decade now. I also rejoice for her release and know that she has passed from the pain and unhappiness. A toast to my mother whose creativity and love of art helped to shape me!

The holidays are approaching!

The holidays are coming and I have been listing new pieces, including some holiday themed jewelry. I am having carpal tunnel surgery next week and I am not sure how soon I will be able to get back to creating so I wanted to get a start on new items. Check out these new pieces!

Wand of a Steampunk Magus is a fun piece that actually lights up! I wanted to create a wand that might have been used by a steam-era mage. The light inside makes the quartz crystal on the end glow with either flashing or steady reddish light when it is turned on.

Deck the Halls is my entry in the etsy SteamTeam's current contest. It would look great on any Christmas tree!

For holiday themed jewelry I have these fun pieces using lampwork and semi-precious gemstone beads:

But Once a Year Made with lampwork beads by a local lampwork artist (Chic Velazco of Chic Beads), green aventurine, white onyx, glass, red coral, malachite and tierra cast lead-free pewter, this piece is sure to draw comments this holiday season!

Happy Holidaze This fun bracelet is made with some of Chic's

lampwork beads, along with golden metallic beads for a cheerful holiday look.

Red and White Bracelet Red and white lampwork beads by Chic and white howlite beads have been combined to create this luscious peppermint creation.

Back from SteamPowered!!

Wow, what a weekend!! I had a blast at SteamPowered! I got to meet some of the other etsy SteamTeam members, exceeded my sales goal, got to see Abney Park in concert and generally had a really good time.

I also got to meet Nathaniel of Abney Park on one of his wanderings around the vendor area and he graciously agreed to pose for a picture with me. He did, however, insist we pose as if it were a prom picture.

I was able to sell a fair amount of my steampunk style items and was very pleased about that. What didn't sell will get put back into my etsy shop as soon as it has been shipped back to me.

Industrial Fairytale did an amazing job of organizing our little group. Big kudos to our own Indy!!!

Orpheus Alchemy of the SteamTeam won first place in the inividual costume portion of the costume contest on Friday night. She looked amazing and definitely deserved the accolades. Any time she was at our tables she drew people who wanted to see her costume up close and find out how her wings worked. She is an amazingly talented costumer!












Despite the rain most of the weekend we all had a great time. The rain certainly didn't dampen anyone's spirits and a wonderful time was had by all!!!