New Treats from Me to Me....

You bet I earned it...I've worked really hard this summer and so, I've done a bit of my own Etsy shopping for some gifts: from me to me. I'm writing about this today because I'm highlighting two artisans that you may wish to take a serious look at in order to treat yourselves (or loved ones)!!

First up, 2TrickPony. My Etsy buddy Rachel is an A+ metalsmith, quite renowned for her hoop earrings. I bought some earrings from her earlier, and now, I've convinced her to make new jewelry from old for me as recycling precious metal and other parts is one of her specialties. My new/old recycled ring is still a work in progress (and I'll blog about it when it's finished), but the newly remade earrings are so wonderful, I'm getting comments left and right.

Some years ago, my brother and his wife bought me these turquoise earrings and a matching pendant since they knew how much I love turquoise, teal, aqua...that family of colors. Since I'm blond, the blues suit me, too. At any rate, back to the gift earrings...they were posts and I have trouble wearing posts because my ear lobes are too skinny and anything with any weight sort of droops and looks bad...so I only wear dangly earrings. Well, I sent these posts to Rachel, not really sure if she could figure out a way to turn them from posts into hanging earrings...and EUREKA (actually, she lives near there in CA) look what she created for me!

Now I love, love, love them and...they make me so happy!! Rachel did a brilliant job of creating a special bezel for the mounted stones with a half hoop soldered on and once she saw that they hung right, made wires for them and clipped off the posts. To me, they look like they were meant to be this way from the start, lol!


Treat #2. About 1998 I spent a semester in Lodz, Poland (pronounced "Woodje"), as I've briefly mentioned here before. The art academy where I had my Fulbright residency is renowned for its fashion and textile departments...as was, historically, the city of Lodz.

So I happened to notice the fine knit lace patterns a Polish artisan from Lodz was making after Aga, owner of the shop Amadeitknits, used one of my pieces in an Etsy treasury that she put together. I wrote to her and asked if this scarf could be made in a color other than pink and learned she was happy to oblige as she had a new yarn order on the way.

I chose a really soft gray color which I just discovered Aga wrote up on her blog after she made it for me. Well, my finished scarf finally arrived in the mail on Friday (mail can be slow between Poland and the US) and it is as beautiful as I imagined.

The knitting is so fine and delicate and the pattern is so rich and intricate in its monochromatic color. It wraps my neck and then loops in front with length to spare and I will love, love, love wearing this....probably with my new earrings!....as cooler weather settles in around here and I go into my winter scarf wearing mode.

So the overarching reason I'm writing this is to remind one and all to shop HANDMADE! The amazing quality, the unique features and pieces, the custom work...all of this is possible for just a bit more (& sometimes a bit less!) then the costs of shopping mass produced things. For yourselves and for your loved ones--it's the right thing to do, as often as possible. Guaranteed to make you happy happy happy! Have a wonderful holiday weekend!

Tying up Some Loose Ends

Well, Thursday is as good a day as any, I suppose, to tidy up some loose ends and overdue items.

There's a full moon rising, for better or for worse, and I happened to have my camera and be near a fence post to give it a try because it took a full 1 second exposure--nearly impossible to do hand held, but after about 8 tries, one came out to be sort of interesting. I liked the way the clouds blurred, but the outline of the moon was fairly sharp.

I meant to thank Theresa of Theresa's Treasures for featuring my piece in her blog last week. Not sure if it was coincidence or what, but that bracelet sold over the weekend, which was just wonderful!! And although I'm all for buying wearable art for ones' self when ever possible, keep in mind that these kinds of things also make unique gifts--often, one of a kind gifts--and I mention this because that bracelet and a couple of pairs of coordinated earrings are about to be a special birthday present for one lucky wife!!

I have become an "ArtFire Maven!" What's that, you ask? It's a pool of artists who review new features, check new ideas, help tweak this fabulous site for shopping for unique gifts, original hand made items, and cool art materials as Artfire grows beyond its' beta mode and gets into high gear in anticipation of the holiday season (oh my, did I just say "holiday" in August?? Woe is me...) I'll be sharing more info about the evolution of Artfire as new things are in place. I opened my shop there back in January, as a charter member, and although it doesn't get quite the traffic as Etsy does yet...things are improving there for both the artists AND the shoppers all the time, stay tuned!

And finally, last but not least, a huge hunk of gratitude to my own collection of Entrecard "top droppers" on my blog for July! Be sure to drop in on all of these fine blogs who honored my blog with lots of regular visits last month (and Thank You to any and all of my visitors! I'm honored that you take a few minutes to drop by and check more "chapters" in "Behind the Gallery View.")

Dropper # of drops Let's Jump Together 31 Photography by KML 31 Split Rock Ranch 31 Frugal Healthy Choices 31 PJ's Prose 31 Computer Aid 31 Guitarbench.com 31 My gypsygoods 31 Doocci.com 31 Coming Back to Life 31