henri

 bracelets i've made recently. from top bracelet to bottom bracelet: yellow agate, turquoise swarovski beads,  black swarovski beads w/ sterling silver stardust bead, apatite (blue one), metal pave beads, beads i salvaged from an old necklace.

"rosary bracelets" made from wood beads and wood crosses i recently found at the gem show.

 24" necklace made from gold filled chain, turquoise beads and gold filled stardust beads.

henry and his cute little tongue.

alexis bittar, you know i love you.

one of my favorite costume jewelry designers is alexis bittar. he's a self-taught designer out of brooklyn and has gotten insanely popular in the last few years. now not only do small boutiques (including hanan's) carry his wacky/classy/luxe/gorgeous jewelry but big department stores like neiman marcus and nordstrom. his fall 2011 lookbook is a bizarre piece of work..and i love it. these are the highlights in my opinion. i want! (i NEED a neon bangle..or two.) 

photos taken from fashionista.com

please come home.

i've been away a while, i know. some of you may know that my sweet kitty, lucy, ran out of the house accidentally two weeks ago. :( i've spent the last 14 days looking for her, making flyers, posting them everywhere and going to animal shelters and vet offices. it's so heartbreaking. we've had a couple people actually go to the trouble of capturing a cat thinking it's lucy, but they have been false alarms. (poor tabbys of ferndale!) please keep lucy in your thoughts and hope she comes back home to us.

(sigh.)

on a lighter note...i learned how to macrame a bit. i've been making adjustable bracelets..here are a few:

 this was the first bracelet i made.

a few bracelets using copper, apatite, brass screw nuts and yellow agate.

finally got this in the mail after ordering it weeks ago (what year are we in again?) i think i'm about 15 years late in dying my hair a crazy color (i wanted green hair when i was 14. my mom said no.) but whatever. (p.s. i will not be dying my entire head pink!)

my new superhero cuff from forever 21. not bad for $7.80.

adorn.

 gold filled wire teardrop hoops with quartz drops.

 gold filled chain with iolite beads and gold filled wire teardrop pendant.

gold filled irregular hoops with jade drops.

green quartz and gold filled chain layering piece i made for myself.

goldfingers.

i gave a couple friends of ours a gift for their baby today...it was a drawing that i started before my wedding and just now was able to finish. (i know..i'm terrible at time management.) it's my homage to the japanese woodblock prints...with a bit of a twist. i cut up some of alex's judge dredd comics and then i did some faux gold-leafing on top of that. after i had drawn and painted in watercolor, i had done a bunch of crosshatching on the balloons and i didn't like the result at all. i thought of covering it with newspaper clippings for a cool contrast...but then i thought of using comics instead since i love them and kids are usually drawn to colorful pictures. the pictures i chose aren't necessarily kid-friendly, but who needs dora when you've got a ninja and death?

(i apologize for the blurriness of the picture.)

 and here's penelope looking regal.

baby.

a little pumpkin in our family is going to be turning one on august 11th. i made her this tiny bracelet (that looks huge in the picture but it's actually a mere five inches long.) it's made with peridot stones, which is the august birthstone, and a sterling silver disk that i made and stamped her initial into. babies like jewelry, too! :)

hard candy

first...here's another bracelet. lately i've been really into stacking a bunch of bracelets on my wrist and having arm parties.

 stretch bracelet

mystic labradorite

oxidized silver swarovski crystal bead thingy

today was a great day. weather wise, it was gross..but perfect for staying indoors and getting stuff done. i was busy with a few different projects and i even braved the humid, drizzly afternoon to go out and get supplies from munro's. here are the goodies i came back with! they look so delicious don't you just want start chomping? i do. i brought the following to live with me for a while: black spinel, jade, yellow agate, peridot and turquoise. mmm...

 here's a funny little caricature alex drew of himself and me! (don't you love how he had to sketch one out first?) this was actually on the back of a wedding response card for a couple friends who are getting married in a few weeks. they asked everyone to draw themselves for their guestbook..how cool is that? (also, those aren't flies buzzing around my "hand", it's my sparkly diamond ring. hahahaha!)