Thanks Earrings Love Earrings Thanks

I just wanted to take a minute to say thank you to everyone who has involved me in their holiday gift giving process this winter. I am so tickled and honored and grateful to all of the friends, family, and Etsy community members who have decided to give loved ones WanderLustre jewelry for Christmas.


There is an incredible tie that is created when handmade gifts are given -- a thread that is woven from artist to giver to reciever. You have all made me so happy this winter to be a part of that. Thank you!

Quilt-away

Eventually I hope to do a giveaway of my own from my blog, but for now check out Liz' gorgeous quilts on her blog. If you hurry you can enter to win the quilt in the link above!

I have had a lovely lazy day, and I'll admit that most of it has been spent snoozing in bed. It was a long hard week at work (I work 10 hour shifts Sunday-Weds) so I am giving my body a full recovery.

I hope you enjoy your weekends too, whenever they come for your schedule.

New Work

It's been a long time coming but I'll be posting some new pieces in my shop throughout the week.

Here's a sneak peek at one of my favorites:


Click here to see the first new addition...

I made a treasury!

Click here to see the real thing.

"Art is not a Luxury"

As a little reminder to the universe, the phrase "Art is not a luxury" is taped onto the mailbox of a very inspirational woman I know. I met this woman the summer before last when I spent a week volunteering at the Maya Angelou art camp. This woman created the free camp four years ago for the neighborhood children who live in a low income housing development in North Portland. Every summer the same kids enthusiastically look forward to returning to camp, this year bringing new neighbors, cousins, and friends with them. The woman I know welcomes them all, giving them a free week full of art projects, poetry, and songs. Working at the camp was the highlight of my summer in 2007 and it was equally delightful to return to help out this summer.

"Art is not a Luxury" carries several meanings for me. On one level, I think of my own need to create art. It is not something to be saved for a free moment, but something that is essential to my own wellbeing and that therefore needs to be given a similar priority to keeping my house clean or my cat fed. On another level, I think it also speaks to how sharing and owning art can enrich a person's life, and that one should allow themselves to spend money on artwork that they really love.

I recently came across the artist Geninne, whose art and life have also inspired me immensely recently. Here is some of her artwork which I am enamored with:


9/20 Limited Edition Print

Geninne created a series of twenty small bird prints which she is selling in her Etsy shop. I absolutely love how she illustrated old postcards with birds and plants inspired by botanical prints to create twenty mini pieces of art.

8/20 Limited Edition Print

Geninne also has an amazing blog. The past few nights when I have gotten home from work at 11:30 after working ten hour shifts with no breaks I have curled up in bed and unwound by clicking through some of her old blog posts.

6/20 Limited Edition Print

Geninne lives in Mexico with her family where she has created a life for herself that I fantasize about. Her house is art filled and very personal and she encourages her children to think creatively and openly.


10/20 Limited Edition Print

Thank you,
Laura

Macbook Attire

As my laptop from college died a slow, sad death, I recently bought a new Macbook to carry me through this next portion of my life. When I was unable to find a laptop case which lived up to my criteria -- easy to pack, functional, and unique, I decided to make my own:


I love any excuse to visit the Bolt Fabric Boutique on Alberta St. in NE Portland and had a lot of fun designing this sleeve and bringing it to life. I have also added another one for sale in my shop.
Now I just wish I was heading back to school with the rest of my roommates today so I could put my new sleeve to use!

New Art

I just received this new addition to my Etsy art collection in the mail:


It is called "Earth.Water" and it is a limited edition print from AnnaRubyKing. She is an Australian artist currently based out of Athens Greece. Anna makes charming little greeting cards and also some small fine art prints. Check her out!

Button Jar Inspiration

Months ago I alluded to this painting that I had begun:


I let the painting sit in the above state for a while until I finally got up the confidence to commit to actually finishing the piece. I am much newer to painting than I am to jewelry making, and sometimes I let the uncertainty of not knowing whether or not I'll be able to translate my mind's desire for a piece into reality overwhelm me.

The first stages of working on a painting, before I know whether or not I will be satisfied with the final product, are pretty daunting to me and I really have to focus in order to push through my feelings of self-doubt. I guess this sensation probably applies to many other experiences that people encounter, like an amateur runner as she starts a long run, before she settles into a flow.

I've also had a similar experience recently with beginning a new job. Even though I can consciously tell myself that it is OK to make mistakes and to feel unsure of myself at work while I learn the ropes, I am so anxious to get to the point where I actually own the confidence I try to project at work.

With my button jar painting, eventually as I pushed through the brush strokes that I wasn't sure of, attempting to paint both impulsively and intuitively, I found that I had created something that I was happy with. There wasn't a specific touch or detail added which moved me into this new ground of the painting, but somewhere as I immersed myself in the process the painting came to be.
I'm hoping that this will happen at my job as well, that one day I will recognize that I have gradually moved from feeling like I have to go through the motions in order for them to feel natural to the motions actually being natural.

Jewelry Art

I found out that I will be moving to the Sellwood area of Portland in a few months! I am really excited to be in a neighborhood that has more community like Sellwood does. I will also be in walking distance from the post office and library, two places I usually frequent on more than a bi-weekly basis!

I've been trying to snap pictures of the house I'm in now when I can. This is the first place I've lived in apart from the house I grew up in and college dorms. It has its problems, but will always hold a special place in my heart, frequently-flooding laundry room, bedroom in dingy basement, furnace in bedroom and all!

I'm pretty happy with the jewelry displays I created when I moved in here last summer.


I bought open-backed picture frames from Goodwill and attached wire hooks that I made with 14 gauge copper wire to hang my jewelry from. I then used a staple gun to attach ribbon so that the frames would have a way to hang. The best part is that when I move, it will be easy to take these with me to my new house!

Etsy Bonus

In just under over two months of selling I've sold 49 pieces of jewelry! As a bonus to the purchaser of my 50th item, I will send a surprise pair of earrings!

Here's a picture of one of the newest additions to my shop:

Thank you to everyone I've interacted with along the way. I've had nothing but pleasant Etsy experiences so far.

Another Etsy first!

I bought my first piece of art! I have loved this print by Dan-ah Kim since I first added it to my Etsy favorites months ago, and it has taken my utmost restraint on several occasions not to purchase it. I finally broke down and bought it last week, and am so happy that I did! I love the simple feminine lines she uses. There are several more things in Dan-ah's Etsy shop that I would like to own someday, go check her out!

8 Days a Week

I worked for the past 8 days straight and I'm worn out! I recently started a new "part time" position that is more related to my psychology background. I am loving the job, but due to the unpredictable nature of "on call" the job has hardly been part time! I can't go into too much detail about the position due to confidentiality conditions, but I am working with at-risk youth and finding the work to be challenging and really interesting. I will be glad to get to the point when I have learned the many details of the job, because for now there are been many days that I leave with a headache from concentrating so hard.

I am so excited to be cultivating my creative side with Etsy while also nourishing my psychology/social service interests with this new job. I have the next couple of days off and am looking forward to working on Etsy orders, updating my shop, and catching up with my roommates and friends.

An Etsy First

I'll admit I have been a little blog-shy since I first started writing at the beginning of the month. I was having difficulty deciding what I wanted my blog to be about, and also feeling a little unsure about whether or not I actually had anything to say! I know that what I appreciate about looking at other artists' blogs is getting to have a little window into their worlds -- I like to see their creative process, what things inspire them, and how they produce what they do. For me there is nothing as inspiring as being around other artists, and so the art-blogging world offers a (not so) little virtual community of artists.

Since joining Etsy, I have enjoyed some sweet and unexpected interactions with new people. One of my first experiences was when my friend Elaine, who I had met when she was taking one of my beading classes the past year at Dava Bead and Trade in Portland, reconnected with me when she found me and my shop randomly when she was browsing a forum! Since then we have exchanged frequent convos over Etsy and also met up for a museum talk at the Oregon Museum of Contemporary Craft followed by lunch where Elaine introduced me to two of her other friends, Julie and Kara. Julie and Kara also have Etsy shops, HandmadeJulz and OctavineIllustration, respectively.

Another Etsy contact was with Ristowlk, who was kind enough to both include me in her beautiful treasury, and to let me know that she had done so! Recently her boyfriend purchased a necklace from my shop to surprise her with on her birthday. Kate makes beautiful jewelry herself, so I took it as a great compliment that she enjoys my jewelry too! And finally, I returned home from work the other day to find a message from RecycledIdeas. She is an evolutionary psychologist and I have been reading her blog for a couple of years, (I was a psychology major, but hers is a great blog for anyone interested in learning about evolutionary psychology). Recently I was on the Etsy forums and clicked on a link to someone's blog, and it turned out to be hers! I sent her a message then to introduce myself and say hi and to tell her that I'd been a fan of her blog for a while. Anyway, the message she sent me today was to tell me that my Art Deco Earrings had been featured in a treasury by GigglingGoldfish on Etsy's front page! She was even sweet enough to take a screen shot of the treasury in case I had missed it (which I did). I'm including a picture of the treasury for you to see. Didn't GigglingGoldfish do a great job with the items she selected?

Pumpkin everything, please

Last fall my roommates and I capitalized on all things pumpkin. In the span of about two weeks, we tried pumpkin milkshakes, pumpkin scones, pumpkin lattes, pumpkin waffles, pumpkin icecream, pumpkin cookies, and my new favorite, pumpkin beer*.

*Note: I just did a search on the pumpkin ale that I drank the most of last fall, and it only earned a C+ on the beer raters' scale! I guess I don't have very refined beer taste... but I did love this beer!

Tonight my pumpkin craving resurfaced, and I made pumpkin chocolate chip muffins! I found the recipe at allrecipes.com. The recipe is actually for pumpkin chocolate chip bread, but I adapted it to making muffins, baking them at 24 minutes a batch instead of 60. They turned out sooooo good. Thank goodness I live with four other girls who will help me eat them!

You can find the recipe for the pumpkin chocolate chip bread here. I noticed after baking them that many people had commented that they would use less nutmeg next time, and more chocolate chips. I already used twice the amount of chocolate chips called for in my batch, but I agree with the comments about using less nutmeg. That is, if you want to go for total perfection.


All of the recipes I've used so far from allrecipes.com have been really good. Last summer my roommates and I made these Oatmeal and Wheat Flour Blueberry Pancakes quite a bit.

Beginnning stages

I've been working on an assortment of projects this weekend.

I have some earrings and necklaces that need to be antiqued, polished, tumbled, and photographed before they can go in the shop:


And, I'm in the very early stages of a painting! Can you guess what it is going to be?

I also managed to persuade three of my friends to play night-owl Bingo with me last night. If you haven't had the chance to experience Bingo at an actual Bingo hall, trust me, you need to go! It is quite the experience. Our games started at 11:15PM, and we finally left at about 2AM. However, we could've stayed until 4 in the morning!

The best part of late night Bingo is the varied collection of Bingo players you meet there. These people are SERIOUS about their Bingo, and come equipped with multiple daubers (the stamps you use to mark your cards) fancy dauber pouches, and plenty of coffee. You can tell that someone is a regular when they yell "Bingo!" with about as much enthusiasm as someone whose number has just been called at the DMV. On the other hand, my Bingo-novice friends and I could hardly contain ourselves when one of us finally got a Bingo, winning a whopping $25.

Astoria Coffee House

I was so inspired by this photograph of the Astoria Coffee House that I came across yesterday in the gallery of Liquid Sky Arts' blog. Isn't it beautiful?! I love everything about it, from the vintage globes lining the top of the doorway, to the sage blue walls to the doily patterned tile to the Buddha bust on the back cabinet.

Now I want to make a trip out to Astoria! Maybe when the lovely and talented Jodi Mclaren gets back from London I can convince her to schedule a show there! I will have to write more about Jodi on some other day, but she is an amazing singer/songwriter. Look her up on itunes!

Story of a bracelet

When I travel, I like to take a beading project with me. Usually, I'll make a certain kind of bracelet because I can pack all of my materials in this sweet little tin:
Also, it's much easier to find creative ways to cut thread (for example, dental floss dispensers!) than to find creative ways to cut wire, and I would hate to have my precious tools confiscated by security! Seed bead projects are also easier to plan for (since I know ahead of time what the pattern will be) and take a lot of time to make. Lastly, these bracelets are an excellent exercise in color (even though I choose my colors ahead of time, I never know exactly how the colors will look together until they are stitched into the bracelet) and allow me to use the gorgeous selection of size 14 seed beads that we carry at Beads and Beyond. So, peyote embellished bracelets are my travel project of choice.

Usually when I'm working on a bracelet, some curious person will ask me what I'm making. Of course I will try to show them, but since there are so many steps to this project and the bracelet evolves a lot from start to finish, I always feel bad that the person asking about the bracelet might never see the finished product. So while I was working on my most recent bracelet (done at home, not while traveling) I took pictures of all of the steps!

1. Basic peyote strip
2. Square stitch on top of peyote strip


3. Picot embellishments on both layers


4. Final layer

5. Voila!

Scent-track

While working in my cave/studio/room over the past few weeks, I have listened to a variety of music and podcasts, but one thing about my working conditions has been held constant -- the smell. I've been burning a Capri Blue Volcano Candle from Anthropologie. It's one of those little things that makes me happy. Unlike many candles, this one smells good the whole time, and even though it is pretty sweet, it never gives me a headache or becomes too overpowering.

For those of you who are starstruck, when I worked at Anthro in DC my managers told me during training that The Rolling Stones like to burn Volcano Candles, along with Demi Moore. I made myself buy the little one at first, in case I lit the candle once or twice and then never again, but now I have almost used the whole candle. Now I think I can justify the $25 for this pretty one, or maybe this one. We'll call it a business expense...

Accepted

I'm feeling my way through this online crafting world as I go, and a lot of what I learn is from the Etsy forums. Recently, I was introduced to the website Trunkt. It's a website designed to link boutiques, collectors, and gallery owners with indie artists. Unlike Etsy, you can't buy directly from Trunkt; instead you can browse through the portfolios of the artists and then link to their webpages for more information.

Trunkt has a quality standard, so before creating a portfolio one must apply and be approved by a Trunkt editor. I recently applied on a whim, and was so excited to learn this morning that I was accepted! Here are the images that I submitted for judging:


Now I'll just have to see if my portfolio brings me any more exposure on Etsy! One thing I did notice right away about Trunkt is that they were sure to inform me that now that I have been "accepted" I have the option of upgrading my "standard account" to a "premium account." In other words, I can give them $50 to for a few more benefits. Kind of reminds me of when I was a little girl and my friend and I convinced our dads to take us to modeling auditions... they took our polaroids and had us practice on the runway before telling us that we had what it takes, we just needed a few "classes." (I'm embarrassed to even admit that I went to one of these!) I think that for now I will stick to my basic account...

Welcome!

Well here I go, starting a blog...

To be honest this first post feels entirely overwhelming. I feel like I need to lay out what this blog is all about, what I am all about, both things which I don't really know. I can tell you why I am starting a blog though. Last month I finally started to sell things on Etsy, and since then the whole thing has become a wonderful obsession of mine. I love the whole process of creating, photographing, and posting my jewelry, but even more I like being part of a community of artists. I hope that this blog can be another way to connect with fellow artists and appreciators alike.

More to come later! Thanks for stopping by...