What's It For?

is for fabulous. Which is what a very kind coworker of mine is. Fresh from a trip to Italy, she stopped by my office to give me a really lovely package of Venetian beads she picked out in Venice! It was such a lovely thoughtful gesture, that I was just stunned. I will be making something with them for sure this weekend, so I'm thinking about what to make.

Aubergine

Aubergine. Oh'-ber-zheen.

How l love that word - from its pronunciation to the color it represents.

(Although I am not crazy about eggplant, which is what it translates to in English.)

A dark, almost-black purple, it's mysterious and deep, with more character than other dark colors.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Because there was major cleaning to be done today, I had to put away the beads that for weeks had been sitting on my workstation-slash-desk-slash-catchall area.

And as soon as they're away, I almost literally forget what I have. Any inspiration for a pattern or a combination or a piece de resistance flies right out the window.

If you've had any dealings with beads, you know they can be a god-awful mess if you don't have them organized. And the fact that I have to live with the combos a little while to see how things truly play out means I have a lot of stuff lying about at any given moment.

Sometimes working in matching palettes is the order of the day. But for more sophisticated color schemes, and projects of varying bead-size combinations, it just takes a lot of playing around. At least for me.

So although my desk is now clear, I can't envision what I want to create next?!

Calendar Girl

It's that time of year, again. Staring down the barrel of 2009, I walked through the bookstore the other day and spotted a few calendars that looked interesting.

The obligatory Paris landmarks. A few beachy ones. A snarky Ann Taintor. And miles and miles of animal calendars. (Why?)

But I'm jazzed about finding one I like. I get the same textural "ooh!" opening up a fresh calendar as I do cracking open a new notebook and taking a pen to page.

Clean slates, and all that. And print on paper.

(Basically, I've had an attachment to office supplies of all kinds for my whole life, so there's some deep-seated psychological thing going on here, I'm sure.)

Partway through this year, I started a new job. At the time, I didn't have a spare calendar to stick in my cube and it was so late in the year, none could be found.

As a result, my decor is extremely minimal; I moved in amidst the accoutrements left behind by my predecessor and have slowly been ditching the things that aren't helpful.

Things have been so busy, that taking the time to fully move in has taken lower and lower priority.

So the calendar will be the linchpin; when I find one of those 16-month versions, I'll tack it up and really feel like I've moved in and taken root.

41 Grattitudes

Taking a cue from Ariel at Electrolicious, I'm capping the celebration of my birthday week with this list of 41 things for which I am grateful this year.

1. My husband, who tries to understand me even when it's a lot of work
2. My parents, each for their own gifts
3. My sister, brother-in-law, and their kids, who are a riotous whirl of pandemonium - a party packaged in a single family form
4. My friends all of whom have broad shoulders to lean on and make me smile
5. The way the light comes into the downstairs windows in the morning
6. The lush canopy of trees that envelops our yard in the summer
7. Grilled sausage
8. Chocolate in various forms, be it truffle, solid and bite-worthy block or cake
9. Color and the way it evokes different feelings
10. Fuzzy lambswool-lined slippers
11. The feeling that comes from doing good
12. Bloggers who inspire me to write better or more regularly
13. Mentors
14. Splendid serendipity
15. Commonalities
16. Extemporaneous commentary
17. Ephemera, as both a word and a concept
18. Colorful graphics
19. Well-told stories
20. Flights of fancy
21. Stationery stores
22. Musings
23. Connections
24. Cartoons
25. Alliteration
26. Unmitigated joy
27. Laughter
28. Insight
29. Smooth-writing pens
30. Confidence
31. Backstory
32. Clean slates
33. Fresh laundry
34. Perfectly timed hugs
35. Reading before bed
36. Surprisingly good movies
37. Energized discussion
38. Meetings of minds
39. Course correction
40. Turquoise
41. Understanding

Color Me Addicted: Pottery Painting Protege

I have now entered suburban housewife cliché-ville: This weekend, my sister and I took her daughter and a friend to Color Me Mine, one of those paint-your-own pottery stores.

It was sensory overload for a while. We ran into a friend from high school whom I hadn't seen in 15 years and caught up amidst the chatter.

The place was noisy and crowded with kids coming out of a birthday party. A family squished beside us, mother, grandmother, and kids, painting dishes and dinosaurs.

Then suddenly, there was calm. Everyone was concentrating on coloring in the lines, or not. We were chatting quietly and giggling, and keeping an eye on the little ones while we painted our wares and dished about the week.

While the fun was fleeting, in just 7 to 10 days we'll see the finished products.

Can't wait to see how they all turned out!

Written in Ink

My husband is totally bemused by the fact that I've watched all those ink shows - Miami Ink, LA Ink, London Ink - at one time or another.

Why? Because I am the least likely person he knows to get a tattoo.

Aside from the pain (for which my tolerance levels rival that of a newborn), I can't think of a symbol that I would like to have permanently committed to my person.

I'm too much of a magpie, intrigued by a huge range of visual imagery.

One day it might be chiaroscuro paintings. Another, contrasty black and white photography. Or modern line drawings. Cartoons.

So mainly it's the permanence that keeps me away.

While I've met many people who've been tattooed to mark the arrival of a new baby, pay tribute to a parent or the survival of a harrowing event, I've never seen such vivid imagery as these artists create on their clients' skin. I'm especially intrigued by the colorful, heavily shaded versions created by Kat Von D and her team of artists.

As the TLC people realized, it's the individual stories that make these shows compelling.

So for now, I just enjoy hearing about others' triumphs, and seeing how they choose to mark their own major life events.

Do you have a tattoo? If so, how did you make your selection?

Let's Get Organized, People!

Back in high school, I had a social studies teacher known for her, I don't know what to call them - I guess her epithets. No, they were more like catchphrases. Or rallying cries.

"Let's get organized, people!" was one of her favorites. She usually did this when the din rose to a level where you could barely hear what she was saying.

[Mark, my lifelong bud who is in town from San Francisco will know exactly who I'm talking about here!]

It had nothing to do with organization, but everything to do with imposing order.

My workspace is an atrocious mess at the moment. Between the holiday preparations. And the gifts I've been making. Oh, and the Etsy-ing.

So I'm in dire need of order right now. It's a matter of too much inflow, and not enough outflow.

Amidst all the creating of jewelry, I've been shopping and gathering materials during all the end-of-year sales at my favorite suppliers. There's just too much stuff. (My husband is nodding his head in agreement: hi, honey!)

But there's a method to the madness. Sometimes it takes seeing one item next to another that you'd never consider together . . . to really know that it will make a smashing series of necklaces.

Hiding it away in boxes makes it impossible to make those connections.

The photo above shows the latest group of colors I'm obsessed with. I'll let you know when I've come up with something.

Inspiration Bracelet

I get a creative jolt from making jewelry, especially pieces featuring detailed, handmade glass beads. Since I've been making jewelry, I've met some amazingly talented glass artists.

But there's something else: I want to learn how to make glass beads.*

This bracelet was built around a Kazuri bead as the focal point. I love these beads and the story behind them. It also has clusters of handmade borosilicate glass beads. You don't notice all the colors at first, but on closer inspection you'll note a purpley royal blue in the ceramic Kazuri bead, and some blue and orange swirls in the glass teardrops.

This is one of my favorites and I can't decide whether I really want to sell it or not. At least until I sell it, maybe it will inspire me to finally take a glass class.



*Frankly, I'd love to learn to make art glass in general, but I'm not too keen about fire, and burns freak me out.

Inspiration

Now that it's fall, with the leaves changing and crunchy underfoot, the grass morphing from brilliant shades of green to hay-bale yellow, I'm itching to go shopping.

Why?

The change in seasons makes me want to buy materials in different color palettes. I make jewelry, and inspiration strikes at the oddest moments... so it's good to have some beads, stones and silver pieces to work with when an idea pops into my head.

In October, all those summery caribbean blues and grassy spring greens and sunflower yellows give way to colors you'd see in tweeds and corduroys - espresso, cocoa, aubergine. (Now I'm hungry, too!)

Where do you look for inspiration?