On My Path

New Etsy Listings and what I've been up to lately

Hi friends! While I can't say that my hands are letting me create yet, I can tell you that I'm getting on the ball with photographing and listing new pieces in my Etsy shop. You wouldn't believe how many pieces of jewelry I have hanging around in my studio! The top two photos are one in my Goddess Series, and a pair of earrings that go nicely with her. They are made with sterling silver and tourmaline - Yumm! I'm offering 10% off of both pieces if bought together. That's $27 for you who don't want to figure it out!

I'm also getting my Facebook business page going. There's not much there yet, but if you want to check it out you can find me here : All That I Am on Facebook.

Hmmm... Things have been busy around here with 2 different friends visiting. We've had a great time. One has gone on her way back home and the other will still be around for another couple of weeks. I've been running around like a maniac in my spare moments reading up on how to better market my Etsy shop and am considering doing an Arfire shop as well. This stuff is so time consuming but fun! I've been perusing the forums on Etsy to learn more about SEO (search engine optimazation). For those who don't know what that is, it is basically about how you word things on your web pages in order to have the best chance at showing up in a google search. At least I think that's what it is. Boy is there a LOT to learn! So that's me - busy busy busy!

The next 3 photos are part of a series called "The Winged Ones" that I posted about back in December of '09. I started these about a year ago now. No... I don't have any problems getting things listed for sale....

First up is ElvaNea. She is the Queen of the Winged Ones, and is very scrumptious in mico-faceted apatite and garnet:

ElveNea

Next up is MaraFae, who's delightfully warm in her autumn colored stones of amber, rhodolite garnet, Mandarin garnet and the gorgeous and fairly new to me, green chrome diopside:

MaraFae

And lastly, for now, is JenaBell - such a cute little wispy thing in peridot, citrine and amethyst:

JenaBell

Here is another piece in my Goddess Series. She is The Moon Whisperer:

The Moon Whisperer

The last two photos are of pendants, one with green amethyst and Australian Opal, and the other with apatite and amethyst. Here you go :

Her Warrior Shield

Ocean Sunset On Waves

Whew - only 3 1/2 months?

I've been neglecting my blog as well as others' blogs. After my last post at the beginning of May, my carpal tunnel TOOK OVER. It took over mind, body, and spirit. I can't remember what I've said of it here on my blog, but I have it in both wrists and at my worst, cannot pet my cats or wash a dish. It gets pretty bad. Needless to say, I also couldn't type or use my mouse, but that's not so much what kept me away as it was the draining of my spirit by the old depression, which is very prevalent in my life. I realized somewhere along the way that I figured everyone knew what was going on with me as I dropped out of this online society because I had updated how things were going on Facebook, but of course we are not all on FB. So - apologies to any of you who wondered where I went.

Right now I am sitting in my studio for the first time in almost 4 months. I couldn't really even visit it because of the emotional pain. To be cut off from creativity was too difficult - plus there wasn't really anything I could do in here. When I started to get better I tried a little painting but that was too much for the hands - that lasted for two days.

So, now, here I am and I can't really use my pliers yet, but had to come up here to get some stones for someone who wants to do some healing work. I'm sitting in my office chair looking out the windows at the distant hills and am feeling really happy. It's like a dear old friend has contacted me out of the blue. I'm finally meeting a bit of myself again. At the same time I'm trying not to get too excited because it doesn't take much for me to knock myself on my butt again. Twist that wrist the wrong way or bump it hard and I'm back a week or two in my progress. My emotions are so connected to my hands it is amazing. Not really surprising though, our hands are quite the magical beings and it's not much fun to be without them.

But anyway, right now, I am loving being in my studio and am hopeful that in the near future I can try to make something again -- or at least photograph and list some jewelry. I just want to have my spirit in the jewelry world!

Thanks to all my friends for their support and kind words in this sucky process of mine.

If you are wondering if I've thought about surgery - it is in my mind, but I'm not convinced that it'll do the trick. On the medical scale of CT, I am very mild. The docs tell me that you can be mild with high pain because as you have greater CT, you become more numb and thus less pain. The doc's also haven't jumped on the idea of surgery. I haven't gone back to talk to them about it in these months because I'm trying to take a more holistic approach to healing.

In any case, sorry I just disappeared!! I'm sending much love to you all and will be back and creative as soon as I can :)

I like a good Zentangle session ... Do You?

This is my 5th Zentangle. What is a Zentangle you ask? Well, my answer is a kind of meditative, repetitive, organic doodle. The concept was created by Rick and Marie over at Zentangle.com. I don't work for them or anything, though they do certify folks to become Zentangle teachers. They don't know me at all, but I sure like this thing that they have created!

I think they started it a number of years ago and I have no idea how I heard about it, but once I went to their site, I was hooked. It's so perfect for me - doodling with a fine ink pen on nice little squares of paper. I LOVE it! When I first started looking zentangle up online I saw all kinds of neat example so I started to experiment and try to figure out how they make all those neat patterns. I quickly learned that I could do their patterns or create my own - I like to do a little of both, but usually use theirs. Here I am talking like I'm a seasoned pro but I've only made 5 of these things!

I'd like to make it a daily ritual, sitting down and making a ZT (I'll call it a ZT because it's easier on my poor little typing fingers). They give all kinds of reasons for why creating them can help you, but the bottom line for me is that it helps calm me, focus me, bring me to the present. That's something that is always good for me

I'll leave it up to you if you want to check it out at all. I just figured since this is my creative blog kind of thingie, I might as well share these:)

Here are my first 4.

Oh, by the way, these are each on a square 3.5 inch piece of paper. The one at the top of the blog is done on a specially cut piece of quality paper from zentangle.com. They're neat little squares with a kind of washed looking edge, though you can't see that in my photo. The others are on scrap paper I had.

Happy creating and let me know if you get into Zentangling too!

Shay

More on "Green Amethyst", or Prasiolite

In my last post, I shared a photo of this piece that I made for my mother. My dear friend Swati, commented to the effect that I was teaching her something new in regards to "green amethyst", and I realized I better get my butt in gear and do some research so I'm not sharing false information!! So this post is a little about this green stone :) I am not a specialist - just explaining as best I understand. I welcome anyone to add more or correct me!

The first thing to know is that it is a variety of quartz - just like amethyst, citrine, and rose quartz are all different types of quartz. Some quartz has a specific iron compound that when heated turns green. Without that compound, heated quartz will usually turn a yellow or brown color. I believe that even though it is called green *amethyst* it didn't have to be amethyst (purple/lavender) first; it could have been heat treated from a clear quartz. From what I read, most prasiolite that is sold on the market has been heat treated by man rather than found naturally green. There are instances of naturally heated green quartz -- due to some geological event heating up the appropriate quartz, but this is much less common in the gemstone field.

And that's about it for my knowledge!

Now the more scientific people may smack me on the head for my simple interpretation...

Whatever it is, it's pretty don't you think?

Recent Orders and Gifts

I've been working away at orders and swaps and "create it forward pieces." I'm having lots of fun and thought I better just stop in here and update you on what I've finished!

I suppose I won't share any of the "create it forward" pieces until they are all done and out to their peeps so you'll have to wait to see those :)

I recently did 2 pendants for my mom's birthday which she got today. Happy Birthday Mom!!!
These are the two that you see above. The first one is black onyx with a tiny faceted black spinel up at the top. She had been wanting something in just black and silver so this is what I came up with. Hope she likes it!

The second one is a "green amethyst" briolette. Green amethyst is a treated amethyst - there are natural ones (Prasiolite), but very rare I think. When she picked out this stone last time I went back east to visit, I knew I wanted to wrap it using a tutorial I had purchased from "Earrings By Erin" on Etsy. Here's a link to the tutorial: Erin's Vintage Briolette Tutorial.
It was a very well done tutorial and I'd suggest it to anyone who wants to give it a shot. I quite enjoy Erin's work! I had to change a couple of things to adapt to a different sized briolette than she used (mine is smaller), but it has a quite similar look. I thought about oxidizing mine, but mom had made the comment in the past about a bracelet that I gave her, that she likes to watch it darken, so watch she will:)

Happy Birthday Mom!! One of these days I'm going to get her to actually post a comment on my blog. You hear that??!

Okay....
The next items to share were all ordered by a lovely woman who happens to be a good friend of my mothers and probably rivals her in how many pieces of my work she owns.
She had selected a piece of petrified wood (fossilized wood) when she and my mom visited me here in CA some time ago. When I went back east we then picked out a herkimer diamond that she wanted to pair with the wood. She didn't have a particular thing in mind except that she wanted them together - possibly with the herkimer below. I decided to go with a fairly standard style cabochon wrap for both pieces, and used round wire to keep the soft look of the petrified wood. So, here she is front and back or front and front, whichever way you choose to look at it.
Hope she loves it!

The final photo shows a selection of pieces that she ordered to give out to a group of women with whom she celebrates a bit of the supernatural each year. In my mind I think if them as "The Unofficial Coven" though they do not profess themselves to be witches or anything like that.
The do get together yearly to photograph Orbs and call to their ancestors and other friendly spirits. Of course, this is my abbreviated version since I've never accompanied them, but I have been invited and my just have to do so next year.
I had so much fun making these for them!

The stones used in these pendants are: prehnite, amethyst, quartz, amazonite, fluorite, kyanite, mookaite and aventurine. I think she has inspired me to do some more individual group pendant sets. It'd be fun if someone bought a set to give to their friends or keep for themselves if they want.

Okay, one more for the road. This is a piece I made out of sterling silver and aquarmarine crystals - just for fun:) Well, it's all fun really, but I suspect you know what I mean.
Happy creating to you!
Shay

Create It Forward (Technically - "Pay it forward for creative people")

Ever see the movie "Pay It Forward"? Simply put, the premise is that you do nice things for people and they in turn do nice things for people, and it spreads and spreads and spreads. Sounds great right? I thought so.

I'm on Facebook ( My facebook page if you care to join), and there has been a "pay it forward for creative people" thing going around. Here are the details as they are written on Facebook.

"Pay It Forward for Creative people. I promise to send something handmade to the first 5 people who leave a comment to this. They must in turn, promise to send something they made to the first 5 posters on their status.The rules are, it must be handmade by you and it must be sent to your 5 people sometime in 2010."

So the gist of it is that I sign up with someone who is doing this and they make me one thing. In turn I get 5 people to sign up with me and I make them each something (this is all free). So for the one thing someone gets they make 5 things, and those 5 people make something creative for 5 more people (25 people playing now). Imagine how fast that could turn into thousands of people spreading the creative love! I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to take part in this!

If this is something you might want to do, please let me know and I'll hook you up with someone who will make something creative for you. I have a number of friends who don't have their 5 slots filled up yet and I want to help make that happen so we can see the creations grow and flow!

I'm also hoping to take a collection of photos from people when they've made their 5 items and post it on my FB page. I think it'll be so wonderful to see what just one of us can do by taking part.

If you aren't on Facebook, I'm sure we could do it through the blogs too. So... anyone who's not already participating want to join in?

Thanks!

Shay

Projects Unfinished

Today, I decided to try to collect all my various piles of jewelry projects that have been started but not finished. I don't know when I picked up the habit of starting and not finishing, but I'll tell you, they are accumulating! I've shown a picture above of *most* of them! There are gemstone necklaces, wire wrapped pendants, bracelets in the making, chainmaille, and other various items. I mean, there are things on that table that I started at least 4 years ago! What's up with that??

Here's another photos of just the pendants:

That's a whole lot of lovely little creations to get to work on. With a rough counting, I'd say that is something like 55 projects in all. And this doesn't include custom orders, swaps with other jewelers or my 5 Create It Forward projects (I'll do another post on that one next).

I think, just maaaaaaaybe I have my work cut out for me! Of course what I usually want to do when I pick up my pliers is start something new, but I'm going to make an effort to work on these projects. Yes I am :)

How many of you are like me - starting and not finishing?