Friday, July 24, 2009

Award Winning Jewelry Designer Goes to the Fair!


Low and Behold! My humble Orange County Fair entry, The Beaches of Orange County, won second place in the Bead Jewelry division! I know it’s only a little local competition and all, but I’m still really surprised and happy that my necklace is Number Two. Here’s proof:


I hate my camera. I can’t change the date on it, it doesn’t have a viewfinder and it won’t let me see the pictures in order after I take them, so unless I want to sit for 10 minutes trying to find them, I can’t see if they turned out well. All things to remember when I buy a new one…

Anyway, here are some other artist friend’s entries this year:


Here’s my co-worker, Teresa’s, scrapbooking page dedicated to her mom. I wish this was a better picture (see kvetching above) because it’s really a beautiful piece of work. In fact, when I showed it to The Husband, a woman was looking at it and talked to me about how lovely it was. I was proud to say I knew the artist!


I wasn’t sure whether my blog buddy, Kim Van Der Hoeck, was exhibiting this year because she’s preggies but I was happy to find that she had 3 pieces in the Fine Arts contests. Here are two of her wonderful oil paintings.




For the last several years, we’ve had our Celebration of the Arts booth right across from Max Yamada, his wife Jolyn and their adorable Corgi, Coco. This year, Coco wasn’t with them and we were sad to find that she had passed away earlier in the year. But she was one of Max’s favorite subjects and is immortalized in many of his acrylic paintings, one of which is on view in the Fine Arts Building this year.


Besides the wonderfully air conditioned buildings, we also wandered a bit, seeing little piggies, hearing musical groups in the plaza and enjoying the wafting aroma’s of the food vendors. Here’s a booth we avoided~deep fried everything~but I think I gained 5 pounds just looking at it!


Here’s The Husband in front of a sand sculpture honoring the Santa Ana Army Air Base. Yeah, it’s a little cartoon-y, but it’s a county fair, after all…


And what’s a trip to the fair without a stop at the petting zoo? Llama’s and wallaby’s and deer, oh my!


I wish I had gotten pictures of some of the wood carving projects--gorgeous! I hope you get a chance to go to your local county fair this season. We hadn’t been in several years and I had forgotten what a fun, interesting experience it is.

So much to do, eat and see!


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Monday, July 20, 2009

Saturday, July 18, 2009

This Week on Etsy…


I spent most of today photographing, editing, writing and posting jewelry on Etsy. I think I need new lights to use with my little light box. I need to do some research on bulb colors. Anyway, here’s what I’ve been working on the last few weeks.


Tri Color Byzantine Necklace with Netted Beads
I LOVE playing with color. I started this as just red and silver. Then I thought, Oooooo, wouldn’t this be cool with some black thrown in?! Then I was trying find some red lampwork beads but I stumbled on the netted ones I ended up using. They had been in my drawer for probably a year, just waiting for the right project. Yea! I really like the drama of this piece.



Pink Flower Handmade Chain Bracelet
Again, love playing with color! And this is such a fun and pretty chain pattern. Looking through my stash of toggles, I had to laugh when I found the dragonfly. What could be better for a flower bracelet?



Black Onyx Drops Handmade Chain Earrings
The magazine I found this chain pattern in called it Celeste. I LOVE it. (I’ve got a lot of enthusiasm tonight) I experimented with these earrings by hanging not only the central Black Onyx bead but also the two tiny ones on each side. I think they look pretty elegant.


Flowers and Pearls Upcycled Choker
I found the focal piece for this necklace at a yard sale who knows how long ago. If you could see the boxes I have of all my saling finds, just waiting for their day in the sun! Well, it’s finally time for this beauty to have it’s debut! I found just the chain I wanted and put that in place. Then I searched around and deemed the faux pearls perfect for this piece. Attached the toggle and whoo! Or whoops… I noticed that one pearl was missing from the focal. Argh! But, without even getting up, I caught sight of a funky little earring with one sparkly little gee gaw. And it fit perfectly in the empty space. I glued it in, waited a few days and did my best to yank it out again. I think it’s in there till the next millennia! So I was very happy. Everything is better with a little sparkle!


Friday we’re going to the Orange County Fair and with any luck, I’ll have pix next weekend of me with my entry. I’m inordinately excited by the prospect of seeing my necklace on display. I suppose there are worse things to be!


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Sunday, July 12, 2009

A Place to Bark

Just a quicky to promote a very worthy cause and an amazing artist whose blog inspired this post.

Here’s The Blog of Manon Doyle. She’s a Canadian import to Ohio and her artwork is simply bold, beautiful and brilliant. I’m sure her work is copyrighted so you’ll have to click to see it ;-)

Party Animals, a book contributed to by many mixed media artists and the proceeds go to A Place to Bark. What could be better~a great book with wicked cool artwork that helps dogs in need. You can buy it at Lulu, a books on demand kinda place, where they print to order. http://stores.lulu.com/aplacetobark



A Place to Bark, Bernie Berlin’s animal sanctuary in Tennessee, rescues animals (cats, too) from high kill shelters, nurses them to health and facilitates adoptions. Read her success stories, dry your eyes and do what you can to help! http://aplacetobark.com/index.html



www.bearchick.etsy.com
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Eight Things…

I’ve been seeing this on folk’s blogs this morning. You’re supposed to tag people to do it on their blogs but I’m not much of a tagger. Please feel free to do your Eight lists. It’s actually pretty interesting!

Eight Things I’m Looking Forward to:

1. The Orange County Fair (haven’t been in 2 or 3 years)
2. Several books coming out this fall: Dark Road Rising, PN Elrod, Scary Stuff, Sharon Fiffer and Treacherous Teddy, John Lamb, among others
3. Cool weather
4. Paris (someday…)
5. Fitting back into my skinny clothes (see my other blog,
www.maresjourney.blogspot.com)
6. Pancakes on my birthday
7. Cold Stone on my birthday (ok, so the skinny clothes will have to wait a day or two more…)
8. Retiring (someday…)

Eight Things I Did Yesterday:
1. Made an anklet
2. Read
3. Yard saled with The Husband in the morning and blogged about it (see previous post)
4. Caught up on Royal Pains
5. Checked out a sale at Stein Mart (didn’t buy anything)
6. Cheated a little on my weight loss plan (Cheez-its called to me)
7. Bought turkey cutlets at Trader Joe’s to christen the new George Foreman grill
8. Played with the cats and their new catnip mice

Eight Things I Wish I Could Do:

1. Write a book (it’s harder than you would think…)
2. Live to 150
3. Go into outer space
4. Speak other languages
5. Either not sleep or have 8 more hours every day
6. Speak well in public
7. Travel extensively through Europe
8. Transport (as in Beam Me Up Scotty)


Eight Shows I Watch on TV:

1. Royal Pains
2. The Closer
3. Leverage
4. NCIS
5. CSI:NY
6. Numb3rs
7. Criminal Intent
8. Castle

If you decide to do your own Eight Lists, jot a comment here so we can all share!

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Saturday, July 11, 2009

A Great Morning of Saling!

The Husband was home this morning on vacation, till he got called into work… Grrrrr…

Anyway, we managed to get in some quality yard saling this morning at a community sale in Anaheim. The Husband kindly pointed out a table full of cool jewelry then wisely got out of my way. He knows to find a shady place to chill while I’m going through every piece of jewelry. It’s a sickness…

Anyway, here’s what I found:


The print of Notre Dame I actually got at an estate sale later in the morning. I can’t resist anything Paris related.


Interesting earrings, pins and the rhinestone bracelet were all in pretty good shape. I look for all the stones to be there, intact, and that nothing’s broken that I can’t fix or work around.


Here’s my favorite booty from today: I’m like a crow~~I’m attracted to anything shiny! And purple, although I don’t think that’s a crow thing. The wizard was just fun.

Hope you’re staying comfortable wherever you are, whether that means, dry, cool or windless. After lovely months of cool “gloom”, we’re getting the dreaded upper 90’s heat. The house is still relatively cool as I write but I’m sure the AC will see some action before the sun sets!

Don’t forget the Christmas in July sale on Etsy that Bear Chick is part of. Lots of handmade and vintage jewelry for 25% off. It’s never too early to start shopping for the Holidays!


www.bearchick.etsy.com
www.bearchickart.etsy.com
www.bearchick.artfire.com

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Bear Chick is Celebrating Christmas in July!


Get ready to do some holiday shopping! It's never too early, in my humble opinion.


Etsy is having a site-wide Christmas in July sale and Bear Chick is participating, from now until July 19. Both my handmade and vintage jewelry is 25% off (Christmas is December 25~25% off~get it!). I have three separate sections of sale items:



Christmas in July Xmas--actual Christmas items



CIJ Stocking Stuffers--Year round (non Christmas) items for $7.50 or less



CIJ 9.00 Plus--Year round (non Christmas) items $9.00 and over

I'm offering a special something to my Facebook fans during this sale, so if you become a fan of Bear Chick, with your order, you'll get a little appreciation gift. See the link to the left to become a fan or go here: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Bear-Chick/40472594959?ref=s


Come see what Bear Chick has to offer and if you're still in that shopping mood, do a search for CIJ or Christmas in July to see what other great buys are waiting for you on Etsy!

Saturday, July 4, 2009

New Really Cool Stuff on Etsy (Really!)


So, yesterday I spent the day (when I wasn’t watching DVR’d episodes of Tori and Dean and Hammertime) photographing and posting some new jewelry on Etsy. I’ve really been having fun making things lately, especially earrings. They’re like little miniature art and they pose challenging design issues.

Here’s a few now:

Five of Hearts


Rhapsody in Blue


Art Nouveau


And here’s my first unisex piece, an elegant black and silver aluminum Byzantine necklace.


One of my favorite chain weaves, with turquoise and black onyx.

The Husband is working today (time and a half, yea!), so I’m going to make some more jewelry and maybe watch an old Marilyn Monroe movie on Netflix. Hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable Fourth!!

www.bearchick.etsy.com
www.bearchickart.etsy.com
www.bearchick.artfire.com