It's a total blank ...

... but first things first. Back on track (hopefully) and Creative Bloggers is going around again. Macaroni and Glue is up in the spotlight and I'm seriously liking the banner! I don't recall seeing this, but it has been a while since I paid Kelly a visit. I'll blame the Texas heat and I'm sure she'll understand! Check out her Facebook fan page too!

Another artist being featured is Susy of Earth Expressions. Susy creates exquisite jewelry. But she also is creative with her blog and I loved her post about with packing and shipping tips. I can imagine a new customer of hers receiving a package and thinking: "What a class act!"

If you head over to Facebook, please take a look at my fan page. I set it up a while ago, didn't quite know what to do with it, but I've been learning. There is no documentation from Facebook about how to fully use the application, but there are some giving souls out there who are sharing what they know. It's a learning curve, but learning is great for keeping the gray matter within the skull nimble and functioning!

And I've been slowly building my Twitter following. Twitter is like the wild, wild west of the internet. All sorts of colorful folks. And all sorts of nuts too. All sorts of lazy people amassing huge followings by using automated applications, but it's only about quantity, not quality. So I'm doing it the old fashioned way. One by one with absolutely NO AUTOMATION, not even an automatic welcoming message.

A friend of mine has developed a new application for social media. It just launched so take a look at TipDrop. I signed up, but haven't authored a tip sheet yet. Jon gives us 255 characters which beats Twitter's 140, but 255 is not always enough. My plan is to blog tips here and link to this blog from the tip sheets. Hopefully Jon has programmed the application for follow through links.

I've created some new handcrafted jewelry pieces for the summer, but every single last piece has sold. Sold without pictures too. I'm a dunce. o_O Beautiful pieces, too, using "Candy Jade" which has become a new favorite of mine, and some shell/pearl/crystal pieces. Ooooh, even writing about them is making my fingers itch to make more!

Oh, and another thing, I've been making a ton of paper craft bookmarks and cards for a friend of mine to take to a special international convention (worship related) to pass out as gifts to all she meets. I've so enjoyed my monthly workshops I take from my local StampinUp representative that I've decided to sign up as a demonstrator myself! Since it will be about handcrafted paper goods, I figured it would be a nice fit with my existing creative business and I will keep it under my '57 Design Studio business umbrella.

Now, I must remember to take pictures!

Busy in Preparations

Hostessing my first Open House this Saturday, the 11th, and I've been swamped with all the collateral issues. I'm feeling very, very nervous. My home is clean and decent, but humble in comparison with many of the households here. I happen to live in what is considered to be in the top ten most affluent suburbs in America.

We live in the older part, much more middle-low of the middle class.

The house needs updating. It needs a fresh coat of paint. It needs a lot of things, but then, all these things cost money. Hopefully I'll make some pocket change to help along those lines, but the public is being welcomed into my humble home as it is.

I hope they'll see comfort and contentment. After all, when it came to our decision of what and where to buy, we stayed in our budget. We bought no more of a house than what we could afford in a place where the public schools are excellent.

I hope what they see and appreciate is a family who is not burdening them by being part of a $7 billion dollar "rescue" plan. So no, it ain't fancy, but it ain't costing any American taxpayer a single penny, either.

Sunday's Feature

"To inspire & promote each other, we build, imagine, dream & we deliver a magnificent online zine. "

The mission of Skwigga-zine Magazine, an on-line magazine that encourages and supports the starving artists among us created by Missy, a talented illustrator and designer. I have blogged about Skwiggazine before, and I'll blog about it again because I believe in its message and mission. Please drop by and spend some time with us!

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My take on the red/turquoise color combination that was expected to be big this past spring, but I didn't see much of it in stores, only in the upscale fashion rags. But then again, that may mean we'll see it in our stores in the spring of 2009.

This handcrafted necklace is made of amazonite, red coral, and 14k gold-fill. It's a long piece which can be doubled, if desired. Feel free to click on the picture to get a larger, detailed version.

It's available here in my Etsy shop. If you decide to purchase, put "DHBlog" in your message to seller at checkout and I will give you a 10% discount. The discount will be refunded through PayPal. If you have any questions, feel free to convo me.

Fall 2008

I've been avoiding thinking of the fall season. When the temps stay around the three digit levels, even looking at the upcoming fall fashion lines makes me break out in a sweat! But as a designer of handcrafted jewelry, my head keeps telling me to stop delaying! So this morning I went to the Pantone Fashion Color Report Fall 2008 and printed page 2. The ink is still wet on the paper. Good thing I installed a new color cartridge earlier this week!

What a pleasant surprise! I love the colors and it will be a joy to start designing pieces to suit ... once the temps outside dip below 95F. It looks like I'll be using a lot of amethyst and lapis lazuli and smokey quartz. I need to replenish my lapis supply.

The Pantone color reports are important for the small-time designers to consider. Fortunately for us, we can wait until the freebie report is released on the Pantone website. If you're a designer catering to the retail and boutique market and sell at the accessories shows in the major market areas, you need a head start. Pantone offers "membership" to obtain reports well in advance, but it's expensive. Since I sell direct to the wearer, I can afford to wait.

Pantone is the leading manufacturer of dyes in the world so if they say Blue Iris, Royal Lilac, Shady Glade, etc are the colors for this upcoming fall, they will be the colors you see in the stores for fall. Withered Rose is my personal favorite. It looks like a Dusty Rose which was the best matched color for my eyes, hair color and skin tone when I had my colors done all those decades ago. (I wish I was very html-savvy so I could use colored text for the color names I just typed!)

How about these handcrafted earrings? I think they "read" Withered Rose. They are red aventurine and Golden Shadow Swarovski crystals made with 14k gold-fill. I have more red aventurine in my supply so I'm looking forward to putting out new pieces featuring that stone. Aventurine isn't an expensive stone, but it's beautiful. Colors range in green, peach, reddish, brown and blue. It's a quartz with inclusion of mica so there is a subtle shimmering effect called aventurescence.

I'll need to be heading over to Elle.com and check out the runway shows for Fall 2008 (which happened in February 2008) to see what all the trends are showing. Hopefully there will be some Withered Rose!

Good Monday

It promises to be another scorcher! Another good day for getting lots of work done, on-line, at the design table, with the digital camera, laundry and ironing ... or maybe a good day to just hang loose and watch a movie.


Even Nino says: "It's HOT!"

Heatwave

"An excessive heat warning is in effect for our area."

No kidding. It's so hot the silk plants are wilting.

While temps of 104F and higher may not seem like much to those living in the desert areas of California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Mexico, at least y'all cool off in the evenings. We wake up to 85F temps at 5:00 am.

I suppose I should take the forced indoor opportunity and get some photos of my new pieces done. I'll leave y'all with a photo of one of our neighborhood friends:

Pretty Rock

"Opal Fire Agate" is what this pretty is being called. Perhaps because it looks like a merging of Peruvian Opal and Fire Agate? Whatever ... I found it exceptionally intriguing. Between the coloration and the crackling of the stone, it brings to my mind a chrysanthemum captured by stone. I used pewter, brass and just a wee bit of Swarovski crystal to bring it together into a very gorgeous piece.

I haven't listed it yet ... I plan to roll it out at an open house that I'll be showing at in August. I have only one upcoming show scheduled so I must work on getting more dates planned. Summer is very slow around here because it's just plain HOT and very little happens until the shorter days of fall give us a more bearable atmosphere. I'm always open to private home shows so if anyone is living in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and would like an opportunity to receive FREE jewelry, much of it one-of-a-kind, drop me a line.

Here's a view of the entire necklace:

Do you know the three types of jewelry!

Do you know what class this piece falls into? It's made of sterling silver, rhodonite and hematine (man-made version of hematite).

First of all, there is fine jewelry. Traditionally made from gold at puirty levels of at least 14k, often 18k or the solid gold 24k. Also platinum and sometimes titanium are used if a silver color is desired. I suggest you avoid white gold ... the silver color wears away over time and the piece needs to be redipped.

Fine jewelry also uses the precious gemstones, the crystal clear, non-occluded stones that are expertly cut to catch and refract light in a blazing display. Quality diamonds, sapphires, rubies, emeralds, topaz ... these are the glittering rocks that makes our hearts thump a little harder.

Fine jewelry usually costs in the $1,000s and $10,000s and will last many lifetimes. They are generally designed to stand the test of time, being fashionable in any season at any time in any era.

Then there's costume jewelry. Costume jewelry is made from base metal, generally nickel and alloys such as pewter and brass (these days without lead). The baubles are made from glass, paste, acryllic and plastics of all sorts.

Costume jewelry came to its own during the Depression Era, being designed and marked with a seal of approval by none other than the Grande Dame of fashion, Coco Chanel. While glass and paste of been used for centuries to make copies of precious pieces so the royals and the rich could wear their ornaments daily without concern of loss, Ms. Chanel catapulted the costume pieces into the forefront of fashion and made them entirely acceptable to wear with flair. Costume pieces are trendy ... they go with the fashions of the day. Which means they are outdated within a year. But that's OK, they usually cost well under $100 and eventually if they are cared for, they'll make a comeback. If they haven't fallen apart, that is!

Finally, there's bridge jewelry; so named because that is exactly what it is ... the "bridge" between fine and costume. Bridge jewelry is traditionally made with all the materials we label "semi-precious" such as sterling silver, 14k gold-fill, gemstones with occlusions (imperfections), quality glass, ceramic and crystals.

Bridge jewelry is designed to follow the trends, but has a tendency to keep its fashionability over several seasons, especially since it is made from better material than costume. With proper care, your bridge pieces should last you a lifetime, even though they are not classed as heirloom in quality. Prices run a wide range from the $10s to the $100s depending on material and workmanship.

Most of my pieces generally fall on the bridge. But I have to admit, with the economy headed in the direction its going, I've recently purchased components that will put some pieces square into the costume category, but what the hey ... we still want to look gorgeous no matter what the dollar is doing! Besides, if the price of crude keeps rising, plastic is going to become very precious.

Networking

For the past several months, I've been engaged in exploring the various network marketing groups in my area. Because I live in the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan area, I have a number of groups from which to choose. Because I am a jewelry designer, I focused on those that cater to women. Most I have found in a nice little site called MeetUp.

I have expanded my business horizons since joining various groups. Some have worked very well for me, some have not. But even those that haven't worked out for me because of various reasons still helped me grow as a business woman. I have met a large variety of women engaged in a wide variety of businesses, some of which offer services that I can benefit from.

The starring jewel of my finds has been Sharon Schierling, a life/business coach who is smart and wise and caring and giving. She offers a variety of services and I highly recommend her to anyone in need of a different perspective on life and/or work. In addition to being a certified life coach, she also has an MBA and a lot of experience both in the corporate world and as an entrepreneur. Visit her website, Refined Perspectives to learn more about her. And by exploring her site, you'll learn more about yourself.

While on the idea of refined, and to post the obligatory picture, here's a piece I designed a while ago that is one of my favorites and it's still in my case:



The pale pastel mother of pearl coin beads are joined to gold mobius knots made from 14k gold-fill rings I made myself. It's available on
Etsy.

Thank goodness for Skwiggazine!

Say what? Go here: Skwiggazine. Cool place and I belong to a group within this network for bloggers. At the moment, it's the one thing that keeps me showing up here. I know, that's bad, but we all know how many hours there are in each day and we probably all feel there just isn't enough. But eventually, things get done ... we hope.

As part of this blogging group, we all visit each other's blogs and each week we post a link and a comment to the featured blog of the week. I missed last week (I'm hanging my head in shame) but I'll make it up to Stacy next time. This week is another Stacy, and ... well ... you all know the power of pictures. Get ready and say ahhhhhh!

And kudos to Stacy for being environmentally astute by using cloth diapers. They certainly have changed in the 13 years since I used cloth diapers!

OK, here's my obiglatory picture:
This piece was designed for a wonderful woman I met in one of my networking forays who is a director for Mary Kay. I'm told there are new Director's Suits out this year and they are brown. I was also told that bling is the thing for all things Mary Kay so I used all Swarovski, both crystals and pearls. And lots of 14k gold-fill metal things, too. Click on the photo to see the BIG picture.

The networking experience I've embarked on several months ago has been quite a ride! It's one of the main reasons my poor blog has been pushed under the proverbial couch. So has my Etsy store and my website. But I have met some amazing women these last few months and have learned quite a bit about lots of different things. I will be sharing some of the really cool things I've discovered along the way in the next couple of posts! And hopefully get some more photos worked up of all the new pieces I've been designing.