Looks like frog's legs to me!

Just finished this one up tonight! I love the way it turned out (don't you like it when that happens?) The ends of the wire look like little frog's feet.

And it blows my mind that this stone is actually fossilised algae! Cool hey? (I know I know, got to get a life!!!)

Prehistoric cuteness

I'm trying my hand at squishy dinosaurs. Don't know if there'd be a market for them, just thought I'd try them out for fun - I know, got to get a life! What do you think? They're about as far from my wirewrapped pendants as you can get!

Vietnam - We made it back alive!

Well, we've been back from our holiday in Viet Nam for a couple of weeks now, but I've only just now had enough time to go back and look at the photos and share them with my blog.

What I want to tell the world is 'GO NOW'. Viet Nam is still charming, with friendly people and just enough Westerner comforts to make it comfortable, but not fake. But there are some massive developments in progress, especially in Nha Trang (a seaside resort), and I was very sad to see it happening.

It's hard to take a photo that doesn't tell a story in Viet Nam. It is a photographer's dream. However, these photos are my family, and not so much the place. But we went together, Mum and Dad, me and Brett, and that in itself was pretty amazing.

Three goofies - Mum, me and Brett (yes, he's the one with the big-arse camera that just says 'I'm a tourist, steal me!'. That was when the pickpocketers weren't targetting the man carrying a lonely planet guide around in his hand. Yes, that was my father. Hmm, spot the tourists.

This is how life looks when you're on a train for 14 hours and the beer runs out. However, as the beer costs less than $1, and the beer cart finally came back down our end of the train, that frown quickly turned upside down.

We ate a lot of icecream. And it was so pretty! And cheap! And mum and dad behaved themselves when they were full of creamy goodness, so bring it on!

I, on the other hand, quite enjoyed the fact that pina colada's were about the equivalent of $3, AND the coconut milk was fresh and creamy and delicious....! Mmmmmm, I like da pina colada.......

You'd think from looking at this that all we did was eat! Well, actually, that's probably true! Well, we did a bit of sight-seeing to. But the food was amazing! Didn't try the dog though. Next time.

Synergy

Well, that wild chick firechicktick sent me some of her gorgeous fused glass cabs to wrap, and I wrapped and I wrapped until my little fingers were all bleeding and numb! That's dedication, that is! (or stupidity, you decide!)

But I've FINALLY got them done! Keep your eyes peeled on her website and mine to see how our collaboration turned out. More coming soon.....

http://www.firechicktick.etsy.com/

http://www.rocknwrap.etsy.com/

Here's a sampler:

Trying an Aussie site

Well, I've finally managed to upload two pendants on Madeit

It was a damned sight more difficult than Etsy, and I wish my sales would take off there, but I'm looking into other avenues closer to home (madeit.com.au is an Aussie site). But the sheer painfulness of putting items up on madeit will keep me faithful to my first love Etsy! Plus I lost $3 listing fee because I put in $446 instead of $46 as the sale price, and the site DOESN'T LET YOU EDIT IT! That's right, and you can't edit your categories either. Hmmm.

I love you Etsy! Now make me rich, damn you!

Here are the two pendants that I put up on madeit.com.au

DAY OF THE BIRDS

We have bird feeder out on the deck and we put seed out for the native birds. But this weekend............dah, dah daaaaaaaah.......... it was a little TOO exciting!

First one sulphur-crested cockatoo came and squawked a little, so we put some seed out.

Then another came...........

And another (this cheeky beggar appeared upside-down from the roof!)........not that we couldn't hear him coming - clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk - not the daintiest of birds. No, we don't have to be dainty, we've got beaks that'll take your finger off. Just try us! Go on, wave your finger at us and say 'Pretty Polly'!
We're wishing that we'd reinforced the chains that hold the birdfeeder to the deck.

*SWINGING BACK AND FORTH*

But this is not the end of it......oh no! Now the whole flock arrives! Quick, put out some more seed before they eat the deck (or the camera-wielder)! Cockatoos are reknowned for stripping wood in no time flat!

Even the cats didn't stick around after the first two arrived. Ran away to hide under the bed. And you said they don't have any brains, Mum! HAH!

At one point, there were 12 cockatoos fighting for seed on the deck. I must say that I prefer to see them ONE AT A TIME. From behind a screen door. Or from under the bed with the cats.

Spotlight on SHINE!

Featuring another stone that I got dad to buy for me on Ebay. Once again, I had to very firmly inform him that it was NOT disappearing into his collection box.

Isn't this just the coolest stone ever!? It's called Pulsite, and is a combo of lots of different metals - silver, copper, iron, magnesium, nickel and zinc.

I can never get over how very very amazing nature can be.

I've wirewrapped the pendant in sterling silver to match the silver sheen on the top of the cabochon.

OMG there's a durian in the house!

For my beautiful husband's birthday, my folks gave him a day at a Vietnamese cooking school. Last night, he decided to show off his prowess for our guests. And it was absolutely delicious!

However, when one of our guests decided she was going to venture into the kitchen to have a go, look at what happened! See how much attention our guest pays to his threatening manner! Ooh, such a dufus!

He also brought home a durian from the shops. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: Why did you buy that?

Him: Because it was there.

Me: What are you going to do with it?

Him: I dunno, make icecream or something.

Me: You remember when we went to Singapore, durians were banned in the hotels?

Him: Yes.

Me: When is bin night?

Him: *no response*

Me: I'm going to stay with my parents until bin night.

The durian is still sitting ominously downstairs in its plastic bag.
It can't be as bad as all that! Can it?

Hey I've been featured! And customs took my soap :(

It's always exciting when someone else decides to promote your work! Killer krafts is featuring my multi-coloured jade bracelet on her blog! Check it out! http://killerkrafts.blogspot.com/2007/08/jade.html

Now onto customs. I know they protect our borders and everything but I'm very cross because they decided that they wanted my beautiful soap that I had ordered from soap. I only got 4 of my 7 soaps that I had bought, so the transaction has ended up not as good value, but of course that's not soap's fault! Mind you, if I'm willing to wait 60 days and fork out $43.50, I can have my taken soaps back. I'm sure it doesn't cost that much to nuke a soap! Extortionist bastards!

Oh well, at least my 'stroke me' bar of soap, which is my absolute-would-pay-the-extortionist-quarantine-fee-to-get-it-back-favourite! Small mercies, right? *sniff*

I want my soap. I feel unclean without it.

Muppet down under

My muppet from Tel Aviv has arrived and on our first day of sunshine after a week of long-awaited rain, I toddled outside into the garden to find him enjoying the beautiful wattle flowers that are in bloom (a little presumptuous they are too - it's not even spring yet!).

Because I will be confining him to the inside by his mobile attachment, I allowed him this one merry jaunt outside. But don't fret, he'll love it inside! I'll put him near the window so that he can look out and everything!

If you'd like your own mischevious muppet to grace your home, raisinlike at Etsy will be sure to help you out! Be careful though - I think that they're addictive. Like sock animals.

Etsy is providing me with a great deal of fun and empty pockets! If you haven't heard about this great site, pop over and take a look! You will be glad you did!

Wrenched from his warm hands!

Well, it's been a little while since I made anything as life has been fairly hectic. I went down to Sydney on the weekend for a voice competition, and life hasn't slowed since then.

The good news is is that mum and dad came to visit, and dad brought me more stones! I get him to do most of my Ebay bidding, as he's retired and appears to be permanently attached to the computer. So I use this to my advantage! It does mean that I have to wait until they do the big trek down to us to get the majority of my cabochons though. And dad starts to get a bit handsy about the cabs that he's supposed to have bought for me! They often disappear into his own collection.

However, this one I wrenched kicking and screaming from his warm hands! And I knew it would be an absolute stunner.

Presenting: The prettiest piece of pink lepidolite that you ever did see, hand-wrapped in sterling silver wire. It's long and slender, and so so so elegant.

Hmm, I wonder what else he's 'put away'?

One more step towards certifiable Crazy Cat Ladyhood!

Well, Reggie the sock cat arrived today and after an initial period of disorientation, he seems to be fitting in quite nicely! He appears to be very friendly, and Tinker the ditsy Devon has decided that he'll do fine! The other cat, Simba, on the other hand, is not quite so sure. In fact, she's conspicuously absent. But don't worry, friends, she'll come around.




If you'd like a 'Reggie' of your very own, I'm sure that uppitywomandesigns would be more than happy to provide you with your own bundle of joy! For those amongst us who aren't crazy cat ladies, she even has sock dogs and bunnies!

Go on, you know you want to!

'A house without a sock animal is a sad house indeed' - from one of Shakespeare's lesser known plays.

Crikey, she's a beauty!

This is a beautiful and unusual piece of Australiana: a piece of Yowah nut opal.

Yowah nut opal comes from one place - Yowah in outback australia, and is actually a hollow ironstone boulder with an opal matrix.

The opal can be mixed in with black or red ironstone, vitrified clay or silicated sandstone to form the most beautiful patterns and pictures. There are some truly beautiful picture stones that have the look of aboriginal paintings The reaction of most people when seeing these stones is, I didn't know opal could be like this, its beautiful!

So now you know! I loved this stone so much that I attempted my first combo wrap - both sterling silver and gold-filled wire. I think that it was very, very, very, very good choice! So happy with this piece!

Click on the picture if you are interested in seeing the absolutely fantastically detailed 'picture' on the stone up close and personal.

I decided to suspend the stone through a hole that had been drilled from left to right (intended for a thong or chain). This means that the stone swings free at the bottom, and I just love that!

Bunch of lunatics for hire

Well, we've just come back from the Gold Coast Eisteddfod, and the choir didn't get anything this year! I'm severely annoyed because they sang VERY WELL, even to my never-quite-satisfied ears, and though that should be reward in itself, it is always galling to come home without a trophy, especially as we have won (sometimes deservedly, sometimes not) in the past.

And it's not as though they didn't deserve to get a place! The adjudicator gave the place trophies to choirs who pushed their voices, shouted, or just simply sang out of tune! Now to endorse this sort of singing is just asking for vocal problems (probably nodules), and to advocate a 'white noise' type of sound (clear straight tone) over a full, rich sound is just plain wrong to my ears. But.........every adjudicator has different criteria. Some like to see movement, even at the expense of the singing. Others will sacrifice tone for the sake of word enunciation. This one wanted light and shade of sound, even at the expense of vocal quality and tonality. Me, you start by singing the right notes, and then build the rest on from there. No wonder there are so many burnt-out singers out there if this is what the 'Australian Choral Sound' is!

Oh well, eisteddfods are the opinions are one person. Not much you can do about that. The kids felt very good about themselves after they sang, and that's what counts! And they had a number of people (even conductors of other choirs) go out of their way to tell us that we were 'robbed'. So there!

Peachy-orangy lace

My latest pendant is made of Java Lace Agate from Queensland, Australia and is wrapped is sterling silver. This cab is a lovely, lovely colour, unlike any that I've seen from Indonesia, and the sealed pocket of quartz crystals just makes it that bit more special.

I find this design so much more difficult to balance up around the stone than I do the cage technique. I tend to waste A LOT of silver each time I try this design because when it doesn't work, I snip it off and start afresh and the old wire goes in the bin (oh that hurts to say - all that precious metal down the drain). But it was worth it, I think!

You're not getting it!

I made this last week, got all ready to list it on Etsy tonight, but I just can't bear to part with it! I had a great deal of disappointment today when I lost everything I bid for on Ebay, so I deserve something nice!

I went to the Ipswich rock and gem show yesterday, and left with one cabochon. ONE! There just doesn't seem to be many people out there in Australia who cut cabs. Correct me if I'm wrong. I'd love to find someone to source stones from locally! I hate having to deal with Ebay, but it's the only place to get stones of any diversity!

Ok, rant over.

Poke-a-belly!

Meet Tinker, the stupidest but most adorable Devon Rex in the world. She will happily lie on you upside down, belly exposed, for hours! She cracks me up when she not seriously p***ing me off!

What does this button do.......oh!!!

Well, I've got a blog, and now I have to learn how to use it!

I really want to keep a record of my pendant-making, so let's see if I can figure out how to put a picture on.......

Hooray!

This is my latest pendant, made from a ceramic tile I bought on Etsy from ArtfulMosaicsByDana. I'm so pleased with him, he's unlike what I normally do. He's got lots of interest too, but no-one wants to give him a home yet. I admit, I'll be sorry when I have to send him away!

Well, I think this will do for a start, see you soon! Over and out.