Cobaltian Calcite

  A friend gifted me a piece of this amazing mineral a few years ago and I fell in love! I made a necklace and everyone wanted to buy one until they found out what the price would be!! :)
  Well, last year at market I found a beautiful strand of this mineral in pendant form and immediately snatched it up. I have small pieces, medium pieces, and large pieces. The necklaces are ranging from $80 - $150 each at the moment. I haven't made any intricate designs, mainly to keep my retail costs down but also because the stone speaks for itself and is amazing on its own.
I just ran across this website for a Gem and Mineral Gallery in NYC... Thought it was interesting. Especially the pricing.
Here is a pic of one of my designs. I have more, so if you are interested just let me know and we can start a custom order!

This piece retails for $80. Message me if you are interested in purchasing.

Check out the website for more info on these minerals.

Belated Honeymoon

  Matt and I had a really amazing summer. We took a trip home to visit family in early July and then after that we were committed to house sitting in Norman until mid August. We never had time or extra money to take our honeymoon last summer after our wedding so I was determined to take one this year! So when he was done house sitting, we hit the road!
  We started out with a night in McKinney with our wonderful friends and their baby. From there we hopped on down to Austin to meet up with a new friend of Matt's and his wife. I was a little skeptical of spending all this time with friends but it couldn't have been more perfect. Our hosts in Austin were amazing and took us around to some great places! I even got to catch up with one of my old friends that lives there. Austin is HUGE! I had no idea it was such a big city. A cool city, but big.
  From Austin, we packed up and headed down to Port Aransas, TX to hang out on the beach for a couple of days. We stayed at the Oldest Inn in town, called the Tarpon Inn, FDR stayed here back in his day! It was a sweet place, very old, no tv's or telephones. They want people to escape city life while they are staying at the Inn. We rented beach cruisers,  ate some great food, ate some bad food, walked the jetty's, did some shopping and hung out with some locals. This small little beach town is very charming!
  After our two days at the beach we headed to San Antonio. I was excited about visiting all these places but I think I mostly looked forward to San Antonio. Once again, I found one of the oldest hotels for us to stay in. Our hotel, The Menger, was right beside the Alamo and very convenient to the River Walk. San Antonio is very charming as well. I really was impressed with all these Texas towns. Until this trip I had never been south of Dallas. We spent a lot of time walking around the river walk, swimming in the hotel pool, being tourists, eating good food, and enjoying drinks.
  We took some advice from our hotel bar tender and walked to the King James Historic District and found a good dinner on our first night. Day two was a bit more touristy... we got up early, as always, and walked to the Mexican Market, I heard it was the largest outside of Mexico City. If you know me at all, you know I love my imports.  It was hard not to spend too much money!
  From there we went to the top of the Tower of America's which was an anxiety attack waiting to happen and a complete waste of money. After that we were pretty disappointing and decided to go have a good lunch. We went to Boudro's Texas Bistro which was a restaurant I found by reading a blog a friend suggested to me. It was wonderful! Good drinks, great service, and delicious food! And a local joint. I was a bit disappointed in how commercial the River Walk was... to be so pretty and unique but to be so full of chain restaurants that I would never eat at. But, we found this local gem and enjoyed our time there. After enjoying a delicious lunch we went back to the hotel for a swim and then changed our clothes and headed back out for the evening. We stopped at the Hotel Havanna which was a suggestion by our Austin friends. This is the cutest boutique hotel with two bars, one downstairs and only lit by red candles, and one up stairs in a beautiful atrium that is naturally lit during the day time. We ended our night in a Mexican restaurant listening to a great local band, I never caught the name of them but the lead singer kind of sounded like Jeff Tweedy of Wilco.
  We had such an amazing trip. We were both ready to come home but after being home for a week I wish I could be back on our Texas Honeymoon.

A day of riding bikes. This was a great way to explore the island. We enjoyed walking but it was taking us forever to get places.

Our Inn for the stay in Port Aransas.

The boats. We found a restaurant/bar right on the docks. It was fun to sit and watch the boats.

Potters on Cotter. We stopped in this shop while on our bike ride. I didn't want to carry around a bag so we decided to come back later in the evening. We ended up taking a bottle of wine and shared it with the owner and hung out with some locals for a while. It was such a great time.

Margarita y Texas Tea

Table side guacamole. We did this twice on this trip... can you believe that neither one of us had ever ordered this service?

He never smiles for pictures... he is happy though :)

Our Hotel in San Antonio

Downstairs bar at Hotel Havana

Upstairs bar at Hotel Havana

Bead Soup Blog Part - Reveal 2

My Bead Soup from Ann Rishell of My Critical Eye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Earrings, I LOVE these shell beads she sent. I strung them on an extra large copper jump ring and then connected them together to make reeeeaaaaallly long statement earrings! I think they are about 6" long!

 

And  a necklace. I utilized more of the shell and copper pieces as well as this beautiful ceramic focal and yellow stone bead.

Dreams

  I had the weirdest dream last night... well maybe it wasn't weird but it was so real I woke up in and cried.  I got to hug my Grandfathers neck... He gave me a rosary that was made out of coral or glass mosaic, I don't remember. It was beautiful, and it was also a beautiful moment. 

But then I woke up...

 This is a picture of my Mom's parents. It is really old but I just found it and thought it would be fun to tell a story about them. My Grandmother made jewelry for their gift shop (which was under their restaurant, DeVito's, in Harrison, Arkansas). She is one of my inspirations in my jewelry making.

 Anyway, to the story... I started working for my family the day I turned 14 and continued up until a few years ago. One busy Saturday evening, I go to greet a table... a middle aged couple that were regulars and that also happened to be friends with my father. I go to turn over the mans coffee cup (which was odd that he already had one, it is supposed to be "upscale dining" and there were no coffee cups on the tables) and 3 bags of beads fall out of his cup! He and his wife started laughing and I looked around confused and saw my Papa grinning from ear to ear in the distance. He had gone on a buying trip and brought the beads back for me and had planted them there. They were cloisonne, and honestly being the bratty little kid that I could be, disregarded them. I only have 3 left. I don't remember if I made something with them or if I gave some of them away. Either way, I'll treasure the last three forever. Thanks for letting me get personal :)

Vintage and Vintage Inspired Baubles

 I just finished reading an article in Matchbook magazine about the founder of Lulu Frost, a beautiful jewelry design company out of New York.

I have seen this amazing jewelry before but I haven't checked out their site in quite some time. It is absolutely stunning!

I was delightfully surprised to find this necklace...

Lulu Frost design...

 Great minds think alike! See my design from April 2011. I knew I should have kept one of these vintage clip on earrings for myself but unfortunately I didn't.

The Lulu design says it is made with "hand painted resin" so I am guessing they  took inspiration from a vintage glass piece and are reproducing it in a lighter material. Go check out their site! It will WOW you.

Bella Vita design from April 2011

A Weekend With PMC

 Hello Blog readers! I've been busy busy busy making and that has left me with no time to write lately.

Last weekend I completed the Level 1 Certification for PMC. It was a two day course with Janet Alexander at her studio in Flower Mound, Texas.

 The course requires you to complete four projects with different criteria. You can see my projects in the above image... From top left clockwise:

1. Pendant with a handmade bail and decoration applied with syringe clay.

2. Ring with texture, syringe clay decoration, stone setting.

3. Hollow pendant with syringe clay applied and carving or removing clay.

4. PMC paper!! I added the syringe clay as decoration.

 Lots of work, lots of fun, and definitely lots of learning. Janet is a wonderful instructor and a very talented artist! I am so glad I took this course. I am so much more comfortable with my kiln and working on my projects in my studio. There is a lot to learn and a lot precautions you have to take when working with PMC. It's a lot like working with regular clay except it is a precious metal and not cheap to work with.
 I have started a couple of projects in my studio and hope to fire them in my kiln this week!

Coriander Cafe

 Exactly one year ago this week I started a new part time job at Coriander Cafe in Norman. I had eaten there twice w/i a two week span of time and had already dubbed it my "new favorite" restaurant. 

 One day I was browsing facebook and saw that they were hiring and immediately emailed the owner and commented on the facebook thread. 

A meeting or two later I was hired.

At the time I was looking at the job as a way to get out of the house and mingle with human beings on a regular basis. I tend to get "stuck" in the studio (which is in my house) and sort of go crazy. Human interaction is a must for me and what better way to get that than waiting tables?
Waitressing also runs in my blood and comes naturally to me... I guess growing up in a restaurant family will do that to a girl.

 Anyway, if you live in Norman you have probably eaten there and immediately become hooked... It happens. I don't know what they put in the food but it is amazing! I didn't even know what a Bahn Mi sandwich was before working here but now I have to limit myself to one a month.

 Ok... so, I am writing this post because the restaurant is up for Best Vietnamese in the OKC Gazette... which is cool because we aren't in OKC, we are in Norman.

 I would love for you to go cast your vote for this lovely, local business. And, if you EVER find yourself in Norman, this is a must!!! Thanks in advance! And, I completely understand if you aren't down with voting for a business/es you haven't been to. This post is mostly for people that follow me in the OKC/Norman area and to show support for my job!  :)

http://survey.okgazette.com/survey-14-best_of_okc.html

p.s. the survey is a little finicky... you have to fill in a certain number of answers or it wont let you submit it at the end.

Bahn MI!!!