New jewelry listed to my shops!

Just added to my Etsy shop and website.

Some cute polymer clay sea inspired pendant and earring sets



I've hand marbled aqua and white polymer clay and made it beachy with impressions of real starfish, seahorses and seashells. Accented with gold craft paint and 14k gf bail, beads and ear wires.

And another "use what I've got" challenge-
Made with more of my favorites- turquoise and Hill Tribe fine silver beads, including the adorable fish pendant. Adjustable from 20-22 inches.

Sea Inspired Jewelry

Sea Inspired Jewelry
Originally uploaded by mornindew2822

Another of my "use what you've got" challenges. I made these without spending one red cent- it amazes me the stuff I collect and then don't use! Can you imagine every single ingredient that went into making these has been sitting in my supply boxes for close to two years now while I was totally uninspired to anything with it!

Necklace and earrings set made using various greenish-blue turquoise beads with lots of matrix (the more mottled the better, I love it!) , bronze freshwater pearls, Hill Tribe fine silver beads (starfish, nautilus and scallop shells) and sand dollar toggle style clasp.

Up for sale in my Etsy shop this weekend.

Tiny Sea Glass "Mosaic" Pendants

Tiny Sea Glass "Mosaic" Pendants
Originally uploaded by mornindew2822

This is some of the pieces I've been working on this week. I have a self-imposed "use what you've got" challenge going on and all the stuff I'm making this week is done without spending a single penny for anything new.

I've taken bits of beachcombed pottery where the pattern was too worn for it to be used on it's own for a jewelry piece and decorated them with teeny, tiny bits of beautiful sea glass in rich, vibrant colors. The end result is, I think, mini mosaic art pieces you can wear!

My favorite is I Feel Teal. The shade on the (perfectly round) sea glass ball is so rich and soothing while the pottery shards are a cool robin's egg and almost Tiffany blue.

These can all be found in my Etsy shop.

Genuine Red Sea Glass Pendant

Genuine Red Sea Glass Pendant 1
Originally uploaded by mornindew2822

Just in time for Christmas! A rare red sea glass piece, bezel set in sterling and fine silver. I have cut out the back side to allow light to shine through. A truly special way to wish someone you love a wonderful holiday season! This is a one of kind piece, available now on
my website.

Mini Earring O Rama

Mini Earring O Rama
Originally uploaded by mornindew2822

Decided to get into the holiday spirit a little today and make some cute earrings that would be perfect stocking stuffers, gifts for teachers, babysitters, etc. Available at Scarborough Seashells

Pendants and a new bracelet design

New Jewelry 10/3/09
Originally uploaded by mornindew2822

Some more new seashell and pottery shard pendants I finished last night plus a brand new bracelet design- hand forged sterling silver hinged bangle style bracelet with seashell or pottery shard piece bezel set in sterling and fine silver.

All items in the photos are available at Copacetic in Providence, RI

Celebrating our 100th Blog Post with a Swap!

It's official, we've been around a while! With the publishing of this post, Maggie and I have blogged 100 entries and we thought to celebrate we would host a swap! The theme of the swap will be "Things That Inspire". The idea is to come up with a variety of items that are inspirational to you, which you think might also be inspirational to others.

In the spirit of our crafty mamas blog, we encourage handmade items but are also cool with purchased things if that is your preference. To keep it reasonable for everyone who wants to participate, we have set a $15 maximum limit for supplies and other purchases.

Some suggestions for possible swap items are: music mix CD, inspirational quotes, crafty goodies that you love to make, photos or drawings, materials for people to make their own goodies, etc.

The deadline for signing up to participate is October 10th. We are aiming to have all our swap partners paired up by the middle of the month so everyone can ship their inspiration packages to their partners by October 30th.

If you want to participate in the swap, please leave us a comment. Sign up, get creative with your ideas and be inspired!

Weekend Project

So I've had this antique mahogany mirror for about 15 years. It was free, and while it had been stripped of its paint and nicely refinished, the mirror itself had some damaged spots and it was entirely too dark for use our new house. Based on those facts, I decided it wouldn't be a sin to paint and use some hot glue on the thing. Here it is after 3 coats of primer

And here are some after shots, with it hanging over my fireplace in our living room. Sorry I wasn't better about taking "in process" photos!



I did it using white/pearl seashells, starfish, sand dollars, sea glass and beach pottery. It measures 3 feet wide, 2 1/2 feet tall and 4 inches thick.

What do you think?

Some more finished jewelry pieces

Sea Glass Jewelry at Stardust in Newport, RI
Originally uploaded by mornindew2822

Things are going well on the jewelry front, I've secured a second shop to carry my jewelry, Stardust, on Thames St. in Newport, RI. They will carry my sea glass and my seashell pendants and earrings. Very excited about this! Photos above are of my most recent delivery to the shop.

PS if you're in the area, the shop owner also owns The Newport Fudgery which is right next door, OMG YUM! So many flavors of handmade fudge- they make it right in front of you in large copper kettles and the smell is heavenly!

New work and oh- I love my tumbler!

Some Seashell Pendants
Originally uploaded by mornindew2822

Some of the new seashell pieces I completed this week. I took the plunge and tried tumbling my pendants in stainless steel shot (I was so scared it would crack the shells!) I tried it on a "burnt toast" piece first and the shell held up, so I tumbled these pieces and they are super shiny and my hands are SO grateful! Polishing to a mirror finish by hand is pretty labor intensive. Polishing in the tumbler takes so much of that work out of my hands (pun intended) and cuts my cleaning time in half!

For those interested, I use a Lortone double barrel rotary tumbler. :)

These and other pieces are available at Most Naturally in the Pier Marketplace, Narragansett RI. :)

Happy 6th Birthday, Noah!

Noahs Birthday Cake
Originally uploaded by mornindew2822

My nephew wanted a basketball themed birthday this year. Since we're moving into our new house in a little more than a week and are strapped for cash, I offered to make his cake as my gift to him.

I did his name (and all the other text) freehand copying the font that Wilson Sports uses for their logo in an attempt to make the ball look more realistic.

My poor son, Austin! This is a giant sheet cake with a 9" round on top for the basketball- just to give you an idea of the size. He carried it on his lap from our house in RI to my sister's house in CT- an hour and 20 minutes with the AC blasting on him the whole time so the frosting didn't get weepy, lol!

Noah selected his namesake as the portion for his serving. They demolished more than 2/3 of the cake by the time the party was wrapping up... oh yeah, my sister DID mention that her boys are "cake hounds" when I offered to make it, LOL!

Happy birthday, Noah, I hope you had a great day! :)

She continues to sell seashells... and some beach pottery too!

As a follow up to my original post, I have been uber busy working on seashell pendants bezel set in sterling silver. I delivered 6 pieces (5 made of seashell, 1 was a piece of beachcombed transferware) to a local shop for the store owner to try out over the 4th of July weekend. She called today to tell me she loves them and has sold 2 already and would like 5 more pendants and also some earrings- go me!


If you are local to the area, my seashell pieces are now officially available at Most Naturally in the Pier Marketplace (Narragansett, RI)

Woohoo!

Rings and things

A few more pieces I made this week...
green jellybean sea glass ring

green sea glass pendant (I cut out the backing to let light shine through)


white ark shell earrings to match the pendant from the other day

pecten shell pendant

Pay It Foward Update!

Sorry for taking so long to get moving with this- I received my pay it forward gift from the wonderful Lee Anne- you can check out her blog, Sun Soul Art Thoughts. She sent me a stunning original painting- which I promptly ran to the framing store with and I just got it back- it looks spectacular!



In any case, Maggie and I will be contacting our Pay It Forward recipients -Jo, Shauna, Shimmermeblue, BeadedTail, The Astral Cowboy and Arizona- this week to arrange for shipping stuffs. Yay handmade goodies on the way! :) Thanks for participating!

-Tara

I've been a busy beaver!

So last night I finished the last of my really big projects- I was making 4 "handbags" -for lack of a better word- to be carried down the runway in a fashion show. The show is featuring ocean inspired lingerie and the models will carry giant versions of my Christmas ornaments.

I made two 6" round seashell kissing balls with pearl embellishments, a 5 inch round English Channel sea urchin adorned with pearls and a 7 inch armored starfish, again adorned with pearls.



In the photo you can also see the necklaces I've been working on, another wreath I made and part of a picture frame that I turned into an earring display.

Some close up shots of the finished pieces:





I think these could all really be cute for a beach wedding too- instead of flower girl baskets or even in lieu of bouquets for the bridesmaids- the starfish perhaps as pew decorations if it's a church wedding?... hmmm the wheels are spinning now!

Stay tuned to check out the new boutonnieres I'm working on for another client!

Happy Birthday Maggie!

It was a long time coming, but I finally finished it and Maggie received it in the mail today.

A tiny piece of cobalt blue sea glass is bezel set in sterling silver which I cut, stamped and oxidized. It reads "Inspire Art Create"

Happy birthday, my dear friend! :)

Pay It Forward Challenge!

A beautiful movie and a beautiful idea! Inspired by my friend Nikki's blog, Sun Soul Art Thoughts, I decided I'd participate in her challenge to pay it forward. I discussed it with Maggie, who also agreed it would be a cool thing to do, so together we're going to do our best to spread inspiration and creativity!

The first SIX people to comment on this post will receive a hand crafted item from either Maggie or I in the next 3 months. (3 will be from me, 3 from Maggie). In exchange, you agree to pay it forward to 3 people via a challenge on your own blog!

Please be sure to leave us a way to contact you and help us spread the love! :)

Gifts on a budget

With the economy the way it is, it seems everyone is trying to find ways to cut back this holiday season. Going handmade is always a great way to save a little money while still telling the people around you that you think they're great!

My husband has 16 employees- add that to my childrens' teachers and all our distant family relatives and it adds up to several dozen more gifts to pass out at Christmas time.

My approach this year is to bake cookies. My financial investment was minimal (most of the ingredients are found readily in your pantry cupboards)- and I grabbed up the rest of the stuff I needed on sale at the grocery store. To package them, I found these terrific little tote bags from The Lakeside Collection for around $1.15 each.



Today is my cookie baking day- Cookie-o-rama to coin a term Maggie uses. I thought as I baked, I'd take some photos and share the recipes here in our blog for anyone who might be looking for some affordable gifts that people will appreciate. Who doesn't love a fresh baked cookie?! :)

Cheers!

Tara

My rings are now for sale!

I really didn't want this blog to turn into shameless self promotion- I mean it's great that we make stuff to sell, but I want to talk about stuff that we work on for improving our businesses as well. I guess it only makes sense, though, that sometimes those things cross paths.

Today I spent some time working on my website and I created two new listings for custom sea glass rings. I thought it made sense to do it this way so that I don't make a truly fabulous ring in a size 5 only to wind up with a customer who loves it but wears a size 8. The rings will come in two styles- a larger, chunkier cocktail style ring and a smaller, more classic style ring.





Customers can email me with special requests, they will have their choice of 8 different sea glass colors and metal finish. Whole and half sizes are also offered.



Shop now through January 31st, 2009 and save 10% off your purchase! Enter code: Handmade08 at checkout.

I am excited to finally be able to bring these rings to the public, I hope people love them as much as I do!

The holidays are coming! Part 1

Aack, it's truly just around the corner and my scattered brain is stressing out over the pledge I took to do all handmade (except for the little kids) this holiday season! I have snowmen ornaments to make (I make them from sea urchins), sea glass angels and countless numbers of pendants and earrings. My mother has put in a request for a giant seashell wreath for her birthday (exactly one week before Christmas) and a slew of other things.

I have a large plastic mold for making birdbaths, 80 lbs of quickcrete in the trunk of my car and sheet upon sheet of stained glass sitting and waiting to be cut up to mosaic the birdbaths (yes I said baths- plural- three planned for holiday gift giving). Then there's the wine lovers in my family- for them, hand painted wine glasses and sea glass wine bottle stoppers. Oh and did I mention the people in my family who are impossible to gift?

On top of all this, I lie awake in bed at night- my mind reeling avec idée fixe: hand painted glass ornaments, mosaic mirrors, occasional tables, time frames, supplies to buy... Something tells me that "craft night" with the girls is not going to be enough to get all this accomplished. Tomorrow's agenda includes a trip to the office supply store to buy some sort of giant calendar thing to hang on my wall so I can start mapping out a timeline for getting all this accomplished. I guess, also, I should write a list of every person I need to make a gift for and what that gift will be.

*Note to self: organizing a studio space does not automatically organize a head cluttered with ideas!

And so, this mini rant will become a mini series. As I make progress tackling this aggregate of craftiness, I will blog about it. Sharing pictures, ideas and thoughts as I go. Wish me luck!

-Tara