Snowed In

Here in Ohio, the snow began to fall last week. I stocked up the bird feeders, but I have one, slightly camera shy squirrel that enjoys the suet feeder. I don't mind, because its amusing to watch his acrobatic feats as he tries to balance on the icy metal. The snow continued to fall....

until we got a whopping 15"!

The following day was bitter cold, but the snow covered trees against the blue skies made for some beautiful pictures!

But because of the snow, it was a great time to stay inside and make jewelry! I've made several pairs of two-toned "galaxy" earrings, like the ones shown here:

that have a wire orbiting around some crystals. I've made them in several varieties, colors and metals, so there is a good selection coming to the market.
I was also thinking of my upcoming trip to see Jason in Miami, so I put together some summery, tropical colors in this floral charm bracelet. Of course I like it so much, I'm going to make one similar for myself!

And lastly, I was thrilled that my friend Irene was in Dayton for the weekend from Dallas, Texas. Irene and I have known each other since we were toddlers, more than 45 years now we have been friends! She is so funny, smart and beautiful and I just love her! We have so much in common, even after all these years and seeing her makes me wish we lived closer to each other. She and I were partners in crime during our teenage years and we just laugh now at our young antics and talk about how we would never let our own kids get away with some of the things we did! I'd love to hear about your best girlfriends and some of the antics you pulled in your youth - leave me a comment!

Auction Goodies

Noel and I went to an estate auction the other day that had TONS of jewelry and what must have been 300 vintage and antique oil lamps! I found some treasures, although its hard to beat out the dealers that were there buying up everything! I found several old, signed pins from Coro and by Weiss. I immediately got to work thinking up things I could do with them. Two of the pins are "duette" pins that cleverly come apart from one pin to make two smaller dress clips. The mechanism on one of them didn't work very well, so I used it to create a multi strand necklace with gunmetal chain and pearls. Its as good as sold already! I plan to make a similar multistrand piece with some beautiful, sparkly earrings I bought at the auction as well. Here are some pictures of a few of the pieces I bought, and what I made...

Snowflake Bracelet

Yesterday, Jean and I drove to the Byzantium bead store in Columbus to take a class learning to make a bead woven snowflace bracelet. It was an exercise of my patience, since this weave is very geometric and I have a hard time envisioning this way. It was confusing to figure out which color bead to add at any given time and in which direction the needle went through previous beads. I stuck myself more than once with this tiny sharp needle, and size 11 seed beads are practically microscopic! Its a good thing I don't have to make a living doing work like this - those poor women in China and India that bead things like this daily for mass production must have far better vision than I!!!

The First Flake - you can tell how tiny the seed beads are by comparing it to the type on the paper!

I'm making progress....

Oh No! I forgot to add the picot edging on the middle snowflake, now I have to work my needle back through the beads in order to add the trim along the edge that gives the snowflake the lacy look....

I took some pictures during the process, and we didn't get the bracelet finished during the 3 hour class, which meant I had to finish this morning on my own, without our patient instructor, Amber, to help me. I had to un-do some beading and go back to add somethings I missed, but its finished and beautiful!

The Golden Globe Awards

Did you watch the Golden Globe awards the other night? I am obsessed with the earrings Jane Krakowski wore - they are little geodes made by New York designer Kimberly McDonald (www.KimberlyMcDonald.com). And as far as I'm concerned, the worst dressed prize should go to Mariah Carey, for displaying her own two golden globes for the world to see! In this instance, the vulgar display of her breasts detracts from her beauty, not the other way around, although I suppose if mine looked like that I might want the world to see them as well! LOL!

,

Who did you think were the best and worst dressed?

January 18th is officially the year's Gloomiest Day!

Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me your love for humanity
Give me your arms for the broken hearted
Ones that are far beyond my reach.
Give me your heart for the ones forgotten
Give me your eyes so I can see

I heard this at the doctors office today and it has quickly become my favorite song! I've been in quite a funk lately, and today on MSN I see that January 18th is the gloomiest day of the year - so no wonder! The weather has been grey and gloomy, I can't seem to get motivated to do much of anything, and since I'm dieting, I'm hungry all the time! This song seemed to speak to me to be thankful for the many blessings I do have and quit griping. So I did - at least temporarily!

And speaking of dieting, this sounds really bad, but the only thing that has kept me going is knowing that if I give up, I can always go back to my bad eating habits! How is that for self-defeating thinking??? Its all I could do at the grocery store the other day to not open the bad of cheese curls right there in the store and strap it on like a feedbag! Man, do I miss junk food. This eating healthy crap and the touts that "you'll feel so much better" are crap. All I feel is deprived and fat instead of satiated and fat!

I was really hoping to lose 20 pounds by the time we go see Jason in Miami at the end of February. They say losing 4-5 pounds a week is healthy, but so far in 3 weeks I've only lost a lousy 5 pounds! I should have spent the money on lipo instead! Yours truly.....

We woke up this morning to a beautiful hoar frost on the trees and bitter cold temperatures. While I was getting my coffee, I looked out the kitchen window in time to see a large coyote just strutting through the yard, and the bird feeders being ravaged by two large flickers. Country living at its finest!

Its the 10th of January, and I've been on a diet for 10 days now - thats nine days longer than my diets usually last! Since I hadn't lost even a pound, I bought some "Slimquick", that diet supplement with the cartoon lady whose boobs shrink while her husband loses weight. I'm on the "cleanse" portion of the pills right now, and I've already "poo'd" out things I'm pretty sure have been in there since high school! I feel skinnier already!

Today I'm going over to my cousins to watch the kids for her while she runs some errands and goes to the grocery. I'm looking forward to getting my baby fix! She has a little girl not quite two months old; I'll post some pictures if I get any good ones! In the meantime, here are a few pictures I took this morning...

slow, snowy day

The snow fell hard most of the day today, so it was a good day to stay inside and make teapot earrings!

While taking the above pictures on the sill of the dining room bay window, I captured this little guy at the feeder, a little chickadee. I love watching these little guys, and they can hold their own against the larger birds that also come to this feeder, like the nuthatches, woodpeckers and flickers.

And then I posed for this picture, don't worry, I'm not really shoveling; Noel thought it would be a funny picture to send to the people he works with at the library! So after I posed for this I ran right back inside!