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The Sonora Celtic Faire was…

March 11, 2014 by Rain Hannah

…in a word? Bloody brilliant! Ok, that was two words, but really I haven’t had such a great time at a show in a really long time. The site at the Sonora Fairgrounds is just so lovely anyway and then they went and filled it up with Faire folks, pipe bands and all the goodies you could ever want. We did really well! The new lines got so much great feedback. I am a happy designer today and feeling more on track than I have in a good long while.

The weekend started out spectacularly when I fell down our stairs at 5:30 in the morning (that’ll larn me to try to walk without coffee) and pulled and strained a bunch of things that are best left unpulled. Like knees. And then I was pretty busy all weekend so I didn’t really walk around but there were a few things in our immediate area that really stood out over the course of the weekend.

First up? Blooming Lotus – a husband and wife duo who teach yoga and make the most stunning wind chimes you might have ever seen. These are works of art and a set of amethyst and copper chimes followed me home. They were promptly given to Captain Sexypants, because I love him and something so beautiful could not possibly exist without me wanting to give them to him, along with the moon. Seeing as how the moon is impossible, windchimes it is! They were technically a birthday gift .

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I’ve heard it said that “True Love Waits” but in this case True Love was pushy and started whining until the Cap agreed to unwrap what was in the shopping bag RIGHT NOW, two days early, instead of on his actual birthday.

Sometimes True Love gets like that.

chimes2

Fantastic, non? Love the fire patina on the copper and all those rough stones. They are making our back deck rather fabulous. I’m a little worried that between those, the zen bells and the Tibetan prayer flags all over our front porch, our neighbors might think we’re pinko hippie liberals. Or something. Heh.

chimes1

Musical high point of the whole weekend was definitely this Celtic rock band called Stand Easy. I got a huge kick out of them. Their show was a lot of fun! Good times, good times… please allow me to offer up a YouTube that I have randomly found, just for your delectation.

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All I have to say about that is, “wow.” Their singer/piper fellow John is really nice and wow can he ever rock the pipes. Throw in a pair of stompy boots, a fetching chapeau, a kilt and er, hello there Mr. Bagpipe Rocker Guy! You make the world just that much better with your bagpipes and your music (not to mention your knees, not that I was looking at them. Well maybe a little.) You just keep doing what you’re doing, ok? It’s working out fine. Carry on.

Seriously though, aren’t we all just sooo grateful for Scottish rock bands?

Mittens the Studio Cat would like to interject that he is not grateful for Scottish rock bands, however I feel that he is operating under some bias seeing as how cats + bagpipes = generally not a winning combination. Also, nobody cares if you think kilts are overrated, Mittens. Go find some glitter or something to knock over, ok? Wait… on second thought… oh never mind.

I think the most exciting part of the weekend was getting the opportunity to wholesale some of my work to a great little store in Ventura, CA. It’s a shop that I’ve been in love with when I saw it during the first Craftcation conference 3 years ago. The whole thing manifested in such a serendipitous way, too. I can’t even begin to express how much gratitude and delight and pure squee I’ve got going on about that.

You know that part in Buffy Season 5 (4?) where Xander gets split into two Xanders and they each think that the other is a demon and Goofy-Xander does the Snoopy Dance to convince Willow that he’s the real Xander? Yeah, that’s totally me right now.

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The happy dance part, I mean. Not the being split into two of myself by the powers of darkness part. At any rate, the next time you’re in Ventura, look for Honey&Ollie at Heart’s Delight on Main Street. Because we’re totally there. In their store. Dream come true. Go and look for the Honey&Ollie girl! Yay small local businesses supporting other small businesses!

Thanks, Celtic Faire! I feel totally rejuvenated and like I got my groove back, oh yes I do.

What’s next? OH! I’ll tell you what’s next. We just got accepted to the San Jose Fantasy Faire on April 12 and 13th. See you there?

Posted in gratitude, In The Mountains | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

A riddle.

March 6, 2014 by Rain Hannah

What do you get when you combine 5 cats, a spilled container of microglitter, a tub of soft gel medium, slippery rubber gloves, and resin? At 11:30 at night. The week of a big show. When you’ve never actually used resin before?

You get crying.

You get laundry.

You get a new, spiky hairstyle. And later, you get to cut resin out of your hair.

But worst of all? You get an entire ruined tray of pendants.

Then, the bad words come out where everyone can hear them and the cats get offended and everyone is huffy and needs a cup of tea to calm down.

Mittens the studio cat has volunteered his opinion that perhaps the best time to learn something entirely new complicated, really messy and also smelly isn’t in the last four days before a huge festival when you are in a rush and on a tight production schedule and when you are trying to keep your studio clean for guests. I told Admiral Mittens that he should probably shut his piehole. But between you and me, he might just totally have a point
Not to be indelicate, but I am thinking of adding “The Liberace of Litter” to Mittens’s name. Cats + microglitter = sparkle in places you didn’t expect sparkle.

I was happy to discover that it wasn’t a total loss. I still have a small collection of Fairy Tales to bring out to the show.

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Quite a few of them are the older bamboo pendants that I had on hand from before. I really love those and it was fun to figure out some new ways to use them, like in these art bead bracelets.

redmermaid

And fortunately, I do have some of the new resin filled pieces as well. Just… not as many as I’d hoped! I’m particularly happy with this mermaid piece, which wound up being a layered confection of turquoise, copper and linen fabulosity.

redmer

This one came out really nicely as well. I did a similar layered thing with it but used pearls and purples and a little Swarovski for sparkle. This is one of my favorite images from Waterhouse, of course. Love the pre-Raphaelites.

bluemer

Still, I think I’ll be talking to some resin savvy friends before I try to make any more of the old style glass tile pendants. That was an expensive and stressful mistake! I’m thinking that Ice Resin may just be a bezels-only product. Maybe it’s an inspiration to finally make my own fantastical bezels like we learned to do in that class with Deryn Mentock last year?

Now there’s a thought…

Come on out to Celtic Faire this weekend and I will regale you with tales of resin hilarity. Or maybe not. But come out anyway. It’s gonna be grand!

Posted in in the studio | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

You’re coming to Celtic Faire, right? Be

March 5, 2014 by Rain Hannah

You’re coming to Celtic Faire, right?

Because if you don’t come to Celtic Faire, you’re totally going to miss out. I’ve got so many great things for this show! I’m bringing back our Fairy Tale art pendants, only, I’ve updated them a little with hand-dyed silk ribbons and handmade art beads, sparkling crystals and pearls.

bluemermaid

Speaking of hand dyed silk, did I mention, there’s a whole slew of new goodies that feature textiles and recycled sari silks? Like, I’m bringing back our silk bead dangle earrings, which should totally make you bellydance types happy. Hello textiles. Aren’t you cunning? Whether you’re hanging out with gemstones, metalwork or ceramics, you just fit so well.

rakusilk

rosesilk

Love this birds nest silk bracelet (the construction of which I totally yoinked from a fabulous free tutorial over at Miss Fickle Media).

birdsraksha

Don’t forget Into The Woods! I love this Wise Old Owl bracelet with the focal bead from Tangible Light Studios. Hi, Wise Owl.

owlglass

Love your handmade dogwood blossom from Too Aquarius, the bronze dyed pearls and Czech glass. Love how you match all the awesome batik lampwork beads from Julie Miller Glass. Look at your cunning double layers of chain and Irish linen and the way you’re all balanced and counter balanced to hang just perfectly.

Hi Foxy Loxy.

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Look at you there, all smug on your sweet bed of textured leafy porcelain. Look at you surrounded by all that swell green turquoise, poppy jasper and Julie Miller’s art glass. Love your heart toggle closure and that tiny ceramic tag from Elaine Ray. You make me so happy, Foxy Loxy.

If you want to see Foxy Loxy and the Wise Old Owl, just come on out to the Sonora Celtic Faire this weekend. March 7, 8 and 9 at the Sonora Fairgrounds, just off Highway 49.

There’ll be live music, all the tasty eats and oh so many lovely things to look at and buy. Bring a sweater. Stop by the booth and say howdy! We’d love to see you! Captain Sexypants will be there, and Deb with Artistic Rite, and oh yes, of course, me!

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Spring earring club signups are go!

March 3, 2014 by Rain Hannah

Hard to believe that the Spring Earring Club is about to begin, but holy cow, it is! I just ordered the art beads for the final shipment in the Winter Club and we’re gonna start again in April!

springclub

If you’re new to Honey&Ollie, it’s pretty simple. 3 months of fabulous jewelry, delivered to your mailbox, like magic. Gemstones, art beads, textiles, mixed metals and more. Always a surprise and always fantastic! It works out to a great bargain, too!

Posted in jewelry | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment »

Welcome Back, Fairy Tales! I missed you.

March 3, 2014 by Rain Hannah

Welcome Back, Fairy Tales!

I missed you.

welcomefairytale

I felt so betrayed by you for a while that I stopped making you. I felt totally let down with the way the lousy Diamond craft glaze kept not working. I was distressed and annoyed by the way your bails would eventually rip off the back of the glass pendants or the images themselves would peel away. Because you know, I am selling you for money, Fairy Tales. If you break then I have unhappy customers and unhappy customers are not what I want.

But now I have discovered jeweler’s grade resin and all these bezels are waiting to be poured and then turned into beautiful necklaces.

So there.

You’re the prodigal product, Fairy Tales. I’m glad you’re home.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

The Great, Epic, Studio Cleaning of 2014 Redux

March 1, 2014 by Rain Hannah

So. It’s like this. No wait, it would take too long to explain. Let me sum up. Buttercup will marry Humperdink in a little less than half an hour.

I mean to say that, I’m still working on the studio. Today is the big reveal and I do NOT have pictures of a fully cleaned, beautifully organized workspace to share with everyone.

What I have is a slightly more tidy, marginally more organized studio that is incrementally cleaner than it was. Like the ROUS, I am becoming convinced that the actually perfectly clean studio just doesn’t exist.

I’m a little embarrassed to blog about it, frankly, but today IS reveal day, so I’m just gonna be honest. My studio is not clean. However, Admiral Mittens the Archduke of Sausage-on-Thames and resident Studio Cat, will attest to the fact that I totally ran the vacuum. Much to his displeasure.

The bench is clean. See? Here is a picture of my clean bench.

cleanedbenchreveal

Ok it was clean. For like, an hour. But I’m still in show prep mode, so it wants to get messy again every second. And I’ll confess… I am actually finding it a little harder to work when the bench is pristine. I might have to call shenanigans. See, it may have been a huge mess pile before, but it was my mess pile. I knew where everything was in that mess pile. I could put my hand out, do a little shuffling of layers, and generally put my fingers on the tool or mcguffin that I wanted. Now my good chasing hammer has gone AWOL, my pliers are out of order, and I’ve knocked over this !@#!@ little metal bowl of 2mm gemstones like, five times…

I’m sure I’ll get used to working in a clean space.

Eventually.

I think the best part of this whole process was that it got me to deal with the four year old slush pile which then forced me to reorganize my bead bins. I re-organized everything! See? And yes, thank you, I realize the ink is different colors and I used a different nib size. Mittens was sitting on the first pen. And then I lost the second because I was sitting on it and then I had to get another and uniformity went out the window.

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I did the gem bins by color family because color is the first thing I think of but then it got a little bit tricky because what kind of gem also matters (and here is where my certified brand of crazy came out and made the whole process way more complicated at it had to be). For example there’s some green turquoise in the bin with the blue-green gems, because all the other turquoise was in the blue-green bin, and it made my brain itch to have the green turquoise in the green bin so far away from the other turquoise and I didn’t have a spare bin to JUST put in turquoise because that would have resulted in an uneven number of empty compartments and also wasted space. The feeling was similar to when you’re at the gas station and the pump reads 9.98 gallons but the price is $32 exactly. I mean, how do you even deal with that? If you make it 10 gallons then the price will be off. If you keep the price at $32 then the gallons are off. What’s with the weird uneven pricing to gallon ratio, oil companies? You’re making it harder than it has to be.

At any rate, there comes a point where one must reconcile oneself to the fact that some things will just be wrong forever. It’s an agonizing process and you kind of just have to find the least itchy solution.

I had a similar problem with findings. For example, spacers can’t be in the bin with clasps, knot cups or jump rings. It is so obvious that they belong next to bead caps. But attractive toggles double as focals so they should totally live in the bin with the spacers and bead caps, except they go at the end of things so that’s more like clasps. O great dilemma. Where do you even put them?

It’s kind of like when you are 3 and your peas can’t touch the mashed potatoes, but in a more uncomfortable way, and with shiny things.

Welcome to my brain.

Well once that was all done, I took a second to actually label the bins. So that’s been fantastic for work flow. I do like being able to easily shift from “I want a red thing.” to “I have All The Red Things and oh lookee there, I think a ruby will work best and there is the ruby I want.”

That part doesn’t suck.

This whole process got me to go a little further with the “A place for everything and everything in its place.” concept.

I have a great place all picked out for my chasing hammer.

You know. When I find it. Eventually.

Wanna see the rest of the blog hop? You can totally go here: http://sharylsjewelry.blogspot.com/2014/03/clean-up-fix-up-your-workspace.html and see all the other jewelers who were way more successful than me.

Posted in in the studio | Tagged | 8 Comments »

Dogwood and Vintage and All The Spools o

February 28, 2014 by Rain Hannah

Dogwood and Vintage and All The Spools of String

birdlong

I think I will start this off with a pro tip. When working with waxed Irish linen, be really careful not to rub your eyes before you have washed your hands with hot water and soap. If you do, you will rub the wax into your eyes. This is a stinging and unfun experience and because it is wax, you cannot then go wash out your eye with water because if you were to use water that was hot and soapy enough to do any good you’d probably put your eye out.

Ask me how I know.

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Not about the eye putting out part. I’m actually smart and I figured that one out by pure extrapolation. But the not rubbing stingy Irish linen wax in the eye thing? Nothing like experience, baby.

Eyes are sometimes pretty good at getting things that shouldn’t be in, back out, though, so it was all okay by morning. Painful lessons aside, I really do like working with this Irish linen cording. It’s a lot of fun, gives you some diverse options that you just can’t get with chain, and it’s pretty affordable. Also, I have a ton of it from when we owned a bead store. So it was basically like, free.

delphblue

stoneclosure

I love this little spring garden necklace. The sleepy little Treewings hedgie reminds me of that poem by AA Milne, about the dormouse who slept in a bed of geraniums red and delphiniums blue. I love the asymmetrical river stone clasp and how it looks with the little polymer dogwood blossom from Too Aquarius and the Czech glass flowers.

greendonut

Its been really nice to finally be able to do something with all these stone and ceramic focals that I’ve been shlepping around. I got these donuts when we were driving through Quartzite, Arizona last year, and I haven’t been able to figure out how to string them. But I love them with the cording, especially used as bracelet focals.

chocolatedonut

The natural stone works so well with the chocolate cording and I love the pop of contrast from the purple Greek ceramic beads. And again with those flowers from Too Aquarius. I really just love her stuff. Most of the new stuff for this show features some blossom or bird from her studio.

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It’s a fun mix of textile, vintage, art bead elements and natural stones. The more I work with this line, the more I am enjoying it. Not that I don’t still love sterling silver and itty bitty gemstones but this stuff feels a little more fun and easy….

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

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