honey & ollie

My Fly Tribe gals are having another blog hop, this time with our Words for 2012. Gonna be cool…

My box of fine silver precious metal clay finally arrived, so for the next few days I’ll be crafting charms and filling One Word pendant orders, and I’ve got some amazing beads in stock (and more on the way) to use with these little beauties. We might have a little radio silence on the blog the next few days, because I’ve got a bit of a backlog to start with! There’s still plenty of time to order one, by the way, I won’t close sales of those until February 15th. Lots of folks out there are still figuring out their Words! I’d love to craft a unique piece of soulful jewelry for YOU, so check out the shop! To that end, I’ve got a few more fairy tale bamboo tiles going up tomorrow and then I need to focus on charms, so that’s it for new fairy tales until next week (when I’ll have some new pieces, new sizes, and different styles to share with you!).

I’m really in love with this stunner! Sterling silver, faceted smoky quartz, AAA rainbow moonstone with the most wonderful iridescent blue flash, microfaceted black spinel and a detail from a marvelous vintage illustration from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. So much sparkle and shimmer. This one is a choker length piece, unlike most in this series which are around 20-22″ in length.

This Art Nouveau beauty, accented with amber, peach moonstone, carnelian and lampworked glass:

Another owl, who has been in the shop before, in a slightly different incarnation. Here he is accented with sparkling Czech glass and tiger’s eye. He’s such a handsome fellow I keep coming back to him.

Another Art Nouveau lady, no gemstones on this one, just sparkly Czech glass and copper chain:

One of my personal favorites.

So that’s it for a bit while I focus on your One Word charms!

Speaking of One Word, my Fly Tribe is doing a One Word blog hop on the 9th, and there will be all manner of amazing art focused around our themes and intentions for the year. I hope you check back then to see what everyone comes up with. These are some talented artists, y’all! I’ll be unveiling my mixed media art piece on the 9th and providing links to all the other participants.

So many fantastic things in store for 2012. I am kind of bubbling over with anticipation!

The newest incarnation of my Once Upon A Time collection. Vintage imagery decoupaged onto stained bamboo tile and accented with gemstones, mixed metals, and art glass.

The new collection will be out at the Chinese New Year show for their first foray into the world, but pieces are going up in the shop all week.

These are warm, textured and rustic. The bamboo has an almost silky feel. They’re really a pleasure to wear and to look at. Most of them are on 20 – 24 inch copper chains but a few come in sterling, or choker length or strung on waxed cotton or silk cord. The collection is ever evolving!

Snow White, Rapunzel, The Princess and her Frog, Bluebeard’s wife, and the Little Mermaid… watch for them in the shop this week!

I’ve been struggling so hard to come up with a big “end of the year/start of a new year” post, something that sums up the amazing year I just had. Well here’s the thing.

I can’t sum it up.

I just can’t. 2011 was transformative, electric, and amazing. It was a year of joy and a year of growth, a year of exponential learning, of making mistakes, of getting it right and a year of leaping into the unknown. It was a year of true love, trust, travel, friends, great coffee, and way too much butter. Well, actually, scratch that last, there’s no such thing.

We said hello to two new foster babies and bid farewell to our Elder Statescat, Pando.

We cried over bitter disappointments and cheered for triumphant moments.

We bit our nails to the quick when my mother almost died (twice! Holy shit.) and wept with gratitude when she recovered. We toasted her good health on Thanksgiving day.

There were kisses and hugs and lazy days on the front porch, mixed in with white-knuckle drives in the pouring rain, 3am wakeup calls before art shows and one or two lovers’ quarrels.

How do you sum all that up? You can’t. You just can’t.

2011 was a very good year. I had a great time. I’m grateful for it. And that, as they say, is that.

It’s not exactly like the year to come is a blank slate, is it? It’s more of a continuation. Because life isn’t little chunks of time, really. It’s just life. So get out and live it. That’s what I’ve been doing. That’s what I’ll be doing.

Get out there. Start walking. Walk right into your life, and live it.

…and don’t worry about the butter.

From Honey&Ollie.

Unless someone orders something at the last minute for express shipping, I’m thinking I may have just shipped the last of the holiday Etsy orders. How exciting! I survived my first Etsy holiday season! Woohoo!

The shop will be closed from Dec 23 until Dec. 27th and I won’t be shipping any orders until January 2 because I’m officially on vacation.

On that note, I have declared that it is time for tea. And so it is.

When I set my goal for Etsy sales in this first year on my vision board, I said, “I want to make 100 online sales.” Today, because some awesome folks boosted the signal and made orders, I hit that goal and then went past it. And we still have several weeks until year’s end!

I’m really grateful and I just want to say thanks.

One dollar from every sale on my Etsy shop goes to help the RESCU Foundation. You can find a link to their website and some info over to your right, on the sidebar. I get to make that donation in a few weeks, when I do my year-end books. I’m very excited. That donation will go directly to help pay medical bills for Renaissance Faire entertainers, artisans and vendors who get sick or injured. Folks who work the Faire circuit either year-round, or, like me, maybe for just one season/faire a year. Folks who make their living primarily as actors, dancers, singers or artists, and who can’t quite afford health insurance.

RESCU does really good work, and the people they serve are dear to my heart. I’ve been a Ren Faire actor since 1988. The faire is my hometown and these people are my family.

And all of y’all who bought something off of Etsy totally helped me do something that is ultimately going to help them.

It’s the first time I’ll be able to do more than just throw a fiver in the RESCU hat at Faire. And I couldn’t be doing it without y’all. This is about how I feel right now:

Thank you for that. From the bottom of my heart.