Bad blogger!

So I don't blog as much as I wish I could. Here's the thing: I spend most of my time parenting, being a wife, going to class, studying, and doing my full time day job. After that I have to decide how to spend whatever other time I can carve out. There's taking and editing photos (love), blogging (love), or spending time in my studio making pretty things (obviously love!). Oh, and sleeping (love). Can't forget sleeping. Anyway, when time is tight (uhh, always!) I usually end up choosing studio time (yes, even over sleep).

School and work (and a ridiculous number of migraines) have made time especially tight these last few weeks. But I have finished a thing or two in the studio and decided it was time to share them here. As well as a few other fun (to me, at least!) pictures...

I finished this a couple of weeks ago but hadn't had a chance to post it. It was a custom request to set this piece of sea glass, collected on the coast of Maine, into a ring. I really love how it came out:

And I finished this one earlier this week. This stone is amazing! There's no way to really capture it in a photograph. It's like an oil slick... at first glance, it appears black, but when it catches the light it's a rainbow of velvety colors:

Royal Velvet Obsidian and Sterling

It's in the shop now.

I'm working on a necklace and a couple of other things in the studio at the moment (not right at *this* moment, but you know what I mean!), which may or may not be done by the end of the weekend. I also have an African History exam on Monday, so we'll see...

In other news, my little ones have been growing up way too fast. Alice is pretty much walking now (I say pretty much because she still crawls as much as she walks but she'll actually walk of her own accord now, without prompting, and seems to be getting closer to using walking as her preferred method of travel) and she's even used the potty a couple of times!! This is HUGE news considering we didn't even know if our little miracle girl was going to have the use of her arms and legs. ♥

Here's a picture I took earlier this week of the three loves of my life as we walked to the car from Alice's daycare:

I'm one lucky mama.

And last (and, yeah, probably least), a picture of my tattoo that I don't think I've ever fully shown here before. I took it trying to get pictures of the Royal Velvet ring. Obviously not a great picture of the ring, but it turned out to be a pretty good one of the tattoo! The weather is finally warming up so I'll get to be showing it off again soon. (just in time for your visit, mom! haha!) ;)

Happy weekend, my friends!

xox

Still Here!

See?

(Wow, I look all angelic, don't I?)

Anyway, I've been super busy with custom work, work-work, school, birthdays (Happy Birthday, Foxy!!! xoxxxx), and other such fun (and less fun) things. I have lots of photos to share, I just haven't had a spare minute to get on my computer and edit and post them. But I will. Soon. I also haven't had much of a chance to work on new stuff for the shop lately. I have been busy in the studio, but mostly on custom orders. I have a few new things I've started and hope to have them finished and in the shop ASAP. I'm also excited to start work on a new line of pieces, the idea for which came to me a couple of nights ago. I can't wait to get into the studio and see how it pans out.

But first, I have an Afican History paper due on Monday and a Sociology of Sex Roles exam on Tuesday! So I believe my weekend will be consumed by these studies. And hopefully some snuggle time with the fam.

Don't go anywhere. I haven't left. I promise I'm still right here, doing what I love. Just at a varying pace!

xo

A Valentine For You...

Here is the piece from my last post, finished and in the shop now!

Creamy pink and black rhodonite and sterling silver. I've been wanting to make a longer necklace for sometime now. I love the look. The necklace is 28" long and the chain features two tiny rhodonite beads to match the stone, but because the pendant slides freely along the chain, and there is no clasp, you can position the beads wherever you want them (including behind your neck if you'd prefer they not show). I'm really happy with the design of this piece and will probably create more like it in the future.

So many things I want to create and so little time...

I also finished this very special custom piece over the weekend:

More new stuff to come soon!

xo

Sneak Peek!

A work in progress, hopefully to be finished and listed this weekend (along with some other goodies!):

And a shot of my studio audience:

(This is Pumpkin and Spooky. Not pictured: Monster and Boo--although Monster is actually on the lower tier, he just didn't make it into the frame). They like to watch me work.

Happy Friday, I'll see you this weekend in the shop! ;)

xo

PS. The Simple Dimples are back in the shop!

Lilah caught a fox in the snow!

(Shh! She doesn't know it's a toy!)

I know I should be more professional about such things...

But...  WOOHOO!!

I had my best day ever  in the shop today and it felt really good. Thank you, thank you to my wonderful supporters out there. You rock my world!

Now I must get my nose to the grindstone and get my little shop restocked!

On that note, I did add this to the shop late last night:

White jade and sterling. Strung on a simple sterling bead chain to keep it on the affordable side.

Despite the fact that school starts next week (well, officially it starts tomorrow but I don't have classes on Fridays this semester), I will be spending extra time in the studio over the next few weeks so I can get some new items made and listed for you (and for me, because let's be honest, I do this for me). So keep an eye on the blog and my facebook page for news about shop updates.

I also wanted to take a little blog space to rave about my incredibly talented family. I mentioned after Christmas that my 8 year old daughter, Aidan, had taken up sewing and was proving to be quite the prodigy? Well, here are a few of her creations:

Grandparents, commence the oohing and aahing!

And not to be upstaged by our 8 year old, the Foxy one has been stoking her creative fire as well! She took a printmaking class over the fall, and our darling feline Spooky proved to be the perfect screenprinting subject. Here he is at Stephanie's art show debut:

And this one, which she just made for fun at home, is going in my studio:

[caption id="attachment_960" align="aligncenter" width="560" caption="Owl Comes to Realize"][/caption]

Yep. My family's pretty darn awesome.

I'll be back again with more soon. I finally replaced my 5 year old laptop, so picture editing and blogging won't be such a  time suck! Woohoo!

And happy Friday (in 10 minutes CST!)

xo

A New Ring

Well, I didn't finish all three pieces, but I did manage to squeeze in enough time in the studio to finish this one:

Winter Forest Ring

Medicine Bow dendretic agate and sterling silver. I really, really ♥ this ring! Wish I could keep it for myself, but the shop is looking a little bare these days.

It's there now.

Happy Sunday!

xo

Snow Days

Just a quick post to let you know that I have a few items on my bench just waiting to be finished. I hope to get them finished and in the shop before the end of the week.

In other news, we finally got some snow!! Aidan even had a couple of snow days and got to go sledding. But I think she enjoyed this just as much:

A Beautiful Day

Spent the day in Kansas City...

Braved the cold

Coveted things we couldn't afford

Played and ate

Revered totems

And now I'm about to finish off my beautiful day with my beaufitul wife, some chocolate fondue, and a glass of wine.

'Night, night!

xo

My Winter Song to You

Last winter Stephanie put this beautiful song by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson on a CD that she made me (oh yes, the mix-tape is still very much alive! At least it is in our relationship. When life and housework and parenting and work get in the way and we don't get the same chances that we used to tell each other how we feel about each other, a carefully curated selection of songs goes a long, long way. ♥ )

Anyway! Last winter Stephanie put this Winter Song on a CD she made for me. We were having a particularly rough year (it had been a year since Alice was born; having a baby is hard enough on a couple but having one with uncertain medical and developmental issues adds stress on top of stress) and the song made my eyes well up with tears every time I heard it. The hopefulness of it. The acknowledgement that the good stuff might be buried under a foot of snow but spring is coming and our love will see us there. I'm telling you, it made my heart swell every time.

I got a new CD for Christmas. And I'd made one for her a few months before that. So we've been listening to those and I haven't played the one she gave me last year for a while. Then today I stumbled across this on Pixie Campbell's blog:

OMG! How have I not seen this before now?! Breaks my heart it's so sweet!!! Is love alive? Oh, you bet!!

Here's to a love that sees you through the rough winters so you can truly appreciate  spring.

xox

New Tools!

My lovely and amazing wife bought me a dapping set for Christmas.

Ohhhh!! It's so fun!!

I made these for myself (they're actually copper!):

I've been wearing them almost every day since I made them. They're super light and versatile. I will make some of these for the shop soon, I promise. BUT last night (my first time in the studio in 2011!) I made these:

The story of how these came to be: The first thing I did with my dapping set (the night I made those copper earrings) was to take one of the small silver disks that I use for the signature buffalo button I put on the back of all of my pieces, and dome it. I practiced this a few times before moving on to doming a larger piece of metal. So anyway, last night when I went back into my studio to work,  I had a few of these tiny silver dishes sitting on my bench. It struck me that they'd make great little earrings. So I soldered some posts onto them, cleaned and sanded them, and there you have it! I'm wearing a pair today and I absolutely love them. They're small and simple but just interesting enough to solicit a second glance:

These are listed in the shop now!

Megapost!

Well hello again!

I promised I'd be back with a little more content and boy do I have content for you...

First, the continuation of my last post: The Foxy Ring!

It's as if it was made for her. ;)

And now, a few shots of some of the work I finished over the last couple of months and weeks that I wasn't previously able to share...

I love, love, love this ring. It was a custom request as a gift for a very special someone. I was pretty much given free reign on this one and I love what came out:

Built of sterling silver and chalcedony. I may have to make myself a matching one.

And then there was this necklace...

with these

Carnelian, aventurine, and sterling.

And then this:

Leather, onyx, and sterling.

And then it was Christmas!! I have to say, Santa spoiled us. We were four very happy girls.

Aidan (with her edgy new haircut):

Alice (with one of my new dapping punches):

Aidan got a sewing machine from Santa and I think we found her calling! She spent a day just "stitching" paper trying to get used to how to it felt. Here she is doing a maze from the sewing practice book Laura bought her. She was determined to get it right before actually sewing anything.

The next day she decided to give it a try with thread (and here I'll take a little credit for myself since I managed to get the thing threaded even though I've never even seen a sewing maching up close before! I didn't even know it used two separate threads or spools or... whatever!). She practiced for a while on scrap pieces of fabric and then she spat out two pillows in a matter of about an hour! Here is Alice sleeping with the first one. Alice has not let go of this thing since Aidan gave it to her on Friday. I mean she has literally been clutching it to her chest  in her highchair while she eats:

Then today Aidan decided she wanted to make a bean bag animal. A penguin. So she came up with the design, I helped her cut out the shapes from the fabric and she sewed them! (it was even her idea to photograph it leaning up against the sewing machine like this. I'm telling you, the girl's destined for etsy!):

His name is Pingo. She's very proud. So am I.

All in all, we had a really nice winter break. And I didn't even get to the ice skating or the baking or the driving-around-looking-at-Christmas-lights-in-our-pajamas-drinking-hot-cocoa...

Hope your holidays were just as nice.

♥

Bring on the New Year!

Well, hello!

I hadn't really intended to take a blogging break during the Christmas break, but as it turned out my camera cord got, uh, damaged (see last post) AND my laptop is giving up the ghost AND I've been busy spending time with my girls. So there hasn't been much computer time around here (thank goodness I can Facebook--has that become an official verb yet?--from my iPhone).

So, since my laptop is taking a good hour just to upload ONE photograph, I will wait and post my big ol' it's-been-too-long-since-I've-posted-and-I-have-so-much-to-share-with-you post until I can use a different computer. (actually, it's hard to believe it's only been a week since my last post! So much has happened: Christmas, my and Foxy's anniversary, my oldest daughter proving to be a sewing prodigy, the completion of a decade... Whew!)

For now, I'll leave you with this one photo that I was able to get uploaded. It's the ring I made for Foxy for Christmas. It's the first time I've used gold! It was quite a thrill! And I think she loves it. ♥

I will post a picture of her modelling it. It's quite big. Goes across three fingers.

I also have some pictures of custom pieces I've made in the past few months that I wasn't able to post because they were gifts for people who might have happened upon them if I'd posted them here sooner. So those are coming too. I haven't had a chance to make anything new for the shop yet, but I hope to get back in the studio and re-stock the shop over the next few weeks. I'm officially pronouncing 2011 the year of the Buffalo!

Here's to a year of health, love, happiness, and soul-feeding creativity to all!

And I'll be back with a bustier post soon!

xoxoxox

My Crafty Girl...

So our 8 year old, Aidan, who is  smart-as-a-whip, and mostly loses her, uh, composure during unstructured breaks from school (we often joke about the scene from The Simpsons where Lisa is out of school and having a breakdown, frantically crying, "Grade me! Grade me!"), has found something to keep herself occupied over Christmas... She's taken up sewing!

On Sunday we celebrated Christmas with our dear friends Michael and Laura. Knowing that Santa is most likely going to be bringing Aidan a sewing matching for Christmas, they got her started by giving her some "learn to sew" books. Aidan hasn't put them down since. Well, except to pick up her needle and thread. The girl is beside herself with pride over these little creations:

Echo the Bear:

Poochie Pup:

Valentine:

And a work in progress (this one is a Christmas gift for Foxy!):

(excuse the unbrushed hair; it is Christmas break after all)

She's made about six more since then but I'm not able to upload pictures because at some point when she and I were sharing a workspace on the table, the cord that connects my camera to my laptop got snipped by a pair of wayward scissors. Ahem. (Okay, I could stop here and lead you all to believe it was the eight year old who accidentally snipped the cord, but truth be told, it was me).

So as far as this break goes, so far so good (you should congratulate me for resisting the punny urge to change one of those "so"s to "sew")! As for me, I spent a few frantic days over the weekend finishing up last minute custom Christmas gift orders and now I've had a 4 day break. I'm itching to get back in there, but for now I'm enjoying some truly quality time with my family.

♥

PS. Buffalo Lucy now has its own Facebook page! Check out the link in the side bar on the right... (then click "like" to become a fan and get shop-related status-updates).