A Dreaming Little Bird

Will the day come when the cooped bird
in the cage has a dream?
If I can stay by your side when you shed tears,
my will to stay here shall never waver.

This is my second piece for the march challenge over at B'Sue Boutique Creative Group - kitchen sink jewelry. Im glad I managed to wriggle this one in before the end of the month !

It all started with the cameo. I've always thought this cameo in perticular and wanted to use it... But how ? When ? My jewelry isn't very classical, how can I fit a cameo in this mess ?? (Ha.)

Well, my perception of cameos was drastically altered by my mother. See, my mother LOVED cameos. She had so many of them. Necklace, brooches, earrings, pins... She was in love with them, and my father brought her to many of them. They are these small, dainty little things.

Nothing like this piece, I can tell you ! This was so much fun to make. The frame was used upside down to give me more hanging opportunities. I didn't like the way it sad in the frame, so I used crystal clay and embelished it with transparent chatons. That gives it a completely different look ! The frame itself is glued on a tiny necklace stamping from B'Sue, that was wrapped with some green brass filigree that I got in a muse box.

This is my first time manipulating filigree like this, and it was easier than I thought !

The three little nests were wired by hand, and were actually my very first case of actual feline help in jewelry execution. You have to work with a lot of wire to make these, and it's too much for a cat to resist ! One nest is made with opalite round beads with copper wire, which I darkened with Swellegant afterward.  The second nest is brass wire with spectra beads (the big ones, the small ones would be better if you want tiny little nests). The third nest is copper with spectra beads, once more.

I,ve hung keys that I got from one of the muse boxes I brought from Brenda (she offer special ones to the facebook group every friday), and I glued some lovebirds on one of the keys. Make it look extra fancy, doesn't it ? :)

The word sticks were painted by hand. I think I need a little more practice, but it gives it a whole different style, doesn't it ? The 'bird' stick has a bird stamping glued on it - I simply cut the loop off neatly. I used vintaj patina on all of these pieces - the verdigris color. Hm, this is Brenda's favorite color, isn't it ? Wonder what's up with that...

The flowers are bead caps that I've had for... oh, forever and a day. I always loved them, but I never thought of using them this way before. The center are spectra beads, and they are glued on for the most part. (I know, I know, bad Audrey, kitchen sink is wiring...)

The chain is bookchain, and oh god I am IN LOVE with the stuff ! It is such amazing chain... a nice weight, feels so good in your hand. I am definitively investing in more of this when I can. The chain is wrapped with sari ribbon for texture.

Six years

Six years is a long time.

A child born six years ago would be starting second grade in september. At least here.

Today it has been six years since my mother died. A vein in her brain burst and flooded it with blood - there was nothing we could do. She died very suddenly, and not very peacefully - I do say she died in my arms, and I am not saying that for shock value. I've held her as I saw that little light vanish from her eyes. Her body might have lived longer, but what made my mother the woman she was died as I held her. This is not a sight I will ever be able to forget. Those images and those screams will haunt me until the day I die in turn.

I often get asked if it gets better. It doesn't, not really - there is a void in your heart that nothing can truly ever fill again. But you learn to get up, to do what need to be done. It doesn't get better, but you learn how to live with it. I was 21 when my mother died. I had to learn how to live without her at the same time that I had to learn how to be a true adult.

My mother was an amazing woman. Kind, generous. Strong in her own ways. She lost two children in between me and my brother, and nearly lost me as well, and would have if she had not fought so hard, put up with the forced bed rest, the tests, the medical interventions.

Her death forced me to learn that I was strong, too. I had endured a lot growing up - depression, bullying, mockery. I was the creative, shy girl that never quite belonged. The fat chick no one wanted to deal or be seen with. I was shoved into lockers, punched, spat on. I thought about killing myself more than once, but it was always my mother that pulled me though. She taught me her own strength, how to keep going.

I did not truly realize this until she was gone. I kept my father together as we suddenly had to organize everything and bury his childhood sweetheart - the only woman he had ever loved, the woman he had been married to for almost 40 years, the woman he would still be married with if she was still alive today. He was with her though the best and the worst, the laughter and the crying, the joys and the pains. My mother was very ill with other issues in her last few years, but he dealt with it all. Because he loved her in a way you so rarely see these days.

My father was six months away from retiring to be with her when she died. It is hard even now not to feel angry, not to feel like she was stolen from us at the time where my dad would finally have been able to lay back and enjoy his life with her to his fullest.

But... it is how it is. There is no other option but to process and accept it.

I realize you all come here to see jewelry and pretty things, and I apologize. But I feel like it needed to be said, to be understood, expecially with what I will show you next.

I never was big on the self-esteem. Change scares me horribly, and one of the things that scares me the most is to fail. I hate the thought of failing, the embarrassed, that sometimes it just seems easier to not try and spare myself of the whole thing. I resisted making jewelry because I was so afraid to fail. That no one would care. That no one would like it, or even notice me, especially since there are so many of us doing it.

And yet I am here, and sometimes it feel so strange still. I was always very creative, but I was never really considered 'good' at something. I can draw and write, but I am not super amazing at any of those things. The reaction to Wish Upon A Star floored me in the time where I needed it the most.

So thank you. Thank to all of you.

With all of the above in mind... Ladies, gentlemen, I would like to present to you...

Toki No Hourousha.

That said, I do not expect miracles. I don't expect to quit my day job and support myself with this - but I can just support my hobby... Then that will be enough for me.

And if it doesn't work, well, at least I can say one thing. I tried. In spite of the fear, of the doubts, I tried.

No hesitation.

This is what my mother would have wanted.

Bead Porn

(Don't worry, this post is safe for work. It's well. Bead porn !)

There are issues that come with having amazing lampworkers for friends. (Hi Judy, Hi Donna, Hi Jenn, talking about you thar)

You end up hoarding pretty beads like a dragon and having an empty bank account.

*sigh* What a life I lead...

I own many an amazing lampwork beads, but I finally caved and ordered actual customs !

And oh

my

me.

And THEN yesterday Judy comes at me all, hey baby, want more beads ?

AW YEAH

ME FREAKING GUSTA ! <3

When You Wish Upon A Star...

...It doesn't matter where you are.

So, hey, long time no actual... stuff, right ? Well, that is not really the case - just that most of it is tied to reveal dates. This piece is not, though, so I can actually share it. Yay yay.

This piece started as a simple entry for Brenda's march challenge - about kitchen sink jewelry. What in the ever loving hell is kitchen sink jewelry ? Well, I'll leave that for the master to clarify.

Then it kind of ran away from me. I didn't expect kitchen sink to be so addicting. I had issues with the mail that delayed the completion a lot, for one (thank you, Canada Post, nearly failing me as always). Brenda's geisha was a definite inspiration, but I wanted to put my own spin on it.

And so resulted a monster that did not even attempt to pretend to fit on the form. Hope none of you are too badly shocked.

The necklace wraps around, as you can see, to show off the lovely handmade clasp from Catherine Pruitt of BooBeads. Love love love love LOVE these claps. I want all of them, ktnxbye. It says 'Follow your own star', and I wired an opalite star to it. Some ribbon is looped though the lower part of the chain, and you can see the little rounds peeking on top.

I basically threw on everything that I liked on this. Blue beads, opalite, star beads, little bottles, keys... You know, everything but the kitchen sink ! My first attempt was too ambitious - it was too heavy to wear ! So I had to take everything off and start over.

The focal is a bezel that I painted with the vintaj inks, scattered some of my star chain and some of my spacers on, then poured resin into. The moon maiden and the wish charm where glued on at the very end, when my maiden finally decided to show up in my mailbox.

So what did I do with all the extra crap ?

Heh. :P That's not even all of it... I've got some things to unwire still.

Bead Soup Blog Party 7 :: Memetic Soup Mutation

I am sad to report that I have nada done yet - thanks to Canada Post OH SO SURPRISELY /sarcarsm failing me when I need it the most. I am in the second reveal, at least, so I am not in true panic for multiple plan B's just yet.

Still, this makes me grumpy. I want to play with my soup. Speaking of soup...

I think this thing has a mind of it's own. It's been assimilating bits and bobs here and there, and has grown about TWICE in size since I received it. If it looks fitting, in the bowl it does. Will I use all of this ? Probably not. This is very different from last year, where I stayed very close and true to the soup Milla sent me for the first pieces then went completely and utterly hog wild on the last pieces.

I seem to have skipped the steady and true part.

So therefore, this is the memetic soup mutation. Full of pink, butterflies, kittens, and unicorn farts. (Seriously, Twilight !)

(With some key parts carefully hidden... kekeke.)