Beaded Forest

Kewpie

Harry brought this home the other day from God knows where, and David decided it was worth a cleanup.  So here the kewpie sits, in the sink, receiving a little bath. 

Slavic Soul Party!

This is me last night at an event hosted by the Rockland Center for the Arts (RoCA), where I teach jewelry classes (in fact, I taught a beginner's class yesterday morning!).  It was a fabulous time!  There was a pasta dinner, which was great, and we sat next to some of the board of directors of RoCA...they were a lot of fun, and it's always good to make those kinds of connections!  Dinner was followed by music by Slavic Soul Party, which is an amazingly cool brass band.   

Go to their website and listen to some of their music...there's no way I can describe it here!  I brought my friend Barb, and we danced all night (boy, am I sore today!).  Here's the crowd having a good time:

And here's Barb, dancing with our friend Andre...

I whipped up a necklace and earrings to wear to the event, using raw sapphires (aren't they gorgeous?), pearls, silver, and a great ceramic pendant from ArtBeads.

It was a terrific evening, and made me realize I have to get out more!

Christmas gifts

I'm finally getting around to showing off some of the great Christmas presents I got.  The painting is a watercolor done by my Aunt Ann (or Ant Ann, as we always call her)...isn't it beautiful?  I took it to my office to brighten things up there.  The Texas grapefruit and oranges were from my dad and stepmom Barb.  This picture was taken when they were about half gone...sadly, they're long gone at this point!  The Olympus camera is from David.  What a great gift!  I couldn't take a picture of the actual camera, since I was using it to take the picture!  It's so teeny-tiny, and works so beautifully.  The books are from my dad and Barb, taken straight from my Amazon wish list.  And the fabric, too, is from my dad and Barb..they're so generous!   They gave me a gift certificate to eQuilter, and these are some of the fabrics I picked out.  I've still got some money left on the gift certificate, so more to come!  What a great Christmas I had!