Winter

Snow:

And more snow:

Snowflake decorations:

Making snowflake ornaments:

Hand-sewn stockings for our apartment:

Snowflake Ornaments

I just posted some pretty ornaments on Etsy; holiday shipping would be possible with prompt notice, but they're also wonderful just as New Years or winter decorations.

Craft Boston Holiday 2009

I just came back from a giddy evening circulating and chatting with artisans at Craft Boston. The warm space was certainly a welcome chance from working in a 50° store all day! I found the venue to be set up in a similar fashion to the NY Gift Show I attended at the Javits Center over the summer, but the space was much smaller and the people were far more approachable. I suppose it's to be expected from a different scale of event. It may also be that as I continue my craft enterprise, I have gotten more forward about approaching other crafters.

Some of the stalls I saw were really fantastic. A few I spoke to and have to mention:

Christy Knox - She uses imprints of natural objects, mainly flowers, to texture her ceramic pieces. I especially liked the ones that used fiddleheads or lily-of-the-valley.
Two Rivers Ceramic Studio - I love the designs, and chatted at length about booth setups (they had an awesome set of collapsible shelves) and other aspects of doing craft fairs. I also bought a really cute ceramic magnet from them that I'm excited to have on my fridge!
Laura Baring-Gould - She makes beautiful cast objects in bronze. I love her series of pears in various states of decay. There is a certain expectation when you go to pick up a sagging pear, and it is certainly not great weight, so they are very surprising objects. My favorite items were those that were enigmatically named, like the series of cast "Empty Bowls" or "Mysterious Packages".
Thomas Meyers - I was really drawn to the maplike architectural quality of these drawings. They're abstract but reminiscent of calligraphy, and he puts a lot of effort into the surface and collaging the pieces together.

Other beautiful work I saw:
Jayne Redman Jewelry - I just love her floral forms. I also met her earlier when she came in to get booth flowers for the fair, so it was nice to see those again as well.
Donna Veverka Jewelry - She had some rings with architectural pieces on them that I found fascinating. It would be amazing to wear them, like having a whole miniature cathedral on your finger.
Ananda Khalsa Jewelry - Her work incorporated miniscule paintings set into pendants, earrings and rings. I was amazed at the detail and the small scale of her paintings. I've always wanted to do something similar but never imagined how it could work.

Working

I've been making tons of stuff for the Holiday Fair at Union Square that happened yesterday. It went fairly well, and I hope people who liked my stuff trickle onto this site!

Some of the new things  I made for it were holiday cards, cuff bracelets and more hex nut jewelry. I find the cuffs and nut bracelets really comfortable and easy to wear, so I think I'll be making more of them.

Industrial Bracelet

Last night I was playing around with some hex nuts from the hardware store and ended up threading black binding tape through them to make this bracelet. I'm still working out a good clasp for it (for now I just tie the loose ends together through the last nut), but I think it would make a great cellphone charm as well, or earrings if I used a much smaller size. Any suggestions?

November Floral Designs

Some photos of things I've been designing at work:

And of course, the boutonniere of the day:

Silver Twig Earrings

I recently did a search for twig-themed jewelry components on Etsy, and ended up buying some silver pieces from EverLuxe. I didn't expect them to be so pretty, though! The twigs are very spiky and striking. I put them together with some faceted glass beads for simple earrings.

Text Bracelet

I've been continuing to experiment with using magazine text for recycled paper beads. I tried recently to make a bracelet out of an article in the Brown Alumni Monthly, but I'm not sure how well it turned out. If you like it, let me know; otherwise I think I may shelve that particular project, at least until I can figure out how to take better photos of it!

Leaf Lamp

I recently decided to combine my problem of low room lighting with my desire to hold on to autumn leaves and made a leaf lampshade. I picked up some oak leaves and ironed them between two pieces of wax paper (wax side in), then bent the resulting rectangle into a cylinder and suspended it from a hanging light fixture. It didn't come out exactly as I hoped, but I like it -- especially when it's turned on, and all the colors and veins of the leaves are immediately visible. It's less impressive during the day:

Providence Color

And then the sun set and we went back home to Boston.

Twig Earrings

My workplace dress code is all black, so I've been trying to come up with tasteful but interesting jewelry to liven it up a little bit. I was inspired by a bead catalog to make these wire earrings.

I'm trying to decide whether to post them on Etsy, because they're just a project for myself, but I might put up a version of the black ones.

Pumpkin Flower Arrangement

I recently put together this floral explosion:

The scale is way too large for my tiny pumpkin, and there are a million ways I would do it over, but it's only ever after building something that I realize its flaws.

Governor's Island

Today was a beautiful sunny day, and it reminded me of when I went back to New York and visited Governor's Island on the last day of its season.