Cleaning and organizing

After taking care of a few odds and ends at my grandmother's Assisted Living apartment, I've come home to start some organizing.

I've purchased another cabinet from Best Craft Organizers, and I've just put it together and labeled the drawers. These things are addictive, I swear; I've already filled the new one, and I'm contemplating a third.

I have new merchandise to sort and lots of things to bag for my upcoming shows. And here, a pic of the nightmare so far:



It can only go up from here, right? *grins*

Unfortunate news

I just drove in from a business trip to find out that my grandmother passed away tonight. Fortunately, I will be home for six days and that will allow me to help my family out with the arrangements before I leave again.

And another Day of the Dead necklace...

...this one featuring a lovely pendant by Gaea (website).

Which brings me to a small story. I originally ordered the pendant in March, and read her emailed instructions, which stated that the order would be custom-made and the next firing would be in April. For some reason, I don't think I really understood that I'd receive it April; I thought I would receive it in May. I didn't need the pendant until late August, so I wasn't concerned.

Well, May (and June) are crazy months for me because of Bead & Button, and I didn't even think about the pendant. It wasn't until July that I remembered it.

I contacted Gaea, who was extraordinarily nice, and she researched it and said that the pendant had been shipped in April.

I was flummoxed, until I realized that my home Paypal address was incorrect--it was still listed as the apartment address. The business address was correct, and I'd assumed it would be shipped there.

Since Gaea never received it back, and we never received it, I believe that it was either lost in the mail, or stolen by the apartment's new tenant, which makes me very unhappy indeed, considering that an entire set of checks was sent there by mistake and they still haven't resurfaced.

But I digress. I purchased a new pendant from Gaea, who very kindly looked through her inventory to find something similar, because there wasn't enough time to have a new one made.

My picture doesn't do the pendant justice, but here it is:



Frosted black onyx, faceted pearls, antiqued sterling silver chain.

Making jewelry

I haven't made much jewelry recently, but I did make a piece for a dear friend of mine:



It's very simple, meant to be a casual piece.

The skull pendant is from Andrew Thornton of Green Girl Studios and is made of bronze clay, and the beads are fossilized wood.

I've always loved skulls and memento mori, and it's wonderful to be able to design with such a fun piece!

New rhinestone lots going up on eBay!

I've spent this week getting a new set of rhinestone lots ready for my eBay store. It's been tricky, as always, looking up the specific lingo for these items, and also making certain that I get each listing correct. I always have to triple-check new listings because there are so many little pieces of information in each one.





I'm just going through my second check right now, and hopefully I'll be able to list all of these within the next few hours!