A few more new pieces

Chug, chug, chug. I've been trying to make new things so I have enough for the craft show that is in two weeks. I'm doing pretty well, although the low sun angle makes it a little challenging to get the lighting right for the pictures. Sometimes they need a little tweaking before they look like the object. 

I'm hosting the weekly board game group today. Nothing motivates me like having people over - and that's just fine. My porch/breezeway area hasn't looked this good in months. 

Here's the new pieces. 

Upcycled button bracelet with polymer clay tiles in purples

Upcycled button stack key ring in purples and tans

Upcycled button stack key ring in warm oranges

Upcycled button stack key ring in navy and tan

Upcycled button stack key ring in spring colors

Upcycled button stack key ring in yellows and grays

Hope you have a good Sunday!

Some new items

I've been making key fobs aplenty lately. Here's three new ones.

Teal and olive neutrals: 

 Shades of green: 

Citrusy yellow and oranges:

I received three orders over the last couple of days. Looks like Christmas shopping has begun!

Bad coffee creamer, and a kitchen picture

Here's a finished kitchen picture. I still have to paint the window, but will do that this weekend (I swear). Details include knobs and pulls, which I mentioned the other day, and also to get a smaller microwave. This one is vintage 1990's, if I recall correctly, and was given to us by my former in-laws, with the express purpose of being able to fit big things in it. Microwaves were the up and coming thing at the time. It's a monster, though, and getting a smaller one will free up space on that counter. 

I love the wall color. I hemmed and hawed over this one and several shades lighter, and it was Mr W who said, "I like the darker color". I had considered blues as well, and just couldn't make up my mind. Once this got on the walls, it was clearly a good choice. There is a lot going on between the floor and the tile, and the bold color kind of melts into the background. It's weird, you don't notice it much, which to my mind means it's holding its own. 

Oh, by the way, it was bad coffee creamer. Yuck. And shame on the store for having spoiled stuff that was two weeks before its sell by date. 

In other news, I've been having trouble sleeping. Again. I usually fall asleep OK, and then am up for an hour or so, then am solidly asleep when the alarm goes off. I've been reading about sleep, and I do a lot of it right. Dark room, cool temperature, quiet or white noise, consistent times, and few if any disturbances.

Sally, who has always slept in the living room, has recently been granted access to Mr W's room (at his request) and will fall asleep there when he's at my house. When he's not, she still goes in there but is a little restless, and I can hear her walking by my door sometimes once or twice a night. So that's one thing that wakes me up, but it's not a big deal. 

I did go to the doctor and she said that because of my age, I should get hormone levels tested, which I did and they are normal, so it's all in my head, so to speak. What I mean is that the worry about stupid things that have no real bearing, and also about things that are totally out of my control are the things I need to usher out the door when I lay down to sleep. So I'm going to try to do some meditation work before bed to clear the table, and will see how that goes. 

I do occasionally get a really good night's sleep and the difference I feel is really noticeable. It's the difference between getting all the stuff done that I need to get done and not much more, and feeling like I'm actually living my life as I should. 

In other other news, here's some more new stuff in the Etsy shop:

Upcycled button stack key ring in tan and blue:

Upcycled button bracelet in greens and blues

Happy Thursday! I'm attending a lecture tonight on campus. It's one of the benefits of living in a college town that I don't take advantage of enough.

Put 'em to work

I found Christine Marie Davis' blog a year ago or so, and thought her work was really great. She hammers things flat and makes jewelry from them. Metal buttons, knitting needles, stuff like that. Metal shine, lots of texture. It's really nice stuff.

I had a few buttons around and wanted to see what they would look like smashed. I thought it might be a good idea to put my kid on it. He likes this task a lot. I need to take a picture of the finished products, but suffice to say that I'll be looking for more metal buttons on Ebay.

Better

Another unrelated garden picture.  I've got two Dahlias that flowered at least a month early this year but did fine. They are very sensitive to frost and got zapped when it first started getting cold.

Thanks for the well wishes and advice, I think I've turned the corner, cold-wise. I had a properly-placed breathing strip on my nose last night and slept soundly. I think about how some people cope with chronic health issues and it makes my piddly cold seem so insignificant.

Case in point. Yesterday, my church sent an email saying how a church member died yesterday morning after riding his bike to work. Just gone. He was probably in his late 50's. I've been thinking about the abruptness of having someone die in that manner. No prolonged suffering, which is good. But it's an understatement to say no one is "ready" to go that way.

I've been spending the better parts of every weekend for the last couple of months making bracelets, brooches and buttons. Now that I signed on to do a craft fair in three weeks, I've been trying to get organized for that. Carding buttons, trying to get a few more pieces made, blah blah blah. It takes a tremendous amount of time and for what?

Things feel out of balance. I like to make these pieces. I truly get a kick out of putting something together from component parts that is pleasing to my eye. But it feels like I've been spending too much time on it lately. Someone asked me whether I had been out hiking lately, and I had to say that I have not been hiking ALL YEAR. That's not right.

I've told myself, too, that I'm not going to meet and nice and compatible guys while I'm gluing clay pieces together in my basement. Must leave house. There must be a balance out there that feels more right than this. I need to find it.

My Little Violet

Well, I was going to post about the new dent in Mr W's ceiling, but I ran out of time this morning, so that's going to have to wait until tonight or tomorrow. All is well, and lessons were learned. 

In other news, here's a new CVB necklace I put on the Etsy site today. I made up several over the weekend and am listing one a day to sort of keep me active on the site.