The People We Meet

Things are really heating up around here!
The weather is getting nicer ~ the skies are blue and the trees are green... and yes, this is my absolutely *favorite* time of year.

But I mean that I'm starting to get a lot more activity on my website, blog, and have been featured in more blogs and treasuries lately ~ YAY! So I give you my "Summer Waves" Necklace in this "Fun in the Sun" Treasury:

I tell you ... all this activity? It's all because of the CT Etsy Team, to be honest. What an amazing group of artists and people! For example, this treasury was posted by Lis-el, the creative fire behind heartofthefire.

Heartofthefire's Morganna Pendant

Lis-el does beautiful Art Clay Silver and glass work, and I was thrilled to meet her last weekend at the CT Etsy Team meeting with Etsy Admin Beth during her Mega-Beth Tour. (Read all about our fun and productive meeting here!) She was so inspiring!

Another fantastic person in the CT Etsy Team is our fearless leader Jillian ~ aka MsKittyFantastico. I could tell she had great energy from everything that'd been happening already on the various sites dedicated to the team: the Google Group, the CT Etsy Team Group blog, the MySpace page, and even a Ning page!! Such energy! But meeting her was even better ~ she's a thoughtful, intelligent speaker with great ideas and a very kind energy!

I also had a great time at the Mega-Beth event when I met the creative forces behind ScribbleNation and GooseontheLoose as I walked in. Both are so talented ~ Mary Helen's ScribbleNation Blog never fails to make me bust out laughing, and Jennifer's fine silver work is so beautifully simple. I was so glad to meet them!

There are a lot more people whom I'm glad I met ~ but I hope to mention them over time in this space. I'll just leave you with another item that left me surprised, bemused and amused: fenrislorsrai's "Mars Needs Weasels" statue:

And I think to myself... what a wonderful ... woooorrrrllld!

I've been Featured by WickedlyChic.com!

Check it out!
One of my sea glass necklaces has been blogged by a daily fashion-watch blog:

Here's the email I just received from them, which explains who what and where they are...

"Hi Sue!

Just an FYI to let you know that I am now featuring one of your necklaces in the Daily Ditties section of Wickedly Chic, http://www.wickedlychic.com . This will be permanently archived on the site after the week is over.

Be sure to check out the WC website...we're a stylish online weekly magazine (with daily updates..in the Ditties, of course) & we're devoted to featuring independent businesses. If you sign up for our giveaway newsletter (Giveaway tab on the top of the site), you will receive weekly information about fabulous contests sponsored by independent businesses. There's a winner every week!

~Liz Nonnemacher"

Here's the image of my Sea Glass Pendant as it shows up on the site:

There are lots of great things on the site, and I'm honored to be featured.

In celebration, I've let Liz know that anyone who enters promo code "WICKED" for any item in my store will receive FREE USPS First Class Mail shipping!! (Hint... as a reader of this blog, you can use that promo code too!)

New Treasury!

My "Lunar Drop" necklace has just gotten into a new treasury ~

It's called "J'amaican Me Crazy!"
http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=46726


Thanks so much to Destiny's Creations for putting me into it! :)

New Cosmia Series!

I'm in high gear, getting ready for the Milford show! Panic and late nights, lots of caffeine and random iPod music have started to force me into new directions, and I'm so glad of it!

My strategy started out to re-create a lot of the pieces which have had positive feedback or have sold well. 10 pieces a day ~ that has also been the goal. I figured that if I had 2 weeks, I'd have plenty of inventory for the show. This was all fine and good for the first few nights ~ I made a bunch more labyrinths, multi-colored enameled nests, and other fun pendants which I love. But something felt ridiculous about it. Beyond the exhaustion, I felt like I wasn't creating anymore.

So one night, I had to get myself out of the studio. I rationalized this by going out to get fabric for a new table display I had been considering.

When I got home, I sat drinking coffee and reading magazines just to clear my head and get a new perspective. Lucky Magazine is always fun to look at to get accessory ideas and trends. And I've just gotten a subscription to Harper's Bazaar... and that's where all this began! In Harper's April issue, there were these amazing pictures of multi-part necklaces - shield-like shapes in series from top to bottom, and rich green red and purple jewel embellished shoes and bags.

OK, so my stuff is distinctly more Bohemian in nature than the normal couture stuff that shows up on their pages, but this all jumped out at me. (I tried and tried to get a link to the images that inspired me, but they're just not up on their site any more!! I will look for images similar to them and upload asap)

And lately - maybe in response to being up late at night, or wishing I was dreaming - I was inspired by a sense of planets and constellations and satellite objects, cosmic in the sense of the cosmos. Little orbs of silver surround lots of sparkly gems.

Somehow I felt they should all be together: the colors, the satellites, and the way that the motion of something in parts would affect the way the piece would sparkle. Pieces connected loosely and nimbly would bring so much life to a piece, I thought, and it became easy to start translating that into this series.

I also wanted to take the focus away from the silver itself so I could key in on color and motion. So I brought in not only richly colored baubles but also brightly colored beads - turquoise and red coral, primarily.

So here it is... I'm so in love with this new Cosmia series!

Here are just some of the items: