My trip to Tucson!

so, it's almost valentine's day, and I went to Arizona for the biggest gem and jewelry show in the world! It was pretty wild, and especially great because I went with my dad (a jeweler) and we stayed with my uncle in Arizona (a jeweler) and visited my cousins' studios (jewelers) and gossiped about jewelry and jewelers the whole time. It was a blast. Here are some pics!

Let's see... (in chronological order)

My pops exiting our favorite bar in Jerome, Arizona, called the Spirit Room.

Sweet mirror deer sculpture

Purple Cactus

I mean... come on. 

A crazy expensive drusy mouse carved by some crazy german stone cutters.

So many beads.

I got ben a coon's skin hat at this weird Idaho fur tent called Fur for Fun (sorry peta!) and they had loads of crazy things with faces and feet still on them! 

I got some fiiiiiiine iron pyrite for rings that will soon be available exclusively on Molten Store. 

Neat mural in Tucson.

Early mornin' coffee.

Mammoth Tusk??

pretty.

Prettttty excited to use these.

Then I got home and made some things like this:

And I got a haircut! and color! 

And I sewed up a ton of Stitchtagram pillows:

Aaaand that's about it! hopefully this week after V Day I'll make a whole slew of new drusy bits! Keep your eyes peeled kiddos! 

Hey snoopies!

The window is open, and a hot humid breeze is hitting me. What's going on??

Ugh, you know when you wake up with a headache and take advil and it still won't go away and you really don't want to get up off the couch to pack to go to Arizona and polish keychains to bring to Ginger Root and throw out a zillion boxes that are just stacked up in the hallway? no?

Anypoo, I recently discovered that Jcrew has the best backpacks, but they are hiding in the kids section!

And I'm not sure if this is in the girl's section, but I want it. Real bad. 

And so ends my backpack lusts.

Good Mornin'

Good morning little billy goats! Here's a pretty picture I took on Instagram of a new ring I finished this morning! Then I'm going TO FINISH 80 beard and luff key chains for fab order today. and 6 heart rings. then i'm done! then it's off to tucson i go for the gem show!

there goes the neighborhood

Well, I guess I'm one of those people now who can get mad at a big website for stealing my design! Cool?

I was pointed out today by a fellow jeweler (Charlotte Burkhart- really cool stuff) that Mod Cloth has a bike necklace for sale that looks JUST LIKE MY OLD BIG BIKES. Am I crazy to be upset about this? Is a bike just a bike just a bike? I mean, it's freakishly similar. 

Here is mine: 

And here is theirs:

So....um... boycott? 

Friday Night

hey kiddos. I thought i'd take this time to write a little bloggidy blog! It's friday night, my mom is visiting, B is out of town on biz. Mommy is knitting socks on the couch. We are watching Damages on Netflix from the beginning. I made a hot toddy.

Directions:

Boil water.
Put honey in mug. A cute mug.
Pour in hot water.
Sprinkle generously with cinnamon and nutmeg.
Squeeze a slice of lemon, plop it in.
Add a splash of yummy bourbon. Or rum. Or anything.

Delish!

I wonder if we can finish this whole season tonight.

So, what are you up to?? Hmmm? I'm obsessing over how many things I'm selling on Fab.com right now. It's horrible. It great and horrible. Everything is stressful.

Anyway. That's my diary entry I guess!

Ummm and I made these. 

Phone Cases

DC illustrator Elizbeth Graeber made our Stitchtagram header and some other images and texts for the site. 

You can also buy cell phone cases (among other things) with her illustrations on them, and I am DYING. If I didn't just get one from my brother I would be buying these in a second.

do you hate me?

please don't hate me!! i promise i'll be better at blogging!

Let's see...what do you want to hear about? ME??? well, fine.

So things are still pretty crazy busy around here. which is fab. and tiring. speaking of fab, i should be having another fab.com sale on Friday (which you would see in the preview email if you are signed up!) So if it's anything like it was in November, which I'm hoping because of V-Day, things are gonna get wilddddddd.

And my mommy is coming to visit for a few days on Thursday, so that will be good! And I have to make some more pillows for Stitchtagram.com...anddddd then at the end of the month I'm off to Tuscon for the gem show!! THE GEM SHOW. of life. Every year there is an enormous jewelry/stone/everything show. In Arizona. Am I repeating myself? Needless to say, I'll have sooooo many new and exciting stones to work with next month!! Ahhhh scary.

What ELSE. Tell me!! Let's see, I'll go through my instagram pics to job my memory..

This guy had an orange backpack AND an orange bike. I hope he realized how current he is- isn't tangerine the color of 2012?

Ben and I have been seriously in to Veronica Mars.

First of all, how is Kristen Bell SO EFFING CUTE. I mean, come on. Secondly, if you've never watched the show, watch it. Super good.

I need to list this ring!!! It's oxidized silver. I'm in love. 

Anyhoo, that's it for now. Show me fun things to distract myself with!

Video!

WHAT HAPPENED

I can't believe it's been a month since I wrote! WHAT HAPPENEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD. I guess the holidays happened. And craft fairs. And Stitchtagram.

Well, here are some updates, in Instagram form:

New Years Eve with the ladies!!!! (I'm on the bottom right! with the funny bangs)

The bar we went to was having a St. Germaine special, and if you got two special cocktails you got a cocktail book and mini bottle of the deliciousness!! I was in heaven. 

For Christmas, I went with B's family to Puerto Rico! (I am going backwards in time, if you haven't noticed). Here is a shot of some fluffy clouds when we got home.

We saw a horse in a truck.

My turquoise heart ring by the ocean- doesn't it look like I'm in front of a green screen?

Rainbow when we landed.

And to top it all off, Ben and I got bumped to first class when we flew there! It was MAGNIFICENT.

SO in conclusion, happy new year, and keep your eyes peeled for new exciting things!!! 

New thing!

Hey trusty blog readers!! Sorry about the lack of excitement in these parts. With December comes insanity, pretty much. Our apartment is just a mess of packing materials and empty glasses and dirty socks.

BUT. that's not why I'm here. i'm here because as of yesterday, Stitchtagram is alive!!! It's a thing I've been developing with my brother Doug, who works at Barbarian Group in Boston. He made the amazing website where you can log into Instagram and access your pics and your friends pics, and drag and drop them into a grid design that I then sew into a throw pillow!!! You just need to go and try it. The site is www.stitchtagram.com. Here are some pics!!

Zombie shows

Have you ever seen The Walking Dead on AMC? I hadn't either until ohhh, about two days ago. We watched the first season and all of the second season up until the new episode tonight. It's so gross and stressful and scary and I don't know why I keep watching it but I can't stop. The first season is on Netflix Instant, in case you have that.

Anyhoo. I have a very very large box of envelopes waiting to go to UPS for all of my Fab orders. Scary!! So scary thinking about they all get to where they are going. Crazy pants. I have a few more that I am going to finish tomorrow. And by that, I mean I have to. And I have to catch up on orders. And make some other things. And list some new designs, for crying out loud!

______

The next day....

I realized I never posted this. I wrote it yesterday. Now I'm going to show you pictures of new things. Ok? GOod.

One last ring like this for a while:

Drusieeeeees

Need to take a better pic of this one

And then there this one:

and dont forget about this one!

Ohhhhh i need to sleep

Crazy Train

Crazy town? crazy train? Were both bands? or songs? i dont know. I do know I'm almost going crazy. In a fine way! a great way. still a crazy way though. so much to do! so many boxes everywhere! Boxes filled with boxes! Did I tell you this story yet? I could easily look at my last post but I'm too lazy. I'll just tell it again.

So I ordered my priority boxes from the post office website. They are free, it just makes it easier to have them delivered here than sneak them from the post office. The gruff but kind-eyed post office guy yelled at me once for taking too many. Even though they are free. and I use them.

Anyway. So I ordered them on the website, and about two weeks later, there are four HUGE boxes in the lobby waiting for me. So heavy I can't even lift one. I take the push cart, and lug them upstairs. Oh, and they say BOARD GAME in huge letters on the side. I see on the label it is from the post office, so I think maybe they want to disguise the boxes as board games so they don't get stolen. Then I quickly realize the error in my logic.

Anyway. Horrible, long story short, I accidentally clicked on the board game sized priority boxes. You know, for the grandma's who send out Monopoly for Christmas. And now I have 100 of them. They are so big and heavy. I cried for about an hour. Ben thought I was weird.

In conclusion, I told my post office friends about it (oh, and there's a good chance my post office is going to close. AWESOME). They didn't even know there WERE board game sized boxes. He gave me labels to put on them, to get sent to the post office for them to use. I'm just so lazy to go downstairs, get the cart, put the boxes on them, ask the people in the lobby in the office if I can put them in there so they can tell the mail man to pick them up. oH, WOE IS ME.

So how was that for a sob story? SO LONG AND BORING. I know.  I don't get out much these days. No sir. Lots of pop tarts for me. and latte's. And gossip girl on netflix. My coffee table is completely covered in the orders from my fab.com sale. I'll post a picture tomorrow. I also bought a vanilla/pomegranate perfume that was on super sale at urban outfitters that I loved so much, but after I wore it for a day, I keep smelling that smell you smell like when you go eat in a diner or a greasy restaurant. You know? That food smell? Like, a gross hot food smell. Ben has no idea what I'm talking about. I'm terrified it's the vanilla/pomegranate. It came in such a cute roll on bottle. oh well.

so yeah. i also found time to make these:

ok ok ok ok

Hi peeps.

I know I've been totally absent lately (maybe no one even noticed?). things have been ca-ra-zay and will probably continue to be so until Christmas. I had a sale on FAB.com, and now have  a few hundred things to make and ship rather quickly! I also went home for a craft fair in Northampton, MA, and will be going to one in New York for the Bust Craftacular! (December 10th and 11th! In Soho!)

So as you can imagine, I'm not really sure what to do first or where to start when I wake up in the morning. I have a trash bag full of about 30 packages I have to bring to UPS, I haven't gone grocery shopping in nearly two weeks (neither has Ben.)

I've been surviving on beans and cheese. And not even refried beans. BLACK BEANS. Good lord, what's happening to me. But now I'm up early and am going to go to UPS and perhaps Giant, a supermarket I've never actually been to before, and then come back and work. Maybe stop at Target. Maybe.

Ok. So. That's it. Here's some pics from the craft fair! OH and I went to a gem show and got the most amazing drusies. Some are soooo bright and kooky I don't even know what to do with them!