upside down trees!

Today I went with my mom to an adorable flower place in North Adams, MA, where Mass MoCa is (where I'm getting married in Sept!)

I went not being very excited about flowers- to me they were just unnecessary, expensive decorations that would die in a day. I just wanted feathers and pom-poms. But after we saw the florist, I can't wait!!!! She knew exactly what I wanted- cheap and colorful.

Anyhoo, after that we stopped by the museum to ask some questions, and they were closed, but I got a nice picture of the upside down trees where the ceremony will most likely happen!

weekend in my brain

Well kiddos, here I am, watching Seinfeld in a romper wearing loads of eye liner drinking a tumbler full of red wine and Orangina.

And soon we are off to a Brandeis Happy Hour shortly, which should be funny.  And we are waiting for our chinese food to get here. And that's about it!

It feels like Friday.

Little Pretties!

This:

And This:

Instagram!

I finally downloaded Instagram for my phone, and now all of my pictures look 1000000 times cooler.

Me looking like mini mouse, with a smiley lauren. Drinking sangria out of mason jars.

Said sangria. I had three glasses before I knew what was happening. Sooo yummy. It had white wine, rum, mint, oranges, and strawberries.

My new rubber stamps! I am in love with them, and this picture.

So. Are you on  Instagram? Let me follow you! That way, when my screensaver Screenstagram goes on (that my cooler older brother made for Barbarian Group) I will see your pictures!! 

Rings

Today I made these!!

The stone floats on this one!

I love everything about this one.

And these black and opal nest rings never fail to make me happy!

That's it for today folks! 

Weird?

This is how I left off steam. 

I wiggle around in the apartment building stairwell and hope the cleaning ladies don't see me.

Instagram

I just update my phone and now I can download all sorts of things, like Instagram, which I am obsessed with, and don't fully understand. For instance: how do I "follow" friends on it? I may never know. Here is what I did so far though:

What fun!

Off to finish som deer hear earrings!

Too many rings

Not enough fingers.

Shorts

These, I can get behind. Oh yes.  Uh oh. Don't let me buy them. please do something!

I've got it...

..the shopping bug, that is.

I have been trying, and succeeding, to not buy anything that is not a total necessity. The resulting feeling is an intense urge to shop. Like, I feel it in my stomach. "am i hungry? no, i just really really really want a new pair of shoes."

SO, I guess I'll just post some things here that I want, and then when I become that famous million jeweler/sing/songwriter/tv watcher, I'll purchase them.

I wouldn't mind this.

It is only $336.00. and on sale! what a bargain. 

Ok. too many dreams for one little girls. i'll do more tomorrow.

Custom Ring

This ring was a real killer to make. I didn't think I was going live to see the end of it.

But I finished! It's for an engagement ring- I hope the buyer likes it! 

It has a citrine and an alexandrite set in two of the beads.

Whew. And I made two more custom nest wedding bands today! Busy busy.

Songs.

Oh man oh man.

So, for those who listened to the song below, I recorded an even BETTER version complete with egg shaker and ukelele!! I'm in the process of making some kind of video to go with it, so the original version will have to satisfy you for now.

Today went by in a blink! I made 3 heart rings for orders, and 2 new drusy rings. And struggled with iMovie to make some kind of respectable video.

I am crazy about this stone- it's naturally green, and pretty rare, and is a form of garnet called Uvarovite! Pretttttttty. 

And these just always make me happy. 

Lordie lordie lordie

So. yesterday I wrote and recorded a song, and after many hours of confusion and fruit leathers, I think I figured out how to post it...i had to make it into a video, and while i could have done something cute with like, puppets and fruit bowls, i just filmed myself sort of keeping rhythm and playing with my hair...so don't pay attention to the video, just the song! and don't really pay attention to the song either? anyway. here goes nothin...

In other news, I am still waiting on solder, which is a good excuse to do non jewelry things. My work area has never looked so clean. I did laundry, I spent hours designing a sticker to get ordered to put on boxes, then decided just to get a customized rubber stamp from Etsy (can't wait to use it!). I ordered some stones I needed, and some other supplies. So in other words, I spent lots of money without making anything. But you gotta spend moolah to make moolah, am I right??

A word about hardboiled eggs.

Tomorrow, I am getting a ride from my friend Noah to Trader Joe's, so today I didn't go grocery shopping. Even though there is absolutely nothing to eat in the apt. other than eggs and salt. And oatmeal. And a very brown banana.

So, I decided to make a hardboiled egg.

What an emotional rollercoaster!

I never know if I am going to take it out of the hot water too soon, and have it been to soft boiled, which I am not a huge fan of. But I went for it, boiled the water, turned off the flame, let the eggs sit in the hot water for 10 minutes.

It was perfection.

And then I ate it, with a dash of salt, and it was gone. Done. In my tummy.

And I want a million more.

Video

I need a more exciting life.

Also, be prepared for a startling scream out of cuteness somewhere in the middle.

Stones

I've got my work cut out for me.

Some pictures.

Well, gang, today I had a breakthrough.

I think I became friends with the grumpy post office man.

First let me start off by saying that I explained this entire story, gesticulations and all, in a video, which ended up not recording. It was terrible. Just terrible.

The long and the short of it is that I went to the post office today, and in front of me was this dopey guy with his pants almost at his knees, and he did not have his shit together, and left his money in the car, didn't understand what was happening, yada yada. I'm sure he was very nice, and I didn't really think he was that much of a dummy, but when I was up next and the formerly grumpy guy was saying how that guy needed "a belt and something in his head" and kept asking if I agreed, obviously I would nod! It was grand. We had about a 1 minute back and forth about how he needed to hike up his pants. And THEN he said how helpful it was that I was so organized!

SUCCESS.

Let me tell you, he was a hard nut to crack.

Anyway, here are some pictures. So you don't get bored.

Hey, brother! Thats my big brother. He was kind enough to come in from Boston to help me out. The craft fair was pretty slow, but we had fun. I think. 

Also I think it's time I invest in an actual display, instead of cutting up pieces of paper and spray painting foam core the night before. People expected the jewelry to be made out of toothpicks or something, not silver and gold!! 

Some words of wisdom for your craft fairs:

Make sure you speak loudly! The worst thing is saying HELLO to a customer and not having them hear you. Plus, don't mumble. I'm afraid I've become a mumbler. And a low talker. Bad combination.

Have a display that reflects your work!! I looked like a tag sale compared to the other jewelers, who had these amazing displays with little LED lights inside the box displays and everything matched. Sigh. So long, watermelon themed crushed velvet table cloth. So long duct taped easel. 

I was next to my all time favorite vendor though, Fuzz.E.Food. How amazing are these felted creations??

Alright, that's all for now. 

yes, it's me

I'm back, baby. I feel like every other minute I'm coming or going on a train to Twist Fair in Northampton, even though it's really only happens twice a year. And this train ride coming back to DC (which is about 6 hours) was full of tears. Don't ask me why, but I always get emotional on the train. I don't mind the length- there isn't wireless, so I sort of revel in the relaxing. I have to either sleep, read, or watch a movie on the computer. This trip back I didn't watch anything, but just read Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman, which got me good and weepy. Every other second I had to turn my face to the window and silently sob. The guy next to me must have thought I was a lunatic. And whenever any kind of song came on the radio that mentioned anything at all, really, I'd get misty eyed.

ANWAY. What's new with you? Any good weeping lately?

I have a ton of orders to do and am waiting on a ton of supplies sooooo it's going to be an anxiety filled couple of days. And I just have a couple tiny squares of solder. Yikes. We'll see how that goes.

At Twist, I became the happy owner of a Fling robe. I'm wearing it right now. Those ladies look like they are having fun.

So. that's that. 

All I ate today was a weird peach green iced tea, almost an entire full sized bag of sweet potato  and beet chips, a container of gummies, and half a tuna sandwich.

And now I have a stomach ache but also kind of want a little scrambled egg. What to do, oh what to do? 

Boozin is up, fancy style

  

Tonight I met Ben at the Capital for a Craft Distiller Convention. (I don't have the exact name right now and am waaaaaay too lazy to get it).

As such, I'm writing this post from an ever so slightly tipsy state. We went early as the "media" and it was such fun! Imagine a college career fair, only instead of it being in a big gym, with boring companies giving out highlighters and hard candies, it was in a Caucus room, and had dozens of really cool craft distillers! Whiskey, gin, rum, everything. It was very neat, and there were some pretty spiffy label designs. (fun fact- did you know that Vermont has a good amount of craft distillers? Not just beer! Who knew! I tried a vodka made from honey that was DELISH). 

Anyway, I wore a bright orange Anthropologie dress (see above) not really knowing what kind of event it was going to be.

As you can see, the majority of people were in navy. The occasional gray, sometimes a light blue. You can imagine I stood out like a ripe mango. One of the whiskey distiller guys said I was a nice pop of color!

 

This guy was super nice, from Vermont. We were just walking around leisurley sipping whiskey, which I can't really drink without making a squinched up face, even if I try not to. I hid it as best I could. 

 

This guy was cool too, and I really llike the bottles. 

 

This was a delicious honey flavored liqueur  made by the Jagermeister people, called Barenjager. Did you know jagermeister means Master Hunter, and Barenjager means Bear Hunter!

 

 

They mixed it with orange juice and rum, I think, and it was absolutely scrumptious. 

 

 I didn't get to try this one, but I loved the bottles.

They even had Martha Washington's Rum Punch!

 

This was our last drink before we decided it was time to leave.

The end.

New Friend, New Blog to Read

I recently met and befriend a delightful lass by the name of Molly Rosner, and she has an equally delightful blog called Brooklyn in Love and at War, that is actually smart and interesting and not just pictures of pretty flowers (not that there's anything wrong with that!)

On this blog she scans in letters from her late grandfather that he wrote to her late grandmother during WW2, and writes about their content and context.

Here is the first letter she posted, and if you go to the blog you can read what it means.

 

Here's an excerpt from the latest letter she transcribed:

Sweetest husband, the day of your homecoming will be the most excited one in my life. I want to look beautiful for you – so please let me know beforehand (if you can) so that at least my face will be washed. You’ll probably be all spiffed up when you come home, tall and straight in your uniform! I want you to be as proud of me as I am of you.

Sweetheart, if we could only be together for always after this… I’d even get up to make your breakfast. (Don’t say anything you’ll be sorry for, Sylvia.) I love you with all my heart, Alex, and wish to heaven that you’ll be allowed to work ashore. Dearest, I love you, you don’t know how much.

Goodnight, honey-

            Forever yours,

                        Sylvia

P.S. It took only 5 days for your letter to arrive. Love – S.

 So yes. Start reading, already.