Novembers Birthstone = Topaz

Can you believe it's already Thanksgiving week? Time has just absolutely flown by this year!

November's birthstone is Golden Topaz and Citrine. I really like this months poem.

Who first comes to this world below
With drear November's fog and snow,

Should prize the topaz's amber hue,

Emblem of friends and lovers true.

Way back when Pearl was included with Topaz for this months birthstones. Then in 1912 it was dropped for Novembers stone. Topaz stood alone as the months stone until 2013 when Citrine was added to the list.

This Months Citrine Offerings

I don't use Golden Topaz very often but when I do it gets snapped up pretty quickly. Citrine I use a little more often, I do like the happy golden color. I know I usually do a treasury with items in chosen months color, but with Thanksgiving looming and having just curated the entire LACWE team on Etsy I think I'm going to skip. My poor laptop needs it's cache cleaned I've looked at so many things these last couple of weeks.

Be Thankful this week and always

for 

Good Friends

Love of Family

Good and plentiful Food

Warm and dry beds

Cherished ones to Love

and be Loved by.

Now go forth and Eat too much

Laugh too loud

and give as many hugs and kisses as you can.

Happy Thanks Giving!

January = Garnet

February = Amethyst

March = Aquamarine

April = Diamond

May = Emerald

June = Pearl

July = Ruby

August = Peridot

September = Sapphire

October = Opal

November = Topaz

December = Turquoise

Next week begins our annual Holiday Countdown, cookies this year?

Thanks for stopping by!

We'll see you next time!

Feathers! or when did I become bird brained??

Pins from my Pinterest Board

I’ve been in a feather kind of mood lately. I’ve noticed I’ve been pinning feathers for quite awhile now on Pinterest in either color schemes or pieces others have made. I’ve been oohing and ahhing over Karen Tottens ceramic feathers at Starry Road Studio  and Rebecca Paynes leather feathers at Tree Wings Studio for ages now. Even the last few pieces my son claimed were made with feathers. 

My daughter is a Fine Arts student and was kind enough to bring home a small piece of clay for me to play with. I made a business card holder (sigh it fell over and broke oh well two more pendants for me!), a couple trinket bowls/plates and a few pendants. Then I started thinking what would I really like to make? Small sculpture? maybe a tile with some roses…… What has been holding my interest lately?    ……. feathers …… What fun could I have with that?! 

Feathers!

So, my first what I’m playing with post! Not really a how to because I’m playing with clay that will go back to the university and it may be too late in the semester to actually get it fired (hmm bisque firing was yesterday sigh), so it’s just a peek into what I’m having fun with……. as an aside, I’m REALLY late with my blog post because once I started playing I completely lost time while sculpting. Good thing I got those feathers done first lol Well all except the copper feathers….I had planned on making some but noticed I already had some embossed copper I’ve been trying to decide what to do with and I just noticed it has a nice feather shape in it….. so maybe…. lol Then I needed pictures and examples and and and …  I pulled together a Pinterest board  because I already had so many why not……  before I knew it I had already missed the post and was late with a second! So BLOG post first THEN I can get back to playing, and house work something about Thanksgiving is next week? 

Thanks for stoppin by!

See ya next time! 

Making Time for MORE Playtime

Before Facebook there were forums, forums filled with people who liked the same things. I belonged to several forums, the community feel was really very nice. We fed upon the energy of each other. bolstering and encouraging and reaching higher and loftier heights. It was an amazing ride.

Then along came Facebook and what amounts to the slow death of forums. Groups replaced forums but the community feel just isn't quite the same. At least not for me. I see a whole lot of that's MY design and very little of let's all play with this design and see how many ideas we can come up with. No real camaraderie to speak of. Oh there is an amazing amount of support but no real push to play and move forward with the idea to try this instead of that, oooh I'd love to see it in this color, etc etc.

I miss that.

I miss the ever-present push to do better, to improve, to master.

Please don't get me wrong, I love playing and exploring the many myriad ways metals move and twist and morph into the visions in my head or sketchpad. I love learning new to me techniques. It just makes me sad to think I was playing with an idea and did nothing more with it. It makes me sad to see someone else go further with it in the direction I wanted to take it. Not because they did it, but because they remind me of what I DIDN'T do.

It also makes me glad I spent time just playing this last month and I've realized I NEED to spend more time just playing and experimenting and plain old enjoying what it is I'm doing, no matter what that happens to be.

I think I might just share some of those playtime experiments here. A little What I'm Playing With does seem to be a natural extension of What's on the Desk don't you think? Me too!

Hey! If you're stateside, today is Election day, if you haven't already, GET OUT THERE AND VOTE! Your voice does matter!

Want to know what is on the ballot here? They want the right to do whatever they want to do even if we voted on it. So not cool......  They also want to make the whole state wet. I live in a dry county.  Dry? Yup, no alcohol, gotta drive to the next county over if I want to buy a bottle of wine, made the kiddos 21st a real big deal for her. We made a special trip to the liquor store on the county line a half hour away.
What's on your ballot? Does it matter to you? Why?

Thanks for stoppin in!
We'll see you next time!