Curios and Trinkets, part the sixth

Well, the sun finally came out. Five minutes after I finished getting my feet and skirt wet and bruising my shins by bracing them on the concrete steps outside to take pictures of far too many necklaces. Smartass.

I unearthed my old jewelery box. Or rather, one of them--I have at least three, only one of which actually has jewelery in it (the other two contain coins and a stone egg, respectively). This particular one contains mostly polished semiprecious stones, which I've collected on and off for something like sixteen years. I have curiously clear memories of how and when I obtained quite a few of them. More to the point, though, said box also contained pieces of broken jewelery. Jackpot!

I also now have the most glorious assortment of small bottles. Most are too large to serve as pendants, but curios and pretties to string on my belt? Oh, yes.

And now, necklaces.


A special request, with some green tiger eye and onyx beads. The silver triangle used to be part of an earring.


This would be the pierced turtle I mentioned earlier. Green crab agate and a frosted glass bead.


Something fairly simple. I still have a few of those red beads left.


Another semi-commission. Not entirely sure if it suits the description, but I do like it.


New picture of an old one. The colour of the serpentine beads kinda wussed out in the picture, though. They're more green and dark in reality.


And the fire element bottle. Filled with ashes and strung with carnelian and pumice, appropriately enough.


This is where the other earring went. Green tiger eye, red crab agate, and one of my few green leaves.


Trying for more of a showy steampunk lady-look with this one. The shell beads are more of a pastel blue.


Am also very fond of this one. It involves moss agate and gears, though, so that's kind of a given at this point.


One of the places I bought findings from threw in some wee lucite flower beads, and I finally found a use for one!


I uhm...

I really don't feel like giving this one up right now.

Ah, Tira.

"Hey. HEY. There's a squirrel sitting in that tree. Are you going to fix this or are you gonna let me out so I can deal with it properly?"

There's much to do in the way of posting up necklaces and so forth, but do forgive me; I've felt rather like death warmed over for the past two days, and Greek salad can only cure so much.

Curios and Trinkets, part the fifth

Continuing my string of hit-and-run midnight baking, last night I made a batch of what was essentially shortbread with cheese instead of sugar. They lasted approximately 15 hours. I may or may not have started quoting Selin Fireheart upon sampling them.

The trinket-making nonsense continues unabated. This afternoon found me attempting to tap holes into a copper turtle stamping's nose and tail; he's now crawling up a chain destined to hold one of the alchemical element bottles I've been making.

For now, some things I've finished recently.


Something altogether girly and springy. Rose quartz (courtesy of Elke) and crab agate.


Tinkering with Shrinky Dinks, poppy jasper, and onyx.


And something nice and autumnal, with fancy and moss agate.

Honeytarts

Sounds like an affectionate form of address, but no.

I have a raging adoration for the scent of honey (and the taste, when the sweetness is muted), so when I came across a recipe billing itself 'honey tarts', I went rifling through the freezer in search of tart shells.

These are identical in texture to buttertarts (they're both custards on amphetamines, after all), with a delicate honey flavour. They do not, however, contain any butter or anything of the sort. What follows is a recipe that filled 8 standard-size tart shells; double it for a more reasonable-sized batch. The original recipe included a tiny bit of salt, but I didn't bother.

1 egg
1/8 cup white sugar
1/4 cup honey
A splash of vanilla

Mix the above together in a bowl before adding...

1/3 cup broken pecans

...and mixing them in. Spoon into tart shells and bake at 375F for 14-16 minutes. If the filling acts liquidy when the tart is wiggled, it's not done yet.

Something tells me they'd do just as well with sliced almonds in place of the pecans.


And on an unrelated note, here's a necklace I made as a late birthday present for the lovely Ravenskar.

Curios and Trinkets, part the fourth

Not that this has anything at all to do with jewelery, but I think I'm now one of the few people on my WoW server that has the 'Kingslayer' title but uses something else instead. 'Loremaster' is so much more stylish on a mage...

Anyway.


I took apart an old bracelet to make the cord for this one; it had five strands in all, so I used two more for...


The red oval was one of the Shrinky Dinks that turned out. Ended up making a nice surface to mount one of my brass flies on, and doesn't go half bad with the carnelian and onyx beads I just added to the hoard.


And these are the others. Need to dig up a more accurate hole-punch. The trees are from one of the many lovely free patterns over at Webtreats ETC.


Something simple with some twisty black chain and chrysocolla beads.


And a sister piece.


...and this one is MINE.

It's moss agate and fancy agate (the white bead with the adorable mossy spots up top). But seriously, it's mine.

Ink and cat hair do not mix

Very tired. I went out and picked up some mailing supplies as I had a pair of baubles to send out to the ever-lovely Z and Myn. Still looking for some appropriate little cloth gift bags; I managed to find some nice brocade and embroidered ones while I was out, but they're altogether too large for all but the most grandiose pieces of jewelery. I could make them, yes, but the whole time/effort/finding cloth/fishing up the sewing machine bit is ridiculous when you take into account that it's also less expensive to just buy the finished pouches most of the time.

On a vaguely related note, my ability to write by hand has gone completely to hell.

I've been tinkering around with the Shrinky Dinks that can be printed on; they behave very oddly when a particular glaze is applied. Despite numerous botched attempts, I managed to get a few little charms out of the deal. Also made the fascinating discovery that Elke's printer is full of cat hair (who would have thought?).

I suspect that I'll be selling a few necklaces soon... if only to free up desk space and help fund this horrible addiction to findings that I seem to have developed.

In closing... I have a lolrus in my sidecar.

Curios and Trinkets, part the third

Freyja--Tiramisu's analog cat, in a way--has gone walkabout. Due to the circumstances surrounding the aforementioned disappearance, the odds of her turning up alive seem very slim, at least to me.

In keeping with the tradition of personable, fluffy cats making themselves at home here while she's away, a tiny and exceedingly sweet-tempered silver tabby strolled in and summarily adopted the place and everyone in it. Go figure.

That said... jewelery.


Brass, watch bits, and more serpentine!


This was actually the very first one I started--I just didn't have the right beads for it until the other day. Very smitten with the moss agate ones.


More moss agate with some slightly rusted chain. Given that it's nearly a choker, and fitted to my preposterously thin neck, I don't think many people could wear this one comfortably.


The companion piece for an earlier necklace.


And one made to go with the aethermancer's charm.


Copper and serpentine. I'm thinking I might switch the beads out for something bluer, as those greens just do not go.


Serpentine and pumice...


...and crab agate! I need to get some smaller beads of this stuff.


And lastly, a bracelet with pumice, serpentine, and more watch bits.

Curios and Trinkets, part the second

The lunacy has not abated.


A better picture of the red bead.


Those leaves are plastic rather than glass, sadly... but I have dozens of them.


More serpentine beads. This one's roughly half new and half old material; I salvaged the leaf charm from a pair of earrings. Exceedingly covetous of this and the matching bracelet I made for it.

Curios and Trinkets

Well, then.

Roughly a month and a half ago, I pointed out that the only thing keeping me from buying myself oodles of delightful little jewelery findings was my lack of a proper workspace. As I probably should have known... that barely slowed me down. My reasoning was that a) the lot of it all fits in a single shopping bag with plenty of room to spare, b) I have always loved playing with pretty little beads and such, c) I wanted a hand-intensive hobby that didn't involve a computer, and d) I so rarely spend money on indulgences that aren't edible.

That said...

Brass, watch gears, and one of my favourite stones--serpentine!


This one was copper.


Something a bit more girly. The bead isn't black at all in reality, but a deep wine red with some faint designs under the enamel.


And something equal parts woodsy and morbid, with wooden beads and brass bits.