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Beading is kind of my life right now.

Bracelets

Generally I hate sets, but these beads are just too awesome.


This happily, inadvertently matches a long vintage opera length necklace.


Dyed jade, fake pearls, and silver!


I call these dork pearls - they rock.

Earrings

The gears on the watch part still spin, fun. Another attempt at steampunk.


I've been experimenting with bending wire, having fun.




Green jade, dyed blue jade, and silver.


More dork pearls and wire experimentation.


I totally love these, I may have to make another pair! The first pair screamed Robin though ;D




I wish I remembered what kind of stone this was. I accidentally ordered this copper chain and have been playing a lot with it. This is a choker.


I can't resist buying any seahorse charm I see, but almost never do anything with them. But I love lariats too - this one has no clasp, just tie it in a simple knot.

Labels: jewelry

I've been feeling a little low from lack of energy/feeling like I don't accomplish anything, so I thought I'd look back at the past six months and plot out goals for the next six. And now I feel great! Give it a try! I was surprised.

Since January

• Drawing: took portraiture & figure drawing classes; filled half a sketchbook (versus in previous ENTIRE YEARS filling only 1/4-1/2 a sketchbook)
• Graphic Design: took a graphic design class and designed 3 brochures, one being the start of a cookbook I've been meaning to do for years
• Jewelry: made a TON!
• Reading / Writing: wrote 3 graphic novel reviews; have read several good books (the sci-fi books Grass, Doomsday Book, and The Forever War stand out) - I've been working my way through the dual Hugo/Nebula award winners
• Life: rode my bike to work all through winter, I'd guess probably 60-75% of the time; visited my family and went to Yosemite!; planned and planted my garden; volunteered snowtracking and pulled weeds one morning

Goals for next six months

• Drawing: finish drawings I started in spring; draw for different seasons/solstices
• Graphic Design: get some more experience (through volunteering); possibly take another couple classes (logo design, color theory); redo my website and make business cards for myself
• Jewelry: start selling on Etsy
• Reading / Writing: finish/make significant progress on my book!; increase pace of graphic novel reviews to one per month instead of every other ;D
• Life: get better at maintaining myself / my stuff; be more social
• Science: study and take GRE; complete my currently-being-developed get-back-into-science curriculum

Yay!

Labels: news, self_improvement, weekly

I made this last summer and intended to put something in the empty frame, but at this point I kind of like it how it is.


Last summer? Old, anyway.


New!


My new favorite - half the beads were pass-alongs someone else didn't like. Score!


A few months ago - don't think I've worn it - but I've always wanted a lariat.


I bought a bunch of bobby pins with pads, which works out well for my recent obsession with buying cabochons but having nothing to do with them.

Labels: jewelry

I just finished a graphic design class at BCC I mean Bellevue College, which was a load of fun! Also a TON of work. I designed 3 brochures, 2 on Bali and 1 as a personal cookbook (they said my food photography needs improvement...fair enough.) For my themes, I picked an ecotourism Bali brochure (12pp), an "adventure" packet aimed at college age kids (8pp) (one spread below), and a fifties-themed cookbook featuring dishes ranked by the amount of dirty dishes they generate.



I have been utterly exhausted from this class for the past 2-3 weeks (it was a 6 week class). But now that it's done, I have time to start a new project! ;D

My new project is going to be coming up with a curriculum to teach myself more about different varieties of ecology, get back into scientific reading, try and figure out if grad school in ecology is something I want, and what flavor of ecology if so. Also I need to take the GRE, so studying for that will be tied in. Wheeee!

Labels: design, news, project, science, self_improvement

I experimented with these new lava rock beads I got, pairing them with fake pearls and silver. Unfortunately the lava rock catches on sweaters, so I'm not sure the bracelet's entirely successful.




I'll probably take these apart since I'm not a huge fan and the turquoise pieces were like 2.50 each... although I do like the color of the copper with the turquoise.






Though these are simple, I love the bumblebee charms with these orange swirly stones/beads (can't remember).

Labels: jewelry

As part of a citizen science initiative, I volunteered to snowshoe track animals along I-90 two days this winter.


It's nice to get out in the winter sometimes. Snoeshoeing ftw!


Each transect was 1k long. This route followed an established cross-country ski track, but the others were through unbroken snow.


We followed orange flagging on the unmaintained routes, but some of it was tricky to spot, like this, right at ground level, and required blindly choosing a direction and traipsing around for fifteen minutes until we could spot the next flag. They hung the flagging in summer, so some was covered with snow.


Each team had a more experienced leader who could help us identify tracks. Here he's investigating a coyote trail just off the transect.




The tracks headed up towards the stream are from a pair of coyotes. We later attempted to track them through this riverbed.

Labels: adventure, science, self_improvement

So, I finally got a new computer - yay!!!

But that means prepping the transfer, personalizing the new one, cleaning up the old one to give to someone else. I've been working on it all week :(

Labels: weekly