Friday, February 11, 2011

Dear...

Dear sfgirlbybay,

THANK YOU for introducing me to Amy Butler's inspiration page. You've either done something wonderful to me, or broke my brain with too much beauty at once — everything else is completely drab in comparison.

Sincerely,
EmyJJ


Now I know where to go when I've had too much of this snow and I'm ready for some spring!






Yowza. Take in all the girliness you can here!

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Update and Vickie Howell Yarn!

Hello!

Been a long time, but I'm going to get better at this blogging thing, I promise.

I'm getting closer and closer to launching my shop -- I've got plenty of earrings ready to go, and once I figured out how to strengthen my pendants, I'm way happier with the outcome of my necklaces. (Plain clay is gonna BREAK, yo! And I DON'T want a necklace to break the first time someone wears it!) I ended up using reinforced wire to build the clay pieces around. It's a little more time consuming, but I feel much better about their durability.

My first instinct was to recycle cans and make a really cool backing for the pendants. I figured it would strengthen the pendant AND look pretty cool on the back. I bought leather gloves and tin snips and got cuttin'. ...Not really my thing. Making a heart outline with humungo tin snips?? I was getting nowhere. I destroyed three cans and only had wonky circles to show for my efforts. Sorry, tin cans...maybe I'll revisit you someday and turn you into jewelry. For now, wire wins all!

In crafty news other than my own, one of my heroes, Ms. Vickie Howell, is releasing a new "affordable" yarn line with Caron and I am in LOVE with the color palette.

Dig the new colors of Stitch.Rock.Love. -- photos taken by Howell herself, so she said the colors may be a little "off." The wool blend, cutely called "Sheep(ish)" will be in select stores in May. I'm hoping my Jo-Ann is one of the stores that will be carrying it!



See a larger picture and Vickie's official announcement here:

Stay warm and keep craftin! I'll have a cute little card tutorial to share soon, so stay tuned!

xo,
Emy