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ssible at his age i spent the next few years directing my creative energies into whatever the so was doing and all of the jewelry making equipment sat in the corner in boxes until we sold our old house and bought the one in which we are currently living i stored all of the jewelry boxes back behind the bar in our basement that some previous owner had installed nothing like having a keg tap in your basement for all of those wild parties you re not having and it all just sat there in the meantime i stopped visiting bead blogs bead stores bead shows anything that might have prompted me to spend money on something i was no longer working on i had a couple false starts right here on this blog but i think i m finally ready i ve started opening the boxes i found several sealed packets of art clay silver 650 which it seems the company no longer makes that are oh 6 years old at this point i found an old receipt 73 for 50g i have squeezed the packets and i think i have a 50 shot of the clay still being viable out of the packet we shall see i have not tested the kiln yet hopefully it s still working we shall see we shall see the photograph above is of an element i made probably around 2012 i had this idea a good idea i think of designing a piece around the tempest a celestial and downright ethereal piece i made this and it wasn t quite right so i set it aside it s really not all that bad but it s also not really what i was aiming for the thing is i had a flash of insight yesterday and i think i ve finally figured out what to do i got out a new sketchbook i may have cut and pasted various shapes from index cards last night i also started trying to re discover the blogs instagram accounts of creative people who have been doing gorgeously creative things in the past 8 years i ve been living under my rock having so much material to look through is like wading through treasure it s compulsively readable there are many people whose work i m still trying to find again i m looking forward to finding them i don t know if anyone out there still has their eye on this blog or not but i wanted to at least stop by i m not sure at this point how often i ll be posting here i ve decided to try an instagram account you can find me at melissa_strandsofbeads if you are interested by the way that beautiful bead within a bead in the photo is by carter seibels if i recall correctly she mailed it to me after i won a contest she was holding to name one of her pieces geometric safari the more i look at that element the more i think i should go ahead and design a necklace around it carter s bead is seriously too lovely to waste posted by melissa j lee at 1 39 pm no comments thursday june 2 2016 video games are life since the end of the school year is approaching the so has started to bring home all of his artwork he handed this to me today apparently the art teacher told his class that they should use the clay to make something they like something that represents them note the super duper special big button on the right in blue he calls it xbox controller i call it my son plays too many video games incidentally he didn t score that big blue button when he added it to the piece and it popped off in the kiln i just propped it back on for the photo does anyone have any suggestions on how best to glue it back in place if anyone is still reading this after so many years of dormancy and y know non jewelry making your input would be greatly appreciated posted by melissa j lee at 1 50 pm no comments tuesday november 10 2015 tarina tarantino x kidrobot or finally talking about jewelry even if it s not mine here s my little shrine to tarina tarantino x kidrobot back in 2008 we visited the kidrobot store in soho which alas has since closed i think the little zoomies figures in the photo which i borrowed from my son come from that visit i remember seeing fabulous quirky and colorful kidrobot jewelry in the display case but i had no idea who tarina tarantino was back then i thought about that jewelry for years after actually i m still looking for that cute zoomies necklace that was on display at the time i guess i ve been living under a rock because i ve only recently discovered her work it makes me cringe a little bit in retrospect all of those designs i was making at the time with skulls and flowers probably looked completely derivative on the other hand thinking about it now makes me want to start making jewelry again i put a small order in at artbeads last week my first beading supply purchase in several years posted by melissa j lee at 10 36 am no comments tuesday april 8 2014 merry wanderer of the night continuing on with my mardi gras throw inspired crafting here s a glittery wristlet purse the mystic krewe of nyx throws hand decorated purses during their parade so i thought i d try my hand at making a few to give out to friends hail nyx this is actually the third purse i ve glittered but it s the first that has that over the top feeling i m striving for anyone who has followed my jewelry in the past knows i m all about the theme and i really like being able to go to town with the shoes and purses in that regard and the color that s the one thing i always struggled with when working with the pmc sometimes there just wasn t enough eye popping color for my tastes regardless of what i added to the fine silver that s no problem with these projects anyway this was my first attempt to use the transfer technique that nori discussed in her wonderful blog confessions of a glitter addict i did the lettering separately using fabric paint and glitter and then applied it to the bag with e6000 this worked wonderfully and allowed me to use the best combination of letters out of three tries i m eager to try more complex designs and the cogs have started turning about applying this technique to jewelry making by the way all of the feathers in the three purses here come from a set of really ratty looking marabou boas i bought several years ago from oriental trading company for a monster making project with the so i found they actually worked well here where the fuller boas in my craft stash were simply too much this was a nice surprise here s the first purse and very first glitter job which was a huge mess i hand set those flat back pearls with tweezers it was a little annoying the simple s design is supposed to suggest a wave the dangly shells and starfish are a cut up necklace also from otc these are from a dozen i bought for a summer pirate party for the so but never got around to actually using although the so did get his party finally here s one i did while traveling during the so s spring break last week i will say that the purse projects are much easier to travel with than the shoes i suppose the whole watermelon rhinestone pattern is a little overdone but i hoped framing it in black on a silver glitter background and using the oversized rhinestones would make the design pop more and add some interest i had left over marabou from the first purse and found the color complementary here so i m still obsessing about mardi gras it s become pretty clear to me though while learning about the celebration that i m much more interested in the crafting and riding aspect of carnival while the waiting list for nyx is closed they did have a submission form open on their website last month and i put my name in i noticed the other day that the form isn t there anymore i have no idea what that means but i m crossing my fingers and hope to be contacted sometime in the future ps i can tell i really need to dig out my light box these photos could really use some improvement it s been a long time posted by melissa j lee at 6 24 pm 2 comments saturday april 5 2014 happy are they whom the muses love hello anyone out there i have no idea if anyone is still reading this blog after my continuing years long hiatus but i ve recently been inspired so i thought i d at least go ahead and post i have no idea why but after ignoring mardi gras for the better part of my life i suddenly decided this year that it would be fun to celebrate and introduce the short one who after a couple of years is no longer all that short in a modest way to carnival naturally i decided this about a week before the day but thanks to some very efficient sellers i had just enough time to order some beads and a lot of old doubloons off of ebay i also picked up a king cake locally the so was all they put a baby in the cake why do they put a baby in there that s kinda gross mom no way i don t want the baby after thinking about it though i think he decided he wouldn t mind to be king for a day as my husband would say and how is this different from any other day in our house just by sheer luck he did get the baby and he was secretly very pleased about it the baby is currently residing with his well loved doubloons and beads so the so enjoyed our little celebration and moved on to other things the way you do but i started learning more and more about new orleans which i have never had the good fortune to visit and the history of mardi gras i got interested in the krewes especially the all female ones like the krewe of muses for anyone reading this who doesn t already know during the muses parade they give out highly coveted highly glittered hand decorated shoes as their signature mardi gras throw the designs can be over the top wonderful and i have rapidly become obsessed with these iconic shoes after reading muses member nori s wonderful blog confessions of a glitter addict i became increasingly inspired my design book which is still languishing with many unfinished jewelry designs has been filling up again i decided to try creating a few shoes of my own here s my first attempt honestly i m not sure if it s done yet i m thinking of putting abracadabra lettering down the side also i really wanted a white rabbit popping out of the hat but the only one i found that was the right size was a cute plush finger puppet the plush just didn t look right with the glitter in my opinion anyway so anyway i used the doves instead but if i could find the right rabbit i d totally try this idea again being a novice glitterer i m having a tough time showing the sparkle here s another shot not so great on detail but it sparkles better as with any first try i learned quite a bit making this first yeah the glitter really does get everywhere just as every muse whose blog or interview i read said fancy that i tried as hard as i could but the extra fine glitter while it looks beautiful when applied is very hard to contain it was all i could do to keep it from being an ingredient in dinner second you really do need to paint the shoe white before starting if you plan on using a lighter shade of glitter it s probably difficult to tell from the photos but there s white glitter under the rhinestones the original shoe i ll have to post a photo of it later had a silver and black snakeskin pattern on the heel it took me 5 coats of white glitter to obtain even moderate opacity over that pattern third i found it extremely difficult not to cross contaminate the glitter when applying each new color there was always a little glitter loss after one layer dried so my white for example has just a tiny bit of red in it i haven t figured out how to avoid this i used aqua net recommended in confessions of a glitter addict to seal the shoe but didn t apply it until all of the glitter was on the shoe perhaps applying it after every layer would help which brings me to my next issue the aqua net works just fine on this display shoe but i d like to eventually make a pair of wearable shoes well probably boots the irony of all of my crafty activity here is that i don t actually wear heels i d like to find a sealant that will work for a wearable shoe but will not dim the sparkle of the glitter if anyone reading this has any suggestions i d really love it if you d share i m thinking of trying aleene s spray acrylic sealer gloss i haven t had so much fun on a project in a long time i already have my second and third shoes lined up with sketches for three more developing and i m making purses à la mystic krewe of nyx as well although i ve had a harder time finding inexpensive suitable purses it s definitely on my bucket list now to ride with one of these wonderfully creative krewes once in my lifetime in the meantime thank you to the muses for the inspiration posted by melissa j lee at 6 55 pm 5 comments friday november 9 2012 playtime here s the first piece of jewelry i ve made in over a year my son really loves lego can you tell it s a neck cuff assembled from my son s stash a completely temporary affair but it was fun to construct hope all is well with everyone posted by melissa j lee at 3 32 pm 3 comments monday april 16 2012 easter egg maracas i went to target this morning for sundries and discovered that the store has marked down all easter supplies to 90 off original price the section was mostly picked through but they had a ton of plastic easter eggs left for a whopping 09 per bag hmmm i thought martian figures one of the bags had a nice selection of eggs in greens and blues caterpillars i picked up a bunch and put on my thinking cap when i got home i ve decided they ll make great kids maracas for cinco de mayo i obtained the go ahead from the so s teachers at lunchtime and mocked this up cute eh i made the design with sharpie markers on a white plastic egg these eggs conveniently have 2 holes on either end so i simply threaded 2 long pipe cleaners through the holes and then folded them so the pipe cleaners are in quarters twisted them then secured the join with hot glue add a spoonful of rice and beans and maybe hot glue the egg closed to avoid accidents and you have a simple schoolroom craft i think the kids will go for it what do you think posted by melissa j lee at 11 55 am no comments sunday march 11 2012 all i got was a rock i finally decided that hauling the so out to collect geodes in a riverbed was not realistic at least for the next year or two given his age so i gave in and we picked out one at the local rock shop to crack open the helpful advice we received there the bigger they are the lighter they are the better they are we found a nice light us as opposed to moroccan geode and sure enough it was full of dense but delicate quartz crystals my husband used a chisel and hammer to open this i can see we will need a little practice to open these more cleanly but i think it s not a bad first try the so enjoyed the results and now has something for his next show and share day at school here s the before photo this guy weighed in at just about one pound mild mannered geode i d like to say i ve been working like mad on jewelry behind the scenes but this would be a complete lie on the other hand i finally spent part of my prize money from last year s fire mountain gems and beads contest yesterday i can hardly believe i ve had that 750 gift certificate just burning a ho...