Snow Day.

It just keeps snowing...

Finally, a snow plow!

We are having another snowstorm here in East Tennessee and I'm really starting to feel the weight of winter. I had hoped that moving South would mean less snow, less cold, more sunshine and less wintertime blah. Alas and alack, so far not so much. It's a freakish year for weather here and I'm wondering if the snow has plotted to follow me wherever I go. The good thing about that winter blah is that it forces me to focus on creative ideas. It starts with some little fragment of a concept that starts tapping at my brain and if I follow it amazing things happen. I don't always have the time, given the amount of projects I now need to create in a given week, to follow the threads of these bigger ideas and see where they lead. This weekend I followed and they led me to create a bib style necklace of crystal and wire butterflies in a wide array of colors constructed from over 1500 crystals. It took 1.5 days and I'm not finished. I still have to connect them all together as they are precariously placed on top of an old wooden crate in my living room. Will I use shaping wire or jump rings? Which will provide the best structure but still allow for movement? Will this be uncomfortable to wear? Stay tuned...after the shows there will be pics!

I can be surprisingly patient when I become obsessed with any idea.

I'm playing with French beaded flower techniques, but I don't want to just follow a pattern. In case you haven't noticed, that's simply not my style. I'm trying to take the techniques and adapt them. So far, so good. I've got a second Mid-Century modern inspired crystal and wire jewelry set to begin today and then I need another show stopper design for CHA and Tucson. These will eventually become tutorials for JTV, so hang in there. I'm hoping to get the Jewel School customers to explore some fresh creative directions and that requires a lot of trial and error on my part.

Sometimes I feel as if I'm running so fast to keep this blog and the social networking sites going, to make the deadlines for my new job and to stay relevant when the amount of content on jewelry making and crafting on the internet is becoming overwhelming. It's just so much work and the traffic numbers go up and down and I start to feel as if I can't really keep up, especially when I'm not even sure if it matters. At what point does it all just turn into white noise?

Is this thing on? Hello?

I'm diving back into my imagination today and hopefully that defiant creativity will help push back those winter blues. Hopefully this little blog serves a purpose and stands out in the fray, and even if it does not it brings me joy to share my creative journey with others.

Until next time...craft on with your bad selves! Madge has reached her allotment of 'I's' for this post. Sheesh.

xoxo
Madge