New Creation! Spirally Goodness ...

In my effort to find fun and chilly garage-avoiding items to make, I came up with this cool sphere:

It was quite the undertaking, considering every piece of wire was individually formed and shaped, placed together, new spirals made to fit and then finding the nuggets for placement. Considering it was my first one - I got pretty frustrated, but then figured some things out along the way. Like usual, I expect the next one to be easier.

I find I like it more just place randomly on a shelf or end table, rather than hanging. The tactile quality makes it hard not to pick up - and even harder to put down. And, like the pendants, it lends itself SO well to photographs that I took maybe 40 photos of it (then had to wade through the best ones, but there were so many that turned out well).

I already have ideas for other ones with a bit of a different twist to them. I can picture an entire basket full of these happy spheres sitting on my table, all different sizes. *happy sigh* Hard work ahead though - and I don't even know if people will like them! But I do, and that's what matters, eh?

Catsicle

This cat found me today:

It was about 2 degrees above zero and this little guy was wandering around outside. His fur had snowballs stuck in it and his lip was injured. I brought him in and fed him some milk and tuna, and let him warm up. He's Very Friendly.

We put some "Found Cat" signs around with our phone number on them, hopefully he belongs somewhere. He seems too pretty to be a stray. We'll see what happens.

Until something does - looks like we have unexpected company for the holidays!

Snow, Pomegranate & Secret Santa

I was standing outside thinking how beautiful the snow is today - all sparkly and beautiful, when the idea hit me to grab a pomegranate I had bought and play with it in the snow! The ruby red of the fruit and the sparkly white snow turned out COOL:

It made me wish I was a photographer, and could just snap photos like this all day. Well - I guess I can, but for no purpose other than to please myself. Which is okay!

I also received a gift from a Secret Santa exchange we were doing within our EGA group:

My gift came from one of our administrators (and internet superstar among Etsyians), Lis Kidder! She totally made it personalized and looks like she put a ton of work into it. THANK YOU, LIS! How very cool. It's soup season for me, and I was just getting annoyed that I don't have a spoon rest for all my soup pot stirring spoons. And voila - one in the mail! How cool. My kids were all impressed, too. Happy dance!

It happened to come with 5 other packages of Etsy purchases I made recently, so it was a super happy mail day. I can't wait to show all the things I bought, but it will have to wait until after Christmas!

Horrible to Happy

This week has been hell. So many things went awry, that I was almost scared to wake up by Friday - and had been going to bed super early, just to be done with each day sooner.

But - through all the poo, I actually accomplished some things! YAY!!

I did some nifty pendants - but the above was great to finish. It is inspired by this awesome painting my mother has by E. Newman (that we know little about, except she was a friend of my aunt's in Oakland, CA). I have a similar woodcut I did of the same theme, so it was fun to get it into glass. YAY! I love it, it's bright and happy! The opposite of my week.

Perhaps I put all my happiness in the panel, making my life devoid of it for a period of time. Ah well, hopefully it's behind me. Happy December 1st!!