AFHS Countdown: 7-9

7. Earrings featuring Swarovski crystal, German silver, and Czech glass on sterling silver. $30

8. Bracelet featuring blue agate, matte quartz crystal, and German silver on sterling silver. $75

9. Earrings featuring amethyst and jade balls and brass beads on gold finished findings. $9.50

AFHS Countdown: 4-6

These three items I made earlier this year. I finally got around to costing them out so I could price them.

4. Bracelet featuring matte quartz crystal, jade, puffed ceramic, and glass on copper. $23

5. Bracelet featuring blue aventurine, freshwater pearls, quartz crystal, snowflake obsidian, Swarovski crystals, and a large sterling silver focal star on sterling silver. $44

6. Earrings featuring rose quartz and Swarovski crystals on sterling silver. $45

Art for Heaven's Sake 2013

I'm thrilled to be showing in Art for Heaven's Sake this year after a many years-long hiatus from the show. Now that I've juried in, though, I'm freaking out! I better make some stuff, quickquick, otherwise it is just going to be me, alone in my booth, doing interpretive dance.

So, I've set myself a goal of having a minimum of 100 pieces ready for the show. I've been entered as a multiple media artist, so I will have jewelry, glass (stained, fused, +/or slumped), photography, and random other items. Luckily, I have some things already made, so I don't have to make all 100 between now and October 18, when the show begins. But, I do have to price, tag, and package everything, so I have plenty to do. Thank goodness for wine.

So, here begins a countdown of the 100 items that will be found with me, in my booth, saving you and your loved ones from having to suffer through my interpretive dance routine, which frankly needs a lot of work!

1. Bracelet featuring pink feldspar, jade, faceted aquamarine, and German silver on sterling silver findings. $60

2. Bracelet featuring pink feldspar, green serpentine, faceted aquamarine, and German and Thai silvers on pewter findings. $21.50

3. Earrings featuring turquoise drops with garnet and German silver beads on sterling silver findings. $36

Monday Inspiration: Isabel Allende and Passion

Mondays are hard.

What better time to seek inspiration?

Isabel Allende, one of my favorite writers, is my inspiration for today. Witty, worldly, funny, she softens up her audience with humorous tales of her experience as an Olympics torch-bearer with Sophia Loren before passionately stating her case for feminism, and the sadder state in which we would all live without it.

VW Classic 2012

Since I dove face-first into the world of classic Volkswagens earlier this year, I have been obsessed with all things VeeDub. You can regularly find me cruising the pages of TheSamba.com or reading John Muir's trippy "How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive" as I try to learn all I can about the newest members of my family. 

I'm lucky to live in Southern California, where the VW culture is not merely alive, but thriving. Nowhere else is this as obvious as at the VW Classic, the grand finale event capping off almost a week's worth of VW-related shenanigans celebrations.

I love the shape of the Beetles: rounded, yet still edgy somehow. That quasi-sexy silhouette and the multitude of colors inspire me. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the Classic, taken with my Pentax K-x or the iPhone Hipstamatic app: 

 

A string of Things

Early Type IIs

Pure California

A 21-Bug Salute!

Lavender Lemonade

Last month, I went to the Lavender Festival at Highland Springs Resort in Cherry Valley, CA. Highland Springs is the largest producer of organic lavender in Southern California. They also have an excellent steakhouse onsite.

After gorging myself on lamb kebabs, roasted corn, and lavender cheesecake, I hit the lavender booth and bought lavender EVERYTHING: a cookbook, sugar, hand sanitizer, lotion, etc. I really need better supervision at these things.

Paging through the cookbook, I found a recipe for ginger-lavender lemonade, which sounded delicious, especially as the temps here have been flirting with the triple digits.

We have our own organic lavender plant, and a lemon tree that has produced some spectacularly ugly lemons that are nonetheless saturated with essential oil and produce a lot of juice. So, I tried making an adapted version of the recipe from the cookbook and it was delicious! There is something about the ability to feed (or in this case, make a tasty beverage for) oneself with products that came from your own yard that is immensely satisfying.

Lavender-Lemonade

1 recipe Lavender-Lemon Syrup
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
4 cups water (I used spring water)

Mix ingredients together in a pitcher; serve over ice.

Lavender-Lemon Syrup

3/4 cup organic sugar (1 cup if lavender sugar is unavailable)

1/4 cup organic lavender sugar (make your own, or whole foods may have it)

zest of 2 lemons

2 T culinary-grade lavender buds

2 cups water

Add all ingredients to a small saucepan and stir to combine. Heat over medium-high to a boil, stirring occasionally. Boil one minute, then remove from heat. Strain out solids and allow to cool to room temperature.

Gregg Barnes' Follies Costumes

I saw the revival of Stephen Sondheim's Follies last night. What a treat!
The staging, especially the moving "ghost girls" as set pieces, was masterful. The voices and talent were stellar.

Jan Maxwell as Phyllis (from folliesbroadway.com)

However, Gregg Barnes' costuming was easily my favorite aspect of the show.

(from centertheatregroup.org)

(from playbillvault.com)

Each piece was a spectacle, with the pieces de resistance being the astounding showgirl costumes in the Loveland number.

Beautiful Girls (from centertheatregroup.org/follies)

Barnes is a creative genius, having drawn from the best elements of Follies costume history without, believe it or not, going completely overboard.

Completely overboard. (from haremofpeacocks.blogspot.com)

Here's an in-depth article on Gregg Barnes and the costuming for Follies.
Follies costumers in general have been incredibly creative, from those costuming the famous Ziegfeld girls of the early 20th century:

Ziegfeld Girls (from splendidred.typepad.com)

Louise Brooks as a Ziegfeld Girl (from artdecoblog.blogspot.com)

to Erte:

Erte's Twilight (from www.thehipcircle.com)

I know what I'm going to be for Halloween this year... I'd better start doing some crunches!