Rain, Rain, Go Away!

For nearly 2 days now, it has been raining heavily. 

This time last year, there were awful flash floods over Brisbane (Queensland) and sadly there have been some yesterday. Not to the extent of the 2011 floods, but it's still disconcerting.

We have a lot of creeks around where I live, especially on the way into Town. About 20 meters away we have a creek that runs under our road out of our estate. It flooded our road yesterday....fortunately we have a small SUV and we were able to get through about 3 flooded roads yesterday on our way to Town. 

Right now, the rain isn't as it was yesterday. I just stepped outside to see how our creeks looking....it's okay. Checked out the local rainfall radar to see whats coming and it's only light rain. The heavy stuff is headed out to sea and some down south.

I used to absolutely adore rainy days like today. But since those floods last year, it tends to leave me feeling a little freaked out, when it rains like it has been.

Enough of the depressing stuff for now.....

Here is my little delivery of stones I received  Friday:

Some plume/riviara/moss agates and chrysoprase.

I want to get my hands on some Dendritic Opals and some Priday plume as well as a million others lol...but that will have to wait. The silversmithing funds are kinda dry right now :(

Oh and if I haven't mentioned this already...I am a very indecisive person and I change my mind a lot. 

I know I just changed all of my backdrops for my Etsy store jewellery, but I've gone and done it again haha.

I LOVED the turquoise box. LOVED it. 

But, if I am completely honest, it took focus away from the jewellery. Some of the pieces didn't stand out as well as they do on their own as the colour of the stones were so similar.

So I changed a heap of my pictures again.

Here is a before and after shot of one item...

As boring as the new background is.....the jewellery takes the spotlight perfectly. In the old picture, it still looks good....but it sort of melts into the box a little. If you have time, please take a quick peek at my shop and tell me if you like the new background??

Em ♥

A little rain & some Beads

It's raining! 

I absolutely love cold rainy days. And today is lovely. The last few days in fact have been on the cooler side, considering it's been really hot lately, it's a welcome change for me.

So this morning I need to finish up a custom ring. Since working on custom orders, I haven't really made anything new for my shop. I should be at the bench right now really...since the weather is perfect for it....but instead I am here at the computer blogging and pinning.

Oh last night I did make this:

Above are the beads and leather I have been collecting the last couple of weeks. I want to make a nice loooong wrap bracelet with the white leather and chalk turquoise beads for myself :) The hard part is trying to find decent beading thread. Everywhere I go either has the right colour, but not thickness, or the right thickness and not colour.....or practically nothing at all hahaha.

I still love beads. After all these years. 

I'm having a 20% off sale in my shop :)

Well I had a terrible nights sleep, think I have hayfever...or a cold...either way I feel pretty rubbish this morning. It's only 8:30am. Best go and put out the birdies and feed the animals and then get about my 'stuff'.

Hope all is well with you dear readers

Em ♥

Got My Mask On......

Not the kind you are probably thinking of.
I have a nice peel off face mask on.
It's Winter and I have to keep my skin fresh and I enjoy a good face mask :)
More so I enjoy peeling one off lol.

Tomorrow it's the 1st of July. I am having my first sale of the year.


I have no idea how well it will go.
But I'm hoping after the recent 'Etsy Finds' plug I will do okay.
It doesn't help that the Australian dollar is more than the US dollar. I haven't sold a piece in a while now and it's very crushing to my creativity.

The weather here is so strange today. It will get all gloomy and then rain for a few minutes and then the Sun will show and it looks all blue skies for miles and then back to the gloomy weather all over again. In fact it's been like that for a couple of days. We just bought Summer a new Trampoline, but she can't get a break in the weather to get outside to use it lately.

I got to the bench last week and made myself a new ring and made a pair of earrings for my Etsy store. I am halfway through a few other pieces, but I am finding it extremely hard to get there and stay there....for many reasons.
I think I need to learn new things and I need new tools to open that opportunity up to me, but that has to wait for the time being.

Well I'm off to read some blogs and make some lunch for the kiddie. I wish it would rain all day.....

:)

A Lovely Day...

Or at least I think it is. It's certainly not as humid as it was a couple of weeks ago. And the nights are cooling down enough to need to wear a light cardi, so I'm happy :)

It's been raining a bit today, though the Sun is out right now.

I am working on a couple of new pieces at the moment. But I've kinda lost my mojo again. I need to learn new things, but trying to get a hold of the supplies to do so (at a reasonable price) is a little more challenging. As I've written before, we kind of get ripped off for things over here. I don't know if it's because of supply/demand issues or because that's just how it is. Either way it's frustrating.

I want to get a repousse set, which seems to be cheaper to get from the USA and I seriously need to source some nicer new stones. It is super hard to find any here. There are a couple of gem shows coming up I think, so I might try and get to one of them to see what's available. Right now, Etsy/Ebay is my only supplier, which sucks because of the wait time and the cost of postage.

I found out this week that I can't post to the Czech Republic. I've had someone ask me if I could send a particular piece to them and when I looked up online, "Precious Metals" was on the prohibited list....

I am having a hard time sawing things lately. I don't know if it's my blades, or me?? But it just doesn't seem to happen smoothly anymore. I've never used any type of bur stuff and it used to be just fine...but lately it's harder and it puts me off. I want to get a decent saw, like one of those big red ones I've seen on a few other's blogs recently. I am pondering a decent size disc cutter and a rolling mill and a new bench. Want much???? LOL :)

There's a lot on my mind lately too. We are moving again when our lease comes up for renewal in June. Not far to go now. As great as this house is, I'm over it, for lots of reasons, which I'll blog about another time. I also want to bring more colour to my home. If you were to walk into my home now, you would think I was boring (till you saw my shoe collection lol) I don't really like our furniture. So I am on a quest to sell on what we have and replace it with stuff that I actually like. I won a nice deco cabinet on the bay last night and I have a nice colour in mind to redo it with. It's going to be a lamp table.

Wow that's been a long talky blog....
Potty training has been going well.....ish.
Time to get back to looking at cabochons :)

Feelin' Good......

This afternoon the weather finally came good. It has been raining on and off all day long and the house has finally cooled right down. I am sitting at the computer enjoying the breeze coming through the window and wishing it could be like this every day....but it wouldn't help the finances, seeing as hubby works in Roof Restoration.

But I did get a chance to get out to the bench this evening and I finally finished a little custom pendant for my MIL. Being night time I couldn't get a picture. So I will take some tomorrow. Apparently it's going to rain all day long again tomorrow.......here's hoping! :)