Year of Jewelry- Week 9- Masquerade!

This could be a running joke with me, what are you going to masquerade this week as an entry in the Year of Jewelry?

I am entering these in no order what so ever… since I got so far behind, I thought I’d just take a picture of everything that I have done over the past few weeks and stick it into the correct place in the list… and… voila! I’d be caught up… I honestly do work at it, maybe not by what the weekly theme is, but I do make something for it every week… ok, maybe it isn’t specifically ‘for’ the yoj, but it is definitely on my mind when I am making some piece of jewelry that it should be for the challenge. There were times that I actually did a piece that did qualify as one of the themes… and that it coincided with the time that was the theme….

No, This bracelet isn’t exactly what the theme is.. but… the thought is there.

And…. It is a spoon that is masquerading as a bracelet… HEY!!!!!!!!!!

I did a theme!!!!!!!

Here is my Masquerade!

This is a stainless steel spoon that I annealed and sawed a pattern into, I love flowers and thought that it would be appropriate that it is nearly Spring… and in Western Texas… it is already Springtime. The birds are nesting, the grass is green, it has been up into the upper 80s and even got up to 90 already… it is with that in mind that I made this bracelet

Year of Jewelry- Week 8- Ram, Lamb, Ewe

Year of Jewelry- Week 8- Ram, Lamb, Ewe

Um, yeah...

I don't do lambs, but i love them, so cute and cuddly. My brother, the rancher used to raise cattle, but also sheep... I know, usually people that have cattle abhor people that have sheep... I guess it goes back to the grazing and over grazing back in the old days. Now, they are pretty compatible? I don't know, but his father-in-law was already in the business, and my brother kind of eased into it. There's nothing like the smell of a baby lamb... but I don't do lambs...

OK, I just didn’t get this weeks Year of Jewelry entry. I don’t necessarily like sheep.  OK , I admit I do like lambs, and I do get excited over wool… especially when it is sheering season and there is an abundance of raw wool in the area… it is nice to even glean the wool from fences, brush, and what is caught in the stalls when they are sheering… but… just sheep doesn’t get me excited to even think of jewelry…

So, it would be wool or, well, nothing.

This is one of those challenges that I don’t really get excited about! I suppose I should, but when I do wool, it is a sweater, a sock, or well… sometimes a felted purse. Aha! A felted piece?

Yes, I can do that.  I can do felted work, I had some black felted wool, and I happen to have some pretty wool that I dyed myself, to use in something way different I also used some shapes that I bought, felted them to the background,added some beads, sequins and a woven beaded 'chain' and …

Well, here you go, TADAAAAA!

Year of Jewelry- Week 7-For My Love

Ahhh, Valentine’s Day!

What a wonderful  “Holiday”!  That is if you have a significant other to share it with… and if you don’t, it can be rather depressing!!

My husband was rather cynical about Valentine’s… he wore black for many years and wouldn’t even talk about it other than to say, Bah, humbug…

When we met, one of the first things he told me was that he hated Valentine’s Day. He said it was because he thought that he would never have another woman in his life and he was tired of hearing guys saying they were buying things for their wives, girlfriends, lovers… and he hated a certain local jewelry store telling men that they were crap if they didn’t buy this or that….

Funny, I told him I hated Valentine’s Day as well, he looked at me puzzled and said, “Why?”…

Well, my birthday is the day before Valentine’s Day and for all those years, I got a valentine/birthday/pink/hearts/combination kind of birthday, and when I was a kid, I guess it was ok, but when I grew up, guys kind of lumped it all together, and my ex had given me presents like… an iron, a lawnmower motor… and  well… not such great birthday gifts, but terrible, terrible Valentine’s Day gifts.That as well as the fact that I always had to work on my birthday AND Valentine's Day, overtime... every year, and I never got to go anywhere... ever... because it was always so late by the time I got off, nothing was still open, or I was too tired to go anywhere...

We had a good laugh. He told me… “Next Valentine’s Day is going to be great!”

I was in love.

So…this is something that I made to kind of remind me that I am happy about Valentine’s Day, even though my husband has passed away and we had way too few holidays together, I still think of him, and think about how much he really liked the day from that first one together… and even though this isn’t something expensive… and it isn’t something big… it has a lot of heart behind it, and that… is what Valentine’s day is all about.