This and that and our creative friend, Sam

Hello friends!

I am trying to keep up to date with my posts so I wanted to let you know what I have been up to the last few days.

 

Remember all of my pretty new packaging things? I got an organizer for them! Ahhhh they all have a nice little organized home instead of being in piles on top of and under my desk! It's so nice to have things tidyed up.

So on Monday I ended up having a play day with mom and our friend Sam who's name is actually Geline(like Evangeline). I just snapped a few pictures from our visit as most of it was some show-and-tell of moms and my art work.

 

This is Sam's "stuido in a box".  Sams studio is in her basement where she would prefer to spend most of her time, but her hubby Richard enjoys spending time with her upstairs. Her compromise for both of them was her "studio in a box" so she can create up stairs while enjoying time with her hubby ;)

 

Inside Sam's box was one of her sketch books with many of her doodles. Sam is one of the most amazingly artistic people I have the pleasure of calling my friend. Here are some of her doodles. Mom and I thought the top right drawing looked like it could be translated into a jewelry piece.

 

I really love this drawing on the top right again. It looks like an octopus with leaf arms and little pebbles.

 

Look at these! She even did one in color! WOAH...I love these leafy looking ones too!

 

Holy crap! Can you believe this colored one? It reminded me of pomegratate seeds and I forget what else I said, but it's absolutely amazing, isn't it?!

 

We decided to go out for lunch and it was CURRY MONDAY at my favorite local Thai  restaurant, Tasty Thai. Curry Monday is when they do a buy one get one for a dollar curry dishes that come with an egg roll and soup for the lunch special. So here is a pic of mom on the left and Sam on the right. Sam is showing us how the Zentangle drawings are started.

I hope in the busy days that have been surrounding you, you have chosen to "play hookey" and carve out some fun art time with friends.

See you soon!

xo Genea

Bridesmaid Jewelry!

Hello friends!

So if you remember my post from the other day I was talking about finishing my jewelry for the wedding. I decided last minute to put together some beads and jewelry for my dress. 

 

Here is my dress! Perfect huh? Nice and BRIGHT! None of the wedding party will be matching so we just had to get a cute sun dress. This dress is not only pretty, but it flatters my body shape so much! It feels like the dress was tailored to me specifically :D It's such a nice feeling to put something on and feel gorgeous in it!

 

So the other day during my amazing lampworking session(one of those days where you are just amazed at your artistic skill) I whipped up these flower beads to match my dress. They flowers on the dress are pretty free form so I made this big disc, creased some petal shapes and then pressed across the length of the flower to give it a petaly feel.

I, for once in my life, decided to do something really simple. I grabbed some sari silk, leather and wire and quickly assembled this piece! It looks fantastic with the dress! Just perfect enough to catch your eye, but also blend beautifully!

 

Here is the jewelry worn :D

I'll post some wedding photos after this weekend! 

Have a great weekend and see you soon!

xo Genea

New Packaging!

Hello friends!

I'm excited about my new packaging I have been working on! After receiving such amazing wrappings from my dear friend, Karen Totten I decided to step up my packaging!

So first I had always seen my logo as a stamp in my mind. I could use this stamp for all sorts of things like hand stamping my own cards, bags, boxes , whatever...

Here is my stamp. The one on the left is my silicone stamper. On the right is a traditional rubber stamp. I bought my logo stamp from my rubber stamp 

So my original idea was to use acrylic paint, brayer the paint together to make a gradient and stamp.

The paint was kind of thick....

So I tried, and tried, and tried. I even tried some old stamp pads I had lying around and those didn't quite work right either....

 

This was about the best one I got. Dang.... still not quite right.

So off to the store I went in search of an ink pad. My rubber stamp suggested using adirondak stamp pads. I went to my local crafty stores to see what they had. While looking I found these amazing inks by Color Box. Mmmmmm just my colors all in one stack!!

 

Here is a photo of the stack with my stamper, a stamped box and my matching sari silk. the photo is a little dark since I took it with my cell phone, but you get the idea ;)

 

Now to make the cards! My friends have a Silouette machine(its like that Cricket scrapbooking machine). My friend Brandon created me a circle shaped card . While Brandon is creating the image he ask me "Do you want perforations?". I said "Perforations?! YES!!". So I'm thinking it's just a line, right? NOPE, it's a cut dashed line so that you can fold the card perfectly in the middle! Wow, fancy pants machines they make now a days!

Here aer some of the cards cut out. They look like boobs or bikini tops. Lol. When the machine cuts out the images it sounds like an evil circus. If you have ever heard those engraving machines, that is exactly what the sound is. All these funny pitches and noises. I think its some sort of weird robot language. It may have been trying to rally my printer and keyboard against me! Why knows... 

After the cards are folded they get inked. They  are ALL INDIVIDUALLY INKED ONE at a time by my hands. I take the colors and hand mix them as well to get that pretty gradient. So in short, THESE CARDS ARE A LOT OF WORK! So when you receive one, just at least keep it for a little while? ;)

Like little soldiers.

 

Here's a close up. Again the photo is a little dark from my phone, but you get the idea. I had some ask me why I didn't print on white. Well here is why... I wanted my items to have that hippy recycled feel. Kraft colored paper seemed like the perfect way to give my work that look and feel :)

Now onto the silk. I have loved recycled sari silk since the first time I have even realized it was around. I am a super green girl, so I LOVE all things recycled. So this recycled sari silk was PERFECT for my new recycled hippy packaging!

 

I purchased my lovely silk from Nancy Camp-Zolun. When I ordered I told her what my ideas were for my packaging so she kindly sent me a variety of her silks for me to see in person and decide on my color :D Wow, huh?! They were all so beautiful, but the multi-colored greeny/teal/aqua "Tropic Seas" was my absolute favorite!

 

Here is my bundle of silk that arrived today! It's even prettier all unraveled! 

 

So here is what some of the finished packaging looks like. I love the idea of having a silk tie around my packaging. It's a little extra bonus to be used for designing as well as looking awesome! Again, if you don't end up using the silk, please recycle it, give it to  a friend, tie up a gift, whatever, just re-use it! :) In the future I plan to order some kraft colored boxes like in the photo above. 

I also received some wonderful goodies recently that I would love to show-and-tell.

  

I received these lovely beads from Karen Totten! I can't tel you my plans for them yet since I don't know who reads my blog(they are gifts) ;) Anyways, I am super excited about these and can't wait to get them worked up into something! 

Well it's still crazy hectic around here so hopefully things will settle down after our friends wedding this weekend.

See you soon!

xo Genea

Reduce, Reuse, Recycled... BEADS & Headpins!

Hello friends!

Yes, I am still alive. I bet you may have noticed the dust around here ;P Well it's been hectic to say the least. So I guess before I go into my topic of today, I will fill you in on what you've missed in my personal life(I won't be offended if you skip this part to get to the beads) ;P

Ok so it's been hard to leave everyone in the dark about what's been going on. So in short here is what you have missed. Remember me coming home for a "family thing"? Well that family thing was mom having some surgery. She went through her surgery and is recovering well *whew*. Then dad ended up having a visit in the ER. He is doing fine as well. *double whew*. So through that all I have been super busy caring for them and doing the normal house duties for their house and on our basement floor along with caring for our dogs and theirs. I am POOPED to say the least. I didn't get much work time in, but am slowly getting time to create and blog.

Ok other big news, so with me coming back "home" to care for mom after her surgery, we decided to move back to Kansas City, Missouri. Yep, you heard it. We loved the PNW and Portland, OR for sure and miss it, but we really did miss family and friends as well as feeling like I should be home with mom for her surgery. So Ricky transferred his job to the 24 hour fitness in Shawnee Mission, KS(about 30 mins from us). He also got a teaching job at the school in which he graduated(Pinnacle Career Institute, North Campus)! So we are really excited about that! 

You know moving back to the midwest we don't have transit like the Northwest, which is a total, 

bummer, BUT.... we got his amazing little 2011 Kia Rio! 

It's actually a compact car, but in this shot it looks kinda big. It gets 36 highway and 27 city. We are pretty stoked since Ricky's trip to work for training is 50 miles! Yikes! 

Ok so about those recycled beads...

 

I took these...

 

and did this...

 

and this...

 

and this(yeah takes longer to melt the glass down than make the beads ;P)

 

and made THESE!

Here's what I have to offer YOU...

 

"Spiral Earth Coins"-Ice Aqua 

 

Earth Droplets"Ice Aqua"

 

 Spiral Earth Coin "Kelly Green" 

Earth Droplet "Kelly Green"

 

Spiral Earth Coin "Olive" 

Earth Droplet "Olive"

 

Spiral Earth Coin "Root Beer"

 

Earth Droplet "Root Beer"

Now how about some inspiration? Remember this bracelet Staci Smith created for herself with my beads? I absolutely LOVE it!

 

Are you drooling over her jewelry? You can collect some here :D

Want to see my latest treasures from Staci? They just arrived in the mail the other day!It was such a nice surprise to have these gorgeous beads in my mail box!

 

Don't worry, we are also working on our collab beads while we are away from our blogs. Staci even took some amazing pics of our beadies happily hanging out together. You can read about it here on her blog !

Have an amazing day! See you soon!

xoxo Genea