I started this post almost a week ago, but life keeps intervening! Today, I am taking charge!
New projects: some of them are Christmas presents!
Teal Cascade II: made for my mum’s 54th birthday! Features: glass bugle beads, beads, glass pearls, dyed freshwater pearls, painted ceramic beads, silver tone accents, wire, and toggle clasp. Similar designs priced at $40; comment here or email me for details!
Blue Rose Earrings: dyed freshwater pearls, painted ceramic beads, silver tone accents, wire, and bead caps, sterling silver-plated hinge-back earhooks. On Etsy for $15 plus $3 shipping!
Elessar and Undomiel Earrings: unknown green stone, frosted glass, Swarovski crystal elements, silver tone wire and accents, sterling silver-plated hinge-back earhooks; faceted glass, Swarovski crystal elements, silver tone wire, accents, and earhooks. More on those names in a bit… These are both presents: here’s to hoping the recipients like them! 
Similar designs priced at $15; comment here or email me for details!
Sky blue Earrings and Necklace: blown dichroic glass beads, sterling silver-plated ball-pins, hinge-back earhooks, and clasp, silver tone wire and chain. On Etsy for $15 and $20, or $23 together (if you convo me!), plus $3 shipping!
Snowfall Bracelet and Earrings: mother-of-pearl, freshwater pearls, cut glass and cats-eye beads, silver tone wire and magnetic clasp (not shown), sterling silver-plated hinge-back earhooks. I started making the bracelet several years ago, and recently found it, the beads, and some cut pieces of wire in my hoard, so I decided to finish it! Other previous projects have fallen under wire cutters or scissors, but this one remains On Etsy for $36 and $20, (0r $53 together if you convo me) plus $3 shipping!
In other news: I’ve been running in the snow twice already this year! Very fun, although my feet got wet and cold both times! I’ve also been reading Ray Bradbury (The Illustrated Man (pretty bleak, for the most part!) and R is for Rocket (much more positive, yay!)), although I’ve put R aside to start reading C J Cherryh’s Foreigner series for probably the 3rd time! It is absolutely AMAZING!!! In short, a human starship is aiming for a good-looking planetary system but ends up at a deadly, radiation-blasting binary star system and barely makes it to another habitable star. Surprise, surprise: the main planet is inhabited! After a hundred years or so, the ship sends down some scientists, one of whom accidentally makes first contact. The aliens (atevi) are pretty foreign (Example: husband and wife have an argument. She could go through the courts and get more money and property back. Nope; she’d rather kill him. Perfectly legal! Just hire from the Guild (of Assassins)). A violent, societally-destabilizing conflict forces all the humans to live on an island, with just one human living with the atevi to act as an interpreter (paidhi) and arbiter of technology between the two species (steam-engine and starship). All of which is well and good until somebody tries to assassinate the paidhi, Bren Cameron! Doesn’t help that, at over six feet, he’s about the size of an eight-year-old to the atevi. Yup. Tall, big aliens, with night-black skin, yellow-gold eyes that reflect like a cat’s, and a completely foreign psyche. Friggin’ A.
I’ve been to see Skyfall (OMG! Daniel Craig, hot cars, and explosions! Now THAT is my kind of movie!) and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (quoting bits of the book back and forth with my dad, and admiring Aidan Turner as the obligatory Hot Guy (well, Hot Dwarf, actually, but it’s the same principle, really), and… umm.. fangirling? squeeing? laughing hysterically at Radagast’s sled-pulling rabbits? yes to all!). For your viewing pleasure:
Do you see why I was… umm… distracted each time he was on camera? “Oh, look, Gandalf is talking to… mmmmmmmmmmmmmm…” XD
And yes, he is my lock/home screen on my phone. I click the button, and his nose/chin/hand appears; I slide to unlock… and his eyes stare straight at me as I try to remember what my 4-digit code is! Seriously, how do I “Enter Passcode” while looking at THAT FACE?!
As you might have guessed already, I LOVED the movie! I thought it was excellent that PJ delved into the appendices and brought out all that material that Toklien only hinted at. Come on, we ALL wanted to know just what Gandalf was doing while the others were in Mirkwood! I do hope, if/when Ebert writes his Hobbit review, it will be 3 stars or more! Oh, and that’s why I named those earrings (Elessar means “green stone,” referring to the stone the famous elvish mariner Eärendil wore; Galadriel gives the brooch to Aragorn when she last sees him in Lórien, and the men of Minas Tirith come to call him Elessar because of the brooch. Undomiel is part of Arwen’s name: it is elvish for “twilight” but was translated into the common tongue as “evenstar,” or “star of the evening”) And yes, I had to wiki-verify some of that (did not know the twilight/evenstar detail). I’m not quite that much of a ringfan!
I will try to have my next post up sooner! Sorry again for the delay 
You will see some cool things, though!
