10/06/2011

Sometimes a Girl Just Needs her Pancakes!


I woke up this morning with a mad hankering for pancakes. The Mister was already off to work and it seemed a little silly to make a batch of pancakes just for one, but I had to have them! To ease my guilt of eating desert for breakfast (and control my blood sugar), I added a generous scoop of flax seeds to my pancake batter.  Then I topped them with fresh bananas, strawberries and a drizzle of real maple syrup from Vermont.


Paired with coffee in my favorite handmade mug (a gift from one of my best friends in the whole wide world), this was a breakfast of perfection. Yum!
Not to worry about all the extra pancakes – when the Mister came home for lunch, he promptly polished them off.

10/03/2011

Sign of the Times or Just Bad Timing?


It’s that busy time of year again when the weather turns cool and the fall show season runs hot for Dream Spiral Art Jewelry. I just had my first two shows of the fall season – Arts Around the Lake (one of my favorite local shows, held at the University of Richmond campus) and Arts on the Grove (a sweet, little show hosted by the 7th Street Christian Church on Grove Ave).
All in all the first two shows were a great success. My only lament is that almost $300 worth of jewelry was stolen during these two shows. One of the “taken ones” was a one of a kind ring that I cast in recycled silver and set with a faceted ruby.

Have you seen me? I am one of a kind and I’m missing.

Missing. Last of my kind.
I was part of a limited Dream Spiral Art edition.

I was stolen, too.

Stealing is wrong, no matter how you rationalize it. But it makes me very sad that someone would steal from an artist.
Each of the tiny treasures that I create holds a tendril of my soul. I design and fabricate each piece of jewelry from beginning to end, nurturing an idea from seed to tree. Everything is created by hand. I use only high quality materials, recycling metal whenever possible. There is integrity in my work. Most of my pieces require hours of labor to perfect and produce – there is usually sweat and aching forearms, sometimes blood when my jeweler’s saw slips from metal into flesh.
When you purchase a piece of jewelry from me, you are purchasing a piece of my story, a piece of my heart and soul, hammered into a precious metal keepsake. That is the journey of handmade.
Mine is a labor of love.
It is also how I keep food on the table, clothes on my back, and heating oil in the ravenous furnace at this old farmhouse.
I love doing shows because I have the opportunity to meet and form face to face connections with my lovely clients, to whom I am eternally grateful. I also love selling online in my Etsy Store as it provides me the opportunity to connect with people across the globe and to sell year round, day or night, regardless of weather. However, in the last 2 years, I have experienced more theft at shows than I did in my first 10 years combined. Is the increase in theft a sign of the times or just bad timing?