Memorial Day

thebsreport.wordpress.com

“The cost of liberty is less than the cost of repression.” -W.E.B. DuBois

“Although no sculptured marble should rise to their memory, nor engraved stone bear record of their deeds, yet will their remembrance be as lasting as the land they honored.” -Daniel Webster

"We must be prepared to make heroic sacrifices for the cause of peace that we make ungrudgingly for the cause of war. There is no task that is more important or closer to my heart."
Albert Einstein

"The purpose of all war is ultimately peace." ~ Saint Augustine

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty." - John F. Kennedy

5west.wordpress.com

Just some Lovely Awesomeness

fantasy pictures and Celtic music (the fast kind)
Rated PG

Saturday Blog Shoppers

Hello! Back to Saturday Blog Shoppers after I took a week off.

This week I listed my two newest handflowers. I think they're also my new favorites. I really like the connectors and the whole net-style of the chains, and the beads are so smooth and shiny although they're natural stone.


Chained Turquoise Handflower
genuine turquoise beads


Chained Onyx Handflower
genuine black onyx beads

These are lightweight and adjustable at the wrist. It took awhile to make them; I attached the bead pins directly onto the chains instead of using extra jump rings. I made the turquoise one first, and although after that I had some experience with the design, the onyx one didn't quite work right at first. I got the placement of the chains wrong so the wrist came up in the middle; but I fixed it.

I actually took about ten photos of each handflower in order to show the details of the beads and connectors (especially important for the turquoise, which has different patterns of the blue-green and brown), so since an Etsy listing can only have five photos, I made a photo album on my Facebook page just for the extra photos. Actually I put all ten photos of each handflower in that album.

Don't forget the other SBS Bloggers. ;-)

Thanks for looking, and Happy Saturday!

Purposeless Productiveness

Well, it's been an interesting week. Actually it was kind of a blur, and productive but with no ultimate purpose.

All week I was getting things ready for WataugaFest: making price tags, figuring even prices with sales tax included, buying a few supplies... also I made a new bracelet and a necklace. Thursday it was hot; Friday it started getting rainy and the weather things on Yahoo and iGoogle and AccuWeather all said it was going to rain all weekend. So I emailed the WataugaFest people and they told me WataugaFest was canceled. Sadface.

and of course, being the predictably unpredictable weather state that Texas is, it was mostly sunny all weekend without so much as a drop of rain. I'm still trying to find out if they'll reschedule the Fest or just leave it canceled. In the future I need to remember to only do indoor craft fairs.

So I was a little bummed on Saturday. Except for going out with my boyfriend and seeing the movie Date Night, which was really funny. That was a good date. Incidentally we also saw Iron Man 2 with a couple friends yesterday, and that was pretty good.

A couple good things about not having a craft fair is that I didn't have to get up at 5:30AM, and now I get to list my new items on Etsy. Of course things probably would've sold a lot better at the Fest than on Etsy, but still I'd like to freshen up my shop a little with my lovely new items. Right now though I'm trying to redo some photos from a few items already listed, but today Photobucket won't let me finish uploading them. As soon as it's finished I get "connection was reset", and retry and refresh don't help. sigh. maybe tomorrow.

And of course I can still use the things I did last week for the next craft fair I have, which is how I was productive last week. I just kind of feel right now like I wasted my week. Hence the decision to stick to indoor craft fairs, like I told myself I would the last time something got canceled.

And now I'll freshen up this post with some flowers.

here are my sunflowers. It's about time to transplant them outside, just need to find a spot.
here are the strawberries we're attempting to grow in a TopsyTurvy Planter. It's not really working so far. We only get tiny green strawberries which turn into tiny red strawberries that don't seem to be getting bigger.


Here are the lovely flowers that my dad got my mom for Mother's Day.

There was also a woodpecker on our pecan tree but I wasn't able to get a picture of it. And yesterday I saw a blue jay.

Anyway, I hope I can show my new items soon. I like them.

Saturday Blog Shoppers

Hello! It's Saturday again. It's also May, so don't forget to change your calendar. ;-)
For SBS this week I want to show you my Purple Cross chainmaille handflower.




Silver + Purple Cross Chainmaille Handflower

This is actually the second silver/purple cross handflower I've made and the third chainmaille cross one. The first one was a request from a friend, only unfortunately it wasn't as good as this one because my materials were not as good, and because of inexperience I had the cross upside-down and it didn't fit so well. :-] The other one I made was black with a red cross, and I sold that to someone at my church.

Right now the wrist only fits about 6.5 or 7 inches, but I'm going to put a chain on it to make it more adjustable; especially because I'll have it for sale at a craft fair in two weeks (unless it sells on Etsy before the 14th), and it's difficult to get the right size on things unless they're adjustable.

On that note also I will not be participating in SBS on the 15th, and my shop will be in vacation mode from late afternoon on the 14th to late on the 17th or 18th. That way I don't double-sell any OOAK items and I have time to deactivate sold items. After I come back I'll list some new things (unless they all sell at the festival).

Thanks for reading!