Change is Hard

I have been watching She + Him videos nonstop lately while in the studio. This is one of my current favorites. Zooey Deschanel's voice is heavenly live.

Festival Update

The Lexington Fourth of July Festival went well, not super great, but well. I had very high expectations from the event as I had heard that 150,000 visitors were expected. The day started out great as the weather was lovely, but by 2pm the rain had rolled in and by 4 everyone had left due to pouring rain and we decided to pack up early and leave. No point in staying out in the cold rain, ruining my display when there was no one around to buy anything anyway. There was also a parade that lasted an incredible 1.5 hours during which time no one moved from the street to shop. Considering the 3+ hours that were lost due to the parade and weather, it wasn't an awful day. I made more than enough to make the day worthwhile, however, I do not think I will sign up for the event again next year. I was located in Triangle Park with other juried artists (everyone else was located up and down various adjacent streets) and, from what others said, there were significantly fewer juried artists than previous years. I counted seven total artists in Triangle Park (five of which were selling jewelry), which was quite a low number. Usually the park is full of venders. There were actually spots of both sides of me reserved for venders who never showed up. I was disappointed to see that many of the non-juried tents were "information" booths and folks reselling various junk. Overall the festival was a big disappointment. I was however thankful as I was set up for the day more than an hour before the festival offically began. I used that time to take plenty of booth photos. I also wandered through the entire festival and bought some unbelievably delicious Kentucky Cream Candy.

Various photos of my display:

I spent the evening with the hubby. We met for the first time/had our first date on the Fourth of July two years ago. We had dinner at Logan's Roadhouse, where he had taken me for lunch on that day before. We had a super sweet, low key evening together.

New Designs for the Fourth of July Festival

I have been incredibly busy preparing for the Lexington Fourth of July Festival, which I mentioned in my last post. I am super excited about the event. I have a prime spot in Triangle park, under beautiful trees and next to a relaxing fountain. I will be at the heart of the festival. I am expecting a busy day and have been creating lots of new designs for the event.

One of my favorite new pieces is a gorgeous bracelet of vintage lucite beads in dreamy, creamy matte shades of cream, baby pink and brown. I have carefully wire wrapped each of the beads using sterling silver and finished the piece with a sweet sterling silver heart shaped clasp, a length of dazzling extender chain decorated simply with a single brown freshwater pearl. I am in love.

I have two of these pieces available and I really wish I could keep one for myself. I just love vintage lucite beads, especially those with a matte finish. The beads used in this designs are some of my favorite.

I have also been working with more lucite to create several new color combinations of my Vase Earrings. I look forward to debuting all the new designs this Saturday.

Gemstone Shopping and Another Event

The Kentucky Proud Art Fair went quite well last Saturday. While the wind was a force to be reckoned with and several of my displays got damaged (nothing a little elbow grease can't fix), the show was a great success! Unfortunately with the wind issues I was pretty preoccupied after getting set up so I didn't get a chance to photograph my new display. I am hoping to capture some nice photos soon. I am now frantically preparing for the Lexington Fourth of July festival. I was accepted as a juried artist to show at Triangle Park in Lexington from 9am until 6pm on July 4th as part of the Vine Street Festival. One source claims that last year's festival saw over 150,000 visitors, thus I am expecting a busy, successful day!

I have been ordering lots and lots of new supplies as my stock has been painfully low. I ordered some gorgeous gemstones to pair with three vintage brooches which will become one of a kind necklaces.

This gorgeous pink chalcedony briolette is from The Curious Gem on Etsy. I will be pairing it with a lovely vintage Catamore 12K gold-filled brooch with a sweet ivory rose. I am planning on accenting the necklace with some wire wrapped freshwater pearls.

These stunning green onyx cube beads are from Stoney Marie Gemstones, also on Etsy. They will be paired with a vintage Van Dell 12K gold-filled rose brooch with an ivory rose. I am planning on placing the brooch asymmetrically on one side of the necklace and wire wrapping these gorgeous beads at the bottom of the drape. I will also use a few to make a pair of matching earrings.

Lastly are some beauitful deep amethyst cube beads also from Stoney Marie Gemstones. I will be using these similarly to the green onyx beads above. They will be paired with a vintage sterling silver bow shaped brooch which will be placed asymmetrically with the amethyst wire wrapped to drape beautifully. A pair of matching earrings will also be made.

I am really excited about these new gemstones and can't wait to see how the designs turn out.

Kentucky Proud Art Fair

Unfortunately I have been a bit MIA lately. I have been busy working. I only have 3 free Saturdays all summer, as all the others I am booked for various fairs and festivals. It is exciting but a bit overwhelming. I need to invest in two new tables for my studio. I currently have two and a desk, but the two tables I use are also my display tables for shows and I have to clear them of my work and take them down every week for shows, then put them back up so I can work. It's a wee frustrating. I also had some laptop issues this past weekend, and thanks to Dell's incredibly awful technical support, it took me one system restore and about 6 phone calls to convince Dell that I needed a keyboard replacement. They wouldn't listen to me during my initial call when I described my issues and insisted it was a keyboard problem. They forced me to restore my system and go through about a million steps before they were convinced the keyboard didn't work. At any rate, a technician came on Tuesday, replaced the keyboard in a couple of minutes and all the problems were resolved. I'm glad I finally have a functional computer again, but I have yet to find the time to move all my files and documents back to my laptop.

Anyway, speaking of shows... I will be participating in the Kentucky Proud Art Fair which will be hosted by Good Foods Market & Cafe in Lexington this Saturday from 10am until 2pm. I have been working this week of tweaking my stud earring display and I am quite delighted with the result. I cannot wait to see how it looks with the rest of my set up this weekend. Today I am going to be busy making some new pieces for the show. I am planning on focusing my time on making bracelets, more stud earrings and perhaps some cute rings with vintage buttons. I need to design some new dangle earrings as well. I have been a bit limited with my designs lately as my supply stock is running incredibly low. I need to order lots of new vintage pieces as well as some more sterling and gold fill findings. I will have to do some serious supply shopping in the next few days. I was accepted as a juried artist for the Lexington Fourth of July Festival, which should be quite a busy show. I am planning on designing lots of new pieces to debut at the festival. Hopefully I'll be able to share sneak peaks with you along the way.

I will be bringing my camera to the Kentucky Proud Art Fair this weekend. I plan to finish setting up a good 15 minutes before the fair starts so I can *hopefully* capture some decent photos of my set up. I really need to have pictures of my display for future applications. I'll be sure to share them with you all here as well.