Studio Time: The Dalmation Wears Lipstick

I was trying to figure out what movie I was in the mood to watch the other night. It was a toss-up between Monty Python's The Holy Grail and Mansfield Park.



Does anyone else have this struggle?


Anyway, I find I'm a silly mix of characteristics: 30% pragmatic (it varies daily), 30-40% creative (again varies daily...and this is an aspect of my life I've only recently unleashed), 6% poet, 12% nonsense, 8% humor, and the rest TBD.

Anyway, today's jewelry is a bit of nonsense--I decided to name it

The Dalmation Wears Lipstick

If Pongo took his Missis Pongo out on a date, this is the perfect set that would complement a Dalmation couple. Missis Pongo would dress up in her best red collar with these beads adorning the collar and her bright, beautiful Dalmation fur. An evening of wining, dining, and dancing for a handsome couple.

On the serious side...oh, never mind...this isn't a serious set. It's a perfectly quirky set. Originally inspired by black and white polka dot shoes with red toes and red heels, this is an 18-inch necklace with one of my floral disks dangling at approximately 1.5 inches. It is completely handmade by me. The dalmation spotted beads, the red spacers (in dreamy Sangre red), with three floral disks and one Cruella DeVil organic disk (spotted on one side and white on the back side) are individually handmade, kiln-annealed, and cleaned by me. It's strung up on coils of silver with hand-hammered eye-loops. It is paired with a simple set of earrings that hang 1.75 inches from the drop.

Because I make one-of-a-kind pieces and usually don't repeat the same exact design, I always do a "test-wearing" to make sure it's comfortable, it hangs right, doesn't get twisted up during the day, and there are no uncomfortable, pointy metal ends sticking out. And it wears beautifully. Despite being slightly quirky, it's actually really cute worn...it would look fabulous with a button-down, scoop-neck or v-neck shirt.

The set will be available for $140 in my Artfire shop.

Hong Kong Chronicles: Tram Training

I went to the chiropractor for a migraine last week. I thought, "I'll be smart and cheap and take the $2 tram since it ends up right in front of where I want to be."

$44 later I ended up at my doctor's office. (Note: that's Hong Kong Dollars or about $5.60 USD.)


Sigh. There isn't a single straight street here. Between crooked streets, underground warrens of the MTR, and back alleys, even the most healthy of sense-of-direction egos can suffer bruises here. I have a 95% good sense of direction (thanks, Pops!). And then there is the remaining 5%...
The good news for the directionally challenged is that Hong Kong (city proper) is an island. Mountains on one side, sea on the other. If you get to either one, you've gone too far. You might go in circles endlessly, though.

Back to the story: I was so pleased I got to the tram where my friend showed me to go. It's cheap! $2! It lands me where I want to go! So, I'm paying attention to landmarks and looking for interesting things. I noted a bigger stationery shop. Then we passed Victoria Park and Hong Kong Library. Warning bells should have been ringing, but all I thought was, "Huh. I thought Tai Hang was the other way. Oh, well. Must have been looking at the map wrong."

Then I saw the Tin Hau MTR stop. DING! DING! DING! RED LIGHTS! SIRENS!

Darn it. I WENT THE WRONG WAY!

1 tram ride the wrong way = $2
1 taxi ride to get to my doctor's office = $40
1 tram ride to get the rest of the way because the taxi driver didn't understand enough English to drop me off closer = $2

Then, because I was so late getting there, I wanted to get back to the office in a reasonable fashion. $55 back.

Yeah. My cheap $4 (to-and-from) tram ride cost me $99 HKD.

Well, now I've had my tram training. And usually, two losts make a found for me. Next time I'm lost this way, I should know what I'm doing better.

Yeah. That's it.

Artfully Meandering: Local Street Art

Part of my commute is an area where you can find people performing or begging. There are some disabled ones I see regularly that I occasionally donate to. One of the performing groups is a bagpipe and drum. They're quite good! It's a little jarring to see a Chinese person playing bagpipes, but, again, they're good!

Some of the disabled ones work for their money. They play instruments, draw, do Chinese calligraphy. This street artist has been the one that has blown me away the most.

What moves me about his art: since I've been learning Mandarin, I've been learning (slowly) to read traditional and simplified Chinese. I want to learn to write. I think it's pretty. It's foundation is a pictorial system. It's so fascinating to me. I have been make rough attempts at learning to write for 8 years. It still looks like a 3-year-old wrote it.

This man has no fingers on one of his hands...so using two hands he writes the most perfect blocks of Chinese text I have ever seen.

Side note: I have no idea what it says. The angle is wrong...I can read some of the characters, but I only know about 300 characters. Maybe 400 on the high side. To put that in perspective, according to once source I read, there was a study done on 900 classical Chinese works and they found 5,000 unique symbols. Just so you don't worry, it takes about 1,200 characters to be able to read a newspaper. So, I'm between 25-33% there.

I didn't get better pictures because my camera was on the last morsel of battery juice and I was able to snap only these two. This is the first time I saw him. I hope to see him again so I can get better pictures. Just had to share some local art...there are some incredible artists here!

Studio Time: Create? Administrate?

Help! I can't stop creating long enough to administrate! See all these goodies below? They need to be tagged and stocked in my Artfire shop. But, I can't stop the flow of ideas long enough to do it. I meant to do it tonight. I had my plans: make dinner, study, do some tagging...

Yeah, well, I got dinner in...then I had to divert to play with fire and glass. I was only going to do an hour and well, you know how that goes. Then I went down and cleaned last night's beads and Ideas came gushing out of my head and...well, I just had to keep going!




What's fun for me is the monthly themes I have created have been pushing my brain and I've started seeing a personal style emerge. A style that feels really unique, and really me. It will be really apparent once I can get my act together and finish the administration...then you can see the progression! A little preview is below which is just beginning to segue into next month's theme, "Southwest."

The story for this half-finished piece (I'm undecided on the finish...leather or chain maille...)

I've been doing florals for this month's theme and hit on the floral disk. I'm improving in my skill and execution of the florals. They're getting better, more consistent. Now I'm starting to embellish the disks with frames. One of my neighbors requested a white necklace. Yawn. What can I do to white? Ah! Florals! Of course! So, I do a set of five florals with the intention of creating a convertible necklace that can be worn as one long one or two short ones....(more on that when I actually finish...)

After a series of white beads...MUST DO SOMETHING TO WHITE! Dots! Dalmation dots. I did one bead the first night. It's a Cruella DeVil bead...white on one side and Dalmation dotted on the other. It's not quite a disk, but I'll be using it sometime.

After doing the Dalmation bead, I saw the most delicious shoes. (I miss cute shoes. For the practical girl who didn't have enough money for cute shoes until the last 5 years to go on a starvation diet from cute shoes...it's torture! I try to wear cute shoes, but every time I do, I end up with two feet full of blisters.) I digress...I saw a lady wearing black and white polka-dot shoes with red accents. I've been trying to figure out how to convey that in a bead.

Oila! Below! I'm quite excited with this combo...I think I'm going to call it, The Dalmation Wears Lipstick. I wired up some coordinating spacers on a vine of silver. But, I'm struggling with the finish...

Does the leather bug you? I like it...but, it just doesn't seem right. I was going to fiddle with Double Spiral Chain Maille, but I'm not sure about that either. Or maybe embellished hammered silver wire. Any ideas?

Creative Finds: Artful Blogging

The first time I saw Artful Blogging, I thought, "What? Doesn't that defeat the purpose?" I ended up buying it because I loved the photos of the featured blogs. It was such a pretty journal. Now that I'm here in Hong Kong, it's the only journal I decided to spend the money and shelf space on. Why? First, it features articles from a selection of the best blogs out there. The eye-candy alone is worth the money. Second, it gives great ideas from experienced bloggers on things you can do to improve your own blog. Third, it gives me broad exposure to blogs I might never have found otherwise. It has become a staple in my art library.