Lovely

I don't remember where I found these, but this room is so lovely. Nothing cutesy (I am personally not a fan of overtly cutesy things).

Merry Christmas

May all the joys of the season be yours!

Aftermath

The massive snowstorm has finally petered out, but not until after dumping almost two feet of the white stuff down on us. Today was the Great Dig-Out.

I love this one...our neighbor's Smart Car, not yet cleared...the contrast between the tiny car and the amount of snow it has on top of it is kind of comical.

Our back deck and gate...so much snow!

View from the back deck...

Blizzard

We are under a blizzard warning all day, with predicted snow totals of 18-24". Yikes! They're saying this is a historic, record-breaking snowstorm, with levels not seen since 1932. A car got stuck in the middle of the road in my neighborhood just now. I guess the poor guy isn't going anywhere for the time being. There are also reports of salt trucks overturning - salt trucks. The snow is falling thick and fast - Mr Hazel had just finished shoveling the deck when 2 more inches of snow promptly covered it right back up.

Hello

Moxie says hi.

Pregnancy and crafts

For any pregnant artists and craftspeople out there, I found this interesting article on pregnancy and crafts. I never really thought about it until I got pregnant and realized I should probably stay away from my torch for the time being, but the arts and crafts involve tons of chemicals that could potentially be hazardous: paint, oils, photography materials, dyes, flux, solder. I was really pleased that this has been discussed at least someplace as a reference for us pregnant artists!

New Moon rising

Finally, it's here. It is approximately t-minus 21 hours until zero New Moon hour for me! My friends and I have been crashing email servers all week, eagerly awaiting tomorrow afternoon. So, in honor of New Moon eve, here is some R-Pattz eye candy!

Just because

Mr Hazel got me flowers "just because."

Custom

I finished a custom order for a birthday gift. These are similar to the Bronwen earrings and bracelet, but in sterling silver instead of vermeil.

Twilight Tuesday

A new New Moon preview! Even though there's no Edward in it (boo), I have to admit this was really, really cool. Bella with the wolves. And it looks great.

Treasury

The Bronwen earrings (bottom left-hand corner) made it into an Etsy treasury.

Pretty

Loving home design as I do, I already have lots of ideas percolating in my head, but I absolutely and completely fell in love with this nursery.

A helping hand

The typhoon that struck Manila, Philippines over the weekend caused unspeakable devastation, damage, and loss of life. The scariest part is that this disaster hit close to home, as "ground zero" of the flooding was in my old hometown of Marikina. I shudder to think what my childhood home looks like in the aftermath. Worse, though, is that I have family that were affected, including a cousin I'm close to who had to evacuate her house (including her two little girls) by boat. The pictures and stories coming from there are horrible and tragic. And even worse, another typhoon is being tracked and is predicted to make landfall on Saturday, potentially worsening the situation into a full-fledged humanitarian crisis.

I'm appealing to all to extend a helping hand to the Filipinos who lost so much during this disaster. Many are without food or clean drinking water. If you are able to help in any way, for any amount, it would go a long way towards alleviating the suffering experienced by the victims of this disaster. Donations can be made either through Catholic Relief Services here or the Philippine National Red Cross here, which has made arrangements to enable overseas donors to donate safely via PayPal. The Philippine Red Cross is part of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Much thanks for your generosity on behalf of the victims of Typhoon Ketsana ("Ondoy").

Twilight Tuesday

I'm taking a break from my latest obsession (which would be vampire Eric Northman from the Sookie Stackhouse novels, and specifically Alexander Skarsgard as Eric Northman - but more on that later), to post these great new stills from New Moon. I must admit I am even salivating over the wolfpack, and I'm as far from Team Jacob as you can get. The Volturi also look very impressive. It's definitely looking more and more like New Moon will be of much higher quality than Twilight, with a less of an indie feel and more of a polished, glossy look. Check them out.

A special project

Some of you may have been wondering where I've been hiding myself. For the past few months, I've been working on a very, very special project: I've been nurturing a little bun in the oven! With the result that this past summer I've been very nauseous and exhausted, and haven't had much energy for a lot of things (including tending to my Etsy shop or blogging). My couch and I have really bonded these past months. Thank you, couch!

Because of all the different chemicals involved in the process, I've temporarily halted all metalsmithing for the duration of my pregnancy, but I'm hoping to get back to my table very soon to work on new pieces with beads and wire. I probably won't be around as much these days but once I start feeling better you'll see more of me, so check back often!

Meteorological summer

Today is the last meteorological summer day! My supermarket still had huge crates of peaches, watermelons, and corn on display over the weekend, but I suspect that will soon disappear as fall moves in (and today felt very much like early fall). I've been enjoying a lot of peaches lately, so here they are as you say goodbye to summertime.

Surprise gift

I came home the other day with a surprise gift from Mr Hazel waiting for me on my desk: season 1 of True Blood. Very excited. When the dvd first came out I waffled about whether I should watch this show because I felt kind of like I was betraying my Cullen vampires if I got hooked on another set of vampires. But everyone - Alissa and my Twi-geek group especially - kept raving about how good this show is, so I decided to go for it. Mr Hazel knew how much I've been wanting to see this, hence the surprise.

Twilight Tuesday

Finally, the news I've been waiting for all summer: principal photography has started on Eclipse! The cast all arrived back in Vancouver over the weekend where all kinds of hijinks ensued, including this atrocity (still hoping this doesn't mean they're together for real). It is so exciting to see them all back together again though. Eclipse has started! Summitt also released a new trailer for New Moon; it's very Jacob-centric. I'm worried about how much I'll end up puking at the movie theater each time Bella and Jacob stare soulfully into each others' eyes. Especially during that Jacob shirtless kiss scene. Spare me. Team Edward forever!

Sold pieces

It's been a busy, whirlwind summer with personal projects, birthday parties and all kinds of other things, so I haven't had too many chances of updating the blog of late. But I have been wanting to post an update for a while on my recently sold pieces. Business was pretty brisk the early part of the summer, which was exciting. My metals were particularly popular. I was also very excited when the Uhura bracelet sold! I worked hard on this piece and loved how it turned out, so I was happy to know someone else shared my love for it.

Experimenting

Post earrings, made of lapis lazuli cabochons in a bezel setting.

Twilight Tuesday

Here are pictures of the Volturi in full makeup and costume! I must say, I'm impressed. Especially with Dakota Fanning - she looks nothing like Dakota Fanning as Jane. Marcus looks awesome, so vampiric and menacing. Michael Sheen as Tony Blair...er...I mean, as Aro, still looks a bit strange, but Caius doesn't look half bad. Not sure I really had an opinion on Alec one way or the other, but all in all, I'm rather pleased!

There were exciting developments at Comic Con last week, ending in these two new clips from New Moon. The first clip (admittedly of bad quality) is the motorcycle scene between Bella and Jacob, and I gotta admit, it was cringe-inducing at its best and ugh-worthy at its worst. Ugh. Gross. Forced chemistry and awkwardness! The second clip is more like it - my favorite part of the book, the climactic Volterra scenes where Edward takes off his shirt!

Hydrangeas

My sister gave me this pretty bunch that she picked from her backyard.

Twilight Tuesday

Your Tuesday squee moment, from a photoshoot outtake.

A tulip

This pendant happened quite by happy accident. I was making the two pear shapes for earrings, and noticed that if I placed one on top of the other they make a tulip, and would serve as a pretty cool-looking pendant. And so I did, and it did, and Adeline came to be. She's named after one of the characters from the book I just finished, The Thirteenth Tale (highly recommended as a can't-put-down sort of a book).

Rings

I made these stacking rings as an experiment, and I'm now debating whether to offer them on Etsy because they took me forever to make! They make up a total of eight individual rings in different gauges, and look like a thicker ring when stacked together.

Yellow

Because it's summer, and because it's such a happy color, here are some pretty yellow finds from Etsy shops.

rosebud earrings by PrettyParis

flower ring by VieModerne

clutch purse by Oktak

watercolor painting by Karen Faulkner

rose hair pins by Made With Clay and Love

I am so in love with this dress by Carol Hannah

Chains

The new Tameka necklace isn't named after Usher's soon-to-be ex-wife Tameka Foster, but rather after my good friend Tameka, who also happens to be a fellow Twihard. At first I debated how many circles to include, and settled on three as a good number for now. I like this design a lot, so you might see more variations of this in the near future.

Another one

I had complete fun making this necklace, with all of its contrasting textures, shapes, and neutral shades. I also like how the circles form a mini-link that looks like they are a found vintage necklace from someone's grandmother's trinket box. And then, while thinking up of a good name, I realized I've never named a piece after Princess Leah. How remiss of me! So here is the Leah necklace.

More

We celebrated the 4th of July a day early with a pool party and steaks on the grill, so yesterday I was able to devote about five hours at my workbench, a rarity indeed in these busy times. My back and hands were very achy by the time I was finished, but it was worth it. This one is Skye, after a family friend's daughter whose name I really love! I deliberately made the circles not be perfectly formed and with different sizes so as to give them an organic, slightly messy, unplanned look - though the "unplanned" part is certainly a misnomer, as they were all very meticulously planned.

Circles, circles everywhere

Notice a theme emerging? This is another new piece from the weekend's creativity burst, named Stella. The necklace is similar to Audrey but with an extra circle pendant. For my next project I'm envisioning something similar to these two, but with even more circles bunched together, maybe with a thinner gauge wire, some hammered, some not. We'll see how that works out!

Also, in case you were looking for the Uhura cuff bracelet, I've temporarily taken it down from Etsy to administer some suggested improvements from a couple of friends who did a test run for me. Uhura will be back up soon!

Twilight Tuesday

I happily plunked down $10 for the highly-anticipated copy of US Weekly's special feature called The Sexy Stars of Twilight, which came out this week. Mr Hazel can scarcely believe I spent $10 on something like this, but we'll just ignore him. The magazine includes seven big pullout posters, as well as articles and quotes. I skipped over the feature on Kristen Stewart but devoured the rest, and my favorite was R-Pattz's quote along the lines of how he now sometimes feels like he's in a boy band. How cute!

Since New Moon has wrapped up filming and is currently in post-production, there has been a dearth of movie news, but today an exciting one came out: they released the filming schedule for Eclipse. Filming is to start on August 17 until October 31, again in Vancouver, and using the same set and studio as New Moon.

Cuff bracelet

I made a cuff bracelet for the first time. I've been thinking about the design and construction for a while but didn't have the courage to actually pick up my torch and start creating one lest it ended up in the discard pile, like a lot of my metalwork attempts. But on Sunday I spent the whole afternoon at my workbench, and this is one of the fruits of my labor. My sister has been bugging me to name a piece after Star Trek's Uhura, but I've been waiting until I made something sufficiently funky and sassy and space age-y. I think this one finally looks like an Uhura, doesn't it?

On the ferry

Yesterday we took a ferry to check out a new harbor being developed into an area for new restaurants, stores, and a resort hotel. Upon docking, we unexpectedly ran into old friends, whom I haven't seen in years. That made me happy. Mr Hazel and I enjoyed some lunch and walked around for a bit before boarding the ferry back. It was a gorgeous day to be out on the river among all the pretty sailboats. The last picture is of a bird's nest built on top of a buoy, a sight you don't come across too often.

Sunflowers

Hello, summer.

Twilight Tuesday

A new cover for New Moon. They relegated Edward to a ghostly, hallucinatory image on top of a moon! What were they thinking? You can't even tell it's R-Pattz, much less notice him at first glance. As a member of Team Edward, I say boo on this one. Stupid Jacob with his stupid muscles. And stupid Bella with that come hither pose. Though I do wonder what that 'exclusive poster' is of.

Nature trail

Last weekend we went to the nearby Nature Center for a walk along the trails, where I pretended to be a National Geographic photographer. There were a million dragonflies by the pond, and we saw a family of what we believe were Canadian geese, as well as pretty flowers and turtles. I'm still amazed that I was able to capture the dragonfly in the last picture, because they were flitting about so quickly.