Fresh from the desk: Abstract in green

Spring is very slow to get started here.  We've only broken 75 degrees a couple of days so far, the vast majority hovering around 60 with rain and wind.  Let me tell you how un-thrilled I am about this.  It's abnormal for this area for it to be so wet and chilly coming up on June, though I guess last year was about like this too.  Not for this long, maybe... it took us until the middle of May last year to get 3 dry days in a row so that my mobile home could be moved up the hill, since it got stuck in the mud the first day we moved it.  We haven't had many more dry days in a row than that so far this spring.  It's wearing on my nerves and patience, being the solar-powered girl I am and considering the number of projects I need to work on outside that I'd like to get done before the heat of the summer hits. 

I didn't start this post to whine!  I'm sorry!  What I meant to say was I have green on the brain.  In more ways than one really, I'm ready for the lush leafy summer we're destined to have after all this moisture and I'm looking for more ways to be self-sufficient and reduce my carbon footprint.  So far, that includes yogurt, which I'm still experimenting with, but that's for another day. 

I found the soapstone centerpiece for this and have been wondering what to do with it.  It's rather thick, mostly a pale green with some flecks of orange/coral, with a symmetrical shape and an asymmetrical carving on both the front and back.  Considering the shape and size of it, I figured the necklace should be around choker length so it would lay the best.  A comfortable slightly long choker length for me is 16", so that's what I went with here.  It lays comfortably just below the hollow of my throat.  Since the hole is drilled lengthways, it's not a pendant really on its own, but it's simple enough that I didn't want to overload it with anything too flashy.  I beaded a simple daisy chain for it, alternating between green foil-lined bugle beads and matte bone white large seed beads, all surrounded by forest green seed beads.  It's a simple piece, but I think the soapstone is showcased the way it should be.

It's time to build up my inventory for my next Saturday show.  This one I'll be doing alone, but that's alright.  More to come!

Spring Fever: Playing with milk

Spring is the time to plant gardens in an attempt to lessen your family's dependence on the outside world a little bit, yes?  It's fun, it's a good teaching/learning opportunity for all family members no matter how young or old, and if planned well can be pretty easy.  I'm not an expert gardener, and at this point I'm still working on landscaping so I don't have a place to plant anything yet... but my point is along these lines.

I love yogurt.  I grew up on yogurt and vegetable soup.  I've always been picky about which brands I like, what flavors, all of that.  I'm a picky eater and I'm finding it easier to work around foods I don't like but still come up with fantastic meals.  One ingredient that I absolutely can't tolerate is mayonnaise.  If mayo has come within 6 inches of anything I'm planning to eat I can taste it on there and it makes me gag.  I'm not sure why, exactly... the ingredients are all fine.  Do you know how hard it is to go to a cookout and avoid mayo?  It's the go-to base for most typical American salads and dressings.  I won't even go into fried foods.

Before I get too far off track, back to yogurt.   Thick yogurt can be substituted in most recipes that use sour cream or mayo, both things I don't like the taste of, as well as a surprising list of other personal-care uses.  Mom used to make her own yogurt all the time so she had a little yogurt maker.  With the food prices rising the way they are now and our recent discovery of how much we all looooove Greek yogurt, she got the yogurt maker back out, much to my surprise.  I was so little when she used it before I didn't even realize she had it and how easy it was.

Start with milk.  Any kind you like, any fat content, cow or goat.  I haven't tried almond or soy milk with this yet, and it may not work with the cultures, but I haven't done any research on it.  Next you need some starter cultures.  There are tons of options here depending on how probiotic or specialized you want it to be.  We started with this one that we found at the Earth Goods store in town.  Actually, you really only need one starter packet to get started if you reserve 1/4-1/2 cup of your yogurt from your batch to start the next one.  My yogurt maker will hold 4 cups of milk, so to allow for my starter I heat up 3 1/4 cups skim milk to about 110 degrees F.  Most instruction booklets tell you to boil the milk then let it cool, but all that does is pasteurize the milk again and kill more of the beneficial enzymes that survived pasteurizing in the first place.  Starting with regular pasteurized milk, I don't boil it because I don't want to scorch it and I want some nutrition to survive.  Then I add 1/2 cup dry fat free milk to naturally thicken it up.  Mom found a great article in one of her magazines about yogurt making so that's where I got most of these tips.  First I tried a packet of gelatin to thicken it after my first batch was way too runny, but that didn't work either.  Dry milk is just right!  When the milk is the right temperature (too hot and it kills the cultures, too cold and they don't activate), I add in my reserved previous batch and stir it in well before pouring it all into the yogurt maker jars.

All yogurt makers are essentially the same.  They come with 5-8 small jars and keep the cultured milk at a steady temperature of 105-115 degrees F for as long as you set the timer for.  Mom ordered this one for me and it works great.  Hers is about 30 years old and she ordered some replacement jars at the same time, but it still works just fine.  The longer the yogurt cultures, the tangier it gets.  At first I thought longer culturing would result in thicker yogurt, but instead it ended up way too tart for me.  The instructions that came with my yogurt maker said to start with 10 hours and adjust from there, but this time I only went for 8 hours.  With the dry milk, it was nice and thick but with a smooth mild flavor. Make sure it chills first before you eat it, though.

Next, you can strain it to thicken it a little more.  If you can get the hang of cheesecloth, that's great, but it ended up being way too much trouble for us.  When Mom ordered her replacement jars and the yogurt maker for me she also ordered a yogurt cheese maker, which really is just a plastic container with a built-in strainer.  If you just strain your yogurt for a couple of hours it'll thicken nicely and you won't get that watery separation.  The watery part is whey, which has a long list of health benefits and i plan to experiment with it so as to not waste something so nutritionally potent.  First thing I'll try with mine is substituting it for milk when I make bread.  The mistake I made with this batch of yogurt, being my first batch with dry milk, was that I let it strain overnight so I ended up with a very thick cream-cheese textured yogurt cheese, which wasn't what I wanted, but it's great on toast with a touch of unsweetened strawberry preserves!  Also, that one little piece of toast was surprisingly filling.  I have another batch running now so I'll probably save some yogurt cheese for toast but mix the rest in with today's batch so I have one large batch of thick, mild yogurt to eat for breakfast with some of my homemade granola.  Yum!

Fresh from the desk: Changes in motion

Just a quick update.  I decided to let go of my extra day job up in Rapid City.  It always ended up wasting the whole day for not enough profit, so I told them last Monday that it would be my last day there.  They were a little bummed but they understood my situation and the agent was actually going to ask me soon if it was still worth it.  It was an iffy experimental job really, they needed some work done and I needed a little money but it was just not quite practical.

Good thing I told them when I was there, actually, so I got a chance to really say goodbye.  The next day, my boss at my main job and I sat down to chat about my progress with various areas of my job, sort of a mini-evaluation but I wasn't really nervous about it.  As it turns out, he can give me a $.25 raise and one more day per week, so now I'm up to 4 days!  We'll keep it up while business is decent for sure, though if the economy doesn't pick up by the time winter hits we may need to go back down to 3 days.  That's alright, it's definitely great news!

Lessons with my violin student have been going okay.  She's only 6, and she's a touch on the hyper side, and not being a mother or babysitter or ever having any siblings, I don't know what to do with a wired 6-year-old!  I have a few ideas to use at the next lesson, some rhythm games and such, so maybe I'll be better prepared when her mind takes off in a different direction.  I'm still thinking I should put an ad out for more lessons, get a few on one day a week.  I need to get a few things planned out first before I launch into that, and I want to take a viola lesson from my cello teacher just to be sure my technique is on the right track.

Crocheting is going well!  My first project is a blanket.  It's a surprise present for a friend (sssshhhhh! lol) so I'll hold off on pictures until it's done.  It's a ridiculously easy pattern that's coming together fairly quickly.  Oddly enough, it seems to be the perfect thing to do after supper when my cat insists on sitting on my lap (and I mean insists... he'd climb onto my dinner plate if it was in the way) but I can't handle just sitting there not working on something.  He doesn't mess with the yarn, we just turn on a movie and chill for a bit.  

I had a few custom jewelry orders to work on over the past week or two, and the most challenging was definitely a pair of earrings to match a necklace owned by the woman who was my babysitter when I was 2 or 3.  I barely remember from that... but since I've been home, I've seen her and her husband around town a lot so we keep in touch a little now.  This picture didn't turn out the greatest... the lighting was a little odd that day, but the necklace had a few red lampwork beads and several square and round faceted red beads, each flanked by a small hematite, spaced out on 3 strands.  I suspect the red beads may have been plastic... they weren't heavy enough to be glass.  What she wanted was a pair of drop post earrings like these that I had on display in bright red and amber, but with round darker red beads to match the necklace.  It was tough to find them, but I did after much shopping, and it was easy to put them together.  I forgot to take the necklace with me when I went shopping (oops... good thing I studied the color when she handed it to me!) so I didn't really notice the little hematite beads until I got everything home and started working on it.  Luckily, i always keep some hematite beads on hand since they're so versatile, even if they were a little larger than the ones on the necklace.  She loved them!  She has some graduation parties to attend this weekend and next for some grandchildren, so she was glad to have a matching set to wear to them all.  Success!

I've been away from home way too much the last few weeks so having a 3-day weekend with minimal plans is sooooo nice for me right now.  Speaking of that, I need to plan some meals.  Enjoy your weekend!

Spring Fever: Spring Cleaning Part 1

Greetings my loyal followers!  It's been a wet, chilly spring here, which has caused its share of issues and frustration compared to how spring used to be here.  The weather has been just plain crazy for a few years... but I won't get into the climate change debate here. ;)  Today's exciting news is that my two little ash trees we planted last fall survived the winter and have brand new leaves on them today!  Yesterday the little buds were still sealed up so tight I wasn't sure they'd ever leaf out.  Those poor trees lived in their gallon buckets for too long, and we didn't get them planted until very late in the summer, plus it was a nasty winter, so because they had taken so long to show any sign of life I was wondering if they made it.

Now it's finally getting nice enough outside to see some progress outside as well as inside the house.  I've been doing some of these things in stages over the last month or so, but here's a full list of what I've done so far that would be considered "spring cleaning."  Some of it may be a stretch to fit that definition...hehe!

1.  Winter clothes are washed and stored in plastic tubs and spring/summer clothes are now out of storage.  I keep a few hoodies and a sweater cardigan around to toss on when it's chilly, but the heavy work sweaters are all put away now.  There are a few reasons I do this twice a year.  It gives me a reason to go through everything and purge items that don't fit, never fit quite right, didn't get worn much, or are just plain wrong and get them ready to donate to the Salvation Army. (They got a new building last year and the store is HUGE! We always donate there because we know it will immediately be shopped for locally and it's easy enough to drop stuff off when we go up there).  It's been a struggle to let go of the "wishful thinking" jeans that I wore a few years ago and other similar pieces; they don't provide any true motivation to actually lose, all they do is take up space and give me a pang of guilt every time I see them.  The other main reason, other than just to keep my dresser and closet minimal, is that often I'll get a blouse or something on clearance at the end of the season, wear it a couple of times, then put it away.  When I get it back out for the next season, it's fun to take out because I often forgot I even had it!
2.  Mattress is vacuumed and turned.  I flipped it in January or so, but it's wearing out so I decided to turn it 180 degrees so it wears a little more evenly.  In a few months I'll flip it again.  Why vacuum?  Dust mites.  Gross, huh?  Yeah.  Just a little vac is probably not doing me a whole lot of good there, but at least I try, right?  I have lots to get done elsewhere so that's probably about as far as I'll get on this particular project for now.  My allergies haven't been near as bad lately as they used to be so I'm doing alright. :)
3.  My computer and cello have both been taken in for service.  This one's probably a stretch... but it certainly can't hurt to have the computer cleaned out or the cello soundpost adjusted and bridge replaced.  Probably needs new strings too but we'll see how it is when I get it back.  Both were behaving badly for the last several months so it was time to at least get them looked at, if not fixed.  The computer's just plain dying, which is sad and nervewracking, but I'm saving up for a new one.  The cello just probably needs a couple adjustments and it'll be alright.
4.  I've wiped out and disinfected the bottom cabinets in my kitchen, and everything in them.  I've had lots of mice recently and they can get into the wall and therefore the bottom cabinets, so that was a necessity.  It should be done every couple of months anyway.  I'm not sure whether the mice are coming in on their own or if the cats are bringing them in to play with... it's really hard to tell... but now I have a couple mousetraps working 24/7 to get it under control if the cats aren't helping lol.
5.  Another stretch... I've joined Weight Watchers.  It's working slowly, and it's tricky to plan my meals right, but I'm working on it steadily.  I have a vow renewal to go to (and look good for!) in July and I was sick of the plateau I was stuck on since January.  Overhauling my eating habits is like a spring cleaning project, right? hehe!
6.  I'm in the process of cleaning and ironing the curtains.  They haven't been up for very long but I still had to paint a few of my window frames so I figured while I had them down I could get them ironed nicely before they go back up.  Some of them can't be machine-washed, mostly the nice new thermal/dark ones (not sure they're complete blackouts, but they do a darn good job), and that's okay.  I'll vac the fluff off of them and iron them too when I get done painting those windows.  I'll get the office ones back up today, though I need to adjust the rod first.  It got put up rather crooked... oops!

I have lots left to do.  This is by no means the end of my spring cleaning projects, just what I've done so far.  We'll be installing baseboards in the next few weeks so my next project today is to vacuum really well down in all the edges and corners so I'm not permanently sealing Q-tips into the floor!  My younger cat loves to steal my used Q-tips out of the bathroom garbage and play with them.  Of course, because I have no baseboards yet, they easily roll into the gap between the wood floor and the wall and promptly get stuck.  Why does she do this?  I have no idea!  She's a strange little kitty lol.  She likes my used cotton balls too, even with astringent on them.  Beats me.

When I need to be done cleaning for the day, I have a necklace, anklet, and earrings to work on (each from separate custom orders), then to get started on my first crocheted baby blanket!  I practiced my stitches last night so I'm just about ready to get going on it.  Happy Spring!

Spring Fever: I'm just plain crazy.

I'm seriously considering taking up crochet.  Why does this make me crazy?  I have a million other things on my plate already and I still haven't decided for sure what to do about my job situation so time is still a major issue. 

Pros: 
1.  I always have trouble finding belts, headbands, cardigans, etc. that do what I need them to do.  This will make all that MUCH easier on me considering how often I get to actually go clothes shopping for a specific item like that.
2.   I already have ideas for crochet-bead jewelry.
3.  Looks like fun, and not too hard to figure out considering many, many hours of my childhood were spent tying the house up in knots, right Mom?

Cons:
1.  Time.  I'll have to make room for it and I rarely sit down long enough for anything like that because, frankly, I have a lot to get done.  All the time.
2.  I'm good at starting gung-ho on projects that never get past halfway finished.  I must have inherited that.
3.  Cost...kinda, if I get into the fancy yarns, which I won't for a while... but again, this will expand opportunities for my crafting business.

I should pick up some macrame anyway since I'm working in hemp now too.  Perhaps I'm just fidgety and feel that learning something new will kinda propel me out of the rut I'm in.  I've only been out of school for a couple of years, maybe my way of coping with that and the transition to "real life" is to need to learn something completely new once or twice a year or so.  Hmmm, there may be something to that.  For now, I need to paint my window frames so I can maybe put my curtains back up this weekend.  It's finally a nice weekend and I'm finally getting some work done around here!  Yay!

This life is too short.

It's a sad day in our little town today.  A truly gentle soul was taken in a no-fault traffic accident yesterday and we're all still reeling from the impact. 

This life is too short for misery.  It's too short for regrets.  Events like this rock me to the core and remind me that life is fragile, fleeting, temporary.  Most things that bother us from day to day really don't matter, in the grand scheme of things.  Does this belt really work over this cardigan?  It doesn't matter.  What does matter is taking the time to appreciate the people in your life and enjoying it as much as you can.  If that means making a scary change in order to give happiness a chance to grow, then do it.  Any minute could be our last, and yet if I do make it to 95 I don't want any "what-ifs" plaguing my final thoughts. 

Be at peace, Anthony.  Many thoughts and prayers are with your family.

Fresh from the desk: Beaded bookmarks

I'd like to be up and about, but since I sat down it's required that I hold a cat.  I've been gone a lot, so I may as well indulge him and write while I sit, right?

These are actually an older project that Mom and I worked on while she was making ornament covers and we had leftover lampwork or Millefiori beads to use up.  They're quick and easy to make and because of the beads I have left over from various projects, each one is unique.  They're listed for sale at Etsy now as well, and I can certainly work with any color requests.  They vary in length from 10"-14" long and most of them are on a dyed strip of leather, but some are on a string of lightweight white hemp.  I just clamped a loop tip to each end, attached a few links of chain, chose a large bead for the focal point, then added other smaller complementary beads.  I think they're adorable and they sold pretty well at my latest Saturday show.  I have one that I use for my books and Mom used to use one before she got her Kindle.  For these, I tried not to use fancy beads or my natural stones since I wanted to keep the cost down.  I wanted them to be cute little impulse buys, and it's slowly starting to work that way.  Occasionally I'll find a package of lampwork beads on clearance that I just can't resist, and inevitably a few of them end up on bookmarks.

Occasionally I'll decide on a theme for one.  For example, the one on the far left in the picture is slightly patriotic, with red, white, blue, and silver stars.  It's possible to make these without a focal point bead, but what's the fun in that?  Lampwork and Millefiori beads are way too much fun to ignore!  Actually, I should work with them more.  That's an idea!

Fresh from the Desk: New pieces listed on Etsy!

My Etsy Shop now has double the listings it had before!  Go check it out and see if there's anything that needs to go home with you! :)

Among the new pieces is this one, a slightly tribal carved bone pendant on Sterling Silver memory wire.  I had a little trouble with what to do with this pendant.  It's quite a statement piece, isn't it?  My boyfriend looooooooooooooooves it.  I love the nautilus spiral, but when I got it home I was at a loss for what to do with it.  It sits slightly off-center just because of the shape and the placement of the drilled hole and I didn't have anything that would really complement it on a beaded or hemp necklace like I've been working with previously.  I figured it was time to get the memory wire out again and I'm glad I did.  This slightly tribal pendant needed a stronger treatment than hemp or a beaded chain, but I didn't want to go wild with colors either because it is such a strong piece on its own.  I started looking through my black beads to see what I could come up with and came across my black iridescent Czech glass dagger drop beads that I haven't used in far too long.  The fire polishing gives them a distinct green-blue iridescent shine on one side so it's been a little difficult for me to find an effective use for them as well.  But, once I paired them with the pendant, it all started to come together.  I got out the green shell spacers I used for the custom turtle necklace a while back, some black resin beads, and some silvery shell beads and strung it all on some memory wire so that it sits just at my collarbones.  It could be stretched out to sit a bit lower, but I won't worry about that.

It's now available for $15 on my Etsy shop so go take a look if you'd like!  Again, Happy Mother's Day to all you lovely Mamas out there!

Second Saturday show a success!

Yesterday was our second try at setting up at The White Elephant and, again, we did pretty well!  We're combining my jewelry with some household rummage sale stuff we need to get rid of, but either way it's gone well both times.  This is what my table looked like at the start of the day, but it got a little windy so the necklaces ended up on the table instead of on their velvet cards.  That turned out to be okay actually, people were more willing to pick the pieces up than when they were on the cards, so I may do that more often.  Maybe just set up one standing display so you can see from a distance that there are necklaces there, but have the rest on the table?  Also, on the right is my earring display board.  I make my earring cards out of card stock and Dad built the display board for me, so I think it looks pretty nice but my earrings don't sell nearly as well as my necklaces do.  Any thoughts? 

Next in line is to bump up my marketing.  I need to get the unsold pieces listed on Etsy so I hope to do that today, then start working on brochures for custom orders to hand out around town.  My parents' personal banker suggested that and I think it's a fantastic idea!  Certainly couldn't hurt to try.

Happy Mother's Day to all the lovely mothers out there!  Hope you all have a glorious day. :)

Fresh From the Desk: Time for a change?

Purple glass donut pendant on off-white and
matte blue daisy chain, with rose quartz chips

Carved resin pendant on knotted hemp,
with wood and bone beads

Resin pendant on brown and off-white bead chain,
with brown shell and peace jade

I finished that purple necklace tonight, as well as two more! :) The pictures are bad.  Yeah.  Sorry, I'm in a hurry.  After this weekend I'll take some better photos of what I have left.  Actually, that brings me to my first bit of news.  Someone at our bank is interested in her own piece, which is easy enough, but she suggested that I bring in catalogs or something to distribute when people ask about it.  Hmmmm, that sounds like a great idea!  I don't know if I can pull together a full catalog in any kind of decent time, but I can work on a tri-fold brochure or something with examples of what I can do and options for your own custom piece.  Thoughts on this?  Have an example of hemp, daisy chain, and straight beaded, with options of length, color, and whether there's a pendant?  I think it may be worth a try.  It certainly can't hurt to print off a stack for her, she sees lots of people every day.  This means I need to start scheduling in dedicated time to my marketing.  I have also had a few order/requests from friends this week, which unfortunately will have to wait until I can get up to Rapid to shop again, but all these are signs that things are picking up for some reason. 

I'm also starting to teach violin lessons next week.  I'm not a violinist, and I never said I was, but I have taken the classes, I do play cello, I know the Suzuki method, and the student is only 6 years old.  This one I may be able to handle for a little while.  I'm nervous about it since I don't play violin, and haven't since that one half-semester in 2002 or something when I took the class.  I'm debating advertising for my lessons and setting aside a day each week for them, but I'm nervous about getting lots of requests for instruments I don't play, like the violin.  Piano or guitar, those I can pawn off on someone else in town...those I can't even pretend to play well enough to teach lol!  Also, I don't have a good centralized location for them.  My books, instruments, and tools are at my house, obviously, but it's not quite ready for company yet, it's not really set up for it anyway, and parking will be an issue if I have several in a row.  Maybe once I get the island finished, baseboards in, latch on the bathroom door, and the huge wood box out of the living room...but I digress.  My house isn't a good place right now.  I could use my parents' house, but it's their house so I'm not comfortable taking it over for a whole day every week and the students might be nervous with extra people wandering around.  I know I would be.  For just a few students I could go to their houses, but that means I don't have access to all of my supplies that are at home and are impractical to lug around everywhere.  Can't afford to rent anywhere, and the room at the State Home is way too big just for lessons and people wander in and out all the time.  Haven't figured out the plan for this yet, obviously I'm still a bit anxious about it and finding excuses not to really develop it yet.  Maybe after the lessons have been going for a while I'll have a little more confidence. 

In order to shift my focus to jewelry and music, I need to cut down elsewhere.  My regular job is fine, no problems there, it's a regular part-time schedule with minimal stress.  It may go full-time eventually, but it's not yet.  I have a once-a-month 20-minute job at the VA for $10, which is barely worth the trouble to get there but it's a jewelry vendor contact that I need to stay on top of.  Not like it takes much time anyway.  Symphony is done for the season, so that won't be in the picture again until the fall.  I have lots of gardening, landscaping, and general housework to do, which hasn't been getting done these past few weeks.  I'm on Weight Watchers now which requires more careful meal planning, which also hasn't been getting done very well.  There's occasional things like groceries, bead shopping, and having to hold a large cat that is currently draped around my neck because I've been gone so much the last week. 

Then, the major dilemma, I'm working an extra insurance day up in Rapid, every other week for 6 hours.  It was originally 3 hours once a week, on the same day as Symphony, which after gas and a meal just broke even with itself, but it was alright since I had to be up there anyway.  Now, we changed it to every other week so it takes less gas and therefore yields a little profit, but it still ends up being a whole day up there.  I'm torn in that I can't decide whether that extra $60-80 a month (after gas) is worth losing a day.  I really can't decide.  I guess the question is whether shifting my focus will yield more return, though I do need to go up there every week or two anyway for various reasons.  I really don't know.  My schedule at my regular job has been screwy the last few weeks, so that plus starting WW plus getting ready for spring/working on the house again plus (heaven forbid!) taking a weekend trip to see some friends, I feel like I'm stretched way too thin, like silly putty.  And, the little holes are growing the thinner I stretch.  As it is, no project can get the attention it deserves, and as such nothing is yielding what it should.  So, do I drop the extra day and use it elsewhere, or not?  I just went yesterday and I'm not scheduled to go back until Monday after next so I have some time to decide.  I keep going back and forth on it.  I'm torn!  Help!

Saturday Show Number Two!

Just by way of a quick announcement, I'll be at The White Elephant again this coming Saturday, May 7th from 8am until Mom and I wear out.  This time we'll be better prepared with shade and food than last time and hopefully the weather will cooperate.

If you're in the neighborhood, The White Elephant is a consignment shop at the corner of River St and University Ave, at the bottom of the viaduct, in Hot Springs, SD.  I'm beading like a madwoman this week to prepare, since most of my necklaces sold last time, but here's a sneak peek of tonight's project.  The pendant is purple glass, flanked by rose quartz chips and the rest of the chain is bone white and matte purple-blue stitched into a daisy chain.  If you can't make it of course, feel free to contact me here, on Facebook,  or on sarahdecker.com for your own custom piece.  :)

Happy belated May Day to all and I hope the budding spring is treating you well!