Another Installment of What I Do When I'm Not Making Jewelry

At the beginning of the summer, I decided it would be a good idea to finish some of the long-overdue home projects that I had been planning for my house ever since I moved in five years ago. Menards offered zero-interest financing for those who applied for a store credit card so I figured now was my chance.

I wanted to put in a privacy fence and a patio so I spent quite a bit of time sketching out plans and measuring the backyard. I also made a couple trips to Menards, pricing out materials and scouring the flyers to spot any upcoming sales. Luckily, I was able to get some great deals and I had all of my supplies delivered to my house, which is really the only way to do it.

All of my supplies after they were delivered.

We immediately started on the fence and it was a doozy of a project. Digging post holes, mixing cement making sure the posts are level . . . it's enough to drive anyone insane. That said, we finished the project and it looks beautiful. My dad and boyfriend did the majority of the post-hole digging and cement pouring. I mixed my fair share though and did a lot of drilling, hammering and cutting pickets to size. We still haven't made the fence gates yet but the fence itself looks gorgeous! I'm so happy with it.

My boyfriend working on the fence.

After we finished the fence, the only supplies left in our supply area were the four tons of patio pavers and about ten bags of sand. After the grueling work on the fence, we didn't get started right away on the patio. We needed a break. After a while though, I felt like digging out the dirt and getting ready for the patio.

The patio area staked out and after digging down one level.

I staked the patio area and dug the entire space out in one day, I didn't realize there had been a heat advisory issued. Luckily, the next day was signifigantly cooler. I had to dig the entire area out again to get down to the six inch depth I needed for the rock and sand. After digging, I laid weed fabric and back filled the hole with gravel. I raked out the gravel until it was flat and then rolled a lead pipe over the gravel to compact it down. Finally, I filled one end of the hole with sand and used a board to level or screet the sand over 3/4 inch electrical conduit.

Luckily, I had help for the rest of the process. My dad and I carefully laid in the pavers one by one. We started at one end and then moved across the patio. By the third row, my dad had discovered a method for laying in the pavers evenly which made the process move a lot faster. That said, it was still back-breaking work and both of us ended up carrying about 4 tons of pavers that day from one end of the yard to the other. Yikes!

The completed patio, still in need of landscaping, but beautiful nonetheless.

When we finally laid in the last paver, my mom helped out by sweeping some paver-locking sand into the spaces between each paver. The sand really finished off the look of the patio and I was floored by how well it turned out. It still needs quite a bit of landscaping around it, but the patio itself is great! I plan to spend many mornings doing yoga on it and many afternoons and evenings grilling out on it. It was tough, but so worth it.

Close-up you can see the circle pattern I created on my patio.

Now, I'm hopefully done for a while with my home diy projects. I need to turn my focus largely back to jewelry as I have many shows coming up and I am working on finishing my new line. It's a good thing I like projects, because I tend to have about five in the works at any given time. It keeps life interesting though and I'm excited to work on creating things, whether they are for my business or for my home.

What I Do When I'm Not Making Jewelry

Despite always loving a creative project, I have never been the best cook. I think it is because I find it difficult to stick to a recipe. Once I saw panda bread though, I knew I had to make it at some point. Well, I finally took some time this Saturday to make this fun bread and it actually turned out amazingly well! I must admit that I'm a little shocked, but very pleased. I even flubbed the recipe a bit. I subsituted honey for sugar and almond milk for cow's milk. Even with the substitutions though, the bread both looked and tasted great. Check out the results below.

If you are upset about the economy, think about this . . .

Most of us look at our government and shake our heads at their inabilty to accomplish anything, but could we be just as much to blame for our economic situation?

When we go to buy groceries, clothing, or luxuries, how often do we look for the "Made in America" stamp? If you shop at Walmart, whose items are overwhelmingly made in China, only 6 cents of every dollar you spend stays in the local economy. Conversely, shopping at local stores, or buying American-made goods, keeps ten times that amount in the local economy. That's 60 cents for every dollar spent going back into your local economy.

Buy Locally-Made Gifts on Etsy.

As we shop at big box stores and buy foreign goods, money is drained from our economy. With less money in our economy, local businesses don't have the consumer spending or capital to encourage them to hire more workers. As less people are working, less money in the form of taxes goes into our local and federal government.

Yes, our government has proven to be a mess at the moment, but we can take some action into our own hands. If you can, please at least look for American made goods every time you shop. If you can't find any brands of a certain product that are made in America, try to at least find one made in a country that also promotes good working conditions. The next time you have to buy a gift, you could even search through the local artists on Etsy. You can also shop at your local farmer's market to get fresh and local groceries.

Shopping locally is one proactive action you can take to directly help the U.S. economy. As an American artisan, I know that I would not be able to earn a living without my customers. As I try to purchase only American made goods as well, I hope that the money I make can continue to help the local economy. If we all shop in this way, perhaps we can all pull ourselves out of the economic mess long before our political leaders are able to.

Work in Progress

 Lately, I've been able to spend some quality time in the studio and I am loving some of the pieces I'm creating for my Fall/Winter line. I thought I would share a sneak peek at one of the pieces that is currently a work-in-progress. It will eventually be a necklace. Let me know what you think.

My Current Playlist

Some Inspiration Photos for my Fall/Winter Line

I'm currently working on my Fall and Winter line of jewelry and I'm creating an inspiration board to help me to keep my focus as I create new designs. The following are just some of the photos that are on my board and they were so amazing, I just had to share.

 

Project Accessory Call-Outs in Chicago

Anyone familiar with the Lifetime (once Bravo) show Project Runway can quickly envision what the new spinoff Project Accessory might entail. This new show pits shoe, handbag and jewelry designers against one another to find the best overall accessory designers. Recently they held auditions in Miami, New York, Chicago and L.A. I was so excited to be able to go to the Chicago call out this past Thursday.

It was a VERY early morning for me. I planned on waking at 4:30am, but pushed the snooze until around 5:15. I left home around 6am, but with the time change, I was able to get to Chicago around 7am. The auditions were supposed to start at 9am at the Hard Rock Hotel. I figured the line would be around the block, but only around 30 people were there that early. We all headed into a room on the second floor and took seats to get ready for the first round of screening. It wasn't long before the room filled up and an overflow room also started swarming with hopefuls.

The crowd was such an interesting assortment of people, people dressed to the nines, or just completely quirky and bizarre, or more casual like me. Some people carried luggage filled with bags or shoes. There were a ton of jewelry designers and the screeners told us off the bat that we should feel lucky if we made it through the first round because they had seen so many jewelers at the other two auditions.

They called us up one by one to a screening table. One extremely nice and patient woman was doing all of the screening but she also had an assistant who handled all the applications and took photos of the people who got through the first round. The woman screening my jewelry was incredibly complementary and she even gave me some tips of what to say in front of the judges. On a side note, when I told her I was also a personal trainer, she told me that her last job was producing the Biggest Loser and she made a point of saying she had absolutely nothing to do with choosing Anna Kournikova as their next trainer. I knew this lady had great taste when she dissed Kournikova. Anyway, she passed me through and I shuffled over to the side to get my photo taken by the assistant. My photo was attached to my application and I was given a bright pink wristband.

After the first round, the waiting really started. We moved rooms and people kept shuffling in and out as they went through the first screening. Finally, around 3pm we were called to do an on-camera interview with the judges. They took us back to a hallway and a member of the crew hooked me up with a microphone. We were given very detailed instructions on how to proceed once we entered the room. We were supposed to drop off our jewelry and portfolios to the judges and then step back to a mark where we would answer some of their questions. I had made some hand-bound small portfolios of my work and I brought some necklaces and rings.

When I entered the room, the lights were so bright and the judges looked fantastic, as if they were being filmed for the actual show. There were two men and two women and they were all extremely nice. They asked me how I would take the concept of certain jewelry pieces and apply them to shoe and handbag design. They said they were really impressed by my answers. They also said that I should look into selling through the Sundance catalog because they thought I would do very well. They said that they may be contacting me for further information, so I didn't get a definite no or a definite yes. I will be shocked ten ways to Tuesday if I hear from them, but it would be amazing if I did!

All in all, it was an amazing experience and I will probably audition next year as well. It helped me to think more about how I present my work and it helped me to think from a fashion perspective rather than an art perspective. Now I'm focusing more on lines of jewelry and releasing new designs for seasons much like fashion designers. I may also take some time to do some side projects designing handbags and shoes to help my chances for next year. Ultimately, it gave me some validation and more creative impetus to take my jewelry to a new level and I can't wait to get started in the studio with the new energy I have.