Music and beadwork

Last night I went to see the Cruxshadows for the first time ever, and it was great! I've been listening to their music on and off for the last 6 years or so, and I'm so glad I finally attended their show. They are incredible live :-) And their new album is also wonderful! Listened to it this morning before work, and it's already sparked some ideas for some new pieces.

Lately, even before I heard about the concert, I've been playing their albums as my main 'crafty' music, in addition to Depeche Mode, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Loreena McKennitt, and Evanescence (tho not their new album yet). No wonder I've been using so much onyx and garnet lately...

And the Cruxshadows are still touring! If you like goth music, definitely check them out: http://www.cruxshadows.com/

Gifts and commissions

This was an Xmas/Solstice gift for my friend Teresa, she was quite pleased.


This was a Solstice gift for my friend Greg, he was also pleased.


This was commissioned by someone I know for their grandmother, to match some earrings he picked up for her from me earlier, with the same rose quartz roses and some other bits. He was pleased, I hope his grandma was too :-)


I think I've finally recovered enough from Wicked Faire to get back to work, so watch this space for some new pieces soon.

More bunnies!

While we were at the Wicked Faire, my friend Audrey was very happy about the shiny included in her payment (I pay my employees in free con tix and jewelry, haven't had any complaints yet). It was a little rhodonite (sp?) bunny rabbit with other pink and green beads. So happy was the webcomic artist that she drew this while we were at the event:


SQUEE!! I'M A BUNNY!!!

Not only did she capture my hair perfectly (I have poofy hair, I'm a librarian :-P), but bunny-me is also wearing my geek-flare shirt which is covered in patches from various fandoms. And now it's immortal. Yay!

Again, check out more of Audrey's bunny antics at The Bunny System, a webcomic with a PG-13 rating.

Bead Dreams 2007, Bead&Button's Annual Bead Artistry Competition

Bead & Button is a magazine I like to read now and then. Not sure if I'm going to put in an entry, but I'm definitely thinking about it.

For more info, click here!

Wicked Faire 2007

Yay, what fun!

And here are some pictures of our operation:



That's me in the middle, with my booth bunnies Audrey and Jenna :-) In fact, Audrey writes a webcomic called The Bunny System (rated PG-13, I'd say). She drew something really sweet for me while we were at the faire, I'll post that later ;-)


This is a closeup of half the table. The guy in the corner is Nick, my other booth bunny. He's starting up his own leather business at Nicholas's Leather and wanted to get a feel for how these things work. We have agreed to share a booth next year, yay!


And this is the other half of our table, with the raffle display.

And here's a complete gallery of pics from the faire!

Our raffle made $100 for the Joseph D'Angeli fund. The winner was this lovely lady, who once worked with Mr. D'Angeli at the Liberty Science Center:

(picture posted with permission)

Things I'm glad I did this time around:
-Brought my wooden hand. I purchased it to display rings, then, um, forgot to make rings. It seems happy to be passing out business cards tho.
-Made more of the picture-frame-earring displays, and set the pins into them *before* going to the faire.
-Printed out price cards for the earring displays and trinkets box, and signs for the raffle.
-Had a raffle! They are fun, make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and make more $$ for the charity in question than if I just sold the piece at retail value and donated the total.
-Brought three booth-buddies with me. After all the hours I've spent making jewelry, it's great to be able to doze behind the counter while your employees handle the salesmanship.
-Remembered to bring the scissors.

Things I may do next time:
-Get a bigger/extra table. This is the biggest I've had yet, and I still don't have room for everything! Wow, my inventory just keeps growing.
-Set up the table(s) in a more space effective way for the space.
-Have some new ideas in styles and techniques, but you'll see those later ;-)
-Bring tape.

My next engagement will be with Salon Con, but that's not until September! I'm really liking cons and festivals, I should find a couple to tide me over in the mean time. Any suggestions in the NY/NJ/CN area? Might do PiCon this year, it was highly recommended by friends of mine, but I'd have to figure out transportation first.

Wicked Faire, Saturday Feb. 10! That's tomorrow!

If you've got transportation, and live somewhere in the area of Edison NJ, you should probably be going ;-)

If you are going, I'll be raffling off a necklace for a local charity, tickets $2 each and three tickets for $5, drawing at 10pm. I'll also be selling my usual array of necklaces, bracelets, and earrings.

See you there!

<3 Chrysilla

Authors like my necklaces!

This was a Solstice gift for Sara Harvey, who published her first novel, A Year and a Day, last year. It is her love letter to NYC. The Angel of Joy and the Angel of Vengeance are given the mission to live as humans in the city for a year, but Joy has a slightly different, much more secret mission to work on while she's there. And Vengeance spends most of his time being moody. Fun book! Sara is practically my guru from my NYU days. I picked up two of these temple-cats, intending to do something completely different with mine, but it looked terrible so I just copied my friend's necklace ;-) The red tigereye looks really nice with this shade of wood.




And this was a solstice gift for my local partner in crime Kim Tempest Bradford, who will be featured in the upcoming anthology Thou Shalt Not. She is a dragon-luving person, and I liked how the lapis and green garnet beads each look like a little planetoid of their own. I know in some mythologies the world was made out of a dragon, but the one I think of in terms of Tempest just lives under St. Micheal's Mount in Penzance ;-)




This was commissioned for Catherynne Valente, who's written The Orphans Tales: In the night garden among other wonderful books. Go read hers too!! I may be making some necklaces *based* on her stories in the next few months, for they are very rich in imagery. She supplied the lizard pendant, and asked me to put together a necklace based on part of a folktale she described to me, where someone brought the lizard king of copper mountain the gift of a malachite box. This is where I FINALLY stopped being a sterling snob and started experimenting with other metals. Now I love copper, and can't find many findings made from it thru my usual resources. *sigh*

Blessed Imbolc!

A bit belated, but I've been busy messing about with the blog format :-)

Look- pentacles!


Copper and other metals, with malachite and glass beads. I love how copper looks with malachite, and with turquoise.


Onyx, garnets, & sterling. I really need to get more of those carved onyx roses. The pendant was improvised from something I got for another piece, but the commissioner decided to go with something else. It's drilled on opposite ends, so I threaded an eyepin through one of the holes and added a tiny sterling pentacle in the middle.


And don't forget to go check out The Wicked Winter Rennaissance Pirate Ninja Faire on February 10th!

Upcoming events, and a raffle!

I will be making an appearance, with my shinies, at Jeff Mach's Wicked Winter Rennaissance Pirate Ninja Faire in Edison, NJ.

Aside from my usual shiny-selling activities, I will also be raffling off this piece for the Joseph D'Angeli fund.:


The bat charm is made of wood and very light, so it just wouldn't behave until I weighed it down a bit. It doesn't have a clasp, but is long enough not to need one. Has both regular and red tigereye, and I've found that red tigereye always looks really nice with these kinds of wood pendants.

So come by and see us ;-)