September 4,2010

The summer is still here with temps still high until this morning. I woke up to fall weather with cool temps and a breeze and it must have felt good for all the kids running at practice this morning. I am hoping this is a hint of what will be coming soon. Kentucky has had the hottest summer this year and so everyone is looking forward to the seasons changing. Fall is my favorite time of year and now I will enjoy it in a state that lavishes in colored trees around that time and cool days. We are hoping to go back to Huber Farms in Indiana and pick our pumpkins from a real pumpkin patch. :)




This weekend is still work for Bo and I. He has his shifts and I am still working on more inventory for the show and starting to figure out how we will displaying our jewelry now that I received more of my display pieces.
The countdown is literally on now. :)

So here are more jewelry pictures to share.

More Earrings.......











One of the newest bracelets.


Hope you enjoyed the pictures. Have a great Labor Day Weekend.

Eye Candy-Warning picture heavy

Okay surprised for me to say its been busy in our household? Probably not. So a little update and then some pictures. :)

My son Nick has been running cross country for his HS here. Last Saturday was the Bluegrass Cellular Heartland 5K.



Bo and I were checkpoints and road guards for the first mile as volunteers as we cheered everyone running the race. Then headed to the finish line to watch them come in.
I am very proud of Nick. This is his first 5K and he came in at 20:05.9 and was 6th in his age group of 16-20 and 25th overall of over 500 runners. :) Our whole cross country team did well and the times they came in put them in Varsity or JV and proud to say Nick is on the Varsity team. :) In fact today is their first meet out at Barren County this afternoon about an hour or so away from here.

Here are some race pictures.













After the race since Bo was off we headed to Starlight, Indiana to Huber Orchard and Winery and Farm. Those pictures will be for another post. :)

We have been busy getting our materials and all our stuff ready for the Louisville Collegiate Art Show called Art in the Highlands. Our tent came in last week and I am just waiting for more display pieces to come in. Here are some of our new jewelry that will be headed that way.

These pieces are handmade beads by my husband Bo and put together with Swarovski crystals and sterling silver by me. :)























Kaiah patiently waiting for me while I am taking pictures.





Of course I have more pictures but will stop here for now.

Today is Bo's birthday and it will be a busy and hectic day. We have to drive out to the cross country meet and not sure when it will be over for us to have dinner. So I am very thankful that he is happy that the gifts he has is to be with us. I know though we will be hitting Sears here soon for some power tools. :) After this show he wants to finish our basement, redo our landscaping and start adding details to our house like crown molding. We want to finish our house in time to enjoy it and yet it put more detail to it that when we sell it others will also appreciate. We are putting all that in within the months since we have word that he is still on the deployment list. Just not ready to have my husband leave us. But you know we go on right? And I pray that I do have the strength to deal with things like some of my other friends have while their husband's have been gone.

Well on a good note...this is Nick's first race and Bo's birthday so heading off to enjoy my busy life with the guys. :)

My Coffell guys.......time is sure flying by. :(

Getting ready for a show

I know I have soooo neglected blogging on here. After two weeks of vacation and coming home to only days before the boys started school was just crazy. In that time period Kaiah was also spayed, so I had to take care of her since she wasn't feeling too well the first days. Not only that I went into a slump not wanting to be here.

Being born on a tropical island of the Philippines and then being moved at the age of 10 to the US to live in Alaska always made me crave beaches. Every time I am at one I feel more at ease and at home and that happened in Florida. The first place we visited was Amelia Island and the beautiful quaint town of Fernandina Beach, we then left and stayed some days at St. Augustine, then Orlando then to Biloxi and Ocean Springs are of the coast of MS where my husband is from. I don't miss the heat but we are having that now here in Kentucky and I don't have a pretty water scene to look at.

None the less I had to get back into a schedule. We fell in love with the teal green sea colors and my hubby in the days he had off from night shift redid our bathroom and painted it with the color peacock blue from Benjamin Moore paints and now my master bath looks like a getaway bathroom. :)

Here is a before picture:



After picture:


We decorated the walls with local art from FL and MS.

These are from a local artist in St. Augustine, FL Robert Kline.





Cobia Fish from Nancy Garrett of MS. She is also a friend of ours and have a lot of her prints hanging on our walls that were given to us as a gift.


Of course you can't forget the sand and shells I collected. :) I also have more oyster shells that I picked up to do an art piece with. :)



I was very inspired being by the water but for now I have to put those thoughts of art to the side and concentrate on glass jewelry for a show.

We were accepted as one of the 100 artists juried to be a part of Art in the Highlands and it is happening this September. So since we have been back I have been busy making fused jewelry and ordering more materials and glass. We had a scare the other day when a storm rolling through fried the switch to my kiln but luckily Bo tinkered with it enough to get it back to working right.

This is the art show we will be a part of.

Here is the link: Art in the Highlands
Here are some of our new pieces.

New beads that will be turned into jewelry:







New fused earrings:





My favorite pair...it will be hard to part with this one. LOL!


Tack Fused Pendants



Full fused Pendants



All pendants together



I will try to fins some time to little by little share our vacation pictures. I really miss the beach and one day I know we will live by water once Bo retires from the Army. :) Enjoy your weekend and Happy Friday the 13th! :)

Sorry for my absence....

Sun setting at Amelia Island, Florida

I am sorry for not being on here for a while. Things got really busy before our family vacation then we left for 2 weeks. We traveled Florida and the coast of Mississippi to visit family then headed back home. We just arrived the other day early in the morning and fell right into a busy schedule. I will make sure to update as soon as I can.

We had a great time traveling and aquired new inspiration for artwork and jewelry when we were by the ocean. Beaches are always so beautiful to me and just being by the water is such a therapeutic feeling.

Hope your month of July has been great. Have to go for now but wanted to let you all know I am okay was just gone for vacation. :)

Working on new things....

I know it has been quite a while since I have actually shared jewelry pictures on here. A lot of the times I just get so busy that I thought I put it up by I didn't. LOL! If that makes any sense at all.

Despite the being busy(which this household always is) there are days when one thing can just bring your whole outlook and your motivation down. I should learn by now that I shouldn't expect from certain people but then again there are times when you do want to be recognized for the hard work you have done. I just learned that when there are days that my emotions are hay wire to skip onto a different facet of art. I am also a mixed media artist and I create for me, not for anyone else, so it is very rewarding to be able to go off and just be creative without the worries of what others think. Those little breaks bring inspiration to my jewelry making and as I continue on making my pieces I am finally finding my own style and how I like things to be simple but functional.

So hear are some pictures of my new pieces...

Copper squares textured with fused glass cabachons. (Yes my fused glass work)


Sterling silver discs textured with Carnelian cabachons.


Sterling silver textured discs.


Pendants featuring Bo's glass beads.

2nd view





2nd view


Necklace I was working on:


Finished piece.





Other news:
My work has been in Woodland Gallery here in Elizabethtown, KY. It was so nice to see the picture show up on their fan page on Facebook and also to see my display during a First Friday event there.
Picture from gallery.


Pictures I took.




Pictures during a First Friday event for Dick McLaughlin
Bo and I by our jewelry display.






Bo and I with Lynn the gallery owner.


I also have some great news. Earlier this spring I was invited to send in an application and pictures to a juried art show in Louisville. Well I got a letter not too long ago(In May) saying Bo and my jewelry was accepted as one of only 100 artists that were picked! I kept it quiet first because I wanted to send in my booth fee first. I guess I felt like it wasn't real until I actually sent it in. So none the less I am very excited but scared at the same time. This show will be held at the grounds of the Louisville Collegiate school in September. I guess I am scared because even if we have done the bazaar in Alaska for 3 years this art show is big compared to the bazaar and we will be in Louisville! I will share more about this art show soon. But for now I just wanted to share the great news. :)

I hope you enjoyed my new work. I ordered more glass and dichroic from a new company today and hope to be receiving new colors of glass and new patterns of dichroic for my fused work. Here are a couple of those dichroic patterns I will be working with.




The garage has also cooled down and Bo has been back on the torch. :) So I will be sharing his new works soon.

I hope you have a great Wednesday!