All I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth...

For a good portion of my childhood I did want my two front teeth (I got my 2 tooth implants finally when I was 19).  I don't need anything, but I don't go shopping as often as I used to and as I have been picking out things for people on my Christmas list I think of all the things I wouldn't mind getting myself because they are sooo cool (but I don't really need).

1)  Top on that list is one of Craig Mitchell Smith's amazing glass flowers.  One of the really really big ones that would stand out in my garden year round.  They are durable through the winter and glisten with color in the snow.  Actually, I want like 10 of them and I can quit planting flowers in the spring then.
Craig now has his own working studio space and gallery in the Meridian Mall so you can go pick out your favorite piece any time of the week! 

2) Addi Turbo Knitting Needles. Every knitter needs to at least try these.  Woven Art has amazing amazing yarns too, but I am best at purchasing yarn when I have a project in mind.  These knitting needles feel like butter in your hands and I really do feel that I knit faster with them.  I've been slowly replacing my old aluminum knitting needles with these guys as projects demand different sized needles.  I just bought the Click-it set which is 10 different sized needle tips that can click into 3 different lengths of circular wire. <3

3) October Moon has tons of cute gifts for the home (food-ie things, bath stuff, candles etc..) but they also have an amazing selection of my favorite purse brand: Hobo.  Beautiful, durable colored leather, yum!

4) Grace Boutique is right next door to October Moon.  I'm pretty sure you can't go wrong with anything from there.  I love all of their clothing and accessories! (The majority of my cocktail dresses I get from there.)

5) Grove Gallery Co-op: Of course, I'm biased because I show my work here, but we have guest artists in for all of November and December so we have quite the mix.  This year we're even selling gift certificates so if you know someone who should come in and pick something out for themselves you can send them over with that as a gift!

Thank you Capital Area Women's Lifestyle!

I was pleasantly surprised while flipping through the December 2010 Issue of the Capital Area Women's Lifestyle Magazine.  The middle outfit on page 22 under "New Year, New Fashion" has one of my newer bangle designes that I am carrying over at Jeanologie in East Lansing.  The below image is just a scan (which is why it's not so sharp), but you can go to Capital Area Women's Lifestyle Magazine and see the outfit clearer HERE.

These bangles have been fun to play with different colors and I have been getting into swarovski crystals and pearls as their accent beads.  Please feel free to contact me if you need a certain design! I can put on together in a day or two.

Bamboozled Bangle

I love to get inspired by other artists, painting in particular is something I don't do very well myself and I really appreciate the work going into it.  This piece was specifically inspired by a watercolor painting that I saw hanging in the Lansing Art Gallery's upstairs main gallery themed "4 Seasons."  The piece is called "Bamboo I" and "Bamboo II" by Angelis Jackowski.

When I saw her paintings in this show I was absolutely taken.  The rich dark colors of the watercolor are amazing as well as her composition.  The first one I noticed was of waterlilies, but when I looked at the opposite wall I thought "that's how you do bamboo!"

I had attempted to create a bamboo bangle of a single bamboo branch a while back and felt that I failed miserably and that it was a bad design altogether.  So I figured that the inspiration of bamboo was dead in the water for me.  This painting though began to haunt me and I got inspired.  I looked up the Lansing Art Gallery website and to my luck the painting was right there on the front page!  I printed it, got out my bead graph paper and colored pencils and got to work.  Just the drawing of the pattern probably took me 4 or more hours, I wanted it to honor the inspiration.

As I began rifling through my beads, I realized that part of the reason I was so struck by this piece was it's in my colors.  I pulled 57 tubes of beads (all different colors) that could go with the theme for this piece I was creating.  57 bead colors gets overwhelming so I broke it down to 13 or 14 colors.

The bangle doesn't look exactly like the painting (as it shouldn't, it's beads), and I wasn't sure that it looked quite like bamboo as I made it, but I have worn it the past 2 days and a few people have said it looks like bamboo.  This will be one of the application pieces to Ann Arbor Art Fair. 

This piece measures approximatley 3 inches wide and is slightly larger circumference than my usual bangles.

Angelis Jackowski's work will be up for the 4 Seasons show upstairs in the Lansing Art Gallery until the 23rd of December, so stop in and go see it!  (And get in some of your holiday shopping with local artwork!)