A year in the making, day 364

The munchkin got a lesson today in Caveat emptor today. We went to the thrift store this morning to get her a couple of new pairs of pants as most of her current pairs are halfway up her shins, the little beanpole. We were in the checkout line and she found a treasure she HAD to have - a Barbie digital watch. She begged and pleaded, and agreed to repay me out of her bank when we got home, so I let her buy it. We got it home, opened it up, and were trying to figure out how to turn the watch on. Turns out that they were donated because the battery had died before whatever store that was carrying these had sold them. Doh!

This afternoon I started re-tagging a lot of my older stock in preparation for this weekend's event, as the original tags were looking a little the worse for wear, and of course, I'm also double checking to make sure all my newer pieces were tagged as well and guess what? I found two necklaces that weren't tagged because I'd not only never listed them, but apparently never photographed them either! Who knows where these fit in now, as I made them some months ago. But here they are now, just under the wire:

Butterfly Necklace with Caramel Swarovski Crystals



Turquoise and Rice Pearls Necklace



And one more pair of earrings, to replace a pair I sold last week:

Green Garnet Dangle Earrings

What a fabulous window treatment!

One of my all time favorite movies has got to be In and Out. The title of today's post is from that movie, and gets said on a fairly regular basis in our household.

The husband called me last night from the big box hardware store, saying he'd found some curtains that he thought could work for the living room. There followed a rather comical series of events of me trying to use my cloth measuring tape to measure our living room picture window while also trying to talk to my husband on our respective cell phones. It was determined that they were long enough, and although three would probably cover it, he might as well go ahead and get all four of the drapes they had in the clearance section.

He brought them home, and they are beeeautiful! We spent about an hour trying to get them up, struggling with not having the right curtain rod, but we are both incredibly stubborn people, and we prevailed!



Shiny burgundy curtains! My favorite color! My husband loves me. I am a happy kitty.

Of course, once we got the old drapes down we realized how absolutely filthy the sheers were, and let's not talk about the windows themselves. Ick! But now the glass is clean and the sheers are white again, and life is good.

A Year in the Making, day 359

Guess what? With what I made today, according to my calculations, I am now at 367 items! Wheeee! I finished early, even with all the slacking off I've been doing this month. I'll probably still keep with the making for the rest of the month, just in case I've made a counting error at some point during the year. I'm sure that couldn't have happened, because I haven't done anything like, say, mess up my day count (twice). Right?

First things first - here's the new ad I just made for the programming book for Steamcon II, now less than 3 months away!



And then I decided to play with some of my antique crystal beads:

Antique Black and Grey Crystal Earrings on Sterling Silver Earwires



Antique Black and Grey Crystal Necklace on Sterling Silver Chain



Antique Aurora Borealis Crystal Dangle Earrings on Sterling Earwires



I am now going to go have a huge bowl of chocolate ice cream to celebrate.

A Year in the Making, day 358

Happy Birthday to me! 39 years old today, the end of my 4th decade of life. I packed entirely too much activity into one day, and am barely able to keep my eyes open long enough to post this. Of course, the port probably isn't helping.

Three pieces today, all in blue glass. I was feeling the summertime blues today, with the season almost over. It's been an amazing summer.

Bright Blue Glass Necklace



Blue Glass Flower Necklace



Blue Dichroic Glass Flower Earrings

A Year in the Making, day 357

I will clean tonight. I will. Really!

I'm using my personal day tomorrow for my birthday, and it'd be nice to not spend the whole day cleaning. I'm thinking I should go see a movie, at least.

I just got my vendors' packet for the Medieval Country Faire two weekends from now, at Volunteer Park in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle. The Seattle Knights will be there, which is always a treat!



I'll be spending a good portion of my free time next week making sure I've got everything tagged. I always say I'm going to price everything as I post it, but I never do. Silly me.

I got the fancy necklace finished a little bit ago, and would have made this post earlier, but I got sucked into Facebook and an hour went *poof*! Such a marvelous tool, the internet, but such an easy way to waste time too.

OOAK Steampunk Amethyst Multistrand Choker



And the pieces from yesterday are now photographed and up in my Artfire shop as well:

Steampunk Necklace and Earrings with Freshwater Pearls and Amethysts



Sterling Dragonfly Necklace with Rose Quartz and Garnet

A year in the making, day 356

Monday, sleepy Monday. Too much fun this weekend! But I survived.

I'm taking my personal leave day Wednesday for my birthday. Of course, I'll probably be going to spend most of it doing those little bits of cleaning I was going to do every day so I didn't have to do it all at once. I have spent years developing my mad procrastination skills.

Instead of cleaning last night, I was making more jewelry, and finished the second of these just a little while ago. Not listed yet, as I missed the good light, although photoshop and a good camera make up for these kinds of problems.

I noted at my last event that I really didn't have enough Steampunk jewelry left in the stock to fill out a full-sized table display, so I'm going to have to start working on that. Steamcon II will be here before I know it!


Steampunk Pearls and Amethysts by *dbvictoria on deviantART

And another piece, hanging on to the last few weeks of summer, a sterling silver dragonfly with rose quartz and garnet. I actually got this dragonfly from the selection of sterling silver pendants months ago from Artbeads.com, as a part of their Beaders who Blog program**,but it disappeared mysteriously while I was still plotting what to do with it! Well, I found it last night, when I spilled some beads while working on the sofa. It was hiding under the cushions. I swear I looked for it there when I first lost it!



It's a gorgeous little bug, and it was originally supposed to be hiding out in my field of swarovski flowers in my Spring Waterfall necklace, but I think he'll be fine here with rose quartz and garnets instead.

**This post is a part of the ArtBeads Beaders who Blog program. They provide the beads to us free of charge, and we provide an honest review of their products. We are not paid to review or endorse them.

A year in the making, day 355

What a wonderful weekend! Yesterday was the husband's birthday (mine is next Wednesday), and another friend of ours has her birthday on the 24th. She decided she wanted to celebrate her birthday by helping clear invasive species from one of our local parks, so we spent 4 hours yesterday hacking down and ripping out blackberries. Rough work, and I found out how woefully out of shape I was! But we cleared about 1000 square feet of blackberry brambles, and also policed an area that had been previously cleared looking for new growth and rooting it out.

And today we went to a 6-year-old birthday party, for a daughter of friends of ours. There was a ninja pinata!



He was soundly beaten and looted:





The birthday girl's current favorite color is red, so I made her a cloak out of red corduroy:



What birthday party would be complete without doggie kisses?


Good dog by *dbvictoria on deviantART

The weather stayed beautiful, despite some threatening-looking clouds.


Cumulous Clouds by *dbvictoria on deviantART

And now I am faced with a decision - do we have sandwiches with the leftover pork steaks from last night, or with the grilled chicken from the night before? Hmmmmm. My belly is a'rumbling, so I'll have to make my mind up soon.

A Year in the Making, day 352

Another quickie today, as I just spent the evening trying to find the dining room table. Where does all the clutter come from, and how the *bleep* does it build up so quickly? We're having company next weekend, and my goal is to tackle a little bit of the mess every night for the next 8 days. Then, of course, once I've cleaned a spot, I have to make sure it doesn't become the new repository of stuff when I clean up another spot. Oh, the vicious cycle!

So here's a little Something Blue for the evening, inspired by a friend of mine who just got engaged last weekend:


Something blue by *dbvictoria on deviantART

A Year in the Making, Day 351

Something simple today, as my muse has gone a-wandering. Not surprising, as I've given her quite the workout over the past year.

Turquoise Necklace



And a quick promo! The Etsy Steamteam is having another challenge, wedding themed. You can vote for your favorites here! One of the entries is my Cinnabar Butterfly necklace. Voting is open till August 22nd.

A Year in the Making, day 349

Back from a Baltimore, where we celebrated a family wedding, which is why I haven't been around lately. I traveled light, and left the laptop at home this time. I did bring the camera, of course!



We flew Airtran, and had a delightfully uneventful flight. It was nonstop from Seattle to Baltimore - how can you beat that?

The groomsmen wore kilts. Rawr!



It was pointed out on more than one occasion that my husband and his siblings have now all gone and married redheads:



The husband was strongly encouraged to treat himself to a new fedora. Again with the rawr:



And the munchkin got to spend lots of quality time with her uncle and grandpa:





Yesterday, before we left, we spent a few hours wandering around the Fells Point area, one of our favorite spots in Baltimore. Lunch was steamed mussels, crab dip, and chowder at Shuckers:



And then wandered around sightseeing for the rest of the afternoon:


Lamppost by *dbvictoria on deviantART


Lampposts by *dbvictoria on deviantART


Peeling Paint by *dbvictoria on deviantART


Lamppost by *dbvictoria on deviantART

Back to work tomorrow, with the end of summer and the start of 1st grade looming huge on the not so distant horizon.

Posting hiatus

Between our wedding anniversary last weekend and a family wedding this weekend, things have been a little topsy turvy. I'll be back next week, I promise! I'm only 15 items away from my goal, so everything's okay.

A Year in the Making, day 338

Can I fly? Maybe with a little pixie dust. We may not fly, but we'll definitely flutter beautifully.




Considering myself lucky to still be here today. I was almost the casualty of a sneak arachnid attack this morning. I was driving up to downtown Seattle this morning, 60mph on the interstate, when all of a sudden a spider crawled out of the air vent in the middle of the dashboard, right next to the steering wheel. I did not squeal like a girl, throw my hands up in the air, and crash my car, but the urge was mighty.

It was okay for a bit, as Mr. 8-legs crawled up the dash and hung out for a bit where the dash and window meet. But then he crossed the line. He started crawling up the inside of the windshield directly towards me.

I grabbed one of my file folders from the passenger seat, and squashed him. Or so I thought!

There he was, splayed across the glass, no movement, legs in odd positions, and I figured I'd just dig out a napkin and swab him off when I got parked. Drove on for about another five minutes, and either I'd stunned him or he was playing possum, because he started crawling towards me again.

Luckily this point I'd hit northbound end of rush hour traffic and was down to <20mph, so I could really give him the what-for with the folder. Six to eight more smacks, and he was a little curled up upside down ball on the dash. I kept checking for the rest of the trip to make sure that he wasn't going to uncurl and make another dash at my nose. *shudder*

So I survived unscathed, except for probably a few more grey hairs.

(For those who might be crying Spider Foul! I've had some bad reactions to spider bites. Not extreme, but enough to make me miserable for a day or two with nausea & fever and swelling. I normally try to live and let live, but this was too close for comfort.)

A Year in the Making, day 337

Wednesday, hump day! Fighting the "I need caffeine" headache all day. I will not give in. I am strong.

Summer has definitely finally arrived, so what else could I do but another parasol?

Steampunk Red Parasol with Black and Ivory Trim and Lace



I may be strong in my resistance to the urge to chug a Coke, but I will not be able to resist the dream fairy for much longer. *yawn*

A Year in the Making, day 336

August 3 - 28 days to go! Countdown. Tick tick tick.

Fighting a headache all day today. Not allowed to get sick. Not in August. Too much to do, too much to celebrate. Last gasp of summer must be enjoyed!

I took a quick trip at lunch to my favorite fabric store, and have filmy gauzy stuff out of which I'll be making wings for myself and the munchkin.

Playing around with a few stray glass beads today, the challenge of having just a quantity and figuring out what to do with it.

Mint Green Frosted Glass Necklace



Enjoying one of my childhood summer dinner favorites - elbow pasta with tuna and mayo, and corn, which wasn't the original, but I've had to compromise because my husband is vehemently against peas. There are a lot of foods that I loved as a child that I can't stomach now, but I don't think I'll ever get tired of this dish.

Happy Anniversary to me!

Miss Victoria's Vintage turned 2 yesterday!

And more importantly, 13 years ago today I said "I do" to my knight in slightly rumpled khaki.

A Year in the Making, day 334

It's August 1st! This is month 12 of my year in the making. Including today, that's only 31 days to go! And I got off on my count again, because with 31 days left of 365, I should be on 334. I'm good at math. Really I am. This is just my trying to see if you're paying attention! Really!

We went off to the beach this morning, a semi-regular Sunday tradition, for toasty beverages and so the husband and munchkin can throw rocks in the water together. Then we got home and started planning for next weekend, which is the Washington Midsummer Renaissance Festival. And my husband uttered 8 fateful words.

"What is Gwendolyn wearing for Faire this year?"

Oh, (*censored*)! One of her dresses still fits, but we'll probably go for both days. I've always represented the fantasy contingent, and my daughter has loved to go as a fairy the last few years. Normally I plan better and go buy fabric, but today I just dug through the fabric stash. Of course, my stash is full of "my" colors, black and burgundies. So this year, it seems the munchkin will be representing the dark fey, the unseelie court.



I'm going to be working on wings for the both of us over the next few evenings.

Did manage to get another necklace made this morning as well:

Purple Fluorite Y Necklace with Pewter Celtic Knot