Lavishness (is that a word?)

And as promised, here she is....

What do you think?

I absolutely love it.

I don't make things this extravegant that often, and this one surprised me when I finished it. While putting the finishing touches on the pics for this piece it dawned on me that this is now one of my all time favorite creations ever. It's such a lavish piece, 19 inches long and dripping with lustrous white keishi pearls dancing all over the place. The color and clarity of that briolette is just unbelievable, not to mention the size at 23.70 carats! (Whopper!) The lovely flower clasp is actually a hook and eye that finishes the piece so elegantly. I just love it. But the briolette...I just can't get over it.

You can read all the details here in my shop. Maybe someone out there would like to own this special piece for their very own! ;) Be my guest. It's looking for a new home!

Lavishness..... :)

Until next time!

Luxe HBW!

originally uploaded by msbellee.

Happy Bokeh Wednesday (a day late)!

This is a sneak peek of a necklace I just finished but haven't yet finished the pics for. I thought I'd use this one for the Bokeh Wednesday Flickr group. It's my 'luxe' version of bokeh!

I'm so very picky about my photos. Since my Canon didn't do the color of the stone much good I went back to the old faithful Olympus for this necklace. It's only 3.2 megapixels but I really like the way it captured the color. It's absolutely right on target for the stone (as far as my monitor goes anyway). Although there is a slight cast coming from outside the window that makes the pearls appear ivory instead of white. Other than that, I think the pictures turned out very nicely. I'll add just one more to let you see a bit more.

I'll give full details and more pics very soon, I promise. For now, I'm late getting to bed and just had to write about this before I forgot.

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I also made another necklace that you can find here. It consists of AAA labradorite beads in a bicone shape for the ultimate in sparkle and flash. It's a double strand necklace and I'm in love with it!

Happy Bokeh Wednesday everyone! (even though it is a day late!)

Until next time....

Have You Played?

Have you played yet? I just discovered this Flickr game and thought I'd give it a go since it looked interesting and fun.

How to do it:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into a Flickr search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker and make a cool mosaic to put on your blog or flickr. Simple enough!

The questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

Try it! It was interesting. You end up with a really cool mosaic that tells the world a little bit about you. Let me know if you try it. I want to come see!

Have fun!

Stepping Up and More

This week my baby "stepped up" from kindergarten to first grade. Talk about emotional. Oh, I know it's just kindergarten, but you have to know me to understand. I cry at the drop of a hat. This was a pretty big hat for me so even before it happened I cried just thinking about it! That's just me.

His ceremony took place on Monday and the last day of school was Tuesday. It was a cute ceremony with a processional, singing, stories by the teachers and then ending with handing out of diplomas as each child got to step up on a podium and shake hands with the teacher. I was so emotional during her story about what it's like to be a kindergarten teacher that my face was wet with tears when she'd finished. It didn't help that she was emotional too!

Kevin was so proud of himself as were we. He held his head up high and had such a good time during the ceremony. When he received his diploma he turned, faced the audience of parents and waved and smiled to everyone while still on the top step of the podium! He was a little man. And I was just in tears!

I'm so proud of him. He's becoming such a little man. He's excited to be going into first grade as am I. He'll learn so much more and the world will become even more fascinating for him. But when that first day of school rolls around, you can bet I'll be in tears once more!

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I did get some work done this week even though I've had Kevin back at home all day long again. I'm still busy making custom orders (which is a good thing) and have not yet caught up on them. My shop has slowed down tremendously as summer has been closing in. Sales are extremely slow and all I have done is concentrate on the custom orders I have lined up. If it wasn't for them I'd hardly be selling anything. Here's a bit of what I've been doing.

Swarovski crystal necklace

Pink freshwater pearl necklace




Yellow cat's eye necklace and earrings




Pink cat's eye necklace and earrings


Long (30") beaded necklace - strung


And I do have just a couple of new things in the shop.


Smokey quartz twisted spiral briolette earrings

White stick pearl earrings (an older design I've brought back)



Filigree wood and green pearl earrings - goldfill

And a few that are yet to come.


Light pink amethyst briolettes full pointed rice shaped


Green amethyst petite briolettes

Aqua chalcedony and filigree

I will eventually get these listed in my shop. And I have so many pieces that I want to make, but finding the energy and time to do so is another thing. I'm battling my knee right now. The osteoarthristis in it has flared up since getting rammed in the knee by a certain boy's bicycle. It was an accident. He didn't put on the brakes in time. It hurts quite a bit even though I sit on the couch alternating between ice and heat on my knee about every 2 hours or so. Then I'll think it's all right only to find out it's still swollen and hurts. Ah well. Getting old...and feeling older. Not fun.

I hope everyone has a good weekend and a great week ahead.

Until next time....

Here Comes Summer

You may be wondering where I've been. A lot has been going on to keep me on my toes. Kindergarten is just about to end for Kevin next Tuesday, June 10th. On Monday, the 9th, he has his 'stepping up' ceremony in which he has a couple of lines to say and sings three songs with the rest of his class. The ceremony will graduate the class to go on to first grade. (I've already cried about it!) He's getting excited about summer vacation. It's starting to get really hot here which is dreadfully depressing. Aside from that, I've been making oodles of custom orders for several people and that by itself is keeping me busy (which is a good thing!). I recently created this beautiful necklace which has now gone to a very special customer.

Upon doing a search this morning for my Flickr ID, "msbellee", I found this blog post at the Evie S., Things of Beauty blog that featured a picture of a pair of my earrings. I was quite flattered. (Thank you!) And coincidentally, just yesterday I relisted a filigree wood necklace and earrings in my Etsy shop. I began making these last year and they became fairly popular. So I thought since I still had supplies to make them, I might as well put them back in the shop and see how they did.

I'm offering the necklace with the length to be chosen by the customer (up to 18 inches). So if it needed to be shorter or longer, I can customize the length as requested. An extender is also available.

I've always loved this set. Even though they are not being sold as a set, they look really terrific together. The metal is oxidized sterling silver in a dark patina. Accented with dusty pink potato pearls, the contrast is very nice to the darkness of the wood and metal. These are some of my all time favorite pieces, and I'm delighted I decided to put them back in the shop.

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We spent the Memorial Day weekend at my mother's in Ashe County where it was wonderfully spring-like and around 75 degrees. That's a far cry from the 97 degrees we are supposed to hit here today. It's like an oven out there. :(

While in the mountains, I took some terrific photos of my mother's beautiful irises and other flowers, as well as my sister's lupines and the hummingbirds that visit her feeders.

Of course, we took some wheeled things for Kevin.





He jumped for hours in his bounce house! (one of the best investments you'll ever make is in a bounce house!)



It always wears me out to watch him do that!

It was great being back in the mountains and I can't wait to go back after school's out.

I have a ton more pictures of flowers to add to Flickr. I'll get to that in time. I have a lot on my plate right now and I just have to take them one at a time and make lists or I'll forget. Even when I do make a list, sometimes I forget where the list is! (That's happening more and more I've noticed.) Besides being a total space case at times, the heat makes me want to do nothing at all except sit in front of the air conditioning. It literally zaps my energy completely. And the A/C is broken in my Jeep and has been since last summer. It's about to kill me and Kevin (not to mention Barney when he rides too).

Well, I thought I would just pop in and update my blog to let everyone know I'm still here, just busy. I hope everyone is doing well and that it's cool where you are!! It's stifling hot here. I'd love for some rain to cool things off.

Until next time...