It's a Brand New Year!

2010 has dawned bright and chilly here in North Carolina. The sun is out, the sky is blue, and temps are hovering in the low 30s.... a balanced blend, in my book, of the way life operates.

I spent the last week of 2009 without a computer. It crashed on Monday evening and wasn't back from the computer whiz until late yesterday afternoon. All things seem to be running smoothly now... just in time for me to wish my friends and followers a wonderful New Year filled with love, life, hope, health, and contentment in all things. Here's to a renewed goal of working towards peace, justice, and mercy in our personal lives, families, and communities as well as across the globe. And to all those who create in some form or fashion, here's to renewed creative juices flowing!

During the days I was without my computer, I created some new products which I will be listing in my Etsy shop today and tomorrow. I'd been thinking about making these medicine bags for quite some time, and as blessings are often mixed in with sorrows and frustrations, I found the time to sit down and get to work on them when I couldn't sit in front of the computer screen!

From Native American culture, medicine bags hold sacred items important for life's journey. These bags are made from leather... remnants leftover from the sheaths my husband makes for the custom knives he makes and sells. They are all handstitched and handbeaded. Each bag will come with a few items to get the owner started on collecting special items with a significant meaning.







What do you think?

Bits and Pieces

So my husband makes custom knives, as I've posted before, and he also makes a leather sheath for each one, which means that there are bits and pieces of leather left over from many of his pieces. I have made a few necklaces from these small pieces, incorporating the leather as the focal piece and of course adding the beadwork. They are all very earthy and somewhat organic in style and color.

This is my latest piece which I posted on Etsy this morning... Branches and Berries...

It's beaded with gunmetal grey and deep red glass seed beads on a bib-style piece of soft, black leather.

It hangs from a black leather cord and is strung very simply with ivory bone tube beads, grey cat's eye glass rounds, and carved soapstone rounds.


Here is another style, Woodsong, with a fringed rusty-brown leather pendant, complimented with jasper and a lampwork glass bead, and strung with a variety of beads in gorgeous browns, oranges, and creams...


Lizard Song was listed on Etsy and featured in VickiDiane's Artists Exposed treasury of Etsy Project Embrace members.

It features black leather adorned with a beautiful crystallized agate and two silvery lizards amongst some very dark and earthy beads.


The experiments will continue... so look for more of these kinds of necklaces over the next few months!