insta-friday: down & back again

soo this is actually a little over a week. from the weekend of palm sunday until now. i've been down to chicagoland twice in the past week. two weeks ago i went down for a baby shower for one of my oldest friends. 

friends since elementary school. congratulations crystal jean! we missed you heather!

whenever i'm home i make sure to eat all the food we don't have up here in the woods. lets be honest, that's anything besides mcdonalds or subway so my options are endless. 

from the top: enchiladas, frozen yogurt, midnight run to spunky dunkers,
 tj's amazing almonds, pad thai, and breakfast for dinner (that one was local)

in between trips to civilization i got a lot done in the studio this week- from organizing to new projects to some unrestricted creative fun (hooray!)

Someone recently passed along a big box of vintage costume jewelry and I've spent much of the week clipping and sorting and playing around giving all these pieces new life. i love that each piece is unique and one of a kind. yep...those mean the same thing. 

Another one of these is in progress. I'll blog about it when it's all done!

New skirt & scarf! Second attempt at the maxi. Should have used this fabric the first time. Instead I was silly & used my nice stuff from my Mood Fabrics groupon...and it doesn't quite fit. Boo.

Changing up some of the hoops on the wall. The "create" and the stitched doodle are being carried over from the old grouping because I love them and they were a lot of work, but everything else is fresh & new!

Finally getting the pegboard up and functional. When we moved into this house we weren't sure how long we'd be here so I never really organized. After a year & a half I decided my sanity was worth it even if I have to pack things up in a month!

also in the last week- baseball returned! hooray! baseball is really my first love. long before i met my own baseball player i loved the game. i was ryne sandberg for halloween when i was 4. my dad taught me to keep score and took me to cubs games. they break my heart every year but i can't live without them. stupid cubs. also there are the magic pants. right hannah? 

I don't need to be at the game to keep score! This was at my desk while listening to the radio!

We did get to go to a game while we were in Chicago. It's been a really long time since my whole family went to a game and it was wonderful. Sure they lost (the bullpen melted down, surprise, surprise) but a day at Wrigley with my love & my family really is perfect- especially when it's 60 & sunny! I've been to games at Wrigley in April in the snow. Or horrible freezing rain.

We love baseball!

we went to the easter service at willow. it feels huge to me now for the first time in a long time. since i grew up at this church as was in a small group with the same people for almost 10 years it never felt big. now that i've moved away and work at a church of 120 people and they've built a new auditorium, this just feels huge! it is always a blessing to be back though, the easter service was a beautiful mix of music, spoken word and artistic moments that conveyed the message of the Gospel so clearly!

Easter Sunday at my home church. Yep, it's big!

after church we had our usual april birthday celebration with my family. my nana's birthday is the 18th, my dad's is the 17th and papa's was the 6th so every year we do all the april birthdays plus easter as one big celebration!

Happy Birthday Dad Man! I found him that vintage Quaker Whiskey bottle to use when he teaches Quaker University at work (he's a chemical engineer for Quaker Oats!)

again i'll leave you with the weekly picture of the pup. 

since we don't have kids she gets her picture taken a lot. a lot, a lot. 

found a happy spot in the sun!

as usual, i'm linking up over here with jeannett!

bead for life

if you are visiting from faith blogs today, welcome! i hope you'll keep checking out the great bloggers listed in the faith blogs directory!

All images in this post are ©csteinberg2007, and are used by permission of the photographer.

recently i attended a ladies night out with some lovely women here in town. a friend hosted a  bead for life party. until that night i had never heard of bead for life but i came away inspired by the organization and what they're doing in the lives of women in uganda. i want to introduce you to bead for life and possibly inspire you to get involved!

aren't they beautiful?

we watched the following video that tells the story of this wonderful organization. it's a little bit long, but i encourage you to watch the whole thing, it's worth it! 

we also got to watch a video tutorial on making paper beads & practice right along with the video. this is not as easy as it seems! sure you can roll it up any old way and end up with a bead, but to get pretty, uniform looking beads is hard!

rolling a bead

i left the party that night with four gorgeous bracelets and inspired by the work being done in uganda. i love what they said in the video about feeling the woman's hands who created my beads. what an amazing connection! 

my bracelets! this photo is {obviously} mine!

  according to their website the mission of bead for life is to create, "sustainable opportunities for women to lift their families out of extreme poverty by connecting people worldwide in a circle of exchange that enriches everyone."

BeadforLife is guided by the following principles:

1. Creating businesses and jobs through entrepreneurial development is a more sustainable approach to poverty eradication than providing aid. Rather than becoming dependent on handouts from abroad, members build their skills and long-term capacities through meaningful creative work.
2. Concerned citizens in resource-abundant countries care about the issues of extreme poverty and are willing to get involved.
3. Paying the members fair trade prices allows them to meet their daily economic needs.   Investing 100% of our net profits in community development projects for impoverished Ugandans allows for a long-term sustainable future.
4. Working together enriches all of us.
   {source}

i want them all!

getting involved is as simple as going shopping! you can buy jewelry as well as bags of beads to turn into your own jewelry at the bead for life shop online or visiting their brick & mortar store in boulder, co. if you want to do more, consider hosting a bead party. you can spread the word & help accessorize all your friends! bead for life will send you everything you need to host a party for free! info can be found here. 

also just a reminder that from now until april 15th, 10% of all sales from my etsy shop will go to the american red cross to help with relief efforts in japan. you can also donate directly through the red cross. thanks!

fun with wire

since hubby has been out of town i've had lots of time to play with new jewelry ideas. the past few nights i've been trying my hand at making rings.  i need to get some legit supplies before i offer these in the shop (like a ring mandrel....probably shouldn't size rings on a highlighter for customers) but i love doing this!

 this first one matches the green meadows crocheted bracelet in the etsy shop. i wanted the funky look that comes from crocheting wire to come through in this ring and i think i succeeded!

to make this i took a piece of 20 gauge wire, formed a loop in each end and wrapped the whole piece in matching 26 gauge wire. to make it circular, i wrapped the piece around a highlighter that was a bit bigger than my ring size.

then i strung lots of beads onto another piece of 26 gauge wire and played with them until i was satisfied with the size and shape of the cluster. (i'll do a full tutorial soon, when i can take process pictures)

this one is a lot like the first one but made with freshwater pearls.  

these two are wire wrapped rings with a "rosette" on top. 20 gauge wire wrapped a few times around the highlighter (super professional i know!) then twisted around the top and finally wrapped back around the ring. i'm hoping to try this technique with a big pretty bead on top. 

              

new in the shop...

...and new in my repertoire! these tiny black earrings and the techniques used to make them have taken over my life!

  i have seen many tutorials online for burned edge flowers...(i'm working on one right now) and decided i needed to try it out. now i am in love with this simple process! cut circles. hold over flame.(burn fingers)sew togetheradd something pretty in the middle. (freshwater pearls here)
more colors coming soon (chocolate brown, dark lavender and of course green are the closest to completion)
for now find the black ones here:

 yes. that's a coffee spill in the photo. coffee stains dominate my life. 
also i'm calling these earrings begonias. everyone else calls them poppies but i want to be unique! i really do think they look like begonias. or begonia hybrids.  seen here and here. thoughts?  

i'm in!

about a week ago i applied to be a vendor at the taste of wheaton craft fair in june. it's a juried show and i wasn't super confident that i'd get accepted, especially since i had to choose one category for my work. a letter came today aaaand.....

i'm in! you can come visit me june 4 from 4-8 pm and june 5 from 10 am- 5 pm at memorial park in wheaton! there are going to be a lot of late nights in the next 22 days but i'm so excited! and a little terrified.

needed something to go with my sweater...

So I was headed to Bible study the other night and wasn't impressed with my accessories. I was wearing a simple brown cable knit sweater and it needed some serious dressing up! I borrowed a necklace from my ready to sell stash and then was stumped as far as earrings. So I made a few pairs...  

I hardly ever wear gold so I didn't have any gold or bronze ear wires. I improvised and just made hooks out of the wire I was using for the earrings. They look great but after a few hours they hurt! So I love all three...I'm wearing the big brown hoops now but that night I chose the wire wrapped shells. 

I love that I can make jewelry to match my mood or my outfit! So fun!

crocheting like crazy

 

my little hook and i have been quite busy! though there are still 3 or 4 unfinished projects i have going (including a wedding present that is almost 8 months late) i was able to knock off 3 finished products this week! one is a scarf that i decided to make at the last minute for craft hope (the same organization that organized the etsy shop for haiti). this month's project are red scarves that are being sent to college age students leaving the foster care system. i decided just a few days ago to do a scarf and got about 1/3 of the way through this pattern before i changed my mind, ripped the whole thing out and made up my own pattern. here's what I came up with: 

 

it's stitch up lengthwise, so i chained a few hundred- until i thought it was long enough- then did a row of single crochet. one of the stitches i really liked from the original pattern is the seed stitch: basically alternating single crochet and chain stitch- so i did that for about 6 rows. at that point i decided it wasn't going fast enough so i added in a row of half double crochet, then a row of double crochet. it still wasn't getting wide enough so i added 3 rows of mesh stitch using triple crochet- that got tall fast! at that point i started fearing i would run out of yarn so i just mirrored everything i had done up to that point. i'm happy with how it turned out- soft and fluffly not too tight at all!

 

Next up are these little flowers! A woman in my mom's Bible study was wearing a crocheted flower pin the other day and said she paid something like $12 for it. I figure I need to get in on that market! They're adorable, super easy and very versatile! I'm going to continue to experiment with colors and styles before I list them but I'm pleased at the progress! 

My newest adventure with the crochet hook was inspired by something in my happy hooker book. There's a pattern in the book for crochet jewelry which I used as a jumping off point for what will soon be a bracelet and a necklace. The crocheting is all done I just need to come up with a clasp for each that sort of matches the wire. I used brownish 26 gauge wire and two sizes of green glass beads I got on clearance a while back. 

 

The necklace is just a long chain with beads added in and the bracelet is two rows of crochet with lots of beads. It was so fun! I need to keep playing with the size of the hook and wire before these end up in the shop but i LOVE this new endeavor!

 

what to do?

i just made these new earrings...well they've been a process over the last month. i love them, but i also want to sell them. do i keep them for myself or sell them? or make more and keep these for myself? they were a lot of work so i don't know that i want to part with them, but i don't know that i want to do the work all over again anytime soon. thoughts?

just starting out

in the past few months i have had numerous people tell me i should sell the jewelry i make. that sounds pretty simple doesn't it? turns out it's not! i decided a few weeks ago to set up an etsy shop and so the process began. first i had to choose a good name, then set up shop policies, choose shipping and prices, and that was all before I even added any jewelry to the shop!
so i took some pictures, named the earrings and then sent them off into cyberspace hopeful that someone would find them as wonderful as i do. it's intimidating to put them out there, to ask to be judged by others. up until now i've made jewelry for myself or for gifts, but the idea of selling it was exciting enough to take the step forward. the shop has been open for two weeks, but still no sale. i'm trying to remind myself that i'm just starting out...