Driving, Illness, and Resin

One thing about living in Packwood, you have to be ready to drive if anything happens! This week my mom was in the nearest hospital with pneumonia for a few days and we had to pick up my mother-in-law's glasses in Tacoma.  As a consequence, we have spent a lot of my non-work time driving, not my first choice of activities.  Fortunately, Mom came home yesterday, so we could take that day to run down to Tacoma and turn right around and come back.

Meanwhile, everyone across the creek where she lives has a really cruddy virus.  It sounds like a hospital ward over there.  So far we have been lucky over here, just tired and cranky, not sick.

I did get to play in the studio the last few days.  I have been experimenting with UV-light-cured resin. It sure is great when it works right away. I fear that I used it over a wet layer of another coating on a tile, because it just doesn't quite feel dry, even after a long time under the UV flashlight. I will be playing with this more, though. SO nice to have it be dry in minutes instead of days! I did the pieces above using the new epoxy.

I enjoyed making the owl pendant below and the cashier at Costco was very admiring of it yesterday.  Her mom used to love owls and apparently collected them.

The owl is actually embedded in the epoxy. This took a few layers to get everything level and covered, but so fast in between layers! I'm looking forward to finding more ways to use the UV epoxy. I love using up pieces of tings that might otherwise be wasted. The little owl came off of an earring blank. I think he's pretty cute as a singleton in the green with blowing gold leaves, don't you? 

Have a great week!

Penny

Warning: Bright Color Ahead

I have had color on my mind for the last week or so. Today, in particular, I was drawn to yellow and orange, bright, gotcha colors, and not so much shine as this winter. I still love the glittery, shiny stuff, but this week it was all about color, strong color or ways to make pastels look a bit more sophisticated.

I adore orange, but I don't feel comfortable wearing shirt that is orange. It's is nice to know I can use it in small doses as earrings or bracelets. It looks amazing with dark blues. It can also be just what a neutral khaki and white outfit needs. I have combined it with a brilliant sun yellow in a few pieces, and it reminds me of sunsets in the summer.

I have also been using some neutral backgrounds, pale green with some pearly shine with pattern on top. The pinks with black are appealing to me now, too. If you are a wearer of pink, there are some pale, shell-like colors that are toughened up a bit with the black line work on top.

How do you wear strong colors? Are you awash in black? No problem, they all look great against black, too. I spent years wearing black for concerts, so any opportunity to brighten it up a little bit was welcome. I would have definitely liked some of these fiery colors in my earrings for those evenings.  Come see more fun jewelry at www.pwmarcus.com.  New pieces are added weekly!