And now, my first 2020 post! (Whew!)

Things have been insane this year, right? In fact, it was shortly after last Christmas that Covid started here in Washington State. We have friends still unable to see family because they live in a nursing home and the whole of 2020 seems like it was just one long train wreck since the virus arrived.

I know, 2020 is still here, but we are on the tail end of it at last. In fact, it's already holiday shopping season, so I am making my stock available to you again in time for Christmas and Chanukah. My year was mainly taken up with elder care, but I still have plenty of stock from last year. I will feature some here, but mainly I hope to move my sales to Etsy over the coming months. Watch the blog and website for more information about my Etsy shop, meanwhile, I will still have items available at www.pwmarcus.com .

I hope you will consider gifting some of my jewelry this Holiday Season! Small packages and padded envelopes can make your socially (or even antisocially) distant gift-giving easier. In fact, I can wrap and send directly from my studio to any US or Canada location, just add where you would like it to go in the note to seller box on PayPal! I have loads of shiny goodness available for your own festive home times, as well.

Best wishes to you and your family this Thanksgiving and Yuletide Season, be happy and well! 

Penny

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!

Life in the Mountains

We have had a wild February up in Packwood. The snow is variable in the  mountains, depending on the snow line and your elevation, so that it can several feet where we are and hardly anything or even rain 4 miles down the road.  We didn't have a white Christmas this year, but we are making up for it now.  I guess that we are just getting our fair share now. At least the temps have been tolerable!

When I was younger, snow meant going skiing and sledding, possibly building a snowman and making snow angels, definitely a snowball fight with the neighbors and siblings. I still get excited when it snows, but that is combined now with the dread of shoveling, outages, and worry about being able taking care of my disabled family members. I hope we are out of the snow line for the rest of the winter!

One of my surface patterns
from last year.

The weather has kept me away from my studio this week. I plan to spend tomorrow working on the jewelry photos, getting new pieces up on the website, and making new things to post later. I can't wait to get back to it.  Since I am new to this, I would like to hear in the comments which pieces are your favorite at the moment. Just to see what is catching your eye.  You can see what has been up this week at The Shop (www.pwmarcus.com).  Here are a few things coming in for the next couple of weeks.

Cheers,
Penny