11 And Still in Love

Happy, happy, happy, happy, happy Ani-vers-ary!

We have been married for 11 years!!!

I LOVE YOU CHIMPY!

Check out our engagement photo from 11 years ago!

My favorite picture from our wedding.

Mail Packaging

Okay so I got a little creative with packaging the gifts and thought I'd show 'em off!

After I made the jewelry cards I wrapped them in tissue and made a cute little sticker with my sticker maker.

Then I put them in these cute little silver bags and tied a pretty white ribbon around them.

Jewelry Cards

I've sent out a couple of gifts and made jewelry cards for them with card stock & scrap booking papers. I've always believed that the presentation of an gift is almost as important as the gift it's self, so I always try to have pretty wrapping even if I have to send it in the mail.

The earring card was the easiest to make; the bracelet card was the hardest.

These are two necklace cards that I made the blue one is the first one I made and the black one is the second one I made and turned out much better.

Betty had matching boxes for all of her glass pieces when I went to her show & I got this beautifully blingy green box to match the Tulip pendant! Beautiful Betty!

Garage Sale Finds

I got these from a Garage Sale, I bought them because I liked them and thought that at the very least I could take them apart and use them in other jewelry. I think I paid either $1 or $2 for the necklace & each pair of earrings. I was going to start taking them apart and I thought to myself...."I should look at these and see if they have any markings"....so I got out my magnifying lens and sure enough a couple pieces had some markings!

These earrings have a marking of Coventry on them, when I did a quick search the only thing I could find was a Sara Coventry, not sure if it's the same designer, but the earrings look similar to some of her work and so does this necklace. Not real gold, but quality costume jewelry.

These earrings are sterling and are marked so, they are also marked Danecraft. A quick search revealed that the stones are most likely glass. Again, quality costume jewelry. They are beautiful earrings, and I'll probably keep them as is or perhaps try to convert them to pierced from the clipon style and wear them.

These are some other earrings I found there, not sure if it's worth taking to a jeweler to try to find out if they are of any value or not, especially since the rest of the jewelry is only costume.

If anyone knows more about any of this jewelry or an ideas on a way to find out if the studs are valuable or not please leave me a comment! Thanks!

Betty's Glass

I'm so happy that Betty's show at the Flamigo was such a success!!! I bought a couple pieces from her and wanted to share with everyone.
I named the pieces Tulips by Betty & Purple Flower in Snow by Betty. One is a gift and the other is for me.

Jean's Pendant & Earrings

This set was made for my Mother-in-Law's 65th birthday.

The front of the pendant has a CZ set in the center of the flower. The outer ring was hammered and I used Silver Black to antique the piece then burnished the flower to give it some luster. The back is stamped with her name and I attached a heart. I used sterling chain and attached some dark blue/black bead & pearls for the necklace.

The earrings match the center of the pendant and have the same beads and pearls as the necklace only smaller.

Steph's Chandeliers

These are a Japanese chainmaille weave. It was a little tough working with those tiny rings, but I put on my reading glasses and wa la! These earrings are great, you can wear them with jeans and a T-Shirt or with a fancy schmancy dress and they pair fabulously with either!

Twinkle Ring

This ring broke too, but it broke while I was wearing it. I think it was because I made it too thin. Keep checking my blog, I will make this into something else. It was a nice ring but will be even nicer.............

Laugh Out Loud

This class was a supposed to be a hammered ID bracelet. Because I'm such a perfectionist I have to file and sand and get everything just so before I fire it. And I broke my bracelet while it was in the dried clay state before I fired it.

I had three words on there, I can't remember what the other two were, but I was able to save one end with the heart hole and the word laugh. I figured I make it into a charm.

I fired it and then it was time to hammer. Because it was supposed to be a bracelet the end with the heart was a little curved. The perfectionist in me wanted it to be flat so I thought that I'd hammer it flat, I hammered it flat! And again I broke it!

I now keep this on my work table to remind me to Laugh Out Loud! It's not the end of the world when something breaks, use it to your advantage and make something else out of it!

South Beach, Florida

Here we are on South Beach in Flordia on our vacation in June! It was my second trip to Miami and Troy's first. We drove from Miami to Key West and went to the most southern point in the US. The water is so warm it's almost shocking! We had a very relaxing time, we both needed it! I LOVE THE BEACH!!!!