Wow, it’s been almost a year!

If I don’t watch out it will be a year since I last posted. In some ways being an expert on multitasking is fine, but I always seem to have too much to do.

This past year I’ve concentrated to building up my store on Bonanza. Sales are picking up as more people are finding the site. It was an adjustment after selling on E--- for so many years. Selling online is changing very fast, and I have learned a great deal on how to take advantage of the new selling tools. Sometimes I’d like to send everything to an auction but I love to research the items, and then there is the wonderful satisfaction when someone buys what to them is a treasure.

One of the items that stands out is a booklet from Plainfield, New Hampshire published by the Mothers and Daughters Industry in 1904. This is a fascinating booklet by the women in a community who started a cottage industry making rugs and Swedish weaving and other crafts. This was the first clubhouse for women in the United States and an important piece of the history of the craft movement in our country.

The other item is an advertisement for Burnett’s essence of Jamaica ginger and vanilla in the New England Grocer newspaper about 1850. It was bought by a historical society in Mendon MA, where the factory was located, that had never seen the advertisement in color.

On a trip to Taos, New Mexico, one of the art galleries indicated an interest in carrying my jewelry. Recently I had time to make two more bracelets and hope to make more.

Both bracelets are formed by forging steel and then adding texture using gas and meg welding.

While making one I was thinking of my granite rocks in New Hampshire covered with moss, the contrast between and hard cool stone and the soft, and often damp, moss.

The other is decorated using gold leaf on an abstract rose. I was thinking back to how often the rose flower had meaning in my life such as my Grandmother’s perfume, my Mother’s bushes, my first corsage, my wedding bouquet, etc. This time I added a display stand.

I recently bought a wonderful hand tooled leather belt with a rose on the buckle and "Roses are red violets..." along the belt (How many times did we write that on our Valentines when we were young?) by Lindsey Griffith (check out her blog to see more of her work http://lifeshouldbeanadventure.blogspot.com/ ), to go with a red vintage dress that I found in an antique store. The dress is almost the same as my favorite during the 70’s. Low and behold it’s right in fashion this year. That dress had so many memories!