Pink Bliss Lozenge

This necklace makes me think of sweetness and kindness and all manner of wonderment: being tucked in, secret gardens with unruly vines, beach sunsets, Art Deco design.... The stone is Peruvian Pink Opal in such a generous size and lustrous shade of petal.... it'll be in the metal shop before deep night tonight.

As Anthony accepts his fate ( while working desperately to find a new one ) and I steel myself for the land of corporate work again I need these sweet things. I know I will come home from work every night hungry to make and inspired anew for the love of what I will be doing from 6PM to sleepy time.
If I thought I loved my creative work before I think I am in for a wondrous treat: it will renew its honor through me again and again as the weeks go by: perhaps it will even save me from the overwhelming sadness that used to consume me when I was faced with office work - I know that part two of my day will be even more amazing and important.
More important than any of this will be the idea of letting myself 'be' - sometimes we identify so much with what we do
( especially here in LA where that's the intro line when you meet strangers at a party or on a bus - "What do you do?" ) that we forget how WORTHY we are by simply breathing. By being. My being-ness must be enough.

Trust

Be What You Are

When My Heart Feels Weary

I turn to the softest place I know. And rest there until I can recharge.
I feel vulnerable today...
To feelings that somewhere out there someone misunderstands my designs.
And thinks me dishonest in my creative inspiration.
Vulnerable because I also realized (as I got my marriage license with my Dearest) there are people I love passionately who will not be able to know I am getting married. My dearly departed relatives and aged friends who have passed before they even knew I had found this kind of love.
I hope they can see - I hope they don't see me cry for them, but instead show up on my wedding day and send me signs of bird feathers and leaves of a certain kind.
They all know their symbols, and I deeply wish for them at 3:30 P.M. sharp, October 18th to be ready with the north winds and the foothill flora nearby. I pray for a symphony of meaningful path-crossing.
For now I will retreat to the studio and make things, praying that their origins are understood.

Post Spa

So,,,,,re.......laxed I ghgdejkkl,nn zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

!!!

This is the face you make when you remember you have a salt scrub and a 90 minute massage tomorrow at Burke Williams: the extra zeal is because it is being paid for in trade: leatherwork for luxury!!!!
I just cannot believe I get to drink their cantaloupe-infused water again and lounge in my unbelievably thick robe so grateful for the luck of it all.
I will bring you back some relaxation :)

Lichen

I love turquoise with major matrix, so when I seek it out I want it to look just like this stone:



And then I want to put it in a beautiful setting and fight the urge to keep it forever, because I know there are certain pieces that belong elsewhere.
There's a quietness to this piece that I like:


the little hammer marks are quick becoming my favorite thing about silversmithing. It reminds me of tooling leather, which I will be doing for the rest of the day after I finish here.
Much much much love to you all this beautiful Monday!!!

Busy Bee

Today has found me silversmithing like the wind. I have enjoyed every problem, every new solution and all the in between.
Anthony is approaching his new job search with such an admirable and down right sexy spirit: I am so excited that his approach to life is so measured and steady: both of us would be crazy if he were like myself :)

There are a few delightful items for sale in the Leather Shop, both involving koi , but the big sale is over and this week will find me tooling away to finish custom orders in time for the wedding festivities the week after.

In spite of, or maybe even because of the changes I feel invigorated and alive:

My dear friend The Plume said ( in so many words ) that now is the time to find the place my heart belongs, and it's really interesting knowing that some of our options are outside of Los Angeles: Austin sounds really, really good to my heart.

We'll all figure it out, my sexy job-seeker, our sitcom kitties and me.

Peace Roses

For my mother's friend Mary's wedding the week before mine!

SALE ENDING REMINDER

Dearest Dearests,

The Sale over at Sunny Rising Leather is over as of midnight on Saturday and the pieces are flowing out like lava today: if you love something, now is the time to get it for 25% off.

xoxo,
Allison (Sunny)

Electrode City

My heart rate is being monitored: for this I am grateful - perhaps there will be a definitive answer for all the drum solos in my chest, but likely it's just stress and caffeine.

Loss

Oh my.

If I had known when I put my shop on sale yesterday that it would be odd foreshadowing I would have wondered at it all....

My dearest soon-to-be-hubby is being let go ( albeit with a few leads to go on ) from his company.

My heart aches.


xo,
A

25% OFF!!!!!!!!!!

My entire leather shop is 25% off. If you've loved something from afar now is the tim to grab it up and cradle it for years to come.
Pass the word on to those you know!!!

You will notice nothing in the shop is customizeble or made to order: in preparation for the wedding I can not take any more custom orders: when I return from the honeymoon those items will magically reappear!

I had an amazing time at the fair and it inspired this fresh wind through my little tree. Enjoy the sale: may it be as gratifying and lovely for you as it is for me :)

( All prices marked in the shop are the regular prices - break out your calculators to tabulate what you will pay - CONVO me beforehand so I can adjust the price and reserve the item for you or I will just send you a refund via Paypal after you make your purchase )

In a few Hours

I'll be taking my shops to vacation mode to go to the Abbott Kinney Festival tomorrow: everything I have made will be going with me and there's no guarantee that it's coming back with me, which is exciting!
If there's something you love, make note of it in case it gets sold: I can usually reproduce something give or take a different chain or stone.
I made this for myself today:

from a bracelet whose back got discolored: I love it and it fits like a dream!

Something For Everyone

I have to share something I have been doing with you, as it is making a rather massive difference in my life: I have been meditating. 15 minutes in the morning and 15 in the late evening, preferably right before bedtime.
It's not easy to quiet my mind, but in those moments when I can it is just so still and silent that even breathing feels magical.
I was having a really hard time with the stresses of running a business and working on the wedding in an administrative capacity, aside from the everyday challenges of learning and growing.
My reserves were empty, I was grinding my teeth at night and waking up with neck stiffness: my emotions were so close to the surface and fragile that I couldn't even watch Ratatouille, that Pixar film about a Rat who longs to cook - the chase scenes were jarring, the stress of his potential discovery under that guy's hat too taxing on my poor little overblown senses....
So I decided to start meditating, remembering how good it felt on my senior year of college when I became similarly overwhelmed.
Here are the pros:
I am more objective about difficult situations.
Patience is HUGE now - with downed computers at the USPS yesterday I stood in line with an honestly serene heart while a few others did that loud sighing thing that signifies grrrreat displeasure.
When I cry it feels like a rainstorm: like something is getting cleared out that needed to be, and like what's left behind has been given a chance to grow stronger FOR having cried.
I feel grateful a whole lot.
My heart palpitations are lessened greatly ( I get that monitor thingee next Thursday: cannot wait to post pictures! )
Overall quality of life is improved.
Serendipitous little things keep happening over and over again, I am much more psychic, testing myself even to see what lanes cars will go to, when they will turn left or right and being correct so much of the time it's almost scary.


Cons:












So there you have it. Meditating for non-mystical purposes has changed my life. I sincerely hope I can keep this up regularly as a habit for life: given what I listed for you above it seems like it would be a tragedy to lose those benefits by lack of stck-to-it-ness.