Progress

First round of castings have been cleaned up. Next step, polishing!

Daaaaang

I don't talk about my day job often mostly because it can be a very frustrating job to accept, but under all the crap there are times where it's pretty awesome and I get to see craaaazy things being made. Like this ring! Whoever is going to wear this ring is a baller! This thing is huge and in platinum (one of the costlier metals out there). Even with all that money, I wouldn't want a ring like this. It's so gaudy and flashy, not my type. I'll stick to minimal with subtle geometric influences :) But daaaaang, this ring is crazy don't you think??

Progress

I got my first round of castings back and am excited to include bronze into the mix! It'll be interesting to see my pieces in a yellow metal color. Alright, here we go! Time to get to work and crank out an entire inventory of pieces for Renegade. My hands will tire, my back will ache, and my eyes will strain, but it's gonna feel good when it's all finished.

RENEGADE!!!

I made it! I made it as a vendor for Renegade Craft Fair's Holiday Market in Chicago!! I'll be debuting my first ever collection at the market so everyone, come one, come all! This event has been a long time coming for me, and I'm so happy all that hard work has paid off. BUT HOLY MOLY! Do I have a lot more work to do till then! Stay tuned for progress updates.

Also, I know I seemed a little jaded in my last post, commenting about how my life isn't where it should be, yada yada yada. But I've also realized in the last 24 hours: Baby steps, I'll get there in baby steps. And this is just one more awesome baby step towards ultimate...Jewelry...DOMINATION! Oh, sorry, I mean *cough* running my own small business and *cough* creating my own jewelry :)

Happy Tuesday, everybody!

image via Renegade Craft Fair

Weekend

This weekend was...weird, for lack of a better word. It started off with grandiose plans of excitement and anticipation but didn't ripen to the fruits of my expectations. I was supposed to start the weekend off attending Chicago's Small Business Expo enriching my mind with information on how to start/run/maintain a small business. (Oh, because if you weren't aware, I'd like to start a new jewelry studio/retail space in Chicago, and yes, along with my own jewelry line...so many dreams...). And then after an early morning of inspiring business talk, I was going on a mini road trip to Arcadia, Missouri to attend the wedding of one of the first-in-eight-from-my-close-group-of-friends to get married. It was going to be an epic event! How could it not?? I've known these seven other friends for over 10 years now and we've made it our mission to meet up at least once a year. This was going to be a double whammy: wedding and reunion!

But nothing had turned out the way I had envisioned it. I missed the expo completely because the website gave me the wrong address. I barely had any time with my friends since most of the weekend was predominantly spent in the car driving to and from places, and 5 of the 7 friends were in the wedding so were preoccupied with wedding tasks. Sigh.

The weekend left me feeling sad, confused, worried, and...weird. I realized adult life creeping up on me. I realized my friends and I were getting older and as we aged, our reunions would be few and far between. I realized I'm getting older and my life is not where I want it to be. I realized too many things for a Monday morning and that I need to stop!

Finally, I realized that you have to stop and say to yourself instead, 'Ok, this is happening. How will you choose to handle this?' At this point, I'm not sure how. But making the choice to not get upset and think about it differently helps a lot. At least on my 2 hour commute to 'nowhere expo', I was able to see the beautiful Chicago skyline from a different view (pictured above). Yeah...at least there's that.

Hammer Time

I made a list the other day of everything I still need to do to bring this collection together and ready to sell. It overwhelmed me a little, not going to lie. It's all the small things you forget about that add up to insurmountable angst! But I stop...take it in...and then let it out....Yes, there are a lot of things to do, but there will always be a lot of things to do. All you can do at that moment, is accept it and be ok with it.

And so, I decide to focus on my tags. I hammered each one until the entire pile was finished. Let me tell you, hammering metal is very therapeutic. Sometimes you just gotta stop, breathe, and hammer it out.

So far, Fall's been good to me

Chicago's been beautiful ever since Fall hit! There's something about October that makes you breathe out a deep sigh and finally feel ok that it's not summer anymore. I hit off the fall season just right and hit up the Randolph Street Market with my bestie.

And a Sunday excursion to Walker Bros. Pancake House was even more awesome thanks to Mr.T and the breathtaking scenery that is Fall + Chicago.