LOVE this ring!  I would imagine if you were the girlfriend of a rockstar (or in my case…the mom of a rockstar :O) that this ring would be a MUST have!  And i must give credit where credit is due…. A really cool chick came into the shop today wearing something similar… mom and i had a fit over it..she said she got hers at Canton…But i could not wait.  I literally could not sleep until i had one on my finger.  So at 4AM…i could wait no longer… got out of bed… and this is it!  Question is now…do i keep? or sell?  May have to sleep on that one! :O)

oh yeah! forgot to mention….it’s made out of a vintage fork!

As long as i can remember, I have loved to layer clothing.  That is one reason i am looking forward to some cooler weather..I am a jacket wearing fool!  I love all the possibilities and versatility that a jackets gives.  BUT…my new favorite thing to layer? …jewelry!!!  Last week i found time to play with layering a few of my favorite things.  Some of it is dainty…some chunky…i am a fan of it all! 

p.s. most items i show in my post can be found at the shop (bayou crafters)

Drew is a little under the weather today(ear infection and cold)….so he is home with me….and let me tell you..he is a wiz with an iphone (remember he is 2  1/2….well…almost 2  3/4).   For months i’ve known that he could look at pictures, play with the games, listen to his fav videos on youtube (choo choo soul), and text (although it’s jibberish).  Last week he started taking pictures and today he showed me that he knew how to check my email.  Ted and I both have iphones..and our apps are arranged differently…so drew did not merely memorize what to do.  I believe he could operate anyones iphone.  Sooo…I’m renting him out to anyone who needs iphone help …but he’s not cheap …he needs pig money :O)

“You are the star, the dreamer, the creator of your destiny.  Unfold your wings and weave your magic.”  -Adele Basheer

Have i mentioned that i’m totally into birds? ) All of these pendants are backed with some of my favorite quotes/sayings.  Dress them up by clipping them to one of my freshwater pearl/chain/vintage lace necklaces (LOTs more of them coming soon)…or to your favorite pearls, chain, etc…

As most of you know…I have a 2  1/2 year old little boy and he keeps me on my toes!  And of course as his mom…i think he’s brilliant ) … so i decided i’m gonna share some of the things he says at the bottom of my posts.  Sooo…here goes my first …

Drew completely OOTB (out of the blue) a couple of days ago - ” I don’t like fireworks.  They mean to me.”

got a few new design stamps in…and i’ve been playing.  design stamps are tricky…each one has it’s own personality…and i haven’t quite “gotten to know” my new ones yet (i’ve got a fleur de lis stamp that i don’t think i’ll ever understand )…

soooooo lots of practice ahead!  stay tuned…

cuffs are in…and this is my version.  nickel (all the beauty and durability of silver without the high price tag) hand-stamped with two of my favorite sayings…LOTS more of these to come…

got a favorite quote/saying that you think i would like?  let me hear it…i’m always looking…

i really enjoy making these…almost as much as i enjoy scavaging for the pieces to put on them )

this one has some of my favorite things:

old keyhole (i’ve been hoarding this piece for a while…)

vintage rhinestone earing, bead, and crystal

“tabular” typewriter key

tattered lace

vintage watch

old key

cool faceted black bead

one of my hand made charms with an oscar wilde quote  - “every saint has a past..every sinner has a future”

Got some new supplies/toys in the other day…and i’ve been having a field day!…this is just one of the many things i made over the weekend…will post more later!  This one is headed to the shop!

This is my little collection of earthy, natural fiber cord and such (along with some of my vintage lace).  I’ve have tons of ideas of what to do with most of it…but so far no time.   I did however get this bracelet thrown together last week.  Been busy with family and custom orders this week…but hope to play more with these soon!

This bangle really needs to be seen in person to fully appreciate it.  Instead of the quote/word being on top of the bracelet for the world to see…it is on the side.  It’s more of a personal message for the wearer….(which i think is super cool!)  This one reads “let the beauty of what you love be what you do -rumi”…..but as always…these are stamped by hand..by me…so they are completely customizable.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love my life?  I walk into my workroom everyday….and i piddle (if i don’t have any pressing special orders, that is).  I usually enter my room with a few goals for the day…but my favorite days and best work comes when i just piddle on whatever is calling my name that particular day.  Yesterday it was this ring.  It is hand-stamped with a bird and one of my favorite sayings…”His eye is  on the sparrow…I know He watches me”. 

All things having to do with birds are so popular right now…and i am a fan!   The “lucky mom” necklace is fairly new…a nest with an egg (freshwater pearls) to represent each of your children… and the silver is handstamped to read “lucky mom”.  I also sell the “Mother’s Nest” alone for a simpler look.  And yes…another bracelet….love the birds on this one.

Last night I saw the newest hit musical, Spring Awakening at The Kennedy Center. In the most basic understanding of this show, it is a story about puberty, growing up, and the life of confused teenagers. The musical basically shows us what happens when kids are not properly taught about sex education, whether that means in school, by their parents, or their peers. The production I saw has won a number of awards and was a really fun experience, however, there some things I would like to discuss.

The setting of Spring Awakening (“a provincial German town in the 1890s”) was either a) completely unnecessary or b) not pronounced enough. The only way the audience was made aware of this setting was through the character names (such as “Ilse,” “Hanschen,” “Moritz,” and “Melchior (pronounced: Milky-OR)”) and the costumes. The set was very vague looking, had a ton of neon lights, and didn’t seem to be especially German. –This was all extremely distracting to me throughout the musical, and I couldn’t seem to get over the disconnect between the representation of the setting and the story. The production would have been just as successful in a monotonous black box with all black costumes; thus putting a much greater emphasis on the music and plot.

The music was genuinely really good and catchy. The score was rock meets pop with gospel influences. The energy was very similar to that of such shows like, Rent, Next To Normal, Hair, and Jesus Christ Super Star. The lyrics were modern with song titles such as, “The Bitch of Living,” “My Junk,” and “Totally Fucked.” The sound was fun and hip and I could imagine listening to the soundtrack for weeks.

The band was likely my favorite part of the show. It was a small, eight-piece band which was featured at the back of the stage. [A major shout-out to Conductor/Keyboardist, Jared Stein! My family and I met his father on a recent trip to Cleveland, Ohio where Jared's father turned out to be the man behind the counter who helped us at the famous deli, Corky & Lenny's.]

My favorite song of the show was, “The Dark I Know Well,” which was about physically abusive parents. I loved the low, sultry Alto voices of actresses, Sarah Hunt (Martha) and Steffi D (Ilse). Their voices were similar to the sound of Janice Joplin, only minus Joplin’s well known scratchiness.

“The Dark I Know Well” Spring Awakening(On Broadway) Video by plasticsoul – MySpace Video

The memorable song, “Totally Fucked,” is pretty identical to the commercials Twix candy bars have been making recently. Twix’s new slogan is, “When you need a moment, chew it over with Twix.”

(Blogging? I love blogging!)

This is the same message as the song in Spring Awakening. In “Totally Fucked,” a teen is caught between a rock and a hard place and is, as the songs says, “totally fucked.” He has no choice but to get in big trouble and so in his last “moments of freedom,” he breaks into song and dance –his Twix, if you will.

Also, this song features a chorus where the entire cast is singing the word, “blah.” While this was possibly creative  in the lyrics department, it certainly was not original. The Gorillaz also have used “blah’s” in their song, “Rock It.”

The show was unique and disturbing in a very uncomfortable and awkward sexual way. Such highlights include a song about masturbation (which prominently shows a guy pleasuring himself, center stage); two full-on heterosexual sex scenes involving a naive virgin girl, which featured a bare-breast and the enactment of an orgasm and thrusting; my favorite – a homosexual love scene which had some kissing; and lastly, abortion and suicide.

However, I need to point out that during the gay scene, the audience seemed to find it humorous. Maybe the laughter was due to an unfortunate discomfort of the audience. Yet, during the heterosexual sex scene, the audience was dead silent. I thought this was very unfair to the subject of homosexuality.

Another point I would like to touch on was that all of the adults in the musical were played by two people; a man and a woman. This became extremely confusing since there was no costume change or anything to really help the audience know who the actors were portraying. An especially confusing example of this was a back-and-forth scene between the husband and wife for each of two teenagers. The audience is left to figure out when the actors switch from one set of parents to the next. Maybe a more successful way to portray the idea that “all adults are the same” would just be to get more people to play the adults but dress them all the same.

I would give this show an 8 out of 10. It was fun and highly entertaining, even though on a number of occasions, the plot was unbearably predictable and made me want to walk out (I didn’t). Also, beware for yet another musical/story to be heavily influenced by the over-done, “Romeo & Juliet” story line. Some of Spring Awakening’s lines seemed to be direct copies from Shakespeare’s play. Anyways, I would definitely recommend this show, but remember that it is R-rated, for nudity, profane language, violence, and sexual content. Enjoy the show!

 Still on a bracelet binge….sorry for the fuzzy photos…been blogging from my phone..and it just doesn’t photograph the details very well….

Kinda on a bracelet kick…
Here are a few recent ones…
Among the pictured are my new organic bangles…(homegrown with a hammer and ALOT of love)…hand-stamped with various inspirational words/sayings and flawed to perfection…just the way I like it :0)

I’m trying to tinker with permissions and filters and blah blah blah with my personal entries. So, for now, it’s going to look like all I post about is Chris Chris Chris and the bike trip. I’m still trying to get used to WordPress so yeah, bear with me. Rawr.

Tina, thank you for sending me your peanut shells. One could only imagine what you look like, my guess would be your 5′5, 226 lbs of sexy sweaty female hotness. I wonder how many peanuts you ate. Did you eat a handful? Was is half the bag? Or perhaps the whole bag? Im gonna take a wild guess and say the whole bag. For some odd reason im tempted to put a few of these shells in my mouth, just so it can bring me closer to you Tina. Maybe we have a connection, and will find it through these peanut shells you sent me. I can only hope. Tina please do me a favor next time, instead of peanut shells how about you send me a picture of you and a pair of your nice worn panties. Now thats something a JUNKNER would appreciate!

Ok, so on Saturday I received 2 packages from fellow JUNKNERS. Inside was exactly what I was looking for. Let me start with package 1. I could tell this was going to be something good, as it had a stench that smelt worse than an old babys dirty diaper. I opened it up and found these 2 beautiful worn, smelly, stinky tube socks. Im pretty sure the guy who sent these to me has to be named Bubba or Jerimiah, and he is a maintainence worker in his community trailor park. These socks scream white trash all the way! Nothing against white trash, I am white to. But man Bubba must not shower but 1 time every few weeks. Id love to see him sitting on the steps to his trailor in these socks, with no shoes on, Budweiser can in hand, a white wife beater on, and smoking on a Marlboro Red. Wellllllll I reckonnn. Bubba please put down the beer, take off the socks, take of the wife beater, and jump in the fuckin shower! Im sure you neighbors would appreciate it to.

Ill start this item with a minimum bid of: $25.00

Of all the projects that “needed” to get finished today… This is the one that actually did. I’m loving old lace today!

γιατί για να γυρίσει πάλι πίσω σπίτι του
ζωντανός, του μένει
το άλλο μισό του δρόμου να περάσει

Σε μια νύχτα γοτθική

με το φεγγάρι βέρα

και τον ουρανό σε ρέιβ πάρτυ

ζήλεψε η γη το φευγιό μου

Έστειλε χώμα και κοτρόνες να φράξουν το δρόμο

νερά, χορεύοντας, να πνίξουν τους αθώους ταξιδιώτες

Ανάμεσα στο ακινητοποιημένο κομβόι από ρόδες μουγκές

γέλασα με το φόβο

τον τσίμπησα να δω αν είναι αληθινός

και συνέχισα για εκεί όπου η απουσία βρίσκεται σε απόσταση ασφαλείας

Εν πλω της μεθυστικής λήθης, η θέληση, με έπαρση κομάντο, υπόσχεται  αλλιώτικη την επιστροφή, όσο οι μέρες ξοδεύονται

Στο σουλτανάτο της συνήθειας η ανοησία ντυμένη πέπλα φαντάζει άνεση

μα εγκλωβίζει σε θάλαμο πολύχρωμης φαντασίωσης

μέχρι να ηχήσει το τηλεφώνημα της πραγματικότητας

ξαφνικό κι επίμονο, με στέλνει πίσω με φόρα στην αναχώρησή μου

κι η χαρούμενη διαδρομή επικυρώνει την σύμβαση

απενοχοποιημένη η επιστροφή πέφτει στην αγκαλιά της ανάμνησης

ήδη λαχταρώ την επόμενη -αναχώρηση, ανάμνηση, επιστροφή-

άσκοπα, σαν να ζυγίζω καπνό

κι αυτή τη φορά (δεν) θα αργήσω να γυρίσω

(overheard from one elderly lady to another)
“She was all gussied up with vintage this and vintage that…but mostly it was just junk!”

I’ve decided to move my journal here after holding it at Livejournal for about six years or more.  I needed a change anyway.