Flowers flowers everywhere

Is it just Spring or should I take it as a sign that I've been surrounded by flowers lately?
Henry, Suzy, and Dan brought these over last week. Don't you want to just dive into these colors? Orange, pink, and green is my favorite color combo these days.

I just received this shot from my sister-in-law Becky. They scream Becky (who is a wonderful artist and uses pink like no one else can). I love the blast of yellow amidst the sea of pinks...so lovely!

Emma took this shot of the apple trees a couple weeks ago. These trees are really far back in the yard so we don't appreciate their beauty as much as we might if they were closer to the house. I guess it takes an open-eyed kid to help remember to stop and smell the flowers...

So I'm taking all this floral beauty as a sign to do just that: Slow down a little, recoup, enjoy the beauty around me in nature, my family, my work. It takes effort for a type A person like me to do this. When I look at my mounting to-do list I get kind of frustrated and a little frightened, but I know it's important as I get a sense of the old Jean--the one really deep down who's wearing flowers in her hair rather than a cell phone in her pocket--slowly reemerging. I know she's going to help me as I undertake my next creative journey.

Steampunk cover REVEALED!

Oh, I'm just over the moon. I just received the final cover for my Steampunk-Style Jewelry: A Maker's Collection of Fantasy, Victorian, and Mechanical Designs.

I'm really excited about this book, although it's a lot different than anything I've done before. First off, there aren't a whole lot of beads in it. But don't let that scare you beaders off, because there's plenty of wirework and other very creative no-fire methods for making jewelry that can only enhance your beadiness.

Second, the book is just PACKED full of inspiration, starting with the artists who contributed projects: Melanie Brooks, Cynthia Deis, Jen Hilton, Jamie Hogsett, Jane Mormino, Margot Potter, Barbe Saint John, Annie Singer, Madelyn Smoak, Tracy Thomasson, Andrew Thornton, Jean Yates, and me. There's also a fabulous eye-candy gallery section to delight and inspire.

The biggest difference for me with this book was that I got to play social journalist (rather than just my regular writer/editor/designer/meat self)and wrote 20 pretty hefty sidebars on aspects of the Steampunk trend. They cover fashion, literature, the arts, and more, so if you're unfamiliar with Steampunk you'll have it down once you read this book.

Okay, better get back to the drawing table. There are Beadwork edits to be done!

Hamster Dance

I've been doing a lot of editing lately. A lot of editing. Like a hamster on a little exercise wheel, madly moving words around into the proper order just in time for more out-of-order words to be rearranged.

The designers who write the original words for these projects think they are in good order when they send them in to a publisher, and they probably are. But each publisher likes to use particular words and to have them lined up in a set order. For instance, some publishers like the word "string" while others like "pick up". And no publisher can stand a passive voice, so each and every sentence must be changed to start with a strong verb.

At a certain point in the editing process I can't see the words anymore. They swim like little minnows and I can't keep track of which one started where. So I go outside for a walk or call my sister or flip on HGTV for a minute while I eat some chocolate. Then I sit down and start again. It's a crazy process, but the feeling of shaping a difficult project into clean, understandable terms is pretty darn gratifying.

One Small Favour

Brenda Schweder encouraged me to try my hand at using steel wire in a piece, so I did. What do you think? For this necklace, which I call One Small Favour (that came up when I Googled steel+key+ring) I used one of Melanie Brooks' new keyhole pendants for the focal, a Tim Holtz game piece and a fine silver spacer for the dangle, but otherwise it's all raw and galvanized steel. The stuff is wicked on your hands, and you definitely shouldn't use your good tools for working with it, but the resulting piece is actually quite wearable and as my neighbor said, it will last much longer than I will!