2011 Beer Schedule

I know this is a jewelry blog, but Maggie makes beer, too. Yesterday, I made an Extra Special Bitter (ESB), a British Style Pale Ale, which is now starting to happily bloop in the fermenter. I’ve had great success using this recipe in the past (thanks, Jamil) and this is the first time ALL the ingredients are organic! Yay! I did it almost all by myself, with Morgan just being my brewery monkey. And no mistakes!

My beer goals for this year are to brew once a month. I have several things on my list, mostly British styles: Barley Wine, Southern Brown, maybe an Old Ale; but also Robust Porter, Baltic Porter, and Alt. That’s not 11 beers, but I’ll probably pick a few to make several times for practice.

Morgan and I will both be making beer for my brother’s wedding in October. We are also considering giving fermented gifts (beer and cider) for the holidays next year and are discussing what recipes to use. Suggestions are appreciated.

I’ll get back to jewelry soon. I really wanted to do a sewing project, but beer stuff keeps taking up the dining room/fabric cutting table. Soon…

Classy Old Favorites

Can you ever go wrong with sparklies and pearls? I don’t think so. Simple, timeless, elegant. I needed to restock this freshwater pearl and Swarovski crystal necklace.

While I did that, I thought, I’m just going to make several with different colors.

Classic black and white necklace. I ran out of this bead, so no matching bracelet… yet.

Red and white…

… and matching bracelet.

Olive green and white…

… and matching bracelet.

Enjoy.

Sparkly Flower Hair Jewelry

Sparkly! Must have it, like a raccoon or my cat. Now, in their order of creation…

Dyed freshwater pearls of teal and moss with Swarovski crystals of light amethyst, light sapphire, and emerald make the flower petal loops. The base of the barrette is wired with green Czech pressed-glass beads and gold craft wire. The flower idea came from a book called Bead by –oh, forgot the name, but will try to insert it later– and added the leaves and barrette.

I used stabilized turquoise beads and amethyst Swarovski crystal with the Czech pressed-glass leaves and barrette.. I saw this color combination at a Cartier exhibit in San Francisco last year and fell in love. I hope you like it also. I added freshwater pearl stamen to this iteration.

Instead of freshwater pearls, which would make this item more expensive, I opted for glass pearls. Again I used Swarovski crystal and Czech pressed-glass leaves with aurora borealis finish to stay with the white theme. I figured this would be beautiful on a bride or flower girl. I wired pearls all over the headband. I must say, the headband is pretty tight fitting making it hard for the wearer to loose, but might cause a headache. I’m afraid to bend it loose and crack the plating. When it is yours, you can do whatever you like with it.

Well, I think the jewelry arc is coming to an end, at least for this week. I will be putting up some variations on old favorites, which I will likely blog about. I also have to show off how awesome my cousin is. Stay tuned!

The Egyptian Connection…

Happy New Year! While visiting friends in the Bay Area this weekend, we kept making the reference, “this is my first <insert something here> of the new year!” Well, this is my first post of the new year!!! Hahaha. Okay, I guess it is funnier for me.

While watching season 6 of Stargate SG-1, that necklace Osiris wears during the summit catches my eye. Not for the first time, I might add. I attempted to make a fascimile of that necklace in the Egyptian Water Life Sky Necklace. My engineering consisted entirely of wires on that necklace. Here is another version of that necklace made with headpins and acrylic beads with East Indian motifs. I think headpins are the way to go for this design. I call it the Yama Necklace. Yama is Osiris’s equivalent in Indian mythology.

I can’t really say why I give Hathor this necklace. If I make more Egyptian themed necklaces I’ll probably just go down the list to name them. She is the goddess of love and music, which I find appealing. She is depicted in human form with a crown of cow horns and the sun. She is also depicted as a cow. Go figure…

Of the beads in this necklace, only turquoise, lapiz lazuli, and carnelian are stones the Ancient Egyptians used in jewelry. The others I’ve put in are blackstone, goldstone, sodalite, red adventurine, and red agate.

Next time, sparkly flowers and hair accessories…