Breakfast at Tiffany's pearls

This is MY color! Love it. Lately I've been working with this lovely shade of pale turquoise / robin's egg / 'tiffany's' blue. It seems like I always have a great spontaneous idea for a piece right before a show. These little loops have been sitting on my bench for awhile. I had planned to make them into a large brooch but they wanted to be a necklace.


See? Necklace. And as it happened to be, someone fell in love with this piece first thing Saturday at the Midsummer Festival of the Arts in Sheboygan.


There were earrings to be had as well. Nice long modern earrings.


Amazonite earrings and necklace coming soon...

A special mother's pendant

I am so very proud! Earlier this spring I exhibited in the Believe in Girls conference held by the Girl Scouts and demonstrated a possible career in the arts. A while after the conference one of the girls called me and arranged a ring making workshop for herself, her mother and her grandmother. We had a blast.

Just recently she called again and wanted to make a special necklace for her mother's birthday. She had bought the stones, come up with a design and needed a little help (and the tools!) to bring the piece to life. I helped with the bezels and stone setting but the sawing, filing, stamping, etc. was all her. Yay! She did such a great job and it was awesome to be able to help her make something special. You too can come to the studio to create a one of a kind piece, just give me a buzz.

Beaducation Giveaway!

Want to see more stamps at your next fuzzishu RiNGS workshop? Cross your fingers and hope I win this lovely set of lower case kismet stamps they are giving away here.

....Something Blue

I've been wanting to post about this custom job for awhile...but realized I had no good photos. While going through my old crappy point and shoot camera's cards I ran across at least one, which prompted this post. The rest of the images I've borrowed from the very talented Life Art Photography.


MaCay and Andy were married at Living History Farms last year in Urbandale, Iowa on a beautiful Autumn day. The small chapel was the perfect venue for this small, funky - more on this later, intimate event.


My friend MaCay had approached me about this project last summer. She wanted to do something unique for the bridesmaids' gifts. She had always had a penchant for my a go go 5 loop necklace and wanted to design something similar but different. Something that would work with three different styles of dress and unique personality. Oh yea, and with some small touch of blue.


I sketched a few ideas for her, we played around with some elements on my bench and VOILA! A new necklace was born.


Modern, sleek, but rustic enough to go with the venue. Small touches of lapis lazuli accent the loops of various sizes. Sadly, this is the only photo I have of the piece. Don't worry, I've gotten much better about documenting the things leaving the shop...especially the one of a kinds!

MaCay and Andy are a fun quirky couple - see exhibits A. and B. There were speeches from engineers and the appetizers featured multi-flavor popcorn bowls on the tables and a 'fancy' cheese table by Gateway Market (they also provided dinner, if I recall, OMG the dinner!!!)

[exhibit A.]

Not only does their card drop box look googly-eyed and muppety-y but they walked in to the Muppets' Menomenon song :D Love it! Speaking of...did I mention my dad was their dj?!

[exhibit B.]

Four flavors of delicious cupcakes from the Carefree Patisserie were adorned with bride and groom rubber duckies. Yes, duckies.


I was honored to be a part of their special day and wish them the very best in their new life together.

At Laaaast...

After *cough, cough* months in the making MaryAnn's ring is finally complete. She approached me with her mother's vintage diamond ring, wanting to give them a new life in a fresh contemporary design (SO wish I had remembered to take a photo of it before I took the diamonds out, d'oh!).

I carved the wax and then sent it out to be cast in palladium. MaryAnn wanted a 'white metal' ring and we decided against white gold (too pricey, didn't want rhodium plating). Platinum was waaaay too expensive and silver is a little to casual and tarnishes. Palladium is a tough metal and as part of the platinum family shares a bit of it's prestige. It was a first for me and I look forward to playing around with it more in depth in the future.

I'm very pleased (and so was MaryAnn) with the modern architectural look of the ring. It has a good heft and tapers nicely at the bottom. It ended up highlighting her mother's diamonds and giving them a new life. Mission accomplished!

BetsyBensen ♥s fuzzishu

BetsyBensen celebrates Etsy artists that demonstrate a 'fearless' use of color in this super summery treasury.

lkkersh hearts fuzzishu

Check out what's going on 'Inside Rubix's Head' in this wonderful treasury by lkkersh.

Meet the Artists

Last night's 'Meet the Artists' event was a fantastic time. My former student Teryl is creating fun and funky PMC pieces and her friend Meddy brought some enormous pantings! There was great food, oodles of art, and a wonderful evening. I hope you can join us next time.

angeladesigns hearts fuzzishu

Every day would be a nice day with this colorful grouping of work! Check out the 'Have a Nice Day' treasury by angeladesigns.

Dine + Design

Art is food for the soul...but let's not forget our tummies! Please join us at studio fuzzishu this Thursday May 26 for the first Dine + Design event! Bring your sketchbooks, materials, things that inspire you, and thinking cap. We'll do some brainstorming around a theme, bounce ideas off of one another, critique, sketch, create, etc. and of course, share a meal.

Don't forget, if metal or glass is your thing (or you just need some space that's not the kitchen table!) you can always come back for 'open studio' time and create what you've designed! Please RSVP if interested so I can get a head count for the 'dine' portion of the evening. See you Thursday!