Blog entry

Handmade Earrings and Necklaces, New Designs from Shadow Dog Designs

I have been really busy making and listing new earrings and necklaces these last two weeks, mostly earrings, it seems.  Have been enthralled with two new artists I have found and buy jewelry components from.  One creates pieces from recycled tea or cookie tins.  The pieces are whimsical and very light in weight.  Another creates amazing polymer clay pieces, some with a technique called embroidered polymer clay - very intricate and time consuming.  I have one pair of earrings from each artist in the beauties shared below.  There are seven new creations; the last three are wonderful oldies but goodies to round out the number to an even ten.

First Artisan Item, Second Page - Wonderful Handmade Wednesday on Indiemade

The week since my last Wonderful Handmade Wednesday on Indiemade blog post just flew by.  Here is is Tuesday evening and I suddenly realized I hadn’t even thought about the post for tomorrow.  Heck, I forgot it was even Tuesday!  Not to fear though . . . there are so many beautiful handmade items in the shops of Indiemade artist friends, that I have a wide range of beauties to choose from.  I decided this week’s post would feature the First Artisan Item, Second Page (as of my typing this).  Even though the picks are widely diverse in style and materials, they all fit beautifully together since they all are handmade from the heart.

Botanical Beauties - Wonderful Handmade Wednesday on Indiemade

BOTANICAL:  pertaining to plants

Many people think that the desert is nothing but prickly plants and blowing sand.  Believe me, there are plenty of prickly plants here in the Chihuahuan Desert, and, at times, plenty of blowing sand.  But there are a whole host of other plants that bloom beautifully and are much more friendly to the skin.  The Chihuahuan Desert is termed a "cold desert" since temperatures often drop below freezing during the winter with occasional snowfall.  It is, on average, higher in altitude (El Paso is at 3800 ft / 1200 m) than the neighboring “hot” Sonoran Desert around Tucson (2643 ft / 806 m) which rarely experiences freezing temperatures.  While Tucson and Phoenix bake for several months with triple digits, summer temperatures in the Chihuahuan desert are more moderate, our hottest month being June. Triple digits, yes, but for only a few weeks.  Rainfall averages less than 10" per year, most of that coming during the monsoon season, normally July through mid-September. Amazingly, the World Wildlife Fund for Nature has indicated that the Chihuahuan Desert may be the most biologically diverse desert in the world!  Our plants just tend to be built on a smaller scale than those found in the Sonoran Desert.

Happy Easter! - Wonderful Handmade Wednesday on Indiemade

Modern-day Easter is derived from two ancient traditions: one pagan and the other Judeo-Christian. Both pagans and Christians have celebrated death and resurrection themes following the spring equinox for millennia.  A majority of religious historians believe that many elements of the Christian observance of Easter were derived from earlier pagan celebrations.  The name “Easter” itself originated with the names of an ancient goddess.  The Venerable Bede, (672-735 CE), a Christian scholar, first mentioned in his book De Ratione Temporum that Easter was named after Eostre (a.k.a. Eastre). She was the Great Mother Goddess of the Saxon people in Northern Europe. The "Teutonic dawn goddess of fertility was also known as Ostare, Ostara, Ostern, Eostra, Eostre, Eastra and others.