Finally

I'm sitting in the dining hall of William Holland Lapidary School in the mountians of Georgia, watching the Tuesday night auction. It's been a packed 2 days since I posted from Athens. Jeff and I spent Saturday morning wandering around the last of Athfest and bought a small painting from CapMan:

I got to meet up with Monica from Jones Handmade Goods again. Jeff and I met her a couple of years ago at Athfest when we bought our monkey sconce. I've been keeping up with her on Etsy and finally bought one of her bunny's for my studio:

We had a faboulous dinner with Melody and Lew then spent the evening with Melody and I talking about our school days. The following morning Mel pulled out our old JR. High School yearbooks, oh what memeories! Lew took us for a drive to a local (Atlanta) auction house to wander around and pick out some favorites for the next auction:

This is Mel's favorite:
Jeff's Pick:

Lew, Melody, myself and and Jeff.

It was much too short a visit but Mel and I promised to stay in touch. Sunday afternoon we headed out to Young Harris.

Driving thorough the hills we finally saw the first of the "mountians", I really miss this area. The air is different and the views are spectacular.

We made it to "camp", just in time for the end of dinner!

Stay tuned tomorrow for the first days of class'!

Day 2, the Journey Continues

Home of the Georgia Bull Dawgs

Power Dawg, my personal favorite.

Jittery Joe's Dawg

Fire House Dawg (shouldn't he be black & white???)

Five Points Dawg

This, my friends, is just a small sampling of all the art dawgs around town. If I had the time I would research all of them but here I think you get the idea! (Jeff suggested I do a "Dawg of the Day"...there are too many.)


We got out somewhat early and wandered around the campus for a bit, yes, I have been reminded of why we love this town!

We wandered the streets of downtown and stopped in to see some old and new friends. Our favorite book store has turned into the Red Dress, very nice dresses.

Jeff and I both took notice of how many of the local ladies, young and old alike, were wearing dress' in this town.

Masada Leather and Outdoor has been in town since 1975. It's a usual stop for Jeff and I, we always wind up staying for quite sometime, the place is a treasure. Today while we were in Irvin was making a belt for a little guy of about 3, a gift from his grand-dad. I think they just started a family tradition.

(Sunny this shot is for you!)

Just next door to to Irvin's place is another favorite shop, Athens Jewelers. Danna & William have been in Athens since 1990 specializing in handcrafted Jewelry but I scored some beautiful beads at her place!

Later in the evening as Athfest was getting going we wandered around before dinner. Once we got back the place was jamming with music, art booths and all kinds of weirdness.

Car Art at it's best!

Be sure to come back tomorrow for some daytime Athfest fun!

Day 1, Onward.

We left home about an hour later than we expected, for us that is unbelievable!

Knowing the boys are in good hands we could head north with no concerns, from Minneola, FL to Athens GA. a favorite stop along the way.

Thanks mom & dad for taking such great care of the grand-cats!

There is a motorcycle campground that sells T-Shirts that says "Florida: 318 miles, 11 turns", it's pretty accurate.

Diego keeping an eye out for deer. (Jeff has a lost spaceman as his mascot in the Jetta, Diego is my co-pilot.)

Florida is a long flat state but I really love the back-roads and small towns along the east coast. We typically take this route to our annual motorcycle vacation, Orlando to Knoxville, but since our usual vacation event was canceled this year we decided to head to William Holland instead. We did not make this trip for the 4 years we were in Vegas and have only made it once in the two years we've been back in Florida, I miss so many parts of this trip. Some things have changed; the sunflower farm has turned to the more profitable corn, a school-bus graveyard has sprung up:

but the miles of cow farms and acres of crops still exist, thank goodness.

We made it to Athens a bit later than expected:

Our favorite coffee house in the dark. Sigh, we'll have to wait till morning!

but had a great surprise upon arriving. For those of you that are not familiar with Athens, it is the home of the University of Georgia, founded in 1785! It has one of the most beautiful campus' I have ever been on. On our way back from our annual trip we usually get a chance to wander the last hours of Athfest, a huge local music / arts festival. Well my friends this time we have stumbled upon the opening days of this fantastic festival, completely by accident! We did not even think about it! Oh, what a sweet, happy accident!

Stay tuned for a great festival update!

PS: For those of you that did not see the comments in my last post; Jeff aced his citizenship interview! He will be an official US Citizen (and always a proud Canadian) by the end of summer!

Scattered

My time in The Studio has been limited for no other reason other than I feel as if I have too much to do, in and out of my sacred space.

I can't seem to focus so I've been trying to concentrate on finishing up projects that I have already started or one's that I'm not quite happy with.

Jeff and I will be leaving for William Holland Lapidary School this Thursday the day after his Citizenship Interview!!!! (Yippee!) He's been taking this seriously and studying. (I quizzed him on the Pledge of Allegiance yesterday, he did great!)

Please keep your fingers crossed for him...us!

This was supposed to be our motorcycle vacation, we take one every year, but since we'll be in the classroom almost the entire time and it's been extreamly HOT we decided to not tourture ourselves and take the new JTD.

(Jewelry Transportation Devise).

Now we can take our bicycles! We're making a roadtrip out of this and stopping "along the way" in various places yet to be determined!

So since I've been aimless this weekend (as well as during this blog for which I deeply apologize) I will leave you with two projects that I have been able to complete and will be making their way to the Silver Lining shop this evening!

"Yonder"

"Mystery"

Have a wonderful Saturday night!

"Mine" the Sequel

To see "Mine" (Mind) Part I go HERE.

So I've discovered I'm not the only one doing this these days:

Something for Him:

More cufflinks headed to Silver Lining in time for Dad's day!

Something for Her:

"My Project" also headed to Silver Lining tomorrow.

Something (else) for ME!

(Not headed anywhere but out with me! )

I've never made myself a large ring, my hands are so small I usually wear mittens in the winter 'cause I can hardly ever find gloves that fit (okay, I meant while we lived in Vegas, not now!).

I was so inspired by the custom ring in my last posting that I dug through my big "box of rocks" and found this beautiful Botswana Agate for ME! Two and a half days later I emerged from The Studio with a small happy bundle of pieces and one for me.

More of the new stash:

Everyone Calls her "Windy" (my first brooch!)

"Sunset" headed to Herding Cats tomorrow.

...and one more sneak peak since I promised I would have this one completed soon:

"Hanging A Round"

It was a great day at the Farmers Market today but very hot. I will get to posting these items in the Shops tomorrow!

Happy Sunday night!

UPDATE:

All items (and more) have been posted in both shops this evening!

All links are now working, sorry for the delay!

Fresh OJ (short post for a Sunday evening!)

Ocean Jasper that is!

I just finished a custom piece for a returning customer.

Have I mentioned, I love doing custom work.

The collaboration, the flow of creativity between 2 people...even if it is by e-mail.

This ring came out better than I could have imagined!

Thanks for the opportunity and the inspiration Anne!

Good night.....

Something for Everyone!

Something for Him...

Something for Her...

(to be completed tomorrow.)

Something for Him...

Don't forget Dad's day! These are already in the Shop!

...and a little something for me!