1 more day and 1 more year

so tomorrow is my 27th birthday. not impressed.

I'm trying to think of an ID for deviantart. Something that describes me in one picture. the problem is, when it comes to art and me, i'm kinda random. I'll have a go at anything that looks like fun at the time. i'm no good at chibis so i can't do a self portrait like that. Maybe I could do something like Jess (tattereddreams.deviantart.com) with a photo of myself enhanced with the computer, but it's not something I'm used to doing either! Hmm

I'm also looking at setting up an Etsy account to start selling some things, mostly jewellery but maybe plushies and, when I learn to make them, corsets.

Just got 2 awesome new books, one of them is chainmail designs and as soon as I can get to a metal place I'll start on those. In the meantime, the new beaded flower book i have is keeping me very amused. Anyone whose coming to margarita nite tomorrow night will see the fruits of this amusement.

Hmm, maybe a rose-related ID?

Vote 1 Cherry!

hey guys, so if you didn't get the email, please head on over to this link: crystal park and vote for my Regal Coronet before the end of february so I can win the monthly prize. What do you get out of it? Well beyond my eternal gratitude and the bestowing of the warm-fuzzies upon me because you appreciate my work, it will also be counted as a birthday present as I am to lurch on to the heinously antique age of 27. I get more grey hairs just thinking about it!

Oh yeah, as I write this, Stormwolfe and Dukayn have officially tied the proverbial knot and are celebrating with friends. I have bailed for the sole reason that I am anti-social and Heather looked a little flustered being around that many people she didn't need 2 more in her face! Sorry Joey, I know we hardly see each other lately, but hopefully if i get the full-time job at work I should be able to work my way around to going to bellydancing class with you which would be hell-sweet!

The wedding itself couldn't have been better (except for the too-casual, egomaniacal celebrant) with the weather and everything else coming together. It was a lovely ceremony and it was an honour to be there to see the two of them united. Congratulations to the new Mr and Mrs Bradford and I hope the memory of today will always make you both smile no matter what happens in the future.

I'm not ashamed to say I cried either! It was just too beautiful!

p.s. please vote. please...

And the thunder rolls...

The storm has been going for over 20 minutes now and still the thunder and lightening are constant. The driveway is a flood and although the rain has eased enough to see over the city, there is still a massive grey curtain over the mouth of the derwent river. The lights in here are going funny and I'm pretty sure that we'll lose electricity if this keeps up.

All I can think is that the beach stormwolfe wants to get married on tomorrow will be washed away by the time we get there tomorrow evening! On the plus side, the weather will have blown itself out by then, fingers crossed! For now it's just spectacular. Except for the ambulance lights going across the bridge. That's not cool.

In other news, I've uploaded a piece to be judged in the Swarovski Crystal beading design awards being run by www.crystalpark.com.au and when they've finished making sure it conforms to all their rules, they will upload it so the general public will be able to vote on it for the Monthy Voter prize which consists of $100 of Swarovski products. WOOT! It would almost pay for the cost of making the coronet! That's it above here. Yes I made that from scratch! I'm reall proud of it. There's a few pics of it on deviantart, both the old pearled version and the new all-crystal version, but the one I've uploaded to the competition site is called Regal Coronet and is much bigger than the pic here. The competition allows for more than one submission so I'm thinking of adding a pair of earrings and maybe even a foot charm if i can afford it!

The rain has pretty much stopped now. But the thunder rolls...

you remind me of the babe...

oops, ok so been a while since i blogged. catchup time.
Can't remember what was going on and too lazy to check my last post so here's what's going on now:
bakery and meat still fighting over me (WOOT!)
I have taught myself to make chainmail and will enter my first piece in a competition to go to Austria to the headquarters of Swarovski Chrystal. (double WOOT!)
I have fallen in love with the Labyrinth and David Bowie as Jareth all over again! (mmmtights!) In light of this I have begun writing and posting a fan-fic based on the movie on deviantArt. click da link on the right of screen to check me out, literary stylie!
outside of that I am completely exhausted as I have worked 5 days in a row and have 2 more in bakery. I started at 5am on saturday, sunday and monday. I started at 7am today and will do for the next 2 days. Unfortunately due to the overpowering needs to write fan-fic and create prize-winning jewellery (as well as the knowledge that if i go to bed I'll just have to climb out of it again), I have gotten bugger all sleep over the last few nights. Isn't there something in the union rules about not working 7 days in a row? oh well, the pay packet next week should look pretty dern healthy, even if i look like a sack o' crapola!
Oh yeah, I'll have that jewellery piece up on dA as soon as it's finished. Keep checking back!

not much to report

So the wedding plans are coming along. Gareth and I have had a couple of talks about it. I think that because of my initial enthusiasm he thought i was planning on it all happening quickly and this worried him quite a bit. But I've explained that, due to the depth of the stuff i want to do for myself and the fact that i want us to be settled and want plenty of time to save up for it, and most importantly i want us to both be ready and willing to do it, I'm not thinking about it happening for at least 5 years or so. Anyway, I'm still looking for ideas and planning things out and thinking of things i need to learn to pull it off. Gareth figured out for himself that I also want to learn these things in order to make my own business based on them.
So I'm going to take my Strawberry Champagne's suggestion of a glory box and slowly work away at it, as well as making alternative versions of jewellery and other things as i go along to sell.
Outside of that there's not much going on. It's 9 days from Stormwolfe's wedding and she had a bit of a cold feet panic attack today, but she'll be fine.
I'm still working on weight loss and detox and that sort of thing, and am taking better care of my skin and hair than i was before. I didn't get the wondrous botanical gardens job, which sucks, but it looks like i'm going to get this full-time meatroom job at the supermarket, along with a few hours in bakery to mix it up. So long as I don't have to spend much time on front end it should be good. I've come to realise that the front end sucks the most. The management is clueless and the beaurocracy regarding signing every little thing to say we've read and understood it every friggin week just drives me nuts! plus standing in one place for hours at a time gives me a sore back. At least the time goes faster and I feel like I've done a proper day's work when I'm in the bakery. I also have renewed reason to go to work. It helps to feel better about being there when you have a purpose for it. As well as squirreling away money for a wedding somewhere off in the future, I also want to save for a proper computer. first priority though is a pair of glasses. The one's I have are over 5 years old. I don't even bother wearing them when I'm just at home. They press in on my head and the right lens keeps falling out of them. I'm long overdue for new ones and I better do it soon.

y'know, I learned something today (aka: cured!)

okay, so I'm not actually stopping the planning of the wedding thing, mostly because I've had some great ideas for jewellery and it gives me a direction on things i have to learn to make it how i want it. But it's not the desperate peer-pressure 'the clock is ticking' planning (although i'll stand by what i said about wanting to be breeding in a couple of years). y'see I spent yesterday evening at a hen's night (something I've never done before) and it was...interesting. During dinner, two of the bridesmaids who didn't know each other (and who are also getting married) seemed to be bonding along nicely. However, at the cocktail bar afterward, the one without money was dropped like a hot rock to sit, drinkless, by herself when the third bridesmaid (who I don't mind saying I detest, and who is also getting married, despite the fact that if she had a heart it would consist of rock with little bits of ice stuck to it and the dude she's gettin hitched to is basically a walking, talking piggybank she can screw. bitter? who me?!) turned up. I learnt several things. The first one is that leaving the bridesmaids to figure out their own outfits is probably not the best idea. Second is, if there are people invited to your hens night who do not have 'means' opt not to let the rich people plan it because it makes the budget conscious one feel self-conscious and left out (not good if they happen to be a bridesmaid). And thirdly make sure your bridesmaids all know and like each other, the ensuing bitchiness, while amusing, is not particularly good for maintaining long friendships. Something to remember is that it may be an honor to someone to be asked to be heavily involved in their friends' wedding, but it's also a responsibility for the bride (or groom) to keep them involved and not to turn the honor into a slap in the face. (for the hen in question: I am not saying that you're doing this hun, I am saying your other bridesmaids are making the other one feel this way. This is almost certainly not even my business, but I have to call it as I see it. Perhaps a simple acknowledgment of the situation would go a ways to relieving it? ok, I am officially butting out now!)

Anyhoo, the whole situation made me really think about my own wedding. I know it's going to happen because the man I have right now is the keeper. The poor boy doesn't stand a chance at escape! I was idly looking at a site which discussed writing your own vows, and it makes the suggestion of asking yourself a few questions to get ideas of what to say. A couple of those questions were things like 'what is it you love the most about your partner, what does your partner do for you that you appreciate the most, what does marriage really mean to you?' And it got me thinking about the things I really love about Gareth and what he means to me and what being married to him would mean. I confess I started crying about it as I drove to work this morning (5.45am is a particularly emotional time!). I just kept thinking how lucky I was that I had someone who puts up with my millions of faults and flaws, my shit moods and nastiness with nothing but an ocean of patience and some sort of calm knowledge that I'll wake up to myself and realise what a bitch i can be and do something about it. he's supportive and sweet, realistic and reasonable to the point of annoying bluntness sometimes, but we all need a strong voice of reason in our lives (i don't think i have an inbuilt one!). He has a sense of romance and a sense of humour, and a deep-running sense of art that sometimes emerges from within his pragmatic engineers' shell.
The most important reason why I love him so much is because he's saved me. I have spent so much time being scared that I'll never find someone to love me like he does, that I will be lonely all my life. I have shed too many tears to even contemplate because of these feelings. But now that I know he's there and that he will always be there so long as i do learn to show my gratitude for his presence in my life, I just feel this great sense of relief. I won't be lonely anymore, I'll have someone to share all those years with, and I'll love him for it the rest of my life.
In the middle of these tears and revelations it occured to me that it doesn't matter if everyone in the world decided to get married before us. This is OUR relationship, and we will come to make that commitment, and make it officially when the time is right for us. So I'm cured of the 'time ticking away' madness. Time is arbitrary to true lovers. Sure I'm going to keep thinking about the wedding itself, have little ideas about it all the time because that's what women do, and now I know that it's going to happen and who it's going to happen with. It's just that now, the colour of the napkins on the day doesn't mean shit to me!

And now if you'll excuse me, I have a gorgeous man to go and hug!

It's going to get worse before I get better

you may recall my last blog. At the time I was deperately trying not actually start planning my own wedding, desperately fighting the vibes of all those around me. Then it was staring wistfully into bridal shop windows (which, let's face it, I've always done!), and vicariously feeding off the excitement of the brides-to-be around me.
Well I've given in. I'm planning. Yes, I'm planning my wedding. With or without the other half! I'm searching the web for hairstyles, searching pattern books for dresses, searching for instructions to make beaded roses for bouqets, wondering if bonbonierre is really worth the cost.
I was in a shop today considering the COLOUR OF THE NAPKINS PEOPLE!!!!! I need a serious intervention or something!
I know it's all the influence of the fluttery hearts around me, and frankly it will be a relief when they're done with this ceremony thing and retreat to their respective caves, not to be seen again until they have spawned. Somewhere in the peace and quiet I will lose my enthusiasm for this insanity and drop the whole thing in pursuit of other things.
That is, of course, until the impending arrival of aforementioned spawn, when I will be embroidering baby blankets for my friends and mourning my as yet devoid of life womb. It's at that point that every condom in the house will subjected to being pierced with a sewing needle!