She's Alive!!! ALIVE !!!!! :) & A Finished Piece

Why yes she is alive :) I managed to get Mascara on yesterday, and today I even went for lunch with Jackie P!!! Course being the good friend that she is she was kind enough to say I look a bit "played out" Hmmm If that's the case I sure wish I had more fun at whatever I was playing! :)

That's all I got typed in my post last night before the sky light up with a most beautiful Thunderstorm, which produced 3 things. 1) It dumped buckets of lovely rain so we don't have to water the patio pots. (That make LW a tad unhappy because the plants are on the verge of staging a takeover and only grow more confident with each storm!!) But thankfully there are no Venus Flytraps (I think anyway)

2) There were 5 dogs and 2 human pets all crowded into 4 square feet. And 3) All electronics are immediately unplugged. Boy and howdy are we methodical about that rule. There have been any number of people that have had their entire collection of power driven items ( from the curling iron on up the food chain) totally fried with a power surge :( So now with that bit of explanation I'm sure you can understand why I left you guys in mid-sentence yesterday :)

Well I finished Luci's BDay present. Luci and Tony are the friends that have a little B&B and the most amazing incredible, simply to die for Mexican restaurant. Oh my God you guys Luci is truly and artist.!!! Once a year she goes down to Mexico City to make the base for her Mole sauce. Why??? Cuz her 94year old mom is there and they spend days blending the 93 ingredients that makes their Mole. SO back to Luci. Luci loves bling, jewelry of all kinds, shoes the higher the heal the better and a bit of a Bohemian style in clothes. She also works behind her huge stoves 12 hours a day 6 days a week in her non air conditioned kitchen. But every single day she gets up puts all her makeup on fixes her hair, puts on a "going to town" skirt and top with complementing jewelry and heeled sandals and I mean heels I've never seen that little 4'11" woman in anything less then 3inch heels!! :) Yep all that every day and she is as young as I am. :) I asked her one day why and her answer was because her kitchen is open to her guests and it's important that they always see her presentable!

Keeping that in mind and also knowing that she is one of the few people I make gifts for that comes close to "getting it" so I can have fun making for her!!! :) Back in the July Aug Belle Armoire Jewelry magazine Barbe Saint John made a CUTE Dragonfly necklace with a Frozen Charlotte head and a salt shaker. I filed it away in my "cool idea" folder. I used it as a spring board/ inspiration for Luci's necklace.

I made the wings with stiff steel craft wire to keep them from bending with the motion of the necklace. Also the wings hold the necklace together. Since Luci tends to wear a lot of black and dark reds in the fall/winter I used deep red faceted glass beads with smokey faceted beads. for the "chain" On the wings I used little faceted garnets, with black& smokey crystals.

Glued the head to the shaker with my best friend E6000 :) As for the wings....... I hauled out my little soldering iron and did the most amazingly incredibly hideous soldering job of wings to salt shaker ever attempted by womankind!!!! :)

OH MY GOD!!!!!! Now what in the hell I'm I going to do??? Just because it's the back side it doesn't mean it will never be seen!!!! I'm not exaggerating one tiny bit, This truly was ugly with a capital U. It was then that sheer inspiration struck.... cover it up create a distraction.... yes perfect!!!! I cut out a little flower applique from a piece of my fabric stash and glued it over the ever so lovely solder job :)

I cut the shank off of a vintage rhinestone button to use as the clasp You can never have enough SHINIES don't ya know!!

And wa-la here is Annalise modeling "La Senorita Libelula" "Miss Dragonfly"

I apologize for the photos. Perhaps it was the sun coming in the sunroon windows, or not feeling my usual perky self or just lousy photography but I don't think they really do justice to the piece. :(

Ahhhhhhh I hear LW proclaiming "lundin" is ready. Lundin-the meal that combines lunch and dinner like brunch is to breakfast/lunch :) Have a most audacious today or tomorrow depending on where in the world you are. p;)