Christmas Shows & Markets...

Most people who know me know that I do NOT do Christmas craft shows.

Yeah, well... that is, until I do.

This past Sunday I took part in a Christmas artisan show and coffee open house at the newly opened Burnt Brick Cafe in downtown Woodstock. It was a hoot and a half, and everyone had a good time. Next year it'll be held it a few weeks earlier -- too many people couldn't come because of family obligations. (But don't despair -- there'll be one coming up in time for Valentine's Day!!)

My table by the window. The light was good at noon -- but by 2:00 it was getting overcast and pretty dim.

Showing crystal pendulums, gradated blues, purples and cream Peruvian opal necklace, semi-precious wand pendants, semi-precious chip & wire trees, carved skulls, pewter bookmarks, quartz crystal pendants... 

Showing Tibetan silver Hamsa hands, rose quartz stone & wire tree, Chakraluscious healing bracelets, resin raven skull pendants, Taxco sterling silver pendants, semi-precious carved skull and heart pendants...

Shots of the show in the main dining area and the other room with the bar/serving area and kitchen with Rene Hoelscher, the owner, behind the bar.

They make great lattes, of which I drank far too many during the show, and the food there is beyond fantastic. Do not let the word "healthy" scare you away. I had a maple bacon scone: just wow. If you ever get a chance to sample their cheddar/jalapeno/bacon soup, it is truly heaven in a bowl. 

This coming Saturday, 23 December, is your last chance to come to the Woodstock Farmers Market before Christmas. Officially open from 7:00 until noon, I'll be there from about 5:00 a.m. for all you early birds. 

Can't figure out what to get the jewellery-lover on your list? I have crystal cage pendants ready to insert their favourite stone or crystal, jewellery cleaning cloths, carved semi-precious skulls and skull pendants, crystal trees (seen in the above pictures), candles in the shape of crystals, dragon incense burners, plus new artisan-made sterling silver pendants from Taxco, Mexico, and Bali. 

With over 120 different beads to choose from, I can make almost any healing bracelet combo you can imagine. See my Chakraluscious stacking bracelets and aromatherapy/diffuser pendants and bracelets. 

Prices range from $1 to $300, gifts for kids to great-grands -- oh, and FYI, I take Visa as well as any pesky cash. STILL can't decide? I'll have gift certificates available.

I already have my custom-cut half a turkey breast from Miedema's at the market. :-))) Made the cranberry sauce this morning. Just need veg and bread. Maybe some more of Peter's orange brandy Christmas cake. YUM!!! See you at the market!!!

July 1st 2016 Canada Day in Southside Park, Woodstock... & More Gem Expo News...

Lianne Johnson (the Vintage Lady at the Woodstock Farmers Market) and I had a great day in Southside Park where we shared a booth. Lianne's grandson Darien helped out. Thanks, Darien, for standing in line for us at the chip wagon. All the food there was so great (and the Latin American guys from London -- oh, wow, fabulous, fantastic barbeque -- if anyone knows who they are please tell me their business name). Good food, good music, lots of entertainment and rides and games for kids. It was a low-key and fun day, even if I was freezing in that infernal wind. Guess it was better than rain, eh? Great fireworks to end it all courtesy of Toyota. I just found out that fireworks displays like that cost $1,000 per minute. Yikes.

From a vendor standpoint, it was very well organised with dedicated vendor parking, electricity -- and as you can hear on the video, all the tents between us and the stage meant we could hear ourselves think. Both of our sales were very good.

For those jewellery-makers and crafters who are considering doing or are yet to do their first outdoor shows this summer, I'll be writing a more detailed blog post of do's and don'ts.

Reminder to everyone: I will be at The Gem Expo in Toronto at the Hyatt Regency Hotel on King St. West next weekend (15, 16, 17 July). Please go to the Gem Expo website, sign up for the newsletter and get $2 off your admission.

As of this writing I have ELEVEN people already signed up to take my Totally Addicting Stretch/Mala Bracelet Course. Bonus with any of the courses offered is free admission all three days of the show. It's perhaps a small show compared to some, but it's packed with gorgeous beads, rocks, crystals, jewellery... and just today I got lots and lots of semi-precious skull beads! I'm also busy sorting and pricing some beautiful vintage hand-carved fetish animal beads, as well. Come and see us next weekend!

Meanwhile, back here in Woodstock, I'll be at the Farmers Market this Saturday, July 9th, back again on July 23rd. Thanks for stopping by!

Good Market Today & New Chakra Bracelets...

...and a new score: I found this cone-cut carnelian and glass necklace at a junque store last week. Probably paid too much for it, but I couldn't resist.

Then I was playing with other toys and I'm still wondering if this is a stoopid combination.

Finally got around to making more chakra-style items, and made these two bracelets yesterday. I'm trying to play with brighter colours, and yes, several of these beads are dyed, but the very brightest were deemed today to not really work, in particular that orange jelly bean horror. Better to tone it all down with carnelian instead... Except it's pretty. Maybe these size beads would work better as a necklace.

I've been doing a lot of restringing for Liane the Vintage Lady at the market. She buys bins of miscellaneous jewellery at auctions and has no idea what's she's got until she starts going through it -- at which point lot of the strung items disintegrate at that point. I swap interesting doodads in exchange for the restringing. Today I restrung a double strand graduated fire-polished crystal choker into a single strand because even with the extender it was chokingly tiny. Some of the vintage jewellery looks like it was for dolls, not humans. I'll try to remember to photograph it next Saturday. It came out quite nicely. Some of the beads were missing so I made a pair of drop earrings with the extra beads.

After the farmers market I went downtown to Streetfest and visited with a lapidary pal. Scored some beautiful semi-precious skulls -- and I picked some weird ones. Woweeeee... I've been looking everywhere online for decent skulls other than the dyed howlite ones and he can get me as many as I want.

Another view of the onyx skull to highlight the druzy swoop:

I reeeeally went to Streetfest to get myself a treat from Let's Eat Cake. Make that two treats: a fresh peach cheesecake square and a small tub of Rene's killer pasta salad.

Thanks for looking!

Designing Men's Adjustable Leather Chokers & New Beads from the London Gem & Mineral Show

This is what I put together on Saturday at the market... again, variations on a theme which is my only way of determining which combinations of beads look better or more interesting together. I make as many as I can and the client then chooses the ones he likes. The rest go on the table. These may look fairly simple, but I am constrained by my client's budget as well as the fact that few beads come with large holes and I have to keep these masculine-looking, so matte beads work better, no facetting, darker beads, more handmade style findings, etc. Doing frilly/girly/fancy is easy. But masculine? Uh... no. Now that I've done all the cliches (arrowheads, skulls, that type of thing) plus umpteen variations on those, it's become harder and harder to come up with new ideas.

The three silver-plated pendants here were supplied by my client. They are finely crafted and tiny, so I needed beads that wouldn't overpower them. I lovelovelove the look of the copper tubing with the tiny Tibet-styled pewter beads. My problem is remembering where on earth I bought the copper tubing -- and why oh why didn't I buy more!?!?!? Using multiple jump rings together is also another of this client's favourite looks, especially when they start to darken and tarnish.

This is just one small part of my new stash acquired from the London Gem & Mineral Show held at the fairgrounds in London, Ontario, this past weekend. (I say "part of" because my stooopid camera batteries are being recharged as I write this.) I went with my pal Nancy, and we both had such a good time there talking with vendors. Learned a lot. Nancy found almost all the crystals on her list -- she was super-pleased with the prices and selection, and picked up cards to email dealers with her wish list -- and I got some new stones and pendants for the market.




The next local gem & mineral show is in Paris, Ontario, at the end of March/beginning of April, but there are also gem & mineral shows in and around Toronto over the next little while. For the most part, rock & mineral shows are all-age and interest but especially kid-friendly venues with lots of interesting stones and dinosaur bones to pore over, as well as kid-centric events -- stuff for them to do versus "don't touch!" and "stop grabbing!"

Also, don't forget, The Gem Expo is on for three days over this coming weekend in Toronto at the Hyatt Regency in Toronto, so November 23th, 24th and 25th. I'm going to try to go on Sunday if anyone wants to carpool -- anyone from the Woodstock/Brantford area or Kitchener/Guelph, meet up at Clappison's Corners and drive in together? Email me if interested.

More pix coming later today. Thanks for looking!