Wolf's Den

Safety First!
Handmade Kumihimo Cuff
7" long x 2" wide

Fits wrists 7" to 9"

* * *

Tired of not coordinating your accesories with your safety orange hunting vest? Missing the neon orange of the 80s? Want some dayglo orange for that rave coming up? Want to dazzle the school kids at your crossing guard job?

Look no more!

Safety First! is a handmade 8 strand kumihimo cuff made from dayglo/safety orange yarn, I believe to be 100% acrylic, possibly acrylic/wool blend. This awesomely bright yarn is from the Team BNA Traveling Swap Box and found its home with me.

This is a fun cuff! It features a gloriously cool handmade stoneware flower by Lisa Peters ART, securely attached to the cuff with a Czech glass druk bead in teal with a vitrial coating. The flower itself color coordinates with the cuff itself, with a glazing of cobalt, hints of teal and bright orange.

The ends of this spectacularly bright- and I mean bright!- cuff are handbeaded in peyote stitch, using 6lb FireLine, with Czech glass seed beads in cobalt and teal. The clasp is a silver plated extension chain and lobster claw clasp.

Amaze your friends! Blind the deer or wild turkey or men or whatever you chose to hunt! Flash back to the 80s! Where ever you wear it, Safety First! is sure to turn heads! If not completely blind people!

The first 3 photos are taken in direct sunlight- including this one. They serve to show just how bright this cuff is. The last 2 photos were taken in indirect sunlight. When I say neon, I mean neon!

Available HERE!(For now, Zibbet and Artfire soon.)

It's been in the low 70s to mid 60s during the day and high 30s to low 40s at night for the past few days/nights now.

It rained for 2 days straight- dreary, grey, cold rain. Made me rather glad I found some plastic to cover the volunteer tomatoes with. Also glad I brought in the plants that over winter inside on Friday too. The cats aren't real happy about losing one of their easterly facing windows for plants- well, Max and Aries aren't, Morrigan thinks it's grand because SHE fits in the window sill behind them. That would be the Peace Lily, the Anthurium and the Bay tree. Good thing I have cats not inclined to chew on leaves.

The Curry Plant, which has quadrupled in size since I repotted it, is in the bathroom, where it gets southeast light and a lot more humidity/moisture than it would elsewhere.

The clematis vines are dying back already, trees are putting on their fall colors now- quicker than last week.

A few leaves even fell past one of the kitchen windows earlier.

Meanwhile, my Russian Sage is budding out, the Lavender, Catmint, Chocolate Mint and Rosemary are still growing and I swear the Lemon Balm never stops growing. The transplanted Hollyhocks have new leaves on them, so I think they've gotten mostly established in their new bed for now, thankfully. It also looks like the Wisteria is finally stopping its growing to settle in- there's a few yellow leaves on it, and it's made a lovely nearly green cover over the wood fence now as well.

The feral cats are showing up again- a little black kitty, rather the same size Morrigan was when she showed up 2+ years ago, was in the driveway. No getting near this one though, it ran as soon as we tried talking to it. Either a feral or the resident hawk left a 'present' next to the CR-V for Mark the other morning- a gutted, half eaten rodent carcass was found. Fun times.

In the meantime, I've been busy making cuffs and bracelets and listing them, 5 in the last week or so. Working on a new Bead Soup cuff and have 2 more kumihimo cuffs in the works- they need beading and the clasps put on. So look for a big post containing photos of all those within the next few days or so.

So I can get the computer I need, I'm running a sale in my Zibbet shop only.


50% off items throughout the store.




Example- Winter's Queen set, original price- $60, sale price- $30



Sale will run for at least the next week, possibly 2. Everything is One of a kind, so get it while you can.

So. This is the next beadwork project I had lined up to work on.



Except... it's not speaking to me.

You know how it goes. A project like this generally has a certain way it wants to be created. Well, this one apparently has decided to not talk to me.

In the meantime, while I wait for it to finally give up its secrets I work on these.



A couple steampunk themed brooch pins. They'll be listed by next week, as they aren't very big and have been relatively vocal in how they want to look. The bottom one in fact, has the backing and pinback in place and just needs finishing details.

Although, with as cold and dreary as it's been lately, I'm starting to think Caena has the right idea as to what to do with my time.}:P

Ok. Making a choice here.

Despite not being happy about the AF Assurance plan thingy- I still plan to opt out- I've worked too hard to just walk away flat out. So I guess, until I see it starting to affect my views and sales, I'll keep listing things here in the meantime. And promoting my Zibbet and Big Cartel shops more and more as well.

And just like that, as soon as I put the 2 cuffs and 1 necklace I had over on Zibbet and Big Cartel up on Artfire, double digit views. Ok, I might have twittered the links too, like usual. But still. THAT is why I stick around, honestly. If I avoid the forums which are turning into a bullying playground, and only read what I need to read to keep up with whatever new program I'm going to have to decide whether I want to opt out or in to, I should be ok.

I walked away from Etsy cold, selling wise and I definitely saw a change in views, mostly for the better. But my sales didn't really increase either. So, who knows. I've yet to find a site that works better over the others yet. But I keep trying.

I took the photos for this yesterday morning, in full sun and I'm rather glad I did as today it's cloudy, cold and rainy.

So. This is Shadowed Rose. It's up at Big Cartel and Zibbet and is perfect for a Valentine's Day gift in my opinion. No, it's not the stereotypical 'reds' that people associate with Valentine's Day, nor is it overtly pink, though it has shades of pink in it. As soon as I upgrade my Zibbet account back to premium again (this Thursday I hope), I'll have a few more photos up.

In the meantime, I have 3 scarves to work on- at least one will be for Valentine's Day as well, and another beadwork project that's been waiting for nearly a year to get started on. Yes, I'm trying to finish all my started or planned beadwork projects this year. One down, dozens to go. Heh.


I'm also trying to blog more this year, can you tell? }:/

Happy New Year and all that jazz. The BiL, SiL and niece were over last night. We played disc golf on the PS3 Move until 5 minutes to midnight, then watched the ball drop. That was actually a lot of fun, well, until Mikayla stopped trying to actually play and tried throwing a fit a couple times when we told her to play right. I think she was simply tired.

Figured out I am not a wine drinker (neither is Mark, really). It gives me a headache. No other liquor does that, oddly enough. So I'll stick with cooking with it. Ah well.



I've been working on unfinished beadwork projects lately, trying to clear out the backlog essentially. This is the one I'm working on currently.



When it's done it'll have four strands, two to a side. It's rather long, definitely not choker or princess length. Maybe in another week, I'll have finished photos...



There's a hole in my kitchen ceiling. Thankfully it's only a temporary thing and will, hopefully, be fixed by next weekend. Whereupon we can start working on the kitchen again. It'll be nice to have it finished and be able to have everything we need in the kitchen again. Tomorrow the landlord will be here to replace the flange on the toilet and tub drain line that's cracked. Which means I'll be at the InLaws' doing laundry much of the day. Mark will have to deal with the noise, lol.



Mark pulled the tile up in the bathroom today, in preparation for tomorrow. We figured we'd kill two birds with one stone and since the floor was being opened up in there, why not replace the tile while we were at it. There were FOUR layers of vinyl tile on that floor. FOUR. Mark took it back to the original flooring, so now, there will only be one.



See this kitten? No, it's not Aries, though she's a near ringer for him. She showed up in the yard a few days before Christmas. Mark spotted her first, stalking the birds on the front porch. We thought she was another feral kitty. Then I realized how tiny she is. She's not more than 4-5 months old, if that. And cuddly and friendly as all get out. Add in the fact that she's apparently going through her first heat and that adds up to someone tossing her out rather than taking her to the vet or Angels of Assisi to be spayed. Instead, she'll likely get pregnant by one of the ferals and the cycle will start all over again.

Currently she's camping out on the front porch, having decide our house was THE house to be at, as we'll feed her and there's a blanket out there to curl up on. It's all a gimmick really, as Tuesday, she's heading to the shelter where they'll spay her, give her shots and find her a great home that'll take care of her. We'd keep her but with 3 already, we absolutely can't, and the InLaws , while agreeing she's adorable, are apparently not ready for another cat yet after losing Sinman a little over 6 months ago, so I can't blame them.

Took the bird feeders down, cleaned off the front porch, told the landlord about the rats and am working on getting traps for them. They dug a tunnel under the front steps. That was the last straw. The landlord will be calling the neighbors' landlord about them, as that's where they're coming from. It doesn't help that they leave bags and bags of garbage sitting out back for days at a time. It only entices more rats. So. Hopefully we can get them to decide this isn't the yard for them any longer.

Still undecided as to what I'm going to do about Artfire. Still in wait and see mode there. But a lot of sellers are already leaving, so I think 2012 is going to be rough for Artfire, at least at the beginning, until new sellers replace the lost income.

And that's the beginning of my new year. How's yours?