Jewelry Crush

Every now and then I discover a new blog and I get nutty. I look through years and years of archives, eagerly anticipate new posts and swoon over each piece of art. (Does this happen to you?)

My new blog crush is Lorelei. She's a bead ARTIST. She doesn't make beads (that I can tell), but she puts beads together into absolutely stunning jewelry. Real **art** for the neck, wrist and ears. Plus, she posts very regularly and seems spunky, fun and fresh. I believe she has a "real job" working at an art museum. How cool is that? We could totally be real-life friends, right?

So, I've been studying her blog, flickr and etsy regularly. I don't think I'll ever become a jewelry artist, but it's quite inspiring to browse. I do make jewelry type stuff occasionally when I get an itch. But generally I should plan to stick to art quilts and let Lorelei stick to beads.

But... I did have a fun beady day with my Mom and my friend Stephanie and her mom last week. I totally and completely admit that we all played around with this charming composition from Lorelei's flickr. Five or six matching beads, a largish contrasting bead and one dangly doodad.



Kinda fun, funky and unique, don't you think? We were all super pleased.

Jewelry is definitely the kind of product where it completely makes sense to buy handmade! There are so many beautiful, truly one-of-a-kind pieces of jewelry on Etsy for very reasonable prices. Jeez, even the jewelry at Target is a bit overpriced and completely predictable and mass produced. I am going to stalk Lorelei's shop until I find just the perfect necklace and then I am making a purchase!

In the meantime, since I'm looking for inspiration for the next 12x12 color challenge which is purple and yellow, I'm drooling over this bracelet. Seriously, it's really great isn't it?