Thanks!

To Cuteable for featuring me on their Myspace Blog page!
myspace.com
And to wickedlychic.com for featuring my Blip earrings shown above in their daily ditties section!
I'm completely humbled and I thank you much! =)

Sneak Peek!

I can't believe Halloween is in 2 days which means Christmas is coming in less than 2 months! Wow! These little sparklers are part of my new holiday collection I'll be debuting hopefully by the end of this week in my Etsy shop. I've also re-opened my Ebay shop and will be adding lots more pieces for the holidays with some of my best sellers, new color schemes in a few of my standard designs and of course the always fun way to get a great deal auctions! So stop by and say "Hi" to me on Ebay at www.stores.ebay.com/jnicdesigns now through December!

We're corny and we know it!

It just wouldn't be October without pumpkins and corn mazes so we hopped in the truck today and headed to Dawsonville to Buck's Corn Maze and Burt's Pumpkin Patch!
Here I am being corny =)



And here's corny Dan =)


So we're off to a good start in the corn maze with only one wrong turn so far... I have the worst sense of direction in the universe so this would probably be the worst idea ever if Dan wasn't with me!


As we're wandering through the corn maze I spot some shucked corn on the ground and I tell Dan "Look! There's an ear of corn!" and his response was "Oh wow! Imagine that! Corn in a corn field!" Ok Mr. Smarty Pants! I was trying to point it out so that if we get lost and pass by that spot again we have a point of reference =P


So yea the buzzards were circling just waiting for us to get lost but they were out of luck today because I had Dan and a map! We made it out in only an hour and a half! And if I ever mysteriously vanish in October please tell the search parties to check the corn fields in North GA first!

I love me some big 'ole pumpkins so we had to stop by Burt's so I could oh and ah over all the monstrous pumpkins lying around and give a couple of them a hug ;). I didn't bring this guy home with me but I opted instead for some of his smaller relatives and some pumpkin bread of course. All in all it was a wonderful October day and I hope you had a good one too!

Getting ready for winter!

We spent all of this morning finally getting all of our hay put away for the winter. So after 4 trips (boy I wish our neighbor with the flat bed trailer hadn't moved!) and stacking and throwing 100 bales we're all set! Bring on Jack Frost! =)



I did the stacking up in the loft.. after 16 years of this you'd think I could make neater stacks but even though they look like they may fall over they aren't going anywhere!


And Dan got to be the "thrower" =)

The epitome of laziness!

So this is Louis one of my three goats and this is how they eat their breakfast every morning. Laziness I tell ya! Must be nice to lay around in your food while eating and not worrying about your weight at all. If I could do that I'd love to lay around in a pile of Krispy Kreme donuts every morning ;).

Happy Early Birthday Mom!

I've been a busy little beaver since I got back from our camping trip on Sunday! I've been working on finishing up this Sleeping Beauty Turquoise ring for my mom for her birthday and I work as slow as molasses when it comes to metalwork but it's finally done!





And I've been finishing up my first cohesive collection - the Winterberry collection. My goal is to have several more collections with different stones completed before the holidays and I have several ideas floating around in my head so stay tuned! =)

Well Poo!

Our camping trip last weekend was wonderful but I realized I forgot one very important thing. As soon as we finished putting up our tent a black bear wandered into our campsite so I run in the tent to grab my camera, turn it on and nothing! I left the battery at home on the charger! I could have kicked myself! One of the most scenic places on earth and I forget my camera battery! I guess there's always next time =/.

It's Fair Time!!!

Oh how I love a good fair! There's just something about all the lights, the people, the smells, the food - I look forward to it each fall (which just happens to be my favorite season)!
Dan and I spent last night at the North Georgia State Fair eating cotton candy, elephant ears, hand cut french fries, watching people, visiting the animal exhibits where I fell in love with a big Tom turkey named Humphrey (and now have decided I am definitely getting another turkey this spring) and playing this silly ping pong game where Dan won me a goldfish who we named Pong to go with Ping that he won me at the same game last year =). Sadly I can't ride any of the rides because I get a mad case of motion sickness but I enjoyed watching everyone else get flung around and scream their heads off ;).
Now I think I'll have cotton candy and a candy apple for lunch.. I'm kidding mom! ;)

Full Moon

I love the moon but who doesn't? This was him last night at my house - what a lovely visit =). I wish the picture did him justice but it doesn't.. he was actually a bright glowing orange color and looked so close that I thought I could touch it!

Ahhh Fall

Or so I thought! We got a little tease of fall earlier in the week and it even got down to 59 degrees one evening but alas the first day of fall is today and it's 92 degrees! A beautiful day nonetheless with bright blue skies and puffy white clouds but I'm looking forward to days where it doesn't get out of the 60's and I can enjoy my morning coffee without having to turn down the A/C and put the ceiling fans on high. And pull out my favorite sweaters and wear my boots without my feet sweating... please hurry fall I miss you!

Chickens with shoes

Some of our friends dropped by this past weekend with their 2 little girls to visit the rooster ,Gerry, they donated to our little farm a couple of weeks ago (I can't believe some folks don't like to be woke up at 5:30am by roosters crowing;)! )
So anyway their oldest daughter, Lola who is 5, is bending over and inspecting all the chicken's feet when she finally pops up and says "Miss jenn why do your chickens have shoes on?". I couldn't stop giggling to answer her and as she was giggling too she said "You think it's funny too that your chickens wear shoes?" and I said "Yes I do. They must have went to the store when I wasn't looking and bought shoes!" At which point she informed me I was silly ;)

Eminent Domain Stinks!

So I'll probably be taking a week off here pretty soon to help my parents move. It seems they may have finally come to an agreement with the GA DOT in regards to buying their house so they can build a highway. Their home was built in 1927, sits on 8 acres on the top of a mountain, is surrounded by huge old maple and magnolia trees and is really a lovely setting. And this road is scheduled to go right through the middle of it =(. They've had this hanging over their heads now for nearly 15 years and honestly I'm glad it's about to finally be over. Ironically they bought another piece of property about 10 years ago to build on when they had to move and the DOT changed it's plans about 5 years ago and now the road is scheduled to go through the middle of that piece of property too! What are the odds? But on a brighter note they said they have found the house of their dreams and they put in a contract on it last week. Now let's just hope the DOT keeps up their end of the deal. We'll see.
To be continued...

And the madness begins...

So my normally calm, collected husband turns into a raging maniac for several months of the year with the start of football season. Specifically University of Georgia football. Using the term "obsessed" is an understatement. He can't sleep, he's worse than a child at Christmas and he keeps threatening to tackle something, i.e. me! We both graduated from UGA but I had never even attended a football game my entire college career - I was too busy studying (otherwise being nerdy ;). And he hasn't missed a game since something like 1982. I came out to find my truck decorated with various magnets, flags and other random UGA items yesterday morning and did I mention he left yesterday morning at 7am for a game that didn't start until 6:45pm? (We only live 20 minutes away from the stadium in case you were wondering). Yes he's nuts but I still love him ;)

Happy Anniversary!

To me! It's my one year Etsy anniversary today so to celebrate I'm giving away a $5 gift certificate with every purchase now through 11:59pm EST August 28th! Thank you all for a wonderful first year! And here's to many more to come! =)

It's like Easter every day...

Since my chickens now roam freely around my house and the nest boxes are out in the barn I have to scour the yard each morning looking for eggs. And since alot of the eggs are blue, green, browns and shades of terracotta it's exactly like an Easter egg hunt every day except instead of getting a prize for finding the most eggs you get a nice surprise of stenchy rotten egg smell when you don't =P!

I'm Published.. well sort of!

Finally got my hands on a copy of that elusive issue 4 of Craft Magazine... hmmm I think I may need to build a "bitchin' birdhouse" as mentioned on pg. 72..



And here it is finally! My little piece of ad heaven - thank you Etsy!

Walking (and boating and riding) in Memphis

So last weekend we spent the weekend in Memphis, TN and Tunica, MS celebrating Dan's birthday (my hubby). We had some world famous BBQ at Rendezvous (yummy!), listened to some jazz musicians on the streets in Memphis and took a tour on this amphibious vehicle that was a restored relic from World War II. It's a weird boat looking vehicle with wheels that started out on dry land with a tour of the city and then we literally drove into the Mississippi river for a stroll along the river where a fish decided he wanted to hop on board! This rather large silver fish jumps straight out of the water onto the boat and into the lap of a passenger! I have never seen anyone move as fast as this woman did! It was too bad I didn't have my camera ready to snap a photo of that but by the time I got it out and turned it on a very nice gentleman picked the fish up and returned him to the Mississippi river =)
It was a great time and I have few more photos posted on my flickr page of our little weekend getaway... always good to be back home though!

My first ring!

Here is the very first completed ring that is the product of my metalsmithing course I've been taking for the last several weeks at the University of Georgia! I was pretty excited about it considering it was my first attempt at a ring and soldering sterling silver. I had been practicing on copper and brass for a couple of weeks now so I finally got up the nerve to try my hand at silver so here it is my cute little, lightly hammered, matte finish sterling silver ring!

My first Inspiration

I'm often asked how and when I got started making jewelry so I thought I'd share my very first inspiration. It was these little flowers that you'll find growing in almost every little patch of clovers. I was in 4th grade and I started out playing in the clover patches during recess looking for 4 leaf clovers but my attention was quickly caught by the cute little flowers that the honeybees seemed to love so much. I started tying the end of the stems from one flower up under the flower portion of the next...I made short necklaces, really long necklaces, bracelets.. a piece for every girl in my class including my teacher, Mrs. Nash, who more than once had to come and get me and drag me inside because I wasn't finished with my "projects" just yet. I had to repeat the process nearly daily because by the next day my previous day's projects would be brown and wilted so it was on going battle I was determined to fight!
So here I am nearly 25 years later doing what I love! I'll have to see if I can find some of my "vintage" pieces from the 80's that I made during high school to share on my next post if you promise not to laugh... they're HUGE and it was the 80's ;)

My celebrity look alikes

Apparently I look like an older man w/ bushy eyebrows! Ha!

I'm a bum

So I've spent the last few days lounging at the beach on Florida's gulf coast.. I didn't want to leave but I am glad to be back home! My parents own a time share there and we couldn't really pass up a free vacation and did I also mention it's the beach?!!
Since I'm all rested up now from being a beach bum for the past several days look for some new pieces coming early next week!

Don't put all your eggs in one nest

Looks like I'll have more birds to feed pretty soon! The little bluebirds seem to love their new houses I put up last year =)

Craft Magazine

How exciting! I was just notified today that one of my items will be featured as part of an ad run by Etsy in the upcoming issue of Craft Magazine! So look for it in your favorite craft store in July!

Metalsmithing 101

I started my first official metalsmithing course through the University of Georgia's continuing education center last week and I have to say it's pretty exciting! Of course I am somewhat of a nerd so it may not be as exciting to some of you ;)... my heart still belongs to wire wrapping but you can never expand your horizons too much! I'm hoping to add rings to my collection some day soon... so stay tuned =)

My Treasures

So I just can't resist gorgeous, sparkling (opaque too) stones! And since this is the largest wholesale show in the area I went a little nuts on Friday! But look at those gorgeous strands - that Labradorite is absolutely stunning and I think I may have a hard time parting with some of those!

Hot Hot Hot

The weather has been scorching here the last couple of days so I've spent alot of time watering my little flowers and making sure the "kids" have plenty of water... Where did spring go?

Hi Ho Hi Ho It's off to work I go

So this is my recently re-organized work area and I've done more work to get it just the way I need it including selling my husband's pool table that was taking up the entire middle of the floor. Don't feel too bad for him he hasn't played pool on that table in nearly 2 years! ;)

I could seriously hang out up there all day and I find myself daydreaming out the window watching the cows, deer and turkeys across the road more than I find myself working!

New Additions

So this is what I've been busy doing the last 3 weeks - raising my new chick-a-loos! Aren't they just the sweetest? Now to come up with 18 more names! We have Edgar (in the middle with the Eddie Munster hair do), Marla, Edward and Sadie so far.. I'm open for suggestions!