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!