A gift to myself

Happy Birthday to me, Happy Mother's Day to me...a busy week where I decided to make myself a gift. I had been to a jewelry party (think Tupperware, only costume baubles) where I saw several pretty pieces but Lordy, the prices! $100 for costume items? No thanks! So, inspired by one piece in particular, I decided to make my own. This one is made with freshwater pearls, aventurine, unakite, mother of pearl, peridot and tourmaline beads, with sterling wire accents. Since most of my beads are from swaps or bought on clearance, I estimate this trinket set me back less than $15!
A gift indeed!

Making a Map

Artella's online creative newspaper has this little segment called "map of the day". It features all sorts of maps, from antique to imaginary, from artistic to anatomic. I decided to try my hand at an artistic map; this one will be appearing in the paper on Sunday. It is a map of a piece of my heritage. It shows the city of Hamburg, which my grandparents fled just before the war. The bombed out buildings are what remained when they returned. The little boy is my father.