Back From Break!

Hello everyone!
Hope you had a wonderful break, I did! My parents and boyfriend and I went up to Boston to see Peter Pan 360. OH my goodness did I love that performance! Not to mention that Peter Pan is one of my all time favorite books.

So, some New Year's News!
This year, I will be opening up a new shop, as well as getting a website up and running!

I am excited to announce the impending opening of my new store, Towee, this spring! Those of you who are familiar with Lyssa's Stuff (and those of you who are not) will find that Towee takes my jewelry collection in a new direction. Every piece in Towee is inspired by a literary quote. Some are quotes about books, but most are quotes from books. The quotes from books are those that have stuck in my head for years and have in some cases caused no end of contemplation.


The pendant pictured above provides an example of the sort of thing you can expect to find in Towee. The image on it is inspired from a passage in Peter Pan, one of my all time favorite books. Remember how Peter and Wendy exchange kisses (his an acorn, hers a thimble)?
I drew the image of the kisses, then hand carved a stamp to impress the design on PMC (precious metal clay). The back of the pendant has the chapter number where the image reference can be found, and my maker's mark. Once fired, the clay turns into fine silver to which I apply a patina for a weathered, well-loved look. I have many other pendants of the sort coming to the shop. I will also work with my clients on commissioned pieces, just as I have in the past.

By the way, note that this pendant style is not just any old pendant. If you are reading your favorite book and are called away, you may remove the pendant from its necklace and hook it onto your page as a book mark! I expect this will make it an inspired gift for your well-read friends, especially if accompanied by the book referred to.

Now you may wonder why on earth I have named the shop “Towee.” No, the inspiration was not the bird, nor the boat. The story comes from my earliest days of speaking, when I was not yet two years old. I was in the baby seat in the back of the car, my dad was driving. According to him, I said, “Daddy, towee.” He tried several times to guess what I was trying to say, but never succeeded. He quit, and we both traveled in silence a while until I said, “Daddy, li-bu-rary, book, towee.” He finally understood that I wanted him to tell me a story while we traveled along. That moment has become family lore, and “story” has been “towee” ever since.

Graduated!

Well, I am officially an alumnus of East Carolina University. YAY! It feels wonderful to not be a student anymore; no more papers, no more studying things I don't want to learn yet and not study the things that are just plain awesome (like astronomy! Astronomy is fantastic, but I couldn't take it! No time! grr...) no more waking up for 8 am classes that I know I'm not awake enough to do my best in, no more school food!

But here's the thing. As wonderful as it is, I now have this constant feeling of "I know I should be doing something. I can't have all this time, schedules don't work like that! I should wake up early to do something. What am I doing!" Tiresome!

My cousins also came up from Florida to surprise me for graduation, and my best friend drove in from Chapel Hill to have some fun time, so we had a wonderful weekend! There was a whole lot of geekery involved.

Anyway. i've had some really awesome commissions lately, and wanted to share a little!

Tada! Zelda earrings! The shield is about the size of my thumb. I'm pretty excited about how much little detail got in there! And I've realized that my exacto is probably getting a little dull; I had to do some major touch ups once I got the little shapes cut.

Monster plugs (0g)! Again teeny tiny cutting! And here's the best part:

THEY GLOW!!

Yep, that's the excitement of Lyssa this week. 

Translucent Canes and Feather Canes

Hi!
I've been playing around with Donna Kato's feather cane tutorial (click on the title for a link!), and came up with a few fun ones! Unfortunately, I got so cane-happy that I didn't think of what I could do with them after they were made... But I've been working on that!

These are going to go on bobby pins, I think. Nice little hair baubles, no?

These are some other canes I made; just a simple black one, and the red one from the last picture, and the one that looks white is actually glow in the dark. Yes, I love my shiny things!

And a bracelet I tried to make; I used a translucent feather cane and a translucent spiral cane on top of a ripple blade cut pastel stack.

P.S. Artistic rut is happening! I've been trying to find interesting pictures to stimulate me, but to no avail. Anyone want to share what inspires you?

Post Father's Day!

Yep. It's been quite a while...but I wanted to share some silly things from Father's Day. I'm lucky because my Dad is both a dad and a best friend. I was playing with some new canes at the table yesterday while we chatted and ate Kaluah brownies for breakfast, and I ended up reverting to the 3 year old me and started playing with making him look silly. When I was little, I would try braiding what little hair he had, but now I'm grown much more sophisticated! I made him polymer clay moustaches!

Happy post-Father's Day everyone! Hope you showed your dads some love!

Giveaway on pjmommy.com!

Hey everyone!
PJMommy.com is doing a giveaway of one of my Infinity Twists! It's pretty easy to enter, and I won't be putting this style up on Etsy until next month when the giveaway winner is announced. So, if you want them, please enter!

http://pjmommy.com/lyssas-stuff-jewelry-giveaway/

New Infinity Twists!

Ta-da! A new collection of Infinity Twists; Simply Bold. I love rainbows. ^_^ So, making Twists in the main rainbow colors was only a matter of time. They look really fun! I've been wearing different colors for different outfits, and mixing and matching too.

Neat, huh? They look really awesome all together. I'm thinking of making a listing for all of them as a set with a slight discount. We'll see how it goes.

Also, I'm checking pjmommy.com a lot because they're doing a review and giveaway of one of my Twists! It's a completely new one that isn't available in my shop yet, and won't be until the giveaway is complete. But here's a preview!

They fade from reddish-bronze to gold, and have little black and white pinstripes. Man, is it hard to get the stripes to stay in tact on a Twist!

Spring Break!

Oh thank goodness for spring break. I've really been needing this. Dad's new apartment is looking pretty awesome, and I'm finally able to sleep in with no fear of missing class. Yes, I've been procrastinating on the school work that's due when I get back, but seriously. It's break time.

Dad and I made brownies night before last, so we've been cutting into it pretty much every meal. Brownies for breakfast with mangos and cereal and coffee, brownies for lunch, brownies for dinner with chicken pot pie! Om nom nom nom nom. We sat last night for a couple hours just listening to Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain. What an awesome piece!  I love break.