The Crafty Princess Diaries

Tammy Powley’s Crafty Weblog

November 5, 2008
by Tammy
6 Comments

Finding a Little Craft Time

I came home the other day to discover my Internet was down. It was weird since my usual routine is to spend some time checking email and catching up any major news issues for the day, but of course, you know how that can go once you sit down in front of your PC. It is a great tool, but it is also a black hole that is hard to pull yourself out of once you’ve entered.

After rebooting my PC a few times as well as the router and other various boxes plugged in around here, I realized that is just wasn’t working. Obviously, my ISP was asleep.

I didn’t even have any papers with me to grade since much of the work I accept from students now comes via the Internet, and I grade on-line. What’s a person to do without her Web?

At first, it was annoying, but eventually, it turned into a really pleasant evening. I sat and worked on a crochet trim for an afghan I’m trying to finish up, and I even cracked open a book! Of course, it was only sort of reading for pleasure because I’m taking a class now for recertification and needed to have “Araby” read by James Joyce by Friday. It’s not a long story, but Joyce has always been a tough read for me. It was a sweet story, full of great lines like this one: “But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.”

Some good crafting and some good reading – you can’t beat that!

November 4, 2008
by Tammy
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Voting and Red, White, and Blue Beads

Since I live in Florida, we’ve had early voting going on for a while now, but for those who are voting today, I hope you remember to wear your peyote flag pins! Just a few more hours and we find out who won. Though I know we all have our opinions, which I am not asking anyone to give on this, you have to admit this has been one heck of an election!

November 3, 2008
by Tammy
4 Comments

Crafting with Confidence

I’m a big fan of sci-fi movies, and one of my all time favorite trilogies is The Matrix. We were watching the first of the three movies last night for the ump-teenth time, and it had been a good while since I had watch it. I had forgotten about all the great lines that Morpheus (played by the super talented Laurence Fishburne) has in the first film:


“Free your mind!”

“Don’t think you can; know you can.”

“I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it.”

“There’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.”

As he spoke, I thought about how these relate so much to anyone who is creative, and especially anyone who hopes to make a living or at least part of a living using his or her creativity. Confidence, the assurance that you know you can do something no matter what others say or even more so no matter what your inner doubts are, is so important whenever anyone is trying to reach a goal. If you don’t believe that you can accomplish a goal – get that craft book published; start a craft web site; earn an art degree – you will probably never make it.

I’m not saying to do something crazy, like try to jump from one building to another as Neo attempts during the “jump” program, but it is very easy to be our worst critic when instead we should be our best supporter.

November 2, 2008
by Tammy
0 comments

Yummy Bead Book!

Ah, a few of my classes are now working on research papers, the first for many of my students. So, this means they get a little extra time for such a big project. This also means that the teacher (moi) gets a very short breather when it comes to grading. As a result, I managed to get caught up on some book reviews this weekend.

This new book from the gang at Bead Style is packed full of gorgeous beads from all over the world! While the focus is really on beads and designs from around the world, I also felt like color was also a big part of the jewelry designs in this book. You can read my full review here: Bead Journey.

November 1, 2008
by Tammy
0 comments

New Book Reviews Up

I am working my way through a stack of great jewelry books this weekend. I managed to get one review finished earlier in the week and another finished yesterday, and I have about three more ahead of me, which I hope to get done this weekend. I’ve been reading these for awhile, just haven’t sat down to put words together for them yet. I’m also trying to remember to update my Amazon reviews page as well as my GoodReads page. Here are two jewelry books I’ve managed to check off my list, one on wire jewelry and the other on fiber beads:

October 31, 2008
by Tammy
2 Comments

Crafty Bloggers Unite 10/31/08

Thanks to some of our talented craft bloggers, I have some new logos to pick from for my weekly round-up of blog links. This one was created by Aileen Roberts. It’s hard to decide which one to use, so I think I’ll use them both for this first “new logo” post, one at the top and one at the bottom of the list.

Margot Potter created the other logo, and what I think is very cool about them both is the fact that they are so completely different. In today’s world, being different is not usually considered a good thing; however, for artists and crafts-people, it is encouraged. Yeah! Thank goodness there are places for people like us to be accepted for who we are. Now onto some great links on Halloween, this last day of October. I hope you all have a spoo-tacular day! Boo!

About Family Crafts
Sherri offers several ideas for creatively displaying your child’s artwork.

Aileen’s Musings
Aileen has an autumn themed digital piece she’s created along with a link to freebie images for you to create your own work of art. Enjoy!

Cathie Filian
Win a copy of Bow WOW WOW! and a $100 worth of craft supplies from Plaid – 1 grand prize and 24 other prizes!

Craftside- A behind-the-scenes peek at a crafty world
Craftside has goulish wet felted eyeballs, a crocheted spider web sweater project, crafting with the Chrome Cowgirl, and announcing Quarry Publishing is sponsoring this year’s Holiday Felt Club in Los Angeles with special appearances, signings and make & takes with authors, Angela Cartwright, The Crafty Chica, Lisa Sonora Beam and Stefanie Girard.

Crafty Princess Diaries
You can make any of these super quick jewelry projects just in time for Halloween, seriously, this Halloween! Otherwise, hit the bargain bins at your craft store for the after Halloween sales so you are prepared for next year!

Cross Stitch at About.com
Check out the latest additions to the Stitcher’s Photo Album – We’ve reached a milestone. The first page is now devoted to submitted photos of the free patterns from About.com Cross Stitch.

Layers Upon Layers
Artist Kerry Wilkinson plays with resin in a big way!

Stefanie Girard’s Sweater Surgery
See how I cut out a cool part of a pattern from The Crochet Dude’s hot new book to crochet a two colored headband.

The Impatient Crafterâ„¢
Join Madge for part two of her gothically delicious free Halloween project. The Invitation.

October 30, 2008
by Tammy
0 comments

Afghan Weather Time

We are actually getting some chilly weather down here in South Florida lately, and this plus the fact that I saw this cute afghan in the Yarn Collection catalog, has me thinking of picking up my afghan project again. Maybe I’ll manage to finish it even! Seriously, I’m really close. I have just some purple yarn I want to use for trim around it, so the center part has been done for awhile. I’ve been holding off mainly because it has been too hot to work on it.

Normally, my crochet time is spent sitting in front of the television, one eye on the tube and the other on my hook. It has been a little cooler in the evenings previously to this week, so we’ve been opening up our sliding glass door to our screen porch in the back. However, having an almost completed heavy-duty blanket on top of me made it too much to handle, even with semi-mild weather. And our dogs love the porch, so I haven’t had the heart to close it off at night. But, now with temperatures in the 50s and 60s, I actually want that warm, snuggly almost complete afghan on top of me!

October 29, 2008
by Tammy
2 Comments

Are You Wearing Your Halloween Jewelry?

I went a little crazy last weekend making up more Halloween projects (Halloween Glass Frame Pendant; Sterling Silver Cast Skeleton; and Silver Cast or Plastic Spider Pendant) since I knew this was it, the last week before Halloween. My week is primarily spent teaching and grading papers (and grading more papers), so this past weekend was my last chance to get more Halloween projects made for my About.com Jewelry Making site. At least I have lots of great jewelry to wear during the week.

Yesterday, though, I ended up consciously deciding to go low key on the Halloween jewelry for one particular class I recently had to take over due to the instructor becoming ill. The class was a tad out of control when I first stepped in, but they soon settled down when I nicely but firmly explained the situation and that I expected them to act like mature adults in class. All of them except one student got the message, and they are actually a nice group now. But, he required a one-on-one explanation of how he was expected to behave. So, as I was gearing up for this, running my speech through my head a few dozen times, I realized that wearing spider earrings was probably not the optimal way to present myself when I was going to have to act like Dr. Meanie for a few minutes with this student.

I’m just curious if I’m the only one that had to consider the ramifications of Halloween jewelry or not this week? Luckily, the talk went well, and today, I get to wear my spider earrings and my Frankenstein pin.

October 28, 2008
by Tammy
2 Comments

Working Craft Vacation in Puerto Vallarta

Beautiful, no? Yes! And you can learn the tricks of using color with metals in a beautiful location as well, Puerto Vallarta. I recently received an email from Debra Weld about this work shop planned for March. Here’s some of the info, but you can find all the details on her web site:

Drench yourself in color, design & ideas with a new innovative product called BronzClay. An experience of a lifetime with a renown teacher for an intensive & fun 4 day workshop amid the beautiful tropical surroundings at the Hacienda Mosaico.

The long awaited BronzClay made its premier in July and now is being offered to you in this ultimate 4 day workshop. You will learn the basics of working with this NEW exciting metal clay that remains flexible when it is dry, which allows you a wide range of forming and sculpting techniques.

BronzClay has some incredible results of patina color during the firing process that will be discussed and demonstrated in class. Each piece will have its own color and characteristics and no two will be alike.

You will also learn the similarities of PMC and BronzClay and how they are different as we will combine the two.

We will explore different textures such as tear away sheets, rubber stamps, working with molds, carving, etc. You will also do a hollow form construction as well as gem setting.

October 26, 2008
by Tammy
0 comments

Check Out Jean’s Soft-Flex Sara Interview


Aren’t those earrings beautiful? They were created by jewelry designer Sara Hardin, aka Ask Sara from the Soft-Flex company. Jean Yates has one of her wonderful interviews just posted where you can learn the why and how about Sara and how she landed her great gig with this company:

Sara Hardin, delightful, warm, dedicated and and excellent teacher and designer