Coins Around the World

I've always thought it's cool when artists do a series all based around one theme. Since I've begun bead weaving I've done one complete series (my Elements Necklaces), I've done a few pieces that I classify as Geekery, and now I'm starting on a new and exciting series! It's called "Coins Around the World."

My fascination with coins started when I was young. Dad taught me to look for wheat head pennies and buffalo nickels. Other than those two specific examples I never really got into the whole "collecting for value" thing with coins, but I have always kept a container with any "odd" coins I've found. Some of those came from random coins that turned up in tills while I worked retail, others were collected as members of my family (or friends) traveled the world.

When my brother came home from Nepal recently I decided it would be fun to use some of the coins he had left over for jewelry...and then it hit me. "I have this collection of coins from around the world, I can do a whole series out of this!" So I went pawing through boxes to find where my collection had gotten stashed in all my moves these last few years and was amazed at how many I found!

I eventually sorted them all out into different bags by country, and it's quite the list!

I have:

Australia

Bahamas

Botswana

Canada

England

Euro

France

Fiji

Hong Kong

India

Liban

Mexico

Nepal

Netherlands

Russia

Singapore

Sri Lanka

USA

And a small bag of one's I haven't identified yet!

Some of the bags only have one coin in them (like Botswana) and some of them have a whole bunch! I have ideas for necklaces, bracelets, pendants, and earrings! There will definitely be some out of this collection I make for myself. In fact, I think the next one I make will be for me :)

I chose to have my first piece in the collection to a Mexican Peso. I was originally planning on doing a necklace with one of the Nepali coins, but I think I'm going to have to buy some beads to do what I want to with that one, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do with this Peso!

I used the colors of the Mexican flag (plus black) for this necklace. It's completely reversible, and the pendant comes off! It's in my Artfire shop if your interested :)

I look forward to sharing more of these with you over the next year! I have lots of other projects I want to do as well so I'll probably work one of these in ever couple of projects or so :)

A Productive 1st Quarter

I started out this year by setting myself a list of goals. I decided to only extend those goals through March, and then my plan was to reevaluate them. Why did I do things this way? Well, I firmly believe that one of the important things about goals is to be flexible. You never really know what's going to happen in life, and in 3 months things can change a lot! You can also learn a lot in that span of time. I'm currently in the process of revamping and rethinking my goals, and over the next week or so I'll be talking a lot about what I have or have not accomplished in the last quarter, and what my new goals are for the next quarter.

I've been keeping track of my goals (sometimes more faithfully, sometimes less so) using the site GoalForIt. One of my sets of goals has been "Crafty Goals." So today's post is about what I've accomplished in that area!

Crafty Goals: Accomplished

~ Elements Series - Wind Dancer - Number 2 in my Elements Series. Available in my Shop! $50.00


~ Create Purple and White woven earrings and bracelet for consignment - Currently Available in my consignment shop, custom requests are welcome though:) Earrings are $10, Bracelet is $25.


~ Create another woven bracelet for consignment - Currently Available in my consignment shop, custom requests are welcome though:) $25.00


~ Create orange and White woven earrings and bracelet for consignment. Currently Available in my consignment shop, custom requests are welcome though:) Earrings are $10, Bracelet is $25.


~ Elements series - Swiftly changing Waters - Number 3 in my Elements Series. Update: Sold! 4/5/09 Custom requests gladly taken - $40.00


~ Learn a new macrame knotting pattern. I must admit I'm not entirely sure how well I learned this one... This looks great, but I've been having troubles making a second one! Available in the shop I share with my Mom. $5.00


~ Heroes bracelet for Theresa - This was a custom order. I'm more than willing to make another one in any color scheme you might prefer! $25.00


~ New Geekery bracelet - Bracelet says "Etsyholic." Currently Available in my shop. Requests for custom sayings gladly taken. $25


It's been such a productive quarter I decided that I'll have to continue this post tomorrow! Until then my friends :)