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For the love of Rocks

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I come from a long line of dedicated rock hounds. I know that because my mother  told me this one day as we walked back from getting our mail in rural Port Alberni,  BC. The 10 minute walk was sometimes much longer as we searched out special  looking pebbles or of course, the'wishing stones' which on Vancouver Island were  usually granite with a skinny stripe of quartz that encircled the entire stone. My beautiful mother who we lost in July 2023. My older sister and I. We've been lucky to bring back precious [to me] earth stones from many parts of  the world.   Lake Tiberias in Israel, Persian Gulf area, Dingle, Ireland, Isle of Sky area,  Edinburgh,  and Inverness areas in Scotland, a walk back to our hotel in  Strasbourg,  France.  The Levent Valley near Malatya, Turkey sometimes referred to as the Grand  Canyons of the Anatolia. The stone in my palm almost always brings back the day.  My regret is that I didn't label the stones in some way. Regardless, all have been 
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Six ways to re-charge your imagination

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Like me, you may love to make things. Bread. Drawings. Dresses. Jewelry. Deep conversation.  A good mess.  If you are one of those makers, you know that there are times when you are completely sapped of juice. Creative green thumb gone.  We've all been there, but over the years  I've found  a few things..some active, some not, that have been effective in bringing back the zest to my studio.  1.  ℂ𝕦𝕣𝕝 𝕦𝕡 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕒 𝕘𝕠𝕠𝕕 𝕓𝕠𝕠𝕜. The internet and   Pinterest  are the digital version of this, but often it can impact your mind more when the image is singled out. Just let the color combinations and patterns wash over you. No intent, no action needed, just absorb. Take the images that move you most, print them out and make yourself a wall board to keep them on. 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐢𝐭 𝐨𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐧.  Pottery and dishes provide a wonderful springboard for glass beads and jewelry, as do museum catalogs/online articles. Research by-gone periods and ogle some of the jewels or
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Potomac bead box!

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Last month I was invited to join Potomac's influencer program. This means that every so often Potomac Bead company sends participants out a box of supplies for them to play with. We make 3 or 4 pieces of jewelry and tag them on social media. Yep, you can count me in.  Stay tuned to see what I've made..I should be able to create at least 3 pieces or more with what I've been sent. Will post here when I have anything to show! 
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My husband and I have moved around a lot in the span of our 13 years together. We now find ourselves in western Washington and hope it will be a sit for a bit spot. I am Canadian and as you can see I am now as snuggled up to Canada as you can get and still have a home with my American man.  Western Washington on the coast is very much like my early growing up years on Vancouver Island, so it feels very familiar and homey to me.  It's a far cry from the deserts of Israel and Qatar.  I'd forgotten how much it likes to rain here in the winter, but how else can you expect to have the lush green ness. View this post on Instagram A post shared by 𝕀’𝕞 𝔻𝕖𝕓𝕠𝕣𝕒𝕙 (@djlambson) Enjoy your Sunday people! I think the sky might be brightening up this morning..fingers crossed. 
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Glass work ~ Artisan jewellery

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The art of the bead

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Looking back post I discovered the art of lamp work beads in early 2005 and fell head over heels in love. Ask anyone who melts glass, it's an addiction that becomes an integral part of your life. I began to sell loose beads to jewelry designers online and named my little business 'SweetWater' Designs as a tribute to my childhood roots . The year I turned 14 my father did something some people just think about doing. He left a secure 9-5 job and a home that he and my mother had built with their own sweat on the very lovely Vancouver Island to follow his dream of owning his own ranch. Promising us adventure and lots of 'crunchy' snow, (Icy, cold snow is much different than the slush that falls on Vancouver Island) he packed up his family of eight and moved us from our home to 2400 acres of pristine land on a remote northern corner of British Columbia, ~a land known for its Prairie, the Boreal Forest the Rocky Mountains and the mighty Pe
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Finding your own style as an artist.

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Many years ago when I first began to create flame worked glass beads and jewelry I worried that as a new artist I didn't have a 'style'. I didn't have a body of work that someone might say 'oh, I know that artist!'  I did not yet have a collection of pieces with an identity or a discernible similarity in each piece. A cohesiveness.  I've since learned that acquiring a style of your own as an artist is a natural and certain evolution. I spent some of my growing up years on a ranch in the Upper Halfway area of the Peace country in British Columbia, Canada. We moved there while in my teens so I wasn't really crazy about being there at the time, yet there were things about it that I grew to love.  We lived on 2400 acres of pristine land that sat next to the long and winding Halfway River.  There was a natural spring of water that bubbled ..happily, it seemed to me,  up out the ground on a hill above our house, even in the dead of winter! Like some gre
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