I went garage sailing, looking for more supplies to make jewelry with I found a massive multi-stranded black necklace made with these faceted black acrylic beads and tons of black glass seed beads. All in all, I cut apart about 30 strands of beads and seperated the seed beads from the acrylics using a strainer (yes seriously!). I think I now have enough black seed beads to last me the rest of my life  I also got a bag that contained about seven different sea shell necklaces. I took all of them apart and sorted them by the different types and sizes of sheels. After about two hours of work.... this is what I got.

I've been wanting to work with modavite for the longest time, since it's such a cool stone. But it's wildly expensive. I have a good weekend selling jewelry so I thought as a treat to myself, Id finally go and buy and buy a piece of it. I went to the local crystal shop, because they always have 'the good shit' (aka all their crystals are all AA+ quality and genuine... but expensive).

 They had the moldavite behind a glass counter so I had to ask for it and I akwardly put out all of the piece of moldavite on the counter, examining all of them. I think the shop lady thought I was out of my mind but I found the perfect piece. This piece is about 3/4" which can tell you how much of a challenge it was for me to wire wrap it, but I did it. I'm so proud of this little baby. 

http://demonmilk.storenvy.com/products/14331762-moldavite-pendant

Jeff goes to Salem

In the spirit of summer time, Jeff has chronicled his adventures in Salem, MA.

Jeff starts his visit to Slwme with a nice lunch of sandiwches and deliberates over the various attractions featured in Salem's map. 

First Jeff checks out the Count Orlok's Nightmare museam. Outside of the place, he finds a skeleton friend who clearly was on the losing side of last year's skeleton war. 

Then jeff takes a quick trip to the very old cemetery found in downtown Salem. 

After some shopping and touring around various psychic and witch shops, Jeff heads over to the Salem witch museam to find out wha all of this witch craft stuff is really about. 

After visiting lots of attraction and stores, Jeff chilld out with smoothie before the four hours drive back home. 

country

After visiting Manhattan, it was clearly time to visit the opposite kind of place in new york, up in the adirondacks. I prefer cities, I quite dislike being someplace where nothing happens. But the photos I took were quite fabulous.

trip to new york city

Went for a trip to new york city. I really like that the megabus takes a stop around here, since the only other option is the ethan allen express which is unbelievably expensive. Megabus is 30$ round trip. The only thing I don't like is that while the megabus will drop you off in the thick of the action, the actual pick up stop is way over by the Javits center where nothing good happens, which means a long walk through boringsville. Still worth saving a hundred dollars though. I met up with a good friend of mine and I'm so happy that I did because I don't think this trip would have been as good as it was without her. And without her skills to guide my country bumpkin self through Manhattan.

Belvedere castle, the first stop which I truly wanted to visit. It was awesome but the castle is smaller once you see it in person. Looks big in photos, though!

The skyline as I was leaving, the storms from upnorth were headed south which made the sky on the way home look totally weird and ominous.

          Of course, I can't go anywhere with a wee bit of shopping. I saw a lovely little stand where a farm from long island was selling fresh lavender and lavender. It's my weakness. I picked up a big bag of culinary lavender and a bottle of lavender essential oil... it's def. better than the other essential oil I have. Then I saw a lovely store that sold beads and jewelry supply, and well, had to go in there. I bought a bone crucifix, a mary connector, some crystal beads, two vials of some very beautiful tiny glass beads to add to my tatting, and sequins... because I have ye to find a nice clear sequin.... until then. So excited. I also got some black ones for purposes I don't know but hey, you can never have too much sparkle.

I will say it a million times, I absolutely hate the college system and the way that local colleges treat students in medical internship programs. They'll treat you like dirt, screw you out of your money, and when you don't like it, the response is "we don't care if you don't like it" and "you are expendable". They treat students badly and get away with it because they're the only option within 50 miles. If you don't like it, fuck you, and fuck your dreams and fuck your money and fuck your dignity, because we don't give a fuck. If it were any other industry, these people would be absolutely out-of-fucking business for these malpractices, but they're not because every student is too scared to say anything because the college has your balls in a vice. Well, I'm taking mine out of the vice and throwing them in the administrator's face because I when I want something, I better damn well get it. I don't command respect, I command. End of the line.

I got tons of new supplies. I am feeling super accomplished. I got some yesterday, got more today, and I still need to get a couple more things that I couldn't find elsewhere to finish a few projects but after that it's not more supplies for me for a long, long time. lol I am not even kidding when I say I have a stock pile to last me ages.

right now I am thinking about the wars and genocide going on in the world and for some people the world to them is blood shed right out of their window. but for me the war is in my veins. and the war is me vs. this disease and right now the situation is one of uncertainty

I've been getting a lot more requests to draw things and lately I just haven't been feeling it. Idk, I guess that I'm really more in the mood to tat something, or take pictures, or write. I used to be the draw person. When I was younger I would draw things. Now I make things and really, I'm getting to the point where I prefer that. For me creating things is just the thing that makes me happy. I made a thing. I am looking at the thing I made. It's like I had all these little pieces and I put them together in order to make a thing. The act of finishing an item and holding it to me is probably one of the bet feelings in the world. For me seeing a finished thing is whats gonna' make me happy. It's always nice to sell something or get comments but for me, just knowing that there a thing out there that I made with my hands is what feels good. If I can hold it in my hands, it feels better. That's why I don't like digital art and sometimes feel more than underwhelmed by my own photography, but even with traditional art there's a huge difference in holding a paper and wearing a necklace.

I've been thinking a lot about moths lately. I finally watched silence of the lambs. I've been a huge fan of the books for years now, they are one of my favorites. And I absolutely love the Hannibal TV series... but I had never seen Silence of the Lambs. For years I had been putting it off. It's just another one of those movies that everyone has seen except me, save for this time it's a movie that I would actually enjoy, as opposed to most movies which I dislike. Last night I decided to finally play on my laptop while making jewelry for my shop. The scene where Clarice is in the museum with the that are identifying the moth pupa found in the girls mouth as a deaths head moth and the scientist just says, "somebody loved him" under his breath about the moth as he was looking at in awe just inspired me a lot.  For whatever reason, that one scene just stuck in my mind as I was drawing some sketches of designs I want to make.