Jewelry classes, The holidays and another newspaper article...

With it being so close to the holidays there is so much going on that I have not had time to post very much this month. To catch up all that has been missed I figured I'd put it all in one post so here goes....

The last session of jewelry classes for this year ended on Dec 16th which means I finally have time to get to all of my holiday shopping and party planning before I go back to teaching again in January. 2 of my students, Susan and Kate, finished their projects just in time for the holidays. Susan made herself a beach glass pendant from beach glass she found at the Jersey shore. It is her very first project and her very first piece of hand crafted jewelry made in my class so she (and I) am very proud. Kate made 4 matching bracelets for 4 of her closest friends. This was only Kate's second project that she designed on her own and it wasn't an easy one. Each bracelet came out great and I hope her friends appreciate the time and effort she put into each one.

We also put up our dreaded monster tree multiple times in one week. We get a live tree every year which smells awesome but always turns into a major event. It looks great and is finally standing only because we had to tie it to 2 walls. We broke 2 tree stands trying to put it up and it has already fallen over once right after we decorated it...if it happens again we are just going to leave it on the floor, call it a Christmas bush and put our presents around it! Merry Christmas!

Also, I found out today that there is another article in the Courier Post newspaper featuring an interview with me, an image of my rings and a mention about my classes and my "ladies night out" events. You can see the full article here .

I probably won't get a chance to post much else this week with all the out of town visitors and parties so Happy Holidays!

The Succulent wife's favorite things..

I made the Shopping Mall Free Holiday Gift Guide on TheSucculentWife.com! To see the list click here. Anne Marie talks about my jewelry and has posted an image of my custom name charms....Now I am off to finish getting ready for the Holiday Show at the Markiem Art Center in Haddonfield, NJ that is tomorrow from noon to 8pm. It is one of the stops on the Holiday House tours which is a big hit in Haddonfield so there should be a good turn out. Now back to work!

A lot of things have happened since my last post...

Thanksgiving came and went. This year for the first time we had Thanksgiving at my house. Originally it wasn't planned that way. We were supposed to eat at Tim's dad house but the Sunday before Thanksgiving they had a house fire and due to the damage to their house they could not entertain there. I offered up my kitchen to them and everything worked out fine. Just the fact that they made it out of the house unhurt and were here to celebrate (and cook for us all) was plenty to be thankful for.

A few days later was the Annual Holiday Artist Trunk Show was held at my house. In all there were 10 artists participating and the place looked great. I took some pics of everyone set up and before the place got too crowded. You can see them below.

Every year the artists hold a free raffle for the shoppers. Each artist donates an item to the raffle and at the end of the show the winners are chosen. This year's winners are:

Linda Norris- bracelet by Peg Jacobskind
Nicki Albertson- stained glass star ornement by Judy Gangemi
Mike Sweeney- mosaic Christmas tree dish by Abbe Gold
Eleanor Witkowski- fused glass hair tie by Ilan Yampolsky
Jo Penza- Package of handmade Christmas Cards by Lydia Land
Jenny Zayschly- mixed media trinket box by Jennifer Mishura
Debby Schwartz- set of 3 magnets by Lisa Kelly
Diane Dressler- 3 handmade soaps by Heather Famine
Deb Celhar- pair of earrings by Michele Grady

Congrats to all of this year's raffle winners and thank you for helping to make this a successful event for the 7th year in a row!