Slowly making my way into the new year

    The new year starts for me about 2 weeks into the new year. I just need a grace period. A limbo. A time to recuperate, take it easy on myself, recover from the hectic making and selling, the holidaze and New Year's Eve madness. It's a quiet time to collect myself, move slowly. 
    My first step is to get plenty of sleep and to eat really well. But mostly just give myself time, to enjoy the feeling of having time, of having no pressure. To stop feeling the days fly by and really sink into them. Stay healthy, try to avoid whatever horrible flu is circulating. Catch up on unfinished things that fell through the cracks: half written emails, jewelry repairs, organizing, cleaning, CLEANING my studio. Make time to read, to see some movies, go for walks, take photos. ReNEW, recharge and reinvigorate myself.
    Half way into January I started going to the gym, I'm trying to become the me I always want to be. Trying to regularly incorporate movement into my life. These are not new goals and hopefully they aren't fleeting. I just want to be healthy, active... achieve balance within my days, weeks, months. I started to weave my plan for the winter and for the year, I've got some very exciting things planned... a shift in the way I do things...I also plan to keep up the blogging so I'll save that for another post.

A clean desk! Yes - this is clean! My new monitor makes everything so much easier. Working with photoshop and excel are a dream compared to just using my laptop screen.

Shopped for some gifts at Tradewinds Imports, Inc. last month, they gave out coupons to use this month (SMART). Between the 2 coupons and the 20% off sale they're having I got this beautiful $30 Chakra banner for $5! Gotta love a bargain and I love this banner, fits perfectly.

Well I can either have a photo filled with jewelry and a messy studio or not much jewelry and clean studio, the two can't coexist. That's ok.

Clean surfaces...ahh

I finally used my amazing, old singer sewing machine for the first time in this space, it folds out and JUST FITS. I put a lot of planning and spacial organizing into making it fit and it was fun to finally put it to use. So nice to have the time to try out a new design...

These earrings satisfy so many things for me, I get to -Use my sewing machine -Upcycle my growing collection of fabric and leather scraps -Make REALLY BIG and BOLD earrings that are so LIGHT -Rivet the sterling tubes in place and I LOVE riveting -Work with COLOR! Made of silk and leather and they rock! 
Find them HERE

I think I'm going to keep this pair, the new year has brought a new obsession with chartreuse.

I also realized, rather than wait (as I usually do) that I should really re-up my inventory. Valentine's day is coming and rather than have to make things as they are ordered it would be wise and more efficient to make one (or more) of everything. So I got back to some serious working... but at a more leisurely pace.

It always helps to get a new and lovely day planner. This one fits in my purse. And it's yellow. And it has a beautiful peacock on it. And it's totally FABULOUS. I bought it from an Etsy seller HERE.

So that's all I've got for now which is actually a lot for a year that really JUST started.