it's the weekend and i've accomplished nothing

so i've been incredibly lucky to see a spike in business, and i have a gallery event that i need to make tons of things for, aaand i have another possible opportunity to sell in an e-boutique, so i told myself on friday that i was going to lock myself inside today, turn off the phone, and create until my hands were blistered...and then maybe create some more. as anyone who knows me can tell you, when i'm feeling swamped, i do my best procrastinating. today i procrastinated like a champ and got a total of almost nothing done! instead of churning out new items like a machine, i met up with chris' family, then had a nice long chit chat with auntie amy, then came home and wasted hours doing nothing. and i have to say, i thoroughly enjoyed it! our family meet-up started at the cemetery where we all saw the new grave marker for chris' grandpa, then we went to ruby tuesday for lunch. what does one wear to a cemetery and lunch? i took pictures for you...

i really hadn't planned what i'd wear, and because i wasn't paying attention to the clock this morning, i had a total of 20 minutes to straighten the really curly parts of my hair, brush my fangs, clean my face, get dressed, and feed flojo. so this is what i came up with. i sort of think it looks like i was channeling my inner equestrian, only i didn't realize i had an inner equestrian as i haven't ridden a horse since elementary school. anyway, it worked and it was comfy. dress - converse, jeans - can't remember the brand but i got them from tj maxx, boots - vintage, ring - remade vintage, bangles - dinosaur toes.

i feel really strange taking and posting pictures of myself, but i feel even more weirded out when i get chris to take pictures of me. i get a serious case of the giggles, and as hard as i try, i can't keep a straight face. so for your viewing pleasure - the shame is on me - here are today's outtakes...

friday i got my good ol' grandma to ride to work with me. my job is mainly me riding around in the car going to meet clients and get advertising information. it's not too glamorous, and it gets really lonely; that's why it's always a treat to have someone ride with me! we talked so much that i'd forgotten even driving to some of the places, and she came along with me to get some new stones. here's just a little hint: citrine.

i hope you've had a good weekend so far, and i hope you have a happy halloween!

it's time to talk bidness

first, i have to tell you that i do NOT say "bidness," but i do have a redneck client who says it, and every time he does, i want to scream, "there is no D in business!"

anyway, i'm getting to my point. so, business talk isn't all that fun, and that's why i'll never be a high-powered mogul. well, that and the fact that i'm happy being a wallflower and working behind the scenes. but, a little business talk is necessary no matter how powerful your empire may be. if you hadn't noticed, i added a section over in my sidebar about dinosaur toes sponsorship. it's $10 a month for a 200 pixel by 150 pixel space. many of the dinosaur toes readers are crafters, photographers, etsy sellers, independent business people and all around inspirational. a sponsorship would be good for your blog, website, or store. if you'd like to be a dinosaur toes sponsor, or if you have questions about my blog's views or other specifics, please send me an email; i'd love to hear from you!

last, i made a new blog button! the smaller size is also over there on my sidebar complete with the code for you to copy and paste if you'd like to share it on your blog or site!

5 things to do when your wallet gets thin

you may remember reading a little while back that chris was officially unemployed. things aren't too much better on the job front, and this time of year it's difficult trying to start your own business in the architecture field. BUT, i'm not complaining; we have a house, vehicles, food and each other, so that makes us very rich. life changes, and you have to be open to seeing what's next! so, living on a small fraction of what we used to has its challenges, and while i'm not an attack-everything-head-on-kick-asses-and-take-names kind of person, i still think you can get creative when a challenge presents itself. so, here are my top five ways to have fun when your wallet gets thin...

1. it's always fun to get new clothes, right? well, if new clothes aren't in your budget, try wearing old things in completely new ways (i find that other blogs can be VERY inspirational), or try doing a little alteration! this vintage dress has been in my closet for years, but i've only worn it once. it originally came to about the middle of my calves, and if you know how short i am, you know that that length isn't flattering. so, in less than an hour, i'd cut, ironed, pinned and hemmed it to make myself a new dress for fall! (dress-vintage, cardigan - gift from chris, slouch boots - vintage)

2. utilize the barter system. in the time i've been selling on etsy, i've done some amazing trades with other sellers, and i've also done trades with artists and designers in person. most crafty people like to support other crafty people, and trading is a fun way to get something new without having to spend extra money. shy like me and a little nervous about asking people to trade? here's a site that takes the awkwardness out of asking.

3. make things with items you have around the house. something i made years ago (and need to make more of) was an air freshener that was neat to look at. it's super simple, just get an orange and poke whole cloves into it, completely covering it. the orange will dry and it will leave your house smelling AMAZING! and they're nice to look at, so you can make a few and set them in a decorative bowl on your coffee table!

4. redecorate your house. before chris and i moved into this house (and we had lots more clutter because i was well on my way to being a hoarder), he would come home from work and ask, "what did you change today?" you don't have to buy anything new, but move lamps, books, knick knacks, etc. from room to room until you have a completely new look with no money. but if you have a few dollars to spend, anything can be given a facelift with spray paint!

5. have friends over for dinner and a movie or game night. if you have an appetite like i do, eating out can get expensive. why not invite friends over and tell them each to bring one dish? that way it costs less, plus it's easier to cook one dish than an entire meal! and the best part, staying in means you get to wear sweatpants!

if you have ideas on ways to have fun or be creative without spending much money, i'd love to know!

my home: continued and finished

i haven't forgotten to show the rest of the pictures i've taken around my house, but they just sort of got pushed aside. anyway, i wanted to show you the rest as i like to finish things i start, but i also tend to get bored of things quickly, that's why i've decided to compile the last three rooms i'm going to share into one post. fair enough? let the virtual home tour commence...

living room:

i have to be careful about what i put in the living room, otherwise that flower loveseat can look kind of grannyish. we actually rarely ever use this room, which i thought was a waste when we first bought our house, but now i kind of like having a nice, quiet room that rarely gets used! the first thing i noticed when i walked in to our house before it was ours was the white mantle in the living room. it was and still is my favorite thing!

kitchen:

there's not a lot to show in my kitchen, because everyone knows what cabinets and appliances look like, so i picked my favorite things. the antique table i got from my friend haley before she moved to california. i've had many people offer to buy it when they come over to visit, but it stays with me! the bird cage light was a gift last christmas, and i still stare at it! the last thing is an old brass turtle that i keep beside the sink to hold my rings. it was a gift from my sweet friend kassi, and it happens to be one of my two favorite turtle trinkets (the other was a gift from a friend, too)! like the rings? you can find them at pretty in pink boutique.

den:

even though my woopie is gone, i'll always have his paw print (with some extra fur). next, my favorite antique bird print, one of my favorite vintage lamps (that nearly electrocuted me, thus forcing me to learn how to rewire a lamp) and little white birds, all on top of the entertainment center. little bird eggs (the ones i focused on are flojo's) and nests. last, a print from one of my favorite artists.

so there you have it, the place i call home! if you want more, you'll just have to come visit me. while you're here, please don't forget to enter the giveaway, and if you have a moment, stop by an say hi to adri!

time for a giveaway!

this giveaway is brought to you by the always entertaining adri of ma cherie creations. adri was generous enough to offer you, fair readers, your choice of anything $10 or less from her etsy shop. she makes jewelry (i happen to really like her flower earrings), stationary and pretty organza flowers. this giveaway is open to anyone and everyone, so enter, and be sure to tell your friends!

the rules for entering (and you have multiple chances to win)!

1. leave a comment with your favorite item from adri's shop, and your email address.

2. follow adri's blog and leave a comment letting me know.

3. follow adri on twitter and leave a comment with your twitter name.

4. tweet this: giveaway on @dinosaurtoes from @cheriecreations you pick the prize! http://tinyurl.com/28rmtyx
then leave a comment with a link to your tweet.

good luck! the winner of the ma cherie creations giveaway will be chosen at random next monday!

what i've been working on

i've been working overtime lately, but i love it because it means i have a flurry of ideas and my brain is running strictly on create mode. as much as i love the bullet and gem stone necklaces (and i think i always will), i haven't been making many of those lately as i've been wanting to forge more brass and work with different stones. i've sort of become a stone junkie, and i'm having to stop myself from going to the gem shop because i know i'll end up spending way too much money! anyway, here are a few things i've been working on the last week...

the stones i've been using lately include amethyst, black quartz, turquoise and emerald. can you believe the stone in the second picture is a raw chunk of emerald? in the last picture, the stone that looks like an aqua brain is raw turquoise, and i think it may be my new favorite!

in addition to working on things for my shop (this one, too), i've been working in my bedroom. i moved out my old nightstand and in its place, i put an antique stool i had in my dining room. i also got chris to help me hang a collage of framed art, both new and old, above our bed. you'll see pictures soon!

and, i couldn't forget the most exciting bit of news... i'm going to announce a giveaway on monday, so be sure to check back and enter to win!

last, this is really random, but i'm a random person, so it really all relates. in case you didn't know already, chris has type 1 diabetes and was diagnosed when he was 13. until two years ago, he'd been giving himself his insulin shots, but he was lucky enough to get an insulin pump so he could keep better control of his diabetes. if you've ever been around insulin, you'll know that it smells like a really strong band aid. this morning when i was making the bed, i leaned down close to the mattress so i could pull the sheet nice and tight, and i got a whiff of band aid scent. chris' side of the bed usually has a faint insulin smell, and anytime i get a whiff of it, it always makes me sad. i hate that he has to deal with diabetes and all the health-related issues that come with it. i told you that was random, but doesn't it break your heart when someone you love isn't completely well and healthy? it does mine.

i hope you're having a good and creative weekend!

animal house style

i thought i'd break up the dinosaur toes home tour because you may get sick of seeing the inside of my house, and i decided to show you this new book that i'm currently in love with (still keeping with the home decorating theme). also, i've done some minor and long overdue rearranging in my bedroom because molly from DwellStudio is going to share some pictures of my bedroom on the DwellStudio blog! how exciting! i'll be sure to share a link once the pictures are up. this is kind of image heavy, but it was absolutely impossible to show less than i have...

i apologize for the poor picture quality, but today has been dark and rainy (not that i mind a rainy day) which isn't conducive to good picture-taking. when chris and i were on the way back from our island vacation/anniversary trip, we stopped in north carolina at this huge warehouse type store that had everything you could possibly imagine; most of it was crap, but this book was reason enough to go! it's called "animal house style" and it's written by julia szabo. it's not only about decorating a house for humans and furry or feathered friends, but it shares tips on everything from cleaning up fur to using safe, chemical free solutions to clean your house. i still haven't read much of it because i always end up looking at the pictures and forgetting where i was at!

i hope you're all having a good wednesday!

this is where the magic happens.

sorry, i couldn't resist using that title. now i guess i can admit that when mtv's cribs first came out, i watched it way too much, hence the name of this post. moving right along, this is a little peek into my bedroom. our bedroom furniture is old retro hand-me-down furniture, and it isn't cool retro, it's hideous retro. the worst part was the headboard, so last week after seeing so much bedroom eye candy sans headboard, i finally decided to remove it! it makes the biggest difference, and now the only retro bedroom furniture we have is the armoire and the nightstand, which actually don't look so bad now! it's a pretty plain room, and we still need to hang art on the walls, but you get the idea.

above: my side of the bed. see that pretty bird pillowcase? i won a set of them and a duvet back in the summer from dwell studio! earlier this afternoon i rewired a lamp for the den, so the cut glass lamp that was there is now in my bedroom in place of the milk glass lamp. i love lamps, and i love switching them around. the picture is one i received in a vintage swap. i don't know who took, and i'm not sure where in europe it was taken, but it's so pretty i felt it deserved a frame.

above: i don't actually use that easel for my won artwork as i think my lap serves as the perfect table, but it's great for holding and temporarily displaying art before it's framed! you'll now see one of the prints framed in my living room and another framed in my den. i still need to find a frame for the largest print. an antique plate is the perfect catchall for my everyday jewelry, with the exception of necklaces, because i do NOT like getting them untangled!
below: this vintage parrot statue stands on top of the armoire and watches us sleep. i was going to add something else there, but i'm afraid you'll think i'm a terrible pervert. which i may be.

this post doesn't have a name.

i signed in to my blog today an didn't realize that i hadn't posted since thursday! i could have sworn i did it on friday, but apparently my age has started to affect my memory (and my grandma would love that because she likes feeling like she's not the only one who can't remember things). anyway, here's how my weekend went: i spent friday evening with grandma, and of course i ate there. it would have been rude not to! on saturday morning i did some serious business thinking and researching. i made a few things, and hoped to make more until i realized i was completely out of a crucial element. later that afternoon chris and i went to an auction and had lunch; it was delicious and terribly unhealthy, and of course it came from one of those mobile units. i found this set of four HUGE antique gesso frames, and i wanted them so bad. the good thing about this auction is that things rarely get over $5, and usually they start selling boxes of stuff for $1 just to get rid of it! the bad news is that they move sooooo slooooow. we sat for two hours, and they barely moved at all. unfortunately, the frames were in the very last pile of things to be auctioned off, and neither of us felt like waiting. so we went home, and the frames went home with someone else.

sometimes, i just like to take pictures of my supplies. the way they've been arranged, or the grouping of metal and stones i have laying out just seems interesting to me, so i just feel like taking a picture! don't get me wrong, i love film, but i think the best thing about a digital camera is being able to photograph anything and everything you want...for free.

back to the weekend... once chris and i got back home, we went to the garage to do some drilling and work on a few other things for my shop. sometimes i think we have the bes quality time when we're in the garage or working on something together. i'm sure date nights are fun, but for chris and i, we'll take a garage night! we didn't get in any garage time today, but we did find time for salad eating, the shield watching, and laughing at chris' ridiculous made up songs he'd sing while playing his guitar.

i'm working on sorting through more of the pictures i've taken around my house, so i'll be sharing another room tomorrow, but in the meantime, take some pictures of you home so we can see! i'm glad to know from the comments you left me that i'm not the only one who likes sneak peeks!

how has your weekend been so far?

i make things in here.

i don't know about you, but i LOVE seeing what other people have in their home. i'm no decorator, but i like to rearrange things and try to give rooms a facelift either with items i already have, or with vintage finds that are easy on the wallet from my favorite antique/thrift/junk shop. brandi asked me to show picture of my house a few days ago, so i figured i'd take a few pictures in a few rooms and share, and if i'm lucky, maybe you'll share pictures of your home, too! today's room is my pink room. it has pink walls (of which i've grown tired), so the name isn't all that original, but i feel too arrogant calling it my studio. i don't do any hammering, drilling or soldering in this room, but everything else happens here!

above: a few of my polaroids on a piece of twine. i love polaroids and want to show them, but this was the only thing i could come up with. how do you display your polaroids? flojo is modeling on her cage. remember all that free fabric i told you i got? that's some of it on the right.

above: two of my favorite cameras; an argus seventy-five and a polaroid impulse. my sewing machine that doesn't see as much action as i'm sure it'd like; i just get lazy when it comes to sewing.

below: a watercolor painting brittan did just for flojo and i! i love it not only because it's beautiful, but because flojo strikes that EXACT same pose when she's curious about something and watching it closely! i love it!

if you don't have anything else to do, or you do but you're like me and put it off, please take pictures in your house so we can all see! i want to see what your style is like, and maybe you'll inspire me to mix some things up!

heirloom bling.

don't you love a good piece of jewelry with a story to tell; a life before this new adventure with you? well, because i am completely obsessed with all things old, of course i love vintage jewelry! i love the hunt, the discovery, and cleaning my new treasure off to unveil the beauty beneath the dust. so you can imagine my excitement when i saw that the lovely kjrsten decided to host a vintage jewelry swap! i'm already thinking of the shelves and baskets full of antique and almost-forgotten jewelry i can search through (micaela, you know where i'm talking about!), and i can hardly wait to find out who i'll be swapping with so i can start the search for the perfect piece (or pieces since there's NO WAY i'll be able to choose only one)! speaking of old jewelry, here are a few of my favorite thrifted pieces...

be sure to visit kjrsten's blog for her email address and the details on joining the swap!

i have two pieces of exciting news to share with you. the first, and not as exciting bit: i opened a big cartel shop for people who don't want to go through etsy checkout or don't have an account. you can visit my shop here, or click on that link i put in my sidebar. the next bit of news, and certainly the most exciting: dinosaur toes jewelry is now at pretty in pink boutique in costa mesa, ca! yay! i LOVE that store, and you will, too! if you live in the area, you should definitely check it out, or you can shop their site!

so, you may or may not realize that it's wednesday and i don't have a wishlist wednesday post. well, i still plan to do them some wednesdays, maybe every other week, but to be honest, i've kind of run out of themes, and i find that sometimes it just takes too long, and i have the attention span of a two-year-old...sometimes.

what i've been working on

you know how i mentioned a little while back that i thought i'd been cursed with a jeweler's block? well, i'm happy to say that it's kind of lifting! it took me a little while after we returned from our trip to get back into the crafty swing of things because i had a large order that needed finishing before i devoted time to making anything new, but since that's been shipped, i've been able to spend a little more time making things for my shop. i even started a little idea journal so that i'd be sure not to forget anything i really wanted to make! it's a perfect little moleskine journal with screenprinted deer that i got from etsy, and i think it's going to work out well!

i've been making loads of rings lately with amethyst and quartz chunks, and they're all so hard to put in my shop! i'm way too addicted to raw gem stones. the earrings are made from spent bullet casings, vintage chain and porcupine quills. they sort of came about without me having any direction or idea; i love that sort of process!

i usually make hammered bangles with the dimpled, hammered texture, but i decided this time (partially because of sore hammering muscles, and partially because i wanted something new) i'd do something different. this bangle has a brushed texture, and i love the way it catches the light...i only wish the picture showed it better!

now, i have to tell you about this dream i had last night. in the dream, chris and i were staying in a log cabin that was divided up into several apartments, each having one bedroom and one living room. the cabin only had one bathroom for everyone to share, and that happened to be in our apartment. flojo came along with us, and i put her cage beside the bathroom door. whenever we came back from going to the beach, i noticed that flojo's food bowls were turned upside down and on the bottom of her cage. i knew that someone had done it, but i wasn't sure who. then i came back another day to find that her bowls were not only overturned and on the bottom, but broken. the last day i came back, i discovered that more things were broken, the bottom was filled with water, and everything inside her cage was wet. i was absolutely furious and i wanted to scream at whoever was doing these things, but i didn't know who it was. i was also scared that maybe they'd done something to hurt flojo, or maybe they'd given her something to eat that was poisonous to birds. i woke up wanting to cry, and i was so happy to go get flojo out of her cage this morning when she woke up so i could kiss her and tickle her and tell her that i love her! don't you hate those dreams that get you so worked up?

*dream update! so i just did a little researching about my dream, and while i may not be as good at dream interpretation as annie, i think i've figured a few things out. several things in my dream represented fear and worry, along with a feeling of being out of control. that makes sense considering my husband's current job (or no job, rather) situation and our financial stress. but, the best thing of all, the fact that i was in a cabin in my dream means this, "To see or dream that you are in a wood cabin indicates that you will succeed via your own means. It suggests that you are self-reliant and independent, yet still remain humble. You prefer the simpler things in life." nice to know!