January's Charity of the Month and Laptop Issues

(Clip art licensed from the Clip Art Gallery on DiscoverySchool.com)

It all started so innocently. I had planned to start blogging, if not daily, then nearly daily. I had planned posts in my new daily planner. I had taken, or planned to take, photographs. Life, as they say, is what happens when you are busy making plans. I had made many plans, all involving my lifeline, aka, my laptop.
Then my hard drive decided to start making funny noises, the day before New Year's Eve.
Many loud, funny noises that a laptop, or any computing device should not make, the day before New Year's Eve.
Then I started getting notifications from Windows saying that my hard drive was dying. That was the worst part of all - by the time Windows starts sending you notifications, you know your hard drive is pretty much pooped. I tell, you, the whole world is against me! Okay, not really, but it felt like it.
So enter Brennan, who has spent nearly all of the last two weeks, not only helping me move my workshop around (which was supposed to be posts January 2-4), but also fixing my laptop by replacing my hard drive, recovering all of my documents, etc., so that I could get back to my online life, which is pretty much my whole life (which I love, and am pretty addicted to. When I don't have internet access...well, it isn't pretty).
By the way, have I said how lucky I am to have Brennan lately? No? I am VERY lucky to have him!
Now I can get back to my regularly scheduled posts.
And go through the 120+ emails I received in the past week. "Delete all", anyone? No? Okay, I'll get through them all... eventually.

In other news, the first post for January was supposed to be to tell you all about the charity that I will be donating a portion of my sales to this month.
This month I will be donating 10% of the total sales in my Etsy shop (before taxes and shipping) to Polar Bears International. They are a fantastic, registered charity, that is devoted to saving our white giants of the north. Polar bear populations are declining rapidly and Polar Bears International are doing everything they can to educate us as to how important they are, and how we can do even the tiniest things to help them. Not just donating money, but small things, such as turning off lights when we are leaving a room, turning down our thermostats, etc., all in the name of saving these wonderful, enigmatic creatures.
I encourage you to visit their website, and see for yourself the wonderful work they are doing, in addition to the great photography that they have on their site (including totally AWWW worthy photos of a baby polar bear, TOO CUTE!), and some great tips on how you can easily help polar bears with small changes to your routine, and information on how to donate if you are able to.
I have symbolically adopted 2 polar bears so far, and I hope to adopt at least one more this year, if I get the sales to allow me to (again, 10% of all of January's sales, before taxes and shipping, go toward Polar Bears International).
Please visit my shop (at http://www.etsy.com/shop/littlestudiojewels/ ) to purchase some beautiful pieces of jewelry, and help polar bears at the same time.
Have a great day, see you on the flip side (yo! LOL),

Happy New Year!

A very Happy New Year to all of you! I hope it has started off well for you! It has started off here with a ton of house cleaning and organizing, simplifying and, of course, jewelry making! First, I want to tell you about our simple, wonderful Christmas. My parents came over, they brought a turkey as I don't eat meat, and we roasted it, made some brown rice, broccoli and carrots and I made myself a vegan nut loaf with stuffing for me.
While that was all cooking, we opened presents while watching our old favorite Christmas movies and then had dinner. It was delicious, and afterwards we decorated our gingerbread house. Yes, I actually made a gluten free, vegan gingerbread house and WOW! was it good! I also found a store online that sells organic (so no artificial colors to make Brennan sick), gluten free and vegan candy. Oh my gosh, I nearly died and went to heaven. It is ridiculously expensive, but honestly, it tastes so good, now I know why people snack on candy. I haven't had candy in about 6 years, so this was a huge treat for me. It was especially nice as we got to decorate the house together and then eat it. I also made 4 layer raspberry bars, so we were a full family after that! Of course, "the guys" decided to get a little x-rated with the candy placement on some of the gingerbread people, so never mind that in the photo of the ginger bread house *blushes*. Just don't look too closely HA! You can see the large main house, the dog house, the candy cane lane, the meringue stepping stones, the cotton candy snow, and all of the candy. The main house was a little over a foot high, I even made a little ginger bread dog, though you can't see it in this photo. As I am allergic to corn, I couldn't use most icing sugars to make icing, so I used a mix from Namaste foods, but the store I got it at only had chocolate, thus the brown every where, ha!
As I also mentioned, I have been making some new jewelry. I have a silver smith friend who is teaching me silversmithing so that I can make some new kinds of jewelry. I also made the necklace shown at the top of this post, a Swarovski crystal pearl birthday necklace. It has January's birthstone color in it (garnet red), but I'll be making one for every month, never you fear. If you would like to see your birthstone color, let me know here in the comments or though contacting me at my Etsy store and I'll do my best to get one up here for you. You can see more about this necklace and the matching earrings on my Etsy store here: http://www.etsy.com/listing/65385872/january-swarovski-pearl-birth-month

The chain and handcrafted clasp are sterling silver, and the pearls, being Swarovski crystal pearls, are vegan and just SO incredibly pretty. You really have a hard time telling that they aren't the "real thing" (as in, real freshwater pearls). I actually like these better, as they are more consistent in size and color, and can actually be more affordable.

My 50% off sale is still going strong in my Etsy store also, make sure you check that out, as there are still quite a few really nice items at incredible prices. See the sale section here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/LittleStudioJewels?section_id=6286884

Well, I guess that is all for now, Arwen says a great big hello (actually, it was A-roo-roo-roo-ruh, but you get the picture), I'll try to have some new jewelry and Arwen photos for you soon.

Have a great day!

and Arwen