Hey friends,

Find me at www.goodspeedempire.com

Lookit that!  All grown up and stuff with my very own URL!

Fun at the Swap Meet

Rockabilly show, check. Yay for Brian Jay and The Last Call Boys!



Sweet lookin' shoes, check. My friend Reagan wore these, and they were too fantastic not to show. Look at the velvet bow!


Churros large enough to take over the world? CHECK! Megan holding our hearts delight that day. Our hearts were delighted most of the day, seeing as we found a craft supply tent and sensible socks. :)

GIVE AWAY! Woohoo!

Here is an angry donut magnet:


But what is he yelling? Leave a comment on this blog creating a fun/clever caption for the donut. After a week I will pick a winner!

We must help each other

I'm really excited about this coming craft fair. As a contract theatre craftsperson I don't often have one lump sum that I can give as a donation to a cause. But I can give jewelry and craft pieces for auctions, therefore doing what I love and helping out causes that are in need.

If you are in the area stop on by, support Breast Cancer Angels, eat some food, listen to some local bands and shop with some local artisans.

Time for some do-gooding.

Fixer-upper

I highly recommend this to anybody:

1: Clean out your jewelry box. Grab all the stuff you never wear anymore.

2: Call your peeps and tell them to do the same.

3: Get together and revamp.

*see below

When my friends and I got together and revamped I gave everyone a post-it and we kept a list of items we needed from the bead store. That is if I didn't have the item in my stash (<-shock and horror, not having a supply in my stock?!). Then we walked to the bead store in my borough and gathered.

This is a great way to finish projects that have been laying around forever wanting to be competed. It's really better with a gaggle of people, because you have more creative heads and more fun.

Oooh, collaborate on snacks too!

(*isn't my coffee table the raddest color!?)

What have I been doing?

Workin' on a new look.

Sooo.... I've given my jewelry a bit of umph. It's been a long time coming, I was missing something in my jewelry design. The pieces I made looked cool to me but weren't all they could be. Do you ever feel like that? Like there is a missing link in the chain of awesome? Well I sat back and thought about what exactly I wanted my pendants to look when they were actually on a person.

When I thought about stringing I panicked. Because I focus mainly on making the pendant, not finishing. As a designer (costume, jewelry, whatever) I tend to focus on the beginning of a project or a piece, get to the mid point of the project but finishing fizzles. This time finishing fizzled because I just didn't know what My Look was ultimately. Sigh.

But I started trying different chains, different arrangements and came up with this:

It's been a long time coming, but I finally feel like my look has arrived!

Piggies!

I made piggies for my friend Patricia, because pigs are her friends. And it was her birthday. I thought up putting them in a locket cuz maybe sometimes she wants to be dressy, but not too cutesy.

But open the locket and her cute can still be there!


Noriko wanted some piggies too, but I made hers ninja.

I want to make myself a locket with Napoleon inside. Not Dynamite, the short one from France. Or maybe some sort of Commodore, so I can hang anchors all over it.

ps JoanGoodspeed.com is up, you can see what I'm doing when I'm not making cute stuff.

What the heck!?

Is that donut yelling at me?


The nerve! I tell you! Just who do you think you are!?


This all started when I made donuts at the bead show a few months back. I always like to take what I learn in a bit of a different direction... It seems fitting for Halloween too, a bit freaky. Take a quick glance and it's just a cute little thing, then a closer look reveals sass. Sass from a donut. LOL!

Special Order for Georgia!

Wow! I had soooo much fun making these!


Georgia is a singer/songwriter who wanted some fun and funky jewelry.



And I was happy to oblige!

Good luck Georgia! You're a star!

A quick note!

Just to let you guys know, there is a sale on! Zip over to ye olde etsy shop and check it out!

Working only 1 job now so more free time, yay! I've got something up my sleeve...

more to come!

Pasadena Bead and Design

I took as many classes with Christi Friesen as I possibly could. She's great! She is very open and magnanimous. Her ideas are shared freely and we are all encouraged to make pieces using her methods. To be so generous with my ideas and and creative self is something I aspire to.

This is from her Art Nouveau Blooms class. The bee was a generous gift from another class-goer who brought TONS of goodies, and didn't mind that I touch EVERYTHING. Soooo shinnneeey...

What was I saying? Oh yes! Christi gave a free class on nest making! CUUUTE! And there was another booth showing how to make donuts! I made this one with the Simpsons in mind... mmmm donuts... aaaghhhhh...


This is next group is from her Foundpunk Garden class. It's a cross between found items and steam punk and gardens. I of course took it one step beyond and also included color vomit. YES!

Piles of cwap. Soon to become....


A brilliant wall hanging. We also made molds with 2 part silicon mold making goo. The pics didn't turn out well. They just looked like blue blobs.


If you want to check out a workshop on youtube zip on over!

What have I been doooing!? The ugly truth

Hi! It was my mom's birthday! It was fun to get to hang with her and my family. Other than that I've been working on some water color projects:

There are inspired by a book called Watercolor- painting outside the lines by Linda Kemp. A very cool book! She walks you through exercises to get familiar with your preferred medium. I use Dr. Martin's Hydrus. A totally liquid water color. It feels more like dye to me, which I love.

These two works are hot messes, but it's easy for me to get flustered. I'm not quite grasping her method, but practice practice practice*! Here experimented with more abstract shapes, and want to keep working with the idea but I've got to set it down and move on. The method is really fun, and these are my getting-to-know-the-technique works. I'll stick with something a little less ambitious next ;)

(*raspberry noise!)

koi fish!

We went to the Japanese garden in town. Very pretty. Most everything had bloomed and was fading because it's summer now and a bit hot. But there was enough fun stuff still going on!

These poor fish! The last inhabitants of the pond got ick and died, bless. All systems were cleaned up and new fish were brought in. No public feeding, though. The last fish were greedy little beggars. They would beach themselves to get treats and wobble back into the water. These guys just coasted around. They looked like they were flying underwater.

It was more peaceful this day.

Much less fish frenzy.

More blossoms.

PS congrats to Katharine for winning the summer scarf! As soon as your address is emailed to me you will get your scarf... toe is tapping... ;)

We did it!

Ok, I'm now above 30 fans on Facebook! Yay! That means give-away time!

And in the spirit of the summer season breezy summer weight scarf, perfect to throw around yourself for summer evenings.


Become a fan here!

Tell me your best summer time memory to win! Your comment below enters you into the contest! Good luck! ;)

Curious Creek Fibers

My friend Kristine is the artist and owner of an awesome hand dyed yarn company called Curious Creek Fibers. I sometimes work for her as a color hunter and dye mixer when she needs me and our calendars align.
She is making yarn kits out of her beautiful yarns! She gave me the above bundle to see what I could come up with. I love crochet, it feels more sculptural than knitting.

Here's how it came out! I followed a few patterns, from books and from online project guides. I winged it too, when the pattern didn't turn out how I imagined. There are a bunch of chain stitches, just hangin' out under the vines. They were so pretty on their own I almost didn't want to cover them up. But I'll explore that idea later, this was an exercise about using all available parts.

Up close to the flower piece... there are 3 flowers but the first one over shadows the other two.

Of course I had to throw a little of myself in there, I made leaves to hang down off the piece. And I made the yarn wrapped bracelet* to make a whole ensemble!

*K: the bracelet is for you!

What do I get my parents?!

I never know... Parents are hard to shop for. At least mine are. I can make something easier than I can find something they'll like at the store. This Mother's and Father's day I was struck with an idea.* Silhouettes!

*(meaning i totally saw this idea on many many o' craft site...)

I took pre-made canvases and covered them in nice fabric. My sister and I didn't have silhouettes from when we were younger. So I poured through our old photos and came up with some good side shots of myself. My sister on the other hand, she was ALWAYS facing the freakin camera. So I improvised a bit and made her nose her now-a-days nose. Softened it a bit, mixed her with another baby silhouette...

And tada! My sister and I are much different in age, but I wanted my sister to be a baby and myself to be three. Turned out pretty nice! Yay!

Facinating...

I made a little facinatorIt's a prototype, I think it's a little rickracktaskic.

The next one I make will be on a black headband, for sure. That way it's classy. I'll still wear this one out a few times to see how it's received. I dyed a grrrip of these lace pieces awhile ago, with the intention of making facinators. When I couldn't make them stiff enough for hat wear I tried glue, which didn't look good. I've got a few more tricks, maybe I'll go as far as hat sizing (but not the toxic one, the gelatin one).

Inspiration!

Go to amazon and look up the book Crocheted Wire Jewelry by Arline Fisch. She has so much inspiring work! Based on some of her designs I took up a crochet hook and some copper wire and started playing.

Look at her designs! WOWZA!
http://www.mobilia-gallery.com/artists/afisch/

ok, here is what I did:

I crocheted the copper wire over a strong structure, anchoring the chain stitch to the frame as needed. When I felt the structure was "full" enough, I pounded it! The piece has a natural curve from the impact of the hammer. The spool is full of a few loooong pieces of chain crochet, soon to be *something.

*maybe a necklace, maybe an art hanging thingie. Soon to be discovered.

Here's another action shot:
I think they look like one line doodles, which makes me totally in love with them! Sigh of contentment.

CUUUUTE!

This is a little project I worked on for Easter. Suuuper cute!Have you noticed? Pipe cleaner chicks are way cuter en masse. It took forever to make the ripped paper sky, so next time I'm gonna use tissue paper. And the diorama is in a pink bakery box! Teehee!

I glued their feet, no shifting!

Here the diorama is sitting on my parents table. A context shot with Easter baskets!

Special Order

I received a special order, this is how it turned out.

The request was sunset colors...
dark green...
and leaf shapes.

I stretched the scarf on an embroidery hoop. This was the first time I've tried this method, and am really happy with the outcome. I'm going to seal my hoops though, for easier clean up. The dye got into the raw wood, and *ahem was hard to clean out.

*i still haven't cleaned it out...