The Life and Times of the Plume — Page 246

Serving Your Soul Since 2007

July 20, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

Since July 19, 2007.

To be exact.

Today The Noisy Plume is 3 years old!

Can you believe it?

Since I am playing host, gladly, to one of my best friends at the moment, we went out for dinner to celebrate my Plume-a-versary. Dinner was tasty, we got a little hyper, there was much laughing about things mere mortals wouldn’t find amusing at all and even a bit of reminiscing about the history of

The Noisy Plume.

This is all to say, wowee! It’s been a fantastic three years!

I owe you so much thanks it makes my head spin and puts my tail feathers in a flap.

That’s the honest truth.

Without your support, I would be:

1. A starving artist.

2. Probably not an artist at all.

3. I can’t think of what else to put here

except I know how happy this work makes me and

if I wasn’t doing it, I’d be half as happy or not really happy at all.

So thanks for helping make my happiness a reality…

I should probably think of something to say about my goals for the next year…so…I’d like to:

1. Write you that book.

2. Continue to blaze bright trails with metal; I want to be the first to dream it up and the first to lay it down.

3. I want to make exactly what I want to make which means I’m going to continue to dream big and take big design risks. I’m going to continue to make jewelry that I would love to wear and I’m going to continue to trust that someone out there somewhere will share, with me, an attraction to the aesthetic of my designs. I hope that’s music to your ears…

4. I’m going to keep on loving you. As best I can.

5. I’m going to clean my studio space more often. It’s been getting a little out of control these past few months!

So there you have it! The big five for this next year!

Thanks for sticking with me.

Thanks for supporting me and for claiming my designs as your own.

Thanks for making me laugh, for making me smile and for sometimes making me cry.

Thanks for feeding my family and I, for keeping a roof over our heads and for keeping our truck on the road.

Thanks for believing in me and in my dreams.

Thanks for reading what I write and for seeing my images for what they are.

Thanks.

Thanks to the edge of the universe and back again.

With all my heart,

The Noisy Plume

Filed Under: anniversary, etsy birthday, ETSYVERSARY

Atta Girl!!!

July 20, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

Let’s put our hands together for Rhonda,

shall we?

Filed Under: chickens

Les Bijoux!

July 17, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

Firstly, I must let you know that RHONDA LAID AN EGG THIS MORNING!!!!!! But I discovered it while moving the ark and it rolled right out of the nesting box and onto a pine cone where it shattered. It was still warm. Beautiful and brown. And a little bit pointy. YAY! I knew she was going to lay an egg! I’m the chicken whisperer!!!

Next. The work of this week! I didn’t feel like I was able to get much done in the studio these past five days but now that I’m looking at the collection on the jewelry platter by my right elbow, there’s a heck of a lot of stuff there! I accomplished a lot! That feels good to say. Here. Take a peek!

A Picking Pods Bliss Necklace built of sterling, resin, poppy pods, and some flowers I picked off a weed that was growing on the street.

Perfectly sultry.

Galadriel Earrings built of sterling and tiffany stone!

These earrings make me crazy. Not only did I use one of my FAVORITE stones in this design but because these pretties are double jointed the movement is like a musical dream filled with hummingbirds and dark chocolate.

Delicious.

Simply delicious.

Gosh. I know. I haven’t made post earrings in ages.

These are little Specimen Earrings. Dainty. Pure sterling. I think I have five pairs ready to go to good homes.

I don’t even know what to say about this piece except it’s beautiful. It’s really beautiful. It’s large but it’s so delicately built of sterling, roughly cut amethyst and 14 karat gold.

This piece is hollow formed and is replete with fantastic detailing including a wee butterfly that perches on one flank of the pendant. Pure magic. I’ll chit chat with you, next week, all about why my favorite things to create and wear are hollow in one way or another. I’d keep this for myself except I’ve been doing so much of that lately that it’s not particularly justifiable at the moment.

May she go to a good good home.

This jangly little beauty is positively symphonic. It’s built of sterling & parral dendritic agate.

The stone itself is a wonder. It looks like a northern winter scape — perhaps it’s meant for a woman who’s heart is somewhat boreal? Positively wonderful. And while I’m showing this necklace in a low cut dress I tried it on yesterday over a crew neck t-shirt and it looks fabulous against fabric OR skin. Mind those draping jingling chains, they’re going to draw some glances…

FINALLY!

I used some of the detritus I found on the beaches of Hawaii whilst honeymooning with RW last Christmas! HOORAY! This necklace has such spirit, such soul.

It’s built of sterling, resin and a small piece of coral I found on one of our favorite beaches on The Big Island. Funny enough, the coral sort of looks like an anatomical heart forever preserved in an electric swath of resin. This piece is romantic and was built with even more love than usual. The toggle clasp also hosts a hallmark charm and one of my Memento Mori sterling bones. Special special.

I’d keep this one too, for myself, forever…..but I shouldn’t. And I have plenty more coral in my beach combing box!

Lastly, another Bliss Necklace built of sterling resin, poppy pods, a section of aspen branch and some flowers I picked off a weed that was growing out in the street. This piece has such a gorgeously organic lilt to it, like I picked the entire thing off a tree trunk while out walking in the forest. Meant for elves, fairies and women who like to canoe.

Now. About the update. I was going to try to do the entire thing today but I have run right out of time. I must clean my home before I leave to pick up She at the airport. Seriously. If she walked into the house right now she would turn around and take up residence in a hotel for the week. It’s not nice. Not nice at all. But the wait isn’t a bad thing. Is it? It gives us all time to ponder a bit, and it takes the furious rush out of things AND if I decide last minute that I can’t part with one of these pieces I have plenty of time to think about it!

So. I plan to pop the Specimen Earrings in the shop right now and the rest will have to wait until later this evening or tomorrow!

Thanks for your patience and thanks for considering these pieces for your personal jewelry collection!

Have a blissful Saturday!

Lawn croquet, mint juleps and all that….

PLUME

PS This is a poll: If I wrote a book, would you want to read it?

:::EDIT:::
I HAVE MADE AN EXECUTIVE DECISION!
I’m going to update the shop on Monday morning at 9AM MST.
SEE YOU THERE!!!

Filed Under: chickens, New Jewelry

A Fearsome Friday

July 17, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

It’s amazing how sometimes it’s not enough, but most of the time, a telly call over the distance between here and there is just enough to mend up those tattered strings that build my heart, erase those insecurities I let take root, eliminate those fears I carefully tend in my mind and soul…

RW has been extended, up in Alaska. He was going to try to come home this week. Home to Idaho. Home to The Gables.

The only thing that benefits from this extension is our bank account.

That’s an obtuse statement to make, but I’m feeling blunt as a soup spoon, I know you’ll forgive me!

A rough day.

An infuriating day (for so many reasons).

A tough week.

A long week.

My eyes are tired.

Tonight I’m going to treat myself to a hot bath and a glass of wine when I’m finished with all of these small solders in the studio.

Tomorrow I will treat myself to coffee before I update the Etsy shop and then in the afternoon, I will pick up one of my very best friends from a local airport and we’ll minister to the heart and soul of each another for an entire week.

Happy Friday to you all.

Thank God for best friends.

Thank God for you.

We made it.

Everything is going to be ok.

PLUME

Filed Under: oh life

All politicality aside:

July 16, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

NOTE: This probably seems like it’s coming out of left field but the fact of the matter is I’ve been thinking about this for a week or so….these thoughts have been heavy on my heart, so here it is. Love me or leave me!

______________________________________________________________________________

Well. You see. My favorite movies are set in WWI or WWII. I love those sweet war brides with their molded pin curls, red lipstick and smart blouses who pine away for their men as those fellows stumble about in No Man’s Land , suffer in the trenches, bleed in the name of their country and take bullets and shrapnel into their bodies as they would food. Those women wait for letters. Those women wait for the dreaded telegrams informing them of the death of their soldier. Those women make do. The experience of being married or committed to a soldier is always portrayed as romantic. There are stockings with seams, silk skirts, garter belts, smoldering love scenes (which really isn’t inaccurate), cold homes on the coasts of who knows where in England and France.

I love those movies. I weep when I watch those movies. I identify with those movies because, in a sense, I’m a military wife. My man leaves for six months at a time. I hope and pray for his safety, I hope and pray that we’ll still understand and love each other when he comes home and while he isn’t in the line of fire, while bullets aren’t zinging past his face and body, there are plenty of things that can go wrong with a parachute or a parachute landing or a fierce wild fire blow up that doesn’t leave a free exit of any sort and occasionally, at night, I sleep with my eyes wide open fearing for RW’s life. I wouldn’t ask him to quit his work. I never would. I understand why he is doing what he does, but while he’s away it’s a lonesome time and I can only imagine, from my Southeasterly end of Idaho, how he’s feeling….how he’s missing me; the feel of my long hair, my laugh, the gentleness of my touch and the look on my face when my love is shining up at him. I only have eyes for one man and I know he’s alive and well, though I haven’t heard from him in days and days and days, because the police haven’t come to my front door with news that will make me cry and fall to the ground.

So recently, besides being on a war bride movie binge, I’ve been hearing a lot of this song while out in my studio. I dance to it. I cry to it. I sing along because I know that my man can’t wait to take his leave and come home to see his family:

This is all to say, I’m thinking a lot about this girl today.

I think of her often. I pray that her man comes home physically, mentally and emotionally whole. For any of you who are sisters, aunts, mothers, wives or lovers of military men (or women), or firefighters, I pray he (or she) comes home to you safe and whole and alive and that you can pick up where you left off. Thank you for your sacrifice. Thank you both.

That damn war is so far away.

We hear nothing of it but the stories spun by our news agencies.

There’s no national effort to end the thing. No women in factories. No gardens in Central Park. No girls behind ploughs in fields because farm hands cannot be found. No dark curtains over windows. No threats of bombing runs or occupations. No nothing. Just the void in the lives of the women and men who are left behind to keep a home and a family and a life…going.

There’s no talk.

There’s no nothing.

Well I’ll talk. I’ll give you something.

I understand.

I’m here for you.

And whenever you feel alone you have my heart and my ear.

Always. Because I get it. I really do.

Love,

Jillian Susan Lukiwski-Krapfel
(Yes. Krapfel is RW’s last name. It means jelly filled doughnut, in German. Google it.)

Filed Under: war brides