Happy Halloween!

Hope you're having a wickedly good time!

Heirloom Memory Necklace: September 2010

Memory Necklace 2010, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry)
silver charm flaming heart milagro, garnet,
brown pearl, sterling silver chain and wire

Do you ever get to a point in a project when it feels like things should just simmer? That's what transpired with my Memory Necklace. I felt like it was becoming too congested with ideas and needed a breather from any kind of drastic changes.

Memory Necklace 2010, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry)
silver charms: flaming heart milagro and cross
carnelian, turquoise, peridot, garnet, brown pearl,
sterling silver chain and wire

Instead of adding a new design concept, I decided to put things together.

Memory Necklace 2010, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry)
apatite, sterling silver chain and wire

With simple double wire-wrapped links or jump rings,
I wove all my layers and components together to make one necklace.

Memory Necklace 2010, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry)
silver charm cross, carnelian, turquoise,peridot, sterling silver chain and wire

When I reflected on my brainstorming for the month of September, I realized that this next step of assembly made complete sense. September was a time when things in my life were being sewn together. Sierra, our new kitten, arrived on the scene and filled the gap in our family circle, and I became more invested in our home through re-landscaping the backyard.

Memory Necklace 2010, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry)
silver charms: lotus blossom, tree of life, flaming heart milagro,
bluebird of happiness, karma wave, and cross
materials: apatite, aquamarine, carnelian, turquoise, lemon quartz, iolite, peridot,
prehnite, garnet, brown pearl, sterling silver chain and wire, and gold filled wire

It was the perfect time to put all the pieces of this necklace together and wear it around the house to see what needs to be changed. I think this part of the process affirmed in me the idea that sometimes when a project feels like it's stalling out, it may be that I am wanting to step back and patiently wait for the next thing to arrive.

Sneak Peek: Charms for the Holidays

silver holiday charms, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry Design)
elephant, lamb (sheep), snow globe, and Star of David

Here is my last batch of new charm designs until after the New Year. Some charms I made for the holidays and others just for fun. An elephant and lamb join my cast of critters while a Star of David and snow globe scene are meant to inspire thoughts of winter and sacred celebrations.

Check out Hint's Etsy shop for more holiday charms!

Bird Tales

Do you ever feel like life is coming at you backwards?

Season of Gratitude

Gratitude, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry)
silver charms: home sweet home, belonging (bee hive), and kindness (hand and heart)
gemstones: garnet, citrine, amber, green tourmaline, and amethyst

This year I have a lot to be grateful for, and so I created a necklace with three of Hint Jewelry's charm designs to celebrate the Thanksgiving season -- home, gatherings, and helping hands.

Thanksgiving is always a wonderful time to acknowledge the harvest, the work of our community, and how each one of us contributes to the whole. One of the things I am most grateful for this year is the daily nourishment I receive, and how through the help of others I am gradually learning how to be more aware of the sacred in food. I am slowly creating a new relationship with eating and through this experience forging a different kind of connection to the world around me.

What will be inspiring your season of gratitude?

Backyard Sanctuary: Adding Compost

The next step in preparing our backyard sanctuary garden was to have one unit of compost delivered. This is a picture of the dump truck that left it's load on our front lawn. What a cool experience watching the truck unload the compost...made me wonder why I wasn't more into dump trucks when I was a kid!

Here's my husband hauling the compost from
the front yard to the back with a wheel barrel.

He made all these neat piles of compost, which we then
spread out three inches thick over the existing dirt.

My husband rented that beast of a rototiller again and mixed
the compost into the earth. Now our dirt is prepped
and our garden is ready to be planted. Yahoo!

Writing About Chickens

Farm Girl, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry)

silver charms: baby chick, mother hen, rooster, and home sweet home

gemstones: pearl, ruby, orange moonstone, garnet,
amber, green tourmaline, carnelian, citrine

I created this farm girl inspired necklace to get me in the spirit of writing about chickens. None of my chicken charms have a story as of yet, and for some reason I've been procrastinating more then usual.

Any ideas? Do you have a special connection with chickens? If so, what draws you to their nature? Over the summer my favorite tidbit about raising urban chickens was learning that sometimes hens will become "broody" and sit on her eggs for an extended length of time. Apparently, this can become quite a serious health risk for the chicken as she may not eat or drink. I was touched by this idea that a creature could become so overly dedicated to the nurturing of her offspring that she neglects herself.

Do you have any chicken stories to share?

Four Season Container Garden

I decided to plant a four season container garden in our front porch pots. I found this article from Sunset Magazine's 1996 fall issue for how to create a four-season color pot. Here in the Northwest our weather is so mild that fall is the perfect time to plant spring flowering bulbs under winter bedding plants so as to add color throughout the coldest months of the year. I found some directions at eHow for how to plant bulb and pansy combination.

In my front containers, I planted dwarf tulip and iris bulbs underneath my colorful mix of winter pansies surrounding a boxwood. I saw this boxwood pansy arrangement over at Flores del sol's blog and liked how this bush was paired with these cheerful flowers.

After New Year's I can replace my pansies with primroses; spring I can add calendula, English daisies or wallflowers; and summer I can change my annuals out with ageratum, geranium, lobelia, marigold, or petunia. What a fun way to have a small ever changing garden!

Celebrating Day of the Dead with Skulls

Day of the Dead, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry)
polymer clay winged skull by Lynn Davis, ExpeditionD
brown leather cord, brass wire, and pearls

Last year I bought this amazing polymer clay winged skull from Lynn Davis' shop ExpeditionD. Of course time slipped away as Halloween turned into Thanksgiving, and I never had a chance to design anything special with it.

I decided to set this winged skull aside with the promise of making something for this year's Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos) celebrations.

Day of the Dead, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry)
polymer clay winged skull by Lynn Davis, ExpeditionD
brown leather cord, brass wire, and pearls

I kept it simple and wire wrapped pearls in brass to the winged skull and then connected everything to brown leather cord. I thought this winged skull piece looked extra special paired with a sterling chain necklace combining a mixture of Hint Jewelry silver charms and gems.

Day of the Dead, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry)
Hint silver charms: flaming heart milagro, sugar skull, and nine lives scary cat
gems: amethyst, ruby, amber, peridot, garnet, iolite,
carnelian, ruby, plum pearl, and orange moonstone

Have you been thinking about designing something special for Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos)? What colors and symbols are you using to get in the spirit of celebrating? Well, if you haven't decided on a particular bead yet, you should head over to Lynn Davis' shop featuring pewter hand cast creations and consider adding memento mori skull charm to your collection!

Color Inspiration

delicious, no?

Gem Stories: Tourmaline

mixed tourmaline

I was looking for something to photograph with my strand of mixed tourmaline gemstones, when I saw this faded echinacea blossom out in my garden with all the same colors. What a wonderful surprise to see how nature replicates the same palette in different places!

Tourmaline is one of the birthstones for the month of October and comes in a variety of colors. Pink tourmaline is a delicious gemstone to use in jewelry because it has a sort of watermelon-ish glow. It feels cheerful and friendly to me and when mixed with other gems it takes on a life of its own beyond the just color pink, and no wonder for it acts as an aphrodisiac, attracting love into your life!

Green tourmaline works with another aspect of the material world -- financial wealth and prosperity. I've come to think of tourmaline as that little, colorful spark -- a good fairy -- that motivates you to seek out love or new business opportunities.

Backyard Sanctuary: Killing the Grass

The next step in creating our backyard wildlife sanctuary was to kill the weeds and two patches of grass and then rototil everything into the dirt.

Notice I'm only taking pictures! My husband has been doing all the manual labor :) Boy that rototiller was quite a beast!!

What's Hiding in the Forest?

Woodland, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry)
silver charms: hedgehog, raven (crow), toad (frog)
gemstones: citrine, peridot, amber, emerald, garnet, tourmaline, carnelian

Who might be cavorting with a hedgehog for some spooky forest fun? Why maybe a crafty, old raven and a wickedly, poisonous toad.

This design idea came about because I was wondering what my frog prince charm would look like without his crown. As Halloween neared I realized that I had a toad on my hand -- perfect for adding to potions and witches brew.

Well, I suppose this ensemble could be less sinister such as a scene out of The Wind in the Willows, but for the moment I was imagining some scary forest stories :)

What's on Beth's Raw Food Cookbook Shelf?

About 30% of my diet is now raw food cuisine, ao I thought I'd share some of the cookbooks I've come across which I find useful.

Before I launched into cooking raw food, I took quite a few books out of the library to experiment with their recipes. There are many wonderful raw food cookbooks out on the market, but honestly some of them make it seem incredibly time consuming and difficult. Since my goal is to eat healthy and make food in less then an hour, these are the three books I bought for my shelf.

Raw Food: A Complete Guide for Every Meal of the Day is wonderfully photographed and makes planning meals simple because it is broken up into sections. It also has a good snack and dessert chapter, which was one of my main loves of the raw food diet. Some of the flavors in this book are slightly more challenging, but on the upside they have definitely stretched my idea of good food.




Nevertheless, if I had to pick one book for my shelf it would be Jennifer Cornbleet's Raw Food Made Easy. Don't let this poorly thought out cover art make you think less of the contents. Jennifer Cornbleet has written a concise, easy to use, beginners guide to raw food cuisine. She makes the diet accessible without feeling like you have to run out and buy a dehydrator or shop at Whole Foods. Everything I've made has been delicious and with simple ingredients you can find at most grocery stores. Raw Food Made Easy will help you learn the basics, which you can build upon later.





Ani Phyo understands how to make raw food cuisine interesting and fun. In Ani's Raw Food Kitchen, the author goes deeper into explanations about the diet, offers more variations on standard recipes, and provides alternatives for things you miss like cheese and sandwiches. This cookbook varies from extremely simple to complex and provides a wealth of information.

Have you found any other raw food cookbooks helpful?

Monkey Puzzle Tree

monkey puzzle tree (araucaria araucana)

Isn't this the strangest conifer you've ever seen? This tree is called a Monkey Puzzle (Araucaria araucana) and is a native of south-central Chile. I had never seen one before, but here in Portland, Oregon we have an amazing living history museum for trees and plants called the Hoyt Arboretrum.

monkey puzzle tree (araucaria araucana)

Located only 2 miles from downtown Portland, you can see trees from all over the world in the space of 187 acres. It's a must see destination for for naturalists.

monkey puzzle tree (araucaria araucana)

This is a monkey puzzle branch up close. Their foliage reminded me of an agave plant. Of all the conifers at the Hoyt Arboretum this monkey puzzle tree felt the most ancient. I could see a tree of this sort being part of a dinosaur's landscape.

Have you ever seen one of these monkey puzzle trees before?

Owl Moon

Owl Moon, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry)
silver charms: eclipse moon, saskia owl, hope acorn
gemstones: iolite, grey pearl, moonstone, citrine, sapphire, spinel

I love fitting different symbols together to see how they visually relate to one another. I suppose it might make sense to put Hint's owl charm with a crescent moon, but I thought that this eclipse moon created a neat repetition of circles with the bird's full round face and the plump acorn.

This fall themed necklace also gave me a chance to explore the subtle color combination of gemstones in blue, grey, gold, and brown. I've now become intrigued by this mixture of sapphire and brown spinel.

Have you been surprised by any new color or pattern combinations lately? How are you stretching your design instincts?

Backyard Sanctuary: Creating a Blank Canvas

Over the summer I mentioned that we have been wanting to landscape our backyard. While working with a design consultant we came to realize that in order to implement our vision of a backyard sanctuary we would need to cut down a tree that had been slowly dying.

I really loved the shape of that tree, and it was a focal point for quite a bit of activity in our yard -- cat scratching, squirrel climbing, and birds flitting around. Nevertheless, our new landscape design will include more wildlife friendly bushes, berries, and trees that will be a colorful hub for all the neighborhood creatures.

tree cutting

blank canvas

Secretariat: Horse Charm Necklace

Secretariat, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry):
silver horse, daisy, and star charms
gems: garnet, iolite, topaz, grey pearl, tanzanite,
apatite, pink tourmaline, sapphire, labradorite, moonstone

Who can forget Secretariat? It's one of those amazing horse stories that gave me goose bumps when I was a kid. To join in the excitement for the upcoming Disney movie Secretariat, I made this charm necklace featuring Free Spirit along with Star Shine and a daisy I call Morning Star.

Sneak Peek: Urban Chicken Charm Collection

silver chick, hen, rooster charms, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry)

We didn't build a backyard chicken coop this summer, but I sure did get inspired by these clever birds! Here's peek at my chicken charm collection that has just been added to Hint Jewelry's shop.

These chicken charms may be as close as I ever get to urban farming in Portland :)

120 Day Drawing Challenge

heart speak day 1, beth hemmila

Back in August I started another 120 Day Challenge and today is pivotal Day 40.

40 days: change a habit into something positive/break a negative habit

This 120 Day Drawing Challenge came about quite by accident and is a synthesis of several things that came into my life at the same time. The first was spending time one afternoon with my nieces drawing. I hadn't sat down with kids and made art for a long time, and while it was happening I realized how happy and relaxed I felt. The second was the great response I received from my joy journal post and how my friend Petra at Lilla Jizo saw this idea as the perfect format for blogging simple pleasures. Finally, I have been trying to develop my Heart Speak book into something concrete and have been struggling with making decisions and pointing myself in one direction.

Free Drawing + Joy Journal + Heart Speak Book

I decided to combine these three elements into one blog for 120 Days and see where the process leads me. Gee whiz was I in for a surprise!

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I thought this challenge would be easier then the one I did over the summer because it didn't have a physical component. However, as I gradually work my way day by day through this challenge, I realize that this one is more difficult for me because drawing -- making art -- gets at the root of my thinking that holds me back from being fully alive.

Here are some of the observations I've been making along the way:

1. I have a hard time holding myself accountable to sitting down and taking pleasure in just being myself while drawing.
2. I have discovered and discarded a mountain of expectations regarding what I think art should be. I am abandoning that imaginary audience found in my head.
3. I am gradually caring less and less about what a drawing looks like and feeling the pure joy in simple mark making.
4. As my brain lets go of expectations and judgments of how things look, there is a greater flow of ideas.

I am finding something very powerful at work inside of this 120 Day Drawing Challenge, because it's tapping into the roots of my creativity and setting up a powerful experiment for letting go of what I "think" I am.

If you want to follow along on my 120 day drawing trail and get inspired by creative ideas, be sure to check out my Heart Speak blog.

Bat: Being & Non-Being

Batgirl, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry): silver bat charm

Batgirl knows that deep within the cave of sleeping silence is freedom. Darkness wrapped in darkness, being yet not being, she hears the echo of her unnameable self.

Haunted Houses

Haunted House, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry)
house, bat, and Egyptian scarab beetle charms
topaz, carnelian, turquoise, iolite, apatite, and sapphire gemstones
sterling silver chain and wire

Boo!

Don't you love going to haunted houses and getting yourself scared silly? I love believing they really exist and will opt for experiencing the theatrical kind in a pinch. My fondest adrenaline rush was when the teenagers at our church put on haunted house when I was a little kid. We stuck our hands in a bowlful of eyeballs that were actually peeled grapes, and to this day I still get shivers thinking about it. I don't know about you, but for me it's fun being scared because it's one of the few moments when I feel that energy surge of being alive.

I haven't been to a scary Halloween event in so long that I had to make a haunted house necklace with bugs and bats to get in the spooky spirit.

Do you have favorite scary Halloween story? Are you going to create any scary memories with kids or grand kids this year?

Autumn Moon Themes

Salem Memories, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry)
crescent moon, scary cat, and spider silver charms
spinel, brown and white pearl, carnelian, peridot, emerald,
and apatite gemstones; sterling silver chain and wire

Autumn is the time of the year when the moon becomes the leading lady in our celestial play. She is at her fullest around the autumnal equinox, and for that we all seem to drink in her splendor during September and October.

Is it just me or do you also notice that all your female friends seem a little bit more gorgeous at this time of the year? It's as if we all feel closer to something that is innately feminine, and for this I love being able to think on the moon during the months of fall.

I've never been to a Japanese moon-viewing festival (Tsukimi), but I've often wondered why Western culture hasn't kept up with a celebration so elegant. Have we forgotten about our leading lady and how she needs to be pampered and adored? Is there some mainstream American moon festival I've been missing out on?

Well, until I figure it out, I've created this necklace as a response to the moon. A piece honoring all those ancient witchy women, their spidery emotional webs, and catty truth telling tongues! This autumn may you enjoy and celebrate your deepest feminine nature -- your moon Self :)