Eye Candy Interlude - Sneak Preview!
Silver and Gold and Sugarplums!
Glow from a Distant Fire (bracelet)
7 1/4" (with additional ring to expand to 7 3/4")
9mm faceted black Onyx rondelles, wine freshwater pearls, black frosted glass rondelles, flat Moukaite pebbles, facetted Brecciated Jasper rondelles, and red garnet with sterling silver beads and findings.
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I made the two bracelets while watching Obama's speech on TV last night and realized only later that I was using some beads I had bought from a vendor at a bead show who was from Afghanistan. He had some of the most gorgeous Lapis, but also some material of other stones in shapes I'd never seen before. The brown (what is referred to as Blonde Onyx) came in alternating slender tubes, tiny rondelles, and flat round disks drilled through very thin pieces! The man told me all the strands were hand-made by the Afghani people. He also had all kinds of unusual natural jade that came in shades of green more like Peridot than what one usually sees. I'm not sure if it's in the category of Jadeite or Nephrite, but I find it much prettier than the Chinese material the industry is saturated with. I bought several strands of the most beautiful spring green tubes!
Check out the photo at the bottom to see both of these close-up.
Oxidized Twist Pattern Sterling Stacker Ring $20.00
Size 7 1/2
This ring is another very reasonably priced piece with a lovely twist pattern; simple but elegant.
Smoke The Peacepipe (bracelet)
7 1/4", Gold-filled, vermeil, 22 Kt. lined glass beads, frosted Blonde Onyx and Jade from Afghanistan, pale peach Moonstone, 22Kt. Delica beads, faceted Brecciated Jasper rondelles, Moukaite, and Aventurine.
*As I worked on the bracelets and watched the Presidential speech I was really disappointed in what was about to happen right before the holidays. The old, tired arguments of the Bush era were revived and paraded for all to see, meant to convince us that we are not safe unless millions more are pumped into a war that never seems to end. I wasn't convinced. If the past year hasn't moved us closer to a resolution than I doubt that another 6 months will, and meanwhile that money could be spent on jobs and assistance for the people here.
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The lives lost chasing the elusive Al Kaida spread out into too many countries to keep track of should be saved instead, and as much as he tried to pretend that all this would achieve a positive outcome I really don't see how anything good could come of it; our people dying, their people dying (and not just military people, civilians. Perhaps even some of those who made the very beads I was using to make my bracelets).*
Injecting ourselves into the war in the middle-east which has been ongoing since the beginning of history and being naaiive enough to believe that we can do something to stop it by being a part of it can only further entangle us further and earn us more enemies, some we probably never anticipated and never intended.
The other night I went online to look for resources for someone whose husband has been unemployed for a year and found websites on which people were posting their stories, desperate for help; people without healthcare, people whose utilities were about to be cut off, and people in foreclosure. People with several school-age children who literally didn't know how much longer their little bit of assets saved would hold out and then not be able to feed them.
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The dispair and level of hopelessness and malaise out there is deafening, and NOW we're sending more troops to Afghanistan (talk about living above our means), now THAT gives new meaning to the term!
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If the American people become so depleted and so impoverished that they cannot function then I ask the President how does that in any way strengthen our nation?
Now should be the time for peace, not war. Americans have in many respects lost their soft place to fall, and before we should even think about solving problems "out there" we need to solve the ones we have here at home.
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An over-stressed, under-funded country is fertile ground for the very elements feared, so I believe Obama's decision is a big mistake.
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Perhaps we just don't have that kind of power to achieve peace in the middle-east and that may be something that has to be worked out between the various factions there.
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What we do have the power to do is to take care of our own, build them up, and fix some of the problems that have been put off for far too long in our own country. Only when our own people are properly provided for can we expect to have any real impact on others outside our borders.
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Not to engage in war is often the strongest example of all.
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Peace!
