Single-strand, eye candy creations to consider for your gift-giving delight. Their faces will light up when they take the presentation of the box in their hands, read the blissmonger quote on the tag, untie the hemp twine and breathe in the experience.
And then thank you profusely.
The beauty of giving, and of receiving.
Earrings and bracelets to match are easily arranged.
Version A:
Version B:
Version C:
Need some gift ideas for the holidays for your beloved, or for yourself? Add the URL of this post to your Wish List, and see what happens.
Swooning will occur when she opens the box. Click here to purchase.
I do commission designs for the special people in your life. Click here to initiate the talks for a special design. She will love it.
Earrings and bracelets can accompany these necklaces. Click here for details.
Blissmonger jewelry excels at unique design that augments your beloved's personality.
Tell me about her essence. Send me a photo of what she has in her present collection.
If she owns something in need of repair or tucked away because of lost elements, I specialize in reinvigorating left-for-unwearable treasures.
Either way, swooning will result when she opens the box.
When's the last time that happened?
Contact me for details.
Reframe
Slightly out of focus
Feeling into the shift in seasons, energy, life
There is delight to be had
in them all.
Before
After
New bliss bling at my etsy site. This set was a complete joy to usher into existence--but they all are. This one commemorated getting back in touch with some friends from another lifetime, and it was a lovely experience, full of great food, little ones, and appreciating what I've got in my life. Click on the link and take a look. Take some bling home with you.
Follow your gut.
That phrase used to bewilder me, since I had no clue what type of communication my gut was giving me.
Now that I've managed to rediscover how to tune in to that frequency, I do my best to honor the guidance it has in store. Even if that means stepping on someone else's toes, upsetting an apple cart, rocking the boat. I've sunk my own boat often enough by not listening to this guidance that it's too costly not to, in the end.
Maintaining boundaries, or not, with people teaches them, and you, how you want to be treated. Take a look at this area in your life and see the results all around you and erupting inside you if you don't feel so great.
Of course there's a way to let people know what you require, what you expect, what you prefer, and there's outright animosity and finger-pointing. I would highly recommend developing a sensitively delivered form of the former rather than the latter. Because if I'm coming from a place of feeling exploited, then I didn't do the due diligence of communicating what was on my mind in the first place. My bad.
This also enters the arena of bargaining with yourself about who you really are and what isn't acceptable in terms of behavior and esteem, or lack of it, from others. Hearing out loud coming from your own mouth what it is that you want is a powerful experience. And it gets easier with practice.
It's not about accusation. It's about clarification. And when you know on a cellular level something just isn't right, then it's time to say so, and go.
Before a decade goes by and your life isn't exactly what you thought it would be.
~*~*~
The comment function isn't working for me, so I'll include mine here:
Thanks, Linda!!
This awareness of mine has been a long time coming, Matt. Lots of opportunities to practice a different way to look at something. Lots of people conspiring to help me practice. And lots of decisions in baby step form to get to the critical mass that being "right" just isn't the nirvana it's cracked up to be.
Cuz it ain't.
Funky Buddha. Didn't make it there in my foray into the wilds of Chicago recently. So many places to check out. But I'll be back.
Just saw this go over the Twitter wire: "Don't waste your time believing you can't."
A few things out of whack with that statement. If you do waste your time believing that you can't do something, you probably aren't aware that that belief is unfounded.
If the concept of believing you can do something is so foreign to you that you haven't felt the slightest bit of relief that thought might offer you in a very long time, this advice is equally a waste of time.
Perhaps a better reframe might be, "You know that belief you keep thinking-- 'I can't' ? It's possible that it's not true."
Living in doubt and fear leaves you open to only a certain bandwidth of sense. Someone in that place might be able to hear this more appropriately-stated-for-them message.
I walked around this part of the city, taking in the reclaimed aura of the buildings and the streets, mixing in with the people who live and work there now: babies in strollers, babushkas inspecting their neighborhoods, and every age and status in between, and the undeniable presence of those who first lived here a century and a half ago. They watch us, wondering what we'll do with our choices, our time, our talents, our dreams.
I discovered yet another layer to the adage that that still small voice inside your head, it's your sanity talkin'. Many times over the last five or six days I've hit the sides of this pinball game called life that I'm in and sacheted off the bumpers, glad for the warning that the thoughts I was thinking were about to send me down to that end-of-the-game hole at the bottom if I wasn't going to pay attention. And frantically flayling with the flipper mechanisms at that point is just a waste of time. Much better to catch it in the early stages when the lights and buzzers are participating in your favor.
Me, taken with the help of the reflective sides of The Bean in Millennium Park in downtown Chi-town.
Cutie patootie on her way to get soaked at the spitting wall. Photos of that event later. Time to nap and recuperate from the drive.
This is the result of a design commission from a new friend who gave me this to work with: "I got this hot pink sweater from my mom, and since then have gotten a few other articles of clothing the same color, with nothing to wear with it. Maybe throw in some orange, too."
Spring break. Good times. Left five inches of snow behind and found magnolia blossoms swelling from the branches. There's something about those petals that makes me want to eat them like tempura. Still groovin' on a friend's new place and feel the awesome energy that will surely conspire to inspire her to new heights--truly gorgeous surroundings. Picked up a copy of Attracting Perfect Customers and started weaving the connections from previous work with what they consolidate in one place. Sorry marathons with Little Man and grandparents. Excellent finds at Goodwill in NE Portland.
Now to unpack and reconfigure for the perfect situation that is on its way with perfect timing and amazing fit. Bring it.
Met up with a friend who is starting a brand new chapter in her life in the most beautiful space, surrounding herself with what she wants in it. This has been a long time coming, and it's all manifesting so beautifully. Quite a sight to behold. Great inspiration here, on many levels.
I'll be off having a little bit of this and a little bit of that aforementioned above stuff this week so postings will be minimal during break time. Enjoy!
This cat befriended me in a shop the other day--put out her paw to let me know that I should keep petting her. At one point she was on a table that had some collage material on it, words and images from magazines--she rolled around in them, and the one that stuck to her fur and was my message was: nurture your life.
OK.
This was the best damn birthday cake I've ever tasted. Whipped cream frosting, yummy chocolate and vanilla swirl cake, and ribbon to decorate. I may just get one for myself.
New products in my Etsy shop: the Blisseye fob and foblette. I've been looking at a fob on my key chain lately, and will try hanging it from my rear-view mirror next--the perfect places a reminder to reach for better feeling thoughts blend in with subtle power. Everyone could use more of that.
So yeah, Jack Frost is beautiful and all, but really, enough is enough. When it takes more time to scrape the frost from my car than it does to drink coffee in the morning, something is terribly wrong.
I have a few potential vortex jammers, sure, don't we all--but I'm not going to give them air time in my head long enough to get them onto the screen to even mention them. SO not worth it. Those situations are temporary, and they are not good enough reasons for me to shake my vibe.
What are you using as your excuse not to feel good today?
I didn't read the placard next to this display case so I have no idea what it has to do with the T-Rex skeleton next to it, except for the theory that dinosaurs and birds have much of their structural structure in common. I just thought it was cool with the light coming up from underneath it.
On display at Cranbook Art Museum
Met some cool new people tonight who are into Abraham. Hoping to get to know them better and see what kind of fun we get into together.
Little Man and I on candid camera at the drug store pharmacy counter.
Through the magic of the internet, I spent time today in the space of at least four distinct thought systems that do not overlap--at all. Astounding, really, the ability we have to encounter such vastly different frameworks, partake of them as we will and broaden our horizons so abundantly. Blows me away. A definite expansion on Oh, The Places You'll Go! theme. As I navigate through this new livelihood pliant place I find myself in, the perspectives and ranges of experience are truly feeding me to take me to the next level.
I have this thing for popcorn. The pans I choose to do that in I use as weapons of mass destruction. They melt things that I don't intend to melt. Like deck material that's really plastic and not wood. And cutting boards.
Don't try this at home, folks.
The latest of my jewelry creation commissions. Truly, so much fun.
F eht tahW .sdrawkcab ni depyt ereh pu gniwohs era sdrow ym ,mU
Translation--"Um, my words are showing up here typed in backwards. WTF?!?" Haven't experienced that keyboard phenomenon before. How bizarre....
I pulled this Osho card last night, first time ever, and it tickled me to no end. Here's what is listed in the companion book:
"Being "in the gap" can be disorienting and even scary. Nothing to hold on to, no sense of direction, not even a hint of what choices and possibilities might lie ahead. But it was just this state of pure potential that existed before the universe was created. All you can do now is to relax into this nothingness...fall into this silence between the words...watch this gap between the outgoing and incoming breath. And treasure each empty moment of the experience. Something sacred is about to be born."
~*~*~
"Buddha has chosen one of the really very potential words - shunyata. The English word, the English equivalent, "nothingness', is not such a beautiful word.
"That's why I would like to make it "no-thingness' -- because the nothing is not just nothing, it is all. It is vibrant with all possibilities. It is potential, absolute potential. It is unmanifest yet, but it contains all. In the beginning is nature, in the end isnature, so why in the middle do you make so much fuss? Why, in the middle, becoming so worried, so anxious, so ambitious--why create such despair?
Nothingness to nothingness is the whole journey."
I htink this is the first time in my life I'm really able to go around the block with that concept. And still know where I'm going with it.
The bliss eye meets the spinning universe! Isn't it amazing what you can do with clay...and how different opaque objects show up as oppsed to translucent ones on a white background? Gotta get tha sorted out before I post these on Etsy.
