Moments, Musings and Discoveries from a Creative Life

They say art imitates life, but I think the two are constantly inspiring one another. The people we meet, the places we wander, the laughter, the mishaps, the quiet moments, and the beauty we discover all have a way of finding their way back into what we create, or simply how we create.  

This page will be an unfolding over time.  Some entries may teach, some may inspire, and others hopefully will simply make you smile.

So pull up a chair, take a minute for yourself, and spend a little time with me here in the studio.  I'm so glad you're here. 🐝

~  Journal Entries  ~

Now that you've met the crew, welcome to the journal!

You'll always find the newest moments, musings and discoveries first, with older entries waiting farther down the page whenever you're in the mood to wander.

Est. June 28, 2026

Recently I found myself asking a simple question:  "How do I encourage someone to walk through the door of a store they may not have visited before?"

The answer wasn't another pair of earrings. It was a little wooden dragonfly.

The dragonfly isn't really about a discount (though the discoverer will find one on the back).  It's about creating a reason to explore.

Maybe someone discovers a shop they never knew existed.  Maybe they wander a little longer. Maybe they find something completely unexpected.

Sometimes creativity isn't about making something beautiful. Sometimes it's simply about creating a reason for someone to begin an adventure. 🐝

Here's a link to the fabulous Facebook reel that made me more curious about geology and gemstone properties. (Note:  best experienced with your volume up - trust me.)   This isn't about gemstones for jewelry, per se, but more basic geology, which is where it really all begins.   Salt Shack's Facebook page is here.  It has more quirk like this entertaining piece, and it's full of more serious educational reels to learn this complex subject matter in short snippets.  There is also a lot of "back and forth" between him and his wife, but it's all in good fun as you will see from the comments and the people who follow.    

I had mentioned to a friend that had my science teacher taught our geology unit with a little fun and imagination, I might have actually pursued gemology or geology. Although Salt Shack is UK based, I have found this one of the more interesting platforms to learn more about the science behind the rocks. 🐝

Very Little Time to Dig-In

When I was working full-time, I barely had time to create.  And I certainly didn't have time to dig in to anything but technique training and the process of making something.  But now that I have slowed down in semi-retirement, I have time to explore the curiosities of a good part of my bead stash - my gemstones.  

Rather than keeping that journey to myself, I thought it would be fun to catalog what I'm learning and share it.  So, sometime each month, I'll explore one gemstone family—learning its story, discovering what makes it special, and perhaps even share how those stones find their way into my jewelry creations.  And I'll create a reference guide to share.  

The illustrations throughout this series are AI-assisted reference artwork created to help visualize concepts, not to replace photographs of real specimens. The research, organization, comparisons, and written content reflect my own learning journey, compiled from books, reputable gemstone resources, educational videos, and conversations with experienced makers. I can go back and refer to them as a quick reference, with information mostly all in one place.  My hope is that they become useful field notes—for me, and perhaps for you as well. 

So where do we start?

One of my favorite stones - due to color and opacity - is Amazonite.  Naive as I was, I never imagined it was not a stand-alone gemstone, but part of a larger family, the Feldspar family.  That is why I chose Feldspar as the first family of gemstones to learn about.  

Think of the Feldspar family like a large family tree with two main branches. One branch grows stones rich in potassium, while the other grows stones rich in sodium and calcium. Even though the gemstones can look very different, they're all part of the same family. 

When I first started learning about feldspar, I assumed it was just one type of stone. Instead, I discovered that feldspar is actually a large mineral family made up of two main groups.

The biggest difference between them is the minerals that make up their structure. One group contains more potassium, while the other contains more sodium and calcium. That difference may sound technical, but it has a noticeable effect on the gemstones that form from each group.

The potassium feldspars tend to produce stones like moonstone and amazonite, known for their softer colors and subtle beauty.

The sodium-calcium feldspars, called plagioclase feldspars, include stones like labradorite, spectrolite, and several varieties of sunstone. These often display dramatic flashes of color or sparkling inclusions that make them easy to recognize.

What Makes Feldspar "Feldspar?"

One of the biggest surprises to me was that feldspar isn't a single gemstone—it's the largest mineral family on Earth. In fact, geologists estimate that feldspar makes up nearly 60% of the Earth's crust. While we often think of quartz as being everywhere, feldspar is actually even more abundant.

Feldspar is feldspar because of its internal crystal structure and its chemical recipe.  Not its color.  Not where it's found. Not how it looks.  Those things can vary tremendously.

In my research, someone said to think of it as a recipe.  Imagine you're baking bread.  One loaf contains a little more honey.  Another contains more oats.  Another contains nuts.  They all taste different...but they're still bread because they share the same basic recipe.

Feldspar works the same way.  All feldspars are built from the same basic framework of:

• Silicon (Si)

• Oxygen (O)

• Aluminum (Al)

Those three elements form the "skeleton" of every feldspar mineral.  Then nature swaps in different ingredients.  For example:

• Potassium (K) → Potassium Feldspar

• Sodium (Na) → Sodium Feldspar

• Calcium (Ca) → Calcium Feldspar

The proportions change...but the basic crystal framework stays the same.  That's what keeps them in the Feldspar Family.

The Geology

Feldspar forms when molten rock (magma) slowly cools beneath the Earth's surface. As it cools, minerals begin to crystallize, and feldspar is one of the first major mineral families to form. Over millions of years, those crystals become part of granite mountains, volcanic rocks, and many of the stones we see today.

Because feldspar forms under different temperatures and contains different combinations of potassium, sodium, and calcium, it develops into many different minerals and gemstones. That's why moonstone, amazonite, labradorite, and sunstone can all belong to the same family while looking so different from one another.

The Geography

Because feldspar is so abundant, it can be found on every continent.  Some of the best-known deposits include:

• Moonstone – Sri Lanka, India, Madagascar

• Amazonite – Colorado (USA), Brazil, Madagascar, Russia

• Labradorite – Canada, Madagascar, Finland

• Sunstone – Oregon (USA), Tanzania, India

• Spectrolite – Finland

Every location produces slightly different colors and characteristics, which is one reason gemstone lovers enjoy comparing stones from different parts of the world.  🐝

One of the things I've enjoyed most about exploring the feldspar family and creating these reference guides is realizing just how much variety exists within a single mineral group. From the soft glow of moonstone to the ocean color of Amazonite,  and the sparkle of sunstone, feldspar offers jewelry artists an incredible palette of color, texture, and light. I hope you'll never look at these gemstones quite the same way again. As we continue our journey through the mineral families, each one will reveal its own unique story—and new inspiration for creating beautiful, meaningful jewelry.   🐝

Last year, when I began experimenting with polymer clay, I became fascinated with a technique called Mokume Gane. Wanting to learn from artists who had mastered it, I joined a Facebook group dedicated to the technique.

Susana's work immediately caught my attention. What drew me in was her extraordinary use of color, geometry, and texture, along with her ability to create beautifully consistent patterns that become stunning components for jewelry. Her finishing techniques are equally impressive, giving every piece a polished, professional look.

While Susana creates finished jewelry of her own, a large part of her business, Earth Expressions Artisan Beads and Jewelry, focuses on designing exquisite polymer clay components for other artists to incorporate into their work.

It's hard to imagine that someone producing such refined work once stood exactly where every beginner starts.  In her journey to perfection and originality, Susana says she was inspired by polymer clay artists, Melanie Muir and Julie Picarello.  Their work introduced her to traditional layered stacks and stamped veneers, but she envisioned something a little different.

Pendants Susana made with her own components.  She has an eye for texture, color and geometry.

She wanted  to achieve smoother transitions between colors, watercolor-like movement, defined contours, and patterns where every color remained visible in an organic, flowing design. That vision became the goal she pursued.

Years of experimentation followed. By testing layer thicknesses, color combinations, stacking sequences, textures, and impressions, she worked through countless trials, unexpected discoveries, and gradual refinements until the process finally produced exactly what she had imagined.

The technique also lends itself to whimsical creations.  

Originally, Susana had no intention of teaching her method. However, as her work became more widely recognized, artists continually asked how she achieved those distinctive results. She eventually documented the entire process with precise measurements, detailed photographs, and easy-to-follow, step-by-step instruction. The result became the Contours and Blends Mokume Gane technique that she now teaches.

Susana has earned recognition throughout the polymer clay community and has been featured in Polymer Week Magazine, a publication dedicated to showcasing artists whose work inspires others to explore the creative possibilities of polymer clay.

More unique jewelry designed by Susana Parades.

Her tutorials were one of the reasons I decided to experiment with the Contours and Blends technique myself.  Learning her approach to layering, impressions, and texture helped me improve my own veneers. While I'm producing better results than when I first began, I've also realized that because polymer clay isn't my primary medium, developing consistency will simply take time, practice, and a willingness to keep experimenting. 

You can explore or purchase Susana's Contours and Blends tutorial here.   And if you're just beginning your own polymer clay journey or would just like to learn more about polymer clay in general, click here.

Polymer clay is an incredibly versatile medium, and Mokume Gane is just one of many techniques artists can use to create beautiful, one-of-a-kind veneers that become jewelry, decorative objects, and works of art. 

Susana Peredes can be found on Instagram and Facebook.  

At about the age of ten or so, cute celebrity boys were making the cover of teen magazines.  You couldn't help but notice as they were at every checkout counter at the grocery store.  My interests leaned toward Tiger Beat, with its profiles of all the heartthrobs, like Donny Osmond, David Cassidy and of course, my favorite, Bobbie Sherman.  These magazines kept us informed of all their secrets and had celebrity interviews that made you believe you might just have a chance at becoming their next girlfriend.

With teen years in full swing, I subscribed to Seventeen and Glamour for their how-tos on growing up, make-up and fashion.  (I even learned how to interview for a job from an article in Glamour.)  Most of the time, there was sound advice in them, and of course, a prodding to try the newest scent, or shade of lipstick.

As I grew into being a wife and a mother, my focused shifted from caring for self into caring for the home and children.  Being a young wife at 19, and a young mother at 21, I needed all the help I could get.  My mother was one source, but magazines helped fill the gap and give other perspectives.  When it came to decorating, my mother and I couldn't have been more opposite - good or bad, I was more trendy while she was more traditional.  When it came to children, we were pretty much on the same page, but even still, the magazines gave new perspectives and creative ways to manage children while working, something my mother never had to deal with as a stay-at-home mom.

Looking back on my life, magazines played a huge role in my discovery of how to live life in contemporary times.  Growing up, my mom and dad always had several copies of National Geographic on our coffee table, as well as issues of Southern Living, my mom’s favorite.  I bet even my children remember those magazines neatly stacked on the coffee table, alongside their favorite brass turtle and coffee table books.  It's no wonder I have been drawn to magazines, since they have always been easily accessible and opened a variety of worlds to a curious mind.

In the 1980’s, magazines helped usher in adulthood.  Then publications like BHG  and Woman’s Day started publishing special interest issues specifically related to crafting. Being a product of the 1970’s craft revival, I had created mostly through experimentation.  So as these special publications came out, I’m sure I picked up every edition they published, throwing it in my cart as the last item before check-out.   I was a sucker for crafting how-tos!  They were my first exposure to other people’s ideas on how to make things - full of inspiration!

Then of course in the 90’s Martha Stewart Living and Mary Englebreit’s Home Companion elevated the playing field from egg carton constructs to artisan crafts, bringing contemporary styling to all things crafty.  

It was somewhere around 1996 or so when I developed an interest in rubber stamping after coming upon a rubber stamp section in a unique little gift shop.  As with most new crafting mediums I stumbled on to, I became obsessed, making art and personalized greeting cards with art stamps for many years that followed.  

It was in that small gift shop that I discovered a wonderful publishing company called “Stampington & Company” that printed The Stamper’s Sampler, a beautiful publication designed specifically for card makers and rubber art stamp enthusiasts.  The projects in those magazines were like things I had never seen before, with techniques for gilded stamping, inking, and thinking creatively with a rubber art stamp.  Until then, I didn’t realize rubber stamps could make art, or that there were special interest publications for artists. But a visit to the Stampington website proved to be an absolute delight.  

Today, Stampington has created a magazine for nearly every woman's artistic interest.  If you love to be inspired - give them a visit!  Just browing their selections of magazines is a treat of creativity and self-reflection.  Their motto is "A Beautiful Life, Imagined by You."   They out-do themselves in every issue.

As my interests shifted from stamping to jewelry-making around 2005, I was so pleased to discover the Stampington publication, Belle Armoire Jewelry, a 144-page quarterly publication dedicated to wearable art and artisan jewelry, still published today.   It is a spin-off of their magazine Belle Armoire which focuses on artisan, handcrafted, and wearable-art projects.  Their jewelry-making projects in that magazine were so popular, Stampington felt they were worthy of their own magazine.   It had the same high quality photography that I had come to love in The Stamper's Sampler.

Later,  A Jewelry Affaire magazine was released around 2010.   Although no longer published, this 144-page delight has become a collectible magazine which showcases how to easily make artistic jewelry that is less complicated than the pieces in Belle Armoire Jewelry, but is still just as beautiful and beautifully photographed. 

Growing up in the age when magazines found a permanent home on the coffee table, I can say that Stampington & Company magazines are coffee table worthy.  They are full of wonderful photography, profiles of interesting people, stories of creative journeys, step-by-step instructions, and project lists. Even to this day, this publication introduces me to new ways to use things, unique supplies, companies that I would never have discovered otherwise if it weren't for the advertisers in them - and an appreciation for making things with your own two hands.

Somewhere between the pages of Ranger Rick and Belle Armoire Jewelry, I managed to grow up.  I’ve experienced nearly 60 years of magazine subscriptions, all with a time and place in my life. Priorities have shifted through the years: my interests, how I spend my time, and what I have yet to learn. And my subscriptions have dwindled down to but one: Belle Armoire Jewelry.

We live in a world where inspiration is endless. With a few swipes, we can watch artists around the globe create incredible things.  Still, there is one thing those swipes can't give us:   The tangible feeling of turning a page. There is still something about picking up a magazine, thumbing through a curated collection of artwork or reading an article, and throwing yourself on the bed with a favorite playlist in the background.  Unlike the cell phone that dings and beeps and interrupts your thinking ten, maybe twenty times per day, a magazine waits patiently on the table until you're ready.  And when I'm ready, or need just a bit of inspiration, I still find joy in turning a page. 🐝

Today artists from every decade frequent my playlist.   I love Alanis Morrissette (especially her recent works), and “Five for Fighting,” alias for John Ondrasik.   Both of them are lyrically brilliant and have a depth to their music that is not only musically interesting, but often beautiful.  I find myself stopping at times to just take in a beautiful string of melody, or ponder a profound description of life.   

Then there are contemporary artists like Lady Gaga, Adele, and Bruno Mars, whose music has found its way into my studio as well. While their songs don't yet feel quite as woven into my bones as those old familiar favorites, one day they'll become the soundtrack of someone else's memories., like my old favorites have become to me.

When I create, I'm drawn to both melodies and lyrics. There are days when I'm feeling reflective and, instead of making, I find myself sorting beads or straightening the studio. Those moments call for softer favorites. On more playful afternoons, you might hear a little Herb Alpert. It's simply happy music.

But when it comes to what's playing in the background, it isn't television. It isn't a podcast. It isn't an audiobook.

It's music.

Music has become the familiar thread that ties my memories together and somehow brings my childhood back to the very table where I create today. All I have to do is say, "Alexa, play Supertramp's Crime of the Century album."

And just like that... it's magic. 🐝