This photo was taken from the south side of the mountain in the springtime. Blooming yellow wildflowers covered most of the fields.

We were having lunch at the south rim of the Grand Canyon with our grandson when this CHIPmunk joined us. 

Who would have guessed that this beautiful flower is an artichoke?

These beautiful blue beads found me at a recent show in Mesa, Arizona.  It didn’t take me very long to put together a few other components in my private stock to create this bracelet.   Blue was my favorite color as a child.  I don’t think I have a favorite color now—since there are just too many choices.

I love the old traditional lighthouses and with this is one of my favorites–overlooking the ocean but not surrounded by it. The keepers of the light did not have an easy job to do without electricity.  It must have been a solitary,  yet somewhat peaceful way to live.

This is a fun necklace that I made for my daughter–it looks good with denim.

Here are some close ups:

The cyrstals resemble the beam from a lighthouse.

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=GBCU8UuHNPI[/youtube]

This is an informative video from HGTV on making beads and bead jewelry.

I am currently taking photos of my jewelry and will probably get some help on this but there are some great resources online for tips and pointers on doing this.

• MK Digital Marketing Direct
• Fox Hollow Jewelry

FoxHollow also recommends Picasa for photo editing, it is a free photo editor from Google and has quite a nice budget setup to photo jewelry.

This is an effective, easy method to provide the right amount of light for jewelry photos.  Illumination through the plastic eliminates or greatly decreases shadowing.

Here are a couple of wire pendants that are custom made just bending to make some fun shapes and designs.

I was in Trinidad, Colorado for my daughter’s wedding in May, 2007.

Trinidad is an interesting and beautiful little town that used to be a border town long ago, and was large in Coal production. It has an interesting downtown disctrict where all the streets with Trinidad red brick that was a signature of the city since it began.  Each year the brick was designed differently.  Since Trinidad is on historic route 66, these bricks remain and cannot be paved over.

The place is rich with history and interesting tales. One location the Frank G Bloom House was both eccentric and a bit spooky.

This is pretty neat, here you can check in on the small town Trinidad daily newspaper to see what is going on.

We took the Amtrak Southwest Chief which was an interesting first experience. Overall it was a great time in the viewer car being able to see the changing landscape. But that is a tale for another day, let’s just say, don’t order the Angus burger on the Diner Car.