the upcoming jewelry line is being finished up and I can’t wait to get everything put together finally.

I’ve been pretty busy keeping up with bumblesea and working on bigger projects so this art print idea is reserved for me to work on in the wee hours of the morning when I find it impossible to fall asleep. I’m currently working on an illustration of the hatched necklace (the egg only- I’d go crazy trying to paint the chain), and it’s about half way done. the photoshop file size is already up to nearly 2 gigs. luckily I have a few extra hard drives laying around that can be dedicated to holding all the original files.

bumblesea indie jewelry silver hatched egg necklace

right now I’m focusing on launching the much anticipated (and more affordable!) acrylic line. (I know I’ve been promising the new line forever..) the jewelry studio will be able to cruise on autopilot once it’s launched. I’ll still be on twitter and of course I’ll still update the blog- but it’ll give me more time to spend with friends and family.

free photoshop layer textures by les brumes via flickr

free photoshop photography filter textures by les brumes via flickr

- les brumes offers hundreds of amazing textures for photoshop geeks like myself to use for free. I can’t keep this find to myself, it’d be cruel. click on the images to check out more of her free goodies.

- house of gems is sponsoring a featured jewelry artist contest. enter to win and you could receive up to $500 to spend however you wish at their store. the contest deadline is today: august 15th and I just found out a few hours ago! fate? hurry up and enter here.

- I haven’t been posting/promoting the past few days because I’ve been spending all my time playing with PHP in order to have dynamic content on bumblesea. originally I installed joomla and skinned it to look exactly like my current site. I think I was searching for some PHP plugins when I came across indexhibit and fell in love with it. I’m scrapping the entire joomla project, it’s bloated and unnecessary for what I need. I’d prefer to support other small companies with similar taste in design if possible. is anyone still reading this? hi, mom!

bumblesea indie jewelry silver tree branch necklace on polyvore

- silver tree branch necklace by bumblesea

- off white converse all star high top chuck taylors (took me a few months to find off white but it was worth it)

- white ripped skinny jeans via topshop

- white tiger striped cashmere sequin tank top by rebecca taylor

- off white blouse via eruca japan

- crystal wedding decor tree via ethereal decor

- white marc by marc jacobs lil’ riz leather hobo bag

behind the scenes: still tweaking the bumblesea site, the code is sloppy and unfinished. brainstorming youtube video ideas. (I might have had a breakthrough.) figuring out the best option to offer free shipping on jewelry. brainstorming ideas for squidoo, associated content, helium. eating entire cheesecakes.

speaking of eating everything, someone’s started a daily journal about their anorexia/bulimia with the name bumblesea. so if any of you happen to come across that and wonder if it’s mine, nope. I still love food. and digesting it.

steambath by sgoralnick via flickr

amalia by habablow via flickr

shades of blue by whimsical via flickr

zebra grazes on garbage by thomas hawk via flickr

zebra jailbreak by yushimoto 02 / christian via flickr

taxidermy zebras by rocketlass via flickr

crash landing by squacco via flickr

@bumblesea lost quite a few twitter followers recently (more than two hundred, I’m guessing) and I assumed it was because of a glitch. apparently they’re purging the site of spam accounts. I’m happy those few hundred spammers have been suspended instead of cluttering up my timeline. I’m almost considering removing everyone from my list and starting from scratch- adding only the people I want to follow. I think for now I’ll look for a decent program to filter my timeline updates down to the people I actually want to read about. so many tools to choose from… eh.

the more I dig around kayce’s portfolio the more I love this girl. her online portfolio has a nice clean minimal layout that is certainly quite inspiring. (anyone familiar with the layout I made for bumblesea knows I’m partial to no frills, no nonsense, SEO friendly design.)

my other favorites by her: “these ain’t no cubic zirconias,” “crit happens,” “everything I make, I hate,” “A is for absolutely nothing,” and last but not least “suck it trebek”.

in other news, I’m so sick it hurts to breathe. and alice matsumoto from the carrotbox mentioned bumblesea on her blog. her blog (dedicated to unusual and gorgeous rings) has been a constant source of inspiration for me even though I’ve never gotten into making rings. I’m so happy she digs my new work!

I will be your butternut squash by kayceeislost via flickr

faux show mono: hand set by kayceeislost via flickr

tshirt DIY long necklace via bumblesea

1. Find some old t-shirts you don’t mind cutting up.
2. Cut strips at whatever thickness you desire across the t-shirt so that you end up with loops. My strips were roughly half an inch wide.
3. Pull on the loops so that the fabric sort of curls and lengthens. Don’t pull too hard; you might rip the seams apart and lose your loop.
4. Gather loops.
5. Save one loop or just cut another one to wrap around the gathered loops. You can just tuck one end into the wrap.
6. Voila!

tshirt DIY necklace via bumblesea

tshirt DIY bracelet and necklace via bumblesea

For the bracelets, you can just cut loops out of the sleeves as opposed to the body of the t-shirt so that they’re smaller, more wrist-sized.

bumble sea press

I love this post that heather from gathering spriggs made. it’s a combo of bumblesea (pictured below: the margot and hatched necklaces) and a clothing line caled saltwater. our styles match up quite well. the model in these photos is so adorable.

margot necklace by bumblesea + saltwater

hatched necklace by bumblesea + saltwater

to do list: editorial style photos with the jewelry, new acrylic line, redo the site so the content is dynamic (ugh). better than being bored, I suppose.

I got the sudden urge to go gem mining, something I’ve never done before. alas, central illinois isn’t the best place to do so. the closest decent mines I’ve found online are in hot springs, arkansas. an eight mile drive from here. so until I find something closer to home I think jordan and I are going to attempt making some salt crystals. oh the life I lead.

ps: buy some jewelry/feature it on your blog? speaking of blogs, grace bonney replied to an email I sent her and I geeked out. screw edward cullen, I want some posters of my favorite bloggers all over my bedroom walls.

crystal garden candyland by sea moon

dawn on jupiter by sea moon