The other reason I've not been around as much is my new time sink: beading.

Including things I've made for myself and those made for others (all my female relations got jewelry this Christmas), I've made probably a couple of dozen (mostly wire-wrap) bracelets (takes an hour), two or three necklaces (ditto), a fair number of pairs of earrings (which don't take that much time individually but it adds up -- and I've lost a shameful number of them), and spent time just playing around. All of which takes up time formerly spent blogging.

And then there is Elvis. And the baby Elvises.

Elvis is a Christmas tree made of malachite and copper wire, with ornaments. It takes an hour and a half just to string the "popcorn and cranberry" garland made of Ornela seed beads. Not to mention the little snowmen made of Swarovksi faux pearls. He stands 15 inches tall; the baby Elvises -- three smaller trees made for family and friends -- stand between six and nine inches tall. All of them were time and labor intensive. (At least by my standards -- I don't have the attention span to, say, knit sweaters.)

Elvis (so named for a LJ post about him which began "Elvis has left the building...") is my first effort at serious designing. He was a finalist (alas, not anything more) in the 2007-2008 Fire Mountain Gems Beading Contest. (Fortunately, Fire Mountain is on the West Coast -- I drove the piece to Oregon, since I saw no way to actually ship it. The smaller trees -- which did not have a base -- were taken East for Christmas on the plane, not shipped.) He also convinced me to keep my day job: I could never to hope to sell them for enough to compensate for the time spent making them. So now I just make them for closest people, blood and chosen.