Happy Weekend!

I'm doing the happy dance because it is Friday at last!

This was a good week for me. I managed to devote two hours every night to claying, and produced almost 30 pendants. I made several necklaces, too, a few of which sold this week...enough to pay for gas for the next week, which was $3.89 per gallon when I coasted to the gas station this morning on fumes.

My birthday is Sunday, June 1, and my sister has promised a blow-out dinner to celebrate. She is a wonderful cook, and I ordered up all my favorites: BBQ chicken, squash casserole, broccoli casserole, corn on the cob, butterbeans, tomatoes, canteloupe and a chocolate coconut cake for dessert. I cannot wait!

My Find of the Week this week are 3 of the sweetest little stoneware shoulder bowls. These mini bowls, 5" in diameter, are getting harder and harder to find in good shape, and I managed to snag these 3 perfect ones at one time. The green and blue are fairly rare, and they are all in fantastic shape.

Me, blog? Are you crazy?

Well, I did it, finally. I went and got myself a blog. I find it hard to believe anyone would want to read about my life in a blink and miss it, one-stoplight town that time has forgotten in the South Carolina lowcountry, but everyone says I need one, so here I am, blogging away. You poor people, are you sure you don't want a root canal instead?

Okee dokey, then. My name is Lynda. I am a real estate and probate paralegal and genealogist by day and a polymer clay artisan and jewelry designer by night. I am the daughter of two state government workers. My father was a SC State Trooper for 25 years. My mother is a retired director of the Dept. of Social Services. I am the oldest of 3 children. I have a brother and a sister who are married and have children of their own. I am the world's greatest aunt to a 15 year old niece and two nephews age 19 and 20.

I am a 9th generation South Carolinian through my Huguenot ancestors, who fled France and Switzerland after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, arriving at French Santee near Beaufort, SC in 1688. I have been an amateur genealogist for 30 years and am the administrator for 3 DNA surname group projects at http://www.familytreedna.com/.

I love to read, mostly courtroom thrillers and South Carolina authors and books about South Carolina. I also like to cook, and I'm known as the Casserole Queen to family and friends. I love to do crafts, jewelry making of course, and I also tat, crochet, knit, cross-stitch and quilt.

I use polymer clay as a medium for my jewelry designs. I pair PC pendants with semi-precious gemstones and metals to make one-of-a-kind pieces which I sell at http://www.etsy.com/ in my shops, http://www.scdiva.etsy.com/ and http://www.pcdiva.etsy.com/. I hope you'll visit me there and let me know what you think of my designs. If you see something you like, email me and tell me you saw me here at blogspot and I'll give you a discount.

I am a member of the SC Etsy Street Team and the Polymer Clay Artists Guild of Etsy (PCAGOE). The PC artists have a website at http://www.pcagoe.com/. Check it out to see more wonderful creations by the guild's members.

Every month, PCAGOE sponsors a challenge. We interpret the theme for the month and create a piece for which the public votes a favorite. The theme for June 2008 is "Summer Vacation", and this is my entry. If you like it, please visit http://www.pcagoe.com/ and vote for me. If you don't like it, well, I'd rather not know if you don't like it, but I hope you do.

Favorite Finds: I recently purchased this acrylic painting. It is by an artist whose work I'm not familiar with, but I hope to find more. Her name is Rita Ajidio and she is from Allendale, South Carolina. It is titled "Church Ladies". I just love it. It really speaks to the soul of a Southern woman.