Twilight’s Fancy isn’t just in Talisman Bay!

As Ashleigh Raine, myself and my best friend are writing a series of romance novels set in a fictional California Beach town called Talisman Bay. We’ve been working with these characters in this town since high school. In other words, we know them like the back of our hands. And oh, how we love them…

When we first started writing, I’d been inspired to make necklaces…again. (I’ve been going through phases since junior high, just before Jen and I met.) This time, I really dove in.

I’d unintentionally built a prototype back in 1994 when a friend of mine handed me a broken car part (a frayed clutch cable to be exact) and dared me to make jewelry out of it. Well, it’s still one of my most treasured pieces all these years later:

I dunno why, but I love necklaces with lots of dangles. One charm is rarely enough for me for some reason. I love the cascading effect, I suppose.

Anyhow, since I’d gotten back into necklaces and Twyla of Talisman Bay is somewhat my alter-ego, it made sense that she also makes necklaces. Twyla has been with me since high school. In college, I was a lighting designer and my favorite time to mimic is twilight with all that splashy color. Ludwig Tieck has been quoted “Twilight is the time when the logic of daylight meets the magic and mystery of night” and it just really rang true for me.

Twyla, Twilight… She does whatever she fancies… Twilight’s Fancy.

I add something new just about every day. Whether it’s more signature Twilight’s Fancy necklaces, ribbon chokers or purses. I just love spending time in my craft room. My creations are how I share my joy.

Shifting Gears

Wow. I titled this post “shifting gears” and I’m not even gonna mention car stuff. What is this world coming to?

Anyhow, I just wanted to post about how I’m adding to my plate… I’m making stuff.

How is this different from normal?

I’m selling it, too.

Yeah, that’s why the big banner across the top. I have simply got to clean out my sewing room. It’s bad in there. I love my mess, but if I don’t make a bunch of stuff or sell off what I have, I don’t have the room to collect more and my need to hunt and gather and build is stronger than my need to store.

See how bad it has gotten:

Every nook and cranny from floor to ceiling is full. Under the table: full. Drawers: full. Closet: full. And yes, see those spools of thread on the right near the center of the picture?: Floor to ceiling, every peg is full and there are a few in between just resting on their neighbors. And each spool is a different color. I put the duplicates in a separate box hidden under the counter.

I’ve opened two stores. One as RinaSlayter at Etsy. And one as TwilightsFancy at ArtFire. Why two names? Because I didn’t think I was really gonna be in this for the long haul. I was gonna off a few things and be done with it. But now I’m addicted.

Plus, those of you who might remember my Twilight’s Fancy necklaces…well, they’re coming back. I am still gearing up to get those listed. They take a little more time than some of my other stuff, but they’re worth the wait. Good ol’ Twyla from the Talisman Bay Series by Ashleigh Raine is still making necklaces. Oh hell yes, she is.

In fact, right now, she’s making ribbon choker necklaces with some of her beads (all those trays next to the thread spools). I swear she’s addicted.

I’m also making purses. A few months back, Jen calls me up because she was heading to my place so that we could go to a New Kids on the Block concert. I was making a bunch of noise in the background:

Jen: What is all that noise?

Me: I’m making purses for us to take to the show tonight.

Jen: You’re making purses. Okay.

Me: Yeah, it takes you about an hour to get here, I needed a purse for tonight, so while you’re on your way, I’m gonna make ones for both of us just ’cause I can.

Jen: Oooooookay. (She understands and doesn’t think this is strange in the slightest, of course.)

Me: Yeah, when you get here you can decide which one you want because they both go with what I’m wearing.

Jen: Sure. See you in an hour.

I’m still using that purse I made. It’s one of my primaries. I love it to pieces. So simple, yet so handy. I’ve made a whole bunch more using that same pattern, different material and different trim.

I’m gonna go see what else I can build. Today being a Friday, I’m trying to spice things up a little. So far, the grassy green tea has helped, but I need to build something. I’m itchin’ to make another signature Twilight’s Fancy necklace…the beaded kind with more than three dangles. Yeah, one of those.

Simply Awful

I mentioned earlier that I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy… And that’s why it hurt so much that it happened to one of my best friends.

Welcome to Eddie’s attic:

The firefighters had to cut two holes in the roof. Fueled by boxes of carefully wrapped glassware and dishes, the fire burned its own hole.

Again, some very, very nice vintage stuff was lost in that fire. When he and I were up there digging through the wreckage, it was a small pleasure whenever we’d find one of a set of 12 glasses or bowls or plates that survived. Occasionally, a set of 12 was reduced to 6, sometimes 2. Although, I don’t think there were any sets reduced to zero.

He also lost several wooden lighting fixtures. In one case, the glass part of them had gotten so hot it’d melted. So surreal. And let me just say that one of the worst smells I’ve ever experienced was in this attic. The mixture of charred materials plus mold and mildew was utterly horrid. I got used to it after a while, but then about 4 or 5 hours later, I started to feel ill so I had to go downstairs.

Those bikes used to be show-quality. Yeah, bad day. Very bad day.

But…he found a smile when he told me that not all of his replacement parts had burned up. He could rebuild those bikes…and I’m sure he absolutely will.

What I learned from seeing this happen to Eddie:

Life is far too short not to live it, love it and keep as much as I can of it in the “now” rather than the “some day” because “some day” may not come in time.

Very Big Job

When I walked up to Eddie’s house, I was somewhat surprised to see how intact it was. All greenery outside was either completely charred or scorched brown and almost dead. All the leaves were also sort of frozen in the direction the wind had been blowing the night before. I wish I’d gotten a picture of that. So surreal.

 

This was the side of his house where his neighbor’s was a total loss. In his personal junkyard, there were all sorts of mangled melted metal parts. Wheels, intake manifolds, cylinder heads, hoods, front clips, the list goes on and on. The only stuff that even marginally survived were all the headers. (Go figure!) There were some differentials and other large bits that can be rebuilt, but in at least one instance, the axle tubes had melted. I’d never seen anything like this. So many original factory vintage parts… *sigh*

He met me outside and explained that the attic was what had caught on fire. He’d floored it out a few years back so that he could store some of his incredible collections of Mid-Century Modern stuff, bicycles and various other interesting stuff. An ember or two had blown in and ignited the whole thing.

The fire department blasted it with water and filled it full of foam in order to keep the whole house from going up. When I walked in, the ceiling was on the floor.

I didn’t really know where to start and since Eddie had lived in that house for more than 20 years and had zero intention of moving…well, this was gonna be a big job.

But I was up for it. Eddie is the kind of guy who’d help me if my house had burned down, so I spent a month neck-deep in soot, mildew, all the yucky-ness that goes along with picking up the pieces after a fire has ravaged a house. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy, either. Just the smell of something burnt takes me right back to his place. It was awful.

But these pictures aren’t even the worst of it.

What Happened

All rightie… You’ve met my friend Eddie:

In mid-November of last year, a huge fire hit the mountains behind his house. It was all over the news. More than 500 homes were destroyed or severely damaged.

His was one of them.

He’d been at my house for a barbecue and a movie until about 10:40 PM or so. As he got closer to home, he saw the smoke. The wind was crazy, but being the kind of guy he is, when he couldn’t drive all the way up to his house, he parked his car and walked…figuring his house was probably already gone.

It wasn’t.

The fire department wasn’t there yet, but several yards were on fire, fanned by super-high winds. Eddie got out his garden hose. If it wasn’t for his quick action, his neighbor’s house might have gone up. He put out some debris that was scorching upward, licking their eaves.

On the other side of his house, he has a rather large collection of vintage car parts for 60s Corvettes and Camaros. A pile of tires had caught fire.

He tried to put it out but then his other neighbor’s house became fully engulfed. (The fire was so hot, aluminum wheels, intake manifolds and heads were reduced to puddles while fiberglass hoods became bizarre piles of fuzz.) There was no stopping this blaze. He ran inside his house and grabbed a few things as the fire department arrived.

They almost didn’t let him take his other car that was in the garage (a ’66 Corvette [the coupe version of the convertible I have]), but there was no way he would’ve left that car there. When he drove away, he figured it’d be the last time he’d see home sweet home.

We heard from him around 2AM. He called to tell us that he was okay, but that his house was gone.

The next morning, we learned that his house wasn’t entirely gone… Well, yeah it was, but no it wasn’t.

I drove out there to see if I could help. This is my car parked across the street from his house. Notice how utterly barren those mountains are. In 2003 when a blaze came up to my back fence, there were still a few bits of green and brown on my back hill. This fire was far more ruthless.

Eddie needed help now, not next week and I was glad to oblige.

Forgot about these…

This new year is off to a great start. I am 98% done cleaning out my sewing room. I’ve never seen so much carpet on the floor in there! That last 2% of clutter to be organized is gonna take a little while. I’ve come to the conclusion that I have far, far more ribbon than I’d initially thought I had…which means it’s gonna take that much longer to spool up. Oh well. It’ll be done soon and I’m gonna take some pictures because no one will believe that the room was ever so tidy.

Hey, I was taught that a creative mess is better than tidy idleness.

Okay, okay, so a “mess” does not mean tornado carnage, but still. I love to do what I do and I especially love that I have a room dedicated to it. I swear I’m one of the luckiest girls on the planet.

Today, I was going through some pictures in preparation for posting the unfortunate adventure I was on during the latter part of November and early December and discovered a few images from the night before everything went way wrong.

This is me:

And I love to make shortbread cookies…by hand.

Hey, I do what I gotta do in order to get the job done!

I dunno. Those were just such a surprise to find with what I’ll be posting about in the coming days.

See, the bad adventure wasn’t my own. Meet my best friend, Eddie:

He’s the kind of guy who’ll go anywhere, do anything, whatever, because we only live once (in this incarnation anyway.) If I can’t sweet talk my husband into going to a silly event in Hollywood, I call Eddie. Actually, it has gotten to the point where I don’t even really try asking Jason anymore. I know what the answer will be. He’s been friends with Eddie since junior high and can vouch for Eddie’s sense of adventure.

(In fact, it has been said that there is no way in hell that I could sweet talk Jason into going to a New Kids concert with me, but Eddie…? Well, not only would he go, he’d make it a point to have fun one way or another!)

So, when bad things happen to good guys, it’s…well…it’s just downright unfortunate.

One more video

I just can’t help it. My inner 15-year-old is in cahoots with my video editor side… This time, I put together Twisted. Jordan and Donnie are lookin’ hot, but Joe absolutely owns this song in concert…

Addendum

All that story telling and I forgot one thing. (Well, that’s not true… I left out a whole bunch of stuff that my inner 15-year-old thought was totally pertinent and should be shared, but the woman in me realizes should be kept secret, close to my heart and brought to mind by the mere mention of the New Kids and Donnie in particular) (Hell, I’ve even left out the detail that I wasn’t a Donnie fan back in the day. Yep, he stole me during that hug in Las Vegas. What’s a girl to do?)

Anyway, there’s one more part of my story… Because I was able to sneak some footage at three of my four shows, I thought it might be fun to cut together my own little music video. It happens to be of Grown Man. The footage that’s closest to the stage is from Las Vegas. (I told you there were no superlatives that could accurately describe how freakin’ awesome of a time we had!) My best friend and fellow Babe of Us Three, was using my camera and I love her for it. It’s best to go directly to YouTube and watch the video in high quality. I swear Donnie sees us and winks in our direction a few times, but maybe that’s just my inner 15-year-old dreaming again…

My Loss of Immortality

All right, so for this concert, we teamed up with Wendy. Once upon a time when we were all thirteen, I’d shockingly coined the phrase “Us Three Babes” which we still use to this day. So, when us three babes headed to Las Vegas, we were certain to have a great time.

We had no idea that there’d be no superlative to accurately describe the time we were to have.

In fact, we had such a wonderful time that it’d take far too long to blog the entire thing, but suffice it to say that even when this post ends, the time got better that night and into the next morning. And the two shows in November were just as awesome although the fireworks were of a different kind.

Okay, by some strange miracle we ended up at the front of the line. We did not plan any of that. It just plain happened. I was standing right there by the curtain, nervous as hell, but I was dressed as Commando Barbie and she’s got her shit together. She’s not gonna act like a lunatic. She’s gonna be civilized and oh, so sweet-sexy-cool.

Standing there in front of the curtain, I turn to my friends and say, “Sorry girls, Donnie’s mine. I missed him last time, so I gotta get him this time.”

And get him I did.

When the guys were in the room and the curtain was pulled back so that we could go in, I went straight for Donnie…and something kinda funny happened.

See, Commando Barbie gets a lot of looks. While walking around Comic Con this year, she was even photographed by Hustler for their Hot Babes of Comic Con feature. And as the guys had walked in, the curtains were a little split and even according to Jen–who hears stuff when my ears turn off because my mind gets full–both Jordan and Joe said things to the effect of “Damn, did you see that girl? Wow.” and other things alluding to the fact that Commando Barbie’s got her shit together.

So, when it was time to go in and I went straight for Donnie and he grinned like a very, very happy man, it was as though the world stood still for a moment. Just a moment. Just the amount of time it took me to open my arms and walk into his for a hug just as my friend Gina had done a few days earlier.

Okay, this is when it got kind of strange for me…

He wrapped his arms around me so tight–like he seriously wasn’t gonna let go–and then lifted me off the ground.

So what did I do?

I did what any other girl would do if she was really inspired to live the dream:

I WRAPPED MY LEGS AROUND HIM! WOOHOO!

And can I just say that I had a blast, too? Jen tells the story better than I do because being in the hug was one thing, watching it was completely different. Just like watching Gina get her hug, Jen watched me as Donnie spun in a circle all the while smiling and laughing just as I did. Good golly, I had such a fantastic little time for those five or ten seconds. It could’ve been forever as far as I was concerned. It was the time of my life.

I’d lost my immortality, but what’s more, I’d done it with quite an unexpected bang and that is one of the many reasons I love my life and the New Kids on the Block and all the crazy adventures I’ve been on because of them. I hope they never cease to inspire me and Jen without even trying.

And, seriously, I really hope I don’t die before meeting them again!

More and More

Technically, my first gig as an extra was in 1999 when I was in Jordan’s video. I was kinda in Joe’s video, too. But while I was accidentally in frame, I was hiding behind a tree. (I didn’t know they were rolling until it was too late!)

Anyway, since I’d only met Joe and Jordan and Jen had only met Joe, Jordan and Donnie, we’d figured we were still immortal since we couldn’t die until we’d met all the New Kids.

Silly, yeah, but we were fifteen when we’d made the pact. It doesn’t have to make complete sense in order to work.

Now, here we are in 2008, still following the New Kids’ whereabouts, although nowhere near as vigilant as we used to be. But then they got back together. We had opportunities to meet them. Really meet them. How awesome would it be? So awesome, I couldn’t wait to get us tickets. That was months ago. There was still a lot of distance between getting the tickets and actually being at the shows.

In fact, it took months before it actually sank in that we would meet the New Kids and thereby lose our immortality. Hmmm…

“Maybe we should back out.”

“No, we need to go. If only for our inner 15-year-olds.”

“It’s too incredible. I don’t think I could handle it.”

“We’ll be fine. How many celebrities have we met in the last decade?”

“But none of them were all five New Kids in the same room.”

“You’re right. What if we make asses of ourselves?”

“Let’s not go.”

“But we already have the tickets.”

“And we really wanna see the concerts. They’re awesome in concert.”

“Yeah, they are. I guess we have to go, then.”

“Do you really think there was any way that we wouldn’t go?”

“No, but that doesn’t stop the dread, the nerves, the fears.”

“And once we’ve met them, we can die.”

“That’s scary enough.”

This went on the whole week before the first two concerts. I stressed over what to wear. I still have my New Kids T-shirts and the jacket I’d put 250-hours-worth of rhinestones and chains on back in the day (Yes, it’s partially the New Kids’ fault that I’m so into sewing and beads.) but I wanted to wear something else. Something fun, yet casual. I settled on a funky pair of jeans, red ankle boots and a cute little slitted, low-cut top that tied in front. It was technically from back in the day, but I got it at a thrift store about a decade ago so it had never been to a New Kids concert with me.

I felt okay in that outfit, but that was all I was okay with. Our whole journey to the venue was spent in fear, lamenting, prepping for embarrassment or whatever other horrors should find us the moment our immortality was lost and we were in the same room with all five New Kids and actually–*gasp*–meeting them.

All in all, neither of us fell apart. I know I was awkward at times, but all that faded away when Jordan looked at me appreciatively and said, “Damn girl, you’re really workin’ that top.” (Special thanks to Jen for hearing him completely because I was lost in shock at “Damn girl” and didn’t hear the rest.) Basically, we’d survived…and gotten inspired, too.

And did I mention that technically, I was still immortal?

Jen had met them all that night, but me…well, something funny happened.

When I walked in, I was greeted by Danny. By the time we were done, I was about to go to Donnie, but my friend Gina was already headed for him, in fact she cut me off to get to him!

But that was totally okay. Over the last decade, she’d regaled us with story upon story of all the times she’d met all the guys–even Jonathan while innocently walking around Manhattan–except Donnie. Somehow, one way or another, she just never quite got to Donnie.

So when Donnie wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her hair, I was in heaven with the joy I was witnessing and figured that I’d get back to Donnie later. It wasn’t until I was out of the room that I’d realized I’d missed him.

My big chance and it completely passed me by. Oops. Jen made fun of me while I consoled myself with the fact that I still had three more chances, so therefore the odds were damn good that I wouldn’t screw up again.

In fact, since Jordan had slid me that compliment on my clothing and Jen had heard it, too, it was decided that since our next show was in Las Vegas, Commando Barbie absolutely needed to be in attendance. She has her shit together even though I don’t. She’s met celebrities. She even had her picture taken for Hustler. I may be a complete dork, but Commando Barbie, well, she wouldn’t screw up… Or would she?

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