Hematite: Let your Calm Circulate

Hematite is a mineral that is beautiful to look at because of its iridescence and gunmetal glow , but it also known for its medicinal properties. It is closely associated with healing anything related to blood. That includes heart disease, hemophilia, menstrual cramps ( yes ladies, menstrual cramps), nose bleeds, anemia and other related blood problems. Native Americans even believed this mineral was good for dental problems and pimples (who knew).

It is also believed to be good for drawing stress out of your body, and calming mental energy. Hematite is also said to be good for relieving anger and neutralizing negativity. If you have had any stressful moments during this holiday season surrounding family, in-laws, long lines at Target, running out of money for gifts, burning the turkey ham, veggie turkey, or turkey, returning a horrid gift, or any other holiday stress, I suggest wearing a little hematite. It should return you to your normal peaceful state or least to your pre-holiday state. This is a stone that both men and women enjoy, so buy it as a gift or get some for yourself.

Here are some hematite pieces I've made recently. I sold a great bracelet before I had the opportunity to snap a photo, you'll have to take my word for it:)

Local Atlanta Flavor...

Well for me the show season is about over until March. I need to rest. I have spent many nights in the pasts 8 months out on the "club scene" selling my jewelry. This is new for me because I traditionally work festivals & craft shows. The down side is that I am way past clubbin', so I realized on Friday night that I have to stop selling at night life shows for a awhile. I think it was around 1:45 am that I asked myself what exactly made me think I could handle one more night out until 3 am selling jewelry. I am literally still a little dizzy not entirely from the shows I got a little drunk at my own Christmas Eve party and I am not totally recovered.

The upside to selling at the nightlife shows is that I get to experience local live music, spoken word, art, comedy, and emceeing. Here is an overview of what I've seen this year.

My favorite group in Atlanta right now is Gritz and Jelly Butter. They are a fairly young band, but they have already opened for Dwele, and I feel convinced that once their album comes out they will be a smash hit. If you catch one of their live shows, you won't be disappointed. They run through covers from Kanye West to Marvin Gaye, plus they have great original songs as well. Check them out here!



My favorite male vocalist right now is Kelsy Davis. He is a keyboardist and vocalist with a soulful, funky, gritty, country sound. Really good Stuff!



My favorite Atlanta Poet is Queen Sheba. Her work is truthful and eloquent and is comprised of beautiful thoughtful stories. She has albums and can be seen live and in person at many spoken word slams in Atlanta.



Julie Dexter is also a great vocalist, whom I love. She hasn't always been in Atlanta, she is from England and has many well known albums.

I've posted other notables a few months back, and all of these are by no means all the great talent on the Live Show circuit in Atlanta, but these are some who have made an impression on me this year.

Whew Pooped!

After making jewelry, selling jewelry, cleaning my house yes I am cleaning , cookie baking, Christmas Play watching, Christmas shopping, Christmas Eve party planning, Christmas Dinner menu planning, food shopping, sleeping, eating, and running behind my hubby and offspring, a girl is absolutely exhausted! Ha! The holiday isn't even here yet, and I'm worn out. Here's a Christmas Carol... I'll catch you in a few days.

Update: Just found out that Eartha Kitt just transitioned from this world.
Here is a post that I did about her a few months ago.

Walk on By...

We played this game with eyes a while back. Today let's play it with shoes.


This woman is so important that she has a blog that hates her and one that loves her and that's all they do! That's it and that's all!


Using my friend Ro'Dah's expression this lady here always seems "one hamburger away from losing it."



This wild mane young lady has something I like, but she has yet to be fully actualized. Good thing she's young because good things are sure to come if she keeps on living.



This sweetie here is probably just realizing that her manager cannot take care of her the way he does his daughter, so as a result rumors are flying that she's about to dump him.



This lady used to be all the rage in the 90's, now we see all over red carpets everywhere with a bow-legged stance. However, we don't see her much on the silver screen.



Her lip gloss be poppin', and she needs to give me those shoes right now!



It took this lady about a decade, but she finally showed us she CAN sing more than just back up.




This lady is rumored to be growing the world's shortest baby not classified as a midget.




Here are the answers:

Beyonce
Kimora Lee Simmons
Teyana Taylor
Kelly Rowland
Nia Long
Lil' Mama
Letoya Luckett
Janet Jackson

100th Post!

*Balloons, Confetti, Whistles Applause*

In celebration of my 100th post, I'm just going to relax and listen to some of my favorite soulful, sexy, singers of the opposite sex. Join me in celebration.

Teddy Pendergrass



Keite Young





Stevie Wonder



Bilal Oliver




Rahsaan Patterson

Sagittarius Sisters' Salute

November 22nd - December 21st is the time of year that Sagittarius women celebrate their birthdays. As with all the other zodiac signs I am paying tribute to the Sagittarius Sisters. First let me say Happy Belated Birthday to my Mother-in-law, Sarah Brimm. She transitioned away from this life in 2007. Her birthday was this past Saturday, December 13th. We sang "The Birthday song" to her and wished her peace on the other side. She was a beautiful spirit inside and out.



As a matter of fact most Sagittarius women have sweet positive spirits. They are the external optimists, sometimes to a fault. They are free flowing and love a life filled with freedom. They are intellectual and open-minded. These women are honest and they tell it like it is. Most Sagittarius women I know walk around looking like money. They are always dressed fashionably and they light up the room when they come around. They are also orderly and neat. I have known Sags who fold socks, iron jeans (in 2008), and vacuum everyday.I have and have had (they fly free, so you can't always keep up with them) a few close Sagittarius friends. Most of these women send good energy into the world, so I love Sagittarius!

Here are some famous ones.

This is Janelle Monae she is a real spit fire Sag. She displays courage and freedom to perform and write songs from her heart.


My daughters love to sing this song.

Tyra has that overly optimist side to her that Sagittarius sometimes have. We see that when she tries cast a positive light on some things that are better left alone, like like Miss J's fool ass .



Kim Basinger


Lucy Liu, fire!


Although the media loves to poke fun at Katie and her husband, I love them and see value in they way they choose to live their lives.


Of course, Tina Turner exemplifies good energy, free-spirit, and looking like money!

What Difference A Day Makes

I went to see Cadillac Records last weekend and I just loved the movie. I didn't know a lot about Muddy Waters, played by Jeffrey Wright, so it was nice to learn about him. Jeffrey Wright did an amazing job as usual, he's one of my favorite actors. Even Gabrielle Union did a pretty good job. Beyonce played Etta James , and she did a pretty outstanding job too.

Anyway, that movie was mostly about the Blues, so I thought I would highlight my favorite Blues singer, Dinah Washington. She died at the early age of 39 years old. I know just about everyone of her songs word for word. She started out in Gospel, and then moved into Blues and Jazz. She was a contemporary with Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. Dinah sang a duet series with Brook Benton.

One of her most famous songs was What a Difference a Day Makes (and yes that is our 40th President introducing her back when he was an actor).




One of my favorite songs of her's is Fat Daddy . I discovered her music about 12 years ago, and I encourage you to check her out. It's really swinging!

I dig you, but I just don't have time...

to sit and chit and sit and chit chat and smile.~ Aretha Franklin, Dr. FeelGood.


I'm getting Santa money for my babies, so I've haven't had time to visit and post in the bloggy world. Please accept my apology and these pictures to prove I've been working.



Update: These were sold!



Sold!


Sold!



Sold!



Sold!

The Holiday Hustle

Sold!



Sold!




I'm over here grinding out new designs for this holiday season. So far, I have four more shows to do before Christmas. I've made a new Black and White series, which I feel very proud of. I snapped a few poor quality images before, I sent them over to the BET Actress, Kaira Akita. She played Diva in the Original Series "Somebodies." She is having a fashion exchange party, A Clothes Encounter , and took away a good portion of my inventory to sell. Tonight, I've got to get back on the grind to replace those items.


Here are some new lavender Polymer Clay earrings, I made two nights ago. They are huge, but pretty lightweight. I love these!

The Funktresses!

As promised I am delivering a post about the women of funk music. Funk music is the music I remember around the house as a little girl in the 70's. That's right I said the 70's you wanna make something of it? It had heavy bass guitar sounds, organ bangs, lots of "owwws," "yowwws," "eewwws," "unhs," and "yes suhs." Of course, there were costumes and over the top antics from the performers, It was exciting. That music gave me a huge sense of pride about being young, beautiful and black. Most of the performers were men. Sly stone, Larry Graham, George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, and James Brown were the usual suspects.

But when I saw the women of funk, I would just go crazy. They were sexy, strong and almost seemed taboo somehow. They gave black women of that day the permission to do and to be something other than sweet, conservative, lady-like, well-mannered, damsels that you often see depicted in the era of the early 60's.

I did a post earlier on Nona Hendryx, and I've made mention of Taka Boom, Chaka Khan's sister. They were funktresses. I think the most popular funk sisters of that day were The Brides of Funkenstein. They would usually be found right along side George Clinton, Parliament Funkadelic, and Bootsy Collins. However, they started out singing with Sly Stone.




Betty Mabry Davis, the ex-wife of Miles Davis (She came before Cicely Tyson married him), was a great Funktress. She was a fashion model and produced great funk music in the USA and in Europe. Some credit the genius of Bitches Brew from Miles Davis directly to her influence on him.



Another female funk group was Parlet. They were similar to Brides of Funkenstein, but less popular. They were a spin-off of parliament. They were very talented. There were many iterations of this group, this is the 1979 version, although they started in 1975.

Moscato & Dark Chocolate

My husband and children awoke this morning to the shrieks of a crazed woman in the midst of an all out verbal brawl with a Bank of America customer service representative. Fighting to the death for the refund of $70.00, which for me is a week's worth of groceries. I didn't win that round, but after two more rounds I finally won. I got my $70.00 back. Now, although it's still light outside, I NEED some Moscato wine and dark chocolate to calm me down. I wish I could say I'm using meditation and yoga for my sanity today, but I can't. It's a huge glass of wine and bits of dark chocolate.

"Oh yes, you know her sister is..."

A while back I did a post about Solange Knowles making a valiant attempt at stardom despite her sister, Beyonce's, super stardom. Off the top of our heads, Solange, Ashley Simpson (Jessica Simpson's Sis), Haylie Duff (Hillary Duff's sis), and maybe even Kelly Rowland (Beyonce's Play-play sis) come to mind when we think of struggling entertaining sisters of superstar celebrities.

Today I thought, I'd go a little further back into the struggle to celebrate sisters who have the courage and audacity to be viewed as living in the shadows of their siblings just to continue in the careers of their choosing, the entertainment business.






Taka Boom sounds like Chaka, but not is the sister of Chaka Khan. She performed with Chaka before Chaka joined Rufus and became a huge success. Taka has an amazing voice and was a brief member of The Brides of Funkenstein (note to self: must devote a post to the women of funk because I am probably getting blinks and stares at the Brides of Funkenstein reference). Taka also had a little success with Night Dancin'. Oh geez, as hard as I try I don't remember this song . It made it to the top 20 on the R&B Charts. Taka has written some songs for Chaka and still performs somewhere in the world today.



Next, is Latonya Blige. Of course, you have heard of her sister MJB, Mary J. Blige. Latonya co-wrote with Mary "I can Love you", and has recently decided to make a go of it herself. She is singing Gospel. According to reports the album was to come out is May 2008, but I haven't heard it except for one song on her myspace page provided above. Since, this is a celebration of the sisters I won't comment on the song.


I know who this looks like, but it's not her it's her sister.



Monica Cruz, is the sister to Penelope Cruz. She is a singer, actress and dancer. She was in a movie with DMX called, Last Hour. She has gotten some roles in Spain, and is still working on her career.





Finally, another brilliant sister of a famous performer is Carolyn Franklin , she was the sister of Aretha Franklin. She died in 1988. She wrote hits for Aretha such as "Ain't No Way" and "Angel." She was a true musical partner for Aretha and you'll frequently hear Aretha mention the role Carolyn played in her career. She was extremely gifted and talented.