Aquarian bracelet

Soft blue ocean and bright copper sunlight have been woven together to create this Aquarian bracelet fit for a mermaid princess. Small copper beads and charms have been placed in the weaving to tell her story.


Can't you just see her brushing her long coppery tresses with a bracelet like this on her arm?

I'll have to make her some earrings to go with it!

Game Night

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My babies, originally uploaded by bonniefamilee.

Last night was game night at the Lee house. Mary Pat Brandon and Cassie joined us along with Paul and Stacy with their 3 girls and Becky and Dennis with their 3 boys. Note the onsies the boys are wearing in the photo. I found them on Amazon and they are some of my favorites.

Fred made his super-duper homemade pizza and Becky made a terrific spinach dip.

We tried a new game called Wit's and Wagers.

I highly recommend it. It's a trivia game but there is no pressure because everyone answers every question and you wager on the answers. Each game is only about 20 to 30 minutes depending on how many people are playing. We had 8 ranging in age from 11 to 50 something and it was appropriate for all.

We also enjoyed Guitar Hero on the Wii. Brandon and Cassie excel at video games but Melissa and Becky gave them some competition.

Valentines Day Special

A loaf of bread a jug of wine and thou beside me......just don't forget the corkscrew! Let the FamiLee Jewels help you celebrate your love.

Valentine's Day is very special to Fred and I. It is our wedding anniversary and this year we will have been married 33 years.

The FamiLee Jewels is offering a special package in honor of Valentine's day.

We have paired one of Fred's hand crafted combination wine stop corkscrew tools, a pair of wine charms and a gift bag for your wine.

All you have to add is the wine and the Valentine.

$29 gift boxed.

We have corkscrews available in ebony, deer antler, tulip wood, zebra wood, and cocobolo.

The wine stopper portion of the tool screws onto the handle covering the corkscrew.

The wine stopper piece is made of chrome covered brass. It is durable, tarnish free and will not impart any taste to your wine.

Contact Bonnie@thefamileejewels.com to purchase.

The Silver Lining

While laying low feeling very sick this week, I discovered the joys of ETSY Treasuries.

Does everyone know about ETSY.

It's a website that sells only handcrafted items and the supplies needed to make them.

It is where The FamiLee Jewels has their online store.

ETSY is a great place to shop for a special gift.
ETSY's homepage has a grouping of 12 hand picked items on it called a treasury.

The treasuries are only up for a short time so anytime you sign on you get a new view of lovely things to look at.
So I made one. I was a bit fed up with the freezing cold and snow, so I thought wonderful warm thought and came up with You Are My Sunshine.
It was fun.

I was also able to get out of bed long enough to list on our website 3 new Steampunky pieces of Jewelry.

For days when you need to don a little armor before taking on the world I give you The Shield.

A vintage brass piece of cabinet hardware has been combined with red jasper and a brass watch piece to create the piece.
Brass is a shielding metal and red jasper provides protection, courage and energy.

A Key, and a golden door to open, to find............ the answer to your dreams.

A vintage brass skeleton key, escutcheon plate, and chandelier hardware have been combined with crazy lace agate beads and Vintaj brass findings to create Key to Your Dreams.
The Crazy Lace agate is a stone of protection and the brass bee charm symbolizes your journey.

Like a circle in a spiral or a wheel within a wheel I have layered the vintage brass cogs, and flywheels of deconstructed watches and clocks to form to focal point of this one of a kind brass ring called Wheel within a Wheel.
The wheels spin on top of a woven ring shank of Vintaj brass.

What did we do on sick days before the Internet????

FamiLee Update:Our babies came to visit!

Wednesday Fred and I had the pleasure of the company of Becky and her 3 little boys Freddy J, Liam, and Rory.

Freddy is 18 months old now and Rory and Liam 4 weeks.

The twins are thriving....putting on weight. No more chicken arms and legs for them, they will be able to wear and fit into their cloth diapers soon.

Freddy J. is adjusting to being a "big brother". He alternates between hugging the little boys (he does this by pressing his forehead to theirs)-way too cute! or then throwing blocks at them.

He rocks their swings and bounces their bouncers turning all the lights and sounds on and off for them............To Liam and Rory's credit the only time they object is when he steals their pacifiers.

Wednesday was only the second time our new little Rascal has been exposed to the noise of a houseful of little ones so we kept them separated with baby gates. In a split level house that's a lot of gates! Freddy and Rascal spent a lot of time peering through the gates at one another-at one point Rascal squeezed his top half through part of the gate and was just lying quietly watching the chaos with his big brown eyes.

The cats just stayed upstairs.

We made the mistake of giving Freddy a pumpkin muffin with his "second breakfast" he didn't want anything else all day and searched the counter tops repeatedly on tip toe looking for more. For those of you who don't know Freddy personally he eats many short snacks during the day instead of big meals. He is much too busy to sit still long enough. We call it his Hobbit diet. He has breakfast, second breakfast, elevenses, lunch, tea, and sometimes dinner.

Becky is amazing us with her ability to manage the 3 of them at the same time (I had trouble with 2). She has the little guys on the same feeding and changing schedule, and Gripe Water is once again our friend. She keeps Freddy entertained with trips to the play yard in the Mall and to both grandparents houses. I don't think her and Dennis sleep much but we keep telling them that will improve in 18 years or so. I haven't reminded her recently but she never did stop waking up at 2 in the morning, eventually she just stopped waking us up (when she was about 7)!

Hey, maybe living well really is the best revenge.

Garnet is January's Birthstone

Glowing red in shades from pomegranate to maroon Garnet is the beautiful birth stone of January.

Garnet is a semiprecious gemstone with a hardness on the Moh's scale ranging from 6.5-7.5 which makes it a very resilient stone. It occurs in colors other than red, actually in every color except blue, depending on the combination of elements in the stone. Iron and chromium make it red.

Throughout history Garnets have been mistaken for rubies because of their tendency to seem a different shade of red when viewed from multiple angles under light.

The beautiful luminosity of garnet is caused by its high quality refraction of light.

Garnet was first mined in Sri Lanka over 2500 years ago. It is also mined in Africa, Australia, India, Russia and The United States. As a matter of interest their are garnet mines in our own Adirondack mountains. The Barton Mines are located near Gore Mountain, in a small community called North River. The Barton Mines offer tours that teach you about the history of the mines and allow you to search for your own garnets.

Archaeologists have found primitive style garnet jewelry that dates the decorative use of garnet to the Bronze Age.

Garnets have been found in jewelry from Egyptian, Greek and Roman eras.

Throughout time explorers and travelers have worn garnet as a talisman for protection.

Soldiers from many cultures have worn garnet, also known as the warrior's stone, as a talisman against death and injury because they believed it to have to power to control bleeding..

Garnet is associated with the root chakra.

It was once said to cure melancholy and to warm the heart.

It is a protective stone as well as a stone of romantic love.

It is said that garnet encourages positive thoughts and increases energy.