Between you guys (sorry been in Texas too long) and the Flourish and Thrive course I’m really beginning to sort myself out… I think.
Either way I’m enjoying myself.
In January I decided to take my jewelry to the next level.
To Infinity and Beyond.
It started out a bit boring and at first I thought it weren’t possible capt’n. Also starting the course put me in a little funk and I kind of lost all my umph, but suddenly I got right back into the groove again and I can see some improvements now.
I’ve really enjoyed making these bracelets, however I worry about how they fit on the wrist.
You have to wear them snuggly otherwise the stone flips or slides around to the other side of your wrist.
It just can’t be simple can it!
I worry too much about the people who buy my jewelry, but I really can’t let it go. I can’t imagine someone spending money on something that isn’t just right.
Oh and I forgot to show you my very first cabochon.
Remember this
Well I took a piece of this
red plumb agate
Actually this isn’t exactly the piece because I forgot to take a photo before I cut it up, but it was very similar.
And I used this,
And made this.
It’s my very first one.
The most difficult part was getting the shape perfectly round, and getting a brilliant shine on it.
Both of which I haven’t quite mastered yet.
I’ve got the compound and the wheels, but used my felt on metal first and think that’s why.
Ani said sometimes tiny metal fragments can bed themselves in the felt wheel when polishing silver and in turn they can scratch the surface of a stone when you come to polishing one.
I knew that, but was too impatient not to try it on both metal and stone.
It was too exciting.
Now I’m going to have to buy myself a separate felt wheel just for the stones.
Still exciting though 🙂
I can see it’s going to take me some time to see the inner beauty of a stone also.
I’m not particularly fond of the off white opaque part of this one.
Anyway, I have a few more slabs to experiment on so I’ll keep you posted.
–
In other news I watched The Quartet again over Christmas.
Do you think it’s too late for me to take up opera singing?
I’ve just finished the first week of the Flourish and Thrive course, which has made me sit down and really think about my jewelry making.
Of course this has brought out all my ambiguity issues.
Do I want to take my jewelry seriously, or do I want to keep it as an expensive hobby?
–
In the Hobby Corner.
If I don’t try harder to get rid of the stuff it’ll just keep on piling up and when I die the people who live with me will find billions of pieces of jewelry stashed away in every nook and cranny.
Could work. They could sell it all and retire to Hawaii.
–
In the Serious Corner.
But I want to see if I can do it. I want to feel successful, and make money, and feel grown up.
But. Do you really want to work that hard?
–
Hobby Corner.
It’s fun, you get to make what ever you want, when ever you want to.
But, you’re always wondering… what it.
–
Serious Corner.
You might end up investing in it and then you’re stuck. What if you can’t do it. What if you have to actually go out and talk to people, and do the sales pitch stuff.
–
Hobby Corner.
You take yourself too seriously. Get over it.
–
Serious Corner.
What if you find out that you’re lazy or if as soon as you decided to make a go of it, you get bored and flunk out?
Am I a flunker?
I hate that I might be a flunker…
–
I tell you this only because my brain will explode otherwise.
Also, I know there are others of you out there who think the same as me and hopefully you’ll find comfort in knowing you’re not alone.
(Please tell me I’m not the only one)
Bottom line is I think that this is all fear and no confidence, and so I’m just going to know it’s there and let it go already.
The good thing about the Flourish and Thrive class is that it has made me think about it and sort out in my mind how I can accommodate my fears.
It really doesn’t have to be that hard.
Of course, I haven’t done all of the homework yet, because it’s too hard.
😉
The hardest thing I’ve come up against so far is discovering who my dream client is. And that’s the first darn question in the course!
Frankly I just don’t know what ‘type’ of person wears my jewelry, and this is important as then you know who to target. If it’s just a hobby I guess this doesn’t matter as much, although it still helps you when you come to selling it.
I can’t believe that I’m still stuck on Monday’s paper.
Not going to worry about it. I’m just gong to let it hang out with me for a while.
Hopefully it will smack me in the face soon so I can move on to question two…
So far I feel that I’ve been working on perfecting my jewelry making skills, but (scary but) perhaps now I’m ready to take another step.
I’m trying to concentrate on the idea that you won’t die just by going up to your comfort line and take one tiny step over it.
A tiny step can’t be that bad can it…
I think that the problem I’ve always had is that I’m never that sure what to do with my jewelry and where it fits, but I can’t be the only one who worries about that… can I?
There are thousands of billions of people out there.
I can’t be unique in my worries… can I?
So it starts today.
At 11 o’clock.
I’ve tried checking around to see if my jewelry holds up to some of the other member’s work.
Still not sure about that, but I’ve paid now so too bad.
However,
I expect over this next six weeks to transform into a wonderfully confident jewelry maker who is ready to take on the world.
I’ll keep you up to date with how that’s going…
:/
Some newbies
TurquoiseNot sure what’s going on here.And some earrings.
To take my mind off it being in the same room as me I bought it some new friends.
The Optivisor…
I got a 2x and it’s brilliant.
I was a bit doubtful at first, but it really is cool. I have to take it off when I’m soldering because it bumps into the fume extractor, and once or twice I pulled it down over my cheapo target magnifying glasses and had a little vertigo moment, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it.
Warning!
Don’t buy one if you don’t want to see every single mistake and botch up you’ve made on your jewelry.
It will send you into a funk.
I’m too excited to get the funk right now, but I’m telling you, at any other time I might well have given up making jewelry forever – again.
I also got a pair of half round pliers.
A special little wax stick thing for picking up stones.
A different kind of ring clamp.
Only it wasn’t the different kind of ring clamp I wanted.
I wanted a different kind of different kind of ring clamp.
One that holds the ring on the inside.
I’ll be checking out where to get this little gem later.
I also got a few different sizes of bezel wire to play around with, and some chain.
So that was my excitement for the day.
Here’s the better photograph I told you I’d take of my latest piece.
All finished and up on Etsy.
And a little something else I’m interested in doing.
Remember those charms I made using some of my left over silver.
Well, the left over silver just won’t stop coming.
I’ve a whole bowl of it just hanging around waiting for something to do.
I knew I could send it back to Rio for their recycling programme, but I wanted to do something special with it and the charms seemed perfect, but I also thought the charms needed their own role in life.
I’m happy to say that they have finally found their purpose.
A little school in Kenya 🙂
So while I’ll continue to send the money I make from selling my jewelry to the larger charities, all I make from the charms will go to the Roko 20 Academy.
Yesterday I told my dad about my scary torch adventure, and wouldn’t you know it, he had a better one to tell.
First off you have to understand that my dad is a 1930’s Londoner, and we all know that back then, in the dark days, things were a little different to how they are now.
But, really!
O.K. so he wasn’t exactly a Londoner, that was my mum, but he was a Dagenham boy, which is as close as maybe.
He told me that when he was 14 he started work at Samuel Williams, a dock distribution company on the River Thames, just up the road and round the corner from where we grew up.
His story was that one day he was told to get a new oxygen tank for a job he was doing. It was a big bottle, about six feet tall, so a little bigger than my 40 cubic foot bottle, and that he had to roll the empty one all the way to the storage shed to get a full one.
What?
And there I was worrying about keeping mine upright in the car.
So I said,
‘Noooooo’,
And he said,
‘Straight up. I do not lie’.
And I said,
‘O.K. go on’.
So he told me that he rolled it all the way to the shed, got a new one, and then rolled that one all the way back to the workshop.
So I said,
‘Really? And they let you do that?’
And he said,
‘Well you know, back then they didn’t care as much about all this safety stuff.’
You think!
But that wasn’t the best bit.
Then he told me that at one point during his rolling the full one back he had to roll it over a railroad track. They had these tracks around the dockyard to carry coal, etc.. When he got close to the track the cylinder started to roll as the ground sloped slightly at this point.
He had to try to keep up with it and was nudging it along the way with his foot to try to keep it level!
But this wasn’t the best bit.
He went on to tell me that as he’d been kicking it, he had inadvertently opened the valve slightly and that the oxygen was escaping.
It was at this point that I called liar on him only as he’s my dad I said it a little more respectfully, like,
‘you’re pulling a fast one on me dad, it’s all porky pies’.
But he swore it was true.
But that wasn’t the best bit.
The best bit was when he told me that he managed to get the bottle over the first rung of the track, and was struggling to get it over the second when a locomotive started to come down the track.
I was like –
‘WHAT! NOOOOO! You’re making it up’.
And that he had to leave it there in-between the tracks as the locomotive and about six cars went over it.
Come ON!
This time I did call him a straight up liar.
But he swore it was true.
I said,
‘Isn’t oxygen explosive under those conditions, or at least can do the projectile missile thing?’
And he said,
‘Well, I don’t know, I don’t think so’,
And I said,
‘What about the sparks from the locomotive wheels against the track?’.
And he said,
‘Don’t know.’
‘Or if the underneath of the locomotive had caught up onto the valves?’
I could hear him shrug, so I said,
‘You’re having me on,’
But he swore it was true and went on to tell me that the bottle didn’t last very long after that as most of the oxygen had escaped.
He laughed when I said, so I might not have been born then with you blowing up and everything.
Like that wouldn’t have really ticked me off.
Even if oxygen bottles don’t explode, which I’ve read they don’t, I still can’t get over how blasé the whole thing was.
One thing’s for sure, he won’t be helping me refill my tank if he happens to be here next time it’s empty.
–
My dad 🙂 God only knows how he made it into the army…
I found a welding shop a little closer to me and bit the bullet.
Before I left I did find an online shop which would deliver a tank of acetylene to me the next day. I didn’t use it as I’d lost my wrench (i.e. someone took it) and couldn’t get the regulator off. As it happens the man in the shop had a lot of trouble with it also so I doubt I would have been able to easily exchange my empty tank with the delivery man anyway.
They appear to deliver to most places in the U.S. (sorry back home folk and other not here people) and they don’t charge for shipping, just a $10 handling fee. Which seems a pretty fair price to pay for them to possibly blow up instead of me.
So to all my soldering friends out there who are weenies like me here’s the link.
So, I won’t be doing that again, and perhaps neither should you Penny 🙂
Another thing he said was that after soldering you should turn the tank off and run the gas out of the hose. You should also open the pressure thing completely until the next time you use it.
I usually run the hose empty by lighting it and using the flame to ball up small pieces of silver to use later. I do this until the flame just goes out on its own, but I haven’t heard that you should open the pressure gauge before, and although I listened very carefully I’m still not completely sure why.
Sometimes I don’t even run the gas out of the hose :/
I might have to stop reading all this stuff now as it’s beginning to make me feel nervous.
Things I did know are.
Don’t run the thing with the pressure above the red danger line.
I did for my first tank because I didn’t really think the red line was talking to me.
Sometimes ignorance is bliss, but not any more.
See that big, obviously important, red line there on the left dial. The arm shouldn’t go beyond there. In fact the man said that I shouldn’t need for it to go beyond the 5, but I found that the flame wasn’t doing its job at that pressure so I upped it until it was soldering better.
Not above the red line though.
When the arm is at the bottom as shown in the right dial, it’s empty, and not just pretending to be, so get it back to the shop before you blow up.
Or have the nice delivery man come.
If you do have to take it in your car, keep the tank securely upright and crack your windows slightly as, according to the shop guy, sometimes the gas can escape,
and. you’ll. d.i.e…..
(O.K. so he didn’t say that but I thought I’d add a little more drama as I’m sure we haven’t had enough. Something equally bad will probably happen though, so crack your windows…)
Oh, and don’t flip the car over or smoke while you’re driving home.
I thought that was his best tip.
Thoughtful though.
End result after a fraught day.
Just a little more cleaning up and on to the next thrilling adventure.
Just when I finally seem to have recovered from my last, fraught with danger, danger, Will Robinson, acetylene tank refill trip, the darn thing’s empty again!
What’s up with that!
Surely I only just changed the old one out for the nice fire truck red one.
I thought I was safe for at least another six months!
Yes, there was a slight indication before Christmas that it was empty, but I just couldn’t believe it.
I thought the gauge was wrong. That just because it read empty it didn’t really mean it. That it was just playing with me because it knows how distressing the whole driving it down to the gas shop is for me when I could almost nearly blow up driving there, but more likely probably blow up getting home.
In my itty bitty Mini car which, let me tell you, doesn’t like it either.
Now it seems that I have to be even more super duper distraught because apparently you should NEVER (getting a bit distraughtier now) EVER run your tank when it says empty.
Why though?
The flame is still burning. How empty can it be?
How?
What the hell is burning when I turn it on?
So things came to a head yesterday when I was trying to make this.
Remember.
And the soldering was just being completely, annoyingly, uncooperative.
I could have listened.
I could have saved myself a whole afternoon of trying to ignore the signs.
But, and let me ask you.
Why, if you’re heating the silver, and in fact you’re even keeping the flame exactly on one spot for the whole time and nothing’s happening, would you stop?
Why, when ordinarily the silver would melt into a blubbering heap just for even looking at the flame, would you say to yourself, hang on, something’s not right here?
Why wouldn’t you just give it up and save yourself a whole bunch of frustration and anguish of just knowing that you’ll never ever be any good at this whole soldering thing anyway so why not take up mahjong instead.
There must be a mahjong club somewhere nearby.
Why!
Because I’m bloody mindedly stubborn is why.
So this is where I ended up.
The bottom is not attached yet because of the small problem with the tank, and I’m not so sure I want to put it on there anyway as I feel I’ve taken a beautiful stone and surrounded it with my hideously bulky bezel design.
But that could just be my imminent death issues talking.
Why didn’t I think to make more friends with benefits instead of shutting myself away in the studio. Surely there’s a nice one out there with a truck who’s willing to risk their life for me.
Maybe that neighbour man with the car shop in his garage, won’t mind me giving him a quick chat up.
He knows who he is. I’ve seen his tank…
So again I say my farewells, my nice knowing yous, and I know that you’ll share my regret that even though a lot of the gadgets on Star Trek are now in popular use they never have yet caught on to the notion that a beam it up machine would be particularly handy for some of us, let’s say, more fragile souls out here.
She left on Saturday and has returned home to the freezing cold and fog of London, but at least we had half prepared her for the weather as even here, in Houston, it’s been a bit chilly.
By the way, fog is one of my favourite weathers.
I love it.
You feel all safe and muffled.
Well I do anyway. Of course, you wouldn’t want fog all of the time, but it is kind of comforting, walking around in your own little bubble of nothing.
In my book fog is up there with mushrooms and parsnips.
That’s as far as my cold riddled brain can think right now, but I think I’ll compile a list of my all time favourite things.
Just so I know.
Yep, I have my yearly cold.
It’s been lingering for over a week now, but I’m only feeling a little sorry for myself as half the time I can’t be bothered to be bothered about it. I’m looking forward to too many things to do much wallowing right now.
What else?
The Christmas decorations went down yesterday with some lingering on for today. The MIL, P and I were arguing about exactly when they should come down. P and I said the 5th and the MIL said the 6th. Somewhere in there the 7th was bandied around, but I can’t remember why although I think it might have something to do with the Wise Men getting lost.
So I looked, and what’ya know the MIL was right.
Hate it when that happens.
Turns out I was including Christmas Day when we should have started counting from the day after, on Boxing Day.
Unless you’re Church of England when the twelfth IS considered the 5th – (or vise versa). In which case she was wrong.
Love it when that happens.
AND she was double whammy wrong as she’s Church of England also.
Well, as it happens, I’ve been taking mine down on the 5th ever since I’ve been decorating, because, and don’t ask me why except the nice people on Wikipedia know but aren’t telling, it’s bad luck for them to be up for even one day over.
And I’m not into bad luck, but…
and I’m very sorry about this for all concerned, getting back to the 7th, it seems that, according to one telling, all this time I’ve been hindering the Wise Men from finding their way home…
I started it last night, but it all started to go to pot and I decided to call it a day.
It’s a beautiful piece of turquoise. The colour is just stunning. Seems a shame to mess it up with my design but, as usual, I just can’t help myself.
I’ve made a few other pieces, but have yet to take some pics of them so I’ll get back to you on that.
I’ve started taking Willow into the studio with me because she just barks and barks when I leave her in the back garden, and I can’t trust her alone in the house because Pickles hates her and is on a mission to kill her. But I don’t think she likes it. I don’t know if it’s the noise I make, or that she’s simply bored, but she just sits and stares at me the whole time.
It’s not very relaxing when the dog’s not relaxed, and because she sits so close to me I get worried that I’m going to roll into her with my wheely chair. It’s all worry.
I’ve taken in her bed. Her chews. Nothing works.
It makes me feel bad.
And this cat, one of four strays in the back garden, just sits and looks at me also.
It’s a getting a little freaky.
Look at him. This could easily be a Stephen King moment.
Sooo,
That’s what I’m off to do today. Hopefully the soldering won’t be as completely disastrous as it was last night and I’ll be able to set the turquoise. If not, I’m just going to have to give it up and join the freaky cat and sit in the corner of the garden until my frustration dissipates.
O.K. So perhaps I haven’t really been gone. Except to the land of Complete. And. Utter. Boredom!
I’ve been bored and lonely as P went to England again – without me (again), and I was left behind with only the cats for company. And Willow.
Who’s been a nightmare.
A nightmare!
I’ve taken her for walks.
(She was a bit hard to catch with my super photography skills being hampered, as they were, by my also needing to hold onto the leash for dear life.)
Oh yes, she looks all innocent here with her, look at me I’ve found another tennis ball to add to my collection pose, but, let me tell you, in those peaceful and joyous recreational times I nearly took a dive in the ditch with the snapping turtles, (that have grown rather too big and ferocious if you ask me). Involuntarily chased all the ducks on the planet. Been almost very nearly killed by a very sweet, calm, and extremely beautiful killer husky type something or other dog. (O.k. maybe that was the other way around). Had several touch and go moments when Willow decided to also try to kill all the other dogs in the neighbourhood. Listened in anguished humiliation as she barked at everything that came within five hundred and fifty three feet of us. Watched as she very nearly choked herself to death until I wised up and bought her a harness collar, and finally, was completely mortified when she terrorized two sweet little girls playing with their huge and rather ugly doll by the lake. Hopefully they were trying to drown it so that they could plead sorrow and entrap their parents into buying them a new, not quite so Chucky-like, one. Or perhaps something more practical even, like a light saber, or the Holy Hand Grenade, to ward off freaky, go for the throat, Willow dogs in the park.
The people who live in this house with me have coughed, and spluttered, and sniffed their germs with abandon throughout this holiday. Now they are up and running and happy and have left me behind in their wake of illness.
I have now pulled every muscle in my abdomen through coughing and am feeling thoroughly sorry for myself.
And, to top it all, P won’t give up working so we can live our lives together without him having to leave the house every day. He says it’s something to do with having to pay the bills, but I’m not sure I believe him.
I think it’s possible that he just doesn’t want my germs, and there I was thinking we would share everything through this journey called marriage.
Well blow everyone. I will be sick, here, alone, with only Sid, my trusty computer, to keep me company, and work on my plan for world domination.
That will teach them.
I’m not too sick to go into the studio you understand. Just too sick to do housework, or anything like that.
Housework is not good for my health anyway, so I wouldn’t want to make myself worse.
So I will leave you with something I am working on.
A little something that Felicity Windthrop has been arranging in her floral studio for the upcoming banquet to celebrate Queen Significanta’s fortieth year on the throne.
The pot was made especially for the occasion by Charlie Smithfield. Charlie has been making what some might consider to be ‘rather outlandish’ pottery for close on fifty years now in his small studio just outside the city walls, and has recently been knighted for his consistent contribution to the advancement of the arts.
And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.” ~Theodor Seuss Geisel
This particular variety of TendrillusBoutonius is found on the rolling plains of the Copstan Region of Middle Kowlandis, and, as unfortunately discovered by Audenberry’s field hand, Dudley Hargrove, is poisonous to the touch.
Dudley, now fully recovered from his agonizing experience, has vowed to, ‘never be within three feet of this godawful specimen again.’
So named because of its elephant trunk and dimple leaves is a rare beauty typically found at the foot of the volatile Banetonga volcanic range located on the middle island of The Knowlandis.
As one textile artists observed when she first saw Trevor de Manous’ oil representation of Audenberry’s botanical sample, “The Elephant Trunk Dimple Leaf is a quilt block just waiting to happen”.
I was going to pretend I was a grown up and take my jewelry seriously.
(Again)
I was going to quit painting and make beautiful cabochony necklaces and silvery bracelets instead.
But then the power went out at 11 pm last night, which was great as it was so quiet with no a/c, fridge, pumps etc., going. And it was night time, so no need for electricity. Right?
At 4 am the house alarm went off. The electricity hadn’t come back on so I bravely had P go check everything while I had some juice.
It was quite bright as the Christmas lights on the house opposite, where the electricity had chosen not to go out, were shining like a hallelujah moment.
Everything seemed fine.
Just as we settled back to sleep, the electricity man came and parked outside our house. P said it was a slightly early school bus, so I made him get up and look for being so ridiculous.
That will teach him not to recognize the sound of two utility vans with flashing lights and motors running sitting on your doorstep.
I mean what school bus has flashing lights?
I forgave the utility vans as they were saving the world, one transformer at a time.
We settled back to sleep.
Five minutes later our alarm went off again.
And again. And again. And again.
First at five minute intervals then at three until our brains exploded and began to seep out of our ears.
Turns out the alarm had been on the back up battery all night and was now running low and screaming out for a service, which was all well and good but no matter how much we told it to stay calm and that we’d get it help first thing in the morning, it just went on and on with its temper tantrum until we couldn’t go on any more.
We pressed all its buttons, calmly at first in that, we’re the boss of you, way, but couldn’t turn the darn thing off and eventually had to call the nice alarm lady who helped us find its reactor core so that we could pull all the cords out and shut it down.
It was touch and go let me tell you.
So now, I am really, really, tired. Like my face is falling off tired. And all my good intentions have gone out the window.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll be a fearless jewelry maker, but for now I’m going to work up enough energy to get out of bed before I have to take Spencer the One Eye Wonder to the vets.
He’s very, very old and needs lots of love and attention.
So I will leave you with a doodle.
And a pic of Wally Walnut.
I keep telling him that he doesn’t have to bow down to me, that I consider him an equal, but who can stop adoration at its highest.
Decided I didn’t like the orange half way through.
Thought it would take forever about two thirds through.
Got fed up quilting it.
Felt sad when it was all over as now I have nothing to quilt.
Decided perhaps the orange was o.k. after all.
Thought it was a silly quilt and who the hell would want it in their house.
Realized it was for a five year old, and that perhaps she would like it.
Got told (several times) by that man who lives in the house with me that it would cost a fortune to post and that he’d take it back with him when he goes back to England in January for a business trip.
Got defensive about getting my Christmas gift there on time.
Got told again.
Decided that perhaps he was right.
And finally …
Bought this for Hope’s gift instead.
click photo to get your own
(Come on. How cute is that!)
She’ll still get her quilt, but as a, because gift, instead of a, Christmas gift.
We all have to pick our battles.
–
In the meantime, I’ve still been drawing my ‘why’ drawings.
But I don’t know why.
Perhaps they need to be quilts.
Perhaps not.
–
And lastly.
I’m still worried about the Philippines 🙁
I go to bed every night loving how comfortable my bed is.
I wake up, amazed that I can shower every day in hot water.
The power went out the other day due to a storm, and I appreciated how lucky I am to have electricity.
Now. Believe me when I tell you that I’m not a sappy, let’s all hold hands together and sing Kumbaya in voices just off tune enough to make you want to throw up a little, sort of person. (Although that’s o.k. if you are) (Except for the throwing up bit) (And the fact that I might just have to leave you to it and run away from you quickly bit). I’m English for heaven’s sake. A true cynic if ever there was one. But perhaps I’m just getting a little soggy in my old age.
(not really)
But I
Can’t do the suffering any more.
Can’t do the, what the hell is happening here, any more.
And.
I’m just going to have to stop listening to stuff like this.
Because, no matter how much it has always been one of my favourite songs, it’s just not good for my mental health any more.
I’ve been adding new pieces of jewelry to my Tictail shop.
I’m quite pleased with Tictail. It’s easy to use and I think it looks nice. So far not many sales so I guess I’d better get my act together and take my chicken boots off and start handing out business cards. I was going to ask to leave some at the hairdressers this morning, but accidentally, on purpose, left them at home.
I’ve haven’t seen one in person yet, but you can put the addresses on the card along with the postage which saves a lot of fussing and post officing later.
I’ve always worried about my photographs, but think they’re definitely getting better.
Oh the burdens of being a perfectionist …
I’ve also been working on some rack cards which are longer. I’ve been thinking of leaving them in shops for wholesale, but I haven’t quite got my head around the wholesale thing yet so I keep procrastinating.
They’re pretty much the same, but I thought I could get more information on the back.
I don’t know, I might just stick with the postcards.
So that’s what I’ve been up to.
That and finishing the quilt.
I think I’ve got about 36 stitches to go then I’m done. I’ve only been quilting in the evenings, but I’ve been dragging my feet over it a little. It’s still in time for Christmas though so I consider that a success 🙂
I also was just able to send $2,000 to Care for the Philippines. So I’m pleased about that.
Oh, and I’ve also been working on my mailing list.
I traced the finished shape on some sticky back clear film (which I forgot to photograph) but here’s the general shape
Next I wrapped the stone in bezel wire.
Like so.
And then everything went to pot and I forgot my good intentions of showing you my process and delved into the world of turquoise jewelry design ponderings until –
lo and behold
The End.
So now all I have left is to present you with this.
And its story.
–
Green Bellied Corfunculus
Today Marcos Haverbrook, Royal Jeweler to HRH Significanta Regina of the Kingdom of Spry, made this outstanding piece to commemorate the upcoming Festival of Awkward Flowers which is to be held in honour of Cornelius Audenberry III, intrepid botanist to the Queen. Audenberry arrived safely back from his latest expedition to the small islands known as The Bora Kowlandis last month and has since been documenting his discoveries with the aid of Haverbrook, and Trevor de Manous, Royal Painter. The Bora Knowlandis, which are located in the Black Fur Waters of the Jinta Ocean, is home to hundreds of extraordinarily rare botanical species, including the Green Bellied Corfunculus which has been so beautifully captured in Haverbrook’s exquisite work as seen above.
Also to be shown at the festival will be a selection of de Manous’ vivid representations of Audenberry’s field sketches. Including this one of the Startled Bee Trap which Cornelius found growing near the north shores of the third island known as Lower Knowlandis.
The Festival of Awkward Flowers is to be held next month in the Royal Gardens.
I always balk at doing this as it seems to take so long to list everything, but the stuff is beginning to pile up and it’s all getting a bit overwhelming now.
I’m still working on my own website but, again, it’s taking its own sweet time because all this photographing and describing rigmarole simply isn’t as fun as making the stuff.
But look at it.
Who wouldn’t want a little piece of these lovelies 🙂
AND
This time I’ve decided to send my money – here
It’s a little off from my usual choice, but a girl can change her mind, no?
I’m in the process of changing around my studio. The jewelry and painting have been nagging me for a bigger space as they’ve decided to sprawl and now take up every available inch of the back room. I love the ceramics and it’s always there waiting for me, but I think it can manage the smaller space.
It would probably enjoy the quiet more.
So I’m in the middle of the great switcheroo. Something that sounds as if it should happen overnight while you’re sleeping, but apparently my little pixie helpers are on strike, so I’m now into my fifth day!
O.K. so I’ve not put in full days as I get put off too easily, but if this whole thing is going to last more than a week, which it looks as though it might, I may well have to start drinking – again!
Either that or sack all of the pixies and get me some more. Forget the picket lines, I’m getting desperate here …
Yes I had to move that big hulking shelf that’s hovering in the doorway all by myself.
Practically, almost there.
(Well, this little corner anyway).
The soldering area is a little annoying as the table legs get in the way, and I’ve enough bruises as it is, so that might end up swapping spots with the buffing machine except the buffing machine is still in big trouble after my latest injury.
No, I won’t take any responsibility. It was all his fault.
I’ve been off my groove, but now i’m back with a new silver link. So, if you’re in the mood for fiddly, have a go at this. Just remember my disclaimer as I’m not available to tend to any injuries incurred …
First up, and this is very important, put your i pod down the inside of your t-shirt and clip it to one of the belt slots on your jeans. This prevents the ear phones from hanging down front where the dremel and torch like to play as that could get tricky and very painful, and you might have to do the drop and roll thing on the studio floor.
Not cool.
Then turn on your murder mystery, but don’t bother with this one (here) as it was a bit long-winded and boring.
It’s expensive. I don’t know if I would buy it again, but it’s really good at making coils. I’ve never got the hang of using the cutting wheel which might have made the cost more worthwhile, but now the coil cutting holding vise thing has been eaten away by rust so giving it another try is a pretty moot point.
Buy this tool at your own peril …
Pretty bad, yes?
Anyway …
I turned 16 gauge sterling silver wire on the 9.5 mm mandrel to make a coil.
Which I then taped up with scotch tape (to secure the silver from moving), and used my jewelry saw to cut across the top of the coil to make jump rings.
I then straightened the rings so that the ends were flush and soldered them together.
Next time I’m going to just try to fuse the silver together instead of using solder – just to see if I can eliminate the bump.
I then used a pair of round nose pliers to pull the links into an oval shape.
I use these cheap pliers. The expensive pliers are good (obviously), but for me these work just as well and I like how they fit in my hand. I have two each of the flat nosed and the round pliers. One for each hand, because that’s how I like to roll, and at that price, you can knock yourself out with as many as you want …
Next, put the link back on the round nose pliers and squeeze the middle together with another pair of pliers.
(Excuse my dirty fingernail. Do you think that blows my chance of being a hand model?)
When you have finished them all take your dremel, or buffer of choice, and brush the centers of the links clean as this is where you will do some more soldering.
You could also put them in the pickle, but I can’t be bothered.
Take some 22 gauge wire and wrap it three times around the middle of the link.
I bend the wire first to give it a head start otherwise it can get a bit fiddly.
Once you’ve done them all they are ready for soldering again.
Put a tiny dab of solder on the back of each new coil so that it will fuse to the link.
(Note: I shaped my links so that the middle meets where I soldered the ring together the first time and there was enough solder there to re-melt and attach the thinner wire to the link. That’s probably because I used way too much solder the first time around. (I’ve been working on that). Shaping it this way also stopped the solder bump from being visible at the ends of the link. Remember – always use your mistakes for good – it’s the most useful superhero power you have).
When all of your links are soldered and you have made sure that there are no sharp ends, get the jump ring maker out again and this time use 20 gauge wire on a 4 mm mandrel to make smaller jump rings .
Tape the coil together as before.
Then put it into this handy, weird, plier thing to saw into rings. This makes you remember (again) that the jump ring holding cutting vise thing that came with the jump ring maker is still rusted, but you’re not annoyed about it or anything like that …
If you don’t have this remarkable contraption, just use a vise or something equally handy.
Next join the links together by soldering two jump rings between them, a little tricky but have some faith, and voilà! you should end up with a complete mess.
It doesn’t look as bad after pickling, but really? Does everyone’s work look this crusty after they solder?
Here it is pickled.
I wanted to show you what I made with it, but I sold it before I got a chance.
Once I’d buffed it up it was clean and not crusty, and it was made into a bracelet with other beads and such.
Now I’m just going to have to make another so that you can see the end result.
Happy chain making and, if you can decipher my brilliant step by step instructions, let me know what you make with it.
Note that you probably don’t have to solder any of this chain to make it, however, I haven’t tried making it that way. I use solder because I want my chains to hold up to wear and tear. I also think they’re easier to form, but I could be wrong.
And you can’t go into your studio because that would just be rude,
remember …
STAY AWAY FROM THE INTERNET!
Otherwise things that you accidentally might have bought using that easily abused mouse, come to your door, and keep coming, and you have to put them in a little blue baggy thing,
And hide them away before your, longing to get into the studio but can’t just now, spending habit becomes known to the other people who live in the house with you.
I mean, it’s such a small bag, surely I can’t have spent that much!
Disguised in the blue baggy thing I managed, (just you understand), to smuggle the items, (which, by the way, are still coming) into the studio, but it’s not good. ( I wasn’t in the blue baggy you understand, although perhaps that might have helped) …
The madness has to stop.
Why can’t I just spend the money on new clothes, or something.
Refreshed, revamped, and re everything else that I can’t think of right now.
O.K. perhaps not exactly revamped, but I’m working on it. I’ve been thinking of going caveman again, except this time with a tiny amendment.
Only a tiny one though.
Otherwise everything goes to pot and I’m not a happy camper.
Except I can’t start thinking about healthy eating until my sister goes home, because it’s fun to eat bad stuff with company, and today is P’s birthday and champagne and pizza just don’t go well with paleo.
–
Soooooooo,
My dad’s been here. He’s gone now which is a bit of a shame. My sister’s still here, she’s with us for a couple more days, and we just got back from Rockport, TX, which is not my favourite place in the world, (sorry Rockport), but it was quiet, it was cooler than Houston (by like a degree, but who’s complaining), and most important, it was completely relaxing.
Except for the swooping pterodactyls.
which were a bit freaky.
And don’t think those sweet little seagulls are as innocent as they look.
We threw some bread at them one afternoon and it was like a scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds.
We were lucky to escape with out lives.
NEVER look them in the eye.
I’ve not been in the studio since my family has been here so I’ve been quilting a piece that I’ve had hanging around for years, and aside from sweating to death under a heavy blanket in 90 degree weather, I’ve really enjoyed it. Except now I have a quilting injury, which might not look so bad to the uninitiated, but when you poke the eye end of a rather large sewing needle into the middle finger of your right hand, it really, really hurts and you get blood all over the quilt and you’ll probably end up getting a poison puss pocket on the end of your finger if you’re not careful and clean it properly (guilty) and so you have to screw your eyes up in pain and get really irritated that you’ve only got a scrappy old thimble that doesn’t work and that the shops are shut because it 9 o’clock at night so you can’t go out to buy a new one and now you have to soldier through the pain because you don’t want to stop quilting.
Why is my life so hard!
Anyway it’s almost finished it now and soon I can get back to the jewelry injuries which are far more impressive and tend to get a little more attention from the fam.
I played for the school once or twice, but I don’t think I was as good as he is.
Almost, but not quite.
I did have Fred Perry‘s old carpet though if that means anything.
First married, no money, renovating the house, no phone, no carpet, what’s a girl to do. Beg for carpet remnants from her rich cousin who just moved into Fred Perry’s London flat. It was old, it was threadbare, it was green, and it was in pieces, but it served us well while we saved up enough to buy our own.
Which wasn’t green.
I think my dad still has a bit of it up in the loft.
–
Anyway, I thought you might like to know that the chrysoprase is out of the hospital.
Before
After
I did think about taking the thing to pieces, but then I decided to see what else I could do with it.
I think I’ve managed to resuscitate it fairly well, but I’ll know what to look out for next time.
–
–
Amendment.
8th July, 13
(amendment |əˈmen(d)mənt|nouna- minor change in a document)
Sounds impressive to have shops. I almost feel grown up.
–
Shop 1
Etsy
–
Shop 2
Tictail
–
I spent a lot of time yesterday trying to set up a website, other than Etsy, or Tictail, from which I could sell my jewelry. I already have my own domain website, which I’ve created myself using I Web, which Mac doesn’t support hosting anymore, but is still available to me as a template designer. I use Go Daddy for hosting that.
Wow, it almost sounds as if I’m website savvy. Believe me when I tell you – I’m not.
Here’s my website.
–
Mac Version
–
I really like the freedom I have with the Mac. I can do almost anything with it, I have control of how it looks, AND it’s idiot friendly, but although I have access to PayPal shopping carts, etc., it’s a pain in the you know where to add a cart to each and every item on these particular templates. I’m still working on it, and am determined to figure out how I can have it my way, (always stubborn, I know), but for now this website is pretty much just a portfolio.
Insert disappointed sad face here.
Etsy is great. It’s easy to use, using their posting and insurance services is a cinch, but it’s huge and I feel lost there, and although it’s only 20 cents per item to list, it all adds up and I want that money to go to my charities.
Another sad face.
I’ve looked at Squarespace, which looks great, but I’m not ready to spend $8 a month as I’m such a small fry right now.
WordPress ecommerce templates, which never got back to me when I signed up for their free trial.
And yesterday, omg! Shopify. This is the one I wanted – here. Let’s just say that I don’t have a hair left on my head.
I opened up my Tictail shop maybe a year ago, but wasn’t sure about it as it was new, and just looked so low key behind the scenes that it somehow didn’t seem right to me. The themes are limited to about five, or were when I joined. But I found one that is crisp, clean and really quite nice looking. And it’s free. Great for a beginner like me. But I still wasn’t sure.
I couldn’t set up sales tax just for Texas, and got worried about that, but then I found out that it wasn’t my fault (forums are a wonderful thing) and that they just hadn’t got around to doing that yet.
Paypal worried me. I had a friend buy something to check it out, and then refunded her, but she never got the money back. It’s still lurking around somewhere in the depths of the Paypal vaults. I think.
Or is it?
So that freaked me out a bit, I mean what if that happened to a real person.
(Sorry J, I know you’re real too).
Also, I’d have to use a third party for shipping insurance unless I was prepared to charge mega bucks for posting internationally with insurance from the usual suspects. But Shipsurance seems easy enough to use. I just haven’t tried it out yet.
With all that I’ve been ignoring Tictail.
But after yesterday and the whole Shopify drama, I decided to give Tictail another chance. So we’re dating again.
To be honest selling my jewelry freaks me out. I get all het up nervous about doing something wrong, and worse, not living up to the buyer’s expectation.
Well I’m not going to worry about it. Tictail and I have kissed and made up, and I’m just going to leave it at that. I just hope it doesn’t mind too much that I two time it with Etsy.
Gosh these relationships are hard.
Now I’ve got to stop worrying about that, and start feeling sorry for myself because I have to clean the house.
My dad’s coming from England tomorrow to visit for a couple of weeks, AND next week my sister’s coming! So the shops will have to be put on the back burner for now.
Blood is thicker than water as they say, and family first, right?
–
If you’re looking for an online shop, go check out Tictail and let me know what you think.
I had P buy me a EZcube for christmas a couple of years ago, but because photographing my work annoys the #@^**! out of me and leaves me feeling frustrated, stupid and wanting to pull my hair out, I haven’t used it until today. Because he’s P he also bought me a new flash, a clip on light thingy, and a, I’ve never seen one so tiny before, tripod.
Now, if someone would just come over and use them for me, I’d love them forever.
See what it says?
“The EZcube® is the easiest way to take great product photographs for the web or print.”
Yeah, right!
So apparently if you’ve got one of these,
You can take really, really, nice photo’s, like these,
Now, whilst I don’t particularly want my photographs to come out exactly like the ones above, I think I’m so far off base with the whole lighting experience that it’s not even funny anymore.
Maybe it’s the background, but I’ve tried loads of different props and they’re all as bad as each other.
I’ve just spent a couple of hours with my super-duper EZcube and am now getting just a little ticked.
I’m determined to use it so I guess the search goes on for the best background and the best way to light the jewelry.
I feel as though I’ll never get it.
So if you want to come over and do it for me you’re very welcome, and I’ll make you a nice cup of tea.
Hate it when the drilled hole in the top of a bead fractures. It makes the bead practically useless, and these chrysoprase beads just happen to be my favourite!
So what’s a girl to do?
Pretty much this is the best of a bad job. I just couldn’t do a thing with it except try to hold it with some silver. It didn’t work well as you can see.
I think this piece is about to be disassembled and the chrysoprase placed in the hospital holding cell until I can figure out the best way to deal with it.
I will never surrender!
After the chrysoprase tragedy I made a mini me to go with this big me.
Nevada Chrysocolla
Don’t ask me why.
So, I’m still fed up today. Still homesick. Still failing at trying to appreciate where I live rather than where I think I want to live.
On top of that I can’t keep a darn pot plant alive in the whole house!
Even the flora plots against me.
AND
Somebody finished the last of MY cereal!
–
As I trudge through this dark day I will try to keep my eye upon this beauty.
Vincent Van Gogh
I believe it’s the only thing that will give me any joy today.
That and my trusty side kick
Wally the Magnificent.
And while I wallow, I will try to remember the words of the wise.
Except I think he used a dash or two of rum to help him forget his problems.
But, because you still want to play you gouge yourself with one of these.
Things then go from bad to worse until you give it up and go lay down on the sofa to feel super sorry for yourself yet thankful you haven’t cut your fingers off completely.
After a week of putting up with the coughing and aching and nose blowing I eventually braved all the sick people at the doctor’s office and got myself some antibiotics. You know you can get really sick waiting in that waiting room.
Here are some things I attempted to work on in the meantime.
You know, all I can say about the painting is that I really enjoy it.
There’s nothing more redeeming in it than that. My hopes of becoming a good painter are fading fast and I’ll just have to give up hoping to become brilliant at it for Lent.
Oh. That’s passed hasn’t it? So O.K. next Lent.
And here is Spencer protecting the quilt table.
Just when I decide the quilt is back on I find the room filled with kids back home from college stuff. Including a queen sized mattress belonging to the kid that quit her job and decided to come home.
Man. Will I ever get rid of them!
So, mattress picked up and leant against the wall I buckle down to picking up my quilt from where I left off, but Spencer has other plans.
It’s one obstacle after another in this house.
Good job I love him.
–
So I’ve been sick and very homesick. Fairly depressed really. But deep down I know that if I just stopped thinking about what I don’t have I would be able to see what I do have, and start living my life here as if it were my home.
After all it has been twenty-four years now.
Maybe I should stamp this on my forehead.
–
Oh, I made $500 this week for Africa 🙂 Now, that puts feeling sorry for myself into some perspective.
The weather was gorgeous, the location beautiful, and landing in Gibraltar was no big deal after all, mostly thanks to the chap who decided he was staying in the toilet for the landing. With all the shouting and banging on the door I hardly realized we’d touched down.
I had fun with my family and am a little homesick now, but I’m glad to be back.
So, moovin’ on, before it all gets a little overwhelming in the, what the hell’s happening to the world, department, here are a few things I’ve been doodling.
I call this my, What in god’s name are you aiming for here then, period.
–
But here’s a relatively normal one.
O.K. perhaps marginally normal.
–
So as my trip to Spain looms nearer, my life has become more and more fraught with anxiety. Who on this planet wouldn’t want a trip to Spain you might wonder? Well, except for the Spaniards that answer would be – me.
The reasons being …
1. I have to board an airplane. Fortunately I have been saving up my Xanax stash for just this kind of emergency.
2. Not only do we have to land in England, because that’s where all my relatives live and it would be a bit rude to go to Spain and not pop in and say hi, we then have to land in Gibraltar.
Which, according to the t.v. programme, The Top Ten Most Dangerous Airports in the World, is one of the top ten most dangerous airports in the world. I think I’m going to ban t.v. from my entertainment lineup and take up drinking instead. (Oh wait, I already do that).
And yes, the airport does cross the road, but apparently the danger comes from the wind currents that come around that big hulking rock.
And I’m sure the fact that the runway goes straight into the sea doesn’t help much either.
After that we hire a car and go to the part of Spain where my brother in law’s wedding is to be held.
NORMAL people, wouldn’t make their favourite sister in law suffer like this. Just sayin’
3. I have to buy clothes for the wedding.
I’m not going to go into this here, but as I’ve not been able to get out of my black t-shirt and jeans look for years and years now, this is proving to be a bit of a problem. You see, black t-shirts and jeans means that people don’t look at you, and you can move about undetected, and unbothered, and just do your stuff without having to worry about it. Weddings are not conducive to jeans and black t-shirts – funerals are O.K. however.
So, except when I’ve been ignoring the whole darn thing, I’ve been working on getting over it. I’ve concluded that I just need to bung something not black and not jeansey on, and simply shut my eyes through the whole day. If I can’t see anyone, they can’t see me – right? Oh, and there’s always the alcohol.
4, We have to fly back from Gibraltar. (Did I mention that it’s one of the top ten most dangerous airports in the world?)
And
5. We have to fly back from London.
This all involves landing you understand.
–
So, I’m off to the mall now with N who is NOT the best person in the universe to shop with as she’s as insecure as I am. I’m sure we’ll be alright, and if we’re not, there’s always the alcohol.
And here is a little picture of a happier child in need, if there is such a thing, just so I don’t leave you miserable from the Care picture above.
The weather couldn’t have been better. Usually I have to change clothes three times (I kid you not), because it’s so hot and humid that I wither away into a pile of wet sludge, which, let me tell you, is not good for business. Actually, in all the years I’ve lived here in Houston, I can’t remember a spring like it. The weather is gorgeous, and has been for way longer than it should be, which leads me to worry about imminent global doom, but, I won’t go there today as it’s too pretty outside.
The weather brought everyone out to play and there were a couple of times when there were so many people in my booth that it was a veritable people-crush. It was like that time when someone decided to see just how many people you could squeeze into a Mini Minor, but a little safer as I wouldn’t let anyone get onto the tables.
P’s aunt had one of these, it was like a tin can on wheels.
I sold about $1200 of jewelry, mainly necklaces, which surprised me as they are way more expensive and usually the earrings go first. My first sale was to a man who came in, looked around, and picked up four pieces for a total of $244 before I could even get my Square credit card thingy set up on my i phone. If you haven’t got one of these yet, you should. Absolutely brilliant alternative to the zap thing that we used to use before smart phones got smarter than we did. (O.K. perhaps smart phones have always been smarter than me).
You tell me. Would you prefer this.
Which is o.k. except that then you have to go home and input all the credit card information into ProPay, or somewhere like that, including everyone’s zip/postal code. It’s at this point you realize that you forgot to ask everyone for their d*^m zip code, and so you then have to phone everyone who bought from you and ask them to please give you their zip code otherwise ProPay won’t process their payment. Then, after a few days, you have to remember to take the money out of ProPay and put it into your bank. Both Propay and PayPal have the (Square) swipe thingy now, but you still have to remove your money later.
Or, this,
Which, I admit is a little disconcerting in that whole, is it really doing what it says it does or have I just given $1200 of jewelry away, department. But, let me assure you, it does do what it says, and the money goes straight into your bank. No half way house, which makes me feel very grown up, and saves my brain a lot of worrying about forgetting things.
–
So, a good day on the whole, followed by utter exhaustion the next day. I am constantly amazed at how sitting around all day, doing nothing much of anything really except talking to people and taking their money, wears me out.
So, today I am painting.
I’ve had a well deserved cup of tea.
From another new mug. (Don’t judge me because I have a mug purchasing addiction).
And now I’m feeling the love.
Except I don’t believe in signs.
Just saying’.
–
Just in case you were wondering the record is now 28 people.
I feel a bit sorry for the woman who says the experience was second best after giving birth to her child, but who knows perhaps finally being let out of a Mini is much the same really – except the other way round …
O.K. so he wouldn’t, but he could have, and with a little make up he def could look the spitting image of Tom. No?
O.K. maybe a lot of make up, but they have the same eyebrows.
Bottom line, it was better than Olympus has Fallen, but we left with more questions than made sense. Half way through it took on a bit of a, what?, theme, but Tom wasn’t so bad to look at I suppose, so all wasn’t that lost. Looking forward to Star Trek and the Great Gatsby now.
–
Spent yesterday, before the movies, glazing plates. I really am already disappointed with the outcome and they’re not in the kiln yet.
Oh yes, they look alright now.
But lets just wait and see what 1800 + F does for them.
I’m not holding my breath.
The photos are a bit dull, I’ll try to replace them later with better ones. Off to the farmers market now. I’ve got to get my health back on 😉
So I woke up this morning thinking that I’d got it all wrong and the art festival was today after all.
Well, I’d be a bit late that’s for sure.
It all started because, for a month now, I kept telling myself, and everyone else, that the show was going to be on the 27th, but then I got my acceptance letter and it said it was on the 5th of May. Of course, because I just knew they’d messed up, I still worried that it was on the 27th. Yes, I did go to the, maybe they’re trying to squeeze me out by giving me the wrong info, place but, only for a fraction of a small paranoid moment, and then I told all my peeps that the 5th it was.
However, panic set in as I sat here this morning, drinking my tea, thinking about life, the universe and everything, and how much jewelry I have hanging around yet I can’t seem to stop making it, and how on earth will I ever get rid of it all, and will the finale of, The Following, be as good as we expect it to be or just another false alarm, when suddenly I just knew the festival was today and I’d blown one of my only chances to sell some of the darn stuff.
Yes, I only do one festival. Time to re-think that now that I’m a recovering super-chicken.
This, and the bizarro dreams, has led me to believe that I may, perhaps, just a smidgen, most likely have a little, (like this much ), anxiety problem.
Me thinks more tea is in order.
Poster Pop on Etsy
Don’t worry, I checked and it is the 5th.
–
I’m drinking my tea right now out of this,
Magpie Pottery
It’s my new favourite. The size is perfect, the rim is the optimal thickness, it has a pleasing shape, and, most importantly, just look at that bird. As we all know, these are exactly the requirements needed for great tasting tea.
–
Yesterday I cleaned the studio even more than I did the last time by getting out the little blue shop vac and actually vacuuming the floor. Man it was bad. First I had to vacuum the filter of the vacuum. It was so chocked up with stuff from previous, garage related, vacuuming that it wouldn’t suck up a feather. So I got out the big orange shop vac and vacuumed the insides of the blue one. It was kind of like a dad giving his kid a good once over before sending him out into the real world. I have now decided to keep the little blue one for myself. P can have the big one. I haven’t told him yet as I know he’s very possessive of his ‘toys’.
Then I made this.
with a green t-shirt on!
Now, this may not sound extraordinary to you, but to my close peeps, this is huge, right? And, yesterday it was a dusty red one!
Perhaps this is why I’m having the, (this big ) anxiety stuff going on right now.
Maybe it’s back to black today.
Which leads to ….
For your entertainment.
O.K. so perhaps the whole funeral thing isn’t that entertaining, but it’s still good.
Happy Friday people.
🙂
(N.B. So, it’s Saturday. See, anxiety right there ….)
Often my unconscious world is an explosion of activity, and I wake exhausted.
Last night, or I should say this morning as that’s when it seemed all the action was taking place, I was back at university. I had no clothes yet a policeman borrowed one of my bras – a mint green one, (don’t ask). I cooked the biggest potato known to mankind which surprisingly fitted into one of my smallest saucepans. I cried over my mum, I chatted with my aunt and uncle, I gave a sofa to a woman having my surrogate baby – she didn’t want it but I didn’t care, the sofa that is. I valet parked at school – shouldn’t we all. I had to explain that my sister was twenty to a weird little creepy teacher who thought she was just a very mature eight year old. (She’s actually forty-eight, but I think that would have freaked him out even more). We laughed at a satellite photo of how one part of our fence hadn’t been re-stained – in a, in your face, protest of the deed restriction nazi neighbourhood people.
Yes, big brother’s been on our back recently for fence violation, and the missing teeny-weeny flower shaped knob on the post box. Man! You’d think they’d have better things to do, especially as the fence looks fine, and, you have to believe me when I tell you, the knob on the post box is about an inch round. They probably had to use their special Inspector Gadget extending eyeballs to see that one.
They probably stole it in the first place.
And so the dream went on, scene after scene, bizarreness after bizarreness. Mostly to do with school, but I believe there was a toilet drama in there somewhere. Thankfully it wasn’t as traumatic as the time I was on a train, in the countryside, in the dead of night, and Nosferatu cycled by and looked me in the eye. That was a little disturbing. Or the time I was Steven Seagal and … O.K perhaps we shouldn’t go there.
I used to have this poster on the wall when I was at art college. Perhaps it messed with my mind.
Note to self: No more creepy posters. Stick with the distorted female figures of Modigliani. They’re safer.
O.K. Perhaps this one isn’t.
She’s got angry eyes. And that double chin isn’t doing much for her either.
So, this is how my mornings usually begin. It’s like I’ve lived the whole day before it’s started. I actually feel worn out and ready for bed now.
But,
New stuff going on in the jewelry department.
Cherry Creek JasperSilver Lace Onyxsorry, forgot what this isdinosaur bone (how cool is that!)
Will I be able to cope with this much excitement, I wonder loudly to myself.
A banner. And it’s really big and in your face and a bit scary.
4′ x 2.5′ scary to be exact.
–
It’s for my booth at the art festival.
It going to scream, lookee, here I am, and then I’m going to have to talk to people and try to sell my jewelry to them, and that’s why it’s going to be scary.
I’m not good at that bit.
But, as I grow up, and, as in prezbillyjeff’s words to Stephen Colbert, I’d be a slug not to, I am determined to realize goal #2 in my effort to make another $10,000 for charity. So it has to be done people. The fear stops here (maybe).
It’s not going to be an easy feat considering I am the original super-chicken.
Yes, you might well have been wondering why I named my studio Cold Feet. It’s just a more tasteful way of saying chicken sh#t.
Actually it’s served me well. People remember my name, and, if you’re not super-chicken, that’s a good thing, right?
Next up I think I will make me a super-chicken t-shirt. Then I’ll be the whole package.
I’ll get back to you on that one.
–
Dang!
Wouldn’t you know there’s already a super-chicken.
Only I think he has the wrong idea about the whole being a chicken thing.
Oh well. Back to the drawing board.
–
Get your own banner – here, you know you want one. And it’s only $20. How’s that for making an art festival possibly the most uncomfortable attention seeking experience you’ll ever have.
Oh yes, it all sounds good. You can do stuff with it never attempted before, or so the rumours will have you believe, but, look at it. There must be a thousand billion dollars of the stuff on my fingers right here. And all the things I’ve ended up making with it so far are really nothing to do cartwheels over. Most of it I’ve ended up heating down into balls to use in other projects because I’m just not happy with the outcome.
Very distressing, and it makes my fingers look chubby!
After the initial stage of trying to re-condition the dried out clay from my last frustrating attempt to use it, I did manage to get it into a more stable form and not get any on my fingers, but why bother is what I want to know. It’s expensive, it’s fiddly, it’s annoying, and, so far I’ve made nothing I like out of it. So I will finish up using the blob I have and never buy the stuff again.
It’s actually a relief to find something I don’t want to do for a change. I feel a little grieving coming on for an opportunity not fully exploited, but to continue is madness.
I might very well end up in some twelve step programme if I don’t give up some of this stuff now.
Last night Robert Downey Jr. looked away from me with abject disdain because I failed my history exam. He was my professor, I was at university, and, for the second year in five, I had flunked my exams because I hadn’t been to class, read the books, written the essays, etc. etc. etc. Same old, it’s too late to fix it, scenario.
And that, people, is what watching the Iron Man 3 trailer can do to a fragile mind
You have been cautioned. Watch at your own peril.
–
So we went to see a movie, and as no one could make up their mind between – aliens, bank robberies, terrorist or the tried and true psychological thriller, we let P decide, and terrorists it was (see here). (I would have gone with the psychological thriller, but that’s just me). I enjoyed it insofar as it satisfied my need to beat the c*^p out of something, but really, the whole time I was in the cinema I felt really anxious. Was the guy sitting next to me – the one with the creepy, fired up body language – going to get out his gun and shoot us all. I’d be the first to go of course, and I still have to fold the laundry – so unfair. Because that happens now, and when we go to see these movies that get us all riled up and defensive I really believe it changes us. Even I don’t want to buy a Kia now because we have to shun Korea (O.K. so Kia is South Korean, not North but you get the point). Just in case you didn’t, the point is – what’s that about! It’s not cool is what it is, and it’s not the someone I want to be, but it creeps up and gets us, and before we know it we’re those people we don’t understand. You know, the ones full of hatred and fear and anger.
And then there’s the, let’s get a quick laugh in, lame jokes while our heroes are standing over the wasteland of (their own) dead people. I don’t know, but to me that just seems to make a mockery of – well, humanity really.
I don’t usually feel this way. I enjoy a good, beat ’em up, action movie as much as the next person, but I did wonder if we wouldn’t benefit a little more from watching a multicultural drama that perhaps showed more of our traditions and way of life so that we could better understand each other rather than the same old, us and them, storyline. The world’s a pretty interesting place after all.
Perhaps I’m just getting old. Man! Just another thing to add to my Monday woes …
–
O.K. shake it off people. Time to lighten up.
Update on the painting.
Old one finished.
O.K. now that I’m looking at it here – what are those love hearts doing? They need to get out of there quick before I go over to the other side completely, and those two houses down bottom. Hideous.
Did I ever mention I have trouble finishing anything? Or liking it come to that.
–
Here’s one waiting for its next step.
Let’s see how long it takes to ruin this one.
–
And here’s that one I started a couple of days ago.
It’s kind of in its, naaah, stage. Like – what exactly was you aiming for with this one?
And here, we have the beginnings of a new one.
Is it time to throw away the brushes again, is my question.
–
So, today I am going to clean all my jewelry in preparation for the upcoming art festival.
How ’bout you?
–
P.S.
Strange how sometimes something pops up when you’ve just finished writing your, moping about wallowing in the negative, blog post that’s just the ticket.
We’ve definitely got some Pepto Bismol stuff going on, and it’s pretty boring on the whole, but I haven’t quite given up yet, although I’m sorely tempted to set the oil pastels on it, which is a sure-fire way for it to end up in the trash.
Here’s its progress.
Now, to tone down the antacid and try to get a little excitement back.
On a side note, S, in his rebellious stage, painted his bedroom Pepto Bismol pink a few years back.
Last laugh on him though as he had to live with it for a year before I let him paint it back to a more manly shade of – well, anything really.
Can you imagine. It makes me want to throw up just looking at it in this painting. I couldn’t cope with waking to it each morning. Probably explains why he went through his falling asleep on the couch period.
It doesn’t take much for me to want to have a go at everything.
Give me a day at an art festival and I come home elated, and depressed at the same time.
No time to do it alllll.
Now I have to paint, make a mosaic – but first fire up some pottery to make it with, and make more quilts. All that, and the jewelry still needs me, and I have a strange hankering to get to some flea markets quick, because I just know there is a new adventure waiting for me there.
I lost my Corel when I dropped my old laptop and, of course, couldn’t find the c.d. to upload on this new one, or move over the one I have from there to here. So last night, in a fit of abandon, I bought a new one. Not the free, little, you can play but you can’t know all my secrets, Corel that I had before, but the real, yes I’m going to cost you some (read loads of) money, but you know you want me, one.
Oh well.
To practice on it I’ve made me a sketch which I’m now going to go out to the studio with and attempt to relay in acrylics and perhaps oil pastels, depending on how bad the acrylics decide to mess up. For sure the oil pastels will follow quickly in the acrylic’s footsteps and everything will end up in the bin.
So.
Prepare yourselves for moaning and groaning and the same ol’, sorry for myself giving up painting again, scenario.
You’ve got to know it’s coming ….
Don’t ask me what’s going on here, but it looks as though the San Andreas fault has bust its sides and squidged up those poor houses again.
Today is brought to you from the sofa after a day of wandering happily, and touching carefully, all the lovely art things at the Woodlands Waterway Art Festival, here in TX.
And, it was a beautiful day. It got a bit hot towards the end of the trek up and down the waterway, but we made it back to the car and into the Cheesecake Factory without too much moaning.
An update on the acid spill. Not sure if the baking soda is necessary at this point, but it definitely adds to the excitement.
Not just for unclogging sinks, is baking soda the aspirin of the cleaning world I ask myself?
Going to scrub it later.
And now back to Lynley. (I know you were wondering).
One fantastically bright sailing ship docked, or run ashore, whichever you prefer, awaiting me to add its finishing touches.
And this, my friends, is where I mess it up completely and hang up my paint brushes forever – again.
Oh the troubles in paradise.
BUT!
Lynley is finished!
At last.
Unfortunately I haven’t another book to listen to, so today will have to be a silent day. Unless I get out my new, tantalizingly intriguing, self-help c.d. Deadly Emotions.
(Don’t ask).
Why I buy these things I’ll never know. What I really need is another good ol’ juicy murder mystery. Not of the Lynley kind. I suppose a c.d. with deadly in the title will just have to do for now.
–
And here I am still trying out new backgrounds for my jewels.
I call this my Carnival line.
😉
I still think I prefer my original red-dish background, but wonder if it doesn’t compete too much with the jewelry.
The other day, when I decided to throw caution to the wind and paint again, this happened – but, you’ll be relieved to know that I put a stop to it as soon as I could.
First it became even more hideous – in a mocking sort of way, but I had the last laugh when it found itself in the trash.
Don’t mess with me!
So, coward that I am, I went back to the old faithful.
Which bored me.
And threatened to put me in another funk.
But, I plodded on,
Making stuff just for the sake of it,
Which bored me more.
Until finally I gave up and sulked myself further into the funk.
Or, is it allergies? Stranger things have happened. I do live in Texas you know, and suddenly, all that green stuff is laying about, conspicuous in its innocence (to the trained eye), on all available surfaces.
This, and those wind turbine things, remind me of the late great science fiction books. The turbine things are the new and improved War of the Worlds aliens. Sleek in design yet even more sinister in their silent, never moving way. They just bide their time, collecting the wind so to sniff out human happenings, looking, but not looking, and, all the time multiplying until, before you know it, they’re everywhere, like in Sweetwater, TX.
See!
(Actually, that’s not Sweetwater, but yet another example of alien infiltration on the outskirts of a doomed Texas town. Who will be next?).
And the pollen? Well, that’s obviously some kind of insidious microorganism waiting patiently for us to inhale them into our bodies, so that they can use us as a weapon to fight the wind aliens and continue their quest to take over the universe. Some of them will be wasted, of course, but it’s a sacrifice they are willing to take.
For them, failure is not an option …
As for Inspector Lynley, I was finally allowed to see the connection between the baffling – why are you telling me this – sub story, and the main story. I must admit it was in a bit of a ‘duh’ way, like I really should have seen it coming. But, as I’m not really that invested in the story the connection caught me off guard and it ended up more as the ‘boom boom’ part of a bad joke. (Can’t really sound that out in words so you’ll just have to work with me here).
I still haven’t finished listening to the story, but we all have to suffer in our own way.
On a lighter note: I burnt a hole in the studio counter when I put the nitric acid into a ceramic dish, (don’t judge me – it said I could). It was obviously not the right kind of ceramic dish, I think because it was old and crackly. I just thought, wow, that nitric acid evaporates quickly, but no – it had seeped right through the bottom and now I have a humongous area of molten formica counter top to forever flaunt my failures. It’s as though one of those alien versus predator things has dribbled its caustic saliva onto it.
And, the moral of the story is …
Never play with acid when you’re in a funk!
I’m telling you, this mood better change quick otherwise I’ll have no studio left.
It doesn’t work. Well, it half works in a very noisy, half working kind of way.
P made it for me, (I suspect with only half an effort), but I need something efficient now as the soldering fumes are taking over and my hypochondriacal self is beginning to get all up in my face over it.
Two things I don’t like about jewelry making.
1. wearing a dust mask
2. worrying about the fumes.
O.K., so I don’t like the nitric acid either, or the precious metal clay, but that’s because I haven’t quite got a handle on them yet and so they annoy the hell out of me.
(Yes, I need to know how to do everything, and I need to know how to do it well. What? You don’t?)
So, my next project, before I die of jewelry related fume and dust inhalation, is to make myself a better extractor fan without spending a thousand billion dollars on it.
And now I need to throw everything else out and make some sculptures.
–
Don’t you think we should all travel around on this?
Just trotting along, out in the open, with the breeze in your hair and fresh air on your face and a little porthole to escape to when it rains. Which, of course, it needs to every now and then to water the flower.
This, however, albeit colourful and fascinating, looks a little crowded. I’d rather watch those people speed by frantically as I casually guide my humongous dog coach thing down the country lanes.
(Note: Always take the back roads if you can. Not as many accidents).
They’ll probably get there faster, but one of them, namely the woman in the purse, has definitely left something behind on the kitchen table at home.
She’s out of luck as he’s not stopping anytime soon.
And this man
definitely needs to pack a little lighter.
Else he’ll have a heart attack before he reaches wherever he’s running away to.
(Bless him. I feel worried for him now. I think his wife’s been nagging him a day longer than he can cope with).
Perhaps he should think about getting a horse.
Definitely needs to avoid the angry fish though.
And here are some other sculptures by him, just to make you feel really grumpy, but in that great, oh my god, look how wonderful, wish I was as good as him, way.
(O.K. so that’s not so great. Kind of depressing really – in that, oh my god I might as well give up now, way).
click photo to go to website
This last one reminds me a little of one of my favourite sculptures that resides in the Tate Gallery in London. You know, the one that just stands there waiting for you to come across it and stop in your tracks just to stare at it in wonder.
–
Prepare yourself to say Oh My God.
–
Jacob and the Angel 1940-1 by Sir Jacob Epstein 1880-1959
I’m still in the funk really but I thought you might all forget me so I had to drag myself back from the brink.
I’m not in as much of a funk as Colin Farrell though, he’s having a bit of trouble with his recall at the moment. Yes, we’re watching Total Recall – again. Arnold really couldn’t do the whole, please love me I’m confused thing, as much justice as Colin. Colin has that compelling, oh my god what’s happening to me, let me show you my anguish with my eyebrows, thing going on with his face that just seemed to elude Arnold. P was a bit upset when we first saw it as Kate is his girlfriend and he was kind of put out that they put her in the evil role. I say get over it P. She’s too young for you. What the h*^*! you thinking man …
Now Colin …
I think he likes older women …
And,
here are a few items of jewelry made in the funk phase.
Just can’t seem to get that excited over them though.
Perhaps I can work it out with Farrell. If he can still save the world, or colony, or wherever they are, in his poor me, what’s going on here then, state of mind, then I can wake up funk-less tomorrow don’t you think.
Perhaps I need one of those phasey gun things though, oh, and that hand telephone …
I had a bit of a moment yesterday with the whole Nobel Peace Prize thing so I’m bringing it back down today.
I think it might have had something to do with the birthday champagne the night before, denial of my new age, and also the sugar rush from the tiramisu cupcake that I unceremoniously stuffed into my mouth for breakfast yesterday in that whole – don’t worry about frosting on the nose lets just stuff the whole thing in your face manner you see in the movies.
I don’t even like cake, but these were something else. BTW, thanks J for busting my diet I have to reluctantly go back to visit the caveman now …
Soooo, I found this.
Michou P. Anderson
Can you say, oh my god, what!
Now, it might not exactly be your cup of tea but how on earth did she manage this?
It kind of reminds me of the pink bubblegum blobs my friend made when we took a lamp work class a couple of years back –
in that, night and day way.
–
So, what to do today?
These are waiting for me in some kind of limbo land.
And, help it now, this has been in the kiln for ever just waiting for some friends to join it for the next firing party.
I’m interested in developing my silver skills and making more of my doodles.
I like these earrings and think I’ll experiment more with them today.
Don’t ask about the dots.
For some reason this pendant reminds me of the circus.
Not sure about this necklace. I like it but I wonder if anyone else will.
And finally, back to some old basics.
I need to make some more earrings for the art fair this April.
I’ve found a neat accounting site called Wave and have started logging in some of my numbers.
I’ve only logged in my expenses so far which kind of looks bad especially as P the Wonder Boy believes I’m all expenses and no income.
I’m not so sure. Today I will put in the sales and that’ll show him!
Personally, I think I’ve broken near enough even to be quite proud of myself, especially in light of how many supplies I have.
Not a tremendous profit as of yet, but this will be my year, I can feel it in my bones.
Now, you may be wondering where the $10,000 has come from. Well, P just happens to be my matching gift programme (told you he was Wonder Boy). I make my jewelry, sell it and say, hey P, look how much I’ve sold, I’ll send this to Africa I think. And he says, but you haven’t really made any money yet. And I say, stop being so negative, it’s all a matter of perspective.
But, people, this year I’m all business. My next $10,000 is going to be allll profit. And I might even pay P back his matching gift. Although that would defeat the whole gift philosophy, wouldn’t it …
I’m feeling it’s a great time to start.
I reached my first goal while perfecting my skills, (no matter how I got it). I had a happy birthday to me yesterday with Indian food and champagne. And now I’ve got me a whole new grown up, you don’t really need to be an accountant, really you don’t, money tracking thing.
Writing my business plan, it seems I only have three goals.
1. To mak a profit.
2. To save the world.
3. To win the Nobel Peace Price.
–
It’s doable don’t you think?
It’s all upward from here people. Good things are going to happen.
It’s a pie flue and it’s now going to be part of my collection. Of course, it’s never going to see the inside of a pie, for that I have my super everyday pie flue, one that I’ve had for years and years. This one from Joy Elizabeth is too special to use. You have to just look at it and smile, and that’s just as good as eating a fabulous steak pie, but not one with kidneys in it because that would be nasty.
Did you know that there was a national pie day? Me neither. And, apparently there’s an American Pie Council to prove it. At home it appears there’s a British Pie Week.
I’ve been trying a new background for taking my jewelry photographs.
But I’m just not sure.
I usually use this darker background, but was beginning to wonder if it wasn’t a little too dark.
I have a light box that I got for Christmas before last, but I haven’t quite got the hang of it yet. The photo’s come out washed out.
To be honest I get a bit irritated with taking the photo’s. If I wanted to do photography I would have taken a course, but I don’t want to be a photographer. I don’t really want to pay anyone to take them either. Call me cheap, but it’s true.
I bought a book on taking good photographs once, but it bores me just to look at the front cover. I have a decent camera, I think, but it worries me that it has a lot of buttons on it that I don’t use. What if they’re important?
Maybe this background is better.
Or perhaps I should just stick with the original one.
Looking at them here I do think the top ones are worse.
But I just don’t know …
Then there’s the whole problem of size. Sometimes it can be deceptive. So I need a neck model, and a wrist model. But, I want a nice looking neck, and a decent sized wrist.
I’m telling you – nothing but decision-making problems here today.
Sterling silver and Chinese Hemimorphite DruzySterling Silver, Lucin Utah Variscite, Blue Opals and Thai Silver Beads.
Sterling Silver, Tiger Eyes, Lapis, Raw Rubies and Wooden Beads.
Copper, Tiger Eyes, Raw Rubies, Wooden beads.
Sterling Silver and Green Opals.
Copper, Green Turquoise, Blue Turquoise and Mystic Aura Quartz.
Click on photos to see examples of stones used.
I decided to go a bit bohemian with the last one, but I’m not sure I like it.
I’ve not been in the studio today as I’ve been out and about this morning and decided that I just have to go to see Life of Pi this afternoon before it leaves the cinema without me.
N and I are off in a few minutes. I loved the book, I’m guessing the movie will be good according to the reviews, and Ang Lee is just so cute, isn’t he? He seems like a nice man.
Tomorrow I’m thinking of rearranging the studio. Moving everything around. Touching stuff, throwing out stuff and generally cleaning it all up.
There are four of them, but these two like to torment Wally.
It’s a wonder he can see them through the dirty windows. (Guess what I’ll be doing today).
Pickles can’t help but get involved, especially when there might be trouble.
But that cat has Pickles’ number.
“Wotch you lookin’ at boiii?”
(Actually Pickles is a girl but I try to keep all the cats grouped into one sex, just to avoid confusion. To all you cat psychologists out there, there is no evidence that this is why Pickles eats for comfort, or has aggressive tendencies. She’s just fat because that’s how she likes it and she considers it her duty to protect her family. As we all should …).
Here he’s asking.
“Really Wol, You need a Pickles cat to protect you?
I have disdain for you all”.
“I cannot even look you in the face, and my brother, he licks his behind at you”.
(You might not be able to tell just by reading this, but he has a French accent. (It’s beyond me how they got here). However, he likes to swap up the accent a bit with a little East End London at times – as with the, “Wotch you lookin’ at boiii”, comment. It works better for the, in your face, attitude but he seems to prefer his native tongue for contempt. As in this excellent example).
I woke up this morning after dreaming I was pinned down by a steel beam.
Needless to say I was Wally’s new resting post.
No matter to him that I was laying on my side and he had to balance on the top of my arm. Or that I kept trying to turn over and he had to jiggle his position accordingly.
No matter that I was paralyzed by his middle-aged weight and had no use in my arm for ten minutes after I got up.
I’m going to this wedding and it’s in Spain, and I just can’t get my head around what I’m going to wear because I still haven’t lost the weight I would like to lose, and so I don’t want to go, but, it’s my brother in law’s wedding and I like him, and I like her, and they’ve asked us to be witnesses, which is an honour, but I’d rather be dead than wear anything other than my jeans and black t shirt which have been a staple for years now and I don’t think I’ll be able to get away with that in Spain and at a wedding … (breathe).
And, when I say staple, I mean staple. I don’t think I’ve even seen my legs.
(O.K. I have).
Now, this is a problem for me. A BIG problem. I mean, would you go to your child’s wedding in jeans and a black t shirt? No. Which means I can’t either. I’ve told all three of them that they would be happier, believe me, to just run away somewhere, get married, then come back and tell me.
But, I don’t think that’s going to fly.
And now there’s this wedding – in Spain.
Now, I’m not that heavy, really I’m not, and I’m not that vain. But, it’s a kind of body dysmorphia thing. You know the one where everyone else looks great except you. In fact, you think you look hideous, and not just in a, what was she thinking, kind of way, but more in the Hunchback of Notre Dame way. Sorry Hunchback.
And, when I remember to think about this, I’m miserable.
I can get by with it most of the time as I don’t have to go out. I can go to my studio and ignore myself. But, I feel really uncomfortable doing most other things – especially weddings. Why do people have to do that? It just messes me up completely.
So K, who studies health and nutrition, said she could help me. I thought that by losing a few pounds it would help me to start getting over this whole what the #*^^’s wrong with you problem, and, when she offered her help, I thought, how hard can it be …
As a nutritionist, I imagined she would say, O.K. eat a bit more of this, a little less of this – I was even ready to go to, a lot less than this, but I should have known.
First day: Thick head. Depression (probably because I feel sorry for myself and don’t like being told what to do). And, this morning – the second day – aches and pains down the outsides of both legs, and, if I might say, buttocks.
But first, I’d like to tell you that my knees ache. Thought I’d better get that out of the way.
On Saturdays you wake up tired because the night before two men knocked on the door and, very pushily, got you to buy three books for the children’s hospital for $252!
Three.
Sparkle World.
Strawberry Shortcake.
And
Turtle – which was the cheapest at only $70.
Yes, I know. Just don’t open the door. But you see N did it. She was walking by the door when they knocked and felt she had to open it as they’d seen her. I said, why didn’t you pretend you’re deaf. She said, it just all happened so fast.
So, there you go, not my fault.
I really do try. I practiced saying no all the way to the door, but, P is away in Lubbock, cleaning carpets that have been thrown up on by previous tenants and trying to fix the whole, son, when you just happen to leave your sofa outside in the student apartment hallway someone will more than likely run off with it, problem – and it was late, and dark, and I was nervous.
Why go for the $252 prize you might ask, and not the cheapest package they could offer? Perhaps you could have just gone for the $70 magazine subscription that you can be sure never to receive?
Well, ask me again because I have no idea.
I think the logical side of my brain ran down my spineless back just as I stepped outside, and didn’t come back again until the whole, disturbing experience was over.
That’s when I phoned the bank, cancelled the check and took a xanax, all while trying to keep up with what the #&*@** Nicki Minaj was wearing on American Idol.
Maybe no one will bother to ask me for money if I dressed up like this.
MIL flew back to England on Friday and so it was all systems go on Saturday.
Well, that’s a small fib really as I didn’t get out of bed until 11, then we sat around watching West Ham take a thrashing from Sunderland until P left for London at 1. (I don’t know why he tortures himself this way.) Of course then we needed lunch, but, by 3 p.m. it was all systems go.
That’s when I kicked myself that I didn’t get going earlier.
In the pottery room I poured water onto the dried out clay. Did I mention I’ve been hearing the pottery call for a while now? And looked around at the green-ware already made.
At the jewelry bench I took my time. I touched all my tools, bounced in the chair a few times, just to remind it who’s in charge, and then I organized all my bits and pieces into some kind of order.
Then, just as I sat down to begin a jewelry order, I looked over at the painting corner and got a bit excited at the prospect of getting out my new Christmas paint brushes and what I could do with the new canvasses P bought me, while thinking about my half sewn quilt abandoned due to holiday visitors that only just went home …
I haven’t even told you about the doll’s house.
Good grief. I think I’ve just thought myself to a grinding stop.
–
I need to stop worrying that I wont be able to fit in all the things I want to do, and just do them.
Man, that Nike girl had the right attitude didn’t she?
The only way to victory is to just do it.
Oh, and get yourself a pair of wings.
–
Being sick and also trapped in the MIL corner was a bit of a bummer in the whole boredom area. It meant a lot of internet browsing and spontaneous, poor me, purchases. Don’t tell P. Hopefully they’ll all arrive before he gets back.
To be honest, he just rolls his eyes. As though there’s no hope for me, or him come to that. But, I know that these beautiful things were made just for me. They were just waiting for me to find them.
Craig Martell
I mean, look at it. Don’t you think that was made for me?
I also had to get some more stones.
Because everyone needs one of these, right?
Or four in my case.
And, now it’s time to get back to finishing a bracelet and, hopefully, start on a pair of interestingly different earrings.
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To all of you reading this. Don’t worry about me … I’m perfectly sane really, I just have a bit of a, I’ve got to do everything because it’s too exciting not to, but how the hell am I going to fit it all in, problem.
Happy Sunday Y’all.
(And now I’m a Texan! Will the madness never end … )
Only Pickles is (fat). We try not to say that out loud as Pickles is very sensitive about her weight.
Sophie is Pickles mini me and she belongs to N, the middle child, who has always wanted a small black thing of her very own to love.
Now there are four cats living in our house, and when B comes home to visit there are five so this is very important reading.
Thanks to my sister who sent this to me for christmas we can now sleep a little more soundly at night.
Sophie’s about 5 months old now. We rescued her from an awful shelter and we were hers from the moment she set eyes on us. She literally jumped on N when the cage was opened and they’ve been inseparable ever since.
She’s right at home with the other cats. Taking all the good spots on the sofa and pushing herself right in there when the food bowls come out.
It’s every man for himself in this house.
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In other news, there’s been no opportunity to work on anything much. I’m still pretty stuck in MIL mode.
I did buy these yesterday.
Marty FieldingMarty Fielding
Because I needed them.
Really I wanted this one.
Lana Wilson
But, wouldn’t you know it, someone already bought it.
I might just have to try to make my own.
So although I can’t do much at the moment except buy beautiful things on the internet, you’ll be relieved to know that I can participate in my, Fantasy Food Friday.
I thought I needed one of those alphabet days that all those other bloggers seem to have so I made one up for all the food I want to eat but can’t because I have to go to a wedding in Spain in May and I want to look beautiful.
Like this.
But, I will save it for another Friday as I need to eat real food right now and my fantasy food will just make me jealous.
The corners are all but done. I decided to add a little red to the prongy bits, and the background is complete. Still not sure if the whole thing is drab, and, have to admit I felt a little disappointed with it yesterday when I laid it out on the floor, but I’m going to work on filling in the background a little more and see if that brings it back.
But, now it’s back off again.
My MIL is arriving today from London and will be staying with us for two weeks. I’ll find it really hard to shut myself away in the quilt room while she’s here, because, once I’m gone, I’m gone. My quilt room, and studio come to that, are like black holes. Not the bad kind that sucks everything up and disappears it, but more the kind that stops time completely and allows you to immerse yourself in lovely stuff and not remember that there’s a whole life out there waiting for you to be responsible in some cooking, cleaning, boring way.
But, I will survive. I have a few back up plans which I’ll show you later. For now, however, I’m going to make her bed up fresh, find some books she might like to read, buy a little pot plant and box of tissues, (you know, those nice little square boxes with pretty patterns on them), to place on her nightstand. The boy tends to not want flowers in his room, and as he’s always the one to have to vacate when relatives come, the room needed a little de-boyifying, and, as we’re on it, re painting as he’d royally messed up one of his walls. Don’t ask but it involved white paint on dark blue and just wasn’t in keeping with the whole look I was going for. What can I say, he’s 19, he’ll be gone soon, and, there’s nothing wrong with self expression so long as you keep it in your room I say – except when visitors come
–
I told Siri that my MIL was coming.
Me: My MIL is coming.
Siri: I don’t know who your MIL is. In fact I don’t know who you are. But you can tell me …
–
I can see we’re going to need to have a sirious sit down. She should know this stuff …
(I wanted a bigger picture, but perhaps that will just make my craving worse.)
You’ve got to taste this to know how good it its. (Except you K. You can’t have any).
Actually, I can’t have any either, unless I go home. And that’s probably a good thing as I’m trying to focus on healthy eating right now, not that that’s completely working for me.
Nothing wrong with fantasy eating though.
I would have it with a nice salad. Lots of crisp lettuce and, preferably, those lovely little cherry/grape tomatoes – but, only if they’re firm, not squishy.
And, wait for it.
Because, as some bottles state, it’s, pourable sunshine, and who wouldn’t want to eat that on their salad?
If you’re low on excitement today, you can read about our love of salad cream – here.
–
What’s your craving and I’ll go check it out …
(Just in case you were wondering, Siri doesn’t have a favourite).
According to this site we are now in overtime. Just over 9 hours (and counting) since the end of the world – in Sydney, Australia.
All that worry … for what?
I tried asking Siri why the world didn’t end today, but she didn’t understand me. I asked my question slowly, I asked with careful enunciation, I even asked it in my fake American accent. I gave up after she asked me, for the tenth time, if I wanted to search the web for, why the wild didn’t and today. She finally got the word, world, but I just couldn’t go on anymore. Every time she got one word right, she’d miss another. It was like I was foreign or something.
So, people, I’m sorry. I don’t know why the world didn’t end today. Siri probably knows, but I just don’t think my communication skills are up for it.
And nope, it’s never going to look like the tree on the internet.
What a surprise.
Santa and his drunken angel seem O.K. with it however.
Actually here it looks more like she’s gazing adoringly into his eyes. Don’t be fooled, he’s probably holding her up. Normally she looks like she’s had a few.
It definitely looks artificial 🙂
What did I expect?
I expected the tree in the nice internet picture, that’s what I expected.
It looks O.K. N is going to ‘fluff’ it more today, hopefully that will help.
Let me just say that, as of right now, it does not look exactly like this one.
Maybe the man will come over and fluff ours like he fluffed this one.
On the whole it’s pretty nice so I’m still holding out hope. We’ll see what happens when the decorations are on it. Anything’s got to be better than the one we have now.
That all might have to wait until tomorrow though as I have to finish painting the Boy’s room first.
No rest for the wicked.
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What are you reading today?
Let’s see how long it takes me to finish this one …
So, prepare yourself for the next couple of days, or more likely weeks, when the hypochondria sets in, once again, as I’ve just finished sanding S’s room and found, wait for it, white stuff under my mask.
Yes, I should have brought out the big mask. The, oh my god it’s so uncomfortable but I will die if I breath in any of these glaze mixing powders if I don’t wear it mask. But no. I brought out the smaller, white, does this really do anything mask, which I wear when I’m sanding my jewelry while wondering if it’s really doing anything.
Panic hasn’t set in yet but I did come down and, straight away, ate three baby satsumas.
That’ll work, right?
Healthy, juicy, satsumas clear out dust filled lungs in minutes. Don’t tell me otherwise as I’ll have to go into the fetal position again and it will be days, well, mostly nights, spent on high alert for any twinge, cough, or ache.
God, I can feel it now …
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For Christmas I think I want a new brain. One that laughs in the face of imminent doom.
Like this.
Hahaha – HA!
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It’s so hard being me.
–
BTW, so you know, I just asked Siri what the meaning of life is, because I’m still trying to find out, and she replied:
Try to be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try to live in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.
(I know some of you were really worried about how it was going).
And it was good. Sadly inevitable but good.
I’ve just sent it to my sister, and, as I was buying it on amazon u.k. took the time to read the reviews. A few of them said it was awful and long-winded. I know it took me six months to finish it, but, I thought differently. I thought it was very well written and enjoyable. The length of time it took me to read it had nothing to do with having to struggle through it. When I was actually reading it, the pages turned quickly. I think I just fell into some reading time warp dimensional thing. Who knows.
Anyway, don’t read it if you only like uplifting books, but, it really was worth the read in my opinion.
I do feel a bit sad now though …
just saying.
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Christmas season has got in the way of the quilt making frenzy somewhat. But, never fear, I can still hear it calling. In the meantime I have been working to finish this.
I started it in the summer, and, as with everything I do, have been working on it in fits and starts.
Only a small area to complete now so that’s exciting. Then I’ll probably keep it in a draw somewhere for a couple or ten years before I get around to framing it.
The hatred. The anger. The discrimination. The fear.
I can’t stand ignorance. Prejudice. Violence. Terrorism.
Anything, in fact, that presumes one being is more important than another.
I can’t stand the fact that we can’t seem to get that we are all here together. That we are one.
That we shouldn’t need guns to allay our fear, or to fuel our arrogance or to express our pain.
That we should simply care for and protect each other as we live in this world.
Perhaps if we shifted our effort away from our fight to own guns and concentrated instead on aiding the mentally ill and those suffering from poverty, hunger and disease as we would our own family. Perhaps if, as people of one world, we learned to commune, and share and try to understand each other. Perhaps if we concentrated on education and the well-being of our young, and our old, and our sick. Perhaps if we all stood by what we know is true in our hearts and became more involved instead of letting the world drift by in a haze of ambivalence. Perhaps then we will begin to see true purpose in our lives. Because I know I’ve lost mine.
Yes, I am an idealist, and, as such, I know that I am defeated before I begin. But, I would rather stand knowing I am part of a whole than fractured by narcissistic endeavours that benefit only me and mine.
No, I don’t believe in a god, and that might offend some people, but, I do believe in humanity, and I hope, as I go on, to be able to live up to what I know is right in my heart.
As I hope we all might.
I feel terrible sorrow for the people of Connecticut.
Who thought it was a good idea to buy it December 1st? Not me.
We never buy the tree December 1st. We’re a week before christmas family.
Look at it.
O.k. So it might look only slightly dead to you, but, to me it’s drooping in that droopy, depressing way that makes me want to droop along with it, and it’s losing its color, and the ornaments are all over the place wrong on it, and it’s just looking sick and tired.
In other words dead. At least to me.
It’s never going to make another 10 days.
I was seriously thinking of going out to get another one, but, I just can’t do it capt’n, it doesn’t seem right. So, fake it is.
I don’t want a fake tree, but, look at it, even a dead twig has got to look better than that.
So sad though I might be about going fake, and, dismayed that I will have betrayed the real deal, there’s nothing else for it – it’s got to be done.
Where to get it though, that’s the question.
I was looking on-line and found Balsam Hill. Who could go wrong with a name like that? But, they’re so expensive. $600 – over a thousand. Not happening for me especially as the $600 ones were smaller than I wanted.
I know, call me cheap.
So, we went looking in the shops and they were nasty, so we came back and looked on-line more. Frontgate got bad reviews so I kept coming back to Balsam Hill, and I was getting sadder and sadder and the tree droopier and droopier. First the reindeer are still not out, and, now the tree is (mostly) dead. Santa will think we have given up on him completely.
This morning I looked at Balsam Hill one more time as I was almost, but not quite, resigned to spending the money on one as I’ve been wasting it on dead trees all this time anyway, and what do you know? There is a Santa after all. The trees were 50% off and free shipping. I got one for $250.
Now, don’t hold your breath, it’s probably going to be all fake in a bad way and horrible and I’m going to regret it and I’ll write and moan about it later, (yes, you know I will), but, for now I’m just happy that something will be up for Christmas that doesn’t look like a dead, droopy, yellow thing.
I’m not even in jewelry making mode right now. I’m in quilt making mode with a slight leaning toward painting. To complicate everything, the pottery niggle is getting pretty strong also, but, I can’t cope with thinking about that right now.
So why?
light red ruby nuggetsdark red ruby nuggetsmystic aura bronze purple quartzunpolished aquamarine
And, (save me now).
pink peruvian opal
All I can say is that I had a bit of a moment on Etsy, and, I may very well have to mini ban myself from ever going back there again.
I bought this also.
(sigh).
retro whale
But, that wasn’t my fault. I’ve needed this since way before I knew I did. So there was nothing I could do about it.
Look at it.
It’s brilliant.
Wally is trying his best to restrain me,
but, you see, this is what happens when you browse Etsy on a lazy Sunday morning in bed.
I guess it’s time to get up before I do any more damage.
You’ve got to love her. She has issues. Fat issues. I try not to draw attention to it as I want her to feel comfortable in her skin, but, she lay on my chest last night and I felt as though she collapsed a lung.
She’s been dieting, but, I just don’t think it’s helping.
And, you will also be relieved to know that I have, at last, figured out how to make my Instagram photo’s larger.
I realize that this was worrying a lot of you out there. I know I’m a happier person for it. I’ll probably forget how to do it tomorrow, but, hey, I succeeded today!
And, just as an aside, thank you WordPress for making the photo adding thingy page easier to manage. I know you had me in mind when you did this.
…
As you may remember I’ve been reading the, House of Sand and Fog, for years now, well since July anyway, but, I think I’m finally through the drought.
The thing is, I’ve enjoyed it the whole time I’ve been reading it – I just can’t figure out why I can’t get around to finishing it. I mean it’s not a bad book. I like the way it’s written, it’s easy to read, fast paced, interesting, etc., but, I’m still on page 208!
This is not good for my book a month Wannado.
But, I’m feeling better about it today. I had a long session with Ms Nicholo and Mr Behrani last night and could have kept going except word feud was calling and Ms Nicholo was getting a bit out of hand for my liking and I had to put her down for a bit.
See, the problem here is Word Feud, and, as I’m ‘fessing up, Samurai Sudoku.
I think I’m addicted and it’s getting in the way of life.
How can I blame Ms Nicholo for her addictions if I have mine too.
So, I’m almost finished with the Samurai app.. Thank you I Pad, it was good, but I’m relieved it’s nearly over. One more puzzle and I’m free to move on. Let’s just hope it’s not onto the next app. – my Wannado List is suffering.
Oh, and the decorating.
There’s no room for you and Santa, sudoku puzzle app.
O.K. Just because they messed up and got to abandon all hope, why do they have to go and ruin it for the rest of us?
Didn’t they know I’m a hypochondriacal, hyper-vigilant, neurotic, scaredy-cat, worrier person and that I wouldn’t cope very well with all that end of the world stuff?
And what’s with all the t.v. people rubbing it in?
S watches all the ancient aliens, end of the world, doom and gloom stuff, and, of course, I can’t look away. It’s like some drawn out anxiety nightmare that wont go away. You know, the one where you’re running, and, running, and not moving anywhere fast. Actually, in my running dream, I do move, quite fast really, but only by moving one leg forward. My other leg just catches up and pushes. Weird, right?
Anyway.
I can do the ancient alien thing. But, what I cannot do is how we are ALL going to come to some awful, unfathomable, and, probably, extremely painful, end on the 21st December of THIS year.
Not Cool!
Just leave me alone wont you and stop telling me I’m going to die.
It’s so annoying.
Just as I tell P that next year he’s getting the d*#*! tree because I can’t cope with the stress of picking out just the right one.
(That will teach him. Let him walk around in the dead forest looking for the right shape and see how he feels when you drag it home and everyone laughs).
It’s all going to end?
Really?
Man, do I ever get a break!
It’s kind of ticking me off.
Last night they mentioned solar flares, magnetic field stuff, and, get this, pole reversal!
To be dealt one disaster, Mr Earth, may be regarded as a misfortune. To be dealt two, (or three or four), looks like carelessness.
Darn unfortunate if you ask me.
Apparently the electricity will fail because of the solar flare. At first I thought that this was a little more comforting than burning up as this particularly huge flare soars through the protective whatever it is that usually shields us from the regular old solar flares. This protective shield, by the way, is shrinking. (Not to bring anyone down). But, then I watched how bad it will be without electricity and I think that maybe the burning up bit and getting it out of the way might be preferable after all.
I don’t really know what the reversal of the poles will do to us, except that it does sound rather clever.
There are people out there preparing to poison you with hemlock if you threaten their hood, and shoot you, and, probably eat you if they’re reading the Mayan’s, how to save yourself when the electricity runs out, hand book.
I sold a bracelet at the beginning of the week and it geed me up to make a decision. It was beginning to niggle me. I know my money doesn’t make that much of a difference, but, I was beginning to feel bad about all the people with no food, living in horrible conditions, and, with me just taking my time.
I usually try to send the money I make to programmes that help people sustain themselves, but, as I was browsing around I came across this picture.
Save the Children – orphan care. Click photo to go to site.
I’m not going to say anymore except that this is where the money I made selling my jewelry went to this month.
Look at him.
O.K. don’t, because I might have to cry now…
So, thank you to everyone who bought a piece of jewelry from me, either at the art festival or through Etsy. I really appreciate it.
$9,000 now. Only one more thousand to reach my Wanna Do. Guess then I’ll have to change my goal.
Onwards and upwards people 🙂
Oh
And, in case you thought I wasn’t paying attention, no,
I know you’ve been worried about the progression of the quilt, so here’s an update.
I take these photographs after each session because sometimes it’s clearer to see what needs to be changed by looking at them. I find this is the same for painting also. Sometimes when a portrait, for instance, is off, and, you just can’t see what’s wrong with it, a photograph will point out the problem straight away. It gives you some distance. Removes you somewhat from the process.
I can also walk away from it and look at the photographs later. Creep up on it when it’s not expecting it. Catch the quilt off guard. Makes it easier to figure out a problem without the guilt of looking it straight in the face.
Quilts have feelings too you know.
So, it looks like it’s going to be a dark, moody, day. I hope so anyway. A good day to lock myself away in the quilt room and play around some more. I’ve been having a bit of trouble with the middle, but, I think I’m getting there.
I woke up knowing that’s what I wanted to eat. Always a relief to get that little problem out of the way. We ate it over little fingerling potatoes with french beans. I love these little beans the most. You wont go back to the dark side once you’ve eaten them. Same with petit pois, regular old peas just wont be the same after you’ve tried the small ones.
So …
If it’s dark and wintery where you are and you’ve got a nice fire in the grate going on and wooly socks on your feet, give this recipe a try and let me know if it doesn’t warm the cockles of your heart. Only don’t tell me about the dark wintery bit with the fire and wooly socks because I live in Houston, remember, and although it’s definitely a shade darker than normal out there, I’d have to strip down to have the fire going.
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