Very slowly, the dollhouse is squeaking along.

I’m still spending most of the time sitting and looking at it, and thinking about it, and looking some more at it, because quite frankly I don’t know what I’m doing.

And don’t even get me started on scale.

I’ve decided not to worry about scale…

As a consequence the whole thing is taking forever and I might have to take a break from it and make some jewelry.

At least then I’ll know what I’m doing.

Perhaps

–

The house so far.

All along I’ve had trouble with the second floor and where the windows will go because of the roof so I decided to cut it down and work on the first floor upward.

Instant relief…

So it went from this.

To this.

I made a mock up of a wall which turned out o.k.

I made a practice floor.

And painted it.

I worked on an Inglenook fireplace.

Which was going to have a firebox in it, but I’m thinking now the box may have to go somewhere else.

And then I made it some book cases.

I worked some more on the stairs.

Which are a complete mess inside because I just made them up as I went along. Who knows, next time I may very well know what I’m doing.

(Probably not)

They’re going to have a cupboard.

With shelves.

The whole thing just cracks me up ?

Now I have to just put a second coat of paint on the walls, make the room a larger floor, put a grate in the fire and paint the woodwork. Then I’m going to make it some beams and go onto the kitchen.

Or maybe I’ll make some jewelry…

?

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–

–

But I’m ashamed to say that yesterday I actually took my dollhouse from one room into another when the mess became too overwhelming – even for me.

Yes, I walked away from it.

I love the concept that we create from chaos. The fact that I can take perfect lengths of fabric and cut them into hundreds of smaller pieces only to put them back together again to make a quilt has always fascinated me. That individual tubes of colour can come together to make an image that wasn’t there before is like magic, but I’ve a sneaky feeling that my creations leave more destruction in their wake than the chaos that gives life to them.

Reluctantly today will be a cleaning day.

But before that, my progress so far for those of you interested in how not to go about making a dollhouse from scratch.

I’m not going to lie, maths was never my strong suit and so mostly I have to visualize things first before I can get the numbers down.

That involves a lot of cardboard and blue painters tape.

It started off like this…

Here I will show you only two renditions as, to be honest, there were quite a few of them.

A day or two into trying to work out the structure and fiddling around with all the cardboard boxes I could get my hands on, I started to get bored and so tried my hand at making some windows and stairs.

Because it’s never not a good idea to jump ahead and waste time carving out things that you’ll probably end up not using.

Look at those teeny nails ? I didn’t need to use them because the wood glue would have been just fine on its own, but I couldn’t resist.

And so after quite a few cardboard mockups and carved out windows and doors I decided to stop procrastinating and got the wood out.

It has to be said that there has been a lot of sitting and looking.

And then getting bored with it again and making something else I probably wont use.

But just look at that dormer.

I can’t tell you exactly when the house started to morph into something larger than I’d intended, but I think the dormers had something to do with it.

Because then I had to bump out the side wall to accommodate them

And, of course, add a chimney breast.

Or two.

But really it’s the roof that’s giving me pause for concern so I’m mostly ignoring it at the moment. Adding a few sheets of cardboard here and there when I feel a moment of inspiration (albeit short lived) but I’m determined I’ll get there.

Of course an engineering degree would have come in handy at this point, but no, I just had to pursue that sculpture degree for what use that does anybody ?

To be continued…

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–

–

That for a long time now I’ve wanted to make a dollhouse.

I know. Don’t think about that too much for now as I don’t really understand it either.

All that needs to be said right now is that it’s been bubbling along inside me for years now and so finally I decided it was time.

As with most everything I do I tend to spend ages thinking about how to go about it – mostly because, as my very own number one cheerleader, I think it will be too hard for me and I will fail miserably. It was the same with setting cabochons. I would be making my silver pieces while all the time thinking about how to go about making a piece with a stone in it. I’d already made a cabochon setting in a class I’d taken at community college, but I made it again and again in my head as I sat at my table. Eventually, when I was finally ready, it was as though I’d been setting cabochons forever.

Same with this dollhouse thing, although I don’t think it’s going to be as easy as the cabochon setting – no matter how long I think about it.

So I looked around the internet a bit to get some ideas on how to go about making one and who knew (not me) how many people were making doll houses! It’s a remarkable thing to see. It kind of put me off a bit as I could see all of my ideas already made. It was as though I’d already made it – without making it – if you get what I mean.

But I continued to think about it until I knew that it was only a matter of time before I’d have to give in and open up this whole new can of worms because, as I’ve learned throughout my life, when I’m in I’m really in and now I was going to have to buy all of the stuff that I didn’t know I had to buy and then some.

The fact that I could most likely buy a couple of brand new, fully furnished, fantabulistic doll houses for less than the materials and tools I ended up getting didn’t deter me at all although it did confirm what those other people who live with me have been telling me for years now, that I’m a little, how can I say it nicely – obsessed.

Who wants to buy a new doll house anyway when you can spend ages regretting that you didn’t pay attention that day in school when they were teaching the Pythagorean Theorum. Now, had they told me then that I’d be needing that, or something geometrically similar, to figure out the structure of my future dollhouse roof pitch no doubt I would have been all in and at the front of the class, but… oh well.

All I can say is that now, with dogged determination, I am winging it.

I’m aiming for something in-between this.

And this.

Doable I think…

–

–

–

I’m going to show you how I keep everything organized.

I wasn’t going to because half the time I don’t know what I’m doing – you’ll see that when I get to my feeble attempt at bookkeeping – but what I’m about to show you works very well for me and so for anyone who doesn’t want to take the six years that I did coming up with an efficient way of keeping their jewelry straight, this is for you…

First up – Storing each piece of jewelry so that it’s easy to find.

I separate my pieces into categories as such.

Necklace/Cabochons

Necklace/Silver

Bracelet/Cabochons

Bracelet/Silver

Earrings/Cabochons

Earrings/Silver

Rings/Cabochons

Rings/Silver

Use as many, or as few, categories as you want to. You might not want any and just clump all of your pieces under one umbrella, however, I tend to have a lot of pieces hanging around and find breaking them down this way works well for me.

Then I make each category a chart.

This makes me feel very efficient.

Each category uses the same chart and I just switch out the heading when I’m printing it. The Silver items don’t have stones I know, but if I use beads (I don’t usually) I can list them there.

I made this chart initially as I was interested to see how much it was costing me to make each piece and how much in fees I was paying. Especially as I’d been hearing a lot about how much Etsy was charging. I wasn’t really paying attention at that time, but started to wonder how much I was actually making on each piece I sold. Now I often see beautiful pieces on Instagram and Etsy which I doubt are making anything much at all for the artist.

I don’t have a column for Time here as I can see under the Net column if the amount I’ve made after Cost and Fees is worth my time. This really is a chart to keep everything straight.

Here you can see the chart in action.

This is just an example as I just pen mine in.

It’s pretty straightforward. Each item gets a SKU number (the SKU for the Kazakhstan Necklace therefore is NC3) and a brief description.

Under Gross I put what I’m going to charge for the piece.

Next is the silver column. I weigh the piece on a small scale I bought from RioGrande – HERE – and times it by the cost of the silver – which is $26.67 per troy ounce right now. You’ll find the market cost for silver on the RioGrande home page top left. This gets a bit tricky I suppose as the cost of silver moves and if I kept track correctly I would know which piece of silver cost what when I bought it and when I used it. Not happening. So I tend to just times the troy ounce by $25 right now and keep an eye on the market. If it dips or rises in price significantly I alter my calculations. The silver used in a piece is negligible at this point I think. In this column I also include the cost of the chain and clasp which tends to add up to $15 for the ones I typically use. So the amount of silver I used for the Kazakhstan Necklace after the chain and clasp was $7. I round these amounts up or down accordingly to keep it simple. – O.K. and also because my dad laughed at me when I showed him how I used to calculate this part down to the last cent.

Next I fill in the Stone column and then the Cost column is the Silver and Stone added together.

I don’t put the Fees in the sub total here because Peter says he just needs the actual material cost.

Yes. Peter does my taxes for me because – I don’t.

When I tell you that I can put three sets of numbers into the same calculator and get three separate results three times in a row you’ll understand why…

Don’t judge me.

I could lump the silver and stone together in one column to begin with but I like to know how much I spent on the stone as sometimes they can be expensive and later, when I come to see the price I’ve charged, I get worried that I’ve messed up my silver calculations (read the paragraph above) and reduce the piece out of embarrassment and then only realize once I’ve sold the piece that I’ve lost money because the stone cost an arm and a leg and I forgot etc., etc..

Then I put in a rough round up of the Fees charged for using PayPal, Stripe, etc..

I have a sheet which I refer to at the front of my folder which tells me how much PayPal, or Stripe, or Etsy (if I still used them) is for the amount I charged (Gross) for the piece. And so by adding the Cost and Fee column together the final Net column is what I will have made after all of that. Now I can see what I will actually get for a piece and depending on how much time it has taken me and how involved it has been to make I can decide then if that’s a good price for me and alter it accordingly if needs be.

Now all of my pieces have their SKU number and I’ve a rough idea of their cost they get their own box.

But, to make it more exciting, they also get bags.

Yep. Sometimes it’s even too exciting for me…

Now. This may look a bit anal, but I have a tendency to make a lot of jewelry so…

The bags you see below are the Mother Bags. (I’ve just watched an Alien movie so work with me here as I try to get the lingo out of my brain). Each Bag represents a category (again you might not need this) and each Mother Bag has smaller individually numbered bags in them ready to be filled with a piece of jewelry that corresponds to their SKU number on the chart.

Necklace/Cabochons are NC1, NC2 etc.. Necklace/Silver are NS1, NS2 etc.. Earrings/Cabochons are EC1, EC2 etc.. You get the idea.

You can decided what you need.

Then, as I fill them with finished pieces of jewelry, I put them into larger bags of ten. This means that I know exactly which box and then which bag a piece of jewelry is in when I need it. Of course you have to put the SKU number in the item description in your shop otherwise this method will do you absolutely no good whatsoever.

Yes. I’ve done that…

Here are the cabochon bracelets in their box ready to go.

I keep all of the charts in a folder so that I can enter a piece as soon as I’ve made it, give it its number and put it in its bag.

If I sell a piece I run a highlighter over it to know it’s gone. A different colour for each year… just for jollies.

And then behind that I have monthly records where I can enter pieces I’ve sold and also items I’ve bought. I can also keep receipts, etc here.

At this point you might be wondering – why.

And it does seem a lot as I write it here, but actually it’s not and it really helps me keep everything in order. The monthly Sales page (below) also helps me keep a record for the tax man as I have been known to spend hours and hours at the end of a year trying to find out how much I’ve sold throughout the year, and then, how much tax I’ve collected and how much ‘I think” I’ve spent on materials. Etsy and PayPal keep records for that I know, but well, I find this so much easier and it keeps my pieces organized at the same time.

So again this is pretty self explanatory and is again just an example.

This is where I write in how much the customer has been charged, by me, in total – including shipping and tax if any. The date it sold, the SKU number, how much it cost me to make (found on the first chart), the invoice number, the exact amount I’ve been charged in fees by PayPal etc. The exact amount it cost me to ship, and I also have a column where I can indicate which payment of a layaway it is if that’s relevant. (Layaways have a different baggie, but that’s for another time…)

I make two sheets for each month. The one above and this one.

On this one I just write the date, what it is I’ve bought, whether I paid via PayPal, or another way and finally the amount I paid. I really only use it for supplies but you could put equipment, etc., here also.

And at the end of each month I can calculate each column and put their totals on here.

The Supreme Commander Chart.

And at the end of the year I can add up all the columns and be able to tell the tax man exactly how much I sold and how much it cost me in materials without having to resort to drinking.

You’ll have to ask Peter how to do all of the other tax stuff because, frankly – not my thing. Sorry. As long as it’s all done I will just thank him nicely and make him an extra cup of tea.

And that’s how I organize. It sounds involved, but it really isn’t. It works well for me. If you’re like me and make a lot and are absent minded and can’t find something when it’s sold, this might work for you also. There are a lot of systems out there and I know many are much better than this one so use at your own risk…

If you happen to find that none of this is clear nor makes sense you’re probably not the only one.

I made my charts using Pages on my computer. You can use my examples if you wish or make up something that makes more sense to you.

Stay well

?

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–

I woke up one day and had nothing to say.

Actually it wasn’t one day as it had been creeping up on me for some time. Since my dad died to be honest.

And that was that for the blog.

And for my motivation.

I don’t really know if I’ve come back from being gone yet but I’m going to try hard this year to get back some purpose.

I’ve got a new house and a new grandson.

What’s not to feel motivated about.

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–

–

I don’t do New year’s resolutions because they make me anxious and I just feel set up for failure.

I prefer to call them good intentions.

To be honest I have a lot of good intentions throughout the year which I often fall short on, but it always feels on-going for me. Like I haven’t lost my last chance of doing well on the test.

I love the potential of the New Year. It makes me feel hopeful. A fresh start to clear the way. and in many ways I prefer it to Christmas.

Just don’t tell Santa.

It makes my head feel lighter like it does when I have my hair cut. Granted my hair is pretty short, but that extra couple of millimeters really bring me down. God knows what I’m going to do this week as my appointment isn’t until the 9th and I can already feel it creeping down toward my knees…

So here we are again and my whole life is opened up before me. What will I do with it all because at 58 I’m really beginning to feel an urge to get going on my life plan.

Depression gets in the way of life plans.

I suffer with depression.

It takes away my umph and makes the sofa a thing of beauty.

In the short time (or sometimes long time) it takes me to wake up and get up I can have gone from being excited to make something or do something to knowing that there’s no point.

It’s like I’ve done it already in my head so why bother.

I share this for those of you who suffer also so that you know you’re not alone, because sometimes it makes me feel ridiculous. As though I make it up and that, of course, I can snap myself out of it.

An interesting thing, however, happened to me a couple of months back. I was having lunch with an old friend and she mentioned that she didn’t think that she had ever been depressed. That she felt down at times and fed up, but that she didn’t think that she ever had been really depressed. It took me by surprise as I really thought that everyone was depressed. That it was just a symptom of life. So maybe ‘snapping out of it’ for me is different than for her.

Just a thought.

Anyway, that said, I do feel excited for the new year.

I do have lots of good intentions and I’m ready to see where they take me.

Most of them involve creativity, but a few important ones involve moving onwards and upwards with my attitude toward myself. Those mostly regarding the negative thoughts that don’t just creep in as I always thought, but that live constantly with me.

Damn them.

So.

I have paintings to finish.

I have jewelry to develop.

I have books to work on.

(I love writing my books. It’s my happy place which is probably why I avoid it.)

I have good food to make.

I have less wine to drink.

I have more smiling to do.

(That’s almost as good as a haircut)

I have books to read.

I have getting out of bed as soon as I wake up to do.

I have more arguing with the Texas humidity to do so that I can take a walk more often.

Might have to give that one up and get the tread mill out.

?

I have getting a better attitude toward the tread mill to work on.

And I have the Noble Peace Price to attain.

(This is probably just an interesting pshycological consequence of being told I’d never amount to anything, but I’m just going to go with it. Can’t hurt.)

I could go on, but don’t want to get myself too excited that I have to lie down again.

The struggle is real…

So I’ll leave you all with a little lovely something that happened last night.

A grandson from one daughter and a wedding from the other.

What’s not to like.

Now we just have to figure out what to do with the boy…

Wishing you all a good year.

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–

A couple of biggies happened this year which seem to have blown me off course.

First my middle daughter got married in April which was lovely. My son and I arranged and decorated for it and I must say that Stephen turned out to be a great wedding planner – much to his mortification at being associated with lovely flowery things… and hearts.

Here she is with her sister.

Then.

And now.

Goes quickly doesn’t it…

We also went home to visit a couple of times. I would go back to live in England in a heartbeat but that trip wears me out and always knocks me back.

So the jewelry was put on hold for a while which I’m not sure was a good thing as it seems to have put me off track somewhat.

The final big thing was having the studio renovated which took far longer due to trips etc. than we expected.

I only wanted a new floor.

Really I did.

I had a concrete floor put in when we first built the studio and I thought it was going to be treated and have that lovely smooth finish and it would be practical and easy to clean. But no. The nice man who thought he knew better than me didn’t treat it and I didn’t complain and after a while it became pitted and stained and the worse floor ever to keep clean. I actually don’t think it was clean for ten years however much I swept vacuumed and washed it. It was a health hazard and when we hired a contractor to talk about renovating our house I asked if after that was done he would put in a new floor for me.

This is when my husband had the brilliant (I must admit) idea of renovating the studio first and then moving into it while the house was done.

I am incredibly lucky as my studio is like a small house. It has four rooms which we designed to be converted into a ‘granny’ annex if we ever moved so the store room was plumbed for a future bathroom and the kitchen area arranged so that it could semi function as such if we ever needed it to.

The kids have all up and left, except that the boy came back (still trying to impress on him the need to move back out, but I must admit I’ll miss him. You never know when a new flower arranging extravaganza will come up) and so we had looked, (I would say on and off for at least four years), for a smaller house to buy closer in town. The houses were great and we saw so many that we could have easily lived in but typically they had no gardens and definitely no room for an outside studio so eventually we decided to stay in this far too big for us house and renovate.

It took me forever to move all of my stuff out of the studio. I seriously believe I had more stuff packed in there than we have now packed from the house.

On a side note I don’t actually know what planet Peter lives on but he seriously doesn’t believe I need it all.

?

Now, except for most of my jewelry stuff, it’s all in the garage waiting for us to move back into the house so it can come back inside the studio to play.

The studio came out wonderfully and this week we finally moved into it and, I must say, I might not want to move out of it ever again.

Well that’s what I say now…

It’s not ideal to have your jewelry studio in your living room, but hopefully it won’t be for too long and perhaps I’ll take the opportunity to write more and to finish some of the paintings I have lying around and so not create as much dust and fumes as normal. I’m also going to be a grandmother in February so I think a baby blanket is in order. I’ve not tried Tunisian crochet before so I’m going to give it a go.

Little Monkeys Designs

Only the colour will be a mustard because that’s how my middle daughter likes to roll.

?

And so that’s me.

I’m not completely convinced that I want to share my studio with Peter. It’s like an intrusion on my sacred ground, but as it was his idea to renovate it and it’s way nicer now than just having a new floor, I might have to give in on that score.

WARNING:

Although no flash photography was used in the making of this video, because I wasn’t sure if anyone would really be interested in what the studio looks like and so felt a little silly filming it, I kind of rushed it. Not super rushed, but enough to say whoa, hang on a minute there girl while I let the dizziness pass.

Enter at your peril…

So you can see that I’ve still a bit of unpacking and sorting to do and the jewelry area does look a bit out of place. I’ve yet to down-size on the clutter and decide what to keep in here or not as it does look as though it’s all stuffed in right now and as I’m not the tidiest person in town I think perhaps the less I have hanging around the better. The one downside is that we have to have the litter boxes in the room with us as there’s nowhere else for them. I’m not sure that I’m going to be o.k. with that. Also there’s nowhere to hang the wet towels right now ? I’ll have to think about that one. But as none of these are world problems I think we’re good.

On a stranger note I happened to google my name the other day and this lovely lady popped up.

I don’t really know who she is (although she does look as though she’s in England) so I thought I’d show you the real me.

Try not to be disappointed that I’m not young, blonde, and beautiful as I’m sure you were all imagining…

Also Youtube seems to have changed things around since I last posted a video so I don’t know how to turn the sound off right now.

To be honest I don’t even know if the videos will post correctly.

?‍♀️

So now you’ve seen my face I’m going to have to eat you.

Ha! you thought that was just for disposing of paper evidence didn’t you…

–

–

–

A couple of biggies happened this year which seem to have blown me off course.

First my middle daughter got married in April which was lovely. My son and I arranged and decorated for it and I must say that Stephen turned out to be a great wedding planner – much to his mortification at being associated with lovely flowery things… and hearts.

Here she is with her sister.

Then.

And now.

Goes quickly doesn’t it…

We also went home to visit a couple of times. I would go back to live in England in a heartbeat but that trip wears me out and always knocks me back.

So the jewelry was put on hold for a while which I’m not sure was a good thing as it seems to have put me off track somewhat.

The final big thing was having the studio renovated which took far longer due to trips etc. than we expected.

I only wanted a new floor.

Really I did.

I had a concrete floor put in when we first built the studio and I thought it was going to be treated and have that lovely smooth finish and it would be practical and easy to clean. But no. The nice man who thought he knew better than me didn’t treat it and I didn’t complain and after a while it became pitted and stained and the worse floor ever to keep clean. I actually don’t think it was clean for ten years however much I swept vacuumed and washed it. It was a health hazard and when we hired a contractor to talk about renovating our house I asked if after that was done he would put in a new floor for me.

This is when my husband had the brilliant (I must admit) idea of renovating the studio first and then moving into it while the house was done.

I am incredibly lucky as my studio is like a small house. It has four rooms which we designed to be converted into a ‘granny’ annex if we ever moved so the store room was plumbed for a future bathroom and the kitchen area arranged so that it could semi function as such if we ever needed it to.

The kids have all up and left, except that the boy came back (still trying to impress on him the need to move back out, but I must admit I’ll miss him. You never know when a new flower arranging extravaganza will come up) and so we had looked, (I would say on and off for at least four years), for a smaller house to buy closer in town. The houses were great and we saw so many that we could have easily lived in but typically they had no gardens and definitely no room for an outside studio so eventually we decided to stay in this far too big for us house and renovate.

It took me forever to move all of my stuff out of the studio. I seriously believe I had more stuff packed in there than we have now packed from the house.

On a side note I don’t actually know what planet Peter lives on but he seriously doesn’t believe I need it all.

?

Now, except for most of my jewelry stuff, it’s all in the garage waiting for us to move back into the house so it can come back inside the studio to play.

The studio came out wonderfully and this week we finally moved into it and, I must say, I might not want to move out of it ever again.

Well that’s what I say now…

It’s not ideal to have your jewelry studio in your living room, but hopefully it won’t be for too long and perhaps I’ll take the opportunity to write more and to finish some of the paintings I have lying around and so not create as much dust and fumes as normal. I’m also going to be a grandmother in February so I think a baby blanket is in order. I’ve not tried Tunisian crochet before so I’m going to give it a go.

Only the colour will be a mustard because that’s how my middle daughter likes to roll.

?

And so that’s me.

I’m not completely convinced that I want to share my studio with Peter. It’s like an intrusion on my sacred ground, but as it was his idea to renovate it and it’s way nicer now than just having a new floor, I might have to give in on that score.

WARNING:

Although no flash photography was used in the making of this video, because I wasn’t sure if anyone would really be interested in what the studio looks like and so felt a little silly filming it, I kind of rushed it. Not super rushed, but enough to say whoa, hang on a minute there girl while I let the dizziness pass.

Enter at your peril…

So you can see that I’ve still a bit of unpacking and sorting to do and the jewelry area does look a bit out of place. I’ve yet to down-size on the clutter and decide what to keep in here or not as it does look as though it’s all stuffed in right now and as I’m not the tidiest person in town I think perhaps the less I have hanging around the better. The one downside is that we have to have the litter boxes in the room with us as there’s nowhere else for them. I’m not sure that I’m going to be o.k. with that. Also there’s nowhere to hang the wet towels right now ? I’ll have to think about that one. But as none of these are world problems I think we’re good.

On a stranger note I happened to google my name the other day and this lovely lady popped up.

I don’t really know who she is (although she does look as though she’s in England) so I thought I’d show you the real me.

Try not to be disappointed that I’m not young, blonde, and beautiful as I’m sure you were all imagining…

Also Youtube seems to have changed things around since I last posted a video so I don’t know how to turn the sound off right now.

To be honest I don’t even know if the videos will post correctly.

?‍♀️

I had cut the clip from the first video and then I thought, why not.

–

So now you’ve seen my face I’m going to have to eat you.

Ha! you thought that was just for disposing of paper evidence didn’t you…

–

–

–

Perhaps it’s because the studio is being renovated and I’m make-doing in my dining room.

Perhaps it’s because we left for a visit home and I got all jet-lagged and everything.

Maybe I’m homesick and don’t know it.

Or perhaps it’s just one of those, ‘it goes in cycles’ things.

Whatever it is, it better hurry up and sort itself out because I don’t want to play any more…

I don’t think I’ll ever understand how one day you can’t put a foot wrong. Everything is going right for weeks and weeks and weeks and then bam! you go to bed one night and the next day you can’t make a darn thing work. 

To be fair on myself, I am betwixt and between things.

I’m in the dining room trying to work and all around me my house is in boxes waiting for its turn to be renovated. It’s unsettling as I’m always thinking I should be doing something else.

There are always people in my studio, which of course is where they should be, but I feel as though I’m just in here twiddling my thumbs. Not getting on with anything ‘important’.

And to top it all off I just finished a few pieces that I ended up melting down because they weren’t doing it for me.

And so my world has ended.

Woe and more woe.

I look at all the beautiful pieces that people are making on Instagram and think – why? 

Why me?

What has my life come to?

Will I ever be able to make anything again?

(Too dramatic?)

Well that’s what it feels like anyway.

Anyone else?

I must admit that since I stopped making my jewelry for charity I kind of feel that I’ve lost my purpose. Where’s the reason for making it?

I reached a mile stone for the amount I gave to charity and thought that perhaps it was enough. That considering the world’s horribleness doesn’t look like it’s going to be fixed any time soon that mine was a pretty futile effort.

I don’t know.

I enjoyed sharing what I’d learned with others, but now it seems I can’t even come up with anything remotely interesting so that’s also gone out of the window.

So roll on tomorrow and bring me some meaning.

Or at least a spark of interest.

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So if any of you have read the little box to the top right of this page you will have learned that I’m a recovering hypochondriac. Which is actually code for I take anxiety medicine. This makes me laugh because I had no idea that hypochondria was a form of anxiety. I just thought I was a full blown Woody Allenesque wimp – but with more hair. (Actually that’s not true as my hair is probably shorter than his. Unless he’s bald in which case I definitely have a smidgen more). The medicine helps, but I still have bouts when all kinds of illnesses come back to tease me. Some of which I’d never heard of before, and wish I’d never heard of. I mean vulva cancer. Come on!

I even had to stop reading one of my favourite murder mystery series because the detective’s sister is a doctor and so all sorts of intriguing illnesses are thrown into the mix. Of course I had them all. Even the ones that only men can get because, of course, the doctors could be wrong…

It’s known as hyper-vigilance. I can also have it when I’m in the movie theatre and someone is eating their popcorn loudly. It makes me cringe up inside and it’s all I can concentrate on. I seem to try to make myself as small as possible as if to protect myself from outside noises.

Weird right?

When I learned that it was all a form of anxiety I felt so relieved that I laughed out loud. O.K. and I felt a little stupid for not knowing about it before. Not that I wanted anxiety, but because it explained a lot of things about me. Some things that I’m still discovering. But it means I can now stop in the throes of it all and try to figure it out. Doesn’t always work but at least I know what it is now, and the medicine, however much I hate taking it, helps.

One thing that I’ve always suffered from, and I will say suffer because sometimes is debilitating, is a lack of confidence.

I’m definitely a perfectionist, which I actually like about myself. I don’t think this is necessarily a problem for me or actually the cause of my confidence issues. It can be frustrating, but I think it’s a quality that helps me strive to make things better and to always be moving forward. I’m not saying that this is always a good thing and I could definitely do with spreading the effort around a little more – like in the case of housework for instance.

Nah…

So here I am – again – in the middle of a mini self-confidence crisis, which no-one can help me with. Compliments (and believe me I’m not looking for any) in my top heavy world of insecurity actually makes it worse.

Right now I’m wanting to literally contact everyone that has ever bought anything from me for in the past ten years to ask to buy it back.

Yep. It’s that bad.

So what to do about it?

I want to answer – to give myself no chance whatsoever to mess up so that I won’t be caught in a mistake and people won’t be disappointed with my work (aka me) – but that’s an awfully small box to put myself in and I actually think it’s impossible so I figure that I’ll just have to ride it out.

Again.

Or maybe I could hit myself on the head so that I lose consciousness for a couple of days until it’s all over and I forget altogether what the hell I was worried about in the first place.

Could work.

But before I try that I thought I’d share the struggle because I know there are a lot of others out there who suffer the same way.

I see you.

We’ll be o.k.

🙂

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I thought I’d just offer a little tip, but then decided I would go ahead with another quick show and tell on how I make a simple ring – I want to say shank, but am pretty sure that’s not what it’s called and I can’t for the life of me think of another name for it…

Just not that good at words sometimes.

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So first up. The tip.

It’s not a big tip and probably everyone does it, but I used to get frustrated trying to straighten up wire. Don’t laugh.

Wire straightener – riogrande.com #116717

Personally I never use it, but if you want to straighten longer lengths of wire for viking weaving etc., I’m sure it would be pretty handy.

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Now for the ring.

This is just a simply way of making a ring shank. (I just looked it up and I think it might be called a shank after all). There are so many ways to make rings and everyone makes them differently, but I just wanted a simple band (haha! I think I have the word I was looking for. Came naturally when I wasn’t looking…) but with more support because the top of the ring is larger and a single band seems too thin for it. There are different styles also so chances are you won’t want to use this one. But just in case you do and have never made one before…

There is a chart for working out lengths of wire that you need for each particular ring size. I’m just too lazy to bother with it, but if you really want to be economical with your silver you should look at it.

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In this video I have already made the top of the ring as I wasn’t planning on making a show and tell.

As always be warned that I don’t edit but I do make the videos in snippits so you can skip around. If you click on the video it will take you to YouTube, but you’ll have to come back to the blog to watch the next one. The show and tells really are just for beginning jewelry makers that might need a little encouragement so the idea of them being out there in the YouTube universe kind of seems too much.

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Ring mandrel – riogrande.com #112390 – this is a stepped mandrel which would be more accurate.

NOTE: If you use the wire/length chart above be aware that different gauge wire would alter the fit of the ring slightly. If, for instance, the wire is thick the inside diameter of the final band would be smaller so that’s something to be aware of. Also this chart will make a perfect ring shape and I have taken some of that out so you will still cut too much silver for this particular style. If you do cut the wire to the correct length, however, you can hammer the ends and file them down before bending it into the ring shape. Not as fiddly, but I’m often down for fiddly…

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Diamond burs – riogrande.com #346063 – there are lots of different burs of different quality, but this is a cheap starter pack which includes various shapes. Once you’ve figured out which bur you use the most you can invest in more expensive ones.

Silicon polishing wheels – riogrande.com #332579 – again there are lots of different silicon wheels so it’s a matter of experimenting until you find those that work best for you.

Snap on sanding discs – HERE – you will also need the snap on mandrel which you’ll find at the bottom of the page.

Graver – this is a selection of gravers – HERE – I use one with a sharp point to scrape any solder that may have flowed into textured pieces. You’ll find them at riogrande.com also

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O.K. so here’s the thing. My buffing machine should be bolted down onto the table, but I’ve never got around to it. Don’t judge me…

I just haven’t found a spot that I’d like it to stay in and it’s usually o.k. However when I first started out I made the mistake of buffing a length of chain that I was holding too loosely and it whipped around the wheel (and my hand) and as I tried to jump away I pulled the whole thing onto the floor. This is when the knob fell off.

DO NOT DO THIS!!! (I can’t write that loud enough) I’ve stupidly done this twice (maybe three times, but I’m not admitting to anything). It hurts and it could have been a lot worse than it was. Fortunately I only broke the machine, but I nearly took my fingernail off and had to say ouchy ouchy more times than I’d like to tell you when the chain was wrapped around my hand so tightly that I didn’t think I’d be able to get it off especially as my eyes were watering as I tried to use my not so good at cutting left hand.

I can’t stress enough how dangerous the buffing machine can be. My new one, because I think I’m going to have to get another one, will be screwed down. Don’t make me come out there to smack some sense into you as someone should have done to me…

Just sayin’

Black Max – riogrande.com

3m yellow radial discs 80 grit – riogrande.com #326026 – There are different grits for different jobs, but I mainly use this one.

You can buy a selection pack of them if you’d like to experiment with each grit at – riogrande.com #326024

NOTE that I like to use the 7/8 size. You can buy the smaller ones here – riogrande.com #332595

I use this wheel on my buffing machine to finish my piece – riogrande.com #330541

And this is the smaller buff for my handpiece – riogrande.com #338130

This is the link to the new mask I have – HERE – So far I like it and it’s easy to get on and off. It seems to push down on my nose a little which made me sniff in the video, but I think I just need to adjust it more.

NOTE: The fibers from the buffing wheel and the dust from the Black Max will still be in the air when you turn the machine off. Normally I keep my mask on because of this. I do have a dust collector, but it isn’t connected to the buffing machine at the moment because we took it off so that Stephen could whip me up something less cumbersome than the set up I had. He never got back to me which is why I’m seriously considering cutting back on his food rations. With that and the knob situation I’m deciding if it’s really worth keeping him around…

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The video stops on this one as someone called me. Sorry.

It may seem like it in the video, but I’m not sanding an awful lot of the bezel thickness away. I’m just really skimming it over the surface to clean off the Black Max. If you want to try this just be careful to keep an eye on the blue masking tape so that you’re not sanding through it. You could also put two layers of tape over the stone if you’re worried you might damage it.

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And that’s it!

Hopefully it wasn’t too boring. As I said it’s really just to encourage new jewelry makers to have a go. I found rings quite intimidating at first and couldn’t quite figure out the best way to do it.

This is one way to make a simple ring band. Someone else would make it differently and probably far better, but it’s just a beginning and you can go on from there.

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Hopefully you’ll be able to see what I’m doing in these videos as the first time I tried to make it for you everything at the end was out of the camera line and so was kind of a non starter 😉

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For this particular chain I’ve used 20 gauge fine silver. (You can use sterling silver, but it might be harder on your fingers). I’ve used a 9mm diameter mandrel to make the jump rings.

 I’m pretty sure that I have seen some charts that will tell you which gauge of wire to use with which diameter jump ring to make different sizes of chain, but I haven’t been able to find them yet. If you’re like me, however, good old trial and error works just as well. You can make some test runs with copper first to save messing up with your silver. Your main concern will be to avoid using a diameter ring which is too small for the wire gauge as you want the chain to move well and not be too stiff. 

O.K. So…

This time I only focused on making the actual chain and not how to make the jump rings. If you would like me to make a video on how to make and solder the jump rings just let me know

😉 

MATERIALS:

For 6″ length of chain

30 x 9mm, 20 Gauge Fine Silver Jump Rings.

Round nose pliers

Awl for jewelry, leather or bookmaking

Draw Plate

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This first video stops abruptly because my son came into the studio. It was kind of irritating, but we did have a nice chat about how I could edit him out…

NOTE: You don’t need to solder fine silver. If you make sure that the two ends of the jump ring are lined up perfectly and there isn’t a gap where you’re going to join them you can slowly and evenly heat the ring until the silver fuses itself. This just needs practice. 

LINKS:

Pepe Jump Ring Maker – riogrande.com #110189 – I have the older version of this tool. I really like it as it has a huge number of mandrels to choose from. You don’t need a jump ring maker, however, to make jump rings as you can wrap the wire around a length of dowel or something similar that is the width you’re looking for. Just be sure to wrap the wire as tightly as you can around the mandrel.

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I think the word I was looking for at the end of this video was ‘fluid’, but you get the idea. I haven’t found the need to anneal the chain once I’ve finished it, but perhaps if I used sterling silver I would. It just softens the silver up after you have worked with it so that all of the links move more easily. As I said you have to be careful when you anneal it if you have soldered the joins together because you don’t want the solder to re-melt. This is another good reason to fuse the fine silver instead of soldering.

LINKS:

Draw Plates – HERE – There are many different kinds of draw plates out there, but these are the ones I use. I’m sure for this purpose you could even make your own by drilling holes in a piece of wood.

Awl – HERE – Again there are loads of different needle tools out there. This one seems most like the one I use.

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And that’s it.

The only thing that might put someone off making this chain is that it’s fiddly, but once you get the hang of it it’s a breeze.

There are a few variations on this chain, such as the double Loop in Loop and also a triple one, but I haven’t made either of these yet as I’ve got to build myself up for extra fiddly.

Maybe later

😉

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I made a video on how to make the Link in Link chain for you, but right at the end, right at the crucial part where all the important stuff happens, I move my hands out of the camera view and you can’t see any of the good bits.

Here I’ve used two 3″ lengths of the Link in Link chain to make up this Mexican Fire Opal bracelet.

So a remake of the video is now on my to do list as it’s a really simple chain which you might like to have a go at making yourself. It’s fiddly, but once you get it down there’s nothing to it.

Just a note here on the videos I make.

I’m by no means an expert, but I don’t mind sharing how I make things with you. If you ever see something I’ve made and would like a, ‘behind the scenes’, just let me know. I’m not very good at making the videos. I can’t be bothered to delve into the tech depths of editing for instance, I’ve too many other things I’d rather be doing. So what I do in real time is what you get, so to speak, including all of my mistakes. And I do make mistakes which is annoying as oftentimes it’s just because I’m being lazy or not paying attention or I simply don’t really know what I’m doing and I’m making it up as I go along, but I think mistakes can also be good to share as it’s encouraging to see the ‘real’ stuff going down.

Well that’s my story anyway.

😉

I also get very bored, very easily and don’t know what to do next so a video challenge gives me something to do.

Except for when I’m depressed then we ain’t getting nothing.

But the sofa sees a lot of action.

I get depressed a lot.

Just one of those things.

I’m also a bit all or nothing. I’m either going full steam and don’t lift my head up, or at a full stop wondering what the point of it all is.

You know how it is…

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In other news. I went to the MFAH the other day to see the Royal Family which I really enjoyed. Well I enjoyed the Tudors and the Windsors. I didn’t care for the Stuart and Hanover paintings. Too wafty for me. I like the meat of the Holbeins.

I mean look at Anne with her lovely long neck.

I love the simplicity of this style of painting.

Unlike this style.

Which is a little too frivolous for me. I also don’t like all of the space around it.

Brilliant painting though.

He is George III. Mad King George. The one we got rid of in the U.S.

And here is Charlotte, his Queen, and interestingly enough the first black queen.

I didn’t know that.

Anyway. Back to the Tudors.

Lady Jane Grey.

What a tragedy.

Below is one of my favourite paintings of her in the exhibit.

According to the nice man on the audio tape it apparently was thought lost, destroyed in a flood, but was unexpectedly discovered rolled inside another painting years later in London with extensive water damage. It’s amazing how they were able to restore it.

You have to stand in front of it to feel the awfulness of it.

It was one of the only paintings in the exhibit that I felt compelled to go back to several times.

Then, of course, there was good old Henry himself.

Which was fantastical

🙂

Although this has to be my favourite.

I have to include one of the Earl of Essex of course because that where I come from.

He definitely looks like he knows how to get things done.

Thomas Cromwell

Of course he ended up with his head on the block.

And then there were the Windsors.

My people.

The Andy Warhol.

The Princess Di.

And this, my favourite, of the Queen.

I know. I know. Not quite her most flattering, but it was marvelous.

The one I stood in front of was the blue hologram (below) which doesn’t translate well from my photograph so I found you a decent one online.

It was mesmerizing. Almost magical.

Strange, but true…

Of course no good visit to the MFAH should end without a quickie to the African gold room.

A looksee at the wonderful little these things.

And a finish off in the what the hell happened in here room.

They make my rather large and peculiar butterfly necklace look rather mundane…

Happy Sunday.

🙂

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I’ve made these on and off over the years and thought I’d share with you how I make them if you’d like to give one a try.

So.

Same disclaimer as always.

I’m not a professional.

I don’t endorse any tools or materials, but just let you know what I use.

And last but not least.

I will deny any responsibility for your getting annoyed at the video in a court of law.

Moving on…

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I am definitely a make it and figure it out as I go along sort of person. I also forget from one minute to the next what I’m doing. Usually I’m not showing anyone else so I can generally get away with it 😉

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I like to put a design on the back of the pieces I make because I think it looks nicer if the necklace turns while someone is wearing it. It also serves the purpose of being able to work the stone out of the bezel setting when I’m making it and for releasing hot air when soldering.

NOTE: I soldered the box edges (the bezel wire) onto a piece of silver. I’m showing you on this larger piece of silver, but I had cut a smaller piece before I soldered the box sides on.

NOTE: Making sure that the flow of silver is continuous on the outside of the bezel wall is relevant to any bezel making. When I first started to make jewelry I used to be disappointed when I could see little pits along the outside of the setting. It took me a while to realize that if I took a little time to make sure I could see a continuous line when the solder flowed to the outside edge my finished pieces would look far better. You can help the solder flow by using your pick to spread it evenly or, if this doesn’t work, it might be that you haven’t enough solder and need to add just a little more. Even if it looks great on the inside it can still be pitted on the outside.

If you find that you need to cut down a piece of bezel wire that is too high for the stone and you have already soldered it onto the silver backing you can mark the sides with a sharpie, adjust a pair of dividers to the amount you want to cut away, and then run the point of the dividers around the bottom of the bezel wire. This leaves a fine line that you can use as a guide to file, or sand, the excess away. To make sure that you have the edge completely flat you can finish it up by then marking the bottom with a sharpie and sanding it in a figure of eight motion on a flat piece of sand paper until all of the sharpie has gone.

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I was trying to focus the camera closer to the work and so it doesn’t show that I’m just picking up small pieces of solder with my pick and bringing them back to the small cutouts.

Solder will stick to the end of the pick If you heat up the pick and ball up small pieces of solder at the same time. They have to both be hot. Then you can bring your pick back to whatever you’re working on.

I do the same thing when I’m soldering a ball into place except I replace the pick with the ball. I pick the ball up with a pair of long tweezers and take it over to the solder. The ball is thicker and more solid than the small pieces of solder so the ball has to be heated more before the solder will stick to its bottom. Then you can take the ball back over to the piece you’re working on. If the back plate is as hot as the ball, the ball should solder onto the plate with no trouble. If the plate is not hot enough the solder may come up over the ball. The temperatures have to be the same with anything you’re soldering and you have to bear in mind that each piece, due to its size and thickness, will take different amounts of heat to attain this. Only when both pieces are the same temperature can the solder join them.

I often shield a piece I’m working on with my hands to double check that I’ve got the pieces in the right position for soldering. If the light source is coming from one direction it can be deceptive.

If you’re looking for a shiny surface in the finished piece, obviously you wouldn’t sand the silver as I do. I like a more matt, buffed, look and so this doesn’t affect the finished piece.

You won’t always need to put a stopper inside the box. It just depends on the fit of the stone.

You have to look around the web for the Wolverine Ultra Silver Brazing Flux as it seems to vary in price and availability. I use mine by putting a small amount of it in a smaller jar and mixing it with distilled water until it’s fairly runny. Even though I keep a lid on it the water evaporates out of this very quickly so each time I open it I have to add more water. This seems to work well for me though.

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Cross locking tweezers – riogrande.com – #115206

Honeycomb soldering block – riogrande.com – #502005

Soldering pegs – I can’t find where the pegs are sold separately, but you can find some here – riogrande.com – #111039

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TIP: Unless you like living on the edge as I do you might want to measure the height of your prongs first 😉

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It would have been easier for me in the long run if I’d made up my mind about the small pieces of balled wire that I added at the end before I soldered the box onto the back plate. It’s not a problem to add things afterward, but whenever you solder anything onto a piece after you have added the prongs you have to be very careful not to re-melt the prong solder. I just kept the flame away from that area and kept a good eye on it, but you can coat the areas that you don’t want to be affected with that yellow oxide powder that I used in a previous show and tell. I just forgot about it – again… (riogrande.com – #504080)

As it was I cut the wire to the correct height and held them in place with tweezers using the same technique as with the prongs.

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And some older work using the box.

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Next up I’m thinking of making some more of these if you’re interested in another show and tell.

🙂

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As you probably know by now my video skills leave a lot to be desired. I had wanted to make a, ‘why don’t you make one along with me’, video of the Cheetah Jasper necklace, but what with the glare and the constant fumbling around for my grown up words and then forgetting to explain what I’m doing I have decided that really this is just a show and tell.

If you are able to make anything of it that helps with your own jewelry making I congratulate you 🙂

NOTES AND LINKS:

Indian Jewelry Supply not Art Supply, but I’m not sure if they’re around anymore.

Short-Handle 1lb Brass Head Hammer – Rio 112061

Lindstrom HS6001 Cutter Shears

Buffalo Rutland Stamps

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Chasing tool from 2moontools on Etsy.

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Turned out to be no dilemma at all as I only had 23 gauge anyway 🙂

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I use an acetylene/air torch and mostly pick solder.

Here I’m using the little silver balls to pick the solder up instead of my pick. I pick the ball up in my tweezers and take it to a pile of solder chips I have laying on my brick. I heat a little piece of the solder which then attaches itself to the bottom of the ball. I keep it heated as I move it back toward the leaf.

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I mainly put the little hammered balls under the pieces that make up the bottom layer. I do this to bring the pattern up off the back plate to give it some dimension. As I build the picture up I don’t use as many balls but instead lay pieces where I think they will best suit the design.

I generally have all of the solder ready to go on the bottom of each piece.

As I said, I’ll try to figure out a good way to video the process without the glare and try to show you how it all comes together on another piece.

I know you can hardly wait…

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BeadSmith 1-Step Big Looper Plier

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Abrasive wheels.

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I was going to write about my New Year’s Intention to work on protecting my boundaries without feeling guilty and how Joe from Little Women is my new, just be yourself, hero.

I was also going to tell you about the face rash I developed the week before I was due to fly to England for Christmas which I thought was shingles and which I just knew would prevent me from getting onto the airplane due to being infectious to pregnant women and children and how I would have to stay home alone to suffer my own sad and lonely holiday, but which simply turned out to be an allergic reaction to hugging a friend.

I was also going to tell you about how I’ve fallen three times since August due to not paying enough attention to where I’m placing my feet and how the third time I fell, on Boxing Day, although it seemed that I barely touched the floor with my knee, it resulted in a bruise to end all bruises which has systematically migrated from the tip of my left kneecap down to cover the whole of the front of my shin and which is, even now, moving around to the side of my leg and down to my ankle.

I was also going to tell you that Christmas was good albeit especially cold on the one day we chose to spend in London drinking cocktails in the Ice Bar (because why not spend 45 minutes in a room even colder than the already bitter outside) and taking the Jack the Ripper tour well into the dark, bitter evening. And how I was disappointed with the tour because I, and I think most everybody alive today, already knows the ins and outs and the hows, whos and whys of this particular serial killer and as most of the sites the guide took us to are now either modern office buildings or parts of London which did nothing to call up the horrors of the day we could have happily sat with the guide in a warm pub drinking beer as he pointed to the pertinent locations on a map. All I could think about the day after were the poor half frozen to death prostitutes waiting for tricks on dark miserable corners with nothing but the prospect of getting drunk silly on gin and orange to keep them warm. Which reminds me to look up the months that the murders took place as the idea of a knife piercing already bone-chillingly numb skin seems somehow worse than if the murders took place in the summer months.

Just me?

I could also tell you how my daughters boyfriend approached me ONE week before we all left for London and asked me to help him make her an engagement ring. Of course he had zero experience and had never made a piece of jewelry before and I had never made a prong setting, but we did it in spite of, or maybe because of, the fact that I told him every inch of the way that he wouldn’t be able to do it. A somewhat new approach for me from the encouragement I normally give my kids.

He did good

🙂

But then I decided to not tell you about any of this, but instead just wish you all a Happy New Year

🙂

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This is my first video series and it’s been a bit of a learning curve to understand YouTube and what I wanted from it when I uploaded my videos on there so I thought I’d just give a quick explanation of my thinking here.

When I made the videos I knew there’d be some extra notes that I’d want to include as I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to talk and make the piece at the same time. I think I did pretty well with most of them, but there are one or two which I felt needed a little further explanation.

Also I’ve included a lot of links to the materials I’ve used etc. for those who would like to know and there are no notes for any of this on YouTube.

To be honest, the idea of anyone being able to watch this on YouTube worried me a little bit also. You guys may know how I muddle through and perhaps forgive me for it, but there’s a lot of stranger danger out there in the grown up world.

I’m hoping this will work out, but just let me know if you have any trouble.

The first part of the tutorial is HERE

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I gave it a smiley face there because I’m really happy that I’m going home to see my family, but even as I write this I can feel the anxiety tingling away in my chest having a party all on its own.

Big chicken when it comes to flying.

Big melodramatic chicken.

I’ve spent this week saying goodbye to all of my stuff. Slowly at first, but with more sadness yesterday and today.

(Did I mention the melodramatic part?)

That said and done I think it will be good for me to get out of dodge for a while. I’m ready for something to break up the vacuum of stuckness this year has hanging over it.

So yah for me.

(Still nervous)

On the upside.

Sausages in a crusty roll with Daddy’s sauce.

Pork Pies

Fish and Chips

Beef Pie

And last, but not least, I’m determined to have a dish from my childhood.

Pie and Mash with lots of liquor – and I don’t mean the alcoholic kind…

lum

All washed down with a pint of bitter.

Hey. If it was good enough for the Queen Mum it’s good enough for me…

So if I don’t come home fatter than I’ve ever been in my whole life, something has gone terribly wrong.

Might have to have the old arteries checked out also.

Best wishes and let it be a really good Happy New Year to everyone.

🙂

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I’ve finally picked up the pace again.

I’ve mostly been doing custom orders which is kind of nice in that terrifying kind of way.

First there was this one which I made using the customers own stone.

And then a ring, again using the customers stone

And finally one with yet another customers stone.

This last one was hard for me as the stone was huge and very thick and was also bevelled on both sides.

When I took it on I thought it was a regular flat backed cabochon which would have been easier to set, but with the back undercut as well I had to spend a lot of time fiddling around with it to make it sit well in the setting. As a consequence I used a lot more silver than expected. This is actually the second attempt so there was a whole bunch of silver that had to be scraped before I even got to this point.

The lady wanted bees and honeycombs to complement the stone.

To be honest I didn’t like it at all.

Not the stone, nor the design and I know that if I were a better jewelry maker it wouldn’t have been a problem.

When I showed the lady she said that I was close, that if I just took all of the silver off and put a couple of bees in the corner I would have it.

On top of that I had set the stone bottom up as the carving was supposed to be on the underneath.

I felt really awful.

🙁

I didn’t blame her as to me it was always a horrible piece, but I just couldn’t bear to do it a third time so I finally apologized to her and returned the stone.

I think perhaps now I can’t do anymore custom orders because I hate disappointing people.

I tried to like the challenge of working through the piece, however, I wasted a hell of a lot of silver which I have since melted down, but it means a lot of work rolling it out again. I did figure out a lot of things through trial and error, but really I didn’t enjoy it at all and think it ended up with all my bad energy in it.

Even looking at its photo gives me a bad feeling so I’m pleased it doesn’t exist anymore.

If the lady is reading this I’m sorry.

I tried.

Then another custom order with a stone I cut myself this time.

Although one of its ball fell off.

Man!

After that I gave up jewelry.

Again.

Fortunately I forgot that I’d given it up fairly soon and decided to make a couple of pieces with some more stones I’d cut myself.

I didn’t cut this one below, but it’s definitely one of my favourite stones.

Nor did I cut these ones, but I am definitely working on never buying another cabochon again.

Yeah, right!

Here are some of the other stones I cut.

Such a proud stone mamma lol

And here is what I worked on yesterday and which I’m going to have to fix today

Call it OCD or what you will, but that left hand leaf is just going to have to go which means heating it off and putting a new one on. Which also means that I’ll probably have to reset the prongs again as they’ll most likely come off as well.

Jeez.

Then I think I’m going to try to stick to some simpler things.

Like the bangle below.

Why do I always have to make things so complicated for myself.

🙁

One day I’m going to make something that doesn’t have bits falling off it when I do the final polish.

It’s so incredibly annoying.

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My life just slipped into what it is now.

Like just the other day around 55 years ago I was just starting on it, and now I’m still just starting on it.

I have an on again off again relationship with making a go of it.

It being whatever I think I’d like to be when I grow up.

I went to art school after school because a teacher told me I should and I didn’t know what else to do.

Two years foundation course and three years for my degree in Sculpture of all things.

I had a bit of a hard time telling mum about that little chestnut.

She thought I’d signed up for painting and didn’t know what the hell I’d be able to do with a Sculpture degree.

I wondered what she thought I’d do with a painting degree.

Paint houses and garden fences?

After art school I worked in London.

Reality hit me in my last year of school and I spent some evenings copying text from Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake to teach myself how to type on an old manual typewriter that I picked up from somewhere or other.

Not good on the fingers let me tell you.

Anyway, after a few disastrous interviews that the temp agency sent me on, like the one at the Bank of America in London where I not only had to sit in a little room, along with I don’t know how many other applicants for the one job, to do a maths exam, after explicitly telling the temp agency that I did not want a job which had anything remotely, at all, whatsoever to do with numbers of any kind, even my favourite ones, but I also had to go on to name all of the capitals of all of the countries in all of the whole darn world for heaven sakes.

Really!

Didn’t get that job by the way.

Canberra tripped me right up.

I then had an interview at a film studio. I think it was Twickenham Film Studios, but I can’t remember because it was a thousand years ago now. They opened a door to let me in and I swear I’ve never walked inside such a rambling confusion of stairways and corridors in my life. The place was so huge that if I actually got the job I didn’t think I’d ever get out alive. They would find my skeletal remains five years after I’d starved to death in some grimy corner of an abandoned stairwell the first time I was sent out to the coffee machine.

Fortunately I didn’t get that job either.

I eventually got a job in a large accountancy firm, (I know. Numbers. That temp woman never did get it right) called Arthur Young McClelland Moore, and although I didn’t last a month upstairs in the pencil ordering department because I was apparently too shy when it came to talking with suppliers, I wheedled my too shy self into a job downstairs in the graphics department where I ended up manually cutting and pasting type for brochures and booklets and the like and even got to draw overhead projection slides.

Go me.

Then we moved to Malaysia, and so, after my two whole years of working in London for a living, I had to quit to follow P into the oil and gas insurance biz.

So that’s me.

After Malaysia came America, where 27 years ago I was assured by the said oil and gas insurance guy we would only live for two years, and then kids. Three of them. All wanting to live in the same house as me.

Somehow my life just drifted by.

I tell you this because I feel I’m in some kind of almost land right now.

I’m almost back to blogging.

I’m almost over crying about dad.

Except yesterday my sister told me that a large old black lady came by dad’s house this weekend when my brother-in-law was there, thankful to be able to tell someone how much she was sorry about the old man who had lived there as he used to always carry her bags for her when he saw her coming down the street.

Strangers strangers everywhere making me cry again.

And laugh because who knew there were so many of them out there. They mostly only knew him as the man with the dog, but still needed to come up to tell us how much they liked him and how sorry they were to hear that he died.

So yesterday I bought a domain name and worked on a new site.

Just for kicks perhaps. But I think because I also liked him.

A lot.

It’s not open yet and perhaps it never will be as I’ve got Cold Feet, but who knows.

Maybe it will remind me that this is all I ever needed to be be when I grow up.

Someone like dad.

If I can get out of almost land that is.

fredandsylv.com

_

By the way, the first paragraph of Titus Groan is one of my all time favourites.

‘Gormenghast, that is, the main massing of the original stone, taken by itself would have displayed a certain ponderous architectural quality were it possible to have ignored the circumfusion of those mean dwellings that swarmed like an epidemic around its outer walls. They sprawled over the sloping earth, each one half way over its neighbour until, held back by the castle ramparts, the innermost of these hovels laid hold on the great walls, clamping themselves thereto like limpets to a rock. These dwellings, by ancient law, were granted this chill intimacy with the stronghold that loomed above them. Over their irregular roofs would fall throughout the seasons, the shadows of time-eaten buttresses, of broken and lofty turrets, and, most enormous of all, the shadow of the Tower of Flints. This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven. At night the owls made of it an echoing throat; by day it stood voiceless and cast its long shadow.’

See.

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Yep. Still here. Still a bit P O’d about you know what, but soldiering on… 😉

The weekend before last I did the art fair. This is when I wished I didn’t live in Houston.

Because of the weather.

Had to change my clothes three times.

I’m so over it.

I didn’t do as well this time. I think it was my attitude. My booth mate couldn’t make it because we had a rain date due to the fact that the heavens have decided to dump every last drop of water it has on Houston right now. I seriously wouldn’t mind sharing it with Alberta.

I can’t imagine what they are going through.

My booth was in-between two friends, but I just felt a little sad and wanted to go home about an hour after unpacking everything.

Was probably putting out some pretty negative vibes and everyone decided to give me a miss.

That’s o.k.

Dad would have blamed it on Kipper Season.

So back in the studio I’ve decided to concentrate on stepping it up again. It’s taken me a little while to be bothered with it all, but here’s one of my latest pieces.

It seems I still need to pursue the flower design even though I thought I was over it.

I do like this turquoise though.

Just a beautiful colour.

For my next piece I think this is where I’ll stop.

I like how simple and clean it is. My pieces are sometimes a little overworked.

 I don’t regret how involved my other pieces are as it has really helped me figure out the whole soldering thing which I have discovered is much less tricky than it wants to be given credit for.

I wrote once about how everything has to be perfectly prepared before you even begin to think about soldering two pieces together, but now I don’t think that’s necessarily true.

Of course to a degree everything has to be fairly clean and flush but, and you’re welcome to disagree with me, I’ve found that it really is all about the flame.

Of course I forgot about all of this when I was soldering, or at least trying to solder, the piece below, but eventually I stopped struggling with it and got, Go on, give it a go Gertrude, out and sure enough, as I’d already learned quite some time ago now, the flame wins every time.

If, my friends, you can only remember one thing from now on let it be this – size does matter…

Here’s the piece waiting to be soldered.

Looking innocently like any other piece I have worked on.

Except it wouldn’t for the life of me solder even though I heated the hell out of it.

Even the silver wouldn’t melt whereas when I first learnt to solder I couldn’t even show it the flame from the next room without the bezel collar turning into a molten mess.

As I have come to find out over time the key to soldering is simply to heat everything up to the same level. If the nozzle on your torch isn’t capable of doing this, nuttin’ ain’t ever gonna solder.

Period.

You don’t really notice this with smaller pieces, but when you start on the larger ones until you get the hang of it you can lose a lot of hair pulling it out with the frustration of it all.

Tip. Unless you really like bald don’t keep at it. You pretty much know when you’ve been slogging it out too long. If it isn’t going to solder it just isn’t going to solder so turn the torch off, walk away and go wash those golden locks while you still have them. Willing it with your bloody minded laser vision isn’t going to cut it.

Believe me.

I know.

So when I first started I had a 00 tip for my Smith acetylene torch head. This was great until I spent several agonizing hours (read days) trying to solder one of my first larger pieces. Dad and I had many, what the hell’s going on now! conversations before I realized that the 00 just couldn’t heat up the larger area of silver.

So I bought a 0.

This has done me very well and now I only get the 00 out if I want to repair a chain or something small like that, so I was a bit surprised when the 0 wouldn’t work for me. This piece really isn’t any larger than some other pieces I’ve made, except the back plate is a thicker gauge so it could have simply been that.

I don’t have a 1 which is why I had to get, Go on, give it a go Gertrude out.

She’s only a number 2, but man does she fire up.

I bought her a while back when I wanted to melt down my silver leftovers.

If you remember I started out on that terrifying adventure by purchasing a number 4.

Nearly took my head off.

Don’t chance it folks, the number 2 is more than happy to melt anything down for you. She still takes you by surprise every time you light her up, but not to the heart attack level of the number 4.

Now with Gertrude’s super power on my side the problem was everything heating up too much so I had to be very careful, especially as I tend to only use easy solder instead of working down through from hard.

But by paying attention I even managed to get the prongs on without a meltdown.

The thing I did find, however, was that because I had spent so much time heating it all up before getting Gertrude out, the bezel collar had become very crumbly and just seemed to fall apart. I’d never come across that before, but as nothing else was affected I just took the collar out and made a new one.

With a little filing and fiddling I managed to get it back in there.

Now, here are the two things I did learn.

The first from an old guy that I met at the last art fair in October.

Flux the whole piece of silver and not just the area your soldering. O.K. so everyone in the whole world must know this except me, but It really does protect the silver and keeps the whole thing cleaner and you don’t have so much mess to clean up.

The second is something that again everyone must have already known.

After liver of sulphuring, or Black Maxing as I prefer, you can put the darn thing in the tumbler and it does wonderful things…

Now.

Tell me why I’m the only one who doesn’t know these things….

I’ve always had a really hard time cleaning up the pieces I make and getting the finish I want but, fingers crossed, this seems as though it might do it for me.

Of course I hadn’t used my tumbler for such a long time because I don’t like ‘shiny’ and didn’t realize that it could do other things that the belt had rotted and broke as soon as I started to get excited about the results.

But.

I have a new belt now.

Mwahahaha.

Here is the piece, and his friend, almost finished.

He hasn’t been in the tumbler yet so I’m hoping he’ll be super great after that.

If not the tumbler’s going straight back in the cupboard…

ttyl

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Well, that was the longest month of my life and I don’t think I’ll be getting over it any day soon.

Loved my dad.

I think a lot of people must have as the crematorium was overflowing with people standing that he’d known since he was in his twenties. Colleagues from Ford’s where he’d worked since he was a lad and from where he’d retired nearly twenty five years ago.

Amazing that some of these men had tears in their eyes as they all agreed he was an exceptional man, willing to help anyone and with not a bad word to say about anyone.

Practically the whole street came out to mourn him with us. Even a little five year old boy brought down a card because he’d heard that the old man who let him hold his dog’s leash as he walked home from school had died.

Let’s just say that I can’t believe I just left him there to come back to the States . Doesn’t seem right to just get on with things as if it were normal.

But.

For anyone who knows me they shouldn’t be surprised that, amid the tears, I’m going to give it a darn good shot.

TTYL

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I’m off over to England again and won’t be around to tell you of all the happenings and anguishes of studio life for a while.

Last Friday week my dad died and so I’ve been dealing with all the happenings and anquishes of real life.

Sometimes real life sucks.

Anyway promise not to forget me and I’ll be back around mid April.

I’ll leave you with a lovely that I made yesterday to take my mind off things.

Toodle pop and all that.

To the motherland I go…

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Is a big day.

I’m trying not to get too excited, but…

It’s bathroom cleaning day!

Can I hear a yah!

You know, if only people would refrain from going in there I wouldn’t have to keep cleaning the darn thing.

It’s o.k. though as I seem to be struggling with everything that I touch in the studio right now so perhaps I should appreciate this time alone with the Clorox.

We rarely get to spend quality time any more…

Actually we’ve been going through a lot of the stuff recently as Willow, bless her heart, has decided that her pee is too good for the garden and that she intends to conduct all of her business from now on in the living room.

Fortunately we have a tile floor.

S believes that this is the key to the problem, however, as when she was a young pup she had to do all of her peeing outside on the concrete in the dog yard we had specially made for her and our other two dogs.

Go figure.

He says that now she’s old, and blind, and deaf, and, as that other man who lives in the house with us insists, a little senile, he believes she thinks the tile floor is the concrete and that she is, in fact, outside.

Consequently it’s our fault for making her pee on the concrete in the first place and so we shouldn’t get irritated by it.

I’ve become very good at rolling my eyes.

Here we see Spud knocked out cold by the combined fumes of Willow’s pee and the Clorox.

It doesn’t seem to help that I only use the lemon scented kind.

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I spent four hours in the studio yesterday until I finally threw up my hands and melted down the bezel I had been working on.

I called time of death around six p.m..

I had only managed in that time to produce one, small, heart charm.

And I don’t even like hearts…

The only good thing going on in the studio right now is The Moonstone – and I don’t mean the ones in my top drawer.

I’m listening to Wilkie Collin’s book of that title and, in spite of the dark hours spent in that jewelry desperation wasteland, am thoroughly enjoying it.

Before Christmas I was listening to The Woman in White, which I really loved, but this one is even better and sometimes I even have to laugh out loud.

Betteredge, the butler, cracks me up.

I want one.

I read both of them when I was in my twenties, but sometimes you just can’t get enough of a good thing 🙂

The day before yesterday, however, I did manage to make a bracelet.

I spent most of the day wallowing on the sofa, I even had to have a little nap when the boredom overcame me so much that I couldn’t keep my eyes from shutting.

Dark times people.

Finally, at five o’clock, I managed to crawl my way into the studio and make something I’d been toying with for a few days.

I call it,

Just get up and do something before you melt into the sofa and become lost forever in the deceptively cosy depths of doom.

(Too much?)

It’s a very easy, non challenging project which I share with you today, but beware, only make this when you really need help getting off the sofa otherwise you will have wasted your one chance of rescue.

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I used 12 gauge wire for the links and 18 gauge wire for the jump rings and clasp.

Cut 12, 1″ lengths of the 12 gauge wire.

And hammer the edges flat.

If you don’t hammer very often here’s my tip.

Keep the hammer balanced nicely in your hand and let it do most of the work. You want to move your hand up and down, more at the wrist, allowing the weight of the hammer to fall consistently on the end of the wire and not force the metal into the shape you want.

For the shape above I like to move my hammer slowly away from the center of the length of wire along to the edge. I tap the hammer more gently at the center and as it moves along to the end allow it to come down with more weight. This produces a smoother and more even result.

As you are hammering toward the ends of the length watch carefully that you’re not hammering more to one side and thereby producing a misshapen end. Unless you have completely outdone yourself and whacked the end out into a wonderful, but not what you was going for, deformed shape, you can rectify any lopsidedness by gently concentrating your hammer on the other side of the end, or by gently rolling the end back and forth very slightly to allow the hammer to even the shape out.

If this isn’t possible you’ll just have to abandon the length and start over.

It’s the only way…

Once you have hammered the lengths you can file and sand them to perfectly round ends and then drill holes in them making sure to position the holes consistently.

Using a small bracelet mandrel or a large pair of mandrel pliers such as these,

You’re going to bend the lengths slightly so that when two links touch end to end they form an oval.

Now make 7, 4.5mm jump rings from the 18 gauge wire and join two links by two links until you have a bracelet.

I soldered the links on my bracelet, but if you’re not up for it no worries.

Unsoldered jump rings are better than wasting away on the sofa…

Just sayin’.

Next I bent the ovals again, but this time in the direction that when the bracelet is on, the links lay more comfortably and hug the wrist rather than lay rigid.

 Lastly finish it with a clasp of your choice.

After which you can go inside and have a bowl of super food.

🙂

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It looks like there’s not going to be a lot going on from here on out until I get back from England.

So I leave you with a little Happy Christmas gift to remember me by.

Have a great holiday.

Be safe.

Be happy.

And eat all the pies you can get your hands on…

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It’s another grey Sunday and I’m sitting here in bed bored and trying to think of what to do next.

I’ve also got a headache.

Which doesn’t help.

–

Here are my options.

I’ve got a good book going.

I’ve only finished the first part so no one ruin it for me else I’ll have to come over there and not be responsible for my actions.

My sister finished it and gave me mixed reviews telling me that it goes downhill with some uphills and then more downhills from here. That she enjoyed it but doesn’t know if she’d recommend it.

I’m interested in how differing our tastes might be.

Sort of like a psychology experiment.

But not.

Then there’s just sitting around on the sofa all day feeling sorry for myself.

But the danger then is that P will put something on the t.v. even more depressing than I feel, like how the Yellowstone volcano is going to erupt any day now and kill everyone on the whole earth.

O.K. that’s not exactly true, but apparently we’ll all be pretty screwed.

P’s a bit of an extinction nut.

Nut being the operative word.

Nothing like a geologist major to keep your chin up, what what!

And anyway, I did that yesterday.

Then, of course, there are the billions of stones waiting for me in the studio of which I’ve chosen one or two to try to keep the boredom away.

I actually tried designing a jewelry line for wholesale and I did quite well I think. But then I got even more bored with the idea of making the same pieces of jewelry over and over and over again and had to come inside to lay down.

I tell you.

I’m so lazy.

Whatever happens I know that I’ll be off in a minute to that large place up the road that sells food.

The kids are coming for dinner and we will have English soul food.

A proper Sunday roast.

For S, who is American and who likes it and that’s good enough for me.

I shall get out the special dishes for him.

Perhaps.

And finally I want to share with you a love story.

It took a while, but I think we have a connection going on.

If not love then Wally must have been unconscious when Spud snuggled up to him.

Wally doesn’t snuggle lightly.

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And here comes the rain just to top everything off.

Maybe I’ll just have another cup of tea instead…

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