A Smelly Project

I do tend to volunteer for some odd jobs and today's was no exception. We have our annual Gem and Mineral Club show this coming weekend (June 3-5) in Puyallup, WA and I'm not sure how I managed to volunteer to make all the display case favors. I did find the instructions and the transfers but was hoping for some help but with going on vacation and other things, I just didn't get around to organizing any help. Oh well, I didn't have anything else to do today anyway. So, I am making tumbled marble/stone coasters. I found a site with the instructions and the club decided that would be a good project for case favors. If you are interested in doing some of these yourself, here is the link to the instructions on Vintage Image Crafts. They also have lots of images if you are interested in vintage pictures. Instructions can also be found on the waterslide decal transfer sheet package. I'm sure there are several types but I used the Lazertran for copiers.

Do yourself a favor if you do make some of these and do them outside. The smell of the pure turpentine is terrible. I haven't put the sealer on them yet....that will be tomorrow's job and then the cork backing. Some are turning out okay but we shall see once they are finished.

I do hope everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend where we honor those who have fought and given their lives for our freedom.

Catching Up

It feels so good to get things caught up and accomplished. I"m not sure why I don't do this all the time...lazy I guess.

We made it back from our Alaskan cruise on Sunday and it was great. Talk about scenic cruising, this was the one for that. It was a little chilly but being from WA State we are used to that. One of my favorite parts of this cruise was watching for wildlife such as these Orcas.

Then there was Glacier Bay. What a fantastic site. That large snowy thing behind my mom and I is the glacier.

We even had time for a little shopping...okay a lot of shopping.

So, now we are back, the vacation is over and time to get down to business. I had gem trees to ship to Pacific NW Gem and Art Gallery on Monday and for the past couple of days I've just been getting caught up on all my art charm swaps that are coming due, oh and unpacking and laundry. Why is it that if you have all your laundry done before you go on vacation, when you come home you have more than if you didn't go at all. Usually, I only have two loads per week but this time I had three. How does that happen?

Today we had a rainy cold day and I noticed that my lilacs were blooming. Now lilacs are my favorite flower so as soon as the rain stopped I ran out and cut some to have here in the house. You never know if the rain and wind keeps up, I might not have any blossoms left to enjoy outside.

Hope you are having a wonderful day.

Big News

Sometimes fate has a way of knocking you in the head. Take for instance the last gem show we did in West Seattle. It is just fate that we happened to be at another gem show where the organizer saw us and asked if we would demonstrate at her show at the last minute and we just happened to have that weekend open. Then at the show I met a woman who purchased one of my gem tree books and was commenting on how wonderful the gem trees were and how they would be great in a gallery in Oregon that she had visited.

As fate or luck would have it, I contacted the gallery (Pacific NW Gem & Art Gallery) and sent pictures and low and behold I will be commissioning some of my gem trees there. Yea, what fun. I've already made one special tree to be sent to them and am working on one more. The other trees I send will be from stock I already have. Happy Dancing....woo hoo. We actually did pretty well at that show in terms of sales. A few books, a couple of custom jewelry designs that I was able to make there and lots of gem trees were sold.

Here is Hubby with some of the gem trees.

This is one of the new designs I made at the show. All in fine silver except for the sterling silver chain.

In one of my last posts I was complaining about our office not being finished, well today the contractors showed up to finish the job....yea. Hopefully things are now coming together here at home so we can finally get the house back in order and all the office stuff out of the living room and in the office where it belongs. I'll post finished photos soon.

I still haven't given up my charm swaps or bead swaps and in fact will have a blog hop coming soon. Lori Anderson organized a Spring Fairy Tale swap and we are shipping our beads to each other today. My partner is Loretta of Designs by Loretta. She does some wonderful polymer clay work. You can check out her Blog or her ArtFire studio to take a look. I only hope she likes beads.

Okay, I'm off to get some beads shipped and finish my portion of a Round Robin necklace. Have a great day everyone.

Dana