A Little Charm Fun

Well it was an absolutely beautiful day today and I didn't even step outside. Sometimes I really need to make more time to get out in the fresh air....even though it was a bit chilly but I was out and about all weekend either teaching a class or taking a class so I was glad to be able to just laze about today.

I did finish up some charms for a round robin bracelet exchange. This first one's theme was amethyst. I love the color and the stone so this was pretty easy for me. I wanted something that would mean a lot to the person receiving the bracelet so I fused fine silver and shaped it into the heart form, hammered it and then added small faceted amethyst stones. It turned out pretty good. I'm used to making hearts that are much larger for pendants but it was fun making one smaller.

This next bracelet charm theme was industrial steampunk. Now I don't make many steampunk style pieces so I had a bit of trouble, but I found this Industrial Chic charm, took it apart, wrapped it with some annealed steel and added a few pearls. I think it kind of has a hard and soft edge to it.

I've been playing with setting stones in bezels and am terrible (that's what happens when you try to teach yourself) so yesterday I took a class at Tacoma Metal Arts Center. This is the piece I'm still working on as I need to do some more clean up, polish and then set the stone in the bezel (it is just sitting in it right now). I'm liking the mixed metal look of the copper and silver bezel. I'll be sure to post a final picture when I have it finished. I highly recommend the metal classes by Amy Reeves, she was patient and offered lots of suggestions even to me when I wanted to try a much larger piece then the rest of the class and I wanted to try to solder a silver bezel to copper which I guess can be a little challenging. I'm always up for a challenge.

Be Safe, Be Happy and Be Healthy

A Little Soup Anyone?

For the past few years I've participated in Lori Anderson's Bead Soup Blog Party, so I couldn't let this one go by without playing again. My partner is Leslie Schenkel and she does some amazing lampwork beads. I am so lucky to be paired with her this year. Here is a look at her blog , and here are the lovely things she sent me to play with.

She sent two sets of beady goodness to choose from. I may use the set on the top with the purple and greens but I'm fascinated with the bright colors of the 2nd set. Oh, what to do. Maybe I'll make several things and then I can use all of it.

If you are wondering what I sent her, here is a quick look. I made the pendant and the components. I can't wait to see what she makes from all of it.

The rule from Lori to participate in this bead swap is you must have a blog and once you have your swapped beads from your partner you must use the focal and the clasp.

In other interesting news, I special ordered some pottery pendants to be made so that I could sell them as essential oil diffusers. I'm so happy with them. They were made by Teresa Griffin Pottery Studios and features a glazed back and unglazed front so that the essential oil will absorb.

Here is the complete batch.

Here is the piece I made today. I've even tested it with a drop of Peppermint essential oil and it works great.

Have a great week and don't forget to come back on March 30th for the Bead Soup Reveal where I will show you what I have made with my beads from Leslie.

Continuing...

At the start of every new year I always make it my goal to clean my craft room. This year is no different but I'm finding it much harder. I've started destashing some beads and getting rid of items I don't use any longer and I even moved some fabric that I use for donations to an under the bed box. I still have too much and not enough things/boxes to organize everything in. I did finally get my yarns in a box instead of a bag, but now to find a place for it. Oh, to have a bigger room. On second thought, I would just fill the bigger room with more stuff so we won't go there. So, I continue to try to organize until I need to work on something and out everything comes again to the point it's hard to walk or even find the table top. Did I mention this room is only about a 7' x 9' room at the back of the house and floor space is a premium. Probably the same size as my laundry room so not very big.

I do get discouraged as I walk into that small room and realize I have no idea what to do to make it better except to get rid of a lot of stuff. Although I do know that if I get rid of something, I'll probably need it next week for a different project, no best idea is to continue trying to organize. So I push on.

For those of  you that have not seen my little slice of clutter heaven. Here is a pic when it was nice and organized with new cabinets. Wish I could see that table top now.

I won't even show you what it looks like now.

In hubby's and my quest for better heath this year we purchased a new cookware set. Okay so I have to tell you a little story first before I get to that. When we got married I had cookware. I purchased the set back in 1978 or so right out of high school. Paid it off with payment plans if that gives you any indication of how much it was and used it up until we got married. Great cookware but hubby didn't want to cook in stainless steel so we packed it away in the garage loft and forgot about. So the daughter calls and says she is having a cookware demonstration at her house and would we come to dinner. Okay, sure why not. I had a feeling it was the same cookware I had in the loft and said so but we went.

Talk about a surprise, same cookware that my mother had which was a step above my old set and expensive but fixed great food with no oil and no water. Yes, this is that famous waterless cookware. Hubby loved that it packed well and you didn't have to use water and you could fry without oil and cleaned up like a breeze. I was even more impressed with the baking soda test. Most stainless steel will pass the test but we had some annodized aluminum and cast iron we were using that would not pass. Try this test. Two cups of water in one of your sauce pans and a teaspoon of baking soda. Boil. Take a small taste. It should taste like baking soda and water right, well if you used something other than stainless it tastes like poison. Not good. I just can't imagine that cooking veggies or anything else in those pans wouldn't alter the taste of your food. So out they went and hubby was up in the loft looking for my old set. Now did I say we bought us a new set...yes we did, but never fear we are not getting rid of my old set it will be put to good use in our motor home as we get rid of the pans there.

You know a lot of what the salesman said was true, we replace appliances costing thousands every few years (they just don't make them like they used to) and even replace our pots and pans when the coating starts to wear out but how many of us can say that we have cookware that will last our lifetime. I do and now I have a second set that will be even better. I can't wait to get it and start learning to cook all over again.

Now I sound like a commercial but really can you place a value on your health? My hope is that we will start cooking healthier and be healthier for it.

On the workbench this week.

Wire wrapped coins. Inspiration from a post on Pinterest.

My hand at attempting to make a wire frog. Still working on it.

Charms for a swap called "Where you live". The beach glass was given to me by a friend.

Charms for another swap that was Pink and White and since it is so close to Valentines Day I made hearts,

New shower curtain hooks and a little bit of bling in the dangles. I posted this picture on FB and everyone voted that the dangles should stay so each hook has it's own dangle of crystals and pearls.

Now that I look back at what I did this week I don't feel too bad that my craft room is such a mess. I was still able to play and found enjoyment in what I did accomplish. 

Here's to having more fun next week.

Regenerating

After all our travels in December, we are sure glad to be home and back to a normal routine. Okay, our life isn't necessarily normal but whose is. I haven't taken down the holiday decorations yet as I want to enjoy them a few more days but I'm sure that by the weekend our house will also be back to normal.

Hubby has been fighting a cold, not sure if he won or the cold but I've been trying to take precautions and boosting my immune system with all kinds of essential oils, vitamins and supplements. I do have a cough but it isn't what it could have turned into and for that I am thankful. I do have a recipe that you can use on the bottom of your feet when you have a cold. I do think it prevented hubby's from getting worse and my mom swears by it. We use it "neat" (3 drops on feet every night) but if you don't feel comfortable with that then you can dilute the 3 drops with a teaspoon of olive oil.

3 drops Peppermint EO
2 drops Eucalyptus EO
2 drops Camphor EO
2 drops Frankincense EO

As I was blog hopping I came across the Camp Wander blog and she has some awesome things to try. Yesterday's post was all about anti-aging and a recipe she has to help regenerate the skin. It of course contains Frankincense. I'll have to try it out. Here is a link to her blog post.

Not only do I feel that this coming year I need to be better to my skin and body but also my mind and creativity as well. Today I started a new year long on-line art journey called Life Book with Tamara LaPorte. I've already started with the first lesson and can't wait to see how the journey goes this year. This piece is my fantasy "Fairy Art Mother". She turned out pretty good and is now hanging in my studio to remind me that whatever I create, it is wonderful and beautiful.

She is made with watercolor and watercolor crayons. If you follow my art blog Basically Art, I will be posting my progress throughout the year.

I have so many more things in the works including a new class for my "Hammered Pendant" and a new "Coastal Cypress" gem tree so stay tuned and for those class dates.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

It's going to be a great year.

Reveling in the Holiday Spirit

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas. Hubby and I took a little trip after Thanksgiving and headed down South to New Orleans to take a couple of cruises out of their port. I think I was more impressed with New Orleans than the cruises but we had a great time even though it took away from my holiday creating and planning. 

Here we are on Grand Cayman which was our second stop on Royal Caribbean.

We loved the Royal Caribbean ship. It had a central promenade with windows from upper cabins that looked down over it. Reminded us of a little city.

You can see a little bit better here how there were shops and pubs throughout the central core of the ship.

We were able to take one excursion at Costa Maya (our first stop on the Norwegian cruise) and visited the Chacchoben Mayan ruins there. They were amazing.

Here we are nice, hot and tired in Roatan, Honduras on the West side.

An Iguana Farm where there were hundreds just walking around.

Another local wild life park in Roatan where we saw Capuchin monkeys and exotic birds.

In New Orleans we took time out for a cooking demonstration at the New Orleans School of Cooking. We learned to make Gumbo, Jumbalaya and Pralines.

Another highlight was eating the beignets at Cafe de Monde.

I think one of the hardest parts of the trip was seeing all the houses that still need renovating in the part of New Orleans that flooded. I just love the history and the architecture of the buildings from the French side to the American side. Amazing old buildings that they have kept and preserved.

The holiday with family was of course the best it could be and we hope to see all of them again next year. 

Coming up for me is more art and jewelry designs along with classes that will be new for 2013. I'll be teaching my Hammered Pendant along with my other two jewelry type classes (Simply Findings and Falling Leaves) at Shipwreck this coming year and I may sneak a new gem tree design in.... who knows.

Have a great New Year.

Finished for the Year

We are finally finished with all our demonstrating at gem and mineral shows for the year. Since we will be traveling so much we don't have anymore scheduled until the first weekend in June. Quite a big break for us as we usually do one in April and one in May. I think 2013 will be our mega travel year with a long extended vacation to Italy. I'll definitely be blogging more about that as we get closer.

I worked on some metal pieces this weekend along with some bullet charm/pendants. Both are selling well and I have a class scheduled at the gem and mineral show this coming Saturday to teach this technique. Funny, I have more men in my class than women. Since it involves a lot of hammering, I would have thought that would have appealed to women wanting to get out their aggressions...I know I do. It really does make for a better marriage if he can handle all the noise. ha

So here are a few pieces from this weekend.

I did four Mexican Fire Opals (second photo) in copper, the Ammonite in copper, Tiger Eye in brass and the unknown lovely blue stone (may be Shattuckite but definitely a copper mineral) with copper flecks mounted in copper. My favorite is the Tiger Eye in brass even though the brass was a bear to work with even when I annealed it using the torch.

Here is an example of the bullets with Mexican Fire Opal glued inside the bezel. They've been cleaned up a bit since I took this photo this weekend and the lighter one sold as well as one I made as a special order for Johnny of Tipps Gems who brought me over this wonderful faceted opal and wanted it mounted in one of the bullets. It turned out great but unfortunately I didn't get a photo of it. Since it was a trade for services, I did receive a faceted sunstone, faceted citrine and a piece of faceted red glass....all will look great mounted in the bullets.

Faceted stones look great mounted.

I'll be sure to take some photos of my class this weekend and their creations...I'm sure they will be great.

Cheers, Dana