Nothing new here!

Happy Canada Day!! There’s nothing new going on around here lately!! I really should get into the studio again, but have just been procrastinating like crazy! My brother is staying with us for a few weeks, so we’re adjusting to having another body around (can’t believe how easily we adjusted to having no one around here after the kids moved out!!). He tells hilarious stories, so it’s fun to listen to him go on!
Oh, dh is calling, guess I best go see what he wants – I do believe we have to head to town for cat food (they’re giving me the evil eye – they can see the bottom of the bowl!). Have a great day, hope you’re being way more productive than I have been! Cheers!

My new ring!

Well, it’s at least a week or two old, but new to you guys! One of my students (thank you Dea!!) gave me this Montana agate cabochon to play with. I LOVE it. Not sure what it is about Montana agate that I love so much, but there ya go! Anyway, here’s the ring I made for myself from it.

It’s HUGE!!! Rather a statement ring, don’t you think? For those of you that make jewelry, the secret to this is gallery wire. Make a plain bezel wider than your gallery wire is, make a gallery wire bezel the same size as the plain one then put it on a ring mandrel and hammer it a bit larger til if fits snuggly over the plain bezel. Leaving the gallery bezel around the plain bezel, solder them onto a flat silver sheet backing. Trim away the excess, file and sand down to the gallery bezel. Solder the bezel plate to a ring shank. Polish, set, done. If you have any in-depth questions, feel free to ask. It’s not hard at all, and a fun way to use gallery wire which I normally don’t like! LOL
Anyway, hope you’re all having a great Thursday. I’m having a ‘feeling sorry for self’ day and I think it’s only because I’m tired. Had to get up at 6:30am to babysit my granddaughter before taking her to school. I am SO not used to getting up that early! LOL I see a nap in my future!! Best get going, nearly time to pick the little darling back up from school. Cheers!

Ah, back in the land of the living!!

Well, what a roller coaster ride the past few weeks have been!! Turns out my old computer has bitten the dust – its only a year and a half old and no, didn’t buy the extended warranty. Silly me!!! I did spend quite a bit of money on it when I bought it so Having purchased a new laptop (same as the one my son lent me for the couple of weeks they tried to fix my old one!), I’m going to send my old one to the factory and get a quote to find out what it would cost to get it refurbished. I still miss it! I’m sentimental that way, I get used to something and I HATE change!!!! I still miss my old van that I gave to my friend a few years ago. So hopefully they can fix the old computer up and make it happy again! Then I can give this one to dh and I can have my beloved LG back. Fingers crossed!

While I was ‘dealing’ with computer issues, I did manage to make a few pieces of jewelry. Lets see if this fancy new computer can get some pictures online for you guys to look at….

This is a new series I started – called the Data Series (if you’ve ever seen JC Herrell’s Draft beads, that’s where the inspiration came from….).

Here’s another one with amethyst. I know the bezel looks a little wonky, but believe me, it’s not. This next one – now we’re talking wonky, check it out!!

This is the first one in the series, and quite honestly I was trying to get it finished too quickly and the bezel went on the ring shank crooked. Oh well, we’re calling it the prototype and I priced it a little lower than the straight ones! I have more on the go of these. Just gotta drag my butt into the studio one of these days!
What else did I do – oh yeah, there’s this ring

Crappy side pic, it’s a really nice coin pearl in a simple bezel, but I used a fantastic pattern wire for the band. LOVE the band on this one!!
While we’re talking about pearls, there’s this one…

One of my students REALLY loved this one but it didn’t fit her (sorry Phyllis, you’ll have to make your own! ) and it was at the gallery less than two days and found a new owner. Yay!!
I made another one of those huge square rings that I really love so much. The stone is a huge transparent smokey quartz and it’s huge!! Here’s two views of the same ring (crappy pics, I know!)


There’s a couple of others, check out my Flickr (link to the right). Nothing too exciting. Oops, forgot to take a picture of my own new ring that I made just for me. I’ll grab a pic tomorrow.
In the meantime, I guess I’m going to kick back and watch So You Think You Can Dance – I think I have my dh hooked on it too! LOL Who’d have ever thought?! Have a great evening!

TGIF!!

Yes, thank goodness it’s Friday. And thank goodness the heat is supposed to back off a bit today. I so cannot function when I’m melting!! I still don’t have my computer back, which is a bit inconvenient from a few different perspectives (such as being able to print things, work on bead show stuff, etc), and any thought I had of being able to pry myself away from the internet if it’s not my computer went out the window a long time ago. I’m an addict! LOL But I have to get some rings finished for the gallery, so I am going to FORCE myself to go down to the studio today and crank out 12 rings, or at least get them mostly done so I can take them there on Monday. But as I sit here, with the kitchen door open onto the deck watching the two squirrels come down to the feeder about 12 feet from me, grabbing peanuts and running back into the plum tree, I realize how incredibly distractable I am! LOL I know, not a word – oh! Now there’s a Stellar’s Jay grabbing a peanut out of the feeder! What was I saying? Oh ya, easily distracted, that’s me!! Especially with so many little wild critters just outside my kitchen door. Must – pull – myself – away – from – this – spot………………………………………

(have a great day!! Back soon with pics once my own computer is back home! Cheers!)

The aftermath of appliance hell!!!

Okay, so it’s not really hell, but it sure has been aggravating!!! Let’s see, the saga begins a few weeks ago actually. Dh decided to cut the lawn for the first time this year. Nope, the lawnmower is toast. The motor is seized or something ridiculous, but it ain’t running for nothing. So we decided we’d rent a lawnmower for a couple of hours and worry about buying one when finances are a bit better. Then it rained. Every weekend for a while. Last weekend we were way too busy, so no lawnmowing. Ah well, maybe we’ll get a lawnmower next payday we say. Then the dryer died. Well, didn’t really die, but made a gawdawful noise something similar to a million fingernails on a million chalkboards. Bah! Time for a new dryer – there goes the lawnmower. But it has to wait til payday. Then we get the offer of a free king size bed!! Woohoo!! Finally a big bed!!! Big enough for dh, me and the two dogs! But it came without a bed frame. So we had to wait until payday to buy a cheapy metal one. So for the past week, I have been struggling to get out of bed each time as it’s sitting on the floor and with my bad hip, getting up is a severe challenge – especially when I’m so stiff and achy in the morning. Sigh!! And we have no king size sheets. Yup, payday. Oh payday. Glorious payday. It finally arrives, and I order a dryer. Yay!!! It arrives via nice used appliance guy (Greg of Greg’s Appliances in Aldergrove – he remembered selling us the last dryer 10 years ago!!! Pretty good use out of a $150 dryer! LOL). He leaves the dryer for dh to wrestle into the house. Which dh does. Alone. The nut. But he got it in, got it hooked up and the great laundry chore begins. But the dryer doesn’t work. It takes 2 hours to dry a small load. Sigh. So I call Greg first thing yesterday, he comes and assesses the problem, faulty short somewhere, has to bring yet another dryer. While htis is going on – my computer crashes. It dies. No, not the blue screen of death. I couldn’t handle that! But it starts doing horrible things, freezing, shutting down, etc. Not a happy computer. So now I have no clean clothes, my lawn looks like the savannas of the Serengheti, I’m not sleeping well because getting off the floor is an agonizing challenge every time, the sheets I bought at Walmart are actually queen size not king, and I can’t get online to whine about it because my computer is dead. *gasp*

By this point, I’m ready to give up. I’m an optimist. Anyone that knows me knows that I never let ’stuff’ get me down. But come on. A person needs sleep. A person needs clean clothes. A person really does deserve a tidy yard, even if it’s not manicured and beautiful. But most of all this person needs a computer so she can tell someone who cares! ROFL!

And now it’s Sunday. The second new dryer is in place, and running well. All the laundry is caught up, folded and fresh. The bed is up on a frame (a red neck cinder block frame – shut up, at least it’s not the floor!!) so sleep is glorious in the new bed!! More importantly getting up is a piece of cake! The front lawn has a date with our third son (Mark) tomorrow morning – he’s going to use the weed eater on it, then we’ll zip over and rent a lawnmower for a couple of hours. Bye bye Serengheti! And my computer (my beloved laptop) has embarked on a spa vacation with my oldest son’s (Chris) buddy who is a computer guru. The boys are going to make my beloved laptop purr like a kitten – or at least run like a top!! And how can I write this crazy blog post to let you all know what my week’s been like? Because Chris left his beloved laptop here for his mom to use. Can you believe that? Best son ever! LOL (they all are, but he gets special bonus points today for dropping everything, running out to our house and leaving me his laptop!) Looks like the appliance hell is almost behind me……. fingers crossed!!!

So if you’re expecting an email from me and haven’t gotten one, it just means that my email program is on holidays with my computer and will be back soon. If you need me before it gets back, send me an email to fvbeadshow@gmail.com. I can check that one online. Hope your week is better than my last week was! But on a bright note, the sun has been shining and all is right with the world!! See? Ever the optimist! Cheers!

Happy Wedensday!

Hello!!! Glad you stopped by (I’m feeling very polite today! LOL!). Thanks for the comments about the jewelry retreat. More info will be provided as I figure it all out. I think it would be a ton of fun, and great for the inspiration. So I’m sure you’ll all hear more soon!! I can tell you it won’t be in September or October. I’m kind of hoping for August. Just because I want to do it this year, not next!!! And there are some pretty cool vacation houses out there that could give us the executive lifestyle (I’m thinking hot tub! LOL) and a weekend of fabulous new friends. More on all that later!

I was supposed to take some pictures of the pieces I finished yesterday, but I totally forgot.  (sorry Trish!) But they weren’t overly exciting, a couple of bangle bracelets with resin leaves (I do have pics of the leaves somewhere – but BAD pics! LOL). And a moonstone ring which you guys have already seen, I just had to size it. Sorry!! Anyway, when I was at the gallery, I took stock of what I have there, plus the LONG list of stuff they’ve sold for me. So I guess I better get off my butt and get some new work done for them. Plus I’m trying to get out the last of the applications for the bead show. I’m really pokey lately – not good!!! Bad me!! So I’m resolving to quit being so darn slow at getting stuff done. Need to get cracking on a bunch of stuff – one of the hazards of being self employed! It’s WAY too easy to get sucked into just doing nothing instead of doing the work that is piling up. Sigh!! So, I better close this off and get cracking!! Have a fantastic day, I hope to be back with pics of stuff (real stuff! LOL) soon!! Cheers!

I need your help!!

I want to organize a jewelry making retreat. Yes, a retreat. A weekend of jewlery making F-U-N for all levels of experience. So here’s what I need from you guys – I need suggestions for places where we could hold something like this. A place where we can stay (I’m thinking vacation home, scout camp, lodge, whatever!), somewhere fairly close to Vancouver (for airlines, etc). And not someplace where we would have to mortgage our first born children (so if it is very posh and fancy, not gonna work!). I would really appreciate any suggestions! Have you gone somewhere for a conference? Been somewhere on holidays you think might work? Do you have or know someone who has a big house that wouldn’t mind lots of company for a weekend? I’m open to any and all suggestions!! You can post a comment here, or email me directly (fvbeadshow@gmail.com is the best one – they have a great spam blocker! LOL). I will definitely will be posting more about this soon. Can you imagine? An entire weekend to play, learn and share!! Oh yeah baby!! I’m looking forward to hearing from everyone!

Time flies!!

I can’t believe it’s May already! Where has this year gone? At least I seem to be having fun, that’s a good thing, right? I’m not very chatty lately – so much to say, just don’t think anyone wants to hear it! LOL! I do have to say though that I am absolutely THRILLED with the service I received at Capilano Rock & Gem in North Vancouver. I’m totally impressed!! I bought a new disk cutter as my old one had one badly damaged punch (the biggest one of course)! So my dear sweet friend Pat bought the old set from me knowing the biggest one was kaput, and I bought a brand new set. OMG It’s so pretty! LOL Here’s a pic of one (not mine, I grabbed the image online somewhere)

There are several different disk cutters on the market, but this is the only one that will cut cleanly, without damaging textured metal. Yes, it’s expensive, $178 CDN though it is $124US at Otto Frei, but worth every single penny. Well it is if you need to make circles anyway! I love my disk cutter! But sadly, I don’t think I will let students use it. It’s just too expensive to replace (sorry guys, please don’t take it personally!). Maybe one day I’ll have enough $$ set aside to buy a set just for student use. We shall see!!

Anyway, hope you all have a fantastic weekend ahead – we’re going to head to the river for some rocks for our new aquarium (a giant 4 ft long behemoth that holds 65 gallons of water!). We’re going to take the dogs with us and make it a nice little outing. Hope it doesn’t rain! I better get cracking here, the weekend will never get here if I don’t get some custom work finished before hand! Have a great day! Cheers!

Hello!!! I’ve been enjoying the weather lately, including a much needed family picnic last Sunday, and haven’t spent a lot of time in the studio. I must get in there this week though – I’m feeling like such a slacker! LOL But I have done a few things, in fact I dropped off these two rings at the gallery (please excuse the CRAPPY pics – I almost forgot to take pics at all and these were taken at the gallery at the very last minute!)

And a customer’s custom family ring. She had a certain style she wanted and this is what I came up with. She was thoroughly thrilled, tho I certainly wasn’t! LOL The bezels would NOT stay put when I was trying to get them in place – needless to say I had to keep reminding myself to have patience!!!! But it got done, she loved it, all is good!

Other than those three, nothing! Nada! Zip! Zero! I should quit playing on the computer and head into the studio, shouldn’t I?! Have a great day!! Cheers!

New Goodies! Yay!!

Well, the gem show was great! I had a blast, thoroughly enjoyed seeing lots of familiar faces, buying a few gemstones, and what not. Wanna see what I bought? Of course you do! LOL

From left to right – baroque freshwater pearls (two strands!), labradorite, ammolite, garnets, rutilated quartz, and rainbow moonstone. I have no idea what I’m going to do with any of them, but they all caught my eye so I had to have them! I wish I’d been able to find more like the little garnets in different stones like amethyst, peridot, iolite, etc. I’ll have to do a little internet hunting. I have a style of earring that I make that requires a few of these in each pair – and I want a pair for myself eventually! LOL The moonstone is quite colorful, some of the nicest stuff I’ve had in a while and the labradorite has some spectacular color to it. I can’t wait to get into the studio to create!! But it will have to wait until either Cody son) or Randy(dh) get home as they didn’t bring my tools in from the car last night, and they’re too freaking heavy for me to maneuver them safely down the basement stairs (though I did manage to get them in the house! LOL).

Other than a fantastic time at the gem show, my weekend was pretty good. Randy was home on Friday, so we ventured off to the garden store to get some annul flowers for the deck – came home with this gorgeous basket that is happily hanging just outside the kitchen door…

We have flowers that not only look pretty, but the iguanas and bearded dragons can eat (gotta love vegetarian pets! LOL) and they attract hummingbirds too. We’re thinking of getting another basket or two next payday – the colors are so inspiring.

I guess I best get on with my day. I’m sure I can find other things to do that don’t involve working in the studio – though that’s where I want to be. Hope Cody comes home early from school! Cheers!!