sterling

I received a few blanks today that I ordered last week, so went ahead and stamped a custom order for one of my 'wibbly wobbly' 1" cuff bracelets in sterling silver. MAN, was it nerve-wracking. I'm used to stamping on cheap aluminum blanks, and if I mess up, I'm out maybe a dollar or so; if I'd messed up on the sterling blank I would have been out a whole whole lot more than a dollar.

But, I am happy to say, I didn't mess up (yay!) and I am really pleased with the end result. I love aluminum because it's cheap and malleable and shines up pretty, but silver sure is pretty. I won't be able to get a decent pic of the bracelet til tomorrow when there's daylight, but I'll try to post one then. Shiny! -as they say on Firefly, though of course I mean it literally...

Speaking of which, I have been trying to come up with a good Firefly quote for a stamped bracelet, and have come up blank so far. My favorite Firefly quote is Jane's "You can't change that by getting all...bendy", but even people who remember that probably don't think it's as completely hilarious as I do.

fingers crossed...

This seems to be just a run of the mill cold, and not the flu (knock on wood, and any other superstitious good luck action that might work...), so hopefully I'm not going to be really sick, just kinda miserable.

Which is good because the to-do list is growing. Got to dye more fabric tomorrow, hurrah!

I finally found a good source for sterling silver blanks for my stamping. I know I'll eventually have to invest in a tumbler, jeweler's saw, etc., but I'd really like to hold off as long as possible, and honestly, I'm kept busy enough just stamping the blanks. I'd rather make less of a profit and have time to sleep occasionally. ; )

Anyway, off to watch the next episode of 24 with hubby - we're slowly but surely plowing through season 8.

Here's a bracelet that I made on a whim; not many views so far, so maybe I'm the only one who thinks it's awesome? The quote - "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly / What is essential is invisible to the eye" - is from The Little Prince:


The bracelet can be seen HERE.

sick...

So with hubby being sick and then the Buggle getting sick, I should've known it would hit me eventually. Bleh. I'm afraid that by morning I'm going to be full-out sick; right now I just feel icky, and my throat feels like I could use it to polish up and smooth my metal bracelet blanks, ha ha.

I haven't been sick since the week I had Kate -- I kind of got used to never getting colds. I still remember being in the OR right before the c-section and telling the anesthesiologist to wait so I could blow my nose first. Then I didn't know what to do with the tissue, and ended up handing it to a nurse, who didn't look pleased...but what else was I going to do, hang onto it until after they wheeled me out of there?

Off to eat some potato leek soup and drink lots of OJ...

frustrated...

So I was really happy that my order from Metalliferous showed up today as I'd been looking forward to adding hand-stamped solid bangles to my shop after several customer requests. But I'm a big dummy...I don't have anything to anchor the bangles to before stamping them, and I can't make a good enough impression! I've tried my wooden bracelet mandrel, a soup can, my ring mandrel (obviously too small, but because it's steel that one actually worked the best), the edge of my little bench block...I'm stumped.

Time to go do some research in google-land. I'm guessing the solution will involve forking over money for yet another tool. Booo... and just when I was getting ready to take the plunge and buy a tumbler.

stamping...

The metal stamping is keeping me busy! I think I was definitely right to open a new shop just for my stamped designs, as I've already had eight sales! Woo hoo!

The Harry Potter designs are definitely the biggest draw, though the Dr. Who stuff is getting a lot of attention as well. I've also added designs inspired by True Blood, Lost, Pirates of the Caribbean, LOTR and a few fun, random things, like this:



Next up: Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly...and maybe Buffy?

This is really fun.

found her home!

We found the little dog's people (or they found us, rather; they saw one of my posters yesterday morning), so she's back home safe and sound!

And I forgot to post yesterday because the Buggle is sick (a virus, but she's on the mend), so today's a two-post day...

little old lady

We have a lot of dogs in our neighborhood. And unfortunately, a disproportionate number of them are allowed to roam about, despite the leash laws. I have learned to just ignore the dogs running about, because I know that the vast majority of them have homes nearby and if I started 'rescuing' them, we'd either have dozens of foster dogs or a lot of angry neighbors (or both). This comes from experience...we have taken in four dogs in the past few years who lived within a block of our house. We had one of them for a week before his owners put up signs (they never even noticed the ones we'd put up).

Anyway, there are certain situations under which I'll still pick up a dog, and unfortunately I encountered one today....on our way home from the Bug's My Gym class, we saw a tiny dog in a blue coat limping across the road. I thought it was hurt, so had Miko get out to look at it. She wasn't hurt...she was blind. And ancient. And miserable, because of some sort of terrible skin condition. We figure the coat was there to keep her from scratching.

And of course, she has no collar.

I don't believe in hell, but I think that the universe would create one just for me if I had left that poor little dog in the road. So we now have another foster dog (we JUST found a home a few weeks ago for our last one), one who is absolutely unadoptable. My guess is that she's about 16 years old. She weighs maybe ten pounds. I hope so much we find her family. Someone cared about her, to put that coat on her. I hope, I hope, I hope...