Archive for September, 2007

I’ve taught myself a few new things in the past couple weeks, and I’m really happy with how they turned out. For one, I made a new style of ring and also post earrings (100% handmade except for the mother of pearl beads) for my uncle’s fiance. I can’t claim the idea; she came up with it, but I’m glad she did! I really like the look of the posts and I think I’ll try them with a few different stones. The ring is similar to the others I’ve made, but there are more wraps around the bead, so it sits higher up.

All pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Next, I worked on my soldering skillz and made this heart with sterling silver wire, leather cord, and swarovski crystals:

And finally, today I learned to work with discs. I did not cut them myself because I discovered I can buy them pre-cut cheaper than I can cut them from raw sheet metal. I did, however drill the holes by hand. Literally. My electric drill had a dead battery, so I used the bit sans drill. *grin* Then I hammered in an impression, slightly domed them, tumble polished, and gave the high notes a satin finish to bring out the design. I put them on handmade hoops. They’re about 1 1/4″ from top to bottom. I’m sooo happy with how these turned out!

I’m lovin’ my new amateur metalsmith skills. What do you think?

Only in Texas can you walk out on your back porch and see a gigantic spider the size of a toad, then turn around and see a baby toad the size of a small spider… then run back inside to grab your camera only to return just in time to watch a large red wasp drag the huge toad-sized spider across your porch to heaven only knows where.

My life has never felt so bizarre.

First, the chocolate. Problem Girl is giving away free M&M’s to a person that talks about who they are proud of and why. Free chocolate, hello! What could be better? Ok, so the free tv I didn’t win a few weeks ago would have been better, but beggars can’t be choosers, right?

Now the love. Jenny at Up the Hill Gang gave me some link love this weekend! That was really sweet, so I’m returning the favor.

Finally, the rock & roll. So I really don’t have anything rock & roll-ish to talk about, so I guess I’ll talk about something else that rocks. My husband’s brand new Xbox 360. Can you believe he got that before I got my new camera? Can you also believe that it is *my* fault? Yes, I am the one that physically dragged him out to Wal-mart (I hate that place) and made him buy it. He wanted it for a long time, but hates spending money on himself. He rarely spends money on himself. However, he is such a hard worker and deserved a nice treat for a change. Sooo, we’re now the proud new owners of an Xbox 360 Elite and all these fancy accessories that I don’t understand other than the fact that they are so overpriced (but that’s just Microsoft for ya). Dustin and his friend were playing on that thing until the middle of the night. Hopefully we’ll get our money’s worth out of it.

In other news, hubby had the three day weekend off after all! Shocking, but true and very good. Saturday we went car shopping. I found three I’m interested in. One has leather seats. I can’t stop thinking about the leather seats. I think I’m completely sold on leather seats. Have I mentioned I like leather seats? I’ve actually never had them, but they sure are pretty and easy to clean compared to cloth. It’s an ’03 Saturn Ion, so a little smaller than what I was planning, but the car is really nice and I think it would work. The other two are bigger – an ’02 Saturn L100 (can you tell I like Saturns?) and an ’05 Ford Taurus. Those two are both nice too, but are lacking in the leather seat department. I think all three are good candidates, though I’m willing to bet none of them will still be there tomorrow! I’m not even sure we’re ready to buy now anyway, but if we decide we are, I’m dreaming about those leather seats. We used to have the Saturn model that the Ion replaced, and it was a decent size. Bigger than my current ’94 Sentra (which rains).

Other points of interest… the Ion is manual transmission and the other two are automatic. My last car was manual, and that’s what I learned on, so that’s not a problem. They’re actually a little fun to drive. ) All three are have power everything, and all three have decent mileage, appear to be pretty well taken care of, and come with a limited warranty.

So what do you think? Is bigger or leather better?