Bad coffee creamer, and a kitchen picture

Here's a finished kitchen picture. I still have to paint the window, but will do that this weekend (I swear). Details include knobs and pulls, which I mentioned the other day, and also to get a smaller microwave. This one is vintage 1990's, if I recall correctly, and was given to us by my former in-laws, with the express purpose of being able to fit big things in it. Microwaves were the up and coming thing at the time. It's a monster, though, and getting a smaller one will free up space on that counter. 

I love the wall color. I hemmed and hawed over this one and several shades lighter, and it was Mr W who said, "I like the darker color". I had considered blues as well, and just couldn't make up my mind. Once this got on the walls, it was clearly a good choice. There is a lot going on between the floor and the tile, and the bold color kind of melts into the background. It's weird, you don't notice it much, which to my mind means it's holding its own. 

Oh, by the way, it was bad coffee creamer. Yuck. And shame on the store for having spoiled stuff that was two weeks before its sell by date. 

In other news, I've been having trouble sleeping. Again. I usually fall asleep OK, and then am up for an hour or so, then am solidly asleep when the alarm goes off. I've been reading about sleep, and I do a lot of it right. Dark room, cool temperature, quiet or white noise, consistent times, and few if any disturbances.

Sally, who has always slept in the living room, has recently been granted access to Mr W's room (at his request) and will fall asleep there when he's at my house. When he's not, she still goes in there but is a little restless, and I can hear her walking by my door sometimes once or twice a night. So that's one thing that wakes me up, but it's not a big deal. 

I did go to the doctor and she said that because of my age, I should get hormone levels tested, which I did and they are normal, so it's all in my head, so to speak. What I mean is that the worry about stupid things that have no real bearing, and also about things that are totally out of my control are the things I need to usher out the door when I lay down to sleep. So I'm going to try to do some meditation work before bed to clear the table, and will see how that goes. 

I do occasionally get a really good night's sleep and the difference I feel is really noticeable. It's the difference between getting all the stuff done that I need to get done and not much more, and feeling like I'm actually living my life as I should. 

In other other news, here's some more new stuff in the Etsy shop:

Upcycled button stack key ring in tan and blue:

Upcycled button bracelet in greens and blues

Happy Thursday! I'm attending a lecture tonight on campus. It's one of the benefits of living in a college town that I don't take advantage of enough.

Kitchen pictures soon

I realized (here in the dark Tuesday morning) that I don't have a picture of the kitchen since the walls have been painted. I'll snap some photos when I come home from work and there's some light.

This sounds really trivial, but I can't get my coffee to taste right the last couple of days. I don't drink much coffee, but do like my cup in the morning while I surf the web and wake up. Maybe the cream is going bad. Must start to investigate this.

Anyway, what else has been going on. Mr W and I are going to travel to SC after Christmas to visit with my brother and his family, and my brother and SIL in MN will be coming in too. Back in September when we started talking about this, we had hoped that we could convene down in Florida, where my dad recently moved.

Traveling over Christmas can be a real pain, but it helps a bit to buy tickets in early-mid September, when flights are more available. I also had the choice of several cities to change planes in. There's never ever a direct flight to SC from Denver. Hmm, let's see, do I want to go through Chicago, or Atlanta? That's a no-brainer, and we'll go through Atlanta. I also wanted to have a couple of hours between flights, in case things got delayed. There were flights offered with 30 minute connection times, which I had trouble fathoming. You'd almost be guaranteed to miss your connection.

But we wanted to go meet up in Florida, but my dad said he needed more time to see what he wanted to do. I asked again three weeks later, and he said the same thing. They don't have a house yet, and have been living in an apartment, so I totally understand that things feel up in the air for them. So I talked to my brothers, and bought tickets to SC. I felt bad about gambling on the idea that Dad wouldn't decide before it was time to buy tickets, but it ended up being the right thing to do because the finally found a house in the meantime, but won't move in until after the new year.

There was some talk of getting down there in March, and I'll help plan that trip.

Meanwhile, I'm going to throw in a jewelry photo. I've been happy with how this last round has turned out.

Blue, purple, gold button bracelet.

Post-Big-Craft-Show Thoughts

I am relieved the big craft show is over and am looking forward to getting my house put back together and getting my kid out from behind the computer to make some cookies and put up the tree today. It was a large chunk of time to get ready and do this thing, and I wanted to get my thoughts down so I can come back later (maybe next year when it's time to sign up!) and read them.

What sold best was my watch parts bracelets and the bookmarks I make from buttons and clay tiles. As a last minute thing on the Wednesday before, I made about 15 bookmarks with my clay tiles only and sold all of those. All told, I sold about 50 bookmarks, 20 of the watch parts bracelets and about 10 button bracelets. People are looking for something different.

I sold small numbers of magnets, buttons, brooches, earrings, and ornaments. These were my lower-priced items that I figured would sell well because they were inexpensive, but it didn't go that way. The bookmarks were really cheap at $3 and it's hard to tell if I could have charged $5 and still sold as many, or people would have not bought them because they didn't look like they were worth that much. As far as time and materials went, $3 was fair as long as I didn't have to ship them.

People either liked my stuff or didn't and this was very interesting to me. Many looked as they went by and didn't slow down as they passed. Others stopped and I could tell my stuff connected with them and that was really neat to see. One woman wearing a bright blue and purple sweater stopped and looked at the button bracelets. I looked at which button bracelets I had out, and after she passed fished around in the box where the extras were and put out one that was purple blue and green. She came back around, zeroed in on that very bracelet and BOUGHT IT! I was very pleased and told her what I had done and she thanked me. That was pretty cool

I am lucky and fortunate to be in a position where I am not dependent on the sale of my stuff to put food on the table and pay my mortgage. So why am I doing it? It was fun to interact with people, and I get a kick out of having people like my stuff. It was also fun to see people I knew who stopped by because I was there, or happened to be passing through. Without thinking too hard about it, my goal should be to cover my expenses (including my time) and maybe just a little on top of that.

I was talking to the woman in the booth next to mine and she wasn't shy about telling me that I wasn't charging enough for my bracelets. More to the point that I wasn't charging for my time. I do spend a lot of time finding the right elements to buy, and that time is done and passed and I'm not sure how much time it was, but that was time spent making pieces that I made and will make. I guess I need to come up with some way to estimate that, and also to keep track of my time going forward.

With the money I have made at the three craft shows this year, Mr W and I are going to take a vacation. I believe we will go to Washington, DC some time in the late winter/early spring. He's just the right age for it and I'd like to go as well. I was talking to my dear SIL who turns 50 next year and she's organizing a long weekend in Las Vegas in April to celebrate. Looks like I'll have to make more bracelets to pay for that airfare as well.

Craft show recap

I did my first craft show last Saturday, and it went just fine. I sold about $150 worth of my stuff. Not as much as I had hoped, but not bad considering there were only 12 vendors. The set up was kind of odd, as my table was in a cluster of tables and the vendors were in the area inside the cluster, and it was cramped. I had Mr W with me, and I thought we'd be able to sit together and he'd help me, but there wasn't room for a second chair. He camped out in the kitchen of the gallery, and had his computer so was fine, although a little buggy at the end of the day.

I didn't forget to bring anything, I did the sales tax correctly, and people were very nice. I sold a little bit of each type of item I had, except the buttons. The thing I sold most of were the $3 book marks. The little bags I have to hold things are too small, so I need to order larger ones (yes, this post is also to remind me of things). Several people looked at my bracelets and said, "I've never seen anything like that". Thanks! 

I made the display boards from cupboard doors that I got at the place in town that sells salvaged doors, windows, etc. I might redo the holes, move them up and farther apart, so I can fit more on the boards. I went to an estate sale and got the matching napkins. I like the effect. I even ironed them! 

I admit I had some anxiety about doing a craft show (yes, I'm a little embarrassed at that sentence) that has since evaporated with me thinking, "what was I tweaked out about?" The anxiety is about not knowing how things will go. Simple uncertainty. It's good to have that every once in a while because it shows me that getting tweaked isn't worth the effort. 

One show down, two or three to go. I'm going to make some ornaments this weekend, but otherwise have enough stock to do the rest of the shows. 

Better

Another unrelated garden picture.  I've got two Dahlias that flowered at least a month early this year but did fine. They are very sensitive to frost and got zapped when it first started getting cold.

Thanks for the well wishes and advice, I think I've turned the corner, cold-wise. I had a properly-placed breathing strip on my nose last night and slept soundly. I think about how some people cope with chronic health issues and it makes my piddly cold seem so insignificant.

Case in point. Yesterday, my church sent an email saying how a church member died yesterday morning after riding his bike to work. Just gone. He was probably in his late 50's. I've been thinking about the abruptness of having someone die in that manner. No prolonged suffering, which is good. But it's an understatement to say no one is "ready" to go that way.

I've been spending the better parts of every weekend for the last couple of months making bracelets, brooches and buttons. Now that I signed on to do a craft fair in three weeks, I've been trying to get organized for that. Carding buttons, trying to get a few more pieces made, blah blah blah. It takes a tremendous amount of time and for what?

Things feel out of balance. I like to make these pieces. I truly get a kick out of putting something together from component parts that is pleasing to my eye. But it feels like I've been spending too much time on it lately. Someone asked me whether I had been out hiking lately, and I had to say that I have not been hiking ALL YEAR. That's not right.

I've told myself, too, that I'm not going to meet and nice and compatible guys while I'm gluing clay pieces together in my basement. Must leave house. There must be a balance out there that feels more right than this. I need to find it.

Good news

Well, it looks like Graycie the camper van has been sold. About six weeks ago, I took it over to my mechanic's, where they have a selection of their own used vehicles as well as consignments like mine. It cost me 10% of the price, but he got more for it than I would have. I don't have a check in hand yet, as the final negotiations went into late yesterday afternoon, but if everything works as it's supposed to, the buyer put down a several hundred dollar deposit yesterday, I'll send the title Monday and then get a cashier's check for it after that. Or something like that. 

One of the reasons I thought the sales commission was totally worth it is that they are dealing with the details that I don't want to deal with. 

It's a big relief to get it sold, as in retrospect a second vehicle (especially an infrequently-used camper van) wasn't a luxury that I could easily afford. Live and learn. As these things seem to go, my trusty (and 17 year old) Honda Civic is starting to make a rattling noise in the back that suggests I need to put some money into it. I need to see if I can perhaps use the van for a day or two before it's actually sold so they can get my Honda shipshape before I go down to having only one car again. Timing. 

In other news, this morning I had my biggest sale ever on Etsy!! Someone bought eight (8!) of my button-clay tile bracelets. I'm still kind of waiting to see if she made a mistake and will cancel the order. Ha! I'm also wondering what she's going to do with them and if she's going to resell them. It would be nice to have an outlet where I can sell several at a time. It's a funny thing how I feel kind of validated because someone bought that many pieces. As though since someone else liked them that much to buy eight of them, I must be creating good stuff. 

Anyway, that's my good news today. It's shaping up to be another busy Saturday. They always are though, and it's what I make it, so I must want things this way. 

Finally

It has been forever and a day since I felt excited to start a knitting project, but maybe the cool nights really are the thing that triggers it in me. Also, I received a birth announcement from my dad's girlfriend's son and his wife (how to shortcut the name for that relationship?) for the birth of their daughter. This is the Lacy Julian Hat and I believe that link will only work if you are registered with Ravelry. Isn't it sweet? And more to the point with my knitting these days, doesn't it look like something that could be knit in a weekend? I'm thinking something in a very soft variegated color scheme, with a couple of my littlest handmade buttons sewn on. 

My local yarn shop is having a sale this weekend, too, so it all fits together nicely. Since I'm posting pictures, here's a recent bracelet.

Candy pinks. I'm getting a kick out of making these. I think I've said that about a hundred times, so I'll stop. 

What else. I was called in as a mediator (I say that tongue in cheek) to talk to Mr W over at his dad's house. Seems Mr W hasn't been turning in all of his assignments, and the school has a system where parents can check all of their kids' work. I noticed he was missing a couple of things, and texted his dad to make sure those got done. 

One of the things that has always irked me a bit about my ex is his impulsiveness. However, when he jumped right on the "the kid is off of TV and the computer until this is turned around", I found myself relieved that he acted so decisively. I wondered if I would have done the same thing. I may have waffled more and waited until the infraction was larger? But his dad did the right thing to get Mr W's attention. 

So we talked about getting organized, and the kid needs to bring home all of his homework, even if it is done already, so we can see it. I think we're all on the same page. Mr W walked me out to my car, and I thought it was really interesting coming from this ever-maturing 11 year old boy when he said, "I just thought that I needed to stand up to him for some of this stuff". He was implying (and I largely believe him and it will all get sorted out) that the grade viewer thing online wasn't complete and that he (Mr W) was correct on some of his points. Fair enough. I told him he still needed to pick his battles, and that things would go more smoothly with his dad if he was cooperative and helpful on the little things. 

Welcome to middle school.

Better

My ankle (or "cankle" as one dog park friend called it - calf + ankle looking) is much better. Thanks for the well wishes. I thought at the time it happened that it wasn't too serious and sure enough the swelling is down a lot. I might get a good-sized bruise out of it yet, which is always a conversation starter :-)

What else. We are making the transition to Mr W's middle school schedule reasonably well. I've been getting up 15 (just a puny 15) minutes earlier and I have felt it. Or so I think. After two weeks of it (on school days) I woke up last Friday a little before the alarm and took that as a good sign. However, I've also been in sort of a rut of waking up in the middle of the night and having trouble falling back to sleep. Nothing's wrong, I'm not anxious, I just can't fall back to sleep. It's frustrating, and hopefully will turn around soon.

Work is good. I handed in another manuscript to my boss so we can get that study published. It's a sometimes painful process, the editing and the back and forth about how things should be worded. He's nice about it, but it can be a long process. We've got two other authors this time around who will want to (and should) have input, but at least the ball is rolling. This means I can go back to the lab and do lab stuff, which is my favorite part of the job. Try this, try that, run samples, get data. I know it's not for everyone, but I do like it.

The bracelet stuff has taken a lot of my free time lately, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. I need to promote the stuff, because just listing items on Etsy doesn't go very far. I use their within-site advertising, so if someone searches "button bracelet" my stuff will be at the top of the page, and that gets some views, but so far not many sales. So I'm beefing up my blog presence at my other blog, and trying to make those connections with people who make things out of polymer clay, mostly. They are by and large warm and friendly people and that makes it not so much like work. So much interesting stuff out there.

But it's hard to know when to stop with the checking and promoting and what works and what doesn't. I'm still not in a spot where I feel like my efforts translate into selling my stuff. So far that, and feedback about pictures that I post, are the signs of "success" in this for me. However, I do still get a kick out of making the stuff. I love it when a piece comes together and all the parts look good. I feel like I need to focus more on that, but would really like for this little hobby to at least pay for itself.

And for heaven's sake, don't take the above paragraph as a plea for you to please go over and buy something. Don't do that.

In the meantime, I have not played my banjo enough, and am making a concerted effort to practice more. I hate feeling guilty about not practicing, and really don't want that to be my motivation. I want to practice because I enjoy it.

I have had some insights about the garden this year that I will share in another post. Growing veggies didn't go quite as I had hoped this year. My tomato plant is monstrous, but with few fruits. The powdery mildew came early, and I probably, because I planted cukes near my cantaloupe, have some weird melon-cuke hybrids. The fruits between the two plants are more cylindrical than the first melons I  harvested. More on this later.

Physaria Designs giveaway

I'm having a giveaway over at my other blog. Take a peek at my Etsy shop, find a bracelet you like, copy and paste its URL on the Physaria Designs Facebook page, or at the PD blog.

I'll keep it open until Wednesday at 9 pm Mtn. Time, and pick a random winner from all the entries.

Good luck!

Garden update 7-7-12

I'd like to let the rest of the country know that I hope that you get the same rains we had yesterday. Soaking, persistent, but not scary rains that we really needed. I was looking in the paper for the rainfall totals, but their tracking ends at 8 pm, so it wasn't accurate. We must have gotten an inch of rain, which for around here is a pretty big deal. It has cooled off, too so I'm a happy camper. On to the garden pictures!

 

Here's all the vegetables and fruits. The soaker hose irrigation is working pretty good. The apple tree is leaning a bit, and I might have to give it some support. I'll have to ask my friend from the dog park who knows about such things.

 

This is the new bed. Strawberries, parsnips (yeah, we'll see how those turn out - not sure I've ever eaten one, but am willing to give it a go), cukes in the cage (bought late, and a little behind), and a couple of Marigolds from seed in front. I had planned to put potatoes in this bed, and found the garden stores sold out, so I bought some Yukon Golds from Whole Foods and waited for them to sprout, and they never did. The irony is that I am notorious for opening my pantry closet and finding spuds with four inch long purple roots coming out of them. Not these ones. Next year I'll be better prepared.

 

I've got my first zucchini flower this morning! This bed is a little sparse, but I've got herbs in front of the zucchini, and some freeloader broccoli (all leaves, no flowers) there as well. My one yellow pear tomato is also in this bed, which you can see on the right in the first picture. I recently gave it more irrigation hose, so I think it will be happier. It was kind of limping along.

 

The Nicotiana I bought last year as starts reseeded itself (a lot!). There are 8 other plants in there, Viola and Gazania, but you wouldn't know it. Next year I'll just let the Nicotiana have the whole pot and save a couple of bucks. I like how they look. Raspberries are behind them. Lots of leaves this year, a few berries. It's pretty crowded back there. One of these days I need to get in with some long gloves and see if there are berries that I can't see from the outside. 

 

Rogue lettuce in this one, and onions. I also have a couple of planted-late green bean plants that will hopefully go up the trellis. Carrots in here as well. I planted a lot of cantaloupe because we love it and what the heck. It seems to be having a good year. 

I'm letting it spill over and go wherever it wants, in hopes that we'll get a few good ones. Might as well get some benefit from the heat, right? 

One more picture:

I'll do a post about this soon, but I find myself seeing some parallels between doing online dating (where I was occupied with seeing how many people looked at my profile) and trying to sell my jewelry online. *sigh* I still enjoy the process, as long as I don't expect too much out of it.

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New Bracelet

Sorry I've been absent. This fire thing's been a drag on everyone's reserves. Here's a new bracelet I've got up at the shop.

I call it Soft Shimmer. There's a little bird cage charm on this one. 

Bittersweet

 

Mr W had his 5th grade "Continuation Ceremony" this past Friday. It was a nice ceremony, and at the end, a teacher read this little piece about how kids are like dogs, and teens are like cats. I hadn't heard it before, and when she read the final line it brought tears to my eye. The mom in front of me actually wept briefly. 

We went to a graduation party, and I don't know many of the parents very well, so I wasn't talking to people very much. I looked around and some moms were filling water balloons. I have to say that this will be my mantra from now on in social situations where I feel a little awkward. I will try to find a job to do. I stood there and tied water balloons for an hour and a half and chatted with a group of moms. It made the experience very pleasant. 

Saturday, I volunteered at the old-time music festival that a couple of my dog park friends (and the people who told me about the weekly jams) helped organize. Again, I didn't know many people there, so walked around a bit, and then sat at the ticket desk for an hour before my shift started, chatting with the other volunteer and people who were coming in and milling about. There were two jams that were held right in that area, so I got to listen to good music too. I'll feel more confident next year participating music-wise, and left my banjo in the trunk. I do enjoy doing that kind of volunteering. Keep busy, chat with people, and have a job to do. 

We took Sally to the dog park in town that has a pond, and she loved it. We've been there a couple of times, but it's farther away from our regular dog park so we don't get there often. We threw the ball into the water for about 30 minutes and it wiped her out (in a good way - she was tired). I had felt bad because I left her alone all day Saturday to go to the festival. When I got home it was raining, so I didn't walk her that day. I will definitely remember the pond for hot days this summer. The water wasn't something I'd want to swim in, but for dogs it was fine. She ended up looking cleaner than when she went in. Not surprising, as I've had to wait an extra month for a grooming appointment due to one of the groomers quitting. 

I got my sample buttons sent off to the button lady. I like the colors and how they turned out. I improved my method of poking the holes in the buttons after a bunch of trial and error, and feel capable of turning out 800 in a relatively short amount of time. Fingers crossed and I'm glad for offers of help from a couple of friends. 

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Monday recap

Another good weekend here. Mr W got a new computer game, and is crazy about it in a way that is fun to see. I did get some work out of him, though. We got the rest of the flowers planted that he picked out a couple of weeks ago, and he cut the grass. That last one is a job that I'm thrilled to pass on to the next generation. He had a friend over yesterday, and they walked downtown to get ice cream. By themselves. This was a big deal (for me!). The first time he's done that with a buddy. They were more than ready for the adventure. No big deal for them.

I did get a chance to see the eclipse. A glimpse of it anyway. I made a pinhole in a piece of paper and projected it on another piece of paper. Still pretty cool. I saw a picture of my cousin's set up in Las Vegas, where they could see the whole thing. She set up a pair of binoculars backwards towards the sun, set in a piece of cardboard and on a tripod. A really good set up. They the image was projected on a black piece of paper they had taped on a fence about 2 feet away. Cool.

On Saturday, the group of people I play banjo with was doing a jam downtown as part of the city's street art program. The city sets up areas around downtown and brings in performers, visual artists and the like, and people get to watch and ask questions. Sorry for the blurry picture. We played music and got a good response. This music is perfect for square dancing, and there are a couple of people in the group who know how to call dances. This is so very cool. When enough people were gathered around watching us play, the callers got them together, gave them quick instructions and got down to it. We played relatively simple songs, so it was good practice for me. This being the first time I played outside like this, I found myself easily distracted and lost my place several times.

This dancing stuff is one of the things I really like about old-time music. It's simple enough so a beginner like me can jump in, and one can learn the melodies and have fun with that. And, people can dance to it. There were lots and lots of smiles when people danced. That community aspect of it is very appealing to me, too. 

I talked to S, the woman who wants 800 buttons, on Friday and am excited about the project. I've ordered the clay cutters and met someone last night who might be able to make a holder for them so I can cut more at one time. At the moment my process is very labor intensive, with each button cut out by hand and each hole poked by hand. This will be a good opportunity for me to streamline things so I can more easily do bigger quantities. She's going to send me samples of the embroidery floss that goes in the kits and I'll match the colors. Did I mention this project is for making buttons for cross stitch kits? How cool is that? 

And, finally, here's something else I've been working on. It's the first CVB necklace I put up for sale on Etsy. Friend C, to whom I sent a prototype, worked out the last bit of the design, so I'm using her initials in the name. I like these. 

Now it's buttons

I think the hunt for bracelet stuff is a significant part of what makes it fun for me. I was poking around eBay, and saw some nifty old buttons that would work on my bracelets. Let me tell you, if you've got any interest in old buttons, there are tons (OK, pounds and pounds) of them on eBay. It's really something. It's the same kind of thing as with the old watches. These are things that most everyone had, and some folks had a lot of them. It seems, then, that there is an almost infinite supply.

Here are some that I'm looking at:

Nice mother of pearl buttons. I love the luster.

OK, I'm not seriously considering this one, which is a whopping eight pound of buttons, but felt compelled to share. The current bid is $24.50 and it's got a day to go yet. I don't know where I'd keep them all, so I'm generally setting my sights on smaller lots. The thought of becoming a button collector doesn't really appeal either. But wow.

I couldn't copy the larger version of these, but they look really interesting. Metal filigree over color. 

And I probably can't use these, but they sure are pretty! Glass buttons. I'm like a crow - hey, is that something shiny?

It's graduation day for the local university, and kind of grey and potentially drizzly. This says to me quite clearly: "Garage Sales" and "Plant Store". And other garden-y and crafty stuff. Hope you have a good weekend too.

Hi blog, howareya?

It's funny to me how writing on this blog has become part of my routine such that not doing it for a few days feels weird. So here I am, although I don't have much in the way of big stuff going on. I'm making a bracelet for my banjo instructor to give as a wedding gift. She wanted to personalize it, so I lined up various bits for her to choose from and took this picture:

It's been my experience so far to have several people say they'd like to do this, but they don't tell me what they want, so the process stalls. I thought maybe I'd work up several of these in different color schemes and make those available for custom orders. 

I made the picture huge on my preview - does it bleed over the margins when you view it? 

After my face-reddening experience at work the other day, I've been taking Excel spreadsheet data and doing this and then that, and cut and paste, and I'm a little weary of all the screen time, but should be done with it today. I've been in the lab some, too and that makes me happy.

I think I've got my irrigation all set to accommodate the fourth raised bed. This strikes me as SO me, but I have the water timer installed (which takes some doing because all of the fittings want to leak, as does the faucet itself) and haven't programmed it yet. I saw that stuff was looking a little limp yesterday and turned it on manually, which you don't have to tell me sort of defeats the purpose of having a timer. Must go to the garage and read the instructions... 

I'm looking forward to getting more stuff planted this weekend, although it's supposed to rain some. I really do like to hit my three favorite plant stores in town and see what they've got. It's kid-candy store level for sure.

That's about it. Nothing major to complain about, nothing hurts, dog and child are healthy, I still have a job, and life is good. 

A Little Giveaway

I'm doing a giveaway my bracelet FB page. Leave a comment there (not here) and I'll use a random number generator to pick a winner on Sunday. This is the bracelet that will be given away:

Good luck!!

Longer, shorter, less, more

I started playing around with making necklaces out of the same bits I use to make the bracelets, and this is my very first attempt. I bought some inexpensive chain from Michael's, and had the rest of the parts on hand (which was kind of cool). 

I'll eventually order some nicer chain, but it went together pretty easily. I need to fiddle with the length of the chain and the number of bits to make it lay as flat as possible. Longer, shorter, less pieces, more pieces, I think I just need to make several and see which ones lay the best. 

In other news, it looks to be a perfect weekend to get my garden beds prepped. We have gotten a smudge of rain over the last few weeks, but not that dump of snow that we'd consider perfectly normal for this time of year. 

In other other news, a dog park friend is recently retired and likes to fish. Yesterday he gave me a salmon fillet, and I don't think I will ever buy salmon in the store. Might not even get it in a restaurant because this stuff was so amazing, it'd be a disappointment any other way. Even with my clumsy cooking of it pan fried and I think I over-cooked it a little. It was fabulous. Wow. I need to make some cookies or something to return the favor, gotta keep the good food flowing...

Must. Get. Away. From. Computer.

I have spent a lot of time on the computer this weekend, updating the Etsy shop, mostly. I'm happy with how it looks. I retook pictures so everything kind of goes together. Here's some examples:

Oy. During this process I received a creative little burst in the form of how to make earrings and necklaces that will have the same feel as the bracelets. I bought some supplies today, and the fiddling will commence at some point. It's a really nice day out, so Mr W and I need to get out and ride our bikes here shortly. 

I still need to pay some attention to my yard, but there's time for that, too. OK, I'm off. More later.

Sparse

All of the sudden, my Etsy shop looks a little sparse. I'm planning on finishing several pieces, and making a few more. The photography is an important part of it, and I'm still looking for something simple that makes all of the pictures on the page "go together". For now, it's using a rough linen napkin near a bright window.

Here's my works in progress:

The wine education thingy last night was fun. I ended up being 45 minutes late because of a piece of equipment at work malfunctioned and I had to start from the beginning of the run. Erg.

I'm going to send the company an email on this, because with the older version of the equipment, we could stop the protocol and jump ahead to another step, easy peasy. With the new one, there is no provision for that and I think that's bogus. So when the little mechanical grabber grabbed my sample plate and couldn't put it down level where it was supposed to go, it just stopped. I opened the grabber and put the plate where it was supposed to go, but then the machine didn't know where the plate was.

I had it planned so that I'd have an hour to pick up the dog and get her fed and settled, and then plenty of time to change and get to my destination. This lab stuff is just like that. The samples had to be processed then, or we'd lose them. It all turned out fine, and I enjoyed the wine and catching up with friend D.

A little help?

On the heels of selling not one but two bracelets in the last couple of days (thanks, you know who you are), I was going through my shiny bits of this and that and remembered that I have a bunch of old cuff links like in the photo (which are not mine, and come from this Ebay listing).

Can anyone offer advice as to what's the best way to make these flat on the back side? There are a couple of kinds here, and I've got a few of the snap cuff links as well. As an aside, those snap cuff links continue to be a very hot item on Ebay. They often sell in lots and will go for $2-$3 per face (with four faces per pair of cuff links - some are singles or half of a pair). Anyway, if you've got a drawer full, they'd sell on Ebay in a hurry.

While I'm at it, every time I look on Ebay for this kind of thing, old watches as well, I wonder about the supply. For my purposes, is it practically infinite? It seems that way. One could figure that every adult in the US, during the time people used mechanical watches, had at least one. Even when they stopped working, people (it seems to me) usually put them in a drawer instead of just throwing them away. As for cuff links, men and women would have several pairs.

Anyway, if we call the bottom row Row 1, I've got both kinds shown in Row 2. The kind with the stem, and the kind with the little hinge. Many of the ones with the hinges especially are the right size for use in the bracelets, and I've been sitting on them waiting for them to alter themselves with no luck. I do have a chordless drill that I could attach a cutting wheel to, but I would need to buy a vise, which I could do. Holding the piece with a pair of pliers quickly became NOT the way to do it. No finger slicing, please.

So if you've got two cents to throw in, please do. I'd like to incorporate these shiny bits into the bracelets.