Thursday, May 27, 2010

Jewelry Stuff


I read about this artist in one of my magazines, Stephanie Lee. I fell in love with the jewelry she makes. In the book she give detailed steps on how to make her style of salvage jewelry. I headed to the closest Home Depot and bought my tools and supplies.




I needed a copper pipe cutter, 1/8" - 3/4" pipe cutter



Some heavy duty metal scissors. I bought two sizes and they work so well.

I cut pipe and metal now ready to solder. Some funny things about soldering in my world...
I used my butane burner and I was so into soldering I would forget that there was a flame at the end of the burner! I'm safety conscious in my studio most of the time. I wear gloves, mask, safety glasses and this time I also needed to be aware of flammable materials and liquids!! I can be so easily distracted but listen I had to be so aware of the FLAME!!


soldered pieces



filled pieces with artwork, buttons, plaster, clipart and clear epoxy.



I learned how to ink up metal and make it permanent. I made this metal mini tablet.



I also learned how to etch metal....this was the coolest thing. But the chemicals were strong, needed to wear gloves and a mask. But the end product was so dang cool. I always wanted to learn how to do this.



I make some pretty cool jewelry pieces with the etched metal. But, I can't show it to you until I send off a gift to my niece. Once she receives it, I'll post it. I made one for myself and have gotten so many compliments. I'll tell ya it was quite the process and took me all weekend to complete only a few pieces. Lots of cutting, filing, soldering, lettering and coming up with ideas on the spot. But then again the dremel tool is a crafting queen's best tool.

Cards


It's that time of year again. Graduations



Shout outs to my nephews, Colby Boy & Patrick, my nieces, Kaylee & Brenda and to my other family Stephanie Miller and Thomas Dominquez!!!

What a GAME! OMG, (sad face)


okay I don't usually ever hate on anything or anyone...but today I'm really hating on the Lakers!
Richardson gave us a tie!
then there was Artest, ugh!
Watch out for game 6

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

GAME 4!


WE HAVE NO LOVE FOR THE LAKERS ON PLANET ORANGE..



















#10, Leandro Barbosa, my favorite player! I'm gonna sport around his jersey today!!!





#1, Amare Stoudemire!!



Last post for the night...and let me introduce you to Maximus!

I couldn't sleep so I decide to post to my blog....



Our new puppy, 10 week old yellow male lab follows me around everywhere. Here's were he was tonight.... under my desk chair.
I had to be carefull not to run over his paws!


He kept getting under the rollers of my chair I decided to put him on the desk to I could keep typing!!!
He's so adorable! (Colby Dog would approve)
Good nite!

address book

This is the artwork of the cover...



working on the inside pages... toughest part was the design of the pages to be able to print on both sides of the sheet. I got to use my nifty book binder tool. It's easy to use and so handy dandy!

assembling the pages...


pages all put together...


Here's the final product... now to get all the addresses written in...so far I'm up to the K's

The Chris Parker encounter

A friend of mine was celebrating his birthday, recent retirement and pending divorce. Man, he really needed a night out with all of us. He had a great time and so did I. They had a live band playing, "The Chris Parker Project", never heard of them myself. They weren't too bad, but the best part was Chris Parker. I thought I recognized the name...he's a DJ on the radio. Zachariah and I would listen to him on the mornings I dropped Zachariah at school. So let me tell ya this Chris Parker guy was fun and the music was fun. Luckily one of the ladies with us had her nifty camera. She was so shy and wouldn't get any close up photos, so I'm like can I try to get some just a little closer? Like she could say no to me. Here's Chris Parker cheesing ...

























I had to get a closer look and then of course I just HAD to have my photo taken with him... He was a very sweet and posed with me.


Dang even got a kiss!


It was a fun night... yeah my friend had a blast and we danced all night long.

The coolest sign ever...don't you think?


It's not like the Bate's motel sign! It's this motel along Grand Ave that I have admired forever and ever. Then one day I noticed the motel closed and it was all fenced in. I had to stop and take a photo thinking it would be torn down. I drive by this sign all the time on my way to work. This week I noticed the motel was missing doors and windows, so what do you think if I end up with this cool sign! Now I'm not going to be opening the Crystal Motel....so you ask what would a person do with a sign like this.....put it on my patio wall! So cross your fingers!

Some Colby Dog stuff



Look what I made with Colby Dog's metal tags. He had three on his collar but I didn't use them. I found his old tags and here's what I made. It took me all day, I had to find my dremel tool, the right cutter blade thingie, rivet gun thing wouldn't work, so I finally used brad nails and pounded them through.



One afternoon I decided it would be fun to take some last photos with Colby Dog. Gabi came over and we even got Tom to sit for one photo.



Winston decided he needed his own photo with Gabi. He's such a good sitter, don't you think?