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

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?

Another charm

Senior photo sessions

Andrew & Stephanie......

Dawn's charms

.... of her grandchildren

Good Morning Dawn

One of my blog followers is getting a surprise today,

YES!, you Dawn!!!!

So, find my sister she has this for you.....

The rest of you will have to wait until tomorrow's post to see what's inside!

Check out this face!

Meet the new puppy...he's six weeks and the biggest of the litter of ten puppies! We're getting him when he's nine weeks old, don't know if we can wait.

He's sooooooooooooooo cute!!!!!!!!!!!!

Life goes on......

It 's been tough adjusting to Colby Dog being gone. I read this book before he went to heaven.

It's written in the dog's words... Enzo is his name and his owner is Denny. Enzo says he watched a TV documentary that explained everything to him, made it all clear, told the whole truth: When a dog is finished living his lifetimes as a dog, his next carnation will be as a man. Enzo, who always felt almost human and knew something about him was different than other dogs. His soul was very human. Like Enzo I have always thought Colby Dog was an old soul and there was something very human about him. He told me he was ready to become a man and I hope Enzo is right and Colby Dog will take all his memories, all his experiences with him and forces himself to remember and try to imprint on his soul all he knows and I will meet him, again.

I went to First Friday in downtown and it was full of artistic people and tons of ideas. Here's one.

I purchased this beauty from two young ladies who had lots of fab things. I got busy and made some of my own.

I didn't post about how I have been searching for a manual vintage aqua blue typewriter for months on Ebay, Craigslist, and thrift stores anywhere and everywhere I traveled lately. I won a bid on Ebay but it never arrived. I lost every other bid on Ebay and gave up. But out of the blue or should I say aqua blue when I traveled to see my best friend's dad, Papa George there it was .... the perfect aqua blue typewriter!!! The family of three daughters and two sons were in town so they decided to do some spring cleaning and purging of things around the garage and closets. They found their old family typewriter. My friend showed it to me the minute I arrived and I snatched it up and danced a happy dance and twirled and twirled, singing out how I couldn't believe my eyes. I didn't even ask if it was meant for me I just took it...lol... but no one stopped me. Probably cuz they were in shock of boldness and lack of consideration that it was their family treasure!!! So you would think I would noticed that maybe someone in the family...I mean I am someone in the family and if I could of I would of used it to type my high school homework on it like they said in the background as I ran away with to secure it in my truck!!!

The next day or so I began to have that catholic guilt and asked if it was wrong of me and my friend was nice to say it was fine (she was being nice). Well the guilt wore off and here it is!!!

It says "thank you ....

...... so much"

(I have a surprise package on it's way to my April Birthday Sister! I can't wait for her to open it up. Once she does I'll post photos. Shhhhhh don't tell her! ).