Another day in the studio....

Wow, it's sure taking a lot of time to finish the pendants and chains!  Then again, life gets in the way of the fun in the studio!  You know things like cooking, dishes, laundry, making beds, getting sleep, etc.  I'm really excited to show you my progress.  I have a pile of pendants to attach to the handmade chains. 

 

It's going to be a ring, so I need to solder it to a band.

I need to outline the drawing and fill with resin.

Then I'll age the metal and polish it.

 

Pendants waiting to be filled with resin.

 

The three rounds are rings.  I added rhinestones!

Need to fill soldered to a band, filled with resin

and then aged & polished.

Finished small pendant.  I'm so pleased.

 

In the studio this week

I'm having so much fun in the studio finishing up on all the jewelry pieces I've made.  I counted over 30 pendant pieces.  Today I begin the process of making chains and embellishments.   I wish you could join in the fun!

A Great Day, in deed.

I had a dream.....

Saw this photo on my friend's Facebook.

More cookies!

I had sugar cookie dough left over so I rolled out more shapes.  They needed to be decorated.  

This is the first time I've ever made cookies to have kids decorate them.  It was really fun and maybe the beginning of a new holiday tradition!

Here they are decorating the cookies.  They had a blast and were very creative.

Cookie exchange 2012

Here's all my cookies.  Everyone did a fantastic job and it was so fun visiting with everyone!

Special thanks for my cookie exchange friends.

Cookie exchange 2012

Our cookie exchange went so well this year.

I made sugar cookies.
I love my KitchenAid!
 Good think because I had to make over nine dozen!

Star cookie cutter shapes.
The dough turned out perfect
which made it easy  to roll out and cut out.

White royal icing... yumm

First time I've tried lining the cookies
and then filling them with thinner icing..
.ah didn't work out too well for me.....

I had to come up with an idea
 to cover up the sloppy iced cookies...whoola 

Add sparkles!

Packaging is a big part of our cookie exchange.
 I used silver tinsel.  

Final package.  Tinsel, red ribbon & a star.

Happy New Year!

Hello blog friends,

 

The first day of 2013 and thinking how 2012 went.

Enjoyed my first full year of retirement

Travelled to Texas with my family and reconnected with my Texas family

My baby sister got married!

Got to hang out with good friends, Amy & Kevin in Denver!

Spent a year with the twins, Olivia and Addison & that has been so much fun.

Improved on keeping garden plants alive.

Improved on a lot of things....housework being one major change.

I always say I retired from my real job to the job I hate the most...housekeeping.

I have enjoyed cooking and baking.  I have learned what a messing person I am in the kitchen!

I made some new friends this year... for one, Kathy has been an inspiration to me.

I also met and have been keeping in touch with a family from Belgium that we met on a random stop for a picnic in Page, AZ.

I found I love Facebook much to my surprise.  It's let me get a inside look into family and long lost friends.

Happily spent endless hours in my craft studio!

Enjoyed taking jewelry making and craft on-line classes.

My Raiders were a tough team to follow this season and the Huskers weren't much better.

I have to listen to my Nebraska family rub in how well the Denver Donkeys are doing this year. haha

I didn't stay consistent with exercise :(

I didn't get the garage cleaned out.

I continued to purge stuff from my studio to donate to friends and family.

Another thing that stayed consistent this year was my ability to have random things and people cross my path at the oddest times that make it feel like perfect timing.  There have been way too many to list.  I love how I hear from a friend just as I'm thinking about them.  Happens all the time....so that's one thing I look forward to continuing in 2013.

Happy New Year and thank you so much for following my blog.

Jobi

 

Dear Blog....

I've been so busy with all the holiday projects and fun.  But I'm not done...baking the rest of my sugar cookie dough to deliver to my two favorite firefighters!  Photos to follow!!!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all of our family & friends!  We've had a fun time so far this holiday season.  We are truly blessed.

Prayers

 

To the families of the victims in the Connecticut shootings.  Hard to hold back the tears.

Cookie baking today

The cookie exchange is tomorrow so it's time to start baking.  I always bake sugar cookies.  This year I decided on stars!  I'll post when I'm finished decorating and packaging them, eight and half dozen!

 



December 15th

It's my birthday......
It's an unusual day, cloudy with rain.  Hardly ever happens around here.  It's gonna be a great day... hot coffee, warm bed, stay in my pajamas, maybe a DVD movie or two, some reading, some studio time, some not so good for you foods, turn up the music and sing out loud, let's get this day started!

Packaging fun

I remembered this roll of heavy rough brown paper.  I cut it up and sewed envelopes for some special packages I'll be sending out this week. 

 

I used red thread and different stitching.
  Used decorative scissors to trim.

I combined the Santa keys and
reindeer food along with a little note.
 I'm totally pleased with this project!

Christmas project 3

Next project is making tags for the special reindeer food I bagged up.  I made enough to pass on to a number of kids!! 

 

Found a vintage image of Santa with his reindeer.
 Needed to cut and round the edges.

Needed bells and twine

Added some rich green ribbon

Tied the jingle bells to the ends of the twine.

The reindeer food is birdseed
with a tad bit of magic glitter!

They came out so damn cute. 
I'm so pleased with the way they came out.

Christmas project 2

I bought bottle brush trees in various sizes and bleached them white.  I plan to use some for snow globes and the rest for little vignettes around the house.  Honestly, I haven't started decorating my house.  This doesn't traditionally start until after December 15th....pssssss my birthday!