Last evening, Greg came to me and said “I think a bird got into our house.” 

What?!?

He said it sounded like there was a bird flapping and scratching in our furnace! 

I immediately went down to the furnace to check this out for myself…  No sound…  So I tapped lightly on the furnace, still no sound…  At this point I’m thinking Greg has imagined this (which is what I’m hoping) or that we now have a dead bird in our furnace…

Greg starts opening up the different parts of the furnace, looking for a bird.  I have no problem helping to catch a live animal, but recovering a dead animal from the furnace (possibly from the motor) is not high on the list of things I want to do. 

Finally, Greg sees something…

Yep, it’s a chipmunk, and it’s alive!   It’s in the bottom compartment of the furnace. 

So now the tricky part…  Catching it!

The chipmunk was terrified, so it was staying crouched in the back part of the compartment.  I tried to lure it out with some peanut butter and some peanuts, but nothing doing, he wasn’t going anywhere.  We finally  ”persuaded” it to get out using a hockey stick.  I tried to catch it, but it ran right past me and into the rec room.  Had you been a fly on the wall looking at Greg and I chasing this chipmunk round and round the room, you would have had a good laugh!  I’m sure we looked ridiculous! 

At one point, the chipmunk ran up the stairs, with me in hot pursuit…  I caught up with it, so it turned around and leapt down the stairs.  It took all 12 steps in one jump!  Good thing it went back down, because the door at the top of the stairs was open, and just beyond the door were…

Oreo

 

Shadow

 

Yes, the cats… 

If the cats had seen the critter, it would have been a merry chase indeed all around the house.  And the cats would likely have not been successful at catching it as they are declawed. 

So, I rounded up the cats, locked them into the bathroom where they yowled at the indignity of it all, propped open the outside door and went back down to the rec room to try to chase the chipmunk back up the stairs, and hopefully out the door. 

Chippy was hiding under the couch, so a bit more “persuasion” with the hockey stick, and he was out, and racing up the stairs with me right behind him.  Luck was finally on our side because he beelined straight for the open door, down the steps, made a sharp right, ran through the neighbour’s flower bed and then headed straight to the backyard. 

I wonder how far he ran before slowing down…

It’s been a while since I have curated a Treasury on Etsy, but I have the day off today and checked out the Treasury about 25 minutes before it was due to open, so…

 

 

 Seriously, curating treasuries is addicting!  I really love this one! 

 

What is a Treasury you ask?  Treasuries are like a collage of beautiful items that are chosen among all the items available on etsy.com.  Each treasury contains 12 items and the curator often has a theme.  They are like temporary, mini works of art.  The treasury list is a constantly changing list of eye candy!   Anyone who has an etsy account can curate a treasury.

I have a special offer for my icraft store until June 25th.  You can get 20% off any jewelry you purchase (excluding shipping) when you use coupon code “20SMILES”.  Just put the coupon code in the “notes to seller” upon checkout and you can wait for a revised invoice.  If you prefer to pay right away, I can do a Paypal refund for you instead. 

If you enjoy buying handmade items, then you will want to check out indiesmiles.com  They have a coupon directory and you can find special promotions for all different kinds of hand made items.  The coupons change every 2 weeks. 

Several sellers from icraft.ca are currently offering a special coupon.  Icraft is a site where crafters and artists sell their handcrafted items directly to their customers.  If you haven’t discovered icraft yet, now is a good time to go check it out!

When you first look at it, wire seems so insignificant.  Afterall, it’s just a thin metal line.  What use could it have? 

Well, for those of us that make jewelry, wire is amazing!  Wire can be bent and twisted and shaped.  Wire can be used to form connections.  Wire can secure things in place.  Wire can be structural.  Wire can be decorative.  The uses of wire seem almost limitless…

Metal wire was used to make all of the following pieces… 

This pendant is a piece of petrified wood that I wrapped with copper wire.  I love petrified wood!  I have been fascinated with it ever since I spent a summer at Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona.  A quick disclaimer:  this piece of petrified wood did not come from the park. 

 

Every copper ring in this bracelet started off as copper wire. 

 

The shiny silver beads on this bracelet were just a length of fine silver wire when I started…

 

I love using wire the way I did with this porcelain jasper bead.  It is both decorative and a great way to secure a bead!

 

The sterling silver frames around the chalcedony beads in these earrings started as a heavy gauge wire that I shaped into rings, sawed, soldered and hammered to flatten and for texture.  And wire was used to form caps at the tops of the beads, as well as to make the jumprings to connect everything and to make the ear wires.  The only materials in this pair of earrings are 2 chalcedony beads, a small amount of solder and various gauges of sterling silver wire. 

 

And one of my favorite ways to use wire is to make links of different shapes like in this tourmaline bracelet.

 

 

So as you can see, wire comes in all shapes and sizes and has quite a variety of uses.  Jewelry just wouldn’t be the same without all this fabulous wire!

Clipart from Clipartheaven.com

It’s been 3 months since I’ve posted here…  Three months!  How does that happen?  How did time move so quickly? 

When I was a kid, time seemed to move forward soooo slowly.  I was in such a hurry, and it just wasn’t going quickly enough.  I couldn’t wait to for summer vacation to arrive, and then about a month later, I couldn’t wait to school to start.  And I was always looking forward to the next birthday, because it seemed there would be something new I could do as I got a year older…

Now I don’t know where time goes!  Each weekday goes by in a flash.  By the time I’m home from work and have prepared/eaten dinner, there is little time left to do something before bed.  And getting up at 5:30 am each day, the night seems to go by really quickly!  And weekends just fly by!  There is so much I want to do each weekend, and of course there are the things that need to be done (like vacuum, and clean bathrooms, and doing laundry…)  It seems that before I have time to blink, it’s Monday morning again.

I can’t believe it’s already mid-May.  I don’t even remember February, March or April at this point. ..

Is it just me, or does time seem to go by faster as I get older?  How short will a year seem by the time I retire?

I have been fascinated by lapis since I first discovered it back in elementary school when we were learning about King Tut and Ancient Egypt.  It seemed so exotic and mysterious.  Lapis lazuli…  Even the name seemed mysterious…

Lapis is a deep blue stone that has small flecks of pyrite in it and sometimes some small white calcite inclusions.  The deeper blue specimens are considered to be the higher quality ones. 

Lapis was actually one of the first stones to have been used in jewelry.  Our desire to adorn ourselves with this rich blue stone goes back millennia.  Apparently Cleopatra used powdered lapis as eyeshadow! 

To find out more about lapis, check this out in Wikipedia. 

As my love for this gorgeous blue stone goes way back, it is no surprise that when I started making jewelry, lapis was something that made its way into my supplies.  

I acquired 2 gorgeous free-form lapis cabochons back in July.  I was itching to create something with them, but how exactly to set them to do justice to them, I was not sure.  The larger one would be for a pendant, but I felt it needed something other than just a plain bezel setting.  So I patiently waited… 

About a month ago, I saw a beautiful pendant that another jewelry artist had made and I was inspired.  It included 3 little silver balls next to a beautiful cab.  I’ve seen settings with little balls like that before, but when I saw that one, I just knew what I wanted to do with that fabulous lapis.  Yay! 

The image in my mind was very clear, but achieving it did take some work.  This was the first free-form cab I had set, and definitely the largest one.  In order to solder the bezel to the back plate, I actually needed to use both of my butane torches at the same time to generate enough heat!  But it was for situations like these that I had bought the second torch… 

I also had to make the little silver balls and solder them to the back plate.  So my adventures in melting and fusing fine silver began…  Melting things on purpose was fun, bit not so great when I melted them into one large shapeless lump!  It took a few tries to get it right. 

And the bail…  Well, I had to figure out what I would do before I even started working on the project, because everthing really needs to be planned out ahead of time.  Otherwise, trying to do after the fact fixes is not fun!  Ask me how I know (but that really is a topic for another post)…  This was my first bail that was more than a jump ring through a hole.  I quite like my design solution.  It works quite well and I like the look. 

So, I am quite pleased with the end result of my little adventure with lapis.  See for yourself.

 

 

And yes, I still have the second lapis cab.  I haven’t yet been inspired with the right design for it.  It is also triangular, but much smaller.  And an even deeper, richer blue…  It’s just gorgeous!  And I’ll let you in on a little secret…  I’m keeping it for myself!

We’ve been back from our trip since very late on Monday (almost Tuesday, really), but unfortunately I’ve been sick since we got home, so haven’t been able to do much, not even download our photos, let alone do a nice post here. 

So for just a quick peek, here is the resort where we stayed, the Sandals Regency in St. Lucia. 

http://www.sandals.com/main/lucia/lu-home.cfm

It was awesome!  Definitely worth the splurge (although we still did get an awesome deal)!  St. Lucia is beautiful and this resort was just fabulous! 

I’ll tell you more when I feel better…

Every time I’m getting ready for a trip, that song runs through my head.  I get all excited thinking about it.  But yet when I listen to the whole song, it’s actually sort of a sad one, not one filled with excitement…  Oh well, for me, that song is about the excitement of going somewhere new!

Tomorrow morning, very early tomorrow morning, Greg and I are leaving for St. Lucia.  A week in the sun!  It’s something we desprately need right now with all the cold and the snow. 

We’ve never been to St. Lucia, we usually go to the Dominican Republic or to Cuba.  But this year we splurged a little and off we go!  Greg wants to go windsurfing of course, and I plan to go diving… 

I’ll post some photos when we get back.

Island Caretaker – Hamilton Island, Queensland, Australia…

That’s it, the job that is being billed as the “Best Job in the World”.  Tourism Queensland is looking for someone to live on Hamilton Island for 6 months, spend time outdoors enjoying adventures and to blog about it all.  Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?   And for this the person will have a house to live in plus gets paid AUD $150,000!   Of course everyone wants this job!

Who wouldn’t want to be there, doing that?

I want to meet the people who came up with this idea.  It’s an absolutely brilliant marketing campaign!  Brilliant!  The publicity they are already receiving is crazy!  Last week, their website crashed because so many were using it at the same time. 

This campaign has been carefully thought out.  It launched January 9th, winter for those of us in the northern hemisphere.  When it’s -30 Celsius, the idea of spending 6 months on an island in the Great Barrier Reef sounds pretty darn good!  The job (and therefore the blog) begins July 1st and ends January 1st.  It will run during the time that those who want to visit Australia in January and February will be doing their planning.

They are creating a buzz by having the application videos available for people to view, plus they will have the public vote for one person to get a wildcard spot for an interview, in addition to the 10 candidates Toursim Queensland selects.  They are already creating a following for this blog 6 months before it will launch!  

And the cost of this amazing promotional campaign?  The $150,000 salary, providing housing to the person for 6 months, plus airfare to the interview for the 11 candidates, plus airfare for the successful candidate…  Now there is good value for money!

These Garnet Hoop Earrings,

 that were featured in the Travels with a Starving Artist treasury on the weekend sold this morning!  I don’t know if the sale was related to the exposure in the treasury or not, but I’m very happy about the sale.  So after work today, I packaged up the earrings, headed off to the post office and mailed the earrings to Texas where hopefully they will be loved.

Lately I’ve been thinking about how much I enjoy selling my jewelry in person.  It’s so exciting to see people react positively to items that I create, sometimes even see them falling in love with a piece.  In person I can share a little more about the piece with the person, answer questions and most importantly, know that my pieces are going to a good home…  I love people and selling in person is really wonderful!

This has led me to ponder about selling on-line.  Truthfully, I find selling on-line more difficult.  People can’t pick up the piece, feel it, hold it up to themselves to see how it looks, get a real understanding of the size of the item.  On-line they rely on images of the items to give them the info.  So taking good photographs is vital to selling on-line.  And taking the photos is what I find to be the toughest thing.  Taking good jewelry photos requires patience, practice and time… 

But I have also found some great perks to selling on-line…  Like sending my items to Texas!  If I only sold locally at craft fairs and such, my items would not make their way to all these different places.  And people from around the world would not be able to see my work.  According to the stats provided by the recently installed Google Analytics on my Etsy shop, I have had people from Belgium, Germany, Australia view items in my shop.  How exciting! 

So in the end, I realized that I’m very happy I don’t have to choose either/or, but in fact am able to sell both locally and on the web!