TFT - 04.07.09

I heart Tuesdays. :) I start getting excited in the morning - longing for work to end so I can dash home.


Last night my little guy had an invite to sleep over at a friends house, so I got home from work, threw together some dinner (yummm, homemade terriyaki chicken, roasted potatoes, and fresh spinach - lightly sauteed), then helped him pack and off we went to his friend's house. After some light chit chat I dashed back home, ran upstairs, threw on some old work clothes and down into the basement - guess it was pushing 7:30. So it wasn't a real early start - but it was definitely uninterrupted. Well, almost. My daughter, affectionately known as 'the tall one' called and since she's in a REALLY bad place in her life right now (in more ways than one) I needed to take the call.

All in all though it was a productive night. :)

No, I did NOT totally make all of these last night. In fact, the lower left one I began when I went to VA to Christy's a few weeks ago (has it been that long??) and I futzed with it a few times after I got back and the more I futzed, the less I liked it until I tossed it aside.

I decided I needed to pull it out and finish it, even if it only stayed with me for the rest of its pathetic little life. Its not horrible, but its still not feelin' the love at this point in time. The next one up, on the left, started two YEARS ago. Seriously. The setting lost a little ball, the bezel was filed down too low, yadd yadda yadda. So it sat. I pulled it out last night -put a replacement ball on it and man-handled that bezel into submission. The stone is in there, it hardly rattles, but the bezel is chewed up (stay tuned for 'what not to do', a new feature on the blog where you learn from my mistakes - this one will be the first example). The rest I began a few days ago and have done little bits each night. Seems like all of them gave me some aggravation and I'm not in like with any of them, much less in love. The earrings are kinda cool but I could NOT get the bezels burnished over - each time I pushed one area it popped out on the other side...weird. I think it has something to do with the shape of them and the stone. They were REALLY awkward to hold on to while trying to set them. (anyone have tips for this kind of setting - PLEASE, I am all ears!) The three rings are just 'eh' ho-hum. The bracelet just about sent me over the edge with the clasp part. I guess I don't have a clue about the proper proportions for that. But at least this one made it - the last one I did like this has NO clasp, its a solid bangle now and is a bear to get on and off. (so its mine, and I really do like it, but I had wanted a clasp!). The little pendant......just icky. Up close it looks very 'romper room' or flintstone-ish (thanks for that analogy Christy - I find I am using it a lot these days - especially when I look at my stuff after looking at Barrie's. oy)

So there you have it.

Oh, wait. Not so fast. I might have mentioned before that I am pulling out old pieces and trying to either finish them off or re-do them. Last night I worked on at least one piece like that - no photo -- its a pair of earrings....lemme see if I have an old pic, yep, I do.


So these have been sitting, like this, since ohhhhhh September 2007. Anyway, the posts weren't placed exactly right so they've been sitting. I decided to remove the posts, solder on new ones, and then hang dangles. Last night I soldered on new posts (which turned into a mild fiasco) and they now need to be tumbled and re-patinated and then have dangles put on. I may have worked on another old piece I just can't recall.

Then I took some photos, the pic above with the batch of items and also a pic of my low-tech photo set up for Barrie.

I use a rubbermaid box, flipped on its side, covered with tissue paper. My new background is a plate from Target. I also often cove the light with tissue paper. And thats it. I also use a tiny tripod. (you can see if off to the side, folded up).

I have been using this set up for years - just tweaking a little her and there, trying new backgrounds, different lights and different light positions. I think I'm pretty satisfied with the set up the way it is now but wull probably continue tiny tweaks as you can never be too perfect!


One last thing - didn't know this was going to be so long - sorry! About those push-ups. My shoulder healed fine, but now I have a wrist thing which has my fairly concerned because I'm not sure what I did to it - its my right wrist and could be from computer use or from some other small repetitive hand movement - could be the sanding and LOSing and steel-woolin-ing off of the LOS when I did a big batch a couple of days ago....the pain started right after that - but it also was right after I was entering 1400 safety reports into a computer system (which took me a good 2.5 days of work)....anyway, I was going to do pushups last night but was to timid to put weight on that wrist. I may try tonight.....we'll see how it feels.

~Janice