TFT - Die-forming

I'm continuing to fall behind in blogging....I thought when May was over life would slow down a bit - who knew?

For instance, a snapshot at the latter part of this week:

Pedro is coming along nicely from surgery, we just got pathology back and the growth was benign (YAY!). He has his sutures removed tomorrow evening. My son finishes school this week - he has half days starting today, going through Friday.

Today he is having a friend over after school, then he has a dentists appt at 4pm, swim practice early (a mock meet) at 4:30 (guess who's going to be late?), Friday we have a swim team party in the evenig, then little guy goes to a friends party at Splash Down, then Saturday 8am we have a REAL swim meet, his first ever!, then Saturday evening is his own birthday party - a sleepover...so I'm REALLY busy until Sunday morning when everyone goes home. OY.

And thats not even all of it - there's work and another playdate in there and swim practice each night and oh, I need to bake a birthday cake, buy gifts (both for my son and his friend), decorate for the party, clean the house....all before Saturday evening.

A friend recently mentioned that he just might be a glutton for punishment, hmmm me too maybe?

So it may be no surprise that I am braindead in the studio. Last night went ok....but I feel like I'm moving through mud. Everything takes a great effort. I WANT to create - feel the need, the desire, the urge...but then I get there.................

and sit.....

and stare......

And then sit and stare some more.

I used to get up and walk away at times like that. That was the wise choice then, because I used to MAKE myself work on something and 99% of the time it turned out to be for scrap.....but, I am trying to make myself do something these days, especially since I have these lovely Tuesday nights set aside. But NOT make crap/scrap. :) One night recently I organized some stones and another night I did photos and computer work.

Last night I pressed some forms with the 20-ton HP (gotta think of a nickname for that beast), same die that I had cut the other day (pics are of the form I made a couple of days ago - pics of the new forms will be coming soon.)

But I used some sheet that I roller printed (with a hand cut paper die) instead of the plain sheet from the other day. So now I have 4 'pillows' - well, 3.

One is a half a pillow...or a container...its open at the top.

Cool. ;-) Might fill it with something.

I am LOVING that beast. Head is swirling with ideas even if my hands aren't making the connection yet.



It will come.

I also polished up the bezel on this WIP recently - took some photos, yet again, same old ring........this is about the 4th bezel thats been on the ring.

I think I must have fried (over fried) the gold, it looks more copper than gold. I need to compare it to the original bezel strip to see how much the color may have changed. grrr. I actually don't mind too much since I'm keeping this one for myself. However, I'd like to figure it out prior to making another. Gold is ENTIRELY too expensive to continue to fry-up.

My son joined me last night in the basement until it was his bedtime - he spent the time writing a letter to his sissy, and drawing an awesome picture before he headed up to bed. I added a note to the letter this morning and got that mailed out today.


I retired early (AGAIN!) from the bench last night - went upstairs around 10:30. Thought I'd go back down and never quite made it. Dont' know why, could be I'm a bit drained.....though I can't imagine what from.

Interesting conversation on the forum the past few days. About our "addictions" - some can't stop buying books, or notepads, or magazines, or shoes, or fabrics.....I have several of the aforementioned addictions. I'm a bit of a hoarder anyway though I am in recovery for that. So what are your addictions? What do you excessively buy? Or collect? Or hoard?

~Janice