My Sweeps Box

So here's my freshly cleaned out sweeps box - where I store all my little scraps of silver. I just cleaned it out a couple of days ago as it was about to overflow and choke out all natural light. Here's where all the little slivers of silver go, the little bits from my file, and random leftover chunks. This is also the home to all the sad projects that I've melted by applying too much heat, I've beaten to a pulp, or just looked god awful ugly to leave my bench. The great thing is that you send your sweeps in to for refining and they'll cut you a nice little check. It's a nice little recycling program for silversmiths. Fun site du jour: Glamscience This is a fun little card company who makes "handmade glitter goods." If you order something from my site as a gift, I include one of her enclosure cards for your special note.

Thanks, guys!

Did you know your sales helped me raise $200 for Habitat for Humanity last year? I like to donate a portion of my profits over the holidays to them, but I started earlier to help out when hurricane Katrina hit in New Orleans (where Dave and I spent a couple of years). So hey guys, thanks so much for your help. Even better, I'm getting it matched, so it will turn out to be $400 - that's a front door, a toilet, and some windows from their calculations. Cool! I really like habitat for humanity. I put a lot of research into the charities I support, and they are one of the top ones to put the money to worthwhile use, instead of spending it on gala dinners and silly, non-helpful things. Here's a good web site for learning more about where your money's going: www.charitynavigator.org I figure, if you're going to give your hard earned money, it better damn well get used smartly. I can spend it on cocoa puffs as good as the next person. I found a good article on consumer reports about donating money - there's an interesting blurb about telemarketers at the bottom. Now I don't have to feel bad about telling the Cancer Society to STOP CALLING ME! Thanks again, guys!

Hiya

Hi there. Just a quick post to say hello - nothing new and exciting to blather about today, although I did take some fun photos of my studio that I'll share with you over the coming days. In the mean time, here's a site to keep you busy: www.etsy.com It's a spot where independant little artist list their wares for sale. You could spend hours digging around here - I've got my eye on a sock monkey tote bag.

Yippee - Farmer's Market

Today's farmer's market day. We always look forward to the market - even in the dark dreary dead of winter. The hillsdale farmer's market is the greatest...walking distance from home. Great vendors. Yummy food. It holds a special place in Dave's and my heart since we were on the committe to help start it up way back in the day. It's pretty cool to think that it started as 20 random people in the banquet room of a mexican restaurant mulling over ideas to this great weekly festival that's packed in the summer time. That's one of my rallying causes - local, organic food. When you learn what goes into the regular stuff you find on the shelves at the grocery store, and the effects of factory farms and cattle ranches, it can really scare the pee out of you. Read the book Fast Food Nation if you really want a good overview. I really like knowing where my veggies come from, who makes my sausage. The name of the boat my crab comes from. It ties me into my community more. So yeah, if you've got a market around you, go visit it for some fun, and if you don't, start one up. It's actually not that hard! Ok, I'll get off my soapbox now. Spam du jour: Oh here's a good one: - IMAGINE YOUR CHILD AWARDED THE NOBEL PRIZE ?

Gallery Show

I realized that I forgot to show you all where I'm having my first gallery show. The J Randall Smith Gallery in Auburn California. I'll be showing there March and April, which should be really exciting. Check out his work - it's super cool. It's a great example of a happy accident that turned into something extraordinary. Spam du Jour: You know, it's actually been a light spam day. What's the story there?

An exercise in restraint

I just placed an order for more materials from one of my favorite suppliers. Their catalog, I kid you not, is 925 pages long. Each order really is an excercise in restraint. Just flipping through the pages sparks so many fun ideas and so many different directions I could head. But from experience these ideas sit idle on my bench for 6 months until I sadly put them away to play with another time. It ends up sucking funds out of my account for no good reason. So, I'm going to stay the course, only buy the things I need to, and expand to new projects once I've mastered (and finished) the old ones. How boring! Site du jour: Remnant Clothing She's got a really cool concept going. I have one of her reconstructed cashmere scarves. They're super fun, and about the only way I'm ever going to own anything cashmere.

Aaah sleep

It's amazing what a little bit of sleep will do for you. Dave and I were crossing our fingers and tiptoeing around the house last night, praying that screaming mimi would stay asleep. I think she was so tired from staying up for 36 hours that she finally crashed. So, last night I decided it was probably not a good idea to play with fire and hammers and saws while sleep deprived so I pulled out the materials to put together a beaded order I need to fill. It was the perfect project for last night...string 10 then tie a knot, string 10 then tie a knot. But holy cow, I see why I got away from those designs a while back. For some reason I find it a lot more interesting to hammer 50 jump rings than to string 50 beads. Go figure. Spam du jour: french spam sounds so nice...Faire Faire le Travail - Deleguer - Cours. They must be trying to sell me faries cheap. Site du jour: http://www.body-systems.net/ Teri's turned me into a cranberry scrub junky.

The moonlight blogger

Oh momma - it's 3 am and that kid is just howling in her crib. So much for sleeping tonight. So I found a little wooden chopstick to take place of my stinging fingers for my wild whacking - ahh much better. I'll show you what I'm whacking on one of these days - they're turning out really nice. Spam headline of the day: Re:scherzo sidemen ciliate Cool shop of the day: http://www.froyandolo.com/ She's another Portlander who makes really cool cards.

My Fingers Hurt!

Ok, I'm a dork - I've got a bunch of little pieces of wire I'm hammering to give it some texture. I'm too lazy to figure out something to hold these in place while I whack at them wildly, and I just can't get the coordination not to include my fingers in the wild whacking. I definintely need a little process improvement here. It's really bad when I can't even read the spam...spam topic du jour: Controle des Resultats de Gestion - Tableaux de Bord - Formation What the hell does that mean?

Wrong side of the bed

Ooh, Toby's not a happy friendly person this morning. Some mornings I just feel like a bear and all I want to do is growl. Poor Dave and Devera, I'm sure it's hard to live with momma bear some times. Hopefully coffee will help. Although sometimes that just turns me into amped momma bear. Entertaining spammer of the day: Checkers L. Monosyllable wants to sell me some viagra, cheap!

I'm HUGE in Nigeria

It's amazing how popular I am in Nigeria. I must have some good word of mouth advertising going on there, because boy, they're just beating down my door with order requests. Too bad I don't have the capabilities to fill all their really lucrative orders. Maybe when my shipment of elves and gnomes comes in I'll be able to tackle all of their requests. Oh, and I also found out today that I've been nominated for an MBA, although yesterday it was a phD - who knew?!? Oh, and Fungal_29 wants to chat with me on her XXX web site...for some reason that came across to me as fungal instead of Fun Gal. At least they're not cutting down trees to send this as junk mail.

Saturday Mornings

Aaah - I love Saturday mornings. I get to sneek out of the house for a couple of hours for my yoga class with my teacher I dearly love. It's interesting how yoga has the same effect for me as working down at my bench - you focus in so tightly on something (like putting your leg over your shoulder - I kid you not) that you don't have the ability to focus on the 18 bajillion other things that usually rush through your head. And even better - since I had to "run an errand" after class to pick up a gift for someone, I just HAD to stop for a cup of coffee and a danish - this is Portland after all - it was right next door to the place. And now I'm home and both Dave and Devera are asleep and I have a quiet house to myself for a little bit. I love Saturday Mornings.

Ok. These are cool.

Just to be like everyone else. I thought it would be fun to post a blog. I'm sure the only people who are going to read this are my parents. But hey, it's kind of a nice way to organize your thoughts. So, who the hell am I? Well, I can say I love working with silver. I have a little studio downstairs in my home where I spend lots of tinkering time improving my skills. I think I'm going to steer this blog towards a day in the life of a budding silversmith. There are a gazillion directions I could take this thing, but like so many other things in my life, I just need to focus on one thing and let the others rest for another day. Right now I'm furiously working to build some new pieces for my first gallery show at the Smith & Boggs Gallery in Auburn, CA. It's been a fun excuse to put together pieces out of designs that have been rumbling around in my head for a while - and some that just popped up out of nowhere. We'll see where it takes me. Happy reading!

First Sweep

Everyone into the pool!