The macro lens has not been found, which is why some of these images are … less than stellar. I couldn’t wait any longer to get them up! Right now they are only posted on my Etsy shop (where you can currently use the coupon code “20AUGUST” for 20% off your order!)

These are a few pieces of my new Signal collection:

I have more of these coming!

Well, here we are! In Colorado! We’ve now been in our new house for just over a month. And wow, it feels much longer!

I really wish I had blogged during this whole process, because it has been totally surreal. The weeks before leaving Virginia was filled with “last times” doing this, and “last time” doing that. I do want to write a little bit about it, and plus I have photos. Always good to post photos!

Jocelyn had her ballet/jazz dance recital the week before our departure.

Since James’ company was relocating us, it was very nice to have packers come in and totally pack us up. What would have taken us weeks was done in 2 days. Amazing! We were packed up Thursday June 23 and part of Friday, and then everything was loaded onto the moving truck. We left that evening and headed for Indiana, to visit with my brother’s family. The kids had a blast.

cousins: ages 2-16, all playing legos. only missing 1 cousin who was out of town

trampolines – always fun

Last fall we drove to Utah and tried going w/out any sort of portable DVD player(s). We had the kind with 2 screens that strapped onto the back of the front seats’ headrests and there was always some todo about who got to pick what and Jocelyn would always get bored 15 minutes into her choice and Ethan would be stuck with it and so we just did away with it. We played movies over the car speakers (just from our phones/ipods) and it worked out fine, though this trip we didn’t even do that. There was a lot of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and Nintendo DS playing, and the trip really did go well with minimal arguments.

We spent Sunday with my brother’s family, and then hit the road Monday and had dinner with James’ sister in St. Louis. Tuesday we were on the road when our VA house closed (didn’t have to be there, the relocation company handled it all, yay!) and we squealed with delight somewhere in Kansas when our realtor called and told us all went smoothly. Wednesday we arrived in Colorado and Thursday we closed on our new house. Then we had a long 4th of July holiday weekend of spending the days in our empty house or at the hotel pool, while we waited for our household goods to arrive. The moving truck arrived Tuesday, July 5th and there was much rejoicing at having all our stuff, albeit hidden away in boxes!

I have been adjusting to staying home with the kids, and I think we’ve settled into a nice groove — just in time for school to start! Only a week left, and then school begins. I will soon know the feeling of bliss every other stay at home mom feels when the little whiners darlings go off to school!

My Etsy shop and my own website are back up and taking orders — and lots of new things are cooking just waiting to get photographed and posted. Now if I could only find my macro lens…

-Amy

I just love this girl and her creations SO MUCH.

Mermaid + Merboy. Perhaps a prince! He does have a crown.
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These pictures are pretty old now, but better late than never!

We had my brother and his family come visit us a few weeks ago. The weekend after they came, we were having the entire house interior painted, so the house was either scary “you’ve been robbed!” clean, or a mass of migraine inducing “a twister came through here!” messy (the basement).

We boxed up a lot of stuff, and had a lot of boxes around which the kids LOVED. Ethan, Jocelyn, cousin Kade & Eric built a massive box fort which sadly, I didn’t get a picture of. But I did get pictures of Elizabeth, the adorable almost 2 year old!
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In case you haven’t heard, we’re moving to Colorado this summer.

Which means we need to sell this house. Which means we need to get it ready, just like the little piggy, for market.

So the last two weekends have been avoiding the house like crazy while workman paint it from head to toe, and then install carpet from head to toe.

Have I ever told you how awesome new carpet is? Ours was AWFUL. And so the new carpet is doubly sweet! It’s sooo beautiful!

Also? Big empty rooms with newly laid carpet is perfect for fiddling around on the floor.

Ethan likes to just settle into a certain position that makes me cock my head to the side and say, “Whaaa?? HOW?!”
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This dollhouse was built by James’ grandfather. It’s been waiting in a closet for this girl to be old enough to appreciate it.

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Amy: Here, look at these photos. One of these 6 photos have got to go.

James: The first one.

Amy: The first one? NO. No. The first one is NOT going. Look, there’s no other photos like that one. It’s got to stay. Look at these last 3, one of these three have got to go.

James: Then why didn’t you say one of those three had to go, instead of one of all six had to go?

Amy: Because I thought you would have enough SENSE to see that it would HAVE to be one of the last three!

James: …

Amy: …

James: The middle one.

Amy: Yeah. The middle one.

fini.

And here, I show you, the photo that got axed. Bid it adieu. It shall live here, but not with it’s sisters on Etsy or my website.

Farewell, sweet photo.

I have been going a little nutty over bangle bracelets. I can’t tell you how satisfying and fun it is to make a whole slew of them! About a month ago I had a hankering for a nice thick bangle, one with some real weight to it and today I’ve finally listed my Thick Bangle in copper, brass and sterling silver!

I also managed to photograph and list my (normal thickness) brass bangles, which have been sitting patiently on my photography table waiting for their turn in the spotlight, so you can also check those out.

BUT AMY, YOU SAID THERE WAS A GIVEAWAY?!?

Why yes, I’m so glad you asked!

I’m very excited to annouce that Julie who writes Inspired Shares approached me with praise and gushing for my shop, and asked about doing a giveaway for my thick brass bangle and I, drunk with flattery, gleefully agreed! Visit her blog to see how you can enter to win! I love the items and sites she has featured in the past – the Supermarket Sarah post especially – Love that bathroom!

I’ll have some more jewelry news in a few weeks, in time for fall. Summer has flown by!

#2? What happened to #1?

Well, I didn’t post for #1. But better late then never, right?

Tonight was class #2 of my silversmithing class at the Art League in Alexandria. We did cuttlefish bone castings, which I have to admit, I wasn’t actually too excited about initially, but now I am SO in love with my piece, I got very excited!

Cuttlefish bones are made up of pretty much just calcium. They are very soft, which makes it easy to carve into it, or press shapes into it. You may have actually seen one – they are good for birds, and are often wired to the side of bird cages for the bird to snack on. We decided on the shape we wanted to cast and then carved/impressed the shape into the soft cuttlefish bone, then fitted another bone over it and cut out a little funnel at the topfor the melted metal to flow into the casting.

Cuttlefish bone also has a natural striation in the material that makes really interesting patterns and textures in the casting.

I decided to make a disc shaped pendant with the spokes of a lego gear emerging out of the disc at an angle. I figured with the wavy striations, it would look like a gear or a snowflake sticking up out of the sand.

You can see the striations quite a bit on the back.

It turned out very well! I wish I had thought to snap a few photos of my carving that I cast the piece from, but I didn’t. After I made my mold, I heated scrap silver in a crucible until it was molten, adding a bit of flux (boric acid I think) to help remove any slag (grossness. and yes, that’s a technical term). Then carefully, but quickly, I poured the molten silver into the void i had carefully carved out.

During the carving, the workshop smelt faintly fishy the whole time, but after pouring hot molten meltal into the bone, there was nothing faint about it. It smelled very badly of nasty burnt fish, blech!

A few students had some bad luck with their molds. Not enough material between the mold and the edge of the bone, and the molten metal would find a way to escape the mold and all was ruined. Once used, the bones could not be used again, as they were burnt to a stinky crisp. I was very happy that my casting turned out wonderfully, much better than I expected.

After retrieving my cooled metal from the quench pot and chucking the stinky remains of the burnt mold, I consulted Nick, our teacher on ways to finish this sucker off. On Nick’s suggestions, I filed the angled gear shape down smooth. This week I will need to decide whether to keep the edges as they are, or perhaps cut away around the edge of the protruding gear and into each little coggy protruberance. I’m not sure which I’ll do.

This photo is it’s current state, after a bit of filing.

Good thing I have a week to think it over!

-Amy