#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

Ahh, hello blog!

It’s been busy around Casa de Panders. Monday was Columbus day, and I had it off… but no one else did. It was quite nice to lounge around the house doing nothing all day! I debated on what I would do, but with my car at the shop (it needed a new radiator, sniff) I was stuck at home and ended up cutting rings and chain mailling all day.

Here’s what I made:

Celtic Visions in copper

Jens Pind in 14 gauge (ie: HUGE) sterling silver

And here’s another Jens Pind, in 18 gauge sterling that I made last week. It’s listed in the shop now.

So, it was a pleasant enough day – unfortunately, I think I overdid it and the joints in my right forefinger and thumb are kind of aching – this is really kind of pissing me off, as I just bought new pliers that I really quite liked. I hope it wasn’t the pliers that did it.

Oh, and here’s one more picture: Any guesses as to who Jocelyn is going to be for Halloween? Someone from one of my FAVORITEST movies!

-amy

My child. She slays me.

I KNOW that if I had stepped in and “helped” her with this project, they would not have turned out as AWESOME as they did.

She said, “I’m making some paper dolls, Mommy!” And make them she did.

Behold! The dolls!

#1: halloween (note the ghostie earring) #2: rocking out with headphones (note the music note) #3 ROBOTS! OMG SHE MADE ROBOTS!!! #4 normal girl

Behold! The clothing she made for the dolls!

And here are the dolls with their clothes on. I laid the clothes on the dolls and scanned them “dressed”:

#1: halloween girl now has ghostie shirt too! #3 That robot girl is lookin’ pretty boobtastic!

If you click the images, you’ll go to my flickr page where I have added a few notes to the first and second page.

Oh man. These just kill me. KILL me. I am going crazy in the best way, when I look at these! That girl. I love her.

-amy

I am basicly holding the phone next to my ear to get these shots of them laying on top of me.

I have so much to talk about (a trip! first day of school! jewelry!) … and no time in which to do so. But at least I have put up a new banner!

See all banners for my blog here!

(The earrings will probably be posted for sale tonight.)

Made this bracelet up over the weekend. It is done in a weave called “Stepping Stones” – very fitting, don’t you think? I tweaked the sizes of the rings to give maximum drama between the “stones” and the smaller rings running around them.

This will be listed in my shop as soon as I can get some good photos taken.

I think when I list it, I will name it, “A River Runs Through It.”

What would you name it? I’d love to hear.

They were very sad when it was time to say goodbye three days later. We miss you Clara and Mary!

Taken by Ethan.

I haven’t been slacking. On the Weight Watchers thing. I HAVE been slacking on posting about it though. Usually, when I slack on posting about it, it’s because I’m slacking on DOING it. But not this time!

Despite my “We Might Be Fucked” cocktail and probably BECAUSE of my subsequent throat soreness, that had me drinking ginger ale+OJ and eating toast for a day or so, I am proud to announce week 7′s weigh in was awesome at -3.8 lbs. This brings me up to a total of -13.4 lbs. Many more to go, but I am pretty happy. I can do this! Knock on wood!

I think it’s about time to start up the 30 day shred again as well. My foot, on hearing that I paid $350 for an orthotic, decided, “Oh, now that’s she’s paid for it, I’ll get better before it arrives!” It’s not totally better, but it’s a LOT better than it was 2 weeks ago, I’ll say that!

We are still waiting to hear how fucked we are by Subaru for the ceased-up engine block. James and I like to spend our quiet intimate moments wondering how exactly that damn thing DID that anyway, and discussing different engine rebuild price quotes. Oh yeah. Pillow talk, baby. We’re so romantic.

We are at T-minus 9 days til we leave on our vacation to Oregon. I still need to find a cat sitter. I’m a little worried about our cat, actually. We went up to New York last September for a long weekend, not long enough to get a real sitter, just put out plenty of bowls of food and water, but long enough for her to go a little crazy from lack of human interaction — she’s an old cat, at I think 11 years, and when we got back she changed her sleeping habits entirely. She used to settled down somewhere near our feet on our bed. Now, she prefers to be closer to us. Like, right on top of our heads. Seriously. I have to allot pillow space for her because after she gets it through her head that she can’t sleep ON TOP OF MINE, she sleeps right NEXT to my head. Or face. Also, when it starts to get light out, she decides to try the whole “Hmm, maybe she’ll let me sleep on her head NOW…” She loves us, what can I say? So I’m a little worried that our trip may bring on some more wacky separation anxiety cat-behavior. Note to self: trim claws before leaving so carpets don’t get even MORE shredded.

We’ve been crazy with the wildlife lately. Or at least I have. About a month ago, the neighborhood kids found a turtle near someone’s driveway and “took care of it” nearly to death before parents swooped in and relocated it back to nature. I’m a little stymied on how the little guy got there in the first place.

Then the next week, one of the baby birds nexting near our roofline fell out of the nest and hung out along the side of our house. I did much googling and determined that it was fine – fledglings often do this, and if you can’t return it to the next itself, then under a nearby bush would suffice. It was hanging out under my truck, so I kind of herded it back to our deck, closer to where the nest was. The next morning it was gone, so I’m sure the little guy found his wings quickly. (sidenote: our house is now bird free and will soon be bird-proof. Yay, and KA-CHING! more money gone.)

Last week, I had picked up Jocelyn and was on my way to get Ethan and then home, when I had to swerve quickly to avoid hitting a slow moving little turtle in the road, right in line with the tires. I yelped, explained to Jocelyn, and then quickly tried to flip a bitch to get back there and save him. It was a very busy street, and I had little hope to get to him in time, especially as I watched all the traffic behind me as I desperately tried to flip around.. And sure enough, when I finally got back to him, he hadn’t made it. That little guy haunted me the rest of the week, I felt so bad. Jocelyn too.. sometimes, she will say, out of the blue, “Poor little turtle..” to me. All I can do is nod and agree.

The sting of that little guy was taken away somewhat when we were driving along our road to our house and spotted TWO rabbits, just hanging out in someone’s yard. I am pretty sure I’ve seen one of these guys before, bounding away as I have driven by, but I couldn’t be sure and so I was very tickled to stop and watch them a while. They just stood nibbling some of the young weeds, checking us out as much as we were checking them out only about 8 feet away, and didn’t make any sort of fuss when Ethan and Jocelyn nearly threw themselves out their open windows looking and talking and trying to take pictures with my iphone. We finally drove on with them still sitting there eating their dinner.

And then last night as we came home from a lovely pool party at a friend’s house, I thought I saw a bit of brown on the steep hilly exit we were on, and pulled over. We saw a whole handful of deer bound away into the treeline, with a few stopping just shy of the trees to look back at us.

I just love it when we get a chance to see wildlife up close. I think they are probably less than thrilled to see us up close.

Oh right. 4th of July. We decided at the last minute to go to Great Meadows, which we went to last year. We got there around 4pm, saw all the pre-fireworks shows. Helicopter parades, RC airplanes (BIG suckers, with 5-6ft wingspans), rocket launches, ponies, melons shot out of a cannon, face painting, and of course fireworks. Ethan slept through the fireworks last year, but everyone was awake for them this year, and after they were over, Ethan stood up and hollered, “THAT WAS THE BEST FIREWORKS SHOW, EEEVERRRR!” — to the amusement of many people surrounding us.

Sunday, we went to a hawaiian pool party celebrating some friends’ who had recently been married in Hawaii. It’s been a while since we’d seen them, and it was very nice to sit and relax and catch up. The weather was not very cooperative (only about 75degrees) but that didn’t stop the kids from hopping in and slowly turning blue. It’s pretty comical to ask, “Are you cold?” and to get a chattering of teeth back, “No-o-o-o-o-o..”

All in all, a wonderful weekend. Wish it didn’t have to end.

-amy

This is a bitch session, so let’s just go at it, shall we? Basically, we are bleeding money around the Sanders-Pancoast household. Gushing. Dare I say soon to be HEMMORAGHING.

1. Foot. My joint in my toe, which I mentioned once before, is inflamed with arthritis. It has gone back and forth between improving and getting worse for the last month, so the doctor suggested we get an orthotic to go in my shoe, that would relieve any pressure on that joint and allow it to heal.

   My insurance doesn’t cover this orthotic. It is not cheap.

   Damn insurance.

2. Next up! The AC on our main level stopped with the making of nice and chilly. One hour visit later, and there goes two car payments.
3. Next up! Last week, James’ 2006 Subaru Impreza STI died on his way to 5 Guys. A tow to our auto shop and TWO DAYS OF THEM LOOKING AT IT confirmed our worst fears that it was the engine, which would probably have to be rebuilt.

   So, obviously, it’s still under warranty, it only has 55k miles on it and is only 3 years old. Subaru to the rescue, right?

   So then we had it towed to Subaru, who are now saying scary things like, “we must have all maintenance records/this air filter looks like it has never been changed” in order to determine if they will cover it under warranty.

   First of all, we bought it used, so we don’t even have all the records, and second of all, James has done some oil changes himself. They could feasible put up a major stink.

   If they do not cover it under warrantee, an engine rebuild could run around 3 mortgage payments. Oh, and if the turbo is shot as well, that’s another month’s worth of daycare right there.

   Also? That first tow? To our shop? Turns out, we only had roadside assistance for MY car, but not for HIS car. So that was some $$$ right there. (I immediately remedied that situation, so the next tow was partially covered and much less painful.)

4. Oh and lucky us, we have birds nesting in our roofline, in two different places. I fear some of them have gotten into the attic. This has actually been going on for a while, but I’m just now getting around to getting someone to take care of it. Which I’m sure is going to cost some bucks. Urgh.
5. And finally? We’re going on vacation to Oregon in 2 weeks. Many things are already paid for (like the airplane tickets, for example) but many other things are not. Right before you go on vacation is never a good time to tighten up the purse-strings.

So… Last night, all of this was kind of weighing on James and I. The car stuff especially. If it weren’t for some good friends loaning us the use of their 3rd car, we’d be totally screwed, transportation wise. And if we have to pay for an engine rebuild ourselves? Makes you want to cry.

“Kids,” we called out, “how do you feel about going out and getting a job?”

They weren’t too ecstatic about the idea. We let them know college might not be in the cards after mommy and daddy paid for all this crap.

After moaning a lot and uncurling myself up from the fetal position, I remembered Heather, from dooce.com, when she and Jon had to face the massive bill for replacing their entire sewer line. She concocted, and I quote, the Oh My God Our Plumbing’s Fucked Cookie.

Well, last night, I concocted the Oh My God Our Car (Might Be) Fucked Cocktail.

First, some ice in a very very big glass. Big. Very big. Let’s go skimpy on the ice, shall we?

Then some vodka.

That doesn’t look like enough. MORE VODKA.

OK. That should make my liver stand up and take notice. Now a little kahlua.

And finally, we top it off with milk.

Hmm. It needs something. Something spectacular. I mean, this is a spectacular amount of money we’re hemmoraghing around here.

Ahh, much better. Hot pink BENDY STRAW!!

And there it is. The “We Might Be Fucked” cocktail.

If it turns out, we’re not fucked? I’ll make a “Yay, We’re Not Fucked!” version.

-amy, who just KNOWS her sister is going to read this and cringe every time she sees the f word. Sorry, Ellen.
-amy isn’t even going to THINK about the possibility of her dad reading this. The one who’s worst curse is, “Oh, SCRUD.”