A new video tutorial on how to close jump rings TIGHT and FLUSH!

I welcome any feedback! Help me make my tutorials better by commenting!

A new banner!

Featuring some of my latest earrings (which can be purchased here!)

New banner!

This banner features Jocelyn on a hike in Boulder, and I was trying out the panarama feature on my phone.

When we put in an offer on our Colorado home, it was because of the beautiful floors, 5 bedrooms (well, 4 and a small office they called a bedroom), location, and.. well, I could go on. We really love this house.

But now, I love it even more.

WE HAVE A PEACH TREE!

These are fresh from the tree, barely molested by the birds. The real trick is waiting until they are ripe enough on the tree, but not all eaten by the birds. If you have any tips on that, I’d love to hear it.

Ahhh… the weekend comes to a close, and we all tuck in to bed for the week ahead.

This week will be week 2 of school for the kids. Last week was pretty soft I think.. not really any homework, getting back into the school groove, learning the classroom.. We’ll see how this next week goes. Hope the homework battles don’t start yet!

Saturday was pretty fun – we went to Mile High Comics in Denver, which we thought was only open to the public every few months or so, but after we arrived, we found that they are open 7/days a week now! Still it was fun, and it was HUGE. We all got a comic.. and someone *coughjamescough* got more than one. Wondergirl for Jocelyn, Wonder Woman for me, Star Wars for Ethan, and a ton of Batman for James. It was a pretty cool place, lots of toys, TONS of comic books, and the staff was very friendly and helpful.

We’ll be back. Oh yes, we’ll be back.

James took the kids to the airshow at a local airport. I dropped them off and picked them back up, and caught the tail end of some thrilling fly-bys by I think a stealth bomber (if Ethan was here he would immediately correct me). I picked up the crew tired, hot and sweaty, but mostly happy. Ethan complained that it was awful, but honestly, he says that about everything. If we didn’t drag him out of the house now and then, he’d stay in his room 24/7 building legos and listening to Harry Potter until he starved!

I’ve been keeping busy coiling up a huge amount of coils to cut into jump rings Monday morning, and working on my supplies website. I have been unhappy with my shopping cart platform I was using, and have been working on getting both sites moved to a new location. My jewelry website was done and moved over about a month ago, and I am happy to report that I have made the switch over for my supplies shop this weekend. Yay! I’ll be spending this week checking things over and adding in anything I’ve forgotten.

The downside to the new platform — anyone who previously had an account (on either site) will have to reset their password in order to log in, and there is no order history available. I think the change was a good one — the system I was using before had some quirks that were just a bit too quirky for me, and the admin panel is much more user friendly. It will save me and I hope my customers a lot of time in the long run!

If you’d like to check out my new sites, feel free:

http://www.rainestudios.com
http://www.rainestudios-supplies.com

Last week I went to the gym Tuesday & Friday, to my favorite class — water circuit (basically a circuit class, but in the pool!) This week, I need to do better — I’m shooting for Mon-Wed-Fri or maybe Tues-Wed-Fri. The days I went last week I felt AWESOME. When work starts to pile up it’s hard to make myself go — even though that is when I need to go the most, to relieve the stress!

A few parting kid quotes:

“Mom, don’t worry. I KNOW WHAT I’M DOING.”

….

“…. Most of the time.”

— Ethan, age 10.

OK, just one kid quote. Later!
-Amy

Another video tutorial! Would love your feedback!

Purchase a jens pind bracelet kit on my jewelry supplies website.

A video I made and posted up on youtube — would love to hear your feedback! I need to work on keeping my camera in focus, but I think I repeated things enough that it comes across. Please let me know what you think!

Interested in trying your hand? You can purchase a kit to make a byzantine bracelet right here on my website.

Ahhhh blog…. How I have neglected you! I’m so sorry… I really need to do better.

Starting now!

This week has been interesting. First off it’s the last week of summer vacation. Next Monday they have an assessment day (only go in for a few hours of testing) and then school officially starts on Tuesday.

I CANNOT WAIT!

I feel like a bad mother when I say that, but I am sorry — running a home based business with kids at home all day, who refuse to go outside and play by themselves or with friends, and therefore come and pester ME for everything (YOU MEAN I HAVE TO FEED YOU LUNCH AGAIN? I JUST DID THAT YESTERDAY!) makes getting orders out the door kind of tough at times. And let’s not even talk about work on new ideas! HA!

So yes. I am sooooo happy that school is starting next week. I am also looking forward to getting back to the gym regularly. I have not really felt comfortable taking the kids to the kids area at our gym and leaving them for 1.5 hours — I always think I hear my name being paged over the sound system, worried that Ethan has had some sort of melt down, and I just can’t really enjoy myself.

Plus, I like sleeping in, and my favorite classes are at 8 or 8:30am. *cough*

So yeah. Gym. Getting back will be painful… but nice.

This, our last week of summer holiday, I’ve implemented a “no electronics” rule. Even James and I are following it! (Only a little plants vs. zombies cheating on my phone right before bed. Really! Working on my laptop doesn’t count, btw.) I think the kids are really doing pretty well – Jocelyn is getting creative and coloring, making cardboard art and interesting items, I try to have a nerf battle with Ethan once a day, and he turns out some new Lego creation regularly, and last night we had family game night — with MY favorite game, Rummikub! I used to play it as a little girl with my grandmother (the “game grandma” we called her, she had a closet stuffed to the gills with games!) and it’s a good one. We haven’t had a family game night in a while — not that us parental units aren’t to blame — sometimes the TV after dinner is just EASIER.

In other news this week, we are now the proud owners of a 1999 Toyota 4Runner! James had this cockamany idea to sell his Subaru Impreza STi and with the proceeds, buy both a 4Runner and an older Mazda Miata. One to go camping and off roading with, the other for James to turn into a racing car. One down and one to go! We bought a new 1999 4Runner the year we were married (1999) and had it until I wrecked it in a car crash.. I think in 2009? We have missed it so, especially now that we are in Colorado – Land O’ Mountains. It is a little bit of awesome to have one in the garage again. I just love those trucks — and this one is going to be rigged out to go off road — so we are excited.

OK — I think that will be all. I don’t want to overload this here blog with too much on my first foray back. Hopefully I won’t forget all about it for another 6 months.

-Amy

My wonderful husband James took the kids out hiking and then to dinner, leaving me with about 4 blessed hours of ALONE IN MY HOUSE time — which, technically I get every day when they’re at school/work, BUT STILL, I USUALLY HAVE SH*T TO DO THEN!

I still had stuff to do, but I decided I would not squander this lovely ALONE TIME gift and do actual work, like house cleaning and laundry — oh no, I would spend this time making JEWELRY!!

We have been making an open backed ring with a tapered shank in my silver class, and I finished mine last Monday.

Here are some photos I took while it was in progress:

I eagerly ordered some cabochons to make MORE of these beautiful rings to list in my shop. They arrived on Saturday!

Aren’t they gorgeous?? Carnelian, kyanite, paulo shell, labradorite (my faaaaavorite!), blue lace agate, leopard skin jasper, pink quartz, and more snowflake obsidian. You can also see the swiss blue topaz round faceted gemstones I got in the little baggie in the corner.

Faced with the prospect of EMPTY HOUSE! I selected a few of my new cabochons and quickly got to work! I cut bezel wire to fit around each stone, filed, and soldered them closed.

Clockwise, starting at 12 – paulo shell, pink quartz, blue lace agate, rosecut (faceted) labradorite, and leopardskin jasper.

Next I take 16 gauge square sterling wire, and carefully shape it to fit snugly inside the bezel.

Usually the bezel is soldered down to a piece of sheet which the stone sits on, but this will allow the back of the stone to be visible from the back of the ring, while still providing a seat for the stone to sit on.

Next, I need to get the square base ready to solder closed. I clamp it securely in a ring clamp, and cut through both pieces of wire where it overlaps with my jeweler’s saw. This provides a clean flush cut to make soldering easy.

After I soldered the square base ring closed (no pictures of that, sorry) I took the square ring base, and fitted it inside the bezel, always checking to make sure the stone still fit nicely inside, tweaking the shape with my pliers, and sometimes hammering the base to make it every so slightly larger if needed.

When the base fits snugly inside the bezel, I flux it up, place little pallions of hard solder so that each piece touches both the bezel wall and the square wire base — and then just add heat to solder the base to the bezel.

In my lovely EMPTY HOUSE time — I managed to make a bezel and base for each of my stones, and got most of them soldered together. Here’s a view from what it looks like from the botton, with the labradorite stone sitting inside the bezel.

I merrily worked away all afternoon, pausing to wonder briefly how James and the kids were doing before pushing it firmly out of my mind and going back to work.

Next up for these will be creating the shanks to each ring!

My son DEMANDED that I have a good mother’s day — I submitted to his demands!

At long last… I’ve updated my banner.

Click for the large version..

This is a piece I wanted to get finished and listed in my shop by Easter, but alas… just like the shamrock I planned in March, it just didn’t happen. Gah. Hopefully it will still be finished and listed soon.

See all past banners here.