Now is the winter of our discontent...

Richard III by Hogarth, courtesy of www.gutenberg.org

It's snowing hard again. There's 5-6 inches, on top of the 3-4 that was still on the ground. It might change to freezing rain this afternoon, with accumulation on the trees again and more power outages. This is like the week of Christmas all in one day. No pictures today - it looks exactly like previous postings, so I'll spare you.

I'm tired of shoveling snow, of buying and spreading ice melter on the little hill over the culvert, of filling the bathtub and all my big pots with water in case power goes out, of looking out the windows and seeing nothing but white, of re-scheduling my life because I can't get to appointments, of living from one weather forecast to the next. This is enough. I'm about to throw a conniption fit.

Sunshine is a good thing!

I noticed that things look so dark and gloomy in the previous post, like a completely black-and-white world. I guess that's the reality when it's cloudy and snowing. This is what it looks like today. The pine trees are green and that sky....  OH! that sky! As the saying goes: "If God is not a Tarheel, then why is the sky Carolina Blue?" It was so bright that I almost had to wear my shades in the house.

I'm having a hard time getting motivated to do much. I'm taking on small jobs and looking toward ripping up the studio and doing some big time purging. I started with the top of my desk and it feels good to actually be able to see the wood. There's just too much junk that's accumulated and it's starting to crowd me and I think that's what's squashing my creativity. At least, that's my excuse for now.

Again...

Another big snow storm. This one is not as bad as the one in December, so far. There's only about 7 or 8 inches of snow this time, but still snowing and mixing with sleet, to continue into this evening. At least the holidays are not looming ahead and freaking me out. And there's no ice in the trees that would bring down power lines.

This time I can just sit back and watch the beauty and snuggle in. I'm making a pot of soup, reading a book and watching the birds on the front porch and the big flakes falling. I don't HAVE to go anywhere until next Friday. This storm has slammed most of the state and I've heard reports of several inches of snow in Charlotte and Raleigh. Therefore, there's lots of hype on TV and everybody's excited. To the point of the Governor declaring a State of Emergency.

I took this on the front porch, where just a little skiff of snow has blown in. Don't the birdy feet make a beautiful pattern?

A Few New Things

Here's some things from the last batch, all completed. They're tiny little charms or pendants that were made from silicone molds I made from some antique buttons I bought from Kate McKinnon's "Exploding Pipes Sale" back in December. The first photo below is the original buttons for the three necklaces above, and the entire batch of buttons is below that. More fun to come!

I'm rushing to get through this post so I can get to the Dentist's office and have my permanent crown installed. The temporary was done back before Christmas and, with the holidays and bad weather, the permanent one is just getting done today. I'll be glad to have that finished, especially since I'm paying A LOT of money for it!

Why you won't see a Haiti listing in my Etsy Shop

A lot of Etsy sellers are proclaiming that if you buy something from them, they'll donate a portion of the sale to help the situation in Haiti. I don't think that's too efficient. If you were to buy something from me for $50 and I gave $25 to charity it would dilute your donation. You can give your entire $50 to the Red Cross or one of the other legitimate orgainizaitons directly. And you will get the tax benefit, not me. I don't need to be the middle man just to move some jewelry along. Plus, I'd never want to be accused of personal enrichment by way of this disaster, like Wyclef Jean's Yele Haiti Foundation has.  Etsy sellers can proclaim to donate part of their sales, but there's no way to track it, and I won't use the poor suffering people of Haiti just to boost my online sales.  No matter how much I would like to help the people of Haiti, I want you to be sure that your donations will get to those that need it. So if you want to buy jewelry, buy jewelry. If you want to donate to charity (and I hope you do!), then there are plenty of organizations that will gladly take your money and put it to good use.  Do what feels good in your heart, as I have, and let's not confuse the two.

New Stuff!

A big pile of fresh jewelry, all wire-brushed (done while watching the Hope for Haiti special last night - very beautiful and moving) and ready to go in the tumbler. This ought to keep me busy for awhile! After a couple of hours in the tumbler, I'll be putting on Liver of Sulphur patina and hand polishing. Then assembly, pricing, inventory, and photographing. It's really a long process from start to finish and ready to sell. I'll show off some of my favorites when they're done.

I figured out the disc cutter thing. I was trying to cut 22 guage brass when I first tried it unsuccesfully, so I switched to 26 guage copper sheet and got lots of circles cut with just one bang of the hammer on my butcher block. The combination of thinner and softer metal did the trick. The next kiln batch should be really interesting!

Heavy rain and "stream flooding likely" predicted for tomorrow. Sheesh! I hope it doesn't happen, but I'm a professional worrier.

Another Ice Storm and Progress on Jewelry

Oh no! Not again! Ice has been accumulating on trees and power lines all afternoon and is supposed to continue into tonight. (Best seen on the shrub in the lower left corner of the above photo.) Let's pray that the power stays on this time. Notice that there is STILL snow on the ground from the December 18 storm. There are only ten days left in January -- maybe February will  be kinder to us.

I've been working away and almost have my kiln shelf filled. That means that I'll probably fire on Saturday and have some new things to show. I had an idea of how to make some lower priced items using brass and copper by cutting discs from sheet metal and embellishing them with silver. I borrowed a disc cutter from my friend and Craft Enrichment Program colleague Jim Rice last night.

He gave me a quick demo over at the Jewelry Studio on campus. It looked easy, just put the sheet inside the cutter, crank it down, put the cutting plug in and bash it with a heavy dead-weight hammer. He did one of them with one blow of the hammer. I tried it today and, after many, many hammer blows, finally got a second disc cut. I tried a third one, but gave up because I thought my house would fall down if I tried to hit that thing any harder. I found out later that I need to put the whole set up on concrete or steel so that the wood of my butcher block island doesn't absorb so much of the shock. I don't have any concrete.... Any ideas?