Pretty things revamped

Last week I had the time because of slow sales and the perfect overcast weather to revamp our Hanging Vases and take new pictures.I decided to stop making them with the glass cabochon glued to the front spiral for a variety of reasons. It takes more time to glue them on and requires me leaving the house and going to the studio away from the kids and using nasty E-6000 glue which stinks and isn't safe to inhale.Yuck.This means I can make them more quickly and lower the price a little. So that's what I did.



I also added some of the colorful glass that I have to our Hanging Vase selection. Like this Teal Pyramid Celtic Spirals and Swirls Hanging Vase.



And I finally found just the right rustic spot to take the photos on our front yard fence gate.

I experimented with hanging them from our cherry tree too.

I also had to readjust shipping prices. They require a lot of bubble wrap and then I wrap them in cardboard for extra protection and then we use recycled stryofoam popcorn. The cost of priority shipping went up this past spring so it was time to raise the price to cover the cost of shipping. I hate raising prices. But I figure lowering the price on the vases makes up for it.

Tomorrow I am off to sell at the Eugene Saturday Market. I'm hoping sales are good which will make up for suffering in the heat.

Up the Yin Yang

Things have slowed down at bit probably due to most people going on vacation and not spending time glued to their computers shopping. This has given me the opportunity to work on new ideas and photography. This past week I've added some new things to our Etsy shop.
This Yin Yang design came to me one evening and I made a nice shawl/hair pin with it. then I realized it could be earrings, pendants and an ornament too.

Yin Yang Harmony Sterling Silver Pendant
$10


Yin Yang Harmony Sterling Silver Earrings
$15

And the larger version in super light weight aluminum...

Big Yin Yang Harmony Light Weight Aluminum Pendant
$10


Big Yin Yang Harmony Light Weight Aluminum Wirework Earrings
$15
I'll be blogging more soon about all the other new things I've been working on.

new super geeky nerdy earrings

We had a customer contact us recently asking if we could make these earrings. They were a great idea which will probably appeal to a limited audience but they are bound to speak to someone else out there.


Pilcrow Paragraph Sign Typographical Sterling Silver Stamped Earrings-
The pilcrow also called the paragraph sign or alinea is a typographical character commonly used to denote individual paragraphs.We stamp these sterling silver earrings from our own die.
The earrings are 5/8" diameter (15.87mm) and measure about 1-1/8" long (28.57mm) from the top of the sterling silver earwires to the bottom of the earrings. They are stamped from 30 ga. sterling silver.
Thin, light weight, elegant and totally geeky.
$15

Section Sign Typography Character Geeky Sterling Silver Earrings
The section sign also called the "section symbol" or "squiggly", is a typographical character used mainly to refer to a particular section of a document.
$15

It must be summer

because the cherries are here!

Max loves cherries . We picked these from the tree we planted in our front yard when we first bought our place about 16 years ago. They are Royal Annes.

Yesterday we went to the Philomath Antique Car Show. I usually miss it and Nick takes the boys while I am selling at the Saturday Market. But since the 4th fell on a saturday this year I decided to take the day off from selling at the market and got to go too. I figured sales would be slow with so many other things going on around town and it would also be brutally hot later in the day which would kill me.

Eating corn and hot dogs.

We fell in love with this little car and think it would make a great going to town car.

I gave Henry my camera and he took a bunch of pictures. This was one of them.

I think this would make a nice replacement for one of our Taurus station wagons.

The kids played in the park for a while too. That's Henry on top of the rickety old slide. It must be about 30 years old at least if not older and is ridiculously dangerous with it's thin sides and large spaces on the ladder. Henry fell off of it from the top when he was about 3 and I relive that every time he goes on it. He was fine and just cryed a little but watching your baby fall off the top of a slide is a traumatic. Obviously he was not traumatized at all.

Besides the cherries we have a few other successful perenials in our front yard that require no maintainance which is the only kind of gardening I do these days.

The honeysuckle.

Daylily- some extra red type.

Some purple thing I planted many years ago that the hummingbirds love.

gratuitous cute cats picture

The other evening I stepped outside onto our back porch and saw this cute scene. Fidel our big old snarky cat and his trophy wife Mrs.CuteKittyMittens having a cuddling private moment on the lounge chair.
Awwww!

New Celtic Knot Cross earrings in our shop

I've added 2 new earrings to our Etsy shop. Once again they are based on older designs and really just needed to be made in sterling silver as earrings.

Loopy Bliss Cross Sterling Silver Wire Earrings
$15

Celtic Knot Infinity Swirl Cross Sterling Silver Earrings
$22.50
I needed to charge more than I usually do for our sterling silver wire earrings for these because they are really tricky to make match and they actually use a lot of wire. I don't expect them to sell quite as well because of the price but I've got to be realistic about my time and cost of materials for my products if I want to make a living.
Yesterday was a decent day at Saturday Market. It was very busy with the Eugene Track and Field competition and the beginning of the Bach Festival in town and the weather was lovely warm and sunny. For a while it seemed like customers were mostly looking and shopping around before making their decisions but in the end it added up to a good enough day.
This week the kids start their swimming classes and our full on summer of long days of sibling fighting and boredom sets in.
I'm rethinking the camp thing...

Felice and Henry's Big Adventure in New York

Last week I took our 6 year old son on a trip to Long Island, New York to visit my brother Steve and his family and celebrate my parent's 50th wedding anniversary.
We had a little journey through United Airlines circles of hell in which our first flight from Eugene was delayed due to "weather conditions" in San Francisco that looked sunny and delightful when we finally arrived with 5 minutes to spare to make our next flight. Apparently those 5 mintues where not enough to keep them holding their own flight and so they gave away our seats. We then stood on the customer "Service" line for about an hour and half with about 75 other disgruntled passengers with their own tales of airline woe while watching the plane we should have been on sit on the runway delayed for an hour. Henry behaved impeccably (I must be a great parent) the whole time on line. We managed to get stand by on the next flight and screw the next slightly late passengers out of their seats. I assume this process goes on infinitely as each flight takes seats away from those slightly late in a sort of Pay It Backward process of airline karma.We arrived at 1:30am in the morning at JFK and my loving brother and mom and dad were there to greet us.
The next day began with this lovely NY breakfast-the bagel and cream cheese with lox.

It had been about 6 years since I last saw my brother and 12 years since I was last In NY.

Now that's a pizza! Finally the pizza you just can't get in Oregon. It has the light thin crust and the oil dripping down your hand.

Sibling love

It was so great to meet my wonderful niece Jamie!

The next night was my nephew Matt's 12th birthday party that he shared with his good friend Jason. It involved 50 12 year olds and a large lovely swimming pool with a hot tub. There was an air brush artist making t shirts and hats and a movie screen set up outside and the grand finale of the Mr Softee truck in the driveway with free ice cream cones for all.Henry got to go in the truck with his cousin and play ice cream man. Unfortunately my little 6 year old thinks he can actually swim. So there he was on his little floaty noodle thing kicking out to the deep end constantly to join in with the all the big kids. I was left with the only reponsible parenting option of putting on my bathing suit and going in there too. So I was the only adult at the party baring it all in a bathing suit amongst all the kids.

Here I am in the hot tub with a bunch of 12 year old boys. Need I say more?

The next day we drove into NY and went to the Museum of Natural History.

Henry , Matt and Jamie taking it all in.

While sitting in traffic this just cracked me up for some reason. I guess I am just easily amused.

Henry and Jamie

The next day was my parent's 50th wedding anniversary. My brilliant sister-in-law came up with the plan of stealing Mom's photo album and having this board made for everyone to sign.


I got to see my Great Aunt Phylis. So this is Felice, Phyliss and Fran. Try saying that 5 times fast.We had lots of old family friends show up and a good time was had by all.

We all went out to dinner at Mario's for excellent Italian food the last night we were there.

Aunt Michelle getting some good hugging in with Henry.

Henry fell asleep on the last plane ride home. He never napped on any of the other plane rides. He later woke up screaming as we were landing with a bad dream and a headache but quickly recovered upon landing.

It was a great trip.