Jigs and trains

This is the jig Nick made for me to make the sterling silver earwires I use on the big aluminum earrings. I needed to make earwires that are larger than the ones we use for all our other earrings because of the large diameter of the aluminum. I was making them by just bending the 20 gauge half hard wire around my fingers. This jig is somewhat quicker but more importantly allows me to make a consistent size earwire.

This is my stubby finger holding down the end of the wire that is still attached to the big coil of silver wire. This way we have no waste.

Snip...


Here they are on a finished product. These Big Chunky Chain Aluminum Earrings look really heavy but are amazingly light. I sold a couple of pair this week for the first time.Yippee

This is our Big Aluminum Treble Clef Pendant.

Brothers...

Henry wears this shirt almost everyday. He loves Thomas the Tank Engine and all things Thomas. It was traumatic week last week when they announced the recall of certain Thomas wooden trains and accessories that were painted in lead tainted red paint in China. We studied the pictures on the website and gathered up our two trains, a box car ,railroad crossing sign and stop sign and put it in the big bubble mailer (which luckily we have a lot of) and sent them back to the factory. It will take 6 to 8 weeks before they will send back replacements and a "free gift". Henry has all sorts of wonderful fantasies about what the free gift or "prize" as he calls it will be. I keep trying to remind him that it will probably be something he doesn't like or want so that he isn't disappointed. Every once in a while he still falls into despair when he realizes that another day has gone by and he still doesn't have his trains (as if he doesn't have 30 other ones to play with right here in his happy home.) I think the Thomas company needs to compensate parents across the world who have had to deal with this psychological trauma with more than a free gift.

I'm thinking an all expenses paid vacation in Hawaii would be fair compensation.