New roof on the new shop

The trusses arrived and the roof is going up on our new shop building!

Fourth Grade Field Trip to Starker Forest

Today I chaperoned my sons’ 4th grade class strip to Starker Forest. It was one of

the best field trips I’ve gone on and I’ve gone on quite a few doozies as an overachieving

Mom.

There’s on thing wrong with this sign that took us a while to figure out…. “durning”?

The guides were great and the kids were attentive (mostly).

Big ‘Shrooms!

Newt!

Egads- wasp nest. Glad it was empty!

New shop building – pouring of the foundation walls

This may be one of the most boring blog posts but it was pretty exciting for us.

The arrival of the cement truck. The rain stopped and we had a perfect day for

cement pouring.

Don’t let the excitement you.

What’s been happening…

A lot has been happening! Nick turned 48. We call this picture Zombie daddy.

Henry went to his first 6th grade Middle School dance. He was the life of the party.

We had Nick’s Aunt Alice visit and cousin Azreal. Alice is 85 year’s old and has

been accepted into the peace Corp. She is heading to Morocco in January for 2 years!

My son affirmed my status as awesome Mom.

AND… We broke ground on our new shop building that is being built right now!

The big hole

The empty pockets that this big exciting project will cost us. (But worth every penny.)

Our Fleur De Lis Shawl Pin is featured in the October 2014 issue of Knit Style magazine!

There it is on page 12 of the October 2014 issue of Knit Style magazine! They contacted

us a few months ago and asked me to send some high res photos of our

Aluminum
Fleur De Lis Shawl Pin.

And today they sent us the issue. Stuff like this gets me so excited!

They like me. They really like me. Or at least my pin.

Beautiful Hair Adorned With Our Celtic Knot Infinite Swirl Cross Copper Pin

We love getting photos from happy customers showing how they use our hair

pins in their lovely tresses. This photo was sent by Lisa Cach who is a successful

and prolific romance writer. Our beautiful red locks are creatively held by our

Celtic Knot Infinite Swirl Cross Copper Shawl Pin - Hair Pin.

If you have any pictures of our jewelry in action we’d love to see them!

My hanging candle lantern hooks project

Early this spring Nick and I came upon one of those awesome country yard sales

down the road from us that makes me giddy with frugal joy.

I was able to buy 7 of these assorted candle lanterns for a mere $.50 each (and the

perfect bird feeder too for the same price.) But how was I going to use them on

our lovely back deck?

So I pulled out my trusty coil of 9 gauge aluminum wire we use for all our

 hanging vases and other aluminum wire items we sell in our Etsy shop.

With my favorite 27 year old pliers I came up with this design (which we also

make earrings similar too.)

Then hammered it with my hammer and anvil to make it stronger.

Put the hook on the lanterns…

and hung them up on the handy support rods that run across our porch overhang,

This is the delightful view out our kitchen window.

Lots of new jewelry in the shop!- Earrings,Pendants, Pins and more

I’ve been adding lots of new designs and stones and variations of designs into the

shop the past month. These earrings above are Celtic Teardrop Swirl Spirals Sterling

Silver Wire Earrings. They are a pretty little design I came up with a long time ago

and have just managed to get in there.

This Looping Celtic Crossed Knots Sterling Silver Pendant was a request from a

customer. It’s the pendant version of the earrings and shawl pin design.

I have to say I was pretty pleased with the way this picture came out of the new

Little Butterfly Sterling Silver Shawl Pin, Scarf Pin. It just sat perfectly on our daylily.

Ever since we sold out of our little lapis earrings and used up all the lapis beads

we had I’ve been wanting to add another lapis design - Small Lapis Lazuli and

Pearl Pendant .

Small Lapis Lazuli and Fresh Water Pearl Earrings

Long Copper Double Teardrop Spiral Hoop Earrings

Big Copper Double Hoop Earrings - Hammered Big Hoops

Owl Copper Shawl Pin, Sweater Brooch, Scarf Pin, Fastener

This was also a custom request for the

Norse Thor's Hammer Mjolnir Aluminum
Hair Stick, Shawl Pin, Scarf Pin

We thought it was a great idea!

Daffodils in wire

This spring I was inspired by the daffodils and came up with this design.

The Daffodil Flower Aluminum Shawl Pin

The Little Sterling Silver Daffodil Shawl Pin- perfect for light lacey shawls and scarfs.

The Sterling Silver Daffodil Flower Pendant. The earrings will be coming soon too.

The Little Aluminum Daffodil Shawl Pin – another little once for light weight

lace shawls and scarfs.

The Copper Daffodil Necklace

The Little Daffodil Flower Copper Shawl Pin.

Our Memorial Day weekend vacation to Portland

The Dork Family  at the Albany , Oregon train station Friday afternoon. On Saturday

we went to the Portland Zoo.

This bear apparently drank too much.

We got to spend time with our friends Eric and Marcel.

This was Henry’s invention at the food court at the zoo- a popcorn sandwich made

with cotton candy bread.

The mandrill.

Max.

We stopped at the Nike store so that Marcel could be the special socks he wanted.

Max and Nick in the big city

This is a rare and unusual site- both kids happily eating food. Max got Indian food

and Henry got plain handmade noodles from the food trucks. They are both picky

eaters.

The Portland Chinese Garden.