New Freddie the Turtle shawl / scarf pin

My parents asked me to try and come up with a turtle design so they could give
it as a gift to their good friend Freddie. I had been wanting to come up with a
turtle design and was pleased to have Freddie for the inspiration. Freddie is a
fellow my Dad met on the Albuquerque bike trail that he rides every day.  I have
never met him but my parent’s describe him as an ex- surfer from California with a
shaved head, tattoos including one of a turtle on the back of his head and ear
gauge plugs. He is very kind and generous and volunteered to help take my Mom
to the hospital and back and spend time with them in the hospital while my father
was  there for a week this winter. I just love picturing my nice  non tattooed 
Jewish 76 year old mother from Brooklyn hanging out with Freddie.  I made him
a turtle pendant in this design in sterling silver. I haven’t been able to recreate it
consistently in silver but it came out well and easily in my trusty aluminum wire.

This is the  Aluminum Turtle Spiral Shawl Pin now in our shop. Thanks Freddie!

Shiny and new

Nick fly cut and lapped my anvil and polished up my hammers today! It’s so nice

to have a fresh shiny,smooth surface to work on again.

We’ve been getting lots of requests for larger sterling silver version of our designs.

So today I added the Big Celtic Heart Sterling Silver Wire Pendant to our shop.

It’s made in 12 gauge silver.

I also added the Celtic Open Eye Copper Shawl Pin, Hair Pin.

This young deer was comfortably sitting next to Nick’s target range the other day.

First Grade trip to the Portland Zoo

Last Friday I chaperoned Henry's First Grade class trip to the zoo. It was a crazy 2 hour bus ride. Luckily we had lots and lots of parents who came on the trip to help.About a half hour before we arrived Henry started to feel sick and it started raining.I was not in the best of moods. But once we got off the bus he felt better. Must have been car sickness.And miraculously the rain stopped after a little while.We spent the day with his 3 best friends and another set of parents.

We all brought our own lunch and found a great spot inside the lion viewing area. And then suddenly from cross the field this large and lovely lioness spotted us and came trotting intensely over to the window like she was ready to eat us for lunch.

It was pretty exciting and terrifying. I'm so glad that glass was strong.
This polar bear was hilarious. He was really enjoying himself and showing off for us while the one in the background was having some sort of OCD weird caged animal moment. He kept walking backwards about 3 steps and then forwards 3 steps like he was doing the cha cha cha. The picture below the video of the bears is of Max and his super awesome preschool teacher Sara Melahnik.(I couldn't figure out how to move the picture below on blogger. Anyway...) It was the next to last day of preschool for him. We'll really miss her and I can't believe my baby will be starting kindergarten in the Fall.

Henry and Max's first circus

Yesterday I took the boys to the rinky dink non PETA approved circus that came to the Benton County Fairgrounds. I took them to Burger King before the circus thinking that it would fill their bellies and delay some possible meltdowns. Apparently Burger King was equally as exciting as the Circus. Henry really loves their burgers and the Nickolodean Burping Toy was the coolest thing ever.
Now onto the circus!


Their first cotton candy.


The essential lady on the ropes.

Henry really wanted to ride the elephant at intermission. He is third from the front.Max said he didn't want to and then regretted it when it was time to get on the elephant but it ws too late to get him a ticket.He survived.
I really hope the elephant doesn't have black eyes from being beaten. They looked really sad to

me.
Elephant butt! The juvenille in me couldn't resist this shot.

The "rare" siberian white tigers. I was worried I would be witnessing one of those terrible tiger- mauls- trainer episodes.

This was the funniest and most pathetic parts of the whole thing.They brought out this big sad bear with the humiliating tutu around his neck. They had him sit in the chair and continuously fed him cookies so that he wouldn't eat the children that were sitting on the other side of the plexi glass wall so they could take their picture with the bear.
He looked like he was having existential angst.
But the cookies must have been good.

Back to the jewelry world.

I decided on the name "Unfurling Tulip Lyre Light Weight Aluminum Shawl Pin".The two people who bought it so far told me they bought it because it looked like a Lyre. I really like the word "Unfurling" though so I stuck that in and it definitely was supposed to be a tulip so I stuck that in there too. So...

Liz and Trista please send me your address and I'd love to send you either this pin or anything else you'd like from our shop if you're not a pin person.

Pamellama and Mimi and Moe's Mom- I totally see the scepter too and like that but decided the Lyre was the way to go. Thanks for your input!

Now back to work. We are one sale away from our 5,000th online sale at Etsy!