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.)

The Great Easter Egg Hunt Party 2014

Eat your heart our pinterest! I pulled it off. The Easter Egg nest cupcakes and the

jelly bean cookies in the background were a success. The big plans for the deviled

eggs cut to look like cute little chicks with carrot beaks and olive bits for eyes

were abandoned in frustration after the ordeal of trying to perfectly peel all those

damn eggs which did not peel well. When the new jar of mayonnaise was opened

and the seal was not intact and I knew I could not use it all plans were abandoned

of being pinterest proper. I creatively compensated with sour cream and avocado

but my creative energy, time and will were too depleted to do anything more than

messily cram those lumpy misshapen weirdly sliced egg white halves with the

weird concoction. They did get eaten.

We began a tradition of having a group egg hunt at our place with neighbors and

friends when the kids were just babies. The tradition has continued and this year’s

party was a great success.

The kids hunted and then gorged and swapped candy while the parents drank

mimosas and ate and chat.

Max on the hunt.

Henry on the hunt. The weather was perfect.

cheese and hair and family again

Well the guests are all gone but the bloated weight gain lingers on. Here is a picture of our wonderful cheese orgy. 7 different types of exotic cheeses, the blue cheese stuffed and garlic olives I had been eyeing for the past year at the new Safeway "gourmet"section that I could never bring myself to justify buying before, the Soyrizo (vegetarian sausage), the sliced pears , Betsy's sweet plate of honey, molasses and jam and of course crackers.

Betsy and I happily admiring the spread in between gorges.

I bought this at the Asian Food Store when it was Nick's birthday in September and I was buying stuff to make him sushi. I though maybe it would go well with the theme and it intrigued me. Well Nick wanted to have nothing to do with it but I knew when Betsy came she would join me in this culinary adventure. According to Wikipedia it is a root used in Thai cooking.

We were just about to open the jar when Betys noticed something. If you look in the upper right hand corner of the jar above the lable you might see it...

Here is the much better view- a long dark hair pickled in with the roots.

Yummmm

I think not. We decided to skip this culinary adventure.

More family visiting pictures

Henry arranged these pictures. Here is the great Prince Henry with Grandpa Nick and Nick(dad)

Then he wanted one with just the girls-me, Grandma June and Aunt Betsy

Crazy cuddling lovefest with the boys and grandparents

The Carters

Nothing new and exciting in the jewelry world right now. I skipped yet another saturday market and now am obligated to go next weekend according to market rules . Here is one of our newest lsiting on Etsy of an old stamped design of mine. I carved this die back when I had lots of free time to spend confusingly carving in reverse.

This one is called "Kneeling Woman Finding Her Bliss Sterling Silver Pendant with Turquoise".

It is a chubby belly and boob , not two sideways boobs which I just realized it kind of looks like when looking at it.

Pendants,chains and family

We hit an Etsy milestone this past week when we made our 1000th sale! It was a goal we hoped to reach by the end of the year and it came in mid October. We were put over the top with a huge sale to a lovely woman in California that really made our week.
I've been refocusing on pendants. It is a common discussion amongst jewelers as to whether to sell a pendant alone or on a chain. So I decided to sell some pendants that are just on the simple black cord that adds just about nothing to the cost of the pendant and have a sterling silver chain with our handmade clasp available in our shop as well that you can purchase if you want a chain too. Surprisingly the chain has been selling quite well on it's own and the pendants have been selling well without the chain. I haven't had a customer yet purchase a chain to go with one of our pendants too.



This is our Sterling Silver Celtic Heart and Spirals Pendant .

This is the Sterling Silver Flat Cable Chain with Handmade Clasp.

The Steaming Cup o Joe with Garnet Pendant...

and the Dragonfly Wirework with Saphire Blue Sterling Silver Pendant.


We have been having lots of family visit us the past two weeks. It's been a lot of fun.Here are cousins Peter, Victoria and baby Harry. Peter appears to be contemplating his empty beverage and Nick is trying to scare Harry.

SupermessyMax

Cousins hugging (Max and Harry)

Upside down swinging Henry who insisted that I take his picture.

More Harry and M.ax at the park

Grandma June and the boys

Nick the elder,crazyface Nick and cousin Peter

A slow haggard morning still in my Spongebob jammies with all the boys.

Max picking a winner, Henry picking his toes, and Harry wondering how he ended up in this crazy place.

We had Henry take this picture. He was sitting on the couch which increased the already skewed childsize angle and managed to emphasize all our middle aged double chins except for Nick's cleverly concealed by his beard.

Aunt Betsy in the middle of couch mayhem.

Max delighted over his pumkin "no man" (snowman)

Around the dinner table admiring Henry's large dirty feet.

widgets and grandparents

We've had a busy few weeks. I keep thinking I can't possibly come up with new jewelry designs and then as I am trying to fall asleep at night I start thinking about spirals and swirls and designs we already have and new versions start forming in my sleepy mind. This is a take on our celtic spirals and swirls with some iolite dangling. It kind of looks like an angel if you are in the mood.

We call these Aluminum Widget Earrings. I was climbing through our carport full of Nick's crap- I mean really important things he's found and bought throughout the years that we are storing until they find their proper home - and I noticed a bin of aluminum scrap that yelled to me- Hey idiot, look here! Earring parts!

So I dug through and cleaned them up ,stuck an earwire on them and wa la.

The dreary overcast weather was perfect for photographing jewelry and I got this ideal shot. I listed the earrings and they sold in a few hours on Etsy. But don't worry. We have lots more.

Here is Henry our almost 5 year old drilling the lego pieces with Nick. Hey pay attention to the drill!

Now he's focusing on the handle that he pulls down to drill the holes. Those earrings have been astoundingly successful at the Saturday Market.

My parents came to visit this week from Albuquerque. It was a relaxing visit filled with lots of reading and sitting and mayhem.

Max and Grandpa Joe in a quiet moment.

Grandma Fran in a not so peaceful moment

Henry goofing around with Grandpa.

More reading. Notice Grandma Fran's Lego earrings and the book is Lego book too. Such synchronicity!

Brothers

Attempting to get a good group picture. This was the best one out of about 20. (And frankly, not so flattering. )

Tomorrow I go to the Saturday Market. Hopefully I shall return home with a pile of money and interesting stories to share with the boys.