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.

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!

New in the shop- Key chains! Father’s Day Gifts!

Yes, I know the excitement is overwhelming. We finally came up with a way to

have key chains in our shop. Not all our designs were right for this application.

They needed to be sturdy enough to handle being banged around.

The Treble Clef Aluminum Key Chain

The Treble Clef Brass Key Chain

The Celtic Cross Aluminum Key Chain

The Long Celtic Cross Aluminum Key Chain

The Celtic Heart Aluminum Key Chain

The Celtic Loops Aluminum Key Chain

Also new this week in the shop is our

Looping Celtic Crossed knots Sterling Silver
Earrings

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.

Our pin is featured in this months Simply Knitting UK!

It is sooo exciting to see our Aluminum Celtic Budding Spiral Shawl Pin featured

in this months Simply Knitting  UK magazine! It will also be in the US version

which will come out soon. Yay!

Spring has sprung and other things

I love this time of year in our front yard. The tulips are out.

The snowbells are ringing.

The primroses are primming?

The daffodils are stanking. These are particularly fragrant ones that are kind of

a bit much for my my delicate allergy filled nose.

It’s also Max’s birthday! So we had the  traditional Wacky Bounce birthday party

for our newly 9 year old baby boy.

This was a special request extra long aluminum Celtic braid hair pin for a customer

with dreadlocks.

Early Spring morning

Our neighborhood gang of deer were hanging out in our backyard this morning admiring

the daffodils and our compost bin.

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.

Snowpocalpse 2, Day 2

It snowed all day long again today. This is looking out our back porch towards our

shop/studio. That’s Nick.

Max and Henry. You can get a sense of the depth from the snow piled on the roof

of the studiobarn (also referred to as the “shabin” with credit to our friend Stu.)

A view of the back of our house.

Henry frolicking with our a real coat because he’s crazy like that.

15” and counting…

Our corner

Cold bird. (Robin perhaps?)