What a difference the undercoat makes

Making a new pair of metal earrings using the Vintaj metal blanks.  After painting the first side, I washed the paint out of my sponge brush so it wouldn't cake up while waiting for the blank to dry.  When it was time to do the other side, the brush was still damp, so the paint thinned out when applied.  What the heck, I thought, it is just the back side.


Well, when I dropped on the inks, I discovered that the consistency of the paint makes a BIG difference in the look. Believe it or not, the same inks colors were used on both sides. Lesson learned.



Front (good layer of acrylic)



Back (watered down layer of acrylic)

And just a reminder, the Bead Soup Party Reveal is tomorrow, September 17th.  Whooo-hooo.

BSBP is almost here.

This is just a little note to remind you that the Bead Soup Blog Party blog hop begins 

September 17th.  

I am so excited to be involved!  Watch for my reveal this Saturday morning.  

Not sure what the Bead Soup Blog Party is?  Read about it here.

There are over 360 talented participants this time around!

Blogistis here I come!!!!!

Christi F update

For those who are Christi Freisen Fans (and if you aren't you should be IMHO), she recently did a little demo for Polyform.  It is a cute little Steampunky bird. 

Check it out at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fcowoK6TCk&feature=share

I had a really good start on my bead soup project.  I finished almost 80% of it the first weekend, then life intruded and I was not able to get back to it till this week.  What I thought would be very easy turned out to be the most frustrating part.  I finally finished it up last night and spent this morning making some companion earrings.  The 17th will be here before I know it, so will be photographing and writing it up after work tonight. 

I am getting so excited about seeing what my bead partner Julie Bean did with the beads I sent her and hope she likes what I did with hers.

 I loved visiting all the blogs on the last Bead Soup Blog Hop and will probably succumb to Blogitis again, but it will be worth it I think. So many people are involved this time that it will take DAYS to read them all.  I started at the bottom of the list last time and will be doing the same this time.

Gift for a good friend

Today is a bittersweet one.  My supervisor and good friend is leaving for a new job.  While I will miss her greatly, I am very happy for the advance in her career.  She is leaving the clinical side of laboratory medicine for the computer side, and will be come certified to help set up laboratory computer systems.  Quite a change but an exciting time for her.  It is not really goodbye, as we are close outside work and will be seeing each other on weekends. 

One of the things about her new job, she is updating her wardrobe from scrubs to office clothes.  And she needs jewelery updates too. So to start things off, I made another pair of earrings using the same technique I used for the last pair.   This time though I used a smaller blank, so did not tap it into a concave shape and I colored both sides so they look good coming and going.  She wants me to design and make her jewelry and of course, I am delighted to help my friend out.

Earrings view from the front

Earrings view from front and the flip side

Not everything is Polymer

Autumn Wind

My latest earrings are NOT Polymer... can you believe it?

 I saw the technique on line earlier this summer and finally got around to trying it out.  Don't think they turned out too bad considering this is my first attempt. 

Opps, I was reminded that I forgot to let people in on how these were made (thanks Davina).  If you are interested, the instructions are at Bello Modo's site.  Here is the link to the page with the video (it's near the bottom).  Check out the rest of the site too while you are there.

https://www.bellomodo.com/index.php

JuLee

The Weekend that Was

I have been out of town for the labor day weekend plus a few.  My sister (who I found out reads my blog - hi Cheri) is the caregiver for my mother.  She moved in with Mom at the first of the year and was reaching burn out.  So a trip across the mountains after work Friday night was in order (never again, driving through construction on I-90 in the middle of the night with semi trucks careening all over the place was NOT fun).  Cheri left for a well deserved break Saturday and I had Mom all to myself in a very hot house.  Mom is very thin so she likes it hot, I am not so thin and like it cool.  I find this very ironic as when I was a child it was just the opposite.  I would stand over the heat registers in the house to get warm while Mom was running around turning the heat down. She warned me about "the Change" and how it would "see" what hot is.  I see already ... please let me turn on the AC!

The bad thing about Mom's is that she does not have Internet access.  Now I can remember the time before computers were everywhere but it is so surprising how dependant I have become on it.  I actually had to read to entertain myself. Don't get me wrong, I read all the time, but a lot of my reading is other blogs, interesting websites, tuts, on line.... not so much a physical book (and my book is an e-reader - hundreds of books at my fingertips). One of my goals for the weekend, as I did have a lot of enforced spare time on my hand, was to photograph my jewelery for inventory and blogging purposes.  I got two boxes done so will have a lot of pix to post in the future.




Wind Farm outside Ellensburg Wa. I drove past on my way home
These things are HUGE


Hubbie is trying to get my attention. Apparently there is a new episode of The Guild posted on line and I HAVE to check it out.  More later.

Wheelie Earrings

I had several Wheelies left over from the necklace I made, so this morning  I made some earrings

Experimented with making my own ear wires.  I don't think they turned out too bad.

Hope these wires don't cause allergy problem with my ears