Little Batch

Today we have a small batch.
The Universe Looks at Itself.
Look at all the fancy $tones in these tiny babies. I was all "just use up all these tiny things already!" That was my creative inspiration if anyone wants to know. I'm deep.


I've been trying to make another tute and it doesn't seem to be happening. Might be that I'm having da pims from hell. I feel like I've been on the verge of getting my period for the last 2 weeks.


Bitter Poet. (happyfallout and shipwreckdandy beads. My headpins from my tute!)

It will only come after I give up any hope of it coming and decide I'm just stuck miserable forever. Once I've embraced my new reality- pow! Period. It's a Buddhist thing- once you let go, it comes to you and all that.


Even my periods are deep. What was I talking about? Oh, the tute!

Deserving Your Love. (AnvilA gave me these origami mesh lilies.)

While the tute has been not quite happening- crappy pictures... half-assed editing.... these earrings sorta showed up.


What can we learn from this? Maybe only to do easy things when one is pre-menstrual. Like making earrings. Fuck I keep having to go back and remove exclamation points. Something about writing, you wanna give emphasis... but if you bother to re-read, the exclaims don't really add anything. Just make us all look like flighty poofheads. And we all do it.


Crepuscle. 
OMG- did you see Sparrow's shop is back open? Go there and get something! Help a sister out. Oh and then you can feel like at least your earlobes/wrist/neck is in one of her photographs. Man her photos kill me. She's back to raise the bar on us all....


In other news from my best friends, Corvid is now FlotsamTide. I'm going to have trouble adjusting to this... although it is a lovely name.


The Vagabond. 
I had other stuff to tell you but I can't remember...

Hubs just came home and announced he'd farted on the train home and suddenly became horrified thinking it might actually have been poop. So he rode paralyzed in abject terror for 20 min til he had to stand up for his stop.


Ra.
It wasn't poop. Just a fart.


I'm like, 'if you're going to announce this to me while I'm blogging, what do you think's gonna happen?' He's like, 'your dad reads that!' I'm like... I can't remember what I was like but now I'm like hungry is what I'm like. The end.

Brief Announcement

"The exchange is closed by the end of the day Fri. I'll send out the list of names, emails and guidelines Saturday. If you sent me an email and I have not responded to you then I didn't get it!"

-Rosie, Mistress of Materials, Sextress of Supplies 

(Oh, wait, you did want me to include randomly inappropriate titles, right?)

Gratuitous cute from.

More Foiled Earrings

OK, these babies from last time are up:
Lone and Vast. The Moon Upon Her Sphere.

Hymns to Freedom. The Death Throes.

I Hang from your Mouths.

But there's more!

Sleepless.
"Sleeplessly you guard my mouth."


Marvels.
As you can see, the foil is back. No one is safe.



I realize all these bits I thought of as pendants were just waiting to be made into earrings.


Freedom from Faith.
OMG I actually wore these! People came to Mom's place for dinner, so I thought I'd wear some of my devices. Then I looked in the mirror and was all DAAAAMN! These are sexy!

So my nephew came to visit from California. We celebrated his 4th birthday.

Scratch at the Heart of Life.
Last time, he was all about airplanes, but the new obsession is rockets.

"I wanna be a rocketeer!" he declares.

Forest Storm.

"Oh," says my mom, "what do rocketeers do?"

"Well," he answers, "they make rockets. Then they launch them. Then they watch them go into space.... And then they cry."

The Moon in Deeper Languidness.
"Cry?" asks Mom, "Why do they cry?"



"Because they lost their rocket! They cry one tear."
He puts his finger on his cheek to illustrate.


A Foe of Sleep.
"Just one tear?" asks Mom.



"Yeah!" He nods vigorously,"that's why they're called rocket-tear."

!!!!!!


One Black Mystery.
At one point my dad asked him if he knew what the biggest planet in the solar system was.
"Jupiter!" he said without hesitation.
"OK, so do you know what the smallest is?"
"Abuelo.... there are so many things in outer space..."



Which shut dad right up, not unlike the time Marcela explained the waves.


One Night's Immortality.
Also, when our cat Chiquita went "Me-re-re-re," David laughed and said, "Marinara sauce?" Which did sound like what she'd said!


And then I was reading the mail at my folk's place, and it was all for my dad. I was going, "Eduardo Rios, Eduardo Rios, Eduardo Rios, " and David-who only knows my dad as Abuelo- went "Underwater Rios?"
E-du-ar-do
Un-der-wa-ter
Ehh? Admit it, he's brilliant.

CONNECTIONS! Tute!

I luuuuurv me some connections, so I started a new forum thread about them. 

Added some pix of some pieces with cool connections, like this one above from Tribalis



And this one from pipnmolly- mistress of creative connection innovations.

And about a million others. I asked Tribalis to explain how she had connected these:


since it had something in common with my earlier explanation of this guy:
Which if you'll remember came with its own diagram:
And instead she went and made a whole tute and posted it on the forum with pictures! And since we all love free tutes, Imna share it here.
Here's what she wrote:

Hi people. Fanci suggested I explain how I made the connection between the wire basket, the stone  and the wire that goes through the sheet metal.
I thought that it would be great to take some photos to show it and I did...


We start with 2 holes and the thicker wire    
Here you see the other side, by now there are 4 holes, and wire ends formed into loops.
-->Before you start the basket, the fine wire has go inside the pierce of the stone about 3 or 4 times, so the stone will be very secure on the sheet metal. Be careful to not break the stone, don't force the hole. Depending on the diameter of it, just go 3 times through the hole with the wire. 

Here is the back as you wind the wire through the stone and sheet metal.

Here is the front with the wire already through the stone 3 times.

Start the basket.

Use a generous amount of fine wire (28 or 26 gauge) to wrap the stone until you form the whole basket. 

The wire has to go around the stone maaaaaany times and also through the little loop made with the thicker wire. 

The loops will hold the basket. 
:) Hugs to all , thanks Fanci for posting my jewelry here.

OK, I changed the order of the pix and steps a bit to clarify. And maybe fixed a bit of the English but only because I taught English for, like, 13 years and just couldn't help myself. If you want the original much cuter version, you'll have to go to the forum. There, you can see more of the pix I put up of inspiring connections. I hope you'll share pictures of pieces you've seen about the web with connections that inspire you. Cuz I want more pretties to look at.

Also in the forum, there's a supply swap being organized there by Rosie of EclecticTea:
So now I gotta plug her shop a bit.

So go there if you wanna get some free goodies while relieving yourself of some over-stash.
Later beaches!
WAIT! PS- I got a question about oxidizing rhinestone settings. I do it all the time! It really enriches the look of the piece (like here and here). However, if it is silver plating, that is the hardest to oxidize and you may want to soak it in your oxidizer for a long, long time.