Texture Sheets

I was going to do some assembly this weekend but with all these texture sheets I can't wait to try them out. I think I over cooked some of them. They have some brown spots. The instructions I have say 265 degrees for 20 minutes. What's everyone else doing?? Well I'm off to play in the clay. Talk to you later.

Iz been makin' texture sheets

I'm starting to speak lolcat. If you don't know what that is...go to the lolcat website.

I love using texture sheets but was getting bored using the same three that I have. So I made 12 more. I haven't made these since I took a class with Celie 2 years ago. I don't know why I didn't do this earlier. They have been coming out so well. Now that I have the hang of this I need to pull out my tracings of ancient Parisii coins. I want to make those so I can have a few bronze medallions to wear while I'm on vacation.

I have so much to do before then. I woke up in the middle of the night last night and couldn't get back to sleep. I have so much to do at work and I need to spend my evenings getting ready for my shows in November. Sounds like November is a long ways away...but it's not. With only a few hours each evening during the week to dedicate towards making jewelry....I have to be busy every night. I'm glad there is a three-day weekend coming up. We have a wedding on Saturday and my Mom is going to come up on Monday for lunch and some shopping. But in between time I will be working away. Sunday will be a chance for me to do a full day's work.

Hop over to Michele's website for cool beads....

My friend Michele Goldstein updated her shop with beads, bracelets, buttons and more. Check it out...click on her name.

I've got goodies....

I didn't have a full load to fire but I couldn't wait so a put a few big pieces in and fired it up. Take a look at my goodies......

I call this a pita pocket. I need to do some finishing work on this.....make some bell clappers to hang out of the bottom.

I finally got around to making some clasps....I will be making more of these...inspiration from Cris who makes some really great ones.

Two of my favorite things...besides raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens....lentils and patch straps.

Fossilized fish and patch straps. I love this stamp. I wish it were bigger. I need to make a big texture sheet of it.

A couple of pendents...without patch straps :))....there's a novelty

And my most favorite thing....I don't have a name for it. The one of the left is an old drawer pull that I picked up in Tuscon with the girls. I plan to use it itself in jewelry but I wanted to play with making something out of bronze and this is what I came up with.

So I think I need to make some time to start assembling all this stuff.....what do you think???

I have yet to figure out what to do with the finish...do I tumble....do I just leave it. That's the next dilemma. LATER......

Quick post.....then back to bronze

Fresh from the oven. Spacer discs and beads, some earring hoops and dangles, a tube bead, and some little rectangular links

Here are the pieces I am going to embellish today. I have to make sure the edges of the pita pocket are secure and places straps on the other two....of course...what else would I add but straps. When I get obsessed with something I work it to death.

I got a new book today....Calder Jewelry. Check it out. It is a beautiful coffee table book. The jewelry pictures are full page and almost the entire book is pictures. There are 287 pages. Its wire and metal and all cold connections. Get ready to drool.

Be back later.

TGIF Baby!!!

Haven't finish my budget at work yet...but I am so glad to be off for 2 days. I couldn't even look at it today. Did you ever do something so much that you got sick of it. Like writing papers in college. You are so immersed in it and have looked at it and read it so many times that the thought of looking at it just one more time makes you sick. That's how it was today. So I caught up on all the work that I have been pushing aside for the past week. But it never fails that the time you need to be left alone to concentrate....that's the time everyone needs you.

There is a grad student that will spend the next few years in one of my labs. She has been e-mailing me everyday about her paperwork and I have been ignoring her. Today she marches into my office to talk to me. She barely speaks English....she is Chinese. I explain that I do not have the time today but will talk to her next week. She says....I know but I want to talk to you....so I repeat myself and she repeats herself. So I just sat there saying very loudly...NEXT WEEK, NEXT WEEK, NEXT WEEK. I think she got the message. I might sound mean....well OK I am. But the grad students and postdocs are what I refer to as time-suckers. They want to take up your time with trivial issues that quite frankly are low on my priority list. A few years ago I was in my office about 6pm with the door closed talking to the Chairman about the budget when there was a knock at the door. It was a grad student who came to tell me that we were out of creamer for the coffee and telling me that I needed to get her some. HELLO...I'm the Adminstrator...not the snack counter girl, the door is closed, the Chairman is sitting in the office....get a clue girly. So if they don't get it the first time when I explain it in my indoor voice....I revert to my outdoor voice and they get it. And if that doesn't work I just tell them to GET OUT.

So the kiln if running and will be done tomorrow morning. Mostly I put in pieces parts....little discs, some earrings and little links. I have three larger pieces that still need some work but I was too tired tonight to do a good job. Here is a shot of my dining room table. I can absolutely trash a workspace. I can be a pig



Some more pics from Tucson two weeks ago....this is one of two cats that Anne has... Nicki....that glazed look is because everytime she would pass by one of us we would pick her up and snuggle. I have to admit she was very gracious about it all. Don't you just love her mane.

This was a palm tree / bird condo outside the house. I love the texture. I want to shrink it down and make a texture plate out of it.

We went down to The Lost Barrios area to browse in some antiquities stores. If I were very very rich....I could have a lot of fun down there. I could have spent hours in Rustica, the store pictured below. So much to look at. They had old door hardware. I got some door pulls that I want to use in jewelry and use as models for make in silver and bronze.



Further down the street we found a couple of places with some massive doors. What type of house do you own have these as the front doors???

My brother was in Panama last year and said that large doors like this were using in compounds to protect against attacks by pirates. I can believe it with this one. You need a massive chain just to pull it open.

Look closely at the top of this one....there are carved horses that project out over the door frame.

And speaking of horses....there were a couple of carved wooden horses in one of the stores. I should have looked at the tags on them to see where they were from. I saw some similar large dogs that were from Tibet. Maybe that is where these are from.

And on that note....I'll talk to you later :P

I know....

it's been days since I blogged. Ya'll are wondering....why don't she write. I've been busy at work doing next year's budget. My department has a $6 million plus budget. It would be easy if it were just one account for $6 mil. But it's ~100 accounts. Some are grants, some are internal funds. The hard part is that I have to project how much will be spent on each account, which is crazy because I don't control the spend on the grants. So I take my best guess and hope that I'm close.

Went out to dinner with my Mom, brothers, significant others on Tuesday. That was nice. That's because we didn't discuss politics :)

I've been working with bronze the last two nights. Nothing in the kiln yet. Right now it's just mud...that's my term for unfired bronze. I've been making up my own terms...mud for unfired clay. The faux riveted straps I like to put on pieces I have been calling strap patches. I'll probably get the kiln running tomorrow night. I have a little bit to finish off.

Lou reminded me that we have only 5 weeks before we go to Paris. OMG!! I need to start going through the Rosetta Stone for French to brush up on the 5 words that I know, but the flight is booked and the apartment is paid for. WOW...2 weeks off. Lou is concerned about what we will do for 2 weeks.....as far as I'm concerned...anything we want. Last year we had only 6 days on the ground and it was a sprint to get around the city to see things .... quickly. ... and then move on to the next stop. This time we can be a little more leisurely about it. And if we should possible get bored....there is the high speed train to Brussels or London. My guess is that those 2 weeks are going to fly by.

I'll post some pics over the weekend.



more animals

Oh the colors.....

Cris had e-mailed me to say that she had gotten the most amazing colors in her last run. I have too. It is amazing. The first firing didn't really give me much. There was more with the second firing and even more with the third firing...all using the same carbon. And the colors are the best in the pieces that are placed in the bottom layer and get lighter in the upper layer.

Below is an image of King Tut. I just can't believe the color. If only we could figure out how to make it permanent. You can already see a few scratches on the surface brings the bronze right up.

I bought an initial stamp from Babette Cox at the PMC conference. Below is a small tag that I attached to the back. You can get your initials or your full name. I like this font. It's little different than what I've seen around.

Same piece just buffed up a bit to bring the shine out on the rasied areas.

OK.....These rings below need a comment. I envision them being earrings...but I have been been teased that these are actually nipple rings. Now just for the record I will not be using these Janet Jackson style. So stop teasing me.....Cris :))

Toggles below...I forgot to maket he toggle bars. I"ll make those today.

When you can take these pebbles from my hand grasshopper...... These look like boulders. They are actuall very small. I had three of them, but while I was sifting through the carbon, I lost one on the back patio. Between the leaves and other things between the rocks that make up the patio...I couldn't find it.

A few pieces below that I've buffed up.

Front and back of the same piece below.

I buffed these pieces up using a three-sided nail buffer with 3 different grits . I learned about these in a class that I took. The teacher commented that we wouldn't be able to get these but we could buy them through her. I've had teachers say that before in classes. An internet search can pretty much find anything. These are Whistler 3-sided nail buffers and can be found at http://www.bebeautiful.com/ Item number 104329 is the 7 inch size. They also have 3.25 inchers. I decided to order a few up and tried them today. They work quite well on the bronze clay.

Well...my boyfriend has come to call. I know...I know...I'm a married woman. But he is a big-beefy red head with the most beautiful YELLOW eyes. Meet Bill the Cat. He lives next door but he comes calling every few days. He's such a lover. Here he is on our front step looking for some attention. Who can resist??

More Bronze Tomorrow

I worked in bronze today...what else. I have a load in the kiln right now and will post some pics tomorrow.

Horoscope..

from The Onion

Gemini: Regret will be yours this week when you're forced to choose between a slice of cherry pie and everlasting life.

Just my luck cause I love my cherry pie.

Tuscon Part II

Below are some pics from the second run of bronze.

Earrings...one of the decorative faux rivets fell off. Embelishments on the bronze clay take a bit more effort than silver clay. You really need to use slip and apply pressure.

This piece of clay was really overworked and probably too dry but I was getting tired so I just rolled it out and let it dry over a curved surface. In firing it, it got spots on it that looked like it was eaten away. It feels a little weak when I try to bend it. I am going to throw it in the tumbler to see what happens to it.

On Sunday we just kicked back and enjoyed the day. "We can dance if we want to...we can leave our cares behind"

We went to lunch down on 4th Avenue and looked through the antique furniture stores in The Lost Barrios. I took some pictures of flowers. These have to be hardy to grow in this climate. The desert just sucks the fluids right out of your body.

And here are a few more desert flowers.........

What a great weekend.....Thanks Girls!!!!!!