Run! It's a moose!

 Ye Gods.

Saturday morning, bright and early, I went to see houses with the Realtor-in-law. Most were OK but nothing special. (There was an amazing one, but between Friday night and 9 am Saturday it had a contract pending, so poo.) One was horrific--seriously, it was That House for the neighborhood--they had bunkbeds built into the garage, gah. 

One was....well, let me explain. 

This one house came up on the MLS, much lower than it should have been listed at. Turns out it's bank-handled, a short sale. I added it to my list of Houses I Want to Look At, because why not?

It's great. Needs a little work, like some carpet ripped up and continuing the concrete staining that was done in the rest of the house, front door is awful, and of course, paint. Yard is just the right size (small) and it makes very good use of the space.

I put in the offer today. It was THAT GOOD OF A DEAL. (RiL called it "smoking".)

However, it's a short sale. Which means we now have to wait and wait on the bank team that is handling this property. Seriously, in the paperwork they used the phrase "hurry up and wait". That's not a problem, since I have to give 60 days notice at the apartment anyway.

I'm still looking, because the Perfect House may still be out there--one I don't have have the garage wired for outlets and overhead lights, for example.

ETA. I LITERALLY JUST GOT AN EMAIL FROM THE RIL. DIDN'T GET IT.  (has a sad)

After all that, I went home and assembled jewelry for a while and then went to game, since I won't be able to for 2-3 weeks. Today I Signed All The Papers on the Awesomesauce House and then I was in the workshop for 8 hours. I've eaten, done one load of laundry, and now I'm off to bed.

Here's one of the things I finished today:

So far, I've had two sessions with my personal trainer. He works me hard, but not too hard. This was the right move, I think. I'm at least getting 2 hours of workout a week (up from zero, LOL), and in a week or so I'll start coming in on my off days to do other things. I think giving my body a little time to get used to this exercise thing again is a good idea.

Slowly but surely the apartment is emerging from the piles of crap. The living room is looking much better and I've been keeping the kitchen much cleaner.

I now have everything I need to start chasing again; there's just some assembly required. Sometime this weekend I'm going over to the workshop and assembling my chasing bowls. This involves adding tire weights to the cast iron bowls, and then pouring a layer of plaster of paris on top, leaving an inch or two. After that cures I'll add the resin and I'll be ready to start chasing again!

Still have a bit of a lingering cough from the Ick, but hopefully that will go away soon.

Can any of my photographer friends recommend a source for macro/jewelry digital photography lessons?

....my goodness, I have been remiss in posting.

I am now walking much so better; only limping when I've sat too long and stiffened up (or when I'm tired). I finally have a halfway-decent-fitting swimsuit so I can start water aerobics next week at the Y in order to build up strength and flexibility in my left (non-surgeried) knee. It's still giving me fits, even though a cortisone shot to that knee a couple of weeks ago really helped.

I am working on a 115-piece commission for the World Science Fiction Convention--the committee for next year's show in San Antonio is providing my enameled pins to everyone nominated for a Hugo or a John W. Campbell award this year. So far I have 30 pieces finished and will get another 15 done on Sunday, and I hope to keep to the 15-per-week schedule so I can get them done in time to make new work for ArmadilloCon. And then the Austin Craft Riot has a show in August...and since I've already committed to run the Pegasus table at Anime Overload, I can't do the Austin Flea this time. Phooey.

My new workshop space is working out splendidly. My landlady has a portable AC unit in the garage and we've bonded over all sorts of things, including BBQ and pie. I'm still rearranging tools and I'm having some friends make me a smallish sturdy table that I can hammer and do chasing on. (And if anyone wants to get me an awesome birthday present, I could use 5-6 lbs of medium pitch from Northwest Pitchworks...)

Movies: I've seen The Avengers THREE TIMES (and would see it again!). Saw Prometheus. Still don't know if I liked it or not, but boy was that ever a Ridley Scott movie! MIB3 was pretty good; Brolin does an amazing Tommy Lee Jones. Cabin in the Woods was a great deconstruction of a horror movie. Waiting on Brave, Magic Mike, Savages, Spider-Man, The Bourne Legacy...Batman not so much.

Saturday: Went to the coin show today and came back with some doozies, including an Elvis coin from the Marshall Islands and a couple of amazing ones from Bulgaria and Russia and Greece. Got bread and peaches and tomatoes and mini pies at the farmers market and then I did the base coat of clear enamel onto 30 pin blanks. Hit Whole Foods for dinner and called it a day.

It's been a scattered ten days or so, so this is a scattered post.

( More, more, more! behind the cut. )So, how have YOU been?

Well, it rained and drizzled most of the day. Normally I'd be ecstatic about this, since we still have a rain deficit of over 24 INCHES for the last  year or so. But I am selfish and wanted lots of people to come to the show. Which is outdoors.

We did have people--early in the day I was very worried that no one would show up, it would be a bust, etc. Slowly but surely people trickled in, and I gradually made sales. Everyone was having a fine time tromping in the rain/drizzle/mist, and it did clear off a bit late in the afternoon. I sold all of my star necklaces and all of my star earrings, as well as a nice handful of enamel pendants and my standbys, the coin bracelets and the kids' necklaces. Almost half my sales were in cash, which is slightly odd.

I saw several old friends I had not seen in AGES. One, K., said, "I knew it was your booth from across the way-- I could hear you!" I have an *ahem* kind of carrying voice, I guess? All that theater training still sticks.

We used my brand-new tent from Wal-Mart today. Took forever to set up, but man, was it worth it. The roof is waterPROOF instead of waterREPELLENT, and has no saggy places, so no unexpected water dumps on customers for me, thanks. I did take the precaution of lowering it a bit, taking down most of my work, and clipping my old sidewalls extra-tight so hopefully there will be no leaks/drips/thefts in the night.

I just realized I never posted links to my last batch of work. Click through for other things, as usual.

A couple of the things I made this weekend. As usual, click on them for more.

Here are the dragonfly buttons I made, and I made cards for them too. (Click through for the others.) What do you think of the price ($30)?

ArmadilloCon starts tomorrow, and I almost wish I had the time I spent on the commission pieces back...at least I already had a pretty good inventory and I usually spend most of Friday working on projects at the table, since Friday is for socializing.

Well, gotta finish getting things together for tomorrow. I have to work in the morning so I have to get everything squared away tonight.

Good luck to everyone in Irene's path and please send us some of your rain!

Sorry, no pics yet as I don't have my clients' permission to post them.

Wednesday and Thursday evenings I spent putting base enamels on the pendants--a clear coat on each side and then a black on one side.

I took Friday off, since I was in the workshop until at least 10 pm both of those nights.

Up bright and early (for me) on Saturday, which became one huge frustrating day of R&D and flailing about. I could not get the stamps to not smear, or look squashed...two hours later I caved and called the local scrapbooking store. Nice lady on the phone says they have a press that might work...I run over there with a blank and my printout of my design. The press is essentially just a clear piece of plastic with a grid printed on it, held up by 4 spongy columns. Obviously designed for the clear poly stamps (which we will do next year, yes we will!), it worked fine with my sponge-mounted rubber ones. After I got another brainstorm and cut the large designs apart into more manageable pieces, anyway.

Then I ran into another hurdle: the colors just weren't working. (Learning experience, remember?) The bluish-black I had as the background worked fine for the light blue, but the red just disappeared. So after consulting with one of my clients--the artist--I just turned them over and worked on the "clear" side that showed the copper. Then I called it a day, went home and had a shower and went gaming.

Today I got up a bit later (gaming ran late), but then everything worked like a charm. I'd put the stamp on the press, put the blank on some cardboard--held in place by some of that tacky rubber stuff--apply embossing fluid to the stamp, press, and repeat 3-4 times per color. Then apply enamel and fire. For SIXTEEN pieces. Tedious, but the results were quite good. I wish I could have used a darker brown in the main stamps, but I was having to work with what I had on hand, since we changed colors in mid-stream.

Since I did reuse one of the pieces where I had already done the initial enameling on the back, I decided to add one more bit--a spray of white across the back to add some visual interest. (Since I had to cover up that one, I had to do them all.) It was getting kind of late, 4-ish, but I decided What The Hell, and cleaned off the edges and got everything finished.  I got out of the workshop at five pm, staggered home, took an even better shower, and promptly collapsed for 3 hours. Of course, I left 4 of the pendants at the workshop, so I'll have to go back tomorrow to get them so I can install jump rings and cords and pack them up to go off to California.

The clients did call tonight; they were worried that I'd decided to go with white for the highlights (too bright!), but no, I had gone with a cream instead that looks muuuch better, and they were very pleased.

Now I spit in the general direction of the only art teacher to give me a 'D'. He taught color theory and thought I was an idiot. Feh on him.

I spent essentially all day Saturday and today in the workshop.

Saturday wasn't too bad; it was cloudy all day and we finally broke our string of 100F+ days. I was there from a bit before 10 to 4. I prepped and did the initial enameling on 6 bracelets and 5 pendants. Then I got the car inspected, fed a friend's cat, and finally SHOWERED. Afterwards I had dinner with my awesome sister-in-law at my favorite Szechuan place in the world and came home and collapsed.

Today I got into the shop earlier but I left later. It was also hotter; we topped out at about 103F. I finished six 6-piece bracelets, 5 pendants, 2 pairs of earrings, and 12 buttons (look at the pretty picture!). I have had my shower so I feel vaguely human again.

The custom enamel saga continues. I picked up the stamp Saturday morning--man, was that going to be a pain to work with!--but last night/this morning there was an exchange of emails telling me that the design was going to be revised (ok!) and then both of the people involved told me two completely different color sets. But they did change the initial total to "at least 10" , which is helpful, and they want to make this a recurring thing for Burning Man. (Great, if they can get me images earlier than 2 weeks out...)

Now I'm waiting on a completed final color list so I can make a call to Thompson Enamels early tomorrow so I can get the enamels before Thursday. Starting Tuesday night I'm going to be in the workshop every evening, grinding, cleaning, and base coat (clear) enameling the pendants. I want to get one done ASAP so I can send them a picture and make sure I'm going in the direction they want.

....how was YOUR weekend?

Worked in the workshop both Monday and Tuesday since we had a 4-day weekend. I was in there until about 2 or 3 both days and the heat really got to me. I would come home, shower, and flop.

The big light that came with my workbench finally died--I'm convinced it was at least 25 years old--and my sister-in-law is getting me a new one for my birthday. Yay sister-in-law! She's also taking care of the cats while I'm at Comic Con.


The green pieces are copper discs that I: distressed with a hammer, put holes in, domed, and enameled with both transparent and opaque greens. I'm going to make earrings out of them. The others were all done with rubber stamps except for the bat--I sprinkled enamel over a cutout. I also made a couple of experimental runs of buttons, and I'm going to field-test them in the washer this weekend, just in case.

I was feeling kind of blah tonight so I drove across town and used my Groupon at Dog Almighty. Then I wandered into the Half Price Books and found several things I was looking for and had a nice geeky convo with the clerk. On the way home I stopped at the Hipster's Paradise (aka the main Whole Foods) and came home with some healthy things but also some truffles and a piece of ice cream cake. Hey, I'm officially in my late 40's this Sunday so I might as well celebrate!