I'd say it was a busy month - but when aren't they?

As usual, things have been busy here.  We took a quickie trip back to Michigan to get what is the last major load of household items.  Mostly it was Brian's studio.  All of his tools from woodworking.  From being The Countree Toy Shoppe.  Only the greatest organic, wooden, recycling, toymaker in Michigan and beyond!  And yes, I am definitely prejudiced on that one.

The tools are now safely in his new area in the basement - a beautiful spot to work - even if there never will be a toy business again.  And, the overflow of regular household maintenance stuff (caused by the tools coming down) will move out to the new storage building in the next few months - after it's built.  Won't it be wonderful - a new deck and small building.  I can't wait.  What I can wait for is the bill on all of this - I so wish the house in Michigan would sell.  Fingers and toes crossed./

Below is a new pendant.  Not yet finished - stones need to be set, dangles figured out, and the square piece gets set a lot lower than it's showing here..  It's a variation from the drawings I showed in a previous post.  It's nice to be back to work.

Our oldest son drove his truck down here with a huge trailer.  While he was here we went to the Antique Tobacco Barn in Asheville and did some shopping.  Between there and a couple of thrift stores I scored a bunch more tin to work with.  Now for the cutting and storage - - -

 

On The Bench...

These are the designs I'm working on.  I'm trying to get as many of the mediums as I can into the piece without it looking overworked.  Can I do it?  I'm thinking YES.

Bezel for the top of the first design in all of its' gory glory before it's pickled and the backing cut. I'm planning to set an onyx in the bezel.  This one is going to be a black and tan piece.  I'll go for colorful in the second one.

Note the wonderful soldering aid the bezel is sitting on.   We used similar ones in Chris Darway's class at Wildacres.  It's just that old hardware store annealed steel wire.  Wrap a coil around a dowel, remove it, and fan it out into a soldering prop.  It sure is nice not to have to set up the tripod every time you want to solder.