First of all, to all 2 of you reading this, don’t freak out that I actually wrote and posted something. I am as SHOCKED as you are! I should really do better.. maybe this will be the start to a new era of blogging.

Just don’t hold your breath.

So… we got a dog. She is the sweetest, most adorable, nearly perfectly well behaved doggie ever.

Now, I am not a dog person. I am a cat person. I love a kitty who will come sit on my lap and snuggle away, and then generally take care of themselves the rest of the time. Cats are for the low maintenance household. Dogs on the other hand… well, they take a bit more work.

My husband James though, now he’s a dog person at heart. Sure he loves our cats Ender and Valentine just fine, but deep down, he has really wanted a dog. And since we moved to Colorado from Virginia, to a house that has a fenced in back yard….. well, the hints have been dropped.

However, *I* am the one who is at home all day, *I* would be the one that would have to watch after her, take her out, and generally deal with her for the majority of the time. So.. it was kind of me that had to sign off on it. I wasn’t eager to.

But all summer long, every time I saw a dog… my heart melted a little inside. “DOGGIE ALERT!” I would say to Jocelyn, if she was with me, and she would join me in looking at/going over to/gushing over/petting/loving up said dog.

Then one day, after Saturday brunch at our favorite weekend brunch place, I said to James (KNOWING IN MY HEART WHAT THIS ACTUALLY MEANT…) “Why don’t we go over to the county shelter and look at the dogs?”

He looked at me, and had that look in his eye. That look that Charlie Brown must have gotten in HIS eye every time Lucy asked him to kick the football before she yanked it away from him. That look that said he REALLY wanted something but wasn’t sure he was actually going to get it.

“Are you sure?” he said.

“I’m sure.” I said — totally lying. I WAS NOT EVEN CLOSE TO SURE!! I KNEW what it meant. I KNEW that if we went there, we would get a dog. I was not sure. But I wanted a dog, and if we could find the right dog…

Well we went. So many dogs! When we got to her kennel, I knew she was something special. First off, she was standing right up against the door, and made nary a peep. The din of noise from all the other dogs was too much for my 12 year old son — he has always been noise sensitive — he left to go hang out with the kitties. We made a note of the kennel and then arranged to meet her outside. After that meeting, we agreed she was the one for us. We went up front and adopted her — but couldn’t bring her home until after she had been spayed, later on in the week.

We spent the days discussing what to name her, and preparing for her arrival. While James really would have liked a Star Wars name (Sabine and Ahsoka were the top favorites in that arena) we settled on Katara — who is the water bending friend to Aang in the children’s cartoon “Avatar – The Last Airbender” (NOT the movie Avatar with blue people, and NOT the live action movie version of the cartoon, called “The Last Airbender”, which was horrible, sorry, Shamalamadingdong. The cartoon is awesome, and the perfect show to watch as a family — good for kids, and still great for adults as well. It’s funny and charming and has a great world and storyline, go put it on your Netflix queue!) We have a history of naming our pets after Sci-Fi/Fantasy characters, and we weren’t about to break the trend now (Ender and Valentine are from Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, a book I highly recommend you go and read right now (it’s way better than the movie)).

(Wow, I really went all out with parenthesis in that last paragraph.)

Katara came home, and she’s been with us for 3 weeks now. That first week was kind of amazing for me, the non-dog-person. I felt like there should be a movie montage of the two of us falling in love — her running in slow mo through the grass toward me carring her rope toy, me with open arms waiting to greet her. Katara eagerly looking back at me at the end of her leash, me smiling at her and talking softly. Katara flopped down on our living room floor while the family watches the latest episode of Top Gear. All with the perfect soundtrack. “Dream Weaver” maybe? I’ll have to think on it.

“I LOVE HER!” I declared with astonishment and passion to my mom on breaking the news of our newest arrival. She laughed, “Of course you do!”

It’s been 3 weeks now, and the first blush of new love and excitement is past now — I still love her, but am no longer SURPRISED by how overpowering my love for her is, LOL! What I don’t love however, is the absolutely stinkiest farts this dog has been ripping. Maybe it’s the bits of peanut butter or spray cheese I add to her Kongs that then turns into the most foul, fetid smell that has ever been introduced to this planet’s atmosphere, but whatever it is, I wish I knew so I could stop giving it to her.

I feel like I did when I had a newborn breastfed baby. A baby who is breastfed has the most non-smelly baby poos ever. They smell vaguely unpleasant, I mean, it’s not like it’s appetizing or anything, but a breastfed baby diaper has a very mild, almost sweet smelling odor to it, so that you start to believe your beautiful wonder child is the first in the world to actually process food through their digestive system without actually making anything that stinks. “Of course they would, they are the most WONDERFUL BABY IN THE UNIVERSE, why wouldn’t they sweet smelling poop??” you think to yourself.

But when you feed the that same sweet baby some cereal or baby food for the first time and suddenly those diapers are filled with actual adult smelling shit, it’s a bit of a shock to one’s system. “I thought my baby’s poop just naturally didn’t stink!” one would think. Of course, one would be very very wrong.

It’s this same shock and surprise I’m experiencing now when I’m talking to my husband and an audible toot sounds, and I look at him. “Was that you?” I ask. Always full of surprises, this marriage. “No,” he answers. We both crack up as we look at Katara’s sweet doggy face. “IT WAS THE DOG?!!” we chortle — laughing until the smell hits us, and then we run for the gas masks.

So that’s the news from the Panders household — Our new sweet puppy, 6 month old Katara is a happy addition to our family, smelly farts and all.

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I feel like a new mom!

-Amy

Well! Here it is February! And I still need to post each weeks piece for 3xR & THAW2014 challenges!

So here we go– just going to bust these guys out.

This cute little guy was a sample piece I stamped when experimenting for a piece in silver. I liked it so much I kept it for a long while. I enameled the back, and then the front with a lovely transparent enamel that makes the copper surface shimmery and golden. I still love this cute little guy — I am not generally a “cute” type of person, but looking at this piece just makes me happy.

3xR week 2 & THAW2014-2

On to week 3! This guy also makes me happy. I am not happy with the execution — this is the first time I’ve tried to set a faceted stone in a flush setting — and as you can see, it leaves much to be desired. However, I still love this little guy. The rustic stamping goes with the “rustic” stone setting, and I look forward to perfecting this technique.

Week 3: 3xR & THAW2014

And finally, week 4! I have kind of a thing about poppies. In Virginia, there was one week in May where the exit from I-66 was awash with poppies. It was the highlight of my commute — every May I would start to wonder.. “where are the poppies? Did I miss them somehow? Did they get mown over last year and they’re not coming back?” and have a serious panic sad moment — and then a week later, there they would be, in glorious wild bloom. I miss the field of poppies – little dots of brilliant red against the green grass, right next to the roaring (or more likely, stop and go) traffic of folks traveling into DC from the burbs. Every May, right around Mother’s Day and my son’s birthday.. I think of the lovely field of wild poppies gently nodding right off of the Nutley street exit.

Ahem. Where was I? Right! The enamel tile I made late last year using a sgraffito method of enameling. First a fired base of black enamel. Then I mixed up some liquid white, painted it down on top of the black and then sifted the green on top. I used a pick to scratch through the wet enamel to reveal the black underneath. I also scratched through where the red flowers would be, and then fired. Finally, I added the red enamel for the poppies, and touched up the stems with some enamel crayon. It was a joy to do and I hope to do more.

The tile was sitting in my enamel sample box — so I fished it out and added some scrap chain, dotted with lovely lemon citrine nuggets.

Week 4:

And there we go — a full month of Reducing, Reusing, and Recycling — a Thing A Week! In February — we’ll see if I can’t blog weekly instead of a big post with everything in it!

Amy

Wahoo! New FREE video tutorial going on! This one is probably the one I should have done about a zillion years ago. Shenandoah is my best selling chainmaille kit – the pendant, earrings, and bracelet. I have a photo tutorial for the pendant/earrings, and now here is a video tutorial! Yippee! I also did my Enso bracelet – all of these pieces use the Japanese 12-in-2 chainmaille weave. This weave is SO versatile and fun, there’s a lot of design potential with it.

Here is the video:

If you’re interested, the photo tutorial is also right here!

And of course — you can see all of my FREE jewelry tutorials right here.

Look! It’s Tuesday and I’m writing again! I also managed to put up a new banner. The old one said “Summer 2013 — seeing as how it’s January of 2014…. a little overdue!

After I posted yesterday, I got caught up in looking through my old blog posts. I am so happy I have so much about my children when they were little. Some of the stories I remember, and have been come family legend (this video for example… Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!! Is there a ploblem?! Oh my goodness that video KILLS ME.) Other stories have fallen behind lost to memory — except when I spend a half hour reading through my archives! This one (specifically, the barbie doll head story) got retold at the dinner table last night.

It has been a great month so far in 2014. Last Thanksgiving, we went to Utah to my sisters to have Thanksgiving with a lot of family on my side, as we usually do. At some point during our visit, we went and saw the movie Frozen. I was kind of on the fence about seeing it – actually, more on the ‘nah, i’ll see it later” side of the fence. But I went, saw the movie, and was COMPLETELY blown away with how awesome it was (and is!).

I pick my daughter Jocelyn up every day from school along with two other girls we carpool with. And every day in January, we have a ritual on our way home from school. We crank up “Let it Go”, grab our imaginary microphones, and belt it out as we drive home. Sometimes I need to circle the block until it’s finished! I haven’t been this much in love with a Disney movie since Beauty and the Beast. When I saw in the theater with the opening scene to Beauty and the Beast, I felt transported. I felt like I was sitting watching musical theater. It was so beautifully done, the music so lovely – I was in heaven!

Yup, Frozen has topped them all. I may or may not cry in at least 5 different places in the movie.

Here’s the song “Let it Go”, sung by Idina Mendel.

I ran across this parady version which totally cracks me up. It is an alto’s lament that Disney songs are always so HIGH. It’s hilarious, but I also think it’s funny because “Let it Go” is one of the LOWEST Disney songs every! The highest it gets is an E — it think it’s even an E flat — which really, is NOT that high! Still, hilarious parady.

WARNING: BAD LANGUAGE! Don’t let your children wander over and watch it with you! Ahem. Like someone might do. Not me. No, it definitely wasn’t me. Why, did my kids tell you? Dammit, I told them not to tell anyone I let them see this.

There is a Frozen Sing A Long movie that is supposed to be released this weekend. I will be there!

I’m off to cut some jump rings this morning, and hopefully get to some enameling later today. My ideas for an entire enamel collection is growing — including the basket hoops up there in my new site banner. Aren’t they the CUTEST?

Off to work.. Happy Wednesday!

-amy pats herself on the back for writing. TWO TIMES in one week!

Here it is:

Would you like to see all the banners I’ve ever done ever? Here ya go!

So it’s the end of January, and I have not posted at all on my blog. Doh! One of my new years resolutions was that I would try to do so more. Better late than never, right?

Another resolution I made was to make more jewelry. Not only MAKE it — but POST it. Post it on my flickr account, here on my blog, up on my site for sale… just get it OUT THERE! I have a lot of what I call.. UFOs. UnFinished Objects. Some of them are dangerously close to being done, if only I would do it.

So along with this vein, I joined a flickr group challenge called 3xR 2014. The challenge is to, “Reduce, Reuse and Recycle all the crap we have laying around on our benches and in our studios! Finish all those projects, use those stones we’ve been hoarding, take a look at that old sketchbook. Nothing is off limits here. Make as much work or as little as you choose but you need to Use What You Have.”

I also joined in conjunction, a flickr challenge group called THAW2014 – which stands for Thing A Week – I think both of these challenges will be great for me.

This is perfect for me. I have a LOT of material to work with, if only I would sit down and do it. For myself, I am including taking some of these UFOs and getting them finished. My goal is to do at least 1 a week. Since buying a kiln last year, I have slowing been building up my collection of enamels, and want to move into that direction.

So enough with the jibber jab! I actually HAVE ben making a piece a week — but they’ve sat on my bench instead of beign shared with the world. Which is part of the challenge to myself — POST THEM! So here is my first week’s piece.

It started with a sample I made in a fold forming class I took last year with Ira Sherman. I had so much fun in that class, I was determined to come home and make fold forming my life’s work (it always goes like that after a workshop!)

I choose one of these two forms:

I annealed it, and pickled it, to get off all the black oxides. Enamel needs a clean surface or the glass particles won’t fuse to the copper. The metal was initially rolled through a rolling mill with a piece of pattered paper, which caused the pattern to imprint on the metal. The hammer marks on one side of the leaf are also quite visible, so I opted to go with transparent enamel on the front. Green transparent, and a clear transparent.

You can see the imprinted pattern underneath the green enamel. I love the clear enamel too — it makes a shimmery golden surface with the copper underneath.

On the opposite side, I decided on a punch of color. Bright orange, with a very subtle lighter orange through the middle of the leaf.

Enamel is sifted onto the metal dry. You can see faint lines where I drew through the enamel to reveal the base orange color underneath. This technique (scratching through one layer to see underneath) is called sgraffito.

Overall, I am so happy with this piece. I kind of wish I had done more with the setting rather than just attaching it to the chain with jump rings, but time wasn’t on my side this time.

I have the other pieces I did this month as well — so that will help me to post again later this week!

Amy