Lifting Winter's Warm Blanket

Well, the holidays are over and things are beginning to resume back to "normal". Our family schedule is kicking into high gear. Kids are back in school, hubby is in his office and I am back at work and looking forward to starting up another semester of Art Jewelry.

The weather here in Northwest Illinois has been very unpredictable. Our holiday vacation started out with a blizzard and ended with a cold wet wind. It was too cold to go out most days and by the time it warmed up all the snow was gone. Even though we were all getting a little cabin fever, it was nice to spend time at home together. Most days were spent watching movies, playing video games (yes even I love to play Guitar Heroes with the kids!), or just snuggled up under a nice warm blanket restoring some of the energy that the holidays seem to suck out of you. I found myself getting a little too comfortable with the sleeping late, getting up late and just not wanting to do very much. Humans are not meant to hibernate!

Like a very pleasant end to my winter vacation, I had some friends over for a Ladies Playdate. Everyone brought their projects, wonderful food and laughter! I always love social gatherings but I especially love gatherings that include creating something, sharing ideas and learning something new. There is nothing like getting a group of very artistic ladies together to get the inspirational juices flowing. My class starts up next week and I am looking forward to bringing some new ideas to life.

So while it has been a nice long vacation from the hustle and bustle of the holidays, I am ready to lift the warm comforting blanket and get moving!

It may be cold outside, but it's HOT Metal inside!

Brrrrr! It is cold outside! I live in Illinois just outside the Wisconsin border and looking out my back window it is a frozen tundra as far as the eye can see! My temperature gauge says -5 degrees but my DH tells me the wind chill is -32 below. I guess I am not going to Costco this morning.

However, the bright side to this is that I get to play in my work studio! I just got some new Kazuri Beads and I have purchased some awesome new gemstones from my local bead shop, Katherine's Bead Boutique. Even better, remember that horrid mess of a work studio I had last year? Well, last week I finally got to tidying up and I can actually find everything, well most everything.

I guess the one advantage to being trapped in your house, especially if you are a crafter or artisan, there is always something to do!

In January, I started this wonderful class at McHenry County College, called Art Jewelry. It is so exciting! It combines metalsmithing techniques with an emphasis on Wearable Art. And our text book is the Tim McCreight bible, The Complete Metalsmith, which strangely enough I have read cover to cover at least four times.

I just finished the focal piece of my first project yesterday. The project involved the use of cold connections and patterns using piercing, stamping and texture. I chose to work on a mini book with a tube rivet hinge. The hard part was actually designing and doing a demo piece so that the front page opened properly. I already had a design in mind as soon as I found out it was all cold connections I just didn't know how it was going to come together. I learned alot about the importance of measuring and what steps need to be accomplished in what sequence. I spent about 30 hours on the focal piece and while it is not perfect, I am happy with how it turned out! Now that the hard part is over, I just need to design a necklace with it! I'm thinking turquoise!