the best is yet to come...

Ahhhh... my 20's were a good run :) But I'm looking forward to the next decade.

I had a lovely extended birthday... and for all those who joined me (including the Boston Red Sox and all the screaming flipping children surrounding me at Fenway) thank you for setting a little time aside for little ol tracey :)

But to sum up my birthday... I shall share a quote from Dorothy Parker (with a slight modification)...

"I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I'm under the table,
after four I'm under my host."

And apparently after five I sober up again. I'm not sure how that works... but it did!

ahhhhh... twenty-nine!

Twenty-nine... the number seems to be in the air today. Or maybe it's just because today was the last day of my 20's. Either way... tomorrow I begin a new decade.

But how did I spend the last day of my 20's... how did I decide to end this decade of my life??? Did I send out my 20's with a bang? Well... if you call staying in my pajamas all day, eating only ice cream and a chocolate chip muffin top, watching REALLY horrible LifeTime movies ALL day going out with a bang... well, then that's what I did! And I LOVED every minute of it!!!

Because tomorrow begins a new decade... and I just thought I would begin it well rested and sugar laden :) Truly, what else could I ask for???

What I did over my summer vacation… day 1

So… my family just bought a new summer cottage, and I’m spending the week helping them clean it out. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.

Basically… the house was built in the 1950’s… and probably hasn’t been cleaned since then. The old man that lived there smoked… oh… and died in there. So, we need to scrub and sanitize the entire place out!!!

Anyhoo… the following pictures show day 1 of my cleaning decathlon. Basically, they show everything from the nasty dirt dripping down the walls and living under the fridge to a lunch break with Scooter.

More to come!!!

avast ye matie!

I came across this little man... I call him Smokey the Whale... at an antique shop in Conn. Basically I found him in a pile of junk and knew I had to buy it for father's day. What else could a dad want... a metal whale ashtray and a Short Story cigar :)

My parents just bought a new cottage on the ocean and there is this little shack in the back... which I lovingly refer to it as Man Town (pictures soon to follow)... and Smokey just seemed like a good addition.

metal flower...

So, this was my new experiment. Basically, I took a live dogwood flower, covered it in a special wax (the purple flower pictures), and then cast it in sterling silver. I was really surprised that it actually cast, because the petals are insanely thin. More modifications are needed before I attempt this again.

making bob ross happy :)

I spent my Memorial Day painting… a huge happy tree (hence the Bob Ross reference.) So… even tho my painting skills are a little rusty… but the end of my stint, I was figuring things out.

This is the bedroom for my friend Colleen’s second child. The room is TINY (and too bad Colleen, with her selective amnesia, forgot to mention that her husband wanted something small... OOPS!) So, she just let me do whatever I wanted to.

I decided to create this… THE DOG-OLIA! It’s a Dogwood tree with Magnolia blossoms. I painted right onto the ceiling (another oops) and made the branches run around the top of the entire room. Oh, and I tossed in a few fat (actually GI-NORMOUS) fireflies around it.

Needless to say… they are happy to have such a bright and colorful painting in their new babies bedroom… and I am happy to be paid to deface somebody else’s property!

ah... to be a wiener...

Truly, what else would you need in life? Warm sunshine, a comfy bed... ahhhh... to be a wieeeenie!

birthday gift for kelly murphy :)

While I keep swearing I will never make another jewelry gift for somebody… this is an exception. My buddy Kel, in passing, informed me that this is going to be her best birthday ever… so I guess I just had to run with it.

It’s not that often that I just get to build something for the fun of it… so I decided to make it a little funky / whimsical. Instead of just opening up the back to let in light, I cut out a tiny polka dot pattern. It is so refreshing to building something just for the fun of it.

The pendant is Sterling Silver with a pale 9.65 carat orange moonstone cabochon. I always like to put a little bend at the top of slide pendants to keep it from flipping easily.

the antique watch crystal pendant

For those of you who haven't seen this yet... this was one of my latest experiments that actually went well.

I have been attempting to incorporate different lower cost materials to balance out the cost of the insanely high precious metal prices. So I came across some old antique watch crystals, spinel rough (it’s the red stones in their natural crystal state) and the bezel is made out of Palladium 950.

I ran into some issues with the Palladium. Palladium is in the Platinum family… it has the same color and is quite workable, but is 1/2 the specific gravity of Platinum. Well, basically, all the technical information says it works EXACTLY like Platinum… trust me, it does not. The metal oxidizes with hit with the flame and it creates a purple stain on the metal. Also, it cannot be welded like Platinum.

But, overall, I have gotten some good feedback on this pendant. Using rough stones and the crystals keeps the price down. Also, I just came across a vendor that can get me a great deal on the domed watch crystals. So, I’ll consider making more of these.

in the beginning...

I decided that with all of my adventures I have in my shop… and nobody around to share them with (other than the wiener dogs… and if they can’t lick it, they don’t really like it)… so I will now join the cool people of the world and start one of these bad boys!

Soooo… let’s just expect that I’ll share things like my general adventures, lots of snap shots, new experiments, failures, explosions and the drunken ramblings that usually follow the explosions… oh, and maybe a few bad date stories and a sweet recipe or two! Cool? Cool.