The tooth is finally fixed thank goodness

     Whew I just don't know where to start, the root canal was scary at best a little painful at worst but it's done all over and finished hurray! No pain other that where they gave me shots all 5 of them but they did get the little sucker numbed so great heh? Was there only a hour and a half, left office and found a great little old dame lady house for Frank and I. We will go and interview it tomorrow to see if its what we want , I really like it but its a little bit smaller than this house which could be a problem for us with all my STUFF. Fitting a  silver studio , fiberarts studio and a cabbing studio into one house can be alot of stuffing. UMM we will just have to see.

     Now onto my next news, well do you remember a few postings back about the avacado tree seeds, well I tried the putting them in water and that just did not work for me. So I just popped them in a pot outside and really didn't think they would come but guess what yes they did, I am so liking the idea of my own avacado trees gosh how big do they get they are the dark ones  not the bright green ones guess I had better investigate this . So here they are the Famous Nancy Avacado Trees.
     Folks I am afraid it's going to storm here in a few moments so happy to share with you the news of the avacado tree, wow isn't that great lil trees of my very own.

A Delay Sorry Folks

I am so sorry everyone but I have a real super real tooth pain. You know it's wierd you turn 50 and everything goes to crap in a hand basket for real man, suddenly you become a high maintence person just to stay healthy. Suddenly it's diets, exercising taking care of your skin man just a few things the list goes on and on. Well this little tooth problem started off as a simple cleaning, then progressed to need to replace 20 year old fillings to a second filling because something was wrong with the first one, on it went to another exam and filling to discover that it now needs a root canal . Is this the pits or what? This entire process went on for 4 months yeah unbelievable right? So tomorrow I will go in for the root canal and hopefully this will be the end of the saga or else they will just have to remove it enough is enough. So it continues hopefully all better , then I will post second part of the prong series for everyone and share all my other news. Thank you so much for commenting on the blog , I was so happy to hear from people and thank you for liking my blog. Yes I do believe in sharing info and helping one another with techniques, all our creations are our own, each unique, I don't copy people's art I do my own thing its mine all mine now if someone else copies mine I am flattered , I am sad for them to miss out on the opptunity to create their own piece but it's okay because sooner or later they will gain confidence in themselves and so their own thing too.I am not scared of creating , it's fun its exciting, gosh if it all doesn't look good just melt it down and create something else, its done by you and only has to please you really not anyone else. Go for it , if you get stuck email me I will try to help you out if I can I am not a perfect know it all but I will help if I can but go create everyday create something its so good for your soul. I will share a little secret with you I knit yeah I know knit, umm yes but only scarves and only in the knit stitch nothing else this is my down time thing it relaxes me once I tried to knit a scarve in a sampler pattern okay, well I thought this will be cool I will learn all these new stitiches , well the scarf is still not finished , it was way to stressfull for me , so I just knit my lil scarves I think I will fill up a bag and give them to maybe the homeless to help with the cold this winter, it's my relaxation my medation my calming thing.

A quiet moment in my day at last

    Ah a quiet moment, how nice . I finally finished up a scarf I have been knitting for a couple of weeks its a dark grey and staying within the rules of my creations of art only with supplies that I have on hard forever it's finally done who its owner will be who knows probaly my Frank who is always cold in the winter umm now remember I do live in Florida but in Jacksonville where it does get a bit nippy. Picture to be included later. I also have a wonderful surprise for you but I won't share until later in the week but I was so shocked and suprised when I returned from Atlanta and found it. Pictures of the surprise also to come later. Pictures of my trip to Atlanta also to come later. Yeah I know I am lazy lately dealing with way to much drama yuck you ever notice how energy sucking it does to you. I am having a root canal done this week on this terribly infected tooth that is the result of trying to take care of myself and get old fillings replaced with new ones because my dentist said I needed to umm well two filling done on the tooth now a root canal has to be done I am none to happy about this would you be? Of course not. My plan of action is to finish up the second part of the prong setting go over two new books I just purchased with you , show you all my pics of everything and catch up everything . Now I need a favor from you, I want some darn comments okay come on folks I see you in the the tracker following me and my lil blog I share with you how about some return here okay? I would love to hear from you what you think any input would be great so come one leave a little comment or at least tell me what to do to interest you enough to leave a comment. Those of you who do leave comments I read everyone of them faithfullly. I am so excited when one of you leaves them , please join my blog what is it going to take folks just let me know so we can all get on the same page here huh?

Part One of the Prong Settings Cab Style

This is the style we will be using today, the style can be made for a pendant or a ring pin really anything. This setting is using a cabochon of any size or shape , I will be using 14 ga sterling silver wire. I chose this larger gauge of wire because the pendant I am making is quite large and I wanted the size of wire to compliment the size of the finished piece which is a consideration I think of importance. Thats my opion not a definite thing you have to do , do your own thing make it cool with your own art attitude on it. Anyhow this is the stone set we will be using for the pendant set. These are my own cabochons I cut and cabbed.

This set is huge of course I love big jewelry  and just for info one of my bestfriends in the world is probaly 5 ft tall  and she wears huge jewelry and it doesn't look odd on her at all so go big . As I said sterling silver wire , now I use a jewelry to saw it with and file it down so the cut ends are nice and smooth, and I use plastic coated pliers that I actully got a Michaels a hundred years ago this is the pic of what type of pliers you will want to  use so long as they are plastic coated they should be alright.

Now you will want to anneal your wire first because this is a sorta heavy gauge to be working with, just anneal it like you would any silver just till it becomes dull not red hot. Take your first stone measure around it , you will want the wire to be just a teeny little bit inside the diameter of the stone.

Measure and cut the piece of wire. Now onto the second piece of wire shaping

and cuttings . Now you are ready to solder . On each piece make sure the wire ends butt up against each other with no gaps showing if you can see light through the gap , go file them up nice and straight and check them again. Go ahead and do both pieces like this. Now place both pieces on the soldering block and apply flux and solder with hard solder.

This is the time where you must bow down to the solder gods to let it flow and melt or fry your wire. Just kidding but I always do a little solder dance afterwards that is really important to do. Now get out your clean up gadgets and get started making all smooth with no bumps this is a good time to straighten up any wommpies on your wire using the coated pliers, you can look at old jewelry zines, reference books look at online jewelry artists to see where the placements of prong should be used, this however is just for interest because your piece is your original piece , your cab may be irregular in shape , a fossil, anything so you will have to figure out what will work for you and your design , this is also a good time to figure out if it's a pendant like mine how to attach a bail , what kind of bail to use . For our next part if you can get a charcoal block or a soft fire brick , you can order them from Jff in Atlanta I will be happy to give you their number 770-455-1871 They are a jewelry supplier and just mention that you want a soft soldering brick and they will know what you want, they are very inexpensive and I love them for this technique.

I hope you have enjoyed part one of the technique of prong settings part two is being created as we speak so its coming up soon, If you should have question please email me Nancy4133@gmail .com. I do not pretend to be an instructor just a girlie who shares what she learns with others hopefully this will help you I hope you enjoy .

Busy Busy Busy

Man just call me a little busy bee just going from one place to another getting projects lined up and others completed. Today was spent preparing lots of little cabs for the cabbing machine. These are just baby cabs which is what I call cabs that are not my kind of size cabs which are ususally gi -normous  of course I know alot of really cool people who feel the same way as I do. But not everyone likes that size, so sticks are on and tomorrow I will make a whole bunch of them. Isn't it funny how life teaches you something about yourself all the time? I know now that I do not like earring cabs that are perfectly just alike in the mirror image way, I like them a little bit different, it's fun to make them that way. I am off to the farm again this weekend to pick some more blueberries, these are the best in the world they are big fat juicy and just melt in your mouth so it's kind of like one for the mouth two for the container oh well discipline is not my thing okay. The fields there are full of vegetables, watermelons which are fantastic too by the way Thank you Jessie the melons were fantastic. The vegtable garden is blooming away bringing forth lots of bounties of veggies, corn, beans, squash, potatoes, cucumbers, spinach, peas, and finally the tomatoes are ripe there, My sis always plants these roma tomatoes which she cans up for the winter now me I love the cherrie tomatoes and the big boys and the heirloom ones. My pepper bushes are overflowing with peppers some really hot ones! Still trying to train Baby Beast to shake hands when he can focus that is. My Daisy was so easy to train to do everything Beastie is not! It must be a boy thing.

     Coming to Atlanta next week, my bestfriend is having a special birthday so all the old jewelry gang is getting together to spend a week together having fun, making jewelry, laughing just us girls. I will have to post some pics of us, we are a group of women who started taking classes at Spruill Art Center in jewelry then along the way we picked up others , we all are so tightly woven together in friendship that is strong and good we support each other totally give advice add our opions of each others work so many different things these wonderful group of women have been with me through deaths of friends and family, divorce, everthing you can imagine. I truly can't imagine life without them, we are so different some stronger than others some sweeter than others, some personality traits that are so different but we have a bond that with stands the test of distance and of time. We have probaly been together for more than I am going to guess at least 6 years of contant contact . We are more like a family of sisters than friends always there for each other through thick and thin . I hope you have someone in your life like this, everyone should have a super bestfriend and should be a super bestfriend. .

It's another week

Good day to all, my adopted Boxersocks kitty got spayed yesterday, here in Jacksonville if you live in a certain zip code they will spay or neuter your animals for free although you have to buy a license for the . I think this is a wonderful option for animals as well as for their owners. There was a great turn out of owners doing the responible thing.Gosh baby Beast as he affectionately called is growing so fast he weighs in at 30 lbs now I cannot even begin to tell you how into everything he is and his favorite thing is to bark alot, he will bark at you when he wants something you are eating. Of course Frank just gives him anything he wants he is such a lil monster. Daisy girl has finally accepted him and is now enjoying their play together. I am still working on the tutorials for the blog especially the prong one its coming along really good I ask for a little bit more patience from you and I will publish it. Well got to go study for school stay tuned in for the tutorial.