Sidewalk Supervisor

Jul 292013
 

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again:  we have some truly wonderful people in our lives.

When Rick broke his wing a couple weeks ago we knew that we would have to find someone to finish siding the studio, and it didn’t take long before that help arrived.

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Chris and his wife Bonnie have sided houses before, but working with Cedar is a new medium for them.

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They are such a fantastic team, and they make sure that their son CJ learns the trade right along side them.

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And I’m always in awe of a woman who isn’t afraid to climb up that ladder and get the job done.

(I, on the other hand, am deathly scared of heights, which gets a chuckle out of Rick every time he makes me climb higher than 4 feet to help him.)

Not only have they been kicking butt on the siding, but their son even mowed our lawn.  With a push mower! (We have a BIG yard)

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And if you thought that just because Rick broke his wrist that he wouldn’t try to help in some way, well you were soooooo wrong.

I busted him a couple times cutting wood.

I swear that man is trying to give me grey hairs.

 

It’s Finally Here!!

Jul 242013
 

I’m so excited to announce that I can finally offer a way for you to buy my jewelry online!

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The old “Jewelry” page is now called “Products” where you can browse through what I currently have to offer and add it to a cart!

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Once you’ve added everything you want, hit the “Check out with PayPal” button and you’ll be redirected to their site where you can finish your secure transaction.

Don’t have a PayPal account?

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No worries!  Just choose the “Don’t have a PayPal account?” option and you can use your credit card.

If you’re my neighbor here in the Northwoods or just not a fan of buying things online, send me an email and we can go about things the old fashioned way of “Check’s in the mail.”

I want to make this as simple as possible for everyone!

I also want your feedback on the store.  Do you like it?  Was it easy to use?  Did you have any problems purchasing?  I want to hear it all, good and bad.

I’m also want to promote this a lot (because I want to be crazy busy filling orders), and if I can get any of your help I would be ever so grateful.

Who knows, maybe I’ll do a giveaway after I’ve sold 20 items.  That would be fun!!

 

Road Kill Can Be a Gift

Jul 222013
 

I work with lots of different mediums when I make jewelry:  gemstones, metal, glass, porcupine.

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Yes, porcupine.

About 5 years ago I put out the word that I was looking for porcupine quills and if anybody came across a clean road kill, grab it for me.

Now you have to remember that a)  I live on the Rez; and b) if you put out a request for something you’ll more than likely end up with it.  And dead porcupine does not raise any eyebrows whatsoever in these parts.

It only took a few days before I was presented with a fresh kill.  How did I know it was fresh?  It was the middle of summer and there was no stink.

Yet.  Which meant that I had to work fast to harvest as much as I could.  So for 4 days after work I spent several hours hunched over a dead porcupine pulling out quills with a needle-nose pliers.

Those hours turned out to be very calming for me.  I’ve been taught many things in my years living on the Rez, and one of those things is that you give thanks for everything you receive.  So I thanked that porcupine for giving up it’s quills for me and praised it for it’s life.  It might sound silly to some, but when you’ve been given a gift like that it can humble you in ways you can’t imagine.

And if anyone had stopped at the house during those times they would have seen a grown woman talking to a dead porcupine.

And they wouldn’t think it was strange.

I collected thousands of quills from that marvelous creature and respectfully laid him to rest.  I immediately cleaned a couple hundred and left the rest in a sealed container in the attic of the garage until I felt the urge to incorporate them in my jewelry.

Which I did a couple weekends ago.

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Let me just say that those quills are SHARP!  I thought Calie’s claws of pain were bad, but these things?  OUCHIES!!

It takes a long time to clean these things because you have to separate them from the fur that came along when you pulled them out.

Then you have to carefully swish them around in water to remove any dirt and grime that they’ve had on them.  I learned the hard way to used the back of my fingers to move them around so that they didn’t accidentally poke into me.

But unfortunately, one decided to imbed itself in my finger.  And I couldn’t get it out.  And it hurt.

There are a couple things I learned about porcupine quills:  they are not hollow and they will soak up water very quickly.  And I didn’t want soggy quills for what I was going to use them for so I had to clean and dry them quick.

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Another part of the process is removing those deadly sharp ends.  I’ve discovered that floral foam is excellent for this step.  It holds the quills in place and I can cut those ends off with no problem.

I had some inspiration on what I wanted to make, so I high-tailed it out to my studio and went to work.

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I’ll be getting these and others up in the jewelry section soon in case anyone wants to buy them.

Gotta start paying for this castle in the Northwoods dontchaknow.

 

An Update and a Thank You

Jul 172013
 

I think that Rick and I have spent more time the last 3 days driving and in hospitals than we’ve actually been home.

And the middle of July is the PERFECT time to get a cast on your arm when the temperatures are in the 90s and the humidity is beyond belief.

And as soon as you get the cast on you develop an itch juuust where you can’t reach it with any devise known to man.

The surgery went well on Tuesday to set his wrist and adorn it with a beautiful black cast, one that goes almost up to his armpit.

The decision was made that he could forgo the pins and plate and go with the pull-it-out-slap-in-into-place method that the Doctor thinks will work just dandy.

And as long as everything looks good next Wednesday when he goes back down for more pictures to make sure it’s behaving itself, he’ll get to swap out this cast for a shorter one in 4 weeks.  That one will be on for another 4 to 6 weeks.

Thank you to all the well-wishers out there that have been rooting for his quick recovery, and those that have offered to help us finish up the studio.

We love you all!

 

Lights!… Siding!… ER

Jul 152013
 

As usual, things are going great guns on the studio.

The electricians made it over last week to get the lights hooked up as well as all the electrical outlets.

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I now have an outdoor light for those late nights of jewelry making, and I took full advantage of it over the weekend.

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I just adore the main floor light that we picked out!  It gives off just the right amount of light for the small space with a touch of elegance.

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Since the pitch of the roof is kinda wonky due to the loft, we had to find a pretty small fan/light.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen one so small but it kicks out the jams in the light department and throws a bit of air around.

Just what it’s supposed to do.

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Rick also got a start on the siding.  We were lucky to get this nice cedar siding from an online auction at a fraction of what it would have cost to have bought it from the store.

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It really should have been a 2 person job, and I helped when he needed me to snap lines and I even got up on the planks despite my fear of heights.

I’m a real trooper I tell ya.

Unfortunately everything came to a standstill Sunday when I heard a gawd awful crash.  I know the sound of ladders being moved, but this sounded more like a crash and I B-lined it out of the house with my heart racing.

As the wife of a semi-retired carpenter, I always worry about accidents, especially when your husband thinks he has the agility of a monkey scampering from tree to tree and he has performed death-defying feats hundreds of times with no incidents what-so-ever.

Yes, I’m married to such a man.

But when I rounded the corner and saw ladders and planks askew and our friend Mainard leaning over my husband sprawled on the ground, well let me just tell you… I was as scared as I’ve ever been in my life.

Rick was conscious and doing his own little assessment of what hurt.  Despite me wanting to call an ambulance, Rick wouldn’t have it.  Mainard helped him up and I toted him to the ER.

That 20 minute trip seemed to take F O R E V E R!

X-rays, welcoming pain meds and 2 hours later we saw the pictures of his left wrist and he had broken it in several places.

Lovely.

Since Doctors like to torture their patients with making them wait several days to actually FIX the problem (because they want the swelling to go down), he has an appointment on Tuesday in Rice Lake with a specialist and hopefully (crossing fingers) have surgery that day to put pins in his wrist.

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Bottom line:  Rick is out of commission for quite a while and we will have to find somebody to finish siding the building.

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Which frankly, at this moment, I could really care less about.  The guy took a drop of over 8 feet and the worst that happened was a broken wrist.

Good thing I have this week off because I’ll be playing nurse.

Minus the sexy fantasy getup that I’m sure Rick would love to see me in.

His wrist might be broken, but his libido wasn’t hurt a bit.

 

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