In The Dark and New Etsy Listings

One of the nice things about living in Ohio is that we usually don't have too many natural disaters. Earthquakes are next to nonexistant (I think I felt one years ago, but it could have been a truck driving by!) and I've lived in California and been through some major earthquakes. Tornadoes, we get warnings for, but usually nothing touches down. Blizzards, occasionally, but nothing like upstate New York or even closer to the Great Lakes. Our last "blizzard" had 20 inches of snow, but not the high winds. But hurricaines? Impossible, right? I thought so, but on Sunday, we had the remnants of Ike rip through the Midwest. Winds topped out at 74mph in Columbus, and over 2 million people were left without power in Ohio. Many people are still without electricity, and will likely not get their power back until the end of this week. We lost power for over 24 hours (came back last night, thank goodness, otherwise Eric was going to go nuts!) It was annoying and inconvient, but not as bad as it could have been. Our house wasn't damaged much (lots of missing shingles though!) and we had running water. We played card games with our neighbor in the dark. It was kind of fun. Like when you were little and went camping. I'm glad it wasn't worse. My thoughts are with the Ike victims along the coast.




I have new goodies for my Etsy shop! Wire wrapped pendants. I'll be listing these throughout the week...

Also, new glass workshop this weekend! So excited!

Busted!

Scarlett has been rather acrobatic lately! I caught her scaling the fridge last night and actually had my camera handy to catch my mountain goat of a cat in the act. Last time I caught her, she had actually climbed up to the space above the cabinets, up where the teapot is in the picture. And yes, I know, the top of the fridge is a mess! I had hoped to deter Scarlett from jumping up there if there wasn't enough space for her paws to land, but alas, it hasn't stopped her. Eric gets pretty upset with her, but I can't, she's just too cute!

Buckeye Bling and What I did for Labor Day

Buckeye football officially started on Saturday. Of course, we went to the slaughter, umm, I mean game. The Buckeyes trounced Youngstown State 43-0. It was Alumni day as well, and its always so cool seeing four 'script Ohios' on the field. We went to my friend Lori's great tailgate party before the game, and I managed to hand out all of my business cards. Hopefully, I'll get some orders out of it!
After the game, our friends Nicky and Cara went out to dinner with us to our favorite Greek restaurant Anna's . They loved the food so much they want to go again after this Saturday's game!

On Sunday, Eric had to check on some of his lab work, and we met his honorary sister's fiancee. Afterwards, we had movie night with our next door neighbor and some yummy mango margaritas.

Satruday was the Upper Arlington Art Festival. It was a nice fair, but I kind of thought that a lot of the jewelry was kind of similar and overpriced. Or maybe I'm just not charging enough for mine? After I got back from that, Eric had invited some of his lab friends for an impromptu cook out (we already had the food so it wasn't a crisis) and swimming party. Rock Band was included, of course!

I've been making more of these beaded pendants in OSU colors. I gave one to Cara on Saturday. I don't think she had any Buckeye jewelry, and that is practically a must, especially if you go to the football games!

Bathing Scarlett

We've had some pretty low key weekends lately, and I've been feeling really lazy. Because of that, I really haven't had anything too exciting to post. Yes, I'm excited about Buckeye Football starting this weekend, but it also means that summer is over, and other than going to our friends' wedding in July, I didn't take any time off from work, and I think I'm a little cranky about that. So, next summer, definitely taking some sort of vacation! Or, people could come and visit...

Anyway, I digress! The highlight of last weekend was giving Scarlett, our fur child, a bath. Yes, I know, its kind of sad that this is how exciting my weekends have been lately! My parents always think that I do nothing but go out with friends, have friends over, etc, but we haven't even had an impromptu Wii party lately! (well, it was finals week for Eric) We usually give Scarlett a bath a couple times a year. She loves playing up in the basement crawlspace, so she gets kind of dusty and musty smelling even though she is very fastidious about cleaning herself (and sleeping). So, we bathe the cat. She actually does pretty well for a cat getting soaked, although this time she was a lot more vocal about her dislike of bathtime. Her fur is soft to begin with, but after her bath, its incredibly soft like rabbit fur. And she gets very snuggly too. She spent the entire afternoon on my lap afterwards.

Glass is Fun!

I had my second glass workshop on Saturday! This time, it was dichroic glass pendants. These are basically layers of glass sandwiched between two pieces of glass and fused in a kiln. I so totally want a kiln now! I think that will have to wait until we have a house with a bigger garage, (or a workshop?) and it can go right next to the potter's wheel I want too... :)

Anyway, these are the three pieces I made, and I plan to wire wrap them and make them into pendants.

OSU Sunday

Today I spent the day on my neighbor Christie's deck playing with beads! It was a totally gorgeous day and I was happy hanging out being creative and working on some of my OSU Buckeye baubles. We were pretty productive; Christie fixed a bracelet, made a pair of earrings, and made a new bracelet for her 5 year old neice (whose wrist is about 3/4 inches smaller than mine!). I finished a couple of earrings, made a necklace, a crocheted bracelet and a scarlet and gray daisy bracelet.

Then we both worked on a fringed yo-yo bead pendant. I've been trying to figure out how to get the beads to stay tight, and I swear you need ten hands to do so!

Pretty Pumpkins!

On Saturday, I had my blown glass pumpkin workshop! There is a glass studio in Columbus called Glass Axis that provides classes and workshops in all sorts of glassmaking techniques. For the workshops, you don't need any previous experience to participate, and you get to bring home a pretty cool piece of glass. I ended up having a private lesson, so I was able to make two pumpkins!
The first one is a pretty traditional pumpkin, and the second one, well, who wouldn't want a funky purple pumpkin? the base is a blue/violet opaque with orange speckles overlayed...
Definitely not your run of the mill pumpkin! I signed up for a few more workshops in the next few months. I really enjoyed it, and I'm thinking of taking some classes in it. You can never have too many hobbies, right?