Cabs, cabs and more cabs

So, I bought a lot of cabochons last week when I went to Hong Kong.

I wasn't planning on going at all this year, given that I have a baby and all, but with airfares so low due to the global financial crisis, and Ben agreeing to look after Daniel for the few days I was gone... I couldn't resist.

However, Daniel's come down with a contagious kiddie virus that means that he can't go to daycare this week. This makes it really difficult for me to get a move on and photograph and list the cabs and other beads I purchased for resale for a little while, but I really want to to get the list 'out there' - so I'm posting it here in my poor neglected blog :)

(Note: prices will have a little added when they go to Etsy for Etsy fees)

Cabochon list:

Amazonite, round, smooth, 8mm: $3/pack 4 or $0.85 each

Amazonite, oval, smooth, 9x11mm: $5/pack 4 or $1.35 each

Amazonite, teardrop, smooth, 8x13mm: $5.80/pack 4 or $1.55 each

Amazonite, teardrop, smooth, 10x20mm: $5.80/pair or $3.10 each

Green Opal, round, smooth, 10mm: $4.20/pair or $2.30 each

Blue Lace Agate, round, smooth, 15mm: $3.75 each

Blue Lace Agate, square cushion, smooth, 10mm: $4/pair or $2.20 each

Kyanite, oval, smooth, 8x10mm: $4/pair or $2.20 each

Labradorite, oval, smooth, 8x12mm: $3.80/pair or $2 each

Labradorite, oval, smooth, 13x18mm: $5 each

Tiger Eye, round, faceted, 12mm: $3 each

Tiger Eye, oval, faceted, 8x16mm: $5/pair or $2.70 each

Carnelian, oval, faceted, 10x12mm: $4.80/pair or $2.60 each

Carnelian, round, faceted, 8mm: $6.50/4 or $1.80 each

Gold Rutilated Quartz, oval, smooth, 12x16mm: $13.50 each

Green Tourmalinated Quartz, square cushion, faceted, 8mm: $7.20/4 or $1.90 each

Green Tourmalinated Quartz, oval, faceted, 10x12mm: $4.30 each

White Natural Quartzite, round, faceted, 12mm: $4/pair or $2.20 each

Black Agate, round, faceted, 12mm: $5/pair or $2.70 each

Peach (greyish cast) Moonstone, marquise, radial faceted from centre point, 10x12mm, $4.50/pair or $2.40 each

Carved MOP (rose design), round, 12mm: $4.50/pair or $2.40 each

There are more on their way in the post, everything on this list I have in hand and ready to ship. I hand picked these cards of cabs and they're generally really very nice quality. The Amazonite is Peruvian and quite saturated in colour; the Labradorite is Madagascan and has nice flash in a good orientation.

The cabs I'm still waiting on are moonstone (grey ovals, white teardrops, peach ovals and rainbow cushions), more labradorite, some US-origin turquoise (8mm rounds and 8x10mm teardrops), smaller kyanite ovals, and some 14x14mm checker-cut square cushions in red tiger eye.

Have to run, Daniel's getting upset in the background...

Cheers

Jenna

the floor...

... I'm spending rather a lot of time on it lately.

Home Improvements

Waved off Ben for a little while today; he's gone to the USA for work. We will miss him :)

One thing that is kind of odd in my personality is that I always go on a slightly manic home-improvement crusade whenever Ben is gone for more than a couple of days. I get the urge to change things a couple of days before he goes and I start subconsciously looking for stuff to improve. Most of the time this is as benign as changing the furniture around in a room (or two or three). Usually the new arrangement really is an improvement; we're not the best at figuring out an optimal layout for a living space until we've been through a few iterations of living in / moving stuff around in the space.

This time there's really not a lot I want to move around. My studio loft still isn't exactly how I'd like it (although it's getting close!) but he doesn't go up there much anyway so moving the furniture around while he's gone is kind of pointless - I can do that anytime without him underfoot up there ^_^

My biggest issue with our living space right now is my wardrobe. Our house is an old-style 2-storey terrace-style house that at one point had shallow verandahs/balconies on both stories at the front. Many years ago the balconies on this house were built in and have become shallow rooms sort of tacked on to the previous front-most room on each level. There are built-in wardrobes in these rooms that have been made by fitting sliding doors about three feet from the end of the room and sticking some shelving inside.

The downstairs room has these wardrobes in both ends of the room. One was done *long* ago (probably forty years or more, looking at the fittings - my husband uses this one) and the other is somewhat more modern (maybe twenty years, haha) although this one is a *shocking* job. The shelves are far too deep to make good use of the space (you can't see what's at the backs) and there's no hanging space to boot. I've tended to use a couple of ugly wire-basket-trolleys in the main part of the bedroom instead and I completely forget I've even *got* clothes in the wardrobe.

Since I can't use it in its current state, I've been thinking for a couple of weeks that it really has to go. Given my bent for wanting to build/paint/rip things out whenver my husband is away, I decided to make it my project for this week :)

It's a little more involved than moving a regular wardrobe because it's not just screwed onto the walls at the back, let alone freestanding - there is a whole frame screwed across one end of the room for the sliding doors. Even that would be fine, but the walls are concrete blocks (so the frame is screwed into star plugs) and the frame has required little slices be removed from the cornices and skirtings when it was installed, so I'll need to patch those. Additionally, we've noticed that the previous owner really had a love affair with sticking things in place with ridiculous volumes of silicone sealant, and this frame is no exception (fortunately, it's only really present around the cornices in this case).

Today I've managed to remove the entire wardrobe, sliding doors and door frame; cut filler pieces for the skirtings; and do one coat of paint on the walls (matching the walls that were *outside* the wardrobe before. Daniel slept for a couple of hours and was really good in the stroller when we were at the hardware store, so I feel pretty productive :) My one problem was that I bought the wrong profile of cornice so I'll need to go back and get the correct one tomorrow before I cut those pieces and plaster/fix them in place... I want to do this before I do the second paint coat on the walls. The ceiling also needs two or three coats of paint as it was a terrible combination of gloss pink trim and pale blue-grey centres, which we did away with in the rest of the room some time ago but couldn't easily paint inside the 'wardrobe' at the time.

The room looks much bigger already... can't wait until I'm done! Daniel has his first taste of childcare tomorrow afternoon so I'm hoping to do the cornice work and the second coat of wall paint then.

left holding the baby

So, Ben's going to the USA for a little while later this month for work... leaving me 'alone' with Daniel overnight for the first time. It'll be several overnights really, since he's got to go to both NYC and the San Francisco bay area to work with people on this trip. We discussed it first, including whether we thought it would be a good idea for me and Daniel to tag along (expensive, since we'd have to pay my airfare out of our own pockets, but on the positive side accommodation would be free because we'd just be staying in Ben's room while he's working).

I came to the conclusion that transporting Daniel across ten time zones and effectively having to look after him on my own anyway probably wasn't my idea of a holiday, and it would negatively affect Ben's work capacity while he was there as well. Plus we'd need to try and get a passport rushed through for the little man, which is a lot of extra stress :)

As I'll be here with Daniel for probably ten days with no real help, I've had to look seriously for some occasional/respite childcare centre that will take babies as little as Daniel. Thankfully, I think I've found one; I have an appointment to check them out and fill in enrolment forms on Wednesday. I hope they have openings in the weeks that Ben is away!

Daniel is actively trying to figure out how to roll over every chance he gets. It's only a matter of time; I popped him on his tummy the other day and went to get the camera, and he'd rolled onto his back before I'd crossed the room, so I had to roll him back again to take this shot :)

I haven't had very much experience at all with babies, so I don't know if it's completely normal that he wants to stretch out rigidly when he's upset. It seems to calm him down quite a bit if I stand him up on my lap at these times - he's so rigidly straight that I only have to hold his hands for stability, as he's quite capable of supporting his own weight on his feet. He likes to do this as a game first thing in the morning as well, although he's better at it when he's upset ^_^

I finally managed to get a few things oxidised, since I've got Daniel to look after I tend to make things in stages now rather than completing pieces one or two at a time from start to finish. I've mainly been making pieces that let me practise making rivets and working with heat control on my new torch... I'm looking forward to being able to make settings for larger stones with the new torch as well. I hope to get the latest batch of items uploaded to Etsy during the week.

getting a handle on things

I've not been keeping up with my blog (again). Here's most of the reason:

This is Daniel. --->

He was born shortly after lunch on November 2nd, weighing and measuring pretty much exactly on the median for male newborns. He came out with pretty much a full head of hair, and I'm going to have to give him his first haircut soon or it'll start poking him in the ears :P

As you might expect, much of my time now revolves around this bundle. He sleeps decently at night, but very little during the day - he seems to want to see *everything* and will resist sleeping if he thinks he's missing out on something. He's put on about 3kg (6.6lb) since leaving hospital, and is four inches longer - well into clothes for 3-6 month-old infants. I think I'd describe him as 'robust' at this point :)

I am having a lot of fun spending time with him, although I'm really looking forward to when he can sit and play by himself on a more regular basis.

Today we went to have his 2-month vaccinations... an oral vaccine, plus two needles. The practice I attended has the nurse do one in one leg while the doctor does the other simultaneously in the other leg... so the baby only gets one big shock. It seems cruel, but he was asleep five minutes later so it can't have been all *that* bad. We have kiddie Panadol for him for later if he starts to hurt or run a temperature.

In other news, I'm starting to make things again... slowly. I've been keeping a sketchbook - something I have done for years in a haphazard way, so that's nothing new - and there are about fifty different things I want to make set out in it at present... when this little guy gives me the time. I bought a big girls' torch last week - I have been working with a small butane cooks' torch for all this time - but I probably won't retire the small torch entirely as it's very handy for small jobs. My particular interests at this point are enamelling and forging, and rearranging my studio for a more optimal workflow.

not-really-holidays.

Technically I'm now on maternity leave. w00t! I do have a couple of things I'd like to keep working on though and I'm not required to hand back my pass keys/network access just yet, so I'll probably potter around with the programming into next week or so. I'm really not a workaholic, but for some reason it's more fun when I have no obligation to do it :)

I need to answer a bunch of people's messages that I've been putting off while I've been working this week. (sorry if that includes you - feel free to poke me for a response)

Next week I have a bunch of stuff to do that I've been putting off... firstly, buying all that stuff that I'll need when the baby comes that I don't have yet. I figure we have a car seat, more sets of clothes than will ever be necessary, a cot, swaddles etc, baby lotion, baby wipes, change mats, the Baby Bjorn, and a gazillion disposable nappies, so we're ok for the first week at least. Ha.

We still need all that stuff like strollers, bottles, breast pump, baby bath, that extra tiny bed insert thing you get for newborns to stop them rolling over, steriliser, blah blah. My task for the weekend is to make a list so I can just go and load up the car sometime next week.

In the last week I've started getting that foot-swelling thing that is common among the pregnant. It's not too bad, but it does mean that I'm spending a lot more time on the couch with my feet up over one end. I hate being inactive so it's wearing on me a bit; we own barely any DVDs so if there's nothing on TV and the radio is boring I am crawling out of my skin. I'm thankful that I generally have fairly skinny feet though, it means that most of my shoes still fit fine, they're just not all flopping around like I like them to be :)

My annual bonus gets paid next Tuesday or Wednesday. I am hanging out for it like never before, despite it being for only about 13 full-time weeks of work (because I had 8+ months off in the middle of the financial year and then came back part time). Half of it is earmarked for books and DVDs... going to haul myself off to Parramatta next week, where the Borders (books, books, more books) is right next to the ABC shop (where I plan to acquire at least some Doctor Who DVDs and browse for other things I might like). I pretty much pre-spent the rest already on a half-dozen jewellery technique books plus expedited shipping from Amazon, which shall be packed in my hospital bag and not read beforehand, so that I have something to do in hospital. I haven't spent much on myself lately so am really looking forward to this :) 

Think I might also get a haircut, since I haven't had one since February (I wear it pulled back 99% of the time)... I currently have no style left to speak of, but since the individual strands of my hair are very very fine they take a lot of damage before they'd ever split or otherwise look particularly manky. Might also get a colour, but as I get older my natural colour (light brunette/dark blonde) suits me more so I'm more inclined to grow out the darker brown I had back at the start of the year. Or I could just go blazing red since people only look at my tummy lately anyway :P

Haven't made a thing in a week, and tomorrow we're supposed to be at a birthing class all day, so I'm hoping to get into the loft/studio on Sunday at least :)

Cabochons

I have a bit of a passion for collecting stones. Currently I'm fascinated with carved and faceted cabochons. I recently had a bit of spare cash and ordered a few cabs from a wholesale place. They've just arrived and already I'm contemplating my next order (/me rollseyes at self).

A couple of these I've got more than I'll ever possibly use (ie the little prehnites - I wanted about 10, I had to purchase fifty). If you want to take any off my hands, send me a message ^_^ The prehnites are babies - 8x5mm teardrops - I'm planning on setting a couple in 14K bezels :)

I didn't even have time to get a photo!

Because I was ill for such a long time in July and August, I didn't get my exhibition piece finished for A&E Metal's annual 'Explorations' exhibition until about an hour before the submission deadline, and then hurtled over to their Marrickville office to submit the thing. The focal piece, I did get a photo of... that would be this one:I did quite a lot of gemmy beading in the actual necklace section, in pink tourmaline, ruby, prehnite and peridot. I wasn't entirely thrilled with how it turned out, but I like it well enough ^_^

I've just headed over to A&E's site to check when the opening is on because I'd really like to get there and I figured it was soon (it's tomorrow night at Gaffa Gallery in Sydney, from 6pm to 8pm). They have pictures up, including one of the front section of my piece, here:
http://www.aemetal.com.au/showphotodetail.asp?ID=81

Some of the gems are wired to fall over the front of the pendant, but I guess the photographer liked it better his way :)

personal goal of the day: take some photos

While getting things ready for the show a couple of weekends back, it became painfully clear to me just how much finished jewellery is sitting up in the loft unphotographed and unlisted. I knew there was a fair bit - I really don't like to take photos and list stuff, I want to make items all the time! - but when the number of items gets into the (multiple) hundreds it's all a bit much.

I figure I'll start with the simple-to-describe things and move up from there. Here's a quick shot of the rack of items I want to get photographed (individually) today...

Listing them is another goal entirely, ha.

I'm being kept company while I work my day job duties by Oscar. He's rarely more than an arm's length from me lately... here is a shot from yesterday morning. That critter can sleep on anything -_- Here he is sleeping on my EeePC case, assorted cables, my keys, and the flyer for boutiques in Fitzroy that Incube8r sent me with my latest contract renewal form.

stones and rings

I just finished making a ring for the first time in ages. I'm pretty slow at making rings when they have stones set into them - today's is ridiculously simple but it took me close to an hour and a half! Most of that was because I chose a piece of tubing for the setting that was a bit too thick in the wall and it took a lot of time and effort to actually set the stone :P

Because I haven't made anything in a while, I decided to rehash and make something like the orange sapphire one (this one) to get back into it. Today's has a slightly smaller, fatter disc and a slightly larger stone set closer to the middle of the disc (~3mm chrome diopside - super intense green!) but is a similar concept and construction. I'd take a photo, but it's too late in the afternoon to get good light. This one is a size 6.75. I am in lurve with the colour of the stone... wish there had been more 'large' stones like this in the parcel of chrome diopsides I purchased, most of them are in the ~2mm range (I'm going to need to get me one of those magnifying headset things soon, haha).

I've got a few more ring stones on their way to me - I am a bit of a collector of supplies, if you didn't know already ;-) Included in the parcel is a few 8x5mm faceted prehnite teardrop cabochons that I'm really, really excited about. I've got an idea for a kind of 'petal' ring using one of these but I really want to use 14K for the bezel setting and the idea of using gold is freaking me out (even though it's only somewhere about $6 worth on the bezel and maybe another $4 for the accents I want to do on the sterling base). I'm also maybe a bit too eager to get my hands on the lapis cabs... I haven't worked with lapis before (ever - yes really!) so we'll see how that goes!