Category Archives: Just me

Just me

Making all the things…tangent

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I intended to continue with my crafty holiday making madness here on the blog but then I fell into the world of silversmithing and all other things drifted away.

It’s true that I can blow my bezel seams over and over again on a high migraine day but for the most part silversmithing is a place where the problems I encounter have readily available fixes and the results of my labor are stunning.

I’m 5 weeks into my training and I am loving every intensive second of it. Now when I see jewelry I deconstruct it with my eyes. When I see stones I imagine how I would tackle them. I finally feel as though I can DO something with my life, even though I can’t do all the things I’ve previously trained for.

Here is a photographic journey through some of the steps in my last piece:

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Here we have a fine silver bezel soldered onto a sterling back plate. 
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Choppa choppa choppa, we have a crude silver setting.
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After adding a handmade bail and wire we have an unpolished setting fit for it’s stone.
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With this lovely device we fit the stone into the bezel. Think of endlessly rocking your cranky child back to sleep in the middle of the night. It’s a lot like that. 
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Abracadabra! We have a pendant! 

Here is my further assembly of silver and pearl earrings.

 

So this is what has been occupying all my time this past month! I will try to get to another set of make your own holiday gift ideas here soon!

Homemade Madness, house"keeping", Just me

Making all the things…(Part 1)

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It’s that time of year again! The air turns colder, the leaves start to crinkle, and my urge to MAKE ALL THE THINGS comes out of it’s summer hibernation.

This year we are doing handmade gifts for most of our family so I am getting started early with my research. I have college age kiddos and grade school kiddos, high school kiddos and full grown kiddos. Luckily the internet is vast and the possibilities are endless. It’s important to find gifts that people will like, that can be made inexpensively, and that are useful in some way.

Of course one person’s useful is another person’s WTF? so it’s equally important to know your audience. For example, monogrammed coasters might seem like a useful thing to make but do your friends even have coffee tables that require coasters?

I’m starting with my college peeps. This year, there are a lot of them.

College Age DIY Gifts –

  1. The Secret Book Safe – Keep your tiniest secrets hidden here, or at least your cash when you’re throwing a party for your fellow students. basic-25
  2. Study Carrel – You can’t make everyone else leave the room, but you can kind of make your own room.
  3. Managing to sleep in a room with another person can be a challenge. A sleep away kit can make all the difference. A homemade eye mask can make it seem like you are home sweet home. A small homemade fleece pillow filled with lavender, a solid set of earplugs, and your softest pillow case combine to create a cozy sleeping environment where ever you actually are. 1009-Photo-101-3_b
  4. An office in a box gifts your student with all the study necessities. Post-it’s, pencil lead, bookmarks, paperclips, highlighters, and more! Header
  5. A no-sew fleece blanket gives your student something soft to cuddle up in when they are tired and homesick.
  6. A Mason-Jar Sewing Kit is an essential gift for someone moving out on their own. After all, your sewing stuff is staying with you, so it’s not like they can just run in and grab it.
  7. Sick Day Cold Kit – Being sick away from home is the first time you really understand how much being a grown up sucks. Ease their pain a little. In a large mason jar place:
    1.  4 Emergency-C Packets.
    2.  A handful of cough drops.
    3.  A handful of throat lozenges.
    4.  2 packets of Throat Coat tea.
    5.  2 packets of Peppermint tea.
    6.  4 honey sticks.
    7.  A travel size tissue pack.
    8.  Lip balm.
    9.  Travel size menthol rub.
    10.  4 Nyquil Liquigels.
    11.  4 Dayquil Liquigels.
    12.  2 Advil packets.
    13. Chicken Soup packet.
    14. 2 saltine cracker packets.
    15. Quarters for the soda machine.
  8. Magnetic Message Boards let roommates communicate with each other and avoid awkward moments.

There are more. The internet is full of laundry kits, first aid kits, coffee lover kits, etc. Really, if you can think of it, you can turn it into a gift for someone in college.

 

 

Just me

Traveling through time…a poem.

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I am a time traveler.

I awake and my hands have become the arthritic clawed appendages of an ancient crone. They curl and ache with the stabs and throbs of a million years of living. I have left my youthful body in the past and become the liver spotted grandmother I someday hope to be.

I am a time traveler.

As my mornings turn to evenings and my evenings become night my steps shift from an easy and purposeful stride into the slow and painful shuffling of legs whose feet have left too many footprints on this earth.

I am a time traveler.

Each day I age one hundred years in twelve short hours. I awake entombed in the decrepit body of the night before. I rise to shed the wrinkled skin of my aged self like so much crinkled crepe only to feel it fall back across my body as the sun traverses the sky.

I am a time traveler.

My time machine was born within me, a broken set of instructions written into my genetic code. Like Prometheus I am bound to spend my days in increasing agony only to be healed by the velvet darkness of the night.

I am a time traveler.

By Misty Morehead 8/1/16