Odds and ends

Just finishing up some odds and ends and thought I'd post a few more images of the charms that we were working on. I am rather pleased with how they all turned out and have a lot of fun pins and necklaces now. The next plan is to adapt them into pieces that can work with my figures. I have been (on and off) working on new collage dolls that will be richly embellished. It has been a challenge but I think
that soldered pieces are the missing element I have been looking for. There are a lot of possibilities working with these materials and they should be able to be adapted as embellishments for my figures quite easily.

And she was ....

Such a sad day. We brought Tricia off to the airport to say good-bye. It is always so hard. It's difficult to get everyone together when we all live so far apart, but it was wonderful to see everyone at the wedding.

"Our lives are very different now. We each have our new priorities. Our mates, our kids, our houses, our work. All make claims upon our time and challenge us at every turn. It's hard to get together now. But when we do, we're glad we did. Somehow, we fall into an old familiar mode, a reassuring rhythm that restores us and reminds us that some things remain the same."

Between Brothers and Sisters by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish

Glass House

My sister, Tricia is still in town. We have been having a blast and soldering up a storm. After having made quite a few soldered charms we decided to each make a glass house. This ended up being a far larger challenge than we both had anticipated. We were deciding between making a house to be used as a tea light holder or a box. We decided on the box as it was something we both figured we would actually use. We had no patterns or pictures to go by so we had to figure it out by ourselves. Not a big deal really, but we both have never done anything like this before and
had nothing to use as a reference. While we both used virtually the same images, it was surprising how different each of our houses came out. However, I only have photos of the house I made to show. We both have decided that this is the last Glass House we will ever make, but we also agreed that it was indeed a good learning experience. Dimensions are 5 1/2" X 4" by 5 1/2 " tall. For more photos -
http://ingriddijkers.com/glasscollagehouse.html

Having far too much fun.

Yesterday I went out to the Charm Wholesale House (as we call it) with 2 of my favorite people in the world (being my Sister and my Sister-in-law). We had far too much fun and spent far too much money. We found some wonderful "stuff" and have been soldering up a storm. There was quite a bit of difficulty with the whole process at first. We had a lot of problem cutting the glass microscope slides until we chucked the $1.29 cutter from the local hardware store and invested in a $40 replacement. Made all the difference in the world....worth every penny. Soldering has also presented it's own challenges, but we have worked out the problems and it is going smoothly now. Can't wait to see what all we end up making ... it's bound to be a surprise.