Behind the scenes - MAY

I've always been the kind of girl who loves driving at night so I can look into the houses illuminated with light. I get this from my mother, thanks mom. Mostly, I like to see what kind of lamp they are using, since I use to work for a company that made handmade lighting. I also like to re-decorate and rearrange their furniture in my head, in the three seconds that Im passing.

I also love to see what other peoples studios look like, and the process of how they make stuff. Love it! Heres the flickr link to tons studio and craft room spaces, where if you like this kind of stuff, you could be browsing for hours: spaces

I thought I would share a few photos of what Ive been doing lately in the studio.

Left: Prepped for glueing, Ive already ground the backs and the bails.

Right: A mish-mash of things that are new, seconds, trials and stuff that needs to be finished on the "new stuff" board.

Above: This is my new way of organizing orders. I've been getting more combined orders, and larger sets of things and have had to figure out a way to keep them neat and tidy. Some things are ready to ship, some need to be custom made in several processes. I don't want to track them all over the room anymore. Hand drawn charts and graphs were the way to go! I've finally found a use for the 12 wooden trays that I got for mosaics years ago, and just never really wanted to mosaic them. They are perfect, and stack nicely to keep the studio less cluttered.

Above: The one fun new things I've made that ISNT for an order, but is a prototype for something that everyone has been asking me for for a year and a half. A tiny blue morpho butterfly wing necklace, under glass. Its actually quite rough and isn't really a finished peice, but thats the only way I'm really allowing myself to keep it and wear it. YAY!

Above: A load ready to be fired up in the kiln! I'm playing with tack fusing, and energizing colors. I fired these last week, and still need to grind all the edges again and fire it up once more (maybe more if needed), then grind the backs and get them ready for sale.

What else am I doing? Taking a metalsmithing class of course!

Above: My first rings in class, that I then set with stones (as in photo below).

Whew! After all those photos I realize that I DO have a bit going on around here. I have to get some glue, a box and rbbon now, as Im doing some more shipping today. Ciao!