Fishgirl Speaks

Thirty-Nine, Forty, Forty-One

Time for another roundup of pieces. I managed to crank out a bunch of fun stuff before the show in September, but photographing all of it is another matter. All of them are for sale - click the picture to get to the Etsy listing. Oh, and I'm offering free shipping now through December!

Weirdness

The school is located in San Jose's Guadalupe Gardens, which are abundant with critters. We love them all. Something, however, started digging into the school. A corner of the changing area is quite close to the outdoors. When we arrived yesterday, there was about a cup and a half of dirt piled against the wall. There is no visible entry on the outside. That means it was coming up from way below. A little ground squirrel Halloween prank?

A few months ago we noticed a crack in the living room wall. It was mildly alarming, but investigating meant crawling under the house on dusty rocks. Not hands and knees crawling either, but elbows and dragging. Naturally, we postponed it.

Last night, Charles called me in to the office where he pointed out more cracks in the corner on what is essentially the same wall as the one in the living room. Guess we can't postpone that investigation anymore.

Also last night, we came home to find the utility sink faucet running. The cats have never done this before. Not in the five years that sink has been there. I can only hope it was only running for a brief time and not the entire day we were gone from 8am to 9pm. At least it was cold water.

Thirty-Five, Thirty-Six, Thirty-Seven, Thirty-Eight

Two pieces in two new styles. First, a spinoff of the large color collage necklaces. Dramatic pendants, or as I like to call them, drama drops:

This one I had listed on Etsy and posted on Facebook, but somehow did not make the blog. Hello, blog.

 
This one is being worn by a new display piece - a miniature dressmaker's doll. So no, it's not quite THAT huge.

I'm please to report that both of these sold at the recent Luna Park Chalk Art Festival.

And here's a new style of hoop that I quite like. Shown here with two different kinds of glass beads:

Available on Etsy here.

Available on Etsy here.

Pieces Thirty through Thirty-Four

Time for a little catch up here. I've launched a new line of pendants with the help of my mom and talented photographer Linda Dahlberg. She spends a lot of time in her garden watching, shooting, and identifying the various flying things that flit about. The more I looked at the pics, the more I thought they'd be fabulous as a little gem on a chain. Click on the caption to view and/or purchase on Etsy.

Bombus vosnesenskii on a California poppy

anthidium manicatum on a wooly lamb's ear

spotted cucumber beetle on a society garlic

Gulf fritillary (Agraulis vanillae) on a Verbena bonariensis

I've also created a new shop section for my color collage necklaces. There are enough of them now to warrant their own place. I still have a couple to upload, but here is the latest:

raspberry and peach color collage necklace

A Recycling Cycle

Late last year I decided it was time to cash in some 17 years' worth of scrap metals from my studio. As we've all seen, the price of gold and silver has skyrocketed to some very high numbers. As of this writing, silver is around $42 per troy ounce and gold is almost to $1850. For your reference, when I started collecting this scrap just out of college in 1993, silver was less than $10 per ounce. Anyway, when I took it to a local refiner and gave me a rather large check right on the spot, I did a happy dance for almost a week.

Not long after this, we decided to replace the windows in the whole house. Long tired of single pane aluminum and desiring all of the energy, sound, and aesthetic benefits of new windows, we chose a style and worked a little financial juggling magic to make it happen before the tax benefit window expired at the end of 2010. Fortunately, the scrap money was able to pay roughly half of this.

To save money on the window project, we chose to install them ourselves. As we tore each old window out, we created quite the pile in the backyard, intending to recycle them. (Side story to this: Charles once brought home an almost new stainless steel stove from his construction job that no one wanted, which he put in the driveway. Only hours afterwards it was gone. We have learned that scrappers prowl the neighborhood.) At least one or two guys came by asking if they could recycle our windows for us. We made sure to keep them safe out back.

Eventually, we cleared the aluminum of glass and broke the frames down. The whole shebang fit in my car along with a crate of copper wire we stripped (also from the construction job), and copper scrap from my studio. Copper was around $4 per pound last time I looked. I drove down the road to the gigantic metal recycling place and took my place in line. Scrapping is a way of life for a lot of people, and there seems to be plenty of industry in San Jose to support them as evidenced by how many people were there. A few days later I had a check for $186 in my hand. Worth the effort in these times.

As I type this, I'm thinking of a post I wrote a few years ago about how expensive it can be to "be green." Somehow, when you recycle for money, it takes on a whole different flavor. Like stealing stoves from driveways. Still, I'm getting ready to recycle some more jewelry scrap and am very much looking forward to the return which will enable me to make more jewelry.

Piece Twenty-Nine

Piece-A-Week has been on hold due to a bad case of too-much-on-my-plate-itis. At this point, I will continue to post my creative endeavors but with no promise of regularity. However, If we're all lucky, we'll still get 52 posts by the end of the year!

I've also been playing with the photography of said pieces in the hopes of drawing more attention on Etsy. That takes more time than I'd like it to, quite frankly, but it's all in the service of getting the work out there. Right? Here we go:

Blue optic glass with wrapped sterling links. More pics and listing for sale over on Etsy.

Smoooooth, Mr. Shepard.

 
Charles came home from yoga last night and told me about the evil ways Eva tortured him. Half moons, twists, handstands and whatnot. Then he said, "We worked that one where you're on your elbows and your head's not on the ground, legs up...what's that one called?" To which I replied "Pinchmayurasana?" Whereupon he reached around behind me and did just that.

Ba-dump-bum.

Piece-A-Week the Twenty-Eighth

Well, life happens and I'm a little late, but here is week 28. When I picked up these funky blue beads, I knew they would need something special. So here it is! Available for purchase on Etsy.

Piece-A-Week the Twenty Seventh

I've done spirals as details before, but thought I'd throw them in the center spotlight for these. A thin, silver wire is stitched through and gives the garnets something to hang on. Available on Etsy.

Piece-A-Week the Twenty Sixth

This lovely little shell appears to still have something living in it! Tentacles with spots of crystal, pearl, and goldfill accent the myriad colors in the glass bead. I don't have the chain in stock, so it's not for sale quite yet, but will be as soon as I have it. Ping me if this should be yours!

Update: Sold!

Here is the other side: