Mixed Emotions

I'm leaving for school in about 36 hours, and I have just about made myself sick about it. For one thing, I can't really afford to go. So that keeps weighing on my mind. I keep hoping that my jewelry sales will miraculously pick up, and everything will sort itself out.

Then there is the fact that Bailey will be in the kennel for the whole two weeks - I have to drop him off tomorrow morning actually, because the kennel isn't open on Sunday. That adds an extra 2 days of boarding time to the bill, which also weighs on my mind - both financially, and because I hate for him to be there for so long.

Look at that face! I miss him already!

But it will be a wonderful, worthwhile experience, so as I said, mixed emotions.

The wonderful folks at Fuji came through for me, and got my camera back to me in time for the trip. I have taken some photos of some of the things I have made over the past few weeks, and will be listing them on Etsy while I am away.



Here is something I listed today - a gorgeous lariat made from peacock blue button pearls; simple, yet elegant.

It is 32 inches long from end to end, and available for sale in my Etsy shop.

Whee! Look at me!

My friend, the lovely Nancy of NanjoDogz has featured Bailey and me in her blog.

I met Nancy through the Dogs and Art group on Flickr. It's a really fun group for folks that love dogs.

I hope you'll take a look at our interview!

I finished a beautiful bracelet last night, but have no way to photograph it yet - still no word on the fate of my camera.

I also took another Silver Art Clay class on Saturday - this one was on Silver Paste. We painted actual leaves with the silver paste, and fired them, in hopes of ending up with a pendant. This didn't work out so well for me. I chose a ginkgo leaf, and for some reason the paste just would not adhere to the leaf. About halfway through the class, the teacher suggested I do a back up leaf just in case the gingko didn't work out, so I also did a small geranium leaf.

We actually managed to glob enough silver paste onto my second gingko leaf (had to scrap the first after the leaf rejected the paste and then tore in half), and it fired OK. It looked kind of plain when everything was finally done, so we added a faceted garnet to the pendant, and I refired it yesterday. I had to leave it cooling in the kiln overnight at the shop, and won't see it until tomorrow.

Then there was that backup geranium leaf. It decided to break during firing.

Then the Dremel we were to use to drill bail holes wasn't working, so I don't so much have a gingko leaf pendant, but more of a paperweight, right now.

And since I don't have my camera, you will just have to imagine what all of this looks like!

I am pretty much over the Art Clay Silver. I gave it a good try, but it just isn't my thing.

Oh, crap.

My basically brand new camera broke last night.

Well, the camera didn't break - just the tripod housing. I went to take the photos of my abalone spiral necklace, and when I tried to mount the camera on the tripod, the camera completed one turn and got a little tighter, and then got loose again.

My response was: huh?!?

So naturally, I repeated the procedure about 50 times, with the same result - every time I let go of the camera, it fell off the tripod. Clearly, this was never gonna work (but I'm a slow learner...)

So I went ahead and took the pictures without the tripod, balancing my elbows on the table, holding my breath, and praying that the pictures wouldn't be blurry. And they turned out OK. But if I had had less light, or the aperture settings had been different, I think I would have been in trouble.

So I took the basically brand new camera and the tripod to the camera shop first thing this morning, where they pronounced the tripod housing to be stripped. And the fixing of said tripod housing to be not covered under the warranty (naturally.)

And just exactly how does this tripod housing get replaced, you might ask. Well, the camera gets mailed to Fuji, and they fix it. In 3-4 weeks.

3-4 WEEKS.

The camera shop guy suggested I get a disposable camera to use between now and then.

Yeah, that'll work.

'Spect I'll be doing a lot of relisting in my Etsy shop for the next few weeks, since there won't be any picture-taking going on around here.

Crap.