Happy Thanksgiving

Just a quick note to say Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Amerians. I'm heading out to go back home to visit Mom & Grandma for a good Southern meal. I hope you enjoy your day regardless of where you are & what you're doing.

Blue Skies

After a week of steady rain from Hurricane/Tropical Storm Ida we finally saw this.

The sky always seem so clear & blue after a hurricane/tropical storm; it's as if the rains have cleansed the air to make way for the sun & air. It started raining again after this, but we have more blue skies today.

Do you smell these?? I placed an order with Candles by Victoria & could not be happier. Victoria makes these candles in Van, Texas with her partner, Matt (aka Candleman) and their daughters, Chelsea and Melissa. Victoria has well over 500 scent recipes & when you finally decide what you want, your candles are poured. Yes, she pours your candle when you place your order, which means that even if they weren't already scented with triple the amount of fragrance, they would still smell better than the ones that have been sitting on the store shelf for months (maybe years).

I opted for the 8 oz No Frills Sampler Pack, (which is the 6-8oz candles...you pick the scents for $40.00), 4 Scent Shots (the tarts that you place into a warmer & a great way to try out new scents for $1.95 each) and the Surprise Bag on Mini Bud Tarts (12 [I think] of misc tarts for $4.00)
Most of the candles & tarts I ordered are for gifts & very reasonably priced. The scent of each of these is amazing. I'm not a fan of the bakery-types scents, but I ordered a few for gifts & they really do smell like Pineapple Upside-Down Cake & Pumkin Pie Spice. French Quarter & Mango Sage Tea are probably my favs of this batch, but Apple Jack N Peel is a close third for this time of year. Victoria is also on Youtube, so go meet the woman behind the candles at CBVictoria.

I'll definately be buying more candles from Victoria & I hope some of you check out her site & look into some candles as well. I will say that if you want them for Christmas, you may want to go ahead & order them because she gets increasingly more busy & may have a couple of weeks backlog. I ordered mine on a Friday, she sent them out on Tuesday & I got them on Friday, but that was a couple of weeks ago. If you want me to go into more detail on the candles I bought, just let me know & I'll do another post about the scents I ordered.

Fresh from the tumbler & waiting to be dipped into the stinky LOS, steel wooled, then tossed into the tumbler again. I don't usually tumble before LOSing, but thought I'd try it after some discussion on Lisa's Lovelies blog about polishing & tumbling & all of those things only interesting to us metal heads.

I hope you all have a blessed weekend & maybe I'll actually have new pieces to show. Most of the pieces I'm working on are for custom orders, but a couple are headed to my shop. Yes Beth, I listened & am working on restocking my shop ((hugs)).

xoxo

Pam

So, what happened was.......

I was careless. It's easy to get too comfortable with the tools that we use everyday. We become enraptured by our next "piece of art" that the tools fade. The torch isn't a torch anymore & the glow of the metal is just a lovely color that we're trying to achieve, instead of it being a means to an end. All of that, added to it being a bad soldering day & my torch not getting the piece hot enough made me, yep made me, forget the basics. The really basic basics...like not haphazardly picking up the piece with the tweezers & holding it up so I have less of a heat sink. It's all fun & games until said person (that would be me) shifts in the chair, the piece over her lap, then drops cherry red piece into her lap. Oh no!! Let me tell you......not a good move.

The smoke created by a 1200 degree piece landing on sweatpants is quite incredible & a little scary. I quickly brushed it off of my lap, but it had already melted a hole into my sweatpants. I looked at my leg & nothing; it wasn't red & didn't even hurt. Well, I continued on my merry way & later that night my leg was itching..oh yeah. A blister like I've never had before. Oh well, it's better now, and never hurt like a burn, but hopefully I've learned my lesson. Am I really ready for a Big Girls Torch? I think so, but it'll have to wait; until then, I have new respect for my little butane.

Ya'll be careful!!

xoxo

Pam

Rain, Rain

*sigh* Still raining here. Hopefully tomorrow the remnants Hurricane Ida will move along & leave us with a little sunshine. It's been raining here, almost constantly, since Monday night. The wind is still gusting, uprooting some trees & some areas are flooding, but this is an easy one for us. Maybe we'll see sun this weekend. Gotta throw in a picture.

Dakota's moping around these days, becausing she's reflecting back to her fun days in the sun. Right now, it's looking more like a mud pit.

Be good & remember not to drive through standing water.

Ft. Hood

I just want to send love & hugs to the families & soldiers at Ft. Hood.

xoxo

Pam

Etsy Gift Guide!!

I received a convo today telling me that I was in the Jewelry Gift Guide on Etsy!! Yay!!! My first one..I would have never known if it hadn't been for Carolyn from Autumn Leaves Jewelry, who is also in one of the gift guides. Thanks Care!! Her sterling silver dish is featured in the One of a Kind Gift Guide.

Candy's Heart is the one who made it to the gift guide.

xoxo

Be good!!