a box of curiosity and a pinterest diy win

i am so happy that this weekend has ended better than it started, and for that i am so grateful.

at the end of my last post i predicted the pms would most likely leaving me sobbing in a corner for no real reason, saturday i was a doing just that, but mostly because the beast (meniere's) was really, really being naughty in a bad way.  just an hour in to my day i was not able to walk by myself, it messed with my ability to swallow and read and hold things, reading a book or text on the computer was not happening. 

most days we joke and make fun of the beast and how sometimes, when i get spinny i can look like a bobble head, according to my youngest.  when i lose my balance i tend to throw my arms in some goofy direction trying to catch myself and who ever might be in the room does it too.  we are a bunch of goof balls....probably funnier to be here.  

the only days the beast can bully me to tears is on days like saturday...and that was not even what one of my more challenging days can be like....without my guest, pms, i can usually shut the bathroom door so no one has to see my give in and cry....but the pms enhanced the boo-hoo process and i fell apart in the kitchen in front of everyone.....i hate that. 

today started off better.  i am not back to my normal less spinny self, but i am better and was bound and determined to make art....the soldering bug has bit me something awful this past week and that is what i did.

it has been a couple of years since i have done a reliquary and i started playing around with ideas last week using a match box, some very old watch maker vials, vintage beads, fish bone, coyote toe bones, and peridot chips....oh and vintage german book text in the background. 


i used double sided tape to secure the vintage book text down, but later you will will not enough. 

you can also see  that i have a wire running through the box....i have wanted to do this for a long time.....and

it was a good excuse to play with this....squeeeeeeeee!

at first i was going for the abacus look with some vintage trade beads....nah.....not how i pictured it.

like a dork i double stick taped the vials to the inside of the box....the beast causes me a little air headed at times, not like i don't already have that problem anyway!  i had to yank the bottles out and that caused the paper to be ripped to shreds so i had to cut a new lining out.

now that is more like it.

uh boy.  i got this all taped up and if you look at the left hand corner....part of the vintage book text is haning down.  i did not tape it corner to corner, just a bit in the middle and somewhere in the process of putting the foil/tape down for soldering i jarred the corner loose. 

so, i can just leave it...who will notice...does not matter.  i will know. 

i took just the top bit off and adjusted the paper the best i could with an exacto knife and sealed it back up. 

it was a pain in the butt, but worth it.

i use a bone folder to make sure the edges are smooth and all sealed up.

wah-laa.  ready to solder.  here is where i realize i did not plug in the soldering iron and decide to take a potty break upstairs and check in on all the peeps to kill time to let it heat up.

notice the vial on the left of the screen, the little one.  see how the cork is in nice and tight....just wait.

here it is all soldered up. 

i have mentioned in previous posts that i have decided i might just not be one of those pretty, super smooth solderererers....that i have decided to call this my 'style'

this evening i decided why not give it a bit more of that ancient dig site, or antique look and make it look as though it has been sealed or nailed or screwed shut.

it took a good hour experimenting, and inhaling lots of steamy stinky flux, not sure if that is a good thing, and found that if you make a dot and really really really quickly move the soldering iron and shove a bamboo skewer in the center and push down you get that sealed, nailed, screwed shut look! 

did i mention the beast was still being naughty....and that my sense of aim was a bit off?!?!  so this was pretty darn good.  not that i got it 'right' on the first try for each one, but i did it!

i am so happy!  squeeeeeee!

here is the back.  i experimented with another process for large areas like this and i almost have it figured out and when i do i will play show and tell.

when i told my hubby that i made this from a match box he was blown away.  he thought i used one of my vintage metal boxes.  he is my biggest supporter and without him i would have never gone as far or done as much as i have.   i am a lucky girl.  he thinks i am a genius....

remember a bit earlier i said to look at the bottle on the left of the screen....see what happened to the cork....it is no longer snug as a bug on the tiny vial.  during the soldering process condensation built up on the inside and it must have loosened it.   note to self:  secure the corks in the next on i do.

i was hoping that once it dried out a bit the cork would stay stuck, but no such luck.  thankfully the bar of beads are keeping the cork from coming all the way out and the contents of the tiny vial from spilling all over. 


on a different note....PINTEREST....my addiction.  there are so many neat ideas, arty, household, cleaning, holiday....the list goes on and on and on and i have become, like so many others a pin hoarder.  i decided i was going to try some of the diy/tutorials i was pinning.  i have tried a ton of them and figured i would share my personal experiences on posts here and there.

the first one i will share with you, but not the first i have done, is the milk jug watering can.


i have several vintage ones that i don't use, and i also always seem to have at least one empty milk jug a day.  

on the pin it showed the watering can with holes in the LID.   when i first saw this i thought what total genius, and then realized at some point you would need to turn the jug almost completely upside down to get the water out.  so......................

i pokes them here, and it works great.  now i just need some plants that need to be gently watered. 

it is only midnight and i am a bit pooped, thanks to the beast, so i am going to say nighty-night for now and see if i can settle down. 

hope you had a beautiful weekend.  smooches to you.

first of the two 'the sacred bone and the medicine man' necklaces done.

tonight i finished it.  it was 'bout ready to drive this arty girl bonkers. 

i love asymmetry.  love, love, love it. 

one would think it would be easier to achieve a flawless design, but in the end getting everything to line up properly when it comes to the closure can be a flippin nightmare  challenge. 

when i first started on this piece it was just going to be the sacred bone.  i had it all planned, just how it was going to look and then wham out the window  with that plan.  

the large beads had smaller holes than some of the smaller beads, so that meant i could not wire wrap them.

i originally started on this (these) necklaces a couple of months ago, and when my original plan was nixed my inner kindergartener had a fit and decided she did not want to play with that for awhile.  that is when i started working on all of the other pieces you have seen posted here recently.

well, i had to have a little sit down with my inner kindergartener and tell her she could not make any other new goodies until she finished these.  so, with that said off to work we went. 

this photo is a wee bit blurry...but it gives the an idea of what a mad scientist i am in the studio.  i have a 5 foot long table and about 4 square inches of work space!

from this angle  anything looks good....

this was, in my original plan,  going to be the finished piece....before i soldered the vintage medicine label (which is in the post just prior to this one, i even give a few soldering tips)

you know it is funny, as i found myself flustered that this piece was not coming together as I had originally planned it, i just knew that this must not be the plan for it....ya know what i mean.  having that 'knowing'  made me feel a bit less frustrated and very calm instead. 

i posted on facebook that this piece was not coming together as planned and a few minutes after coming to the realization that there was another plan for all of these arty parts a fb friend commented

 'The Native Americans in New Mexico say, "Talk to the clay" - what you have in mind may not happen....the materials must be listened to because it will come, in the way it should. (And I love the development so far.)'

yipes, that made the wee hairs on my body stand straight up! 


i went to bed not sure how i felt about the necklace, and about 4am decided maybe i needed to march right downstairs and tear it apart and start again....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....i fell asleep with that thought.

when i awoke in the morning i felt a bit better about it and decided a break from it for a day or two to do some yard work.... might just be what i needed to fall in love with this piece.  sometimes, just a few and far in between sometimes,  it is not love at first sight when i assemble a piece.

to help get a better vision for the completed piece i pinned the soldered piece to the mannequin and decided to let the 'vision' of it all sink in.

yesterday i did 2 1/2 hours of yard work.  i was so excited to be able to do as much as i could before the beast started whippin my butt. 

i still have several more days of yard work ahead as i, over the years, have done a ton of landscaping.  when it is all pretty i will take a picture for show and tell. 

i woke up this morning hurting in places scientists have yet to name from all of that yardwork.  my left hand  hurt from using the clippers to clip all of the dead remains on a few of the decorative grasses we have.  my pointer finger and thumb were swollen and my thumb was kinda dead feeling....kind of  scary....almost like someone had come during the night and snatched all my thumb innerds and left me with a hollow thumb!  

i was not sure if i was even going to be able to work on the necklace, but by this afternoon i knew what i wanted to do and i was going to do it even it i had to use my toes in place of my fingers!

this was plan b.  this is where i was going to say...tada!  i am done....but it was still speaking to me and it was not saying i could tell everyone i was done with it. 

the edges were hard and there was all of this spacey space that needed something.

i have told the story before that i would have loved to have been an anthropologist or archaeologist.  i grew up with learning disabilities but no one 'got it'  that it was  what i had. back in the day if you weren't gorked out and drooling all over yourself, then you were just plain lazy or did not care...or did not love your parents enough to try hard enough. 

i loved science, and still do.   had i understood what i do today i would have had the courage to pursue my dreams in the field of science, but, just like this necklace had plans other than what i had for them i believe God had better plans for me as well.  i kinda feel like i am still waiting to see it....maybe it is not about me at all......where was i.....

i wanted this necklace to represent the process of modern man (1930's) discovering and hidden lost tribe.  modern medicine, as the label states, meets the witch doctor.  the modern medicine man meeting the tribal medicine man.....and how beliefs and faiths came together......hmmmm....belief and faith.....vintage religious trinkets and newer religious trinkets.....i think i have just what i need to fill the gaps and holes and soften this piece......

better, but still not 'it'

i think i can call it done now.  i have fallen in love. 

there are still some shiny parts that i need to patina to give it that oh-so-old-and-crusty-dig-site look and i will do that tomorrow.  my brain said E-nuf after this!.....that and the hubby and daughter had just gotten home and i missed um.

to be honest it will be monday i am sure before i start on number two.  i just really don't feel like starting the project all over again....there are lots of bits and pieces of the struggle i left out because they are boring, and those are the parts i don't feel like doing again just at this moment. 

oh....the bone is real.  it is the toe bone of a coyote that the etsy seller promised a friend found dead on the side of the road that had been hit by a car.  i really don't like to picture the back story of this....makes me sad and gives me the heebies at the same time, but i did not want you all to think i was tricking coyotes in to giving me their toes. 

i am hoping to get at least 1 blog post in over the weekend....we will have to see...pms is hitting and i am thinking this month might be one of those curled up in the corner sobbing for no apparent reason type of months.  i could live on chocolate covered pretzels and orange juice....it makes the pms happy.....we did not have either of those a couple of hours ago so i ate a spoonful of brown sugar and gulped milk straight out of the jug aftward, even though just an hour or so before i read an article on how sugar is killing peeps.    i will be 47 next month according to my birth certificate...my brain says about 22.  i just love the wild ride the hormones have been taking lately.   oy. 

nighty night.  sleep tight.

have a beautiful weekend! 

big squishy hugs and sloppy kisses to you all.  xo