Friday's Tip: Don't buy a hammer that loses its head.....

I was using one of these hammers that have a interchangeable screw-in heads - you know, I've been hammering alot lately - I raised the hammer to strike the copper sheet when the head flew across the room. The screw on the head had stripped. I can't use it anymore.

Luckily, no one was hurt, but by the way the cat ran out of the room, he thought he was going to get hit.

Today's Friday tip is: don't buy a hammer that's gonna lose it's head.

Losing one's head is never a good thing.

Chasing? Planishing? Are we speaking the same language?

So do hobbyists, crafters and professional jewelry makers really care about the difference between planishing and chasing? Most of us have a chasing hammer as our all purpose hammer but did we know that we tend to use our chasing hammers to planish? That's right, when you are using your chasing hammer to work harden, flatten or smooth your wire or sheet metal, you're planishing. Chasing, on the other hand, is used to incise a pattern into metal by hammering.

So most of us are planishing but not to worry, if you're going to buy just one hammer, a chasing hammer is your best all round hammer. Just a little bit of trivia - you can all go back to talking amongst yourselves!
(Photo Credit: Contenti's Chasing Hammers)

Raspberry Bowl Made With Cold Connections

Lately, I'm blogging on combining flamework glass and metal by using cold connections. I'm using copper and brass sheet metal, copper ball headpins I've made at the torch with a patina I learned how to create in Mary Hettmansperger's book, Wrap, Fold, Stitch, & Rivet. The chapter on creating patinas is worth the price of the entire book! Here is a little sample of the lovely colors you can create on copper sheet:



Brass sheet can get a coppery reddish color which I thought looked just perfect with the Italian made Rubino glass I have. I made a bowl bezel and attached the yummy raspberry colored bead to create a pendant which I'm calling Raspberry Bowl.



My style is either overdone or very modern with a single pendant suspended from a chain. I think this one will be modern to feature the handmade texture and lovely color of the pendant.

A POW bracelet and my promise

I've had my POW bracelet since the seventh grade when my socially conscious history teacher told us about them. We vowed to wear ours until the day we saw them get off the plane in the U. S. Then when the soldier returned home, we'd break it into two pieces and send it to him. My friends soldiers returned, but mine never did.

I watched each plane, I looked for his name and he never appeared. I thought I'd missed him, it never occurred to a young teen that he might never come back. I kept wearing the bracelet sure I'd eventually see him:

Maj Ralph C. Balcom

I never knew more about him than his name but I thought about him often. Wondering who he was, where he was from. I eventually stopped wearing the bracelet in college, sure Major Balcom was home and I had just missed him.

In the early '90's, the traveling Viet Nam Veteran's Memorial stopped in my city. I took the bracelet ready to return it. I didn't think I'd see his name.

But there it was and he was MIA.

I found out he was from the Pacific Northwest. I imagined his family waiting all these years too. Little ones not knowing their father. Parents not knowing what happened to their son.

I know some have returned their bracelets, left them at the wall. But I didn't. At 13, I vowed to keep it until he returned home. He still hasn't. So I'll keep the bracelet. I see you can have a new one made with his name on it - but I have the original from the 1970's.

Researching this blog post, I found out more information and a picture.




I never met Major Balcom, I never knew his family yet as a 13 year old, I vowed to remember him and wait for his return home. No one knows I keep this promise yet I do. I can't leave my bracelet at the wall, it feels like abdicating my responsibility. It may never end up there - because the promise is with me.

I promise to remember Major Ralph Balcom who has yet to return home from Viet Nam. Major Balcom continues to be MIA in Viet Nam when his plane disappeared.

Task Forge Omega has this information on Major Balcom:

BALCOM, RALPH CAROL JR

Name: Ralph Carol Balcom, Jr.
Rank/Branch: O3/US Air Force
Unit:
Date of Birth: 24 December 1933
Home City of Record: Seattle WA
Date of Loss: 15 May 1966
Country of Loss: North Vietnam (see text)
Loss Coordinates: 171200N 1064000E (XE100100)
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 1
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: F105D
Other Personnel In Incident: None Missing
Refno: 0340

Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 15 March 1991 from one or more of
the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence
with POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews. Updated by the P.O.W.
NETWORK 1998.

REMARKS: NEG SAR CONT

SYNOPSIS: Ralph Balcom Jr. was shot down over North Vietnam about 20 miles
north of the Demilitarized Zone in Quang Binh Province. A radio signal
indicated that Major Balcom had parachuted to the ground, but because of
zero visibility at the time, search planes were not able to locate and
rescue him.

Two months later a propaganda film appeared with a man Ralph's parents
immediately recognized as their son being paraded down the streets of Hanoi.
The U.S. Government later identified the man as a returned POW Kyle Berg,
also from the state of Washington.

In November 1973, the Air Force discovered that Joint Casualty Resolution
Center (JCRC) in Nakhon Phanom was carrying Balcom as a Prisoner of War
while Defense Intelligence Agency carried him as Missing In Action. The Air
Force directed JCRC to delete any reference pertaining to POW status in
Balcom's files. Balcom's status was changed from Prisoner of War to Missing
in Action, although analysts say today that JCRC records were the most
accurate and complete because of their close proximity to the region.

JCRC also lists Balcom as being lost in Laos, not North Vietnam. The loss
coordinates, 171200N 1064000E are in North Vietnam about 20 miles north of
the DMZ. Grid coordinates XE100100 are located a few miles northwest of the
Ban Karai Pass in Laos. It cannot be determined why there is a descrepancy
in loss locations between agencies.

Today, over 20 years have passed since Ralph Balcom's last flight over
Vietnam. His family is still not sure whether he is alive or dead. Over
10,000 reports of Americans still held captive have been received by the
U.S. Balcom could be one of the hundreds experts believe are still alive.
Isn't it time we brought these men home?

Ralph C. Balcom was promoted to the rank of Colonel during the period he was
maintained a Prisoner of War and Missing in Action.

Hammering Away....

Lately, I've been developing a new relationship with my hammers. Not my carpenter's hammer but the ball peen and chasing hammers. Although I have basic hammer knowledge, I'm learning the finer points - like why are there so many choices in chasing hammers?

My ball peen hammer and I have a serious relationship that has developed from creating pendants for my sentimental junk, here a pieces of pottery found in the garden one spring day.

Filing smooth, hammering the edge and creating a texture for the brass sheet is soothing and cathartic as I pound over and over again to get just the right finish to the bowl bezel.


I'm going to add a couple of beads or charms at one end but can't decide if I should make a metal charm or if I should look for paw through my box of junk looking for a teeny tiny sentimental whatnot.

Have YOU hammered something lately? Doesn't haven't to be jewelry, it might just be hammering a loose nail. Do you think it's cathartic or do you just miss and get your thumb(OUCH!)?

(Hammer Photo Credit: Ball Peen Hammer)

The backbone's connected to everything!

Wow, I never realized that if you hurt your back, you're pretty much incapacitated. My niece has had back problems most of her life and I can always tell when she's in pain, she walks with her feet pointed out. It is her "my back hurts" walk. I knew it when I saw it but it wasn't until yesterday that I experienced it. I can't stand on hard floors for an extended period of time anymore - I stood in my studio yesterday while I composed fused glass pieces for the kiln, about an hour. I'm paying for it.

My back has hurt before and there some stretches I do that help it. Yesterday, it was hard to do them but I did a few gingerly on my bed at first then on the floor. They really help much more than laying on a heating pad all day. This one is the most effective for me and my favorite...



But all of the exercises on the Mayo Clinic website where I got the photos are worth doing everyday. Even if you don't have back problems, but work at the torch everyday, they're good for flexibility.

Do you have a favorite set of stretches that keep you feeling good? Maybe they're on a website, book or YouTube - I'm always up for learning more!

Junk to Art Bead

I've finally made some of my junk into an art bead! Read all about it on Studio Saturday this week!

Remember, leave a comment and you may win a free bead!

Amazing Night....

Wow, what an amazing night it was - even here in my own small microcosm of North America.

It started with The Teen bursting through the front door with a group of friends around dinner time. They were wound up, excited, loud - I was a bit miffed because it was a school night and he's got lots of unfinished homework to do. But my chiding him wasn't going to touch the bubble of enthusiasm he and his friends had around them. The Teen announced they were going to watch the elections and it just had to be a party because Obama was going to win!

It took a little time to sink in, afterall Generation Jones sat through the Watergate hearings and the apathy of voters - I wasn't old enough to vote then but it set a tone many of my peers followed.

I, on the other hand, believed in Jimmy Carter - the first president I was old enough to vote for and doggedly voted - telling others I had to vote because not participating wasn't an option.

I took my son into the voting booth from the time he was an infant. Always explaining it was important to vote. When he was old enough, we'd talk about who we liked and why.

I guess that's why on Monday night, he used his cell phone to call for Obama.

Last night, I saw something I've never seen - excitement, involvement from a generation of teens who aren't supposed to care, who aren't supposed to have a work ethic, who are supposed to be numbed by videogames.

With each state result, there was squeeling or groans and suddenly I'd be surrounded by the teens asking what did I think it meant? What was going to happen? We discussed it and went back to watching the results.

When the election was called, screams emanated from my house - I wonder if the neighbors knew it was excitement over a political process and not just another teen party.

I'm impressed with The Teen (I know I'm biased) but he wasn't the only one. It was the whole country. I'm amazed and filled with pride.

About Food and Hating Mondays.....

It's Monday. As I sit here in a daze between sentences, I'm just wasting time trying to get motivated. Ugh. I'm not ready for another week!

I wanted to put a Boomtown Rats video on my blog this morning but the embedding feature was disabled.

Shoot!

Good idea thwarted.

Darn but I'll post the link so you can go and watch I Don't Like Mondays and a young Bob Geldof before LiveAid and the funky 1980's fashion.



I like what Bob Geldof is doing but sometimes I think in the US we forget we have people who are hungry too.

I hate Mondays, love '80's fashion and support my local food bank.

What about you?

Books I Love: Wrap, Stitch, Fold & Rivet

It's Saturday morning, one of the few days I have a little breathing room these days. This morning, I'm looking through another one of my favorite books, Mary Hettmansperger's Wrap, Stitch, Fold and Rivet. I made the Shelf Necklace for Ornament Thursday changing it up a bit and making a small wall hanging out of it.



Now I'm jones-ing to do something else. I've got a few projects on the coffee table in the family room. Some are completed some are still works in progress. Saturday morning is just the day to work on them!

When do you find time to create? Is it Saturday morning? or another day?

Grateful for Ornament Thursday

I'm grateful for the opportunity to join and post monthly with a great group of crafty-beady bloggers, Ornament Thursday. You can see all of the great projects we've posted since last December on The Ornament Thursday Flickr Group and here I'm giving a little mini-review of my first few months from the past OT year.

December 2007, Jingle Spiral


January 2008, Spiral Christmas Tree


March 2008, Art Flower Inspired by Brooklyn's National Anthem


April 2008, Modern Glass Links Earrings


Make sure you check out what the rest of the OT Grlzzz are grateful for over on the OT Blog!

Summer's Last Hold Outs

Inspirational color from summer's last holdouts. What would you create
based on these lovely flowers?
--cindyng

Grandma's Jewelry and Kazmer's Staple

I'm going through all of my sentimental bits and pieces to work into jewelry. I spent the weekend working on the pottery shards. So I went back to my treasure box and pulled this out. It was one of my grandmother's - I think my father's mother or my husband's maternal grandmother, not sure which now. It's small, about 14.5 inches - it fits tight to the neck. They're a good example of the "staple" I see in Kazmer's Making Connections book. I'm working on trying to create some as refined as these are - the ones I made this weekend were clumsy. I know - I need to show a picture and I will - stay tuned.

Have you done any metal work? Are you trying a new technique with your work?

Zoo-licious Snow Leopard

The Teen's newest picture - The Buffalo Zoo's Snow Leopard. I LOVE this picture - he's entitled it "Reticence." Perfect name, I think - but don't expect me to be unbiased.

Books I Love: Making Connections

I love this book! I find myself carrying it around the house because I want it right next to me when I sit down for a few minutes. Porque you ask? Well, Susan Lenart Kazmer's, "Making Connections" is not only a comprehensive treatment of cold joins, it's also a beautiful book to look at. Mixing simple, straightforward technical information with lovely photography and drawings, Kazmer's book is a rare find - a treat for the eyes and the mind.

Nine chapters cover materials, tools and every cold join you can imagine. Chapters detail wire attachments; staples, tabs and prongs; rivets, hinges and attachments with movement just to name a few. I'm particularly inspired by the chapter on staples, tabs and prongs seeing new ways to use sheet metal with my glass cabachons or beads.

This is on the top of my pile of books and think it's gonna stay there for awhile.

Score at the Flea Market

As if I don't have enough of my own junk, I made a trip to the flea market before it gets to cold to go. I found a vendor who repairs watches so he has a lot of old watches and small watch parts. He was amazed to find out that people are making jewelry and art out of the old parts. I scored some fabulous antique and vintage watch cases with crystal intact. The square watch case has an amber crystal - sooo cool!

Can't forget the other vendor I found who had tons of old brass hardware and skeleton keys.

It's finds like these that inspire me and make me want to go back!

Do you have a favorite piece of junk or junk store you frequent?

How Did Open Studio Go?

Drum roll please.....

Amazing, huh? I never thought I'd be able to show a clean studio on my blog! In fact, it was so clean one of the beaders on Sunday asked if the studio was always this clean.

I almost spit out my drink.

You're in on it with me - you've seen the pictures- you know the true story.

It's never this clean!

Sweet of her to make the comment, though.

Here's a quick photo of the beads and jewelry I set out for them:

Weird isn't it that so much work fits on a coffee table?

I bag the beads, label them for The Teen to take a photo and to have ready when someone makes a purchase off the website or Etsy. So hundreds of beads can fit into a little 8 by 10 inch tray. It's a little bit of a let down - seems it should take up more space because it takes up so much space in my life.

But

it still looks pretty in the little space

and

it was a quick clean up!

YAY!

Here are a couple more pictures. The color is a bit different because The Teen had to close the blinds, it was just too much sun shining directly on the display.




It was alot of work to get things ready but it's made me want to do this more than once a year. I think there are alot of up sides and it'd be worth it.

What do you think are the "up sides" of hosting an Open Studio? I'll start with a couple of reasons, you add your own in the comments:

1. I don't have to pack all my beads up and travel to a show.

Now it's your turn....

Sentimental Junk

Guess what these are?

Yep, pottery shards and they look like they came from an early 20th century dump.

You'd be right.

The dump was a garden on my father's family farm. The house I grew up in. The house my father was born and died in. I found these shards digging in the garden one year, readying the ground for planting.

My oldest brother laughed at me. Why do you want those old broken pieces of plates?

It's history, I told him. We know what kind of plates they used, we know where they were made and from what.

I'd like to work these into charms like my ABS colleague, Lynn.

What would you do with them?

Update: Open Studio

Whew! I finished cleaning the studio just in time! The Bead Guild called and wanted to come early AND there were twice as many people than I thought were coming. Tight squeeze but they were all very nice and patient.

Here's the "before" picture - messy studio. I know I know, you've seen THAT one! I took some pictures of the "after" i.e., the clean studio and the display. I'll post those Tuesday when I give the official report.


I'm tired so I'll catch you up later.

Open Studio

I'm at my Open Studio today. I'll give you a report on it later on in the week when I get a chance to write a post on it. Time is tight as you know. Hopefully, all is going well!