Doggy Rescue Update

Well Ruby has had her surgery and is healing nicely....It is so nice to see her feeling better.

She is just the sweetest dog and such a good girl. I can't wait to see what she will look like when her grows out...she just gets cuter everyday.

On the glass and jewelry end: I made a trip to the recycling center...what a great place. I found lot's of small cool metal pieces. A whole bunch of different metal wire in heavy and thin gauges. I also found some items that I think will make great tools for my lampworking.

On the home front: We had a wonderful thanksgiving...very quiet and relaxed. Just the four of us and my daughters boyfriend.

We have had the tree up for a couple weeks and me and my youngest have been working on the menu's.

The 24th we are having a birthday party for our oldest who will be 20... (omg how did that happen so fast.) We make her favorite meal and a special cake and put up balloons and streamers in front of the Christmas tree. lol. This year we are going to do something with red velvet cake...could be scary with Michelle in charge..lol.

On the 25th we will celebrate Christmas. I am hoping to talk the family into duck instead of our usual ham...we will see.

A Doggie Rescue

Time has been flying by so fast here. I am still working on my workshop....it has been a little tougher than I thought trying to cram all my hot working supplies into one room. Hopefully that will change in the spring when I build myself a hot shop.

We had been looking for a little dog since we moved here ...we have a 25lb weight limit where we live now. Instead I had a little dog that found me and desperatly needed care. A 6 year old Lhaso Ahpso mix who was badly neglected. She was a matted dirty mess from head to toe. The groomer shaved it off in one big sheet right down to her skin. Both the vet and groomer said it took her over a year to get that bad. She was dehydrated and half starved and needs to gain about 1/3 of her body weight. She was in terrible pain and just had puppies 7 weeks earlier. What we thought was Mastitis from her puppies being ripped from her without being weened, turned out to be a Hernia the size of a baseball on this little 13 lb. dog. The vet felt she had probably had this for quite some time and that it had gotten much worse with her last batch of puppies.

The surgery costs a measly $300.00 and without it she would have eventually died a horribly slow and painful death from jnfection and starvation.

Her Previous owners make me sick and I hope they are prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

For us....we are so happy to have her, she is just the sweetest, funniest little dog....pity stole our hearts the second we saw her.

Here are some before and after pictures of Ruby

A Doggie Rescue

What's gnew with a glassy gnew

It has been far to long since my last post. So much has happened...where to begin.

Well first thing, we moved out of the city, back into the country. Out of our duplex with shared common areas and once again in a single family home :) Hoooray!!! I have a little privacy and my own private space back, and much more space than just a driveway between houses.

There are a few draw backs, such as...

loosing my dog ( although she was taken by a family member and has a great home )

I don't have studio space, well not for my bead torch and large kiln . but do have an area for jewelry making and small fusing (I hope to build a space for everything next spring )

My daughter who moved into her first place this spring is now 50 miles away.

And the nearest supermarket is about 12 miles from here...lol

OMG and mosquitos!!

But all in all we are all so much happier here.

Today my daughter had her first day at her new school. All went well, she made a few friends :D and she doesn't have to ride the city bus anymore..... BONUS!!!

Next spring we plan to have a much bigger garden and even a herb and flower garden for my soaps and scrubs.

I continue to try and eat healthier and have started looking more into some of the local farmers...it is my hopes to get most of my meats and veggies from them and possibly some dairy....if I can find some who arn't using all the antibiotics and hormones. I am slowly finding chemical free solutions to replace the cleaners and beauty products I now use. And am trying to find more ways to recycle and even purchasing products with less packaging in mind.

With the world seeming to go crazy and one disaster after another. The way our government handled Katrina, and what little they have done for the flooding going on this year. I decided to put together a 3 day emergency package for my family and am now working on a 3 month storage of supplies....maybe some of us did learn..better safe than sorry!!

Now for the short term I just need to get some shelving in my work space and the place somewhat organized so I can actually do some work. And continuing with the 2nd "Year of Learning"I just got a few tutorials from Jewelry lessons.com and can't wait to try them. I will be posting the results.

Me? A Tutorial Writer...hhhmmm

I got some very exciting news the other day. I had posted pictures of some of my jewelry at an great web site "Jewelry Lessons.com" It is a place where artists and people interested in jewelry can share ideas, individual lessons, post pictures, write articles, etc. I was thrilled when I started getting compliments and votes from other members to turn some of my pieces into step by step tutorials. I did apply for teacher status and was accepted !!! Whew, wow, ok... a little bit of panic setting in. I have never done anything like this. I have been working on one tutorial for a ring for a few days now...It is a design of mine that was published several years ago as a step by step tutorial in the "Wire Artist Jeweller"magazine. ( and yes, I did spell it right ) I was the feature artist in that Nov 2004 issue. The magazine was instrumental in bringing wire art to the people...before this it was mostly well guarded secrets. I do have to give more credit to writers and editors, there is a lot that go into something like this. Things I never thought of like layout, lighting, and writing ...oh my!! So far things are comming along and I am feeling a little more comfortable with the process. I am hoping to be able to submit tomorrow. And after it has been checked over we will see just how well I really did..gulp. here is a pic of the ring and a link to my profile page and you can also get to the site itself from there if you would like to check it out. http://www.jewelrylessons.com/pljohnson 35% off sale at my Etsy and Artfire shops. http://www.etsy.com/shop/pljohnsonglassart http://www.artfire.com/users/PatriciaL.JohnsonGlassArt

SHAME ON ME

It has been such a long time since my last post. So much for my New Years resolution. Oh well my list was rather large and with most things I have been pretty good. I have had one big life changing experience so far and that is of my first child graduating High School, and moving out into her first place....really bitter sweet moments. I am so proud of her and at the same time want my little girl back. One thing thats nice is shes still close about 20 blocks or so away...so we still get to see her often. Over the weekend we got our garden all planted. I can't wait till I can have garden fresh veggies again. This is one area of my resolutons I have been doing pretty well at. I have been trying to eat healthier and changing some of my old favorites to healthier versions. I am just trying to adapt a different life style period. I am also really watching where exactly my food and other products I put in or on my body are comming from and how there processed. ( although I continue to smoke cigarettes....but that is an entirely different battle. ) I continue to work on learning new things and improving my jewelry making skills. I have come far enough in my beadmaking that I have started to offer some beads for sale. I have been working with silvered glasses and starting to get some great colors...here's a set I'm pretty proud of ...not the purple and blue hues I was shooting for but they did turn out to be this gorgeous mix of browns and ambers.

Another Hump Day Passes

Today was nice and sunny and even a little warmish in the mid 30's . A small hint of Spring to come for us in Wisconsin. My husband ( the construction worker ) says Tshirt weather, and had the sun burn on his face and forearms to prove it.

I spent the day working on lighting and trying to improve my picture taking skills. I think they are much improved ....and have given me a chance to show off one of my focal beads that I just love. Made with lots of silver foil and silvered specialty glass.

New Year - Continued learning

Well here we are well into a new year, and a whole new list of resolutions...one of which is paying more attention to my blog. :-)

I have decided to continue with my year of learning...I still have many jewelry related things I want to learn, and have added some simple computer skills and taking better photos to that list. Most of my learning in 2009 was spent on lampwork glass beads which I continue to work on and plan to start selling soon.

I have been working with silvered specialty glass, and metal inclusions and really love it...the colors and striations are incredible. Here's a picture of a focal bead I'm very happy with. It has lots of silver foil that gives that sparkly mottled natural look and small colorful swirls of silver glass.