Teacher Gifts!

Aggh! it's almost the end of the school year. In my annual effort to save the teachers of the world from the gifts I used to get when I was in the classroom* here are a few links to great and not-too-spendy projects you can make (or your kiddos can!) to say thanks to favorite teachers or other adults who make their days. Remember the attendance office lady who looked the other way on the fifteenth time your child was late? or the bus driver who actually has sing-alongs with the kids? That is going above and beyond.

And if your children are home schooled (lucky-ducks!) then you can make gifties for the public library librarians who find them seventy four books about squirrels or medieval castles, or the cool girl at the coffee shop who spends twenty minutes teaching your budding engineer about the fluid dynamics of the espresso maker.
Seriously, lets all make a gift for someone who makes our parenting lives just that much easier.

The ideas:
Betz White has a pattern for great nest and egg brooches or barrettes to make. Very sweet and a nice take on the ubiquitous bird theme...these make up fast, too!

How about a quick Memory Frame pendant? Don't put a picture of your child, no matter how cute they are. Instead take a piece of their artwork and reduce it on a color copier to the appropriate size. That lopsided sheep in a boat will suddenly look very au courant when sealed behind glass and hung from a silk cord. Add a note on the back (also reduced!) that says thanks for being my teacher and you have the gift that will get worn AND shown off.

And finally, what about a beaded lanyard? If your child's teacher has to wear one of these, why not make it pretty? You can string up beads in the teacher's favorite color, or the school colors, and attach a badge clip hook to the end. This is a gift that will get used!

I am going to go raid my studio this weekend and see what we can come up with...the teachers and librarians in our lives are pretty great.

*Stuffed bears and University of Oklahoma coffee mugs. I was in Texas. Parents asked where I went to school and I said "OSU" so they bought me Oklahoma gear. Problem is, I am from Ohio, so "OSU" means Ohio State University!

Staff Development Day 2009-the project!

We had a great time last week at our Staff Day. It was a bit rainy but we (or at least, I) pretended we were in Bali and that made things better. We made earrings with textured brass strips and riveted plastic flowers to them with sterling wire. I really did try to channel the Bali vibe as we were sitting there, hammering by natural light while the rain drummed down.

After the projects were finished we all enjoyed some amazing Tex-Mex from Chubby's Tacos. We ordered food for 20 people and they sent food for 20 NFL linebackers. Plus their trainers. We all took home the leftovers and my family ate tacos for two days. Their special Guacatillo sauce was great on every food I tried it with...

Our project was a pair of earrings made with brass strips and sterling wire. We textured the brass strips with hammers or punches. Jane wrote a phrase on hers and Tracy created a lacy pattern with the ampersand (&) that I have to remember for future decorative use.

The hammering noise was amazing as it echoed off the inside of the stone-and-wood picnic shelter. It was a light tapping, but the amplification of the stone surface and the sound of the rain outside created a waterfall rushing sound. Our voices were like birds or monkeys over the hammering!

After we textured our strips we cut them into the two pieces we needed for the earrings. This was a simple thing; just measure and snip with tin snips. You'd be amazed at how many of us had to measure and re-measure. My strips were each about 3 inches long.

The sight of all of us making jewelry in the park attracted a few curious on-lookers and at one point I found myself answering questions about what, exactly, we were doing. I probably could have signed some folks up for the 'class' if had an empty seat!

We used a two-hole punch to make two holes at one end of each strip, and one hole at the other end of each strip. This was easy but we had to take it slow. The 20 gauge brass sheet we used was at the very maximum capacity of those two hole punches. Since we were crafting au naturale we couldn't use electrical tools.

The double holes at one end of the strip were for the ear wire and the riveted flower. There was a tricky wrap that took me several tries. I don't think I did too bad, though. The wrap keeps the head pin in place and makes the earwire secure.

After we got the earwires attached it was time to make our first rivet. We used the 18 gauge sterling wire and an anvil to create a smooth rivet. Then we stacked up our flowers and riveted them in place, trimming the wire end and reserving it for the other rivet.

This was where the cursing began; rivets can be tricky and for many of the folks that day this was a new experience. That was the nice thing about us all being there, though, as we talked each other through the sticky parts.

After the flowers were riveted in place we had to carefully bend the earwires. The headpins we used were 20 gauge sterling and so they needed only minimal hardening, a few whacks with the hammer did the trick. Then we each carefully bent them around a ring mandrel to get the right curve.

There was a good bit of joy at this point. Some us were done and already wearing our new jewelry (or at least admiring it!) while the remaining workers were anxious to finish.

Many of the folks treated their brass strips with Liver of Sulphur to darken the brass and bring out the patterns stamped on the surface. The earrings had a very mechanical, steampunk-goes-flowerchild feel to them.

I have worn my pair at least three times. I call them my Bali Souvenirs.

Redecorating...

We've redesigned our shopping site and I love it! My favorite part? It loads faster, so that's quicker shopping for you. We don't yet have all the new tutorials or project ideas up, and there are still lots of kinks to work out, but we did get up our What Our Customers Say About Us page, which was fun to put together.

The very talented Sandy, our web designer, put in many, many hours on this. We've added a side navigation bar with lots more headings so you don't have to wonder what the heck Bits and Bobs is anymore! You can just look for head pins or charms and, voila, there they are! We also have a new feature where you can ask to be notified if an item that is sold out comes back, plus we've sorted the goodies differently so you can see each bit or bob that much better. It is more in my nature to be mysterious and label things cryptically, but customers and all those business experts out there tell me that folks like to find things fast and know what they are looking for. Oh-kay!

We have a goal to add all the basic items we reorder every month at the real brick-and-mortar stores up there on Ornamentea.com some time this year...it's a lot of work for Sandy and the rest of the talented folks who work here but it is also going to make our site easier to use and the business (hopefully!) easier to run. Look for new categories like Glass Soldering and Bench Supplies, more beads of all types and more papers and book making supplies...it will be like a tour of our real stores, but on your laptop!

So do me a favor and check out the newest version of Ornamentea.com and send me a note to let me know what you do and don't like about it. Oh, and if you find any mistakes PLEASE let us know! Thanks!

Mother's Day

We celebrated Mother's Day in one of the best ways possible; we played in the garden all day. I weeded and trimmed, and my husband worked all day to make me a new coop for my chickens. Since the old coop is a 80+ year old shed that is past rickety this is such a swanky upgrade for the hens. The tin roof and the wire mesh came off the old coop and aviary, as did the door!

My mother started a tradition when I was in high school of asking her teens to spend all day on Mother's Day working in her garden. For her it was a great way to get big projects done with a minimum of griping and we teenagers loved the fact that it was a 'free' gift. Screened porches got painted, fish ponds cleaned, bushes dug out and replaced, trees trimmed. We had a good time and began looking forward each year to the day and the work we'd do. My own husband joined in the work when he was still only a boyfriend and he worked so hard my mom told me he was a keeper! Now I get to enjoy the same day in the garden, although my own daughters pitch in at their own scale; they make sand cakes, or have wagon races or make fairy houses in the bushes for me. Someday they'll cut down a tree or repaint the lawn furniture, but not yet.

My daughters played so joyfully in the garden all day, friends came and went and all had a good time. The children were giggling and laughing so hard and we periodically brought out new snacks or beverages to keep them going. In the late afternoon my neighbor showed up with paints and paper and we all sat at the picnic table and made paintings. I realized about 20 minutes into the process that some of the paint my youngest was mostly finger painting with was acrylic paint, not fingerpaint. A l-o-o-o-n-g soak in the tub got her squeeky clean and I am not going to think for even one second about what substances are responsible for those intense colors in the paintings she made!

The new chicken coop is almost finished. The perch and feeder need installed, the water can hung at just the right height. Over the summer we'll add a small enclosed room for winter, new perches and maybe even a sliding hen door to the yard. My whole family be at the Henside the Beltline Coop Tour this weekend, checking out all the fancy and regular coops and maybe next year we'll put our new coop on the tour. The girls will be ready with the sand cakes.

The Henside the Beltline Tour de Coop is Saturday, May 16th from 10-4. You can come pick up a map at Ornamentea on Saturday; bring a few cans of food or a cash donation for Urban Ministries food pantry. More information can be found here.