I’m on a roll. I made the top of this ring from bronzclay, soldered on the shank, and then silver plated the piece. I really love the textures that you can get with the clay but I didn’t want a green finger… hence the addition of silver. Okay, and DH and I really wanted to try silver plating. Although the video that came with our tools was a little scary. Apparently some types of gold plating involve cyanide which needs lots of special care. Don’t think I’ll be doing that any time soon. I’m usually a “Let’s just try it!” kinda gal but with the plating I’ve been very methodical and followed all the directions carefully. Happily it has worked out pretty well.

Okay, off to the Coast for one last hoorah before school so no clay this weekend…

Today my oldest had to go to the doctor and get four shots! Happily we just made the appointment yesterday and so she did not have long to worry about it. She was quite the trooper and took it in stride. I was impressed. Of course she milked it and thought a reward of lunch at the mall was in order… what can I say? I’m a sucker for eating out.

You saw this coming right? Of course Dude wants his own necklace too. Won’t we be so cute?! I love the bronzclay, but I’m more of a silver girl. So on this piece I added a fine layer of silver by plating the pendant and then of course I antiqued it a bit with liver of sulphur. I’m pretty happy with the results and I’ve got a few more ideas… Stay tuned!

So I’ve seen some very cool jewelry with “evil eye” beads and I decided to make myself a few pendants. If they don’t get snapped up today I might have to make them into necklaces because I’m kinda smitten with them and their story.

We had a very nice day at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. My oldest played arcade games while my youngest rode this ride over and over again!

Today we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium which is a pretty cool place. The girls ran about and checked out all of the exhibits. They Had a flamingo exhibit this year and you can see in the picture that one of the flamingos was sleeping in a tree. I know that birds sleep in trees, but sleeping in a tree while standing on one leg seems to take it to a whole new level.

After driving for the past two days it was very nice to spend today in my mom’s house just hanging out with family. My niece came to visit, my brother came to visit, and friends came to visit. in general there was lots of visiting and of course the kids run amok with the dogs. All in all a very nice day.