OMG school started!

Aloha!
I know most kids started school well over 2 weeks ago, like my son's children.  However, since my daughter home schools her kids, she decided to start her school after Labor Day.  You're wondering why I'm mentioning this?   Well you see, I'm the "sitter" for the babies that aren't school age yet, which means I'm back to work for my daughter.
So for today's school opening, I made some snack bag treats.

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Not sure where I saw these, so my apologies for not giving credit to the right person for a fun idea.  In  the original photo of this snack there were grapes on the side the candy is on, but sometimes I can be a bad grammie and give the grand kids some not too good treats.  And in case you're wondering, the snack bags are suppose to resemble butterflies.

Prior to school, I had a fantastic end of summer! My BF from Texas spent 2 weeks here in Hawaii; we did some serious crafting and shopping!   We shopped, we talked, finishing each other's sentences, we enjoyed every morsel we ate; we like the same foods and of course we always share what we know about crafting.  We also spent a day at the beach searching for shells and glass.  My back was so sunburned, I'm itchy and peeling now!

Here's some of the bracelets we torched together.

14k gold filled wire, cone shell and freshwater pearl

I wish I took photos of Cyn's bracelets too.  She made more that two, using SS and gold filled wire.

Sterling silver and freshwater pearls-earrings

This last piece below, is a "Sandra Lee Semi-homemade" , for those of you familiar with the Food Network.  You see the majority of the necklace is purchased already made. What I did was drill a whole in the main piece to add a freshwater pearl.  Hence, the semi-homemade.

Well, this is it for now.  Hope your summer ended as splendidly as mine.  

Thanks for the visit.  If you're interested in any jewelry pieces, just email me.

Aloha,

What!? It's August already?

Aloha!
Time sure flies when I'm busy being lazy and uninspired.  I have no idea what happened to July.
 I did however take a couple of jewelry soldering classes.  I wanted to step outside the box to get over my fear of the flame.  These classes were a great start for me because, in class we used the smaller butane torches and not the acetylene torches.  Those big mamas scare me big time!
Here's the first project:

I used fine silver (99.9), and this was a fusing technique, so no solder needed.


In another class, we were instructed to use sterling silver and/or 14k gold-filled square wire.  I did both gold and silver projects.  Here's some simple rings:

So, my final class, a bezel cup attachment class, a few weeks later, I almost melted one of the little cups! The torch was a little bigger, meaning a little more power!  But inspite of it all, here's that final project:

 

Well, that's it for now.  Hope you all have a wonderful August!
Aloha,