My New Tumbler

I got a new tumbler!

On a whim, I decide to check Craigslist and see if there were any tumblers for sale.  There was one, and it was right in my town.  It is a Lortone 3A, which I think is a good tumbler for a beginner.  So I emailed her, but she wanted $80 for it.

80 dollars???!!!  I could buy a new one for 80 dollars.  So, I offered her $30.  She came back with $50, and then we ended up splitting the difference and settling on $40.  I asked her if she had the shot and she said no.

Well, guess what?  When I went to pick it up today, the shot was inside of it!  She didn't even know, she said it was her son's tumbler.  So, I actually ended up getting a pretty good deal.  It doesn't look used at all.  She even had the instruction booklet.  I'm going to run a cycle with the just the shot and the water/Dawn solution to make sure it's clean, and then I'm all set to start using it!

Cat

My Little Cube

I made a mistake and bought the wrong size jump rings for a bracelet project (embarrassingly, several times), and then I had to also buy the right sized ones. Now I have more jump rings in my house than the bead store has!  (I'm not kidding, I have hundreds of them, LOL)  So I decided to do something constructive with them and teach myself chainmaille.

Little did I know, chainmaille is fun and is just as addicting as beading!  Of course, as usual, I jumped in feet first.  I could have started with something simple, and probably should have, but hey, why not go all in?  I spotted this pattern for a cute little chainmaille cube by lunabellvarga, and just had to have one of my own.

Thank goodness the directions were very clear and there were good photos!  It was still a bit confusing in spots, but I did manage to successfully make a little cube.  Now I'm on the hunt for more chainmaille projects to work with.

Here is a photo of my finished cube...

Cat

Ava'a Bead Projects

Well, as promised, here are some pics.  For Ava being only seven years old, she is really a good little beader!  She has so much patience, making sure her needle goes into the right bead, backtracking if she makes a mistake, and not giving up until she completes a project.

Last time I was there, I taught her peyote stitch and she picked it right up.  I was a little surprised, because she only has a set of "hobby" beads that someone bought for her, and as you know, they are very uneven in size.  But she picked up the idea of culling right away, and used the beads that were most identical in size.

This time I thought it would be fun if we made a daisy chain.  She caught right on to it after a few mishaps, and here is her first chain.  I think she did a great job!

She also made a air of earrings all by herself to surprise me.  I'm not sure if the different color drop beads are supposed to be a fashion statement, or if she just didn't have two matching beads in her stash.  I'm just proud to have them, and yes, I will wear them as soon as I put some earring findings on them.

I only wish she lived closer so that we could bead together more often.  She loves it, and seems to have a natural talent for it.  I am sending her some size 10 beading needles so that she will be able to thread them without help.  She had a bit of trouble with the 13's that I brought with me. 

Well, that's it for today.  I am working on a chainmaille project that I hope to be able to show you soon.  It is so cute!  I can't wait to finish it.

Cat

A Week In Seattle

I haven't posted in quite a while, and now I arrive at Blogger to make a post and the layout is completely different!  Arghhh!  I hope I can figure it all out.  Obviously, I did figure out how to get to the page where I compose a post, now if I can just get it to publish correctly, maybe I can figure out the rest of the site later.

I have just had a great week in Seattle spending time with my granddaughter.  The weather was great all week, and Seattle is really a fun place.  There is always something to do, and most everything is within walking distance.  My old bones are aching after all that walking, though.  And up and down hills no less!

We did lots of fun things together.  We saw the movie Pirates in 3D.  She really wanted to see Dark Shadows, but she is only seven and her guardians wouldn't let her see it. Boo on them, I'd have taken her.  I used to watch the series as a kid, I'd run home from school so I could turn it on at 3:30.

We watched a Mariners baseball game at Safeco Field.   The Mariners won in a shutout against the Twins.  YAY!  Good day for us to attend.

There is an annual Elders Tea at her school, which I attended with her. It's lots of fun.  We got all dressed up and wore jewelry that we made.  The teachers served us tea, cookies, fruit, and finger sandwiches.

We went out for ice cream.  There is a new gelateria by her house.  I had chocolate and ricotta gelato.  The ricotta was surprisingly good!  She had mango for her first flavor, and I can't remember the second flavor she had.

We spent a lot of time at the park.  She loves going to the park, and at the one near her house there is always something going on.  We saw some people doing a fashion photography shoot, and then we took some "fashion model" pictures ourselves.  We watched people practicing dance moves, people playing baseball, a group playing croquet (believe it or not, she really loved the croquet!), and just generally hung out and had fun.

And of course we ate Peeps.  Shhhhh...she is not allowed to have them, so each year I sneak them there in my suitcase and we go to the park and eat them.  Hey, what are grandmas for?  ;-))

Next post I'll have pictures of the bracelets we made together (she is a pretty good little beader!) and of the earrings that she designed and made for me all by herself.

So, that was my week.  How was yours?

Cat