Beans and tortillas and silver earrings...

It's a good thing I'm not trying to make a living doing silver... I don't like beans and tortillas that much... Back in August, I learned a little bit about silversmithing from my good pal Eleanore MacNish. She's so cool. Gave me two days of her time and even took me shopping to help me filter through all the tools and stuff required to make silver jewelry. Last night I finally got the courage to go out and try something on my own. After two hours of measuring, sawing, filing, shaping, soldering, re-soldering, more shaping and hammering... I have these semi-cool, but rather unwearable earrings. I don't know how to make a hinge, so there isn't enough room to put them on without hurting my ears. I know because I did put them on. Taking them off was even worse! But it's a start. And don't get all excited about my success with the hearts. I didn't make those... Kate McKinnon did, and you can buy them too. They're wonderful!

I'm not going to bag the whole idea of silver. Like knitting, I might never be great at it, but I enjoy the doing. Like I say to friends who tell me they're "stuck" and don't know what to do... You have to do something before you can do something else...

For now, I think I'll go back to bangle bracelets for a while. I'm pretty good at those, and hey - you can never have too many bracelets! Lauren told me she used to secretly call me Jangle Mommy because she could always tell where I was by the sound of my bracelets. Here's a picture of one I made back in August for my friend, Karena's, birthday. The five rings represent the five decades of her life, all separate, but connected and interlocked, part of the whole. She turned 49, which puts her in her 50th year - just like me. It's not the most beautiful piece of jewelry in the world, but it does have sort of a Barbarian Chic, don't you think?
And so, onward... silver, beads, beans... another busy day...