A Day at the Zoo

This past weekend was a busy one for me.  Friday night I did the Mesa 2nd Friday Night Out.  I took my new mascot - the pink monkey who wears one of my "Pet Affirmations" and hangs around the tent with Tim and me.  I hung him from the tent poles, and he changed positions on occasion and tried to attract attention... but alas, no Pet Affirmations were sold.  This was his training night. 

The big day was Saturday... we did the ZOOtique at the Phoenix Zoo.  It was a fun day, had a lot of people walking around, but did not have many sales.  And - no Pet Affirmation sales for the monkey.  :( 

One thing I have learned is that you have to have the right crowd for your product, or make the right product for the crowd.   So, I made special Animal Print solid copper ornaments for the ZOOtique Sale.  What dedicated zoo lover could pass those up?
 

Unfortunately, the monkey did nothing to influence those sales either. 
I think I might need to lay him off... hard as that will be, because he is really cute with his lopsided smile, and all. 

The Silver Pieces are Finished

Twenty eight pieces went into my kiln... twenty eight pieces came out.  I was lucky this time - 27 pieces were good!  That is not bad odds... but shows that even after doing this for years, mistakes do happen.
My first photo shows the finished pieces.  After firing, they have tumbled for a day in stainless steel shot... adding shine and strength to the fine silver.

The second photo shows the broken piece.  I must have wrapped the silver too tightly around the glass - the silver snapped!  The glass also fractured... so I will not be able to re-do this one. 

Or will I????  Maybe use a new piece of glass???  Hmmmm... have to think it through.

Pending Silver Run

I have spent the last two weeks working on several fine silver and dichroic glass pieces... finally, they are in the KILN!!! 

My fingers are crossed that all goes well with this run.  I think there are some very nice pendants here, some fancy filigree earring dangles too! 

This may seem really boring to you, but opening the kiln at the end of a run is always suspenseful ... you can have the joy of finding beautiful pieces - or the disappointment of finding cracked glass and lumps of metal.  I will worry about it all day.

Here's a sneak peak....