busy busy

Let's see, I guess I'll just keep this short, even though it's been a while.  I've been rather busy lately... School's started up again so that's a whole load of things to take care of... on top of that there's work and I keep finding more things to involve myself with. It's been fun though so I'm not complaining.  Aside from all that normal stuff though, I'm very excited that this weekend I'll finally be attending the Bead It class for ring making. I believe it's called "This Ring Thing". I'm not so jazzed about the name, but I get the marketing behind it... Real excited for this one since I get to work with Katharine again! In the mean time though, I've been practicing making a sailor's chain, otherwise known as a pinched loop chain.  I've been practicing the technique in copper to save myself the drain of.. you know... buying silver... It looks ok as copper, but I'm using silver solder so it looks kinda odd.  Oh well, once things get settled, I'll put out this puppy in silver and have me a new bracelet (or necklace. haven't decided yet... Although I guess I could attach it to something... like a pocket watch... and go steam punk with it...)

On the tinkerer/maker side of things, I've been obsessed with fabricating my own sun jars! I found a few instructables and I've been hooked. It took me a while to track down all of the components (and despite how much it chapped my ass, I finally got around to paying for a soldering iron... and desoldering tool... from radioshack... I know, probably not the best I could have done, but hey I'm on a budget and they worked just fine...) I spent the better part of the night getting the last few materials I needed and about 3 hours actually making my first one.  I started with a solar powered garden light I got in a six pack from Lowes, but the things are so darn bulky I had to dismantle about 10 screws and some excess copper and plastic.  I do have some plans for that copper, so don't worry. I don't think I can repurpose the plastic since I had to saw through parts of it, but hey, I tried... Anyway, I had to desolder then resolder about 18 times to get everything out of the case and then make sure all the connections worked alright. Massive pain in my... hand... but it warmed me up for replacing the LED.  I had picked up an assorted pack of yellow, red, green and what may be white LEDs (must test these later as they could end up being blue, purple or shooting out rainbows for all I know...), two UV LEDs, and a single blue LED, so I soldered on the blue one just to see if I could do it. Wouldn't you know it, the damn thing actually worked when I was done.  Of course, I had to test it with an actual battery since the rechargeable one hadn't been left in the sun, but that's a worry for later.  Anyway, I hot glued everything into a frosted (with spray paint glass frost) plastic canister with metal and plastic seal and voila! First home made sun jar! It's drying outside right now so I'll have to check it tomorrow once i let it charge up a bit.  Hopefully I didn't damage the solar panel... Guess we'll just have see.

Anyway, that's about it for the day.  I have so many other things I want to build/make/solder/construct/redesign that my brain feels like it's going to bust!

Next on my list of projects:
-silver rings
-sailor's chain in silver
-figaro style silver bracelet
-assorted colors of sun jars and different colored designs
-steampunk-ing some USB flash drives
AND FINALLY (I know, when the hell am I going to study??? O_o")
-start casting resin!

P.S. Pictures to come once I've got a few more sun jars going (and have them charged...)