Home Renovation -- Complete

Long-term readers of my blog know that my family went through a home addition and renovation for six months, ending in January. I know you've been waiting for some "after" photos, and I'll tell you why it's taken me until now to take them. Because once the professionals are done, you still have a lot more to do. Like buy curtains and rods, since your new rooms have new windows. Paint the art room, because you stupidly said, well I'll just do that myself. Move all the massive amounts of art supplies that you have in your art room -- wondering how all this used to fit in the corner of your bedroom, but now will barely fit in an entire room. (Reality: your art stuff was in your bedroom, in the hall closet, in the family room, in the computer desk; you get the idea.) You need to find just the right shower door, and discover that they don't exist anymore. You need to make a curtain for the new bathroom door, since you were shocked to discover it was installed with unfrosted glass. You need to buy new towels, sheets, garbage cans, and all kinds of things to fill your new rooms. You need to install shelving in the new closets, because you stupidly said, we'll do that ourselves. All that took time, but my house is at a clean stage right now (because I invited friends over last week; if you need to clean your house, invite your friends over, and that will motivate you to do it) so I've finally taken pictures. Here they are. And I love it.

The start of the addition being put on the back of the house. The little window you see got covered up, and they broke through the end of a small closet to make the doorway connecting the two.




Here's down the hallway to the addition.



The outer wall to my son's old bedroom. I let him draw a creature on it, then I painted it. It was fun for the month it was up, then they tore down that wall to expand the family room.


Here's the room after the wall was removed.


This is the finished room. Well maybe not finished -- I'm going to paint another picture to put in here, and I need something in the corner, maybe a plant. Yeah, it's never-ending.


My beautiful new kitchen.


With really cool vein in the granite.


Looking the other way to the dining room.


And one more view.


And finally, the art room.




We've only lived here for 18 years, and it took about 3 to find the right builder. Yeah, baby, it was worth it.

Goals -- Who's Got Goals?

I talked about action in my first April post, now I'm going to talk specifically about goals. I don't like goals if they're vague, like, I will have a new job by next year. That's a nice goal, but how would you go about doing it? You need to have your action steps planned, and you need to have a way to measure the results.

Recently, as I've been reading a lot of writers' blogs, I see a few have adapted a similar way to measure the path they're taking to their goals. Let's say a writer's goal is to complete a first novel in a year. That's huge, but non-specific on method. Here's what I've seen some writers post on their blog, in different variations:

Submissions: 3
Rejections: 0
Acceptances: 1
Short Stories Written: 2
Submissions Still Out There: 4
Word Total: 17,390

This author may be keeping track of things on a monthly basis. Their method of tracking tells me a lot: they know that if you don't write stories, you won't meet your goal (perhaps the goal is to publish a book of short stories, or to gain recognition by having short stories published in a variety of venues); they know that if you don't submit, you can't get accepted; and they know that they must write, write, write, if their goal is to be a writer.

My goal is to sell more jewelry. Here's how I might modify the above list, with the expectation that submitting pieces to contests or magazines will increase my exposure and possibly result in sales:

Pieces created this month:
Pieces submitted:
Pieces still out there:
Pieces showcased on my blog:
Pieces posted on Etsy:
Pieces sold this month:

How do you quantify your steps toward your goals? Have you been writing or making art this month?

Forge Yourself Some Jewelry

Forging is a technique in which you use a hammer to flatten, shape, and texture metal. Any amount of hammering will gradually harden your piece of metal more and more. So for example, if you're using soft sterling silver wire, you may want to twist and bend it to a jewelry shape. Well, you want it to keep that shape, and not stay bendable. You'll finish it by hitting it with your hammer to harden it, and hitting it more if you'd like to give it a little texture while you're at it. For silver, copper, and brass, you don't use heat when you're forging. Hitting it with a torch is actually called annealing, and that will end up softening it. If you want to use a torch to add color to a piece of copper, for example, you'll then want to forge it to get it hard again.

And that concludes our mini-tutorial for today. Use the word forge when you're hardening and bending metal. Don't use it just to sound like a macho metalsmith. I've seen descriptions of jewelry on the internet that use "hand-forged", and yet it doesn't appear that a hammer has hit the piece at all. And besides that -- forging shouldn't be so macho, bang, bang, bang. You need to gently hammer and finesse the piece. Banging the heck out of it will not give you an attractive look.

Here are some pieces that I forged:

What's an Etsy?

Etsy is the name of a website. You can find it at http://www.etsy.com/. Artists, writer, and other creative types sell their handmade goods at this site. They set up their own shop, like I have one called Blue Sand Studio. I can sell my jewelry, zines, and other art, under my name, and anyone in the world can find it and purchase it. The purchase price is sent to me through my PayPal account. The reason I use it is because I don't have to build my own website that will have purchasing capability. I use their site, and people can search for "jewelry," "necklaces," "silver jewelry," and hopefully find my stuff. The only problem is, there are 10's of thousands of jewelry items on Etsy. I have to figure out how to make mine stand out.


That's where photography comes in. That can be the hardest part, especially since I'm photographing jewelry. I get a shine if there's too much sun, and I definitely can't use a flash. Over time, you get better at it.


I'm even venturing into the world of painting, and will be posting my first two paintings onto Etsy this week.



Check out Etsy for handmade items. You'll be supporting artists, and you'll find unique items. If you're tired of mass-produced "art," then Etsy.com is the place to go.

Any Etsy shops you can recommend to me?

A-Z Challenge Update

Blogs I have visited so far: #1 - #454
My plan is to visit all of them, but man, really? People are still signing up and there are over 1,200 and still counting!

This includes #453 who just did a post for "D is for Death." I'm finding a lot of interesting people out there.

Number of new followers I've gained since signing up for the challenge: about 30

Number of blogs that I've added to my followers list since I joined the challenge: 32

Number of blogs I'm following that I'm actually reading: all of them.

My method is to read the posts in google reader. So if I get behind, you may get a comment from me on a post you did a couple weeks ago. Hope you don't mind.


How are you doing with the challenge? Meeting new bloggers?


Suggestions for next year:

Find a way to delete bloggers from the list whose blog link just doesn't work. I've found at least half a dozen like that.

Maybe group the blogs by category, such as writers, or more specifically, science fiction writers, artists, moms (or families). Just a thought.

I'm enjoying this. Are you?

Decadent Dessert

Today is brought to you by the letter D. I see that many of the A-Z bloggers chose chocolate for their letter C. Well, I'm going to tempt your tastebuds with this Decadent Dessert -- Double Chocolate Pudding. This is a recipe that I've created over time, trying different combinations and amounts of chocolate. This is my final version, and man is it good. If you're used to pre-made puddings, or even the mix in milk kind, you will not believe it when you taste this.

Double Chocolate Pudding

1 cup sugar, divided
3 tablsepoons cornstarch
1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
3 egg yolks
1 whole egg
2 cups whole milk
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3 tablespoons butter

Put 1/2 cup sugar, the cornstarch, and the cocoa powder into a medium saucepan.


Whisk together to mix and remove any lumps (by doing this, you avoid having to sift the cocoa powder).


In a mixing bowl, put the other 1/2 cup sugar, the egg yolks and egg.


With a different whisk, whisk until the color lightens and the mixture streams off the whisk.


Pour the milk into the cocoa powder mixture, and cook over medium-high heat while stirring. When it starts to boil and thickens a little, then take it off the heat. Gradually pour it into the egg mixture while stirring. (Doing it gradually will prevent you from cooking the eggs. You just want to gradually heat them up.) Pour all the mixture back into the pot and heat over medium heat for two minutes, while stirring.


Chop the chocolate (this can actually be done while the milk mixture is heating up.)


Take the pudding mixture off the stove. Pour the chopped chocolate into the pudding.


Add the vanilla and butter and stir in completely.


Pour into individual one-cup ramekins. This recipe makes about 10.


This is the cookbook that gave me the starter recipe, which I modified. There are some amazing desserts in here -- I highly recommend the Tunnel of Fudge Cake, which is the birthday cake my mom made for me every year when I was young.


Thank you to my son for taking some of these photos. And thank you for not taking one when I was licking the bowl.

I Comment on Your Comment

I would venture to say that 99% of blog readers are blog writers. Which means that most of my readers know exactly what I'm doing: pouring my heart into a post, then putting it out there for anyone to see. Hoping someone reads it. Did they find it through a search? In most cases for me, no. They've found it through a link on someone's blog, or because I've commented on their blog and they've come to mine to see who I am.

While you're visiting, if you find something interesting, please leave them a comment. Bloggers love to get comments on what they write. Please make it an interesting comment -- "Wow, that looks fun!" is just a gesture. Why not go a little further with something like "Thanks for the great post about frisbee golf. If I hadn't seen your photo, I wouldn't have known that golf frisbees are shaped differently than regular frisbees." You can even answer a question the blogger might pose with a link back to your own blog. But don't just toot your own horn -- you're there to tell them you like their blog.


When someone gives you a comment, you'll usually see it in your email. I always email a thank you back to them. In other words, I comment on their comment. That's a great thing go do, especially when you're only getting a few comments. You want them to know you appreciate them. If it is a blogger you've never seen before, take the time to go back and look at their blog. The bottom line is, if you want someone to visit your blog, tell them thank you, then go visit their blog.

Can you recommend any artist blogs for me to visit? I'm always looking for new ones.