What's in your keepsake box?

I was looking thru my keepsakes box the other day and thought I would share some of the items contained within. Does anyone else have a keepsake box? What do you keep inside?


I've been collecting messed up coins for as long as I can remember. My favorite one is the blank penny.. I found it in a new roll of pennies when I worked in retail. The pennies on the left are from various places. PCB zoo, Rock City, Six Flags and the Silver Comet Trail. The two smashed coins were the only two coins recovered from the train tracks. The ones on the right side are just various abused coins. One quarter has its sides rolled in forming a bevel on both sides of the coin.. Some are just bent and twisted and some are overused.

I save any wheat pennies, 50 cent pieces or dollar coins I get. I love the look of foreign coins.

I also save paper money from around the world. I found one in a box of stuff from an estate sale. Most of the others I've had since I was a kid.

The best keepsake of all is the green stone my brother brought home for me from Scotland. I love the color of it.

I have another keepsakes box that I've saved all the ticket stubs and cards since Todd and I have been dating.

My first Bubble Beads

I made these Sunday night. I decided to only use my new glass rods and stringers.




I made some other beads but I haven't taken pictures of them yet.

Craft room and Glass store

Finally got my craft room rearranged.
I still have more sorting to do but atleast the end is in sight. I put all my glass making supplies in the black milk crate I found on the curb. Everything fits great. I put all my glass rods in a plano box after I took these pictures.


I will take better pictures this afternoon. I was still cleaning when I took these Saturday.
I drove to Roswell, GA Friday morning to visit Flametree Glass. It was the coolest store. The owners were very friendly and helpful. Here is everything I bought there.

On my way home I stopped by a thrift store I'd never been to and pick up a few things. I bought a large bottle of Sobo Glue for .69 cents, a picture frame for a certificate for .50 cents, this huge bread book for $2.69

and a bag full of watches for $3.99

Progress is being made!!!

I decided to take Thrusday and Friday this week as mental health days from work. I don't get paid vacation or sick days.
I'm so glad I took off work.. I've been really stressed with work lately and I needed some "me time".
I got a lot done today in my craft room.

Before


After


The craft room looks better but most of the stuff that was in there is now sitting in the living room waiting to be sorted out.


Chloe even claimed her bunk bed before anyone else had a chance to steal it.. lol


I'm not finished yet but atleast progress has been made.

Creative Slump & Vacation

I was not feeling very creative this weekend so I didn't get anything done besides laundry.
This whole week I have the house to myself so I'm working on getting my craft room rearranged. I needed to be able to use the living room for a storage area. I should have started on it yesterday after work but I decided to play a video game on the big screen in the living room.
My boyfriend and his son went with his family to Panama City Beach. I didn't want to go this year. Plus staying home alone is a vacation of sorts.

If I manage to make any progress in the craft room I'll update with pictures but it will probably be a quiet week on my blog this week. I'm still reading blogs daily but won't really have anything to post on mine.

Glass work

Yesterday evening we had a big storm roll thru so it was a lot cooler outside. I decided to work on glass beads again.
As soon as I tried to light my torch I could tell something was wrong with it. It took about 5 tries for it to light and it kept spitting and sputtering the whole time I was working. I had just changed my canister of gas so I knew it wasn't out. I checked up on it online and discovered that everyone that has owned a Fireworks torch says they don't last long. The get gunked up and can't be disassembled for cleaning. I guess I need to look into buying a Hot Head torch.
I did manage to make 5 beads but it took forever for the glass to melt and was difficult to work with.
The yellow bead shattered when I tried to take it off the mandrel.

101 Things that Make Me Happy!

Anna over at Chickens in the Basement posted her list the other day so I thought I would try to make a list of 101 things that make me happy too.

101 Things that Make Me Happy!
1. My Family
2. My Boyfriend Todd
3. Wednesday night supper at my parents
4. My dog Toby
5. my cats Chloe..
6. Delilah..
7. Luna..
8. Sam
9. Watch parts
10. Good deals
11. yard sales
12. Thrift stores
13. Thunder storms
14. Rain
15. A/C
16. friends
17. blogger friends
18. vintage jewelry
19. vintage stuff
20. All animals
21. Bare feet
22. Yellow box flip-flops
23. Comfortable jeans
24. T-shirts
25. Free stuff
26. Leather scraps
27. Crafts
28. Polymer clay
29. Tools
30. Glue
31. Good books
32. Soft sheets
33. Rainbows
34. Ladybugs
35. Tiny seashells
36. Fresh country air
37. Morning dew
38. Fresh strawberries
39. Sound of babies laughing
40. cats purring
41. Learning family history
42. Sweet tea
43. Chocolate
44. Ice cream
45. old sliding pocket doors
46. old metal doorknobs
47. Please
48. Thank you
49. Old wooden tools
50. Old photos
51. Butterflies
52. Kitty kisses
53. Finding gemstones
54. Feathers
55. Magic markers
56. Good music
57. Meteor showers
58. Glass
59. Beads
60. Metal findings
61. Flowers
62. Honey bees
63. 4 leaf clovers
64. Finding money in the dryer
65. Cats making biscuits
66. Sound my dog makes when he sees another dog
67. Fluffy clouds
68. Hugs
69. Cheesecake
70. Streams
71. waterfalls
72. Sunglasses
73. Classic chap stick
74. Sunday comics
75. Fridays
76. Cooler weather
77. finishing a jigsaw puzzle
78. cats on catnip
79. funny videos
80. lemonade
81. granny smith apples
82. fried green tomatoes
83. coloring books
84. moon
85. dependable cars
86. pedicures (I’ve only had 2 my whole life)
87. nature
88. Muppets
89. Labyrinth
90. robin Williams
91. garden fresh tomatoes
92. having a job
93. having roof over my head
94. being debt free
95. finding clothes that fit on sale
96. doodles on paper
97. my digital camera
98. chimpanzees
99. gorillas
100. orangutans
101. Prozac

100th post

This is my 100th post.... and I don't have anything to blog about. (crickets chirping)

I haven't done any glass beads lately been too hot outside.
I haven't worked on miniatures because my craft room is still a mess.
I have been working on my craft room everyday. I've discovered that I don't have enough room for all my containers.
I've really got to work on the storage side of the room.
This is what it looks like from my desk


The lovely picture on the wall was here when we moved in, it is covering a huge hole in the paneling that was also here when we moved in 6 years ago. I think I might remove the old kitchen table from the room completely. Probably put it on the back porch to do glass beads on. I'd planned on using the tv in my craft room but there isn't a cable wire in there so the tv has just been stored there for a few years. I'd love to be able to open the doors on the entertainment center again.

Yard Sales

Friday during lunch I stopped by an estate sale that I had been to last month. They had uncovered more stuff so they were selling again.
These watches were $1 each


Gloves were 75 cents


These items were 50 cents each


These necklaces were just 25 cents each


Saturday morning I decided to just hit the local sales. When I walked out the door just after 8am it was nearly 90 degrees and muggy. I knew I wouldn't last long out in the heat so I decide to do drive by shopping. There were two sales just a block away from our house and they seemed to only have kids stuff so I didn't bother getting out of the car. I had seen one on Craigslist that said they had crafts so I headed towards it. When I got to the sale I discovered that it was the same yard sale I've been to 3 other times. Her yard is nicely shaded so the heat wasn't so bad.
She had put out a lot more stuff than the other few times I'd been there. Tons of craft stuff and selling it cheap.

$2.50 for everything.


close up of jewelry

Steampunk Charms are done

I finished my steampunk charms last night. I might still add a little bit more to each of them but the over all design is complete. That is a huge weight off my shoulders. Ya'll will have to wait until after the swap is complete to see all of the designs. My cats kept trying to help. Delilah sat and watched for a long time but as soon as she started messing with the charms she was removed from the desk top.
Chloe came to help while I was cleaning everything up so I took a few cute pictures of her.
I almost got a picture of her yawning but my camera wouldn't focus on her until right after the yawn. But little pink kitty tongues are cute too.. lol

Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to finish organizing my craft room.

Steampunk and Glass Beads

Last night I finally created a Steampunk charm that I love. What do ya'll think?



I haven't worked on my glass beads in over a week since I've been cleaning and making steampunk charms. These are the last set of beads I made... I don't really like any of them. The colors came out ugly..

Steampunk Charms in progress

I thought it would be really easy to put together a dozen Steampunk charms... boy was I wrong... There are too many decisions to make. I spent most of the evening yesterday disassembling watch gears and pins. (I finally figured out how to remove the pins in the center of all the gears) Those things are sharp. I don't know how many I've gotten stuck in my fingers so far. Handling watch parts is dirty.
I have all these ideas in my head of what to do but making it work in metal is difficult. I guess I need to figure out how to solder everything. I bought a wind up clock a while back at a yard sale and took it apart of all the gears and stuff. I'm worried that the charms might weigh too much.
I want to figure out some way to incorporate a couple of the 9mm shell casings I saved from my first time firing a gun.

Here is a sneak peek at some of my layouts so far. (I'm not really happy with them yet.)



The 3 plastic drawers on the right hand side of my desk are packed full of "steampunk stuff".

Craft Room Cleaning

I've been working on getting my craft room functional again. I worked on it all weekend. There still isn't enough space for all my craft stuff.
This is what it looked like back in March.




This is the progress I made by Sunday afternoon.



This is the $10 bookshelf I got at a yard sale a while back. I moved all my books off my wire shelf to this one.


My desk on Sunday.


This is what it looked like last night while I was working on Steampunk charms.

Books and Glass Beads

This past weekend I went to Barnes and Noble and finally used the gift card I got for Christmas. I bought two books

and

So I tried out one of the techniques used in the lampwork book.
I'm pleased with the results for my first few tries.
My glass disk kept shattering before I could add all the dots to make the flower petals.