I hear the rain.........lots of blah ahead

and it's lovely.
Everyone is in bed and I thought I would take this 'quiet time' to write a post.

The price of silver......well, those of you who read my blog probably already know about it. I almost feel as though my hobby will be over before it's barely begun....and I shudder to think about what the price will be a few months from now. I don't need any silver right now, but I feel pressured to buy some, before it gets seriously out of control. It's so depressing. I can only imagine how it feels for those who do silver work for a living.

I wanted to get a repousse set and a rolling mill, but I'm no longer sure that would be a wise investment. Working with copper is obviously an option, or brass as many are starting to do and I feel that if I were to work with those metals more, I would need a rolling mill and repousse set to keep things interesting. It's so hard to know what route to take. Right now I think one thing I can do is work with smaller stones and designs. That way I can continue to work in Silver....for the time being.

As I wrote in my previous post, we had the inspection and all went well. The owners were quite nice and that afternoon, the new lease was in the letterbox, which we weren't yet expecting. And the nice surprise was, they only increased the weekly rent by $5. It doesn't get much better than that. Oh and there is an airconditioning quote guy coming tomorrow morning. So hubs and I have mulled it over and decided that if they are going to put in the airconditioning, we will stay here for another year. I was originally all for moving, but as we only just did that 10 months ago, I don't really fancy doing it again now......I think I will just try and make this place more like a home and put my own stamp on it, as far as I can anyways seeing as we only rent it.

We finally got my little deco cabinet finished. I will put up a piccie next post and we are half way through our new dining chairs and almost done with the dining table. I cannot wait to get it all together and brighten this place up. I have been buying up little things here and there to decorate the house with. Today we went to Freedom (a big furniture store) and I impulse bought a new big clock and a lovely green vase kinda thing. And a couple of weeks ago I was at Target and I picked up a gorgeous big white picture frame, with places for about 6 photos, which I will most likely fill with pictures of Summer. And I have a few other things I've bought too. The revamped deco cabinets colour now means that we will need new cushions (or cushion covers) and a new rug in the lounge room. If I had my way I would get a new lounge suite. I hate the one we have...and I mean HATE lol.

On the jewellery front, I haven't really gotten much made. I have a few pieces I am working on, but since all this painting and moving business, I haven't had much space in my head for creating.

Well that's enough for now. It's nice n cool and I very much want a hot hot hot cup of tea now :) Thanks for reading :)

I hate renting.

Yesterday I was getting myself and Summer ready to go to the shops to buy some things for Winter, when there was a knock at the front door.

It was the Manager of the Real Estate we rent our home through. And he had an older couple with him. To cut a long story short, he was here to show them through the house and he made out that there had been a letter (notice of entry) sent out to us. But I haven't had any such letter. So I basically said they couldn't come through because I wasn't ready for any 'inspection'. So they are coming back on Thursday morning. Turns out, if I didn't get 1 weeks written notice, I didn't have to let anyone in at all this week. But I didn't know that either.

I figure that he never sent a letter out at all. (The couple were here from the UK and only were going to be down here for a few more days) And I think he was hoping I wasn't going to be home or that he could just push his way in here thinking I wouldn't say anything.

I originally thought he was bringing a couple through the house because he had put the house up for sale. When my husband called him to find out what was happening, the Manager said that it was the actual Owners of the property coming to do an inspection and apparently they do it every year!!!! Well in all the 9+ years my husband and I have been renting, we haven't ever heard of such a thing!!! I am furious to say the least. I think when the renter is still in the property it's rude and intimidating for them and the manager to come through and pick on everything!!!!!!! Besides only a couple of months ago (if that) we had our quarterly inspection with the real estate. So I am stressed out since that visit as I know that they are going to be super fussy and forget that this house was left in an absolute state when we moved in.

The lawn was not mowed and the manager at the time didn't send anyone out to do it till weeks later. The house was covered in fleas the day we moved in and it had to be sorted by pest control. The window panes were filthy, the security screens were filthy, the window tracks were caked in black gunk. The floors were filthy, there were cobwebs everywhere all over the house in every room. I could go on and on with what state this place was like...but I'm sure you get the picture.

I can just see tomorrow morning when they come, they are going to gang up on me and start questioning things and picking on things. And if they do...they'd better watch out. I'm ready for them...picture proof and all!

Sigh.....

Boring post, I know...but I had to get it off my chest a bit more. Only cause I am so frustrated and wary of the visit ahead.

So aside from all that drama, below is a picture of our dining setting we are trying to sell....It's not gross. It's just boring and too big. On Saturday we picked up our new dining table (thanks Ebay) and on Sunday morning we got our new dining chairs (thanks Gumtree). The table and chairs need doing up and I want to paint the setting too. I still haven't painted my little deco cabinet. But I at least have decided on a colour now :) I can't wait to get this inspection done with so I can spend the Easter holidays making over the new furniture.Again, if you got this far..great!! :)
Thanks for stopping by! :)

Things to do...things to do....long post ahead.

It's been a couple of weeks since I last posted, not a whole lot has been going on.
I have rejoined 'Twitter' this past week...I tried a long time ago, but didn't really click with it, so I'm trying again under 'littlecherryhil'.

I have a busy weekend ahead of me. My hubby and FIL are clearing out 'stuff' from our garage and we are having a bit of a 'throw out' session and taking some rubbish to the dump. Then we are going to reorganise the garage and then I want to start on my new antique/deco cabinet (pictured below)

I have no idea what colour I am going to do it yet....I am leaning towards a duck egg grey kind of colour. I'm not one for making quick decisions :(

I am getting a new table today that I want to do up. I will do a post on that another time. And then I have to find some new dining chairs to go with it...I sometimes love Ebay!

Only 2 months now till our lease here is up. That will go quickly! So in the meantime I have to pack and replace some furniture and have big clear outs and find a new place to move to!! Some of the reasons we want to move are, it's a 2 story house and there are only 3 of us...it's too big. It's high maintenance because of it's size...and I just don't want to waste time looking after space we don't use, I can think of many things I would rather be doing :)
I hate the tiles!
I hate the carpet!
And because we rent, we cannot change those things. (I'm not fussy, I just want both the tiles and carpet to look clean...and they don't.....ever....no matter how many times a week I clean them)
And last but not least, the main reason is money. I don't think we have ever had a year since we have been married that rent hasn't gone up. And I'm sure this year will be no exception. So we want to downsize and save some money to boot! Trouble is...I'm kinda picky with lots of things, like I said before, I'm not fussy, but I do like things to be a certain way. So it's not going to be easy to tick all the boxes for the price we want to pay. Another reason we need to move is petrol. Petrol is going up allll the time and we live out of town. Not super far out, but far out enough that if we moved closer, we could save more money just from not using so much petrol.
I will miss it here. I love the high ceilings and the ensuite and the indoor laundry and the bush/rainforest across the street and the space we have downstairs and many other things, but I would be happier to simplify my life.

Below are a few things I have made this past fortnight...I'm not sure of the second piece...I think I might scrap it, I'm undecided. And the last picture is of some of the cabochons I just received yesterday. I have a few more to come and I want to buy more again, but am going to wait....

Well I guess I will leave it here for now. If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading :)
Have a great weekend everyone!

I wish.....

That I could just go back to bed and get up whenever I felt like it.

Obviously when you have children/jobs, you don't really get that choice, it's made for you.

We get the keys on Thursday and we move in on Saturday. It's now Tuesday. I haven't hardly got anything packed. I just look at everything and feel overwhelmed, I don't know where to start.

We have sooooooooooooooooo much 'stuff'. (Points the finger at myself)

Yes. I have much 'stuffs'.

I really should just go ahead and get it done, I haven't enough time to dilly dally now :(

Can't wait to get back to blogging about making new shiny things! Can't wait to get back to making them either!

Moving On.

It's really cold today and I am wearing fingerless gloves and will end up in slippers soon. I'm loving it.

Good news....

We are moving! The house we had applied for, we were approved for yesterday!! And wow do things happen for a reason or what??? Cuz the house we are currently in, is going up for sale! So really, things couldn't have worked out better!! Makes sense now, why we weren't given a new lease to sign. Though I am rather cross with our rental agent, as they didn't even tell us. But all's well that ends well eh?!!

So over the next week I have tonnes of packing to do, and hubby has already organised the electrics, phone, internet, pay tv to be hooked up over there once we've moved in. So we will only have a little bit of downtime without the internet, but that will give me time to get the house in order.

My folks and hubbies folks will be helping us with the move/clean up and I will have to try n get the house on the other end cleaned up before we move in as it's been vacant for over a month and needs a vacuum/dust down.

Well I am off to get my little girl and I some lunch, once a week we have a takeout together, she absolutely loves it! Don't we all :P

Take care till next time :)

What's been happening????

well lol...not a lot has been happening actually.

I think I'm officially in limbo :(

Still looking for somewhere to move to. We only have 3 weeks left on our lease here and we are still waiting on the lease papers...our Agents suck, so they will get around to it when they can be bothered and will probably back date it anyways. There are a million rentals to choose from at the moment, especially in a certain price bracket. I have been watching the rental market for a couple of months now and many are being reduced again and again, cuz no one is taking them.

There are 2 places in particular that have grabbed our attention. We hope to look them over the weekend if we can get keys, but the sad part is, they are available now. Which is too soon. I am starting to fall for one in particular and am worried that my heart will get attached and then it will go to someone else. I hate that about house hunting. You want the place to grab at you, then you know you will be happy living there, but if you miss out, it's sooo disappointing!

On a diff note, I have placed my first order with Monsterslayer.com and I should hopefully have that next week. And I made an order with my usual supplier yesterday and for once they had everything in stock! W O W!!!! So for now I am stocked up, but have no creative juices flowing. My mind is just too absorbed on this whole moving thing. So much so, I only slept 4 hours last night, cuz I woke up just after 4am and was thinking about it and couldn't shut my mind down.

Good news! I sold a piece from my Incube8r cube! It was a plain piece, but it had a beautiful Labradorite stone. It took 2 weeks, but it covered my rent for 3 weeks! I can only hope that I will start to sell more and make an actual profit. I def still wanna do my Etsy shop too though!

Well that's it folks. The dog is licking my foot......I love it.....is that too much information maybe?????

Hello you :)

Well it has been a busy time since I last posted.

If you've dropped by my FB Fan Page, you will have seen what I have been up too lately. It's not much, but I don't get much time anymore.

I made a very chunky finger print charm (more like a pendant really) out of my new pack of PMC3 and it turned out fabulously! I am really reallllly pleased with it and wear it every day. I had read that you cannot torch fire over a certain size, so I was very apprehensive when I went to fire my piece. But I proved that theory wrong as my piece is really large and it fired just fine.

It took me about 4 tries to get the fingerprint impression into the clay, Summer wanted to bend her finger when I wanted her to keep her finger straight, so it was hard going. But in the end it all worked out well and I got it okay. It wasn't a perfect impression, but I didn't wanna push my luck!

Here it is anyways:

It weighs a hefty 25gms and I rolled it at 10 cards in thickness, I like weighty pieces and this is definitely that! I put a purple CZ in and scratched out Summer's name into the clay once it was fully dried. I am really loving the whole clay thing, shame it's so expensive :(

My latest news is I am now selling my jewellery in a shop in town. It's called In.cube8r. It's a regular shop, but only for people who make their own things. You rent a glass cube, under a 3 month contract and you don't have to pay commission. I am going to give it a go for the 3 month contract and see where that takes me. I will have to remove everything from Etsy and make new stuff for it, as all my other work is now in the cube shop.

In other news, we are still searching for the right location to move to. We tried today to check out a new area that we haven't ventured out to before, but Summer wasn't going to let us do it peacefully, she was extremely grumpy and making it hard to enjoy the experience, so we hope to go out on the weekend (and have Summer babysat by grandies) and check out the area properly so we can make an informed decision. The thing that worries me most with moving, is moving to somewhere I end up regretting. That would really suck.

Okay well that is all for now. It's getting colder here this week, I can't wait till it's Winter for real.

I Need slippers......stat!

Over the last few nights it's seemed to cool down a lot. Finally. Though during the day time it's still kinda warm....for me anyways. Right now my feet are cold and as we have tiled flooring under the computer desk, it makes for colder feet :(

Today my little sweetie pie turned 2. I've merely blinked and those 2 years have passed. And today I made my big fingerprint pmc thingy of her finger, it's a really big heart with a cz and I might try and inscribe her name on it if I'm game...I possibly have made it too big, but I am going to go ahead and try and make it work anyway, only this time I will take more care to finish it off and then will tumble it when it's done.

I tumbled the other pmc charms I made and they turned out lots better, so I am not scared off trying more pmc...for now.

I also got some Art Clay Copper to play with. It's really hard to find time to do anything now though. Summer is more and more demanding of my time and it means I cannot go to the bench and create. Though I did get a little over an hour out there yesterday afternoon and I have almost finished 1 piece and got to finish off another that was laying round on the bench for a while.

I have some exciting news in regards my jewellery, but I won't share it just yet. I will wait till Wednesday to share :P

I have found a house to look at....I called to get a viewing and they said maybe next week sometime, so I hope that happens and I can either go for it or move on. I have to start getting a hold of moving boxes too. I am going to throw a lot out and give a lot away to charity shops. We have accumulated way too much stuff and we don't need to take it all with us. I am so excited to move...I get itchy 'need something new' feet every few years.

Anyway it's that time of night when I need to make myself a hot cuppa or rather a thermo full of tea (I likes it verrrry hot).

Take care guys :)

Packing up.

Yes, I am packing already...premature as it is, I like to get things done asap! Both times that we have moved, I have been the only one to do the packing, the difference this time around, is that I have to take care of my 23 month old too....so it's going to make packing and moving a little more difficult.

Since I really am focusing on only 1 hobby right now, I am going to pack all my other things away. That way when it comes to really having to move, I don't have to stress big time, like I normally do :)

I am still waiting on a heap of parcels....I ordered some pure bees wax for my saw blades....I ordered boric acid to make my own firestain resist.....I am waiting on some findings......I am waiting on loads of cabochons.....and I am waiting on my first little try out pack of PMC3....and I am waiting on silver sheet and gold bezel etc.

Nothing is turning up...which is quite disappointing as I want to get on with making things for my shop.

And here are my little boxes ready for packaging things into. This was all I could find...so once I run out....


On a totally random note...I have an addiction to tea towels....this is my collection thus far, I am forever buying them...but then I won't use them, cuz they are too nice....