Back Home :)

We're back home from our long but delightful trip from Northern California. We arrived Monday evening after a 3 airplane travel and a total travel time of more than 30 hours. It was kind of hellish but we survived :)
We came with 8 (!!!) suitcases, two carry-alls and two hand bags, and one bag with snacks, a total of 13 pieces of luggage. Yes, we paid a lot of money for excess luggage ;)

Our rental car was exploding, filled to the brim, when we went back to SF airport.

During the 4 hour drive, mum had to sit with a bunch of globes on her lap. In San Francisco after checking in to our hotel (close to the airport) we went to our 70th or so thrift store to get one more suitcase for the final items. We couldn't do it earlier as we wouldn't have fit in the car :D

Checking in with so much luggage was a challenge, we had to push each two carts full of luggage for about two miles to check-in, at 5 o clock in the morning, without breakfast. By the time we were checked in we were already exhausted.
But eventually we arrived, all suitcases arrived too and we got them in our car which was at the airport, it took some puzzling but as our own car is a little bigger mum didn't need to have a suitcase on her lap.

I'm sure you are wondering what the hell was in so many suitcases :)
Well a total of 19 (!!!) globes helped for the bulk :)

More than a 100 books helped for the weight!

Loads of tins helped in general ;) And will be used for jewelry.
All tins were filled with semi precious stones and treasures for new jewelry pieces.

And the remaining was filled up with a huge pile of vintage embroideries, trims, yarns and fabrics with a few vintage dolls, you get easily 8 suitcases full enough to burst :) We also got some clothes (all thrifted, we did not buy anything new, eco friendly shopping :) ) and some fun things for ourselves.

We have been catching up with orders and trying to clear out all the stuff.
My globe collection doubled from 19 to 38, most have a place already, kind of crazy but I love it :D

Yes I even managed to color coordinate them :)

We'll be making new things soon, missed making things and we have lots of new supplies to work with and are full of inspiration!

Our Creative Space...

It has been a while since I shared a creative space, not that we haven't been creative but more as we just often forget to take pictures of progress. This time I did remember to take pictures, especially as it was a new experiment. A while back we purchased the Soldering Tin Tutorial by PipnMolly and although I studied it almost right away I only now have been able to actually try it out.

We purchased some vintage tin plates to give it a go, these are pretty thin so I could cut them with our tin scissors.

After that I gently hammered one of them to make it domed without scratching the drawings on the tin, the tutorial explains how to do it best.

After that I sanded the sides and soldered it to an adjustable ring, I had domed the tin to measure exactly the top of the ring.

It turned out adorable if you ask me :) And I have just listed it in the shop. I'm planning to make necklaces with the birds combined with berries and branches, we'll see how that goes.

This gorgeous plate turned out to be more of a challenge, it is pretty thick and to not loose anything of the pretty tin it needs to be sawed, the more I will saw it will become easier but for now it is a struggle.

With the outside piece I'm making a cuff which will close with chain on the back. I've soldered some leaves to it for some 'sprouting' effect.

While taking pictures this bee was busily buzzing nearby.

I had a lot of fun with this method of working so am sure that more tin pieces will appear in our shop :)