Mice to the Rescue
There’s an old Carpenters’ song I often sang along to when I was a child. The chorus went, “Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.” It’s been stuck in my head since last week’s impossibly warm days quickly flipped to gloomy, wet, and cold. While my dogs think shaking off the water droplets is great fun, I can’t help feeling a bit lackluster in the chilly gray atmosphere. Add to the mix that Thanksgiving Day is looming here in the USA, and I start adding a verse that goes, 🎶 “Holiday blues and overwhelm always make me want to stay in bed and pull the covers over my head…”🎵
Why are holidays often more stressful than fun?!?
Perhaps it’s the contrast between fond memories versus challenging expectations. For years I tried to reimagine and create the holidays that I wanted and didn’t experience as a child. I had a lot of baggage to ditch. My grandmothers fought like chess queens, with us as the pawns, over when we arrived at lunch and how long we stayed.
I was in my twenties before I discovered that millions of Americans eat Thanksgiving dinner after 3:00 PM. Dinner at actual dinner time was an even crazier concept.
Aiming to both relive the nostalgia and try to create new traditions in an ever changing world can, unsurprisingly, lead to feeling stressed.
Even if you don’t have to deal with “that weird relative who believes that if it’s on the internet, it must be true,” the sheer number of tasks to complete can be exhausting.
This time of year also begins the plethora of magazine articles that tell you to de-stress the holidays by taking time for yourself and doing less.
I truly have no idea how that works.
What I do know that works is adding to the mix with more joy and more magic…the kind that’s delivered. So I’m delivering some new things to bring more possibilities to your life!
Announcing a whole new series of
Enchanted Mouse Tales
Running low on loaves of bread and jugs of wine? For a modest delivery charge the Express de la Souris (Mouse Express) can deliver them straight to your door! Yes, these special fairy-mice do have their own wings, but flying their magic dirigible allows them to deliver far more than their little paws can carry, including great wheels of cheese. Plan your next picnic or evening in with your favorite beings, winged or otherwise, and order now!
Heather began sinking a copper disc over her tiny anvil to forge a cup shape and has progressed to bringing in the top portion by angle raising the vessel over a steel T-stake (just like non-winged humans do). Her left paw is becoming a little sore from the vibration, but with good technique and persistence, she hopes to move on to the planishing stage to remove the deeper hammer marks very soon.
Whether you’re a scholar a simply a book lover, let the librarian fairy-mice locate just the right enchanted book for you and bring magic to your bookshelf now.
There are many more!
I’ve signed and hand embellished these archival, 8” x 10” artist prints to highlight the original gold gilding and meticulously painted layers of metallics.
Purchase of these prints does not guarantee that your metalwork will be completed for you by fairies, but they will bring a sparkle and a smile to your studio.
But wait!
There’s more…
As promised, I’m announcing the 2023 schedule for my metalsmithing school’s inaugural year.
2023 begins with the new extended version of Eastern Repoussé & Chasing online
I heard from so many of you that you’d like my online courses to last longer, so now they do! Eastern Repoussé & Chasing runs from January 23, 2023 to March 31, 2023, and you get access to all the material and your questions answered through May 1, 2023.
But don’t wait to sign up. Early bird pricing ends Dec 19, 2022.
Eastern repoussé is an easily learnable and repeatable system of exactly where, when, how hard, and with which tool to strike your metal to create any designs you want. It empowers you to achieve exquisite detail in many levels of relief and with all the depth you want.
Whether large or small, high or low relief, traditional or contemporary styles, the technique of Eastern repoussé and chasing encompasses it all from the ancient Egyptians and Scythians gold work to my art jewelry and huge sliding doors for a bespoke super yacht.
“One size” may not fit all, but one technique can!
This course features my new “flipped” method to let you work at your own pace and still have plenty of live time with me for coaching and questions.
Since so many students love designing flowers and leaves in their jewelry, I’ve added a whole new Floral Module.
(Don’t worry, alumnus! You’ll have the ability to sign up for this module separately if you don’t wish to repeat the course. But that’s only open to alumni! Click here and sign up to be notified about that option as soon as its available.)