Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

Miss "Chickens in the Basement" is this week's big winner with her entry of "He was serious when he said, "Don't make me pull this train over!" Congratulations! And just what did I like best about this entry? Thinking about what this woman did that would make a train engineer upset enough to threaten to pull the train over and she enjoyed whatever it was enough to keep doing it and then laughed and waved when the train left her sitting on a cliff! Did I overthink it? Maybe a little, but admit it - it is fun to think about....

Anyway - Miss Chicken, please e-mail me (rachel@twodogpond.com) your mailing address and I will put your winning soldered glass pendant on a 24" ball chain in the mail!

Necklace Contest - Rail Style

This week's image is taken from an old travel poster. Lovely colors.

The contest is a simple, yet extraordinarily fun one: You make a comment as to what you think would make a great backside for this image. A word. A phrase. A quote. On Friday a winner will be chosen and rewarded with a soldered glass pendant on a 24" ball chain. Complete 'contest rules' are over there >> on the side somewhere.
All Aboard!!! Let's Go.

New Window. Done.

The window I was working on last week is done...

We Are Family!!

Rachel's sister Bonnie here. I was given the important task of choosing this week's necklace winner as I am visiting Two Dog Pond to celebrate Mom's 92nd birthday. [Don't tell Rachel, but I am praying that I will be snowed in for a few days so I can continue to soak up more of this sister energy (and homemade bread & Tim's dee-licious chicken)]. You no doubt can see where I'm coming from - family is so very precious to me. So this week's winner is "We are Family" submitted by the lovely Jessica. Congratulations! When we were growing up, someone gave look-alike-dresses to Rachel, me and our sister Rhoda. Poor Rachel wore that dress for about 5 years - when she outgrew one, there was another in the next larger size to take its place. Even now, we show up dressed alike - unintentionally - it's rather uncanny. Like yesterday - we wore the same color sweater. And drank the same cocktail. Have a fun weekend - toast your family. Hug your sisters. Love to Betsy and Rhoda - wish you were here.

P.S. to Jessica - email your mailing address to Rachel so she can send you your necklace. It turned out great! You'll love it! B.

The Beginning of Lent

Today is Ash Wednesday and we'll be going to church tonight. I'm concerned that you might not have your Lenten jewelry yet, so I've just added this to my little etsy shop....

No, I won't wear the necklace to church, but it is a great 'witness' necklace. You can't argue with a thing about it.

You can get yours here.

Necklace Contest - Fancy

This week's contest picture is someone's family portrait. Don't you love it? The contest is simple: You submit a word, comment, quote, phrase that you think would make a great back side for this picture. Enter often, or just once. On Friday a winner will be chosen and awarded with a soldered glass necklace on a 24" chain. The guest winner-chooser will be Aunt B, my sister from San Diego who is coming out to brave the cold and celebrate our mum's 92nd birthday! (she was 63 when we were born - ha ha)

Carry On.

It's A BLIZZARD!!

It was snowing and blowing when we left for church. Nothing to brag about (as you can see from the photo above looking at the pond)
The snow got heavier and the wind got windier...we kept going because we were running the sound system this morning and were supposed to have a meeting after church. About 30 people showed up - the smart ones stayed home... When we left church, you could barely see the building... we were all told to avoid the main way home because of an accident involving four or five cars....so we all followed each other right into some deeper snow.This is Tim and Wayne checking on the people in the car ahead of us -

Tim got us turned back around and drove home ( s l o w l y ) with zero to little visibility.

scary view!

Meanwhile - I'm working on a fun piece of glass - I'll post the finished product if/when it gets done.

Another piece of 'embossed' fused glass turned into a necklace.

Stay Safe and Warm.

Put an Emergency Kit in your vehicles.

Happy ♥ Day

Why, Miss Kitty - You Done Won!

Miss Kitty - I have declared you this week's winner with your entry of "How would John Wayne handle this?" By the time it got from my eyes to my brain, it had turned into "What Would John Wayne Do?" or WWJWD (I hope you don't mind I twisted your entry a bit...)

While the soldering iron was heating up, I googled WWJWD just to make sure it was original. It's not, but that's OK, 'cause I think John Wayne would just keep on goin' with it. Heck - he'd probably just shoot the google and do what's right-Make Miss Kitty her necklace.

Here's what I found:

From the Urban Dictionary: What Would John Wayne Do - often used in trying to talk a friend down from a potentially socially dangerous situation.

There you have it! Miss Kitty - your necklace is in the mail and on its way to you.

...:::~*~:::...

For those of you who know me personally - you will be happy to know that I stopped the "I'm letting my hair grow" nonsense and had it all cut back off. Whew! I feel like myself again.

...another new necklace

I finished this one this morning -
After soldering this longhorn to the bottom of the pendant I gave the entire piece a lovely copper patina.

...and I discovered a new word today....

it was the word verification when commenting on Vintage Christine's post!

The Finished Piece

One of the finished pieces of fused/embossed glass I've been playing with in the kiln.... I added some turquoise to the chain and a tiny silver star from the pendant.
Great on a white t-shirt!

Yeeha! It's the Necklace Contest!

It's been awhile since we used a Cowboy image for the Two Dog Pond Necklace Contest. I like this image 'cause it looks like there's some important Cowboy Wisdom goin' on. Leave a comment here as to what you think that is... a quote, a comment, a word, a brand, whatever. On Friday a winner will be chosen and re-warded with this here prize: a soldered glass pendant on a 24 inch long ball chain. Yeeha!
Thank y'all for stoppin' bah.

More Glass Experiments Going On

More glass loaded in the kiln. It's sitting on 1/8" pieces of kiln paper with shapes punched out of them...or on the shape itself for a concave effect.
The colored glass didn't work as well as the clear (see the dragonfly from the other post)

...if you hold the glass up to the light, you can see the images....

this is the back side.

I dug through all my System 96 glass to find some more transparent pieces and found a light blue and a dark red piece. They are in the kiln right now heating up -
my obsession continues....

She's Spoken For

Clever Miss T Lee. Great play on words. It was either this choice, "I'm Spoken For" or the Fat Bottomed Girls entry (also by T Lee) which is my all time favorite song!

Congratulations, T Lee - you've done it again!

Your soldered glass necklace will be in Monday's mail -

...:::~*~:::...

My apologies for the lateness in this post. I was scurrying about to get things ready for last nights Open House and spaced everything else off. It was a great show - so many wonderful people showed up despite the snow. Thank you!

Look at My Glass!

A while back I bought the wrong kind of kiln shelf paper, and am not the kind that sends things back...BUT it was expensive, so I've been trying to figure out how to use it. Yesterday I found a cool use....
I punched a shape out of the paper and placed COE96 clear glass on top of it. Fused it in my sparkly new kiln and, Voila! The glass slumps right into the 'negative space' leaving it embossed with the image. The paper peels off and you are left with a clear piece.

So this morning I'm getting all my punches out and trying it with some different glass - in colors!

Yes, I know I should be working on inventory for my Open House at the Liberty House tomorrow night, but this is soooo much fun!

Special Valentines

I'm making some Valentine's Jewelry for the Open House on Friday at the Liberty House.

Lots of Love and Kisses.

...:::~*~:::...

You can now purchase them from my etsy shop if you can't come to the Open House.

(Thanks for asking, Bon!)

Necklace Contest - Ride On

This week's necklace contest image is a boy and his bicycle. I get a lot of requests for bike images, so I found one.... Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to come up with a clever saying for the back side of this image. On Friday a winner will be chosen from the entries and rewarded with a soldered glass pendant on a 24" ball chain.

There are more instructions posted off to the side>>>

Hey - where did January go?