More O Ring Woes

Is it just me, or what.  I mean, can I be the only person on this planet who is O ring challenged? Ok, here's what happened.  

Now, nice kid that I am, I am ordering O rings for myself and Chris because she lives in Medieval Scotland where they are just getting around to the discovery of rubber.  They have not yet arrived at O rings.  Now, IMHO, If they are smart, they will stick to sealers for canning thistles (or whatever you can in Scotland) and gloves.  

So, I got to the wonderful folks at satincord.com and order O rings.  HAH!  After many many abortive tries ( from companies unnamed) at getting nice fat little O rings that fit on 2mm cord, I succeed.  What came in my envelope are actually plump fat chubby cute little O rings that...FIT!  I actually put them on my 2mm cord and, will wonders never cease?  They fit.  I heave a big fat sigh of relief.  I am a happy girl.  My O ring hex is over and I am free of its curse.

Right.  I gleefully rip open my next envelope which announces that I have 4.5 mm O rings.  They are going to be closures.  Sure they are.  Who lets me out in public?  These O rings can fit around the neck of a giraffe.  

Now, Chris, who lives in Medieval Scotland where they don't have rubber, thinks closures are a scream.  She sent me directions.  Put rubber cord A into O ring A.  The directions even had pictures so I wouldn't get confused.  Dear sweet girl that she is, she sent a follow up email inquiring if I needed translations and/or help understanding.  We are NOT amused. Harrumph, I say.  WE have rubber here.  It's not my fault if they insist on labeling it in metric!  Oh God.  Do NOT get me going on metric.  I think I already posted about this.  Not only am I O ring challenged but I also have issues with metric.  I mean really,.. how am I supposed to know just how long King John's big toe was?  I am certain that is how they decided what metric ought to be.  You ever look to see how big an inch is in metric?  Don't do it.  And who knows what other parts of King John they measured!

But, I digress.  Back to O rings.  So, my envelope is chock full of 4.5 mm (the size of King John's little toe nail, no doubt) and, naturally, they are way too big for my 2 mm rubber cord. Wouldn't you think that 1/2 an mm would be just right to hold 2 pieces of 2 mm cord?  No? You sure?

Ok, Life is still ok.  I email Robin (aka Ms. Satin Cord Store) who is sitting in Florida somewhere thinking life is grand if only the alligator would get out of her swimming pool.  The poor thing will get up in the morning ( Robin, not the alligator), toddle off to work only to find another email from the O ring challenged idiot in Honolulu.  I bet she'd rather have alligators.

I figure that between lots of dollars and many emails and several tries of mailing rubber back and forth across the Pacific Ocean and all of America, I will eventually get the proper sized O rings.  I am dreaming.  These things are in mm's.  They are not supposed to match anything in today's known world.  King John has been dead for about 800 years.  Scotland is smart not to get involved in this rubber thing.  Gorse.  I think they can gorse in Scotland.  No doubt Chris will enlighten me.  :D

New *Jade* and A Correction

Thank goodness Cat was aware and let me know that the Satin Cord Store is satincord.com.  I managed to get it right on my shopping and clay goodies list, tho.  So, you can click on that and it will get you there.  Thanks, Cat!  Smooches!

Now... I have been messing around with Fimo's "transparent" clay.  It comes in great colors and it makes grand jade.  I love this stuff!  I am making *jade* in all its colors.  I can't post the pink one yet, but soon.  :)  Meanwhile, here is blue and yellow.  See what you think.  I just love it!

A Very Cool Site

Many of you probably know about all the zillions of great online sites there are from which to buy goodies.  I would like to mention The Satin Cord Store, if I may.  This lady Robin owns it (I guess).  Anyway, Robin and her band of merry maids have the best stuff!  She has cord for every possible use you can think of as well as tons of other stuff.  Like BUNA O rings!  Don't get me started.  Robin not only sells then cheaper than others but.... she actually tells you the right size you need for your cord!  What a concept.  For those of you who read my post from a few days ago, you will remember that I am Buna O ring challenged.

The customer service here is stupendous, too.  I emailed her whining about the cost of shipping and she wrote back right away adjusting to to much less than the national debt!  What a girl. Never has there been a time when I didn't get the best personal customer service from The Satin Cord Store.

So, if you are in need of lovely cordage in a zillion colors and widths, go see www.thesatincordstore.com.  You will be happy!  

A New Camera

We just celebrated our 20th anniversary so B got me a brand new camera.  I took a bunch of macro photos today and what a difference!  So, here is what we got: Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS 8.0 megapixels.  Wow!  This little thing is super!  And it comes in colors.  :D  I got metallic brown.  Go check them out!  We got ours from Amazon.  For all of you who are taking photos with the intention of selling goodies online, this is a wonderful thing.  I am now going to rephotograph all my stuff and repost.  I better give my Hunnibunni a smooch!

Upon Learning The Metric System

Oh boy.  Metrics.  Why is this so hard for Americans?  The entire universe uses it but we don't. And I know why.  Hah!  WHY? you query?  I will enlighten you.  It is because the metric system is based on growing up with weird things like litres and millimetres.  Liters here.  Who actually knows how much a liter is?  Nobody.  And MM's?  Aren't those candy?  So, a few days ago I made a Fire Mountain order... more on this later.  The catalog said...Oh boy! Buy black buna cord!  Great price!  Ok, I'm in.  I buy 25M of black buna cord.  Do I have ANY idea of how much 25M is?  I do not.  Nobody does.  Europeans guess.  :)  Americans get the twitches.  

So, my 25M arrives.  I now have enough black buna cord to wrap the entire island.  Who is that guy who wraps buildings?  I can wind this stuff around 'Oahu.  And what am I going to do with this?  Hmmm,  I can string some exceedingly cool clay goodies.  But WAIT!  If I use buna cord... I need the infamous O rings, right?  

Do NOT get me started.  Any of you try to buy buna AND O rings?  It is a government conspiracy, I tell you.  You can buy 25M of 2MM buna but NOBODY tells you that you can buy the O rings that actually go with this.  You can buy O rings that come in scrawny MM's.  I know, I now own 1000 of them.  Did the person at FM know if they fit the 2MM buna that she sells? She did not.  Not her fault.  FM has 1.4 trillion items. Most if them in metrics.  And, do they even call this black 2MM stuff buna?  Nope.  It's something else.  With O rings that don't match. Skinny, scrawny, emaciated, thin, pathetic, feeble O rings.

  

Unless you know both the inside AND the outside diameter.  DiaMETER!  Arrrrggghhhh!  See? And, on top of that, I am thinking these O rings will be normal chubby fat cute little O rings that everyone uses on their inro and such.  Harrumph.  I get 1 billion emaciated O rings. PROBABLY they will fit my 25M, 2MM buna (maybe) cord.  But, they are so skinny, I will have to use about 40 of them just so people can see them.  I am O ring challenged.  I am buna challenged.  I am METRIC challenged!

But, I promised you the skinny (hah!  think O rings) on Fire Mountain.  Other than metrics, they do good.  I ordered just a few days ago and got my order today!  I was happy.  They have great stuff.  Great prices.  The only caveat I have is... don't return anything.  I have returned a few things over the last couple years.  Sometimes they know I have returned things and adjust.  Mostly I have to say... did you get my return?  They say... hunh?  I don't see anything here.  

Swell.  Now, in their defense, each time I have returned something and had to remind them I did, they fixed it forthwith.  But, the catch is, you have to remember you returned it and watch to see that they adjust your bill.  Luckily, they are a super company and I have only had to return stuff about 4 times.  And it wasn't because they made an error.  Well... other than the pasta machine from hell.  But, more on that another day.  :D

A Computer Dinosaur

Well, I was just perusing Blogspot's updates and I am here to tell you JUST how relieved I am to know that my atom feeds are improved.  I didn't even know they were hungry!   Come on now... how many of you REALLY knew your atom feeds were hungry? SEE?  It's not only me. Well, maybe it is.  It's tough being a computer dinosaur.  I work hard at it.  Matter of fact, I do believe I will be a computer trilobite.  They are WAY older than these upstart dinosaurs.  :D

So, it has been pretty quiet around here.  Hmmm, I lied.  It hasn't been quiet at all.  All kinds of people moved in with the old folks next door.  Actually, I think there are about 30 people in there.  All of them shouting at the top of their lungs in Tagalog.  All of them well over 60.  It's actually like being in a train station.  I have no idea who is really supposed to be the renter.  

And the people who were supposed to move into the end unit?  The owner waited until they had actually brought their truck full of furniture to the door before informing them that she had changed her mind and they couldn't move in.  I smell a giant huge Tyrannosaurus Rex-sized lawsuit coming.  I have dinosaurs on the brain.

And speaking of brains, my kitty Ipo needs a frontal lobotomy.  Ok, here is the cute cute kitty with this nice thick fur coat.  She lives in Hawaii where it is 87 degrees outside.  Where is she happily snoozing?  Yep, on top of the hot dryer.  Now, If I forced her to sleep there I'd get convicted of animal cruelty and thrown in the clink for 2 thousand years.  You'd think she was a cold blooded.... dinosaur!  Sorry.  

I'm going away to my clay table now.  I love Elaine's clay fabric so I am going to steal her idea and try it.  Go look at her clay fabric goodies.  Just gorgeous!  Perhaps I will make a clay fabric dinosaur!  :D

A Grand Site

I was just looking at Desiree's super tute for her Casablanca Beads.  They are just too pretty for words!  So, here is her site: Desired Creations at www.desiredcreations.com.  Beautiful stuff and super tutes!

Inclusions

Now, here is a fun thing.  I bought a new tool for quilling.  I have grand ideas that I will get back into quilling after a VERY long hiatus.  So, I thought if I clayed the handle I would get all excited about quilling again.  We will see.  

But the fun thing is I grated some crayons and put them in the translucent clay.  For the earrings, I folded the crayons inside two layers which gives kind of a Monet look.  The clay on the handle is the crayons sprinkled over the trans then run through the pasta machine.  If any of you decide to do the crayon thing, bake your creation on a file folder because I am here to say that crayons are just full of wax or grease or something.  And it melts all over the place.  I baked mine on a file folder and it worked great.  Of course I had to dump said file folder because it looked like someone had eaten french fries on it.  :D

Some New Backgrounds

Today I received some brand new background sheets upon which I will photograph my creations.  They are just fabulous!  Here are 3 shots of the same earrings on 3 different backgrounds.  Amazing how different they look, don't you think?

A Slug

HI Everyone,

I fear I have been a slug of late.  I didn't really feel like posting because I didn't have anything fun to say.  I have been thinking about my sister.  Mostly that my sister had major surgery today but she is doing well according to her daughters.  So, if you are of that mindset, please think get better soon thoughts for her, ok?  Thanks!

New Beads and A Test

I have a bunch of loose beads new on my Etsy site and I am going to try to post a picture as my friend Chris is having trouble posting.  Here goes.....

The Horror of It All

A horrific thing happened today.  My key board went belly up for no apparent reason leaving me stranded in non-computer land.  It was grim.  I always thought only 14 year old hackers ruined key boards.  But, I was talking to friends and poof, all I could get was gibberish.  So, after B got home from golf we went to the keyboard store and got this cute little Mac keyboard with big keys.  I like it alot.  I had no idea how traumatic it would be not to be able to answer emails and stuff.  This was payback for all the times I laughed at Brian when his TV died and I would tease him by timing how long he could go before he ran out to buy a new one.  Next time I am going to make him wait the length of a golf game... and lunch.  :D

A Buncha Beads!

Hi Everyone!  I have been sooooo bad.  I was making goodies and not writing on my blog.  But, I made a whole bunch of beads that I put on Etsy.  And, along with that, Wee Cow Morag came to our home for a wee reunion with her brothers.  As always, they drank too much.  I don't know what it is with these wee cows!  Couldn't POSSIBLY be moi, could it?  Nah, I didn't think so.  So, I will post a picture of my Buncha Beads Bowl and The infamous Bruce discovering champagne.  He actually was persuaded to share with Bhaltair and Morag.  In case you are wondering, those yummy balls are falafel.  YUM!

And, in case you want your own Wee Lush, I mean.... Wee Highland Cow, please go to www.theweehighlandcows.co.uk.  Also, check out Kathi's really cool chunky bracelet.  She's hiding out at Dragonsglass>>> (so you can see on my list where to click)  and look at Elaine's fab canes! She is tooaquarius>>>>  Being a die hard Aquarius... I ask, just HOW can you be Too Aquarius?  Hmmmmm? Can't happen.  Mega hugs to all Aquarians!  Ok, ok, all you other signs, too.  Except...no, not going there....  :D

I haven't taken pictures yet but I made some really nice earrings with her canes.  Oh my, and Kathi's canes, and Seana's canes, and Chris's canes..... I KNOW I forgot someone.  Oiks!  No, no, no... Ginger is chasing me... quick!  Go look at Ginger's sites.  Yep, plural.  The girl can't stop with clay and soap.  Now she has candles, too.  Soon Ginger will need a WWW all to herself.  So go check out the Famous Gingerbell>>>>>>

I'm outta here.  I have a client.  ANd I have to go make black and white cane earrings.  Heh, heh.