The grey bar in the forefront is a crosstrainer by the way. One of those 'I really need to get fit' moments several years ago that's sat collecting dust ever since. And underneath the pile of boxes and rugs at the back is a sofabed. Honest.
But I'm getting there. All of the kids crap is now out (you can't see it but the desk and surrounding floor area were covered in stuff). My sister's other half is coming up to collect rugs, crosstrainer, and sofabed, plus a spare cooker and freezer from our old house that were unneeded after we moved! She can use them or sell em or whatever. My time is worth more than I can make from them, hers isn't. I'll post another pic when I've finished sorting it out.
There is so much equipment I want. I need an anvil, and some jewellery hammers. A milling machine (I think thats what its called - has steel type rollers - mainly because I want to be able to texture metal sheet with it). A propane torch and something heatproof to solder on. A Genie has become my cabbing machine of much desire. It will be mine! Various other 'little' bits. And longer term a kiln and glassworking equipment. Oh and a safe... I'm impulsive, not stupid :p. Unfortunately they'll have to wait... Mr VAT man is owed £1800 and I owe quite a bit to my Big Sis Friend Georgie of www.madcowbeads.com so I have that as my main priority. So project Be-A-Jeweller will have to wait a little while so I can sort out urgent payments (not helped by the fact that I'm owed about 6k from the sale of part of my business earlier this year).Therefore this week will, I think, be dedicated to real work (doubly important because eBay have decided to add item specifics to the jewellery making category *sigh*. I haven't finished adding them to beads yet and now I have a zillion other templates to edit. The only good point is that at least they did it when its quiet!). Unfortunately its August, the sun seems to have finally come out for summer on this little grey island, and that means folks aren't spending anywhere near enough shopping online! I also have an absolute shedload of unlisted stock to get up on my ebay site - just taken a massive load of glass beads (with lots of shiny gold foil beads - beautiful, expensive and hard to get over here!) plus I have a fair few new findings and bails that I haven't sorted out yet, including a lovely new range of gold filled items. Unfortunately gold filled is still relatively unheard of in the UK so I'll have the task of educating my customers on the value - approx 100 x more gold than gold plated, 5% of total weight is real gold and doesn't cause allergies, flake, or tarnish. Wonderful stuff!
If I do get a few hours to play with, I do have one toy I'll be trying out - my lovely dremelly-type tool - which while not what I want to use long term for opal cabbing, can certainly be used to play with until I can afford something better. Although having looked at all the zillion bits for it, I'm not sure I have a fine enough grit to get a really good finish. I do have stickyback wet & dry sandpaper though, so I can probably modify some of the bits. And I have some rough and valueless low grade opal to play with before I let myself loose on the good stuff!
Ad finally, to balance out the not-very-attractive picture above, here's a pretty one - this is one of mine, made with gold filled findings and Swarovski crystal (I sell lots of Swarovski). I really wish I could master photographing necklaces. I kick ass at tiny things - crystal & findings are a doddle - but anything bigger than a couple of inches and my quality drops. On my list of things I need to learn!
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