I hope that everyone had as great a Thanksgiving as me and mine had. The in-laws went to Breckenridge for the holiday and so we opted for a nice quiet family Thanksgiving at home. We really had a great time. Jay set the mood with music and holiday scented candles and we worked together as a family to make dinner. Nonnie enjoyed helping with the green bean casserole and shucking corn. She is such a good helper. I will enjoy that while it lasts. 🙂
We sipped on spiked cider, sang holiday songs, and had some wholesome quality time together as a family. There was a feeling of love and peace in the air all day. It was a Thanksgiving that I think I will always be thankful for. Let there be no doubt what I am most thankful for in my life …
Dakota, Nonnie and Hailey. 🙂 They are the three greatest treasures I have ever known in my life.
I braved the traffic on Black Friday to do a bit of Christmas shopping. It was stressful of course, but I returned home safely and retreated to the comfort of the studio. While I sawed and filed on the product of my first etched metal experiments (quite fun, btw) Jay was researching the various ways that people around the world celebrate Christmas, or the likeness thereof. Here are some pics of my metal etchings, along with a cup of spirited cider in the background. Yum! I decided to make a test sheet with random stuff on it and my sheet metal wasn’t big enough to make full cuffs, so I made half cuffs. I have the basic ‘eveyone’s gotta try it’ spiral pattern, a grove of trees and a piece that I was trying to make look somewhat modernized – but my kids insist that it looks like a building because the squares make them think of windows. You’ll also notice that I was playing around with the idea of creating signature tags to include on pieces that I would like to sign. The idea is worth some merit and I will continue to experiment with it.
My charming other half made us some MORE hot spiced cider with a little MORE bourbon. Gotta love him! 🙂 We then broke out the Christmas Tree and had fun decorating the tree. This is the first Christmas tree that Hailey has really ‘been aware’ of and of course her first priority was to taste test the ornaments.
After the fun of decorating the tree was over everyone went off into their little corners to do their own thing. The girls went to play with their dolls, Dakota went to the game room to play video games, Jay broke out his favorite computer games and I returned to the studio to drill my etched pieces to make bracelets out of them. I decided to make them half cuffs with wire and bead backs with the simplest of clasps. Nothing too fancy, but a lot of fun to make. While I was taking photos of the etched metal, I got some photos of some other bracelets I made recently.
Delia Stone's Studio 
