Halloween Festivities Part 2

Solace looking adorable in her Halloween Trick or Treat outfit which was a gift from grandma!

Over the weekend Jason's mom was in town and Solace was very happy to see her grandma and has proceeded to be super fussy after she left, it could be teething but I really think she misses her grandma ;)

So back on the Halloween stuffs, after the pumpkin carving we went to the Fall Fest put on by Mosaic. Unfortunately there was nothing there for Solace so I said hi to some friends, and we left to have dinner. After that we went to the West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval . I decided to go steam and wear my Damsel in This Dress Blue and Gold Peacock Tailed Vixen Corset.



Solace is wearing her evening costume to keep warm.
We didn't end up catching much of the shows because they were too loud for Solace but we did see some stunning costumes!


Masquerade Couple



The Torch and Pitch fork welding villagers ready to fight back against the monsters who have descended upon their lands. I didn't get a chance to get a good enough pic of the signs they had but the group was very clever.


This was a very creative and detailed costume I don't know if it's a porcupine or hedgehog but the spikes were individually made and went all the way down the back of this costume


Another very creative costume which reminds me of the Cephalopod Tea Party Blog that is currently having a giveaway which ends on Monday so swim over there and follow the blog!

Now time for some gratuitous robot shots:




After getting home from WEHO I had a craving for a Vincent Price movie so we watched the Pit and the Pendulum and then we called it a night, and a very god one indeed.

Halloween Festivities part 1

To start the Festivities on Solaces first Halloween we did some pumpkin carving and I let Solace play with the pumpkin guts which were some new and apparently unsettling textures for her.



Pics of the finished pumpkin

I decided to do this pumpkin on the fly, freehand style, it's a dragon eye. I used to draw some really fierce looking dragons back in the day, perhaps I should pull those out and show them sometime.

WINNER of the Crazy About the Kidlet Giveaway!

The winner is:

Hyla from MyFairyBabies.etsy.com
and Green Earth Journey!


Solace is at 74 Votes so the prize is $10 To Wenchie’s Sacred Relics or Sacred Supplies!
Thanks for participating!

Close Encounters of the Kitty Kind

The Approach

The Intrigue
The Pet
The Cuddle!

Max was such a ragdoll (thats the breed of cat he is) for putting up with her grabbing and crying of protest from Solace when I removed her death grip from Max's fur. The encounter went really well Ru on the other hand may like her when she's a little older.

I was

I was going to write an angry post about the blog spam I received this morning but I thought again and figured it would be in ill taste to tear apart and berate a company because they are ignorant to the ways of respectful interactions and advertising. Rather then actually giving them the free negative publicity and wasting my precious time, I will instead send them a message with the correct ways of interactive or grass-roots advertising and see if they give a s*it.
Anyways I'm feeling less then [Me < Everything else] right now as I = epic fail in life, my offerings, and holding any sort of giveaway. I admit perhaps I'm just going about it all wrong with the first not being well foreshadowed and the second with it's ulterior motives(which one can enter by not succumbing to them but I assume people no longer take the time to read.) I measure myself by a lot of things and not just my shop but I just feel constantly beat down because I have no freedom without compromising the little one I so adore in my life. Another reason to these nagging feelings is that I wanted to take a trip to Europe and off of this progressively God forsaken continent, well more like landmass as South America would not be far enough to satiate this need for an international escapade, which I wanted to do this year as the kidlet is still young enough to travel easily with and the event of that happening is steadily slipping away.
Anyways my nap-time break is over so I must get back to tending the miniature dictator, however no matter how bleak things look now I refuse to give up on or lose sight of my true ambitions, and I must add that jewelry design is not the end of my means by any way shape or form this is not my goal in life, although it is something I enjoy enough to do on a daily basis, that is what perhaps limits my success.
Anyways candid moment accomplished, cute pics of Solace shall commence within a day.

Rubies and Watch Parts - When a Ruby is not a Ruby

Sometimes my self enlightening musings need to be posted here to dispel the unintentional deceit we have been privy to. This one in particular was due to lack of the technology back in the day when rubies were discovered. Rubies are nothing more then sapphires as they are both are corundum which is basically aluminum ions and oxygen, impurities there of create color. For example, what makes the ruby different has to do with minuscule amounts of chromium, in fact, only 1% of the aluminum is replaced with chromium making that highly sought after red color.

So what does this have to do with watch parts?
In 1704 the first union of watch movements and rubies came into conception with the advancements wrought by Peter Debaufre, Jacob Debaufre, and Nicolas Facio. The rubies (sapphires) are essentially the watch movement's bearings, and are present on the pallet, the piece which creates that time honored clicking noise against the escape wheel, these are referred to as jewels. When you see a watch that states "17 jewels" it essentially means the "bearings" are usually rubies (sapphires), but can also be garnets or in rare cases diamonds. These however are industrial grade and have very little value. Also around 1900 manufactured or synthetic rubies became the staple "jewel" present in watches. This was due to the efficiency of the process created by Auguste Victor Louis Verneuil, which affectionately called the Verneuil process and also referred to as flame fusion. Actually synthetic rubies (sapphires) were made even before Verneuil rained on the someone's scientific advancement parade, as they were the first on the market in the mid 1800's. Rubies (sapphires) are historically significant as they are actually the first gem stone to be synthetic or man made.
Who knew that rubies (sapphires) were so special!