Puppy Love, err.. obsession.

As a matter of fact, it is not an obsession. I actually can hardly stand having those cute little peeing fur balls in my house. I do prefer the older, potty trained, don't wake me up in the middle of the night or early in the morning type fosters. My life has become a little obsessed with the rescue side of things. I have taken the administrator position for Gateway Pet Guardians, the rescue I have fostered for the past couple of years. It's fun. I love the marketing side of it. We are working toward raising enough money to purchase a facility for Gateway. You can read more about our adventure here. Don't worry, I will still be posting here on my blog, about the jewelry and other life's adventures, but I am spreading myself a little thin here lately.

Oh Sherman, You Devil

So, you think that just because you put this sweater on me I am going to be cute, sweet and good? You are so wrong, lady. I am still going to chew on the brand new door stop in your brand new kitchen. And I am still going to pee on everything, including this new cute sweater, that is if I don't chew it off first. Cute I might be, but never good!

Driving me Batty

Happy Halloween all! I have a confession to make. I have trouble writing these entries without the pretty pictures to go along with them. Wouldn't you know it, that we broke another camera. When I say broke, I mean that my cute husband who likes to take things apart and put them back together did just that to the camera. Except this time, it has tape holding it together. There was a little spot under the lens that I would just photoshop out of my pictures, but drove Steve batty. So he decided to to try to get that whatever it was out of the camera. I think he got the fuzz out, but the camera is in a couple of pieces still. That is two cameras in six months, if you remember the honeymoon incident. Hence the lack of posts. Lack of inspiration.

It has been a crazy month. Dogs biting neighbors, dogs getting adopted, puppies being rescued, more dogs, kitchen under construction, dogs, dogs, dogs! I have about lost my mind. Alas, the kitchen is finished, the half bath is completed and now we will be starting on the bathroom upstairs. I will post before and afters of the kitchen as soon as I get a new camera. I love! love! LOVE! our new kitchen. I can cook again. I can take photos of what I cook! That is as soon as I get a camera.

Uhm, this weekend I will be in Memphis for the RiverArts Festival. It's only a 4 hour drive from St. Louis. I mean really, it could be a memorable road trip for your Halloween weekend. If I weren't doing an art show in Memphis on Halloween weekend, I would be driving to Memphis to go visit me at the art show. What? Ok, I am supposed to be leaving here in about negative 2 hours. My load in is in an hour and a half and I still haven't showered, loaded remaining things that need to be loaded, collected the random jewelry I have stashed around the house, gotten my directions together, gotten the puppy ready for his day with his mom away...you get the picture. I am late, and here I am talking to you. But, I haven't talked with you in quite a while, so I am sure RiverArts fest will understand. I hear they are pretty cool.

I leave you with a picture of one vicious, neighbor-biting dog, and one not so vicious, not neighbor-biting dog. Do you know which one is which?

Happy Endings!

Do you remember this pup? There were two of them, Uno, now Lulu & Dos, now Daisy. Lulu was adopted to a family who was also in the process of adopting a baby. I was not aware that they were adopting the baby, and it turned out that adopting a puppy and a baby at the same time proved to be a little much for one family. So, Uno found herself back in our home on Monday. She had spent a good portion of the last 10 months in a kennel, because the family did not have time for her. This neglect turned Lulu from a cute puppy with a lot of potential to a one year old dog who is scared of strangers. She is still cute though. Don't worry. The story gets better. I decided to email the woman who adopted Lulu's sister, just to see what her sister's temperament is like. Turns out that the family who adopted Lulu's sister, wanted to adopt Lulu too. I love happy endings. Isn't that just so sweet. Now the two sisters are together again, the Sullivan family has a new addition to it. Lulu already loosened up with all of the attention and wonderful neighborhood kiddos running around. It just makes me so happy.

Here is another one of the pieces I made last week...dedicated to the Sullivan family because they are saints! Flowers for them!

Pretty Weather

There were these three cardinals outside the front window this morning making such a ruckus and having so much fun that I had to go out and see what was going on. I was out just long enough to grab a photo of one of them before the dogs figured out how to open the front door and scared them off their perch.

I just wanted to drop in and tell you about the show this weekend. It was the BEST show I have ever done in many ways. People were buying and they were so friendly and wonderful and interesting. One of the women who bought this piece just returned from the Serengeti. She was there working with rescued elephants! What a dream. Really! It was great to talk with her.
There were so many great people at the show. Saturday was a 12 hour day plus setup and breakdown. I was delirious by the end of the day. A little on edge. But was able to come home and rest and be ready for the four hour day on Sunday. We could not have had better weather. It feels like fall here. Fall puts me in the best mood. It makes me feel like exciting things are about to happen. I don't know why. I think it stems from my youth. My birthday is in October, and my favorite holiday when I was young was Halloween. Not to mention the raking of the leaves. Like so many other children, I loved to jump in the leaves. Thinking about that now makes me itch. Ha ha, I think that means I am old. I used to put my cat Dixie in the leaves too. She would get all sassy and playful. I actually think she liked it.

I have a ton of custom orders to fill today. I am a little behind on orders. If you are one of those people I am getting back on track today and tomorrow. I have to admit that it is hard to get to work the day after a show is over. I am going to discipline myself and get down in that dungeon very soon.

My next show is the Shaw Art Fair at the end of this month. I have never done Shaw before, but I have shopped it plenty of times. I think it is the prettiest setting for an Art Fair that I have been to. I am really looking forward to being a part of it. The Shaw art fair is where I purchased my favorite bird bath ever by a woman named Jennifer Pass of Rock Candy Mosaics. I just love her birdhouse that she sells on etsy.

I hope everyone had a great weekend. I could not help but think about all of the fun things I would be doing if I were not working. I decided my hypothetical weekend would consist of taking the dogs hiking somewhere around an animal friendly winery, stopping for a glass of wine and then heading home. Did you do anything fun in this fabulous weather?

Sneak Peek for the show this weekend!

And the Doyd perched in his window like a cat. He has trouble getting down once he gets up there, so he stays there for long periods of time. He also poses for the camera. Love that dog.

Floyd the Doyd and his new pair of shoes.

What do you do when your dog will not leave the porch because he does not like the way the grass or dirt feels on his feet?Put pink booties on him, of course.Ok, so if that does not work, take him to the vet to get his thyroid tested. Apparently this strange behavior is indicative of other issues. Maybe. Either that or Floyd is just neurotic.

Last night we went to my mom's house for her birthday. She has this little swing set clubhouse that she just bought for my niece Elena. Elena loves it and insisted on wearing her bicycle gloves while riding her glider. I will most likely be pretty absent over the next week or so. I have a show coming up and quite a few custom orders to fill. Unless the procrastination gene kicks in, which it probably will, I will be in my basement for a while. We are also rehabbing our kitchen. We just got all new windows in our house, and we start demolition on the kitchen on Tuesday! I am so excited. We are knocking down a wall, putting up a wall, getting all new cabinets and flooring and we are getting all new appliances. We are also turning the pantry into a bathroom. Weird huh? But we don't have a bathroom on the first floor of our house. I will post before and afters when it is all said and done. Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!

I want a Pony.

I really do want a pony. I want lots of ponies. The beginnings of the rescue are consuming me...in a good way. I feel like I am back in school, learning so much about nonprofits and how to fund a project like this. The best part about it is that I will be offering metalsmithing classes once we get our facility up and running. I cannot wait to start rescuing animals and to start teaching. I cannot imagine any three things I would love to be more involved with on a daily basis; kids, animals and art. What more can you ask for. I have really found my calling. Now we just need to get it up and running. We are accepting donations finally at the Creative Rescue blog. Ain't too proud to plead, baby. We will get this up and running within the next year. Stay posted!

I leave you with the cuteness.

Where did spring go?

It is a smothering 90 degrees here in St. Louis, but it feels like 100. I melt when I go outside. I found this photo in my camera from the spring. How I miss spring, and look forward to fall. So much for living in the moment. It is hard to do in St. Louis. I always wonder why anyone lives here. It is a great town, but the weather is horrendous. Cold, cold winters, and brutally hot summers. We usually get about 6 weeks of nice weather (if we are lucky) all year round. I wish I could transplant all of the people I love, and the people they love to Seattle, or Portland, Oregon.

All of the ideas for jewelry that I have as of late, are animal related. Animal on the brain. I call this necklace Heart Guard. All of the proceeds go to Creative Animal Rescue. You can purchase it on my etsy account. This handsome, silly boy is Red. Red was chained his whole life. Before he was rescued he was wrapping himself up so bad around a fence that he was choking himself. His owner did not care. He said that if the dog was dumb enough to wrap himself up, he deserved it. They finally talked him into letting us take Red. He has been in board training for 3 weeks and just came to us on Wednesday. He is the most trained dog we have in the house. Clarence is now in board training. He is going to be a completely different dog. I miss him a lot. He is going to find the best home when he is all done with training. I do love that dog. When I say "most trained", that is not really saying much. These pictures were really hard to get. That stare above is at a treat. He would sit there for maybe 3 seconds and then go after the treat. He is very food motivated. He has heartworm, so he is way under weight. I am not sure how much he was fed by his previous person either. We're going to get him all back in shape and ready for his new home. He is going to be a fabulous dog, and now has another chance at life. Yay Red!

Here I am!

Steve watched the animals while I was gone. In order of the drawing: Frankie, Xena, Herman, Clarence and Floyd. Steve is a saint.
I think toward the end, he was running out of patience. This card was waiting for me when I got home. Notice Clarence jumping the fence in the background, and the puddle on the floor from the puppy. I laughed for about an hour looking at this card. Funniest husband ever.
The weekend in Orland Park was not quite so funny. We arrived on Friday night and set up our tents. Apparently there was a storm the next morning that I slept straight through. When we got there on Saturday morning my tent was all discombobulated . I walked inside to find nothing but my plastic tables and glass on the ground. The joints on my Showoff tent had been duct taped together where they had snapped from it falling. I held back my tears to find a volunteer, thinking that I was just going to pack up and go hang out with my friend Amy who lives in Chicago. This could not have happened at a better show! The volunteers saved everything except one cabinet and my tent. They loaned me a tent. All and all it was a fun show to do and the folks of Orland Park are a great people. Plus, I still got to hang out with my wonderful friend Amy. I also got to meet her lovely son Jonah. He is so cute!

Oh, but the weekend is not over. After the show on Sunday we packed up to drive home, got on the road around 6 p.m. and headed for home. About an hour into the trip the van quit working in a town called Gardner, IL. Never heard of it? Me neither. That's because there is a gas station there. That's it. No motel, no cab service, no tow company. It took us 2.5 hours to finally track down a tow truck that could come get us and bring us to the nearest civilization about 15 miles away. Turned out that the transmission broke in the van. Pretty much not worth repairing. I won't go into the gory details of that situation, but let's just say that poor Heather and Ben left their van to live in Dwight, IL. Ben drove the 4 hours to come retrieve us from Dwight. We sat in the same and only restaurant in Dwight for 5 hours. Ate breakfast and lunch there. Stared at each other. Laughed at the situation. There may have been a few tears too. It was quite the fiasco. It was so nice to be home on Monday, only to leave for Sheboygan on Friday.

These are pictures of all of our stuff that barely fit in the truck that Ben drove up. I don't think we could have fit another dime in there.

Heather hating on her van. no longer her van at this point.

Me stuffed in the extended cab, ready for my four hour trip home!
I don't want to talk about Sheboygan. Let's just say that I am considering not traveling out of state for shows anymore. The good news is that we figured out a way for my tent and all of my supplies to fit in my car. Steve does not have to sell blue thunder, and I get to keep my 40 mpg Yaris. Yippee!

Herman found a home! He was adopted by the sweetest couple near St. Louis. I hope he does silly things like this for them. He is going to be so happy there. He just jumped right in their car, ready for his new perma-home.
The new blog for our rescue has begun. It will document our journey in starting our own rescue and art education center. Click the link below to read more about us.

Eating Habits

After reading about the Humane Society's recent investigations of Dairy cow treatment, I have decided to stop eating dairy and eggs. Until there is legislation that holds these companies accountable for their treatment of the cows, I will be holding the dairy. I always thought that a vegan diet was a boring diet. That is until Oprah got on the vegan train. She has some of the best chefs making sure that she still enjoys her diet, regardless of what that diet might be. Tonight I made the Artichoke and Oyster Mushroom Rockefeller. I did not have rock salt (I used margarita salt) or the spirts, but it was still absolutely delicious. I HIGHLY recommend this recipe. It even got Steve's stamp of approval.

We had a fun 5th of July. We went to our friend's Jesse & Carroll's house for a little celebration. At the end of the night, they decided they wanted to meet Clarence. We went and got him, he stayed the night, is back home now and they are thinking about whether they are ready for a dog. Clarence would be perfect for them, and I hope! hope! hope! that they decide to adopt him so that I can know him for the rest of his life. Send good adoption vibes, please.

This weekend I will be in Illinois at the Village of Orland Park Art Fair. Steve is outside making my weights for the tent so I don't blow away in Illinois. Thank goodness for Steve. I do love that boy.

Xena: Warrior Princess

Look how vicious she is. She is a 5 week old Akita mix (we think). She terrorizes my 80 lb dogs and has no fear of any two legged creatures in the house, including my 6'6" husband. Our cries of pain from her little sharp puppy teeth do not seem to bother her either. I pulled her from the Ladue pound. She has horrific sores on her tail and leg. They have healed quite a bit, but I am surprised they did not amputate her tail, with the looks of it now, "healed". I also think she might be blind in one eye. She has a cloudy spot where it looks like she was poked. I have been trying to test her, but she doesn't really pay much attention to me anyway, so it's hard to tell. Who ever had her partly shaved her too. Weird. Why would anyone shave a puppy? This is her being cute. Which is how she normally looks. Luckily she is young enough to still be turned into a lovable dog.

Amie who?

Oh my. It has been so long. I have missed you pretty bad. Please let me explain. First, I got married, and then we went on our honeymoon. And then, that guy I married jumped into the ocean with the digital camera in his pocket. And then, I lost the little attachment screw on thingy that holds my camera on my tripod. And now, I have my first show of the season this weekend, and not that it is a very good excuse to take such a long hiatus from you, but there they are; weak, but true. 

I have all kinds of jewelry to show you that I still have not photographed, so I will get on that soon. That is, unless I sell it first and am too busy or lazy to photograph. But, I have all of my gear back in place. Check, check. The dining room table is ready for my little photograph tent and such. It gets quite neglected as a food table because of all of my art stuffs that takes over. I am a piles person. It drives me crazy. My piles are insane. Piles here, piles there. I get so mad because I think that I am a neater person than Steve. I look at the piles, and say to myself, "Ahrg, I wish he would clean up his piles." And then, upon further inspection, lo and behold, it is all of my crap. Touch it once, isn't that the rule? 

The wedding was wonderful. Everything was yellow and gorgeous. If you would like to see a quick slide show, click here. Will Jackson was our photographer, and I don't think we could have found a photographer who suited our idea of how the pictures should look better than him. Oh, how I love those pictures. There are a total of 450. If you really want to see them all, just email me. I have only looked at them in their entirety, about five or six times. Oh, maybe more. 

Our honey moon was supers fabulous. The place was ridiculous. I felt silly being waited on like that, but now would like to have it back. 

And then the dogs. I caught the tail end of that repeat Oprah show on my first day back. You know the one about the puppy mills. I cried my eyes out, and then immediately got on the petfinder site of the most heart breaking animal control shelter that I know of in MO. Found a couple of dogs I thought I could find homes for and went to work. My wonderful friend Sarah Kalish took one of the Jack Russells that was going to get put down. She already adopted it out to her neighbors. They sound fabulous. I would really like to go back for this Beagle too. Any takers? 

In the mean time, someone dumped Winnie, this adorable Terrier in my vet's backyard. He thought his dogs had a rabbit when he looked out the window, but it was this little girl. He asked me if I would foster her, and I couldn't refuse. She is so cute, and Dr. Diesel has done so much for our rescue. I think he is the best vet around. Anyway, Winnie is all healed, and I think I have found a home for her. She is a sweet little lap dog with very little baggage for what she has been through. 

I promise I will be back soon with jewelry. Jewelry blog, right?

Strong Deer

I have so much to talk about, but so little time. I will post more in a little bit, like tomorrow, but here is a new piece I made. Another one of the set of deer that I cast in my class, decorated with 14kg filled wire, fresh water pearls, and the prettiest turquoise I have ever seen in my life. I like this one because it's another doe, but the gold reminds me of the buck's antlers. Almost like she is carrying the weight of both mother and father. I think she is so sweet and graceful.Have I ever told you about that time, when I was in college and my dog Bailey was attacked by a deer? I was at my parent's house getting ready to leave the country and they were watching Bailey for me. The house I grew up in backed to some not-so-serious woods, yet we always had deer in our back yard. I was making breakfast, and all of the sudden I heard, Bailey howling in pain, crying like I had never heard him cry before. I ran out to the deck only to see a buck lifting Bailey (a 75lb English Setter mix, mind you), and Bailey rolling while being trampled by the deer. I watched this happen three times before I could get down the steps to very wimpily clap my hands. It was enough for the deer to pause and let Bailey loose. The deer stared me down, until I yelled, "Get out of here." And he did. Bailey was ok. I am now late getting ready for my first dance lesson. I'll let you know how it goes. yikes!

Circus Weekend

I made this necklace yesterday. The center piece is an old dime that my Aunt had cut out and made into cuff links for my late Grandpa King. I cut the back off of the cuff link and then made a surround for the dime out of silver. The green button sits in a 14kg bezel. It was my Grandma's button. She gave me a bunch of pretty buttons a while ago. The back has the word 'Love' stamped on it. It is not for sale because it is a little near and dear to my heart.

Yesterday I had my first wedding shower. I am not used to that kind of attention. It makes me paranoid. But, I had so much fun and my cousin Heather did such a beautiful job putting it all together. I wish I would have brought my camera because she made this fabulous Tiramisu style cake. And there was this oh so delicious fruit salsa. I need the recipe for all of it.

Kind of a circus weekend here at the King/Simmons household. I have two wedding showers, a trivia night/silent auction for my rescue, and an artist friend is coming to stay in town with us! I love circus weekend. I also have a friend coming in town for one of the showers, from Indiana, who I wish I had more time to spend with.

Speaking of the trivia night, I would just like to thank all of the folks who donated to our rescue. Peg Fetter, a brilliant jewelry artist here in St. Louis gave a gorgeous necklace and a beautiful bracelet. If you have not yet checked out Peg's jewelry, please do! She made both my engagement and wedding ring. Cindy Neal of Neal framing donated gift certificates to her fabulous frame shop. She does not have a website, but can be found in a phone book. Remember those? Also, Purina foods donated a years supply of dog and cat food. It is amazing how generous people are.

I hope everyone is well, and you have a relaxing weekend. I think I will be able to relax again after May 10th. Well, definitely on our honeymoon.

Handsome Fella

I found this little handsome fella at Roots, one of my favorite antique stores here in St. Louis. They were fostering him until he found his perma home. I think he is the best. He likes my jewelry too. The piece that he is playing with in the photo was a test run. It is the first time I have ever made a hinge (tricky) and clasp. Keum Boo is the process I used for the gold treatment. I have not perfected this yet either, but love the look. It doesn't show up all that well in this photo. I will post a photo of the next piece I use the process on close up.

I have been day dreaming about having a new shiny studio. Steve and I have been talking about knocking down the current crappy garage and building a 2 story garage with the second floor being my studio. It will have sliding patio doors on floor 2 that lead to a flower infested deck that overlooks the yard. That way, I can yell at the dogs with out having to go downstairs. "Stop barking!" Essentially, I just join the barking festivities when they bark because it sounds to them like I am barking. Really, I don't yell that much. Really.

And the Best dog goes to...

Maybe it's Ironhead. I do not have any photos of Ironhead yet, but he is a beautiful black lab and so incredibly calm. He is already adopted, so I have not felt the need to do a photo session with him. We picked him up in East St. Louis one incredibly cold morning. He came out of his abandoned building shivering and wining. PJ (the lady I ride with sometimes to feed the dogs) fed him. Meanwhile, I called Steve to see if I could bring him home. Steve said yes. Again. I can't believe it. Really, we don't even know Ironhead is here. Except when he had his surgery and his gonads swelled to the size of a softball and he started dripping blood and we had to rush him to the emergency room. All is well now. The swelling has gone down, and Ironhead is looking forward to his new home. It is actually a pretty ironic, story. On Ironhead's description I talk about his big blocky head and his old school Labrador demeanor. The folks who were searching for a dog really wanted a lab with a blocky head. Who knew that would be the description that got them. On top of that, the husband is an Iron worker. And on TOP of that, the husbands avatar on the computer is Ironhead. Oh, the irony head. After meeting Ironhead they decided they couldn't live without him. He's a neat dog.
And then there is Heidi. This picture kind of epitomizes her personality. I wrote about Heidi before. Approximately two weeks after we brought her into our house, I noticed a lump on her vulva area. We had it removed, sent it to be biopsied and it turned out to be cancerous. The vet seems to think that it is an isolated incident, and she will be healthy for the rest of her life. She is a nutty dog. She plays, and plays and plays. She counter surfs and the other day came running into the living with a knife in her mouth, sharp side sticking out. Crazy Rottweiler. She busted out the bottom left window in our french door, and now uses it as her own personal doggie door. Oh, and after her surgery, she chewed her staples out. Oh my! So I took her to the vet and they stapled again, put one of those cones on her head, and she got out of the cone and chewed her staples out again. So then they put one of those elongated collars on her and she chewed her staples out completely. All while still at the vet. Final solution was leave the staples out and tranquilize her with the elongated collar for a couple of days. Although she still got out of the collar again (and ate it), she was so good for those days. And then when she came out of her tranquilized state, she was double crazy. Or, I forgot how crazy she was. Now you are up to date on the dizzies. But, really Heidi is going to be a very rewarding dog for someone. She is so sweet, and I wish I had more one on one time with her. There is another one in East St. Louis who seems to be injured every time we see him named Clarence. He is beautiful and will be easy to adopt. Not as easy to catch though. We're gonna get him and make him a happy x-street dog. I will try to get a picture of him on the streets next time I go out.

Jewelry Schmulery

I have been sick since Sunday. It started on Sunday and I thought, I will just lay around on Monday and be better on Tuesday. And then Tuesday came, and I thought, if I just lay around one more day, then I will be better for the rest of the week. I better not exert myself too much. That went on for the rest of the week. Meanwhile, I went to East St. Louis with a lady named P.J. who has gone to East St. Louis every single day since 2001 to feed and care for the stray doggies out there. It was quite an experience. I could not resist taking a dog off of the cold streets. She jumped in the car, I took her home. She is a tiny Rottweiler mix. At a year and a half old, she is only about 50 lbs. She is not used to the home life as she has lived on the streets for most of her days. Except maybe those few days where she lived with someone who forgot to feed her, cut her tail off, and abused her with inanimate objects. She is scared to death of Steve and anything he is carrying. But, she will still come to him. I will get some pics of her soon. She is a little scraggly right now. I am going to make her a sweater to help her in the cold. She does not have a lot of hair because of malnutrition. I know she sounds like a mess, and well she is. And, I am a mess because I have been sick all week, dealing with a pacing, itchy, attachment disordered dog who can't sleep alone. And the puppies, whom we now call Uno & Dos, are doing great, although a lot of work, they are growing like mad. All of the things that come along with their growth is growing too. Like their messes, and their food intake. The only thing that hasn't grown is their nap time. It is shrinking.


It snowed like mad yesterday. My photo does not really do it justice, but cut me some slack, I was almost passed out on cold medicine when I took this picture from our back door window. Are you jealous of our rotten garage paneling. It's on the list of to dos for the spring. Can't wait for spring. Can't wait to make the back yard pretty.

Instead of making jewelry this week, I painted. It is a little less exertion than jewelry. I cannot lie though. I have been working on this painting for a while. It was going to be Steve's birthday gift, but then I thought it was weird to give someone a painting of themselves. I took this photo in New York a couple of days before we got engaged. We went to this little breakfast nook down the street from our hotel. All the waitresses were really skinny, had big hair and wore a lot of makeup. It was awesome. I loved the photo so much that I painted it. Obviously.

I promise some new pieces of jewelry next week. I have a ton of ideas floating around in my head, and I cannot wait to execute.