Wednesday, June 30, 2010

July's Charity of the Month: Rescue 100

This month's charity of the month is Rescue 100 Foundation. They are a non-profit horse rescue that regularly receives horses seized by the Alberta SPCA. Many of these horses are able to have perfect lives - the only problem is that their previous owners neglected them so badly they often need months of rehabilitation to be healthy enough to be adopted. This takes a substantial amount of love, attention and money. The results, however, are worth it. Keep reading to see one success story of many at Rescue 100:
The above image is of Saffiya, one of the first horses rescued by Rescue 100, in a herd of about 100 horses (sadly, not all of them made it) seized from a farm by the Alberta SPCA (they have since had more horses - the SPCA has had TWO major seizures alone this year, resulting in many horses being kept at the farm). She was so starved that she would stand like this, in the middle of frigid winter, for hours, too weak to move. You can see her belly is bloated from lack of food, her coat is rough and falling out from lack of nutrition, and she has almost no muscle, and nearly zero fat. She often had to be hand fed by the wonderful people at Rescue 100. It was a labor of love, however, as she was eventually healthy enough to be adopted, and her new owner sent a photo of Saffiya in her hew home:
What a transformation, and such a happy ending! This truly is an act of kindness and love, and as you can see, the results are definitely worth it. I wish I could adopt one of them, but right now, I could only keep a horse in the yard with Arwen or in the house with all of us, and I don't think they'd like the stairs. That, and Arwen likes to be the only one pooping in the yard ;-)

10% of the sales before taxes and shipping will be going towards this noble cause. You can purchase items from my Etsy store here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/littlestudiojewels or you can go and donate directly to Rescue100 via their website here: http://rescue100.ca/?page_id=43


Images are copyright Rescue 100 Foundation

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Arwednesdays with Arwen: Farewell to Mr.Seal

It had to happen at some point. Yes, we held it off for as long as we could, maybe we even went into a bit of denial. But it was always lurking in the backs of our minds: one day, Arwen's stuffed toy seal would have to go to toy heaven. It had a long life, to be sure: it started out as a childhood toy of my own, was usurped by Gandalf as his special friend, and then usurped from him by Arwen. It survived my childhood, it survived Gandalf, but by far its hardest years were with Arwen. Having ripped the stuffing out, I stuffed it back in and sewed it. She ripped it out again, I sewed it back in again. It happened again and again (and again, I think about 5 or six times total), though I will admit to not stuffing every piece back in every time - the amounts of stuffing this seal held, I have no idea how it didn't explode on its own! Finally I left it unstuffed and Arwen actually seemed to like that best. She carried it everywhere. I took photo after photo of her with Mr. Seal. When I washed it, I blogged about her stressful day here.
Finally, the dreaded day came.
Arwen was discovered trying to rip out the eyes and nose. It was a VERY tough day. I took it away, hoping to teach her not to do that. No good, she tried it again as soon as I gave it back to her. I threw it away, I am sorry to say. A moment of silence if you please, for Mr. Seal. He will be remembered fondly for many years.
Poor Arwen went through seal withdrawal for almost a week, trying to go back to her crab (which also has no stuffing), or her pepper (which also has no stuffing), or her ball, or her Kong, or bones, but nothing really seemed to hold her interest and she'd constantly go back to the cupboard where the garbage is hidden, as if to say, "Mommy...I really need my toy back please".
Then one glorious day arrived...

Brennan came home with a new toy!!! It is a dino (we think), but it looks and feels sort of like Mr. Seal!! We christened it Mr. Dino. It took about a day for Arwen to overcome the shock of having a new toy (her eyes went absolutely HUGE when he showed it to her), and now, well, she goes everywhere with it! She takes it to the window with her when she wants to look outside (above), she takes it to the back door when she wants to go outside, she takes it to bed when she wants to sleep.
And she is happy :)

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Sweet Saturday: New Earrings!

FINALLY I get to show you my new earring line (well, one pair of them anyway!). I am making Swarovski Pearl Birth Month Earrings with a color for each month! This particular pair is for March (usually aquamarine), using a light blue Swarovski pearl for the top bead, and a cream drop for the bottom. All the birth month earrings will have their month's color for the top, and a cream bead for the bottom so that they go with everything. You can see them here: http://www.etsy.com/listing/49252738/swarovski-pearl-birth-month-earringsThese ones were made with sterling silver, but I can also make them in 14Karat gold-filled wire on request.
About 2 inches (5cm) from top to bottom, these are stylish and versatile!

I'm also starting to redo all of my jewelry photos, so if the photos in my Etsy store look a little odd, with photos having all different backgrounds, that would be why. I'm changing to all white for clarity and to keep everything consistent and clean-looking :)
Thanks for visiting, see you soon!

Friday, June 11, 2010

Fabulous Friday...And We're Back!

Digging for Gold? Nope! Just New Water Lines!

Woo hoo! I am back after a rather unplanned and very long absence! My contract has ended and I am back to making my jewelry full time again, woot! It is so good to see you all again, I have missed you more than you can possibly know.If you remember, waaayyyy back in April I mentioned we had a problem with our well. Actually, it stopped working. Not becuase there wasn't enough water (if you look down in it, about 8-10 feet down you can see our water!), but because the valve in the well had rusted and broken, the pump inside was burning out, and the tank to hold our water was completely waterlogged. Of course, we didn't know all of those things had gone wrong simultaneously, no, we kept discovering surprise after surprise when we thought we had finally found "the problem". Fun. 3 days without water was even better. Yes, that meant no showers and having to go to neighbors' houses to get hose water to flush our toilets. *shudder*
Here are some photos of the glorious job the guys had to do. What was supposed to be a 2 hour job turned into a day and a half of excavators, new lines, new tank, new pump, new valve and a dirt-filled back yard! We got a delivery of topsoil to back fill further and level it all out, but it has been rainy here, so it is still in piles in the yard, but with shiny new weeds sprouting on it. Gotta laugh! And at least we'll never have to worry about it again - it will last for longer than we own the house now. For those wondering, this kind of thing doesn't happen often, but it DOES happen. There really isn't any preparing ahead of time, but it was way cheaper than a sewer or water mains line going on our property if we lived in the city :)
And even better? we didn't have to dig a new well, now THAT would have made me seriously displeased!
This was what the front of the house looked like...deceptive isn't it?
More trench, geez, will it ever stop? You can see old water pipes sticking up
Pulling up the old lines - the new pump required heavier-duty water lines
Starting to run new electrical and water lines
New electricalChaos from the sideNew lines running into the house so we have water - YAY!!

I'll get photos of our dirt yard later, I figured these were enough to be getting along with initially!

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