TRIP TO LOVELAND, COLORADO

Here I am, joining the 21st century. Apparently, I’m the only person in the United States that doesn’t blog, so here we go.

Mostly, what I intend to talk about will be related to jewelry and jewelry making. To get the ball rolling, I’ll tell you about my recent (last week) trip to Loveland, CO to film a “How-To” video on making some bangle bracelets.

In the video, I focused on three very simple to make bangles, and then two more that were a little more complicated. (You’ll have to wait until the video comes out to see them.) Everything went very well, except I didn’t have a brass brush to finish a couple of pieces the way I wanted, so I had to improvise. That’s the thing about long-distance; if you forgot something, forget it! At one point I dropped the bracelet I was working on and had to sheepishly stoop down to pick it up. It will be interesting to see if they edit that out. Any-hoo, everyone seemed to like it. Thanks again to Merle, Garret, Caroline, and Lexi.

Loveland was beautiful, and special thanks to Lexi Erickson for A) Saving the day and getting a friend to bring missing supplies and B) For her incredible knowledge of jewelry making (she has a Master’s, don’t you know) and C) Most of all, for taking me around and showing me the town. (She’s my new BFF)

Speaking of seeing the town, the town we saw was Boulder. Our first stop was at her friend, jeweler Todd Reed’s shop. He wasn’t in, but his staff was very friendly and let us snoop around the studio and watch some of his bench jewelers working their magic. He does some incredible designs with rough diamonds, so now I’m dying to get my hands on some and start adding them to my jewelry.

From there, we strolled down the mall, which is a couple of streets that are blocked off with shops and restaurants and street musicians. It was fun. Then she and her husband Mark took me to the airport in Denver, where my flight was delayed for 1½ hours, so I got home at 1:00am.

Knowing that brevity is the soul of wit, I’ll stop now. Let me know if you have questions or would like me to address some issue or topic. Thanks for listening (reading.)