Emerald City is up!

Dusted off the very-lived-in new workbench this morning, and photo-taking commenced. Now I just have to wait for my weak camera battery pack (I really need to replace that thing) to recharge before I can get to the new stitch markers.



Didn't it turn out pretty?

I'm having trouble with white balance now that I'm not just plopping items on the scanner. On the plus side, my turquoise colors actually look like what they should.

Checking the My UPS page, I see that my new jewelry supplies are coming in today (yay!) but my new blank roving is not coming in until Thursday (boo!). I was pretty good over the weekend, spending-wise. I only broke down and bought one shiny new tool... a cordless dremel. And the only reason was we were in Walmart getting shop towels, and it was cheaper there than through Amazon.

The jewelry supplies not only include more wire sizes, but a butane torch for soldering at higher temperatures (and with a finer tip!) than I could manage with my old soldering iron from my stained-glass foray eight years ago. The tip on my old iron is HUGE. I'm a little nervous about the torch. It gets up to 2300 degrees F.

When I was a child, maybe seven or eight years old, I remember going to bible school on Sunday morning. We were doing some kind of craft thing. I don't remember what it was exactly, but I do know it involved candles, because I caught my hair on fire. I remember starting to take off running down the hall (possibly in search of my grandmother) in a blind panic, when my wise great-aunt Donna grabbed me by the arm and slapped the side of my head. A trim of the hair, and I was fine.

I've been in the Army, fired an M16, a rocket launcher, and worked with tools designed for tanks, but fire still makes me nervous. I don't care if it's the equivalent of a very hot lighter, I still have visions of it somehow blowing up and sending schrapnel everywhere. BUT... I'm still going to use it because it's the only way to do a proper job.

I will definitely be putting my hair up, though.

Workbench Saga Pt. 4

So as promised, the rest of the workbench saga. Some in-progress photos, and the finished awesomeness...


Husband being "manly":



Mid-construction... it's looking bench-like finally.



And TADA! (It's so shiny!):



I had conveniently forgotten, however, that a half a day of tightening reluctant screws, and lifting and positioning steel-sheet pieces will make you ACHE all over... I feel like I used to post-PT in the Army. Especially in the shoulders. Which is giving me the irrational impulse to work on my abs. I may need to request an intervention...

Workbench Saga Pt. 3

After lugging two big boxes up, I am required to tell you that my husband is "the bomb" (his choice of words, hah).

Here, we see my empty workspace after clearing out the detested folding table (note the dyestains on the carpet):



The work station before the de-boxing:



All the parts in their bubble-wrapped glory:






I must say, Kobalt pays serious attention to detail. Not only are all the parts numbered, but all the plastic wrapping is also numbered. So if you start pulling the plastic off the parts without thinking before assembling, you're not sitting there with a sinking feeling in your stomach as you've just realized you just de-numbered all the parts. The finish on this thing is a glossy, piano-black finish. You can tell it's a really layered coat too... we've already slipped with the screwdriver once or twice and it's barely phased it.

The workbench saga, part 2

Some of you may remember my post a few weeks ago *lusting* after a proper workbench. As you may have guessed, budgetary concerns made me feel guilty enough that we skipped it last payday, and I did the whole martrydom thing.



Well I may not be listing or creating anything for the shop for the next few days, because we are finally getting my new work station!!! Yeah, buddy.

Features on this bad boy I am most looking forward to include pegboard backsplash, built in lighting, and four integrated outlets so I can freaking *plug* something *in* without having to crawl under a very lethal folding table.

I'm interested to see how hubby manages to get it home in a sedan. I'm pretty sure it's one of those "assemble on site" jobs. I'm fine with that. The problem is I'm going to have to send him to the store alone, since we can't fit something like that in the car with me and mini-Tilandra along. I have this sudden terror that he's going to forget to look at the model number and screw it up. Hmmm... may have to print that out again and use a HUGE highlighter. You know. Just to make *sure*.

:D