Droid Craziness (revised)

So here's the update on the Droid Drama.

I got the new digitizer bought from Amazon.com, and it worked perfectly. So I contacted the Ebay seller and told him it works, so you owe me $20. He said okay, and he'd post it to my Paypal account. That was on Thursday, Dec. 16. I heard nothing else from him.

On Monday I received a message from Ebay Buyer Protection, checking on the status of my claim - they knew he'd offered me $20 but wanted to know whether I 'officially' accepted the offer, as if so, he'd have three days to post the refund from the time I 'officially' accepted through Ebay's resolution center.

I told them I had in fact accepted the offer, and they said he then had until Dec. 23 to post my refund.

Dec. 23 was winding away, and I'd received no refund, nor heard anything from him. But - to be fair - I was going to wait until today (the 24th) to do anything, as technically he had until midnight on the 23rd to post the refund.

But meanwhile, I got another message from Ebay Buyer Protection yesterday asking if the matter was resolved, or if I wanted to escalate the case to customer service. I considered just doing that, but - still giving the guy the benefit of the doubt - thought I'd make one last effort to contact him before doing so (as once you escalate it, it's out of your hands - you no longer negotiate with the seller, and Ebay simply makes a decision, and everyone has to live with it).

So I wrote the seller another email asking about my refund.

He responded last night, telling me that Paypal was holding the $40 I'd originally paid, so he couldn't refund my money because he didn't have access to it, and I'd have to "close my complaint" before they'd release the funds so he could refund my money.

I was extremely skeptical of that claim, so first of all, I went and checked, and Paypal had paid the guy on November 24 - almost a month ago. I wrote him back an email saying only "You were paid on November 24."

Meanwhile, I went back to the Ebay Buyer Protection site and did in fact select the option to escalate my complaint. I explained all that had happened, and at the end of the message, I told Ebay that I'd tried to give this guy the benefit of the doubt, but in light of what appeared to be him giving me the runaround, I would like to know if I was allowed to rescind my acceptance of his offer of $20, and instead ask for a refund of the entire $40. I didn't know if they'd allow it, since I'd already accepted the $20, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to ask.

Ebay's Buyer Protection site popped up an automatically generated message telling me that they'd get back to me within 48 hours, though I didn't expect to hear anything that soon due to the holiday.

Less than 15 minutes later I had three new messages in my inbox. The first was from Ebay telling me that they had issued me a refund for the full $40. Wow. That was fast. And the whole amount!!

The second one was from Paypal telling me that I'd be receiving the refund of $40, and that processing could take a couple of days.

The third was from the seller (who, since all these messages came in within one minute of each other, obviously didn't realize what Ebay had done yet), telling me that oh yeah, he did get paid on November 24, but then when I initiated my complaint, Paypal "took the money back" and was holding it.

I ignored his message and thought that was the end of it, until 15 minutes later when I received another couple of messages - one from the seller saying that Paypal had 'just' released the money, and so he had refunded $20 to my Paypal account; and a second from Paypal telling me I had received $20 in my account.

Well, hell. Now I've got the seller's $20 refund sitting in my Paypal account, and Ebay's $40 refund on the way.

The seller's statement that Paypal had "just" released the money made me wonder if I was wrong, and in fact, there had been a hold on it - which of course, when Ebay notified them the case was resolved, would have been released right about the time he said it was.

But none of this makes any sense whatsoever. First of all, while Ebay and Paypal do a lot of business, they aren't the same company, so why would Paypal be able to unilaterally put a hold on someone's already-paid money pending the outcome of a complaint with Ebay? And since not everyone leaves money sit in their Paypal account, it seems a rather arbitrary kind of thing - for people who have already withdrawn the money, they are subject to no hold.

But even if they can do that, when I sent Ebay my last message, I explained all of that - that the seller claimed he couldn't post my refund because Paypal had a hold on the money. So if that was true, why wouldn't Ebay have told me, yeah, that's true, and then done something about it - instead of almost immediately just issuing me the full refund? If they knew the seller was telling the truth, it would seem that it would make more sense for them to have (a) told me that, and (b) dealt with the money already being held, rather than initiate a brand new refund directly from Ebay, and then release the Seller's entire $40 back to him.

Second of all, on Monday Ebay told me the seller would have three days to post my refund to my Paypal account. Well, if they knew they'd initiated a hold on the money, why would they expect him to be able to post the refund, knowing they had a hold on the money? The only point to placing a hold on the money would be to ensure it was available if a refund was ordered - so if that was what happened, once the seller and I had agreed to a refund of $20, why not just use the money they'd put the hold on, and instruct Paypal to refund me $20 of the money they were holding, instead of trying to make the seller pony up another $20 before they'd release the original payment?

Third, the seller claimed that the hold hadn't been placed on the money till I initiated my complaint, which was on December 8. Well, if he knew two weeks ago they'd put a hold on the money, why did he never mention that before? When I told him the new digitizer works, so you owe me $20, he said he'd post it to my Paypal account - not "I'll post this to your Paypal account when you release the hold on the money."

Fourth, had I closed my claim like he stated, and then he hadn't paid, I would have had no recourse whatsoever, as once you close a claim you agree that the matter has been completely resolved and you will take no further action. So why would Ebay / Paypal have it set up that you have to close your claim to release the funds to complete the transaction? That makes no sense at all. If Paypal was holding the money because of this claim, it only makes sense that they would allow the release of the funds once an agreement had been reached, but before expecting a person to close their claim. You can't close your claim and state everything has been resolved before you've actually received the refund you negotiated.

I'm only going on about all that because my inherently overly-honest nature makes me uncomfortable with basically telling Ebay I thought the guy was a flaming liar, then wondering (when he immediately posted the $20 refund) whether I was mistaken. I wouldn't like to have called someone a liar if I was wrong.

But I can't see any of this making any damned sense at all.

Well, anyway - I don't see any way to figure out what really happened. Once Ebay's $40 refund also posts to my account, I guess I'll contact them and ask them what they want me to do with the "extra" $20 - since, if Ebay footed the bill for the $40, they may want the $20 to come back to them as reimbursement, not go back to the seller. (That's if I can figure out any way to contact them, as I was just looking around on the site, and I can't find any place to just send them an email - everything's automated forms for situations that don't apply here).

While I was impressed with how fast they resolved this issue, this has been a huge pain in the ass and a real clusterf**k, and I'm not sure I ever want to buy anything on Ebay again.

Meanwhile, the phone works perfectly with the new digitizer, as if I'd never broken it, so that's a wonderful thing.

And otherwise, I've got presents to wrap!! Merry Christmas!

What A Weekend

This was a crazy productive weekend.

Friday night we had band practice, and I've been working on a new part which is pretty intense bow-action-wise, and challenging, and fun. (that becomes more relevant in a few minutes).

Saturday I went out and did some final Christmas shopping, getting not only everything I hoped to find, but finding things that were even better than I hoped! That was nice. I also washed the truck (it was hideous after the recent snows and salt-laden roads), so that made me feel a lot better.

Later Saturday afternoon and evening, I baked cookies - peanut butter cut-outs and jam thumbprints.

Today, I made three of my clay snowman ornaments for my co-workers.


I originally made one of these for myself, but everyone who has seen mine liked it (I already have an offer to sell one), so I made these, but they're still kind of prototypes. Hopefully in time I'll perfect the design.

I spent a few hours working on a present I'm making for someone, too, but I can't talk about that here because, obviously, it's a surprise.

I also baked more cookies (chocolate with peanut butter chips) and decorated some of the peanut butter ones for work.

And oh my God, I made a pan of the world's best fudge. This was my mom's recipe, and I always said my mom's fudge was the best in the world - it wasn't just because she was my mom, I really never have had fudge as good as hers - but I could never duplicate it (even though I was using the same recipe). Hers was so creamy that it just - quite literally - melted in your mouth. Mine tasted just as good, but was always too hard, like it would actually crumble.

Tonight I figured out what I'd been doing wrong all these years. Her hand-written recipe said "2/3 cup (small can) Carnation Evaporated milk." Well, every time I went to buy this, they only had one size can, so I figured that was the 'small can,' and would always use the entire can.

Tonight I decided to make a double batch, as the single batch is always just too small, so I actually decided to measure the evaporated milk. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the one can was actually double what the recipe called for. So all these years I'd been putting in twice as much evaporated milk as it was supposed to have. I'm surprised it didn't make it runny and unable to set up, instead of too hard and crumbly.

This time, using the proper amount, I made the perfect fudge. I'll be in a sugar coma within 48 hours.

But back to the fiddle thing - my right hand is in such excruciating pain I can barely move it. Typing does hurt, but not as bad because I don't have to move it much to do that. But opening and closing it, or trying to pick anything up, is kind of impossible. It was a combination of the fiddle playing Friday night, working with the clay today (conditioning new clay is labor intensive and hard on the hands, and forming the pieces, smoothing, shaping, etc. just added to the mix), and probably washing the truck (manipulating that spray wand at high pressure, in the freezing cold) and cookie making as well (holding a hand-held mixer, stirring things with a spoon, rolling the batch of jam thumbprint cookies into little balls, etc. etc.).

Basically, I beat the hell out of my hand this weekend, and I desperately wish I had a paraffin dip bath. I do have some paraffin ... somewhere ... I suppose I could melt it in a double boiler (i.e., in a tin can in a pan of water) and pour it on ... something to consider.

But, it really was a great weekend. Now I just have to work up the energy to go clean up the kitchen from the last batch of cookie decorating and fudge making, clean up the upstairs from the crafting today, and turn off the lights, and settle myself in downstairs with some rum. Mmmm.

This week I have to take my truck in to my mechanic because it's giving me grief, which is a pain in the ass, because he wants to keep it all day, which means finagling around getting it there, getting to work, and getting it back again. And I have to wrap all my presents and finish decorating cookies.

But, I'm in a good Christmassy mood this year, and it's a holiday week - my favorite time of the entire holiday season is the week leading up to Christmas. And, it's a full-moon winter solstice tomorrow!

So I'm looking forward to a good week.

Droid Drama Update

I'm adopting a new philosophy: "The universe loves me and just wants me to have an interesting life."

I posted awhile back about dropping my Droid and cracking the screen all to pieces, but then learning that I could order a new digitizer and our office computer guy would put it in for me. So I ordered one from Ebay (as recommended), it arrived promptly, and our computer guy installed it.

The "back" soft key didn't work. Well, now, that wasn't entirely disastrous, but it was hideously inconvenient. Do you ever notice how much you use the 'back' button on one of these phones? It's the main way to navigate in and, more importantly, back out of menus and many applications. If it would have been something dumb like the 'search' soft key, I wouldn't have even cared, as I never use that one. But the 'back' one was difficult.

I eventually learned work-arounds for most things, though it was annoying and tedious, and in a few instances there is no work-around except to shut the phone off and turn it back on, to restore a certain app or function to its main screen.

The computer guy said there might have been a tiny piece of dust on the contact or something like that, and that he'd take it apart, check it, and see if that helped.

He did that, and it didn't help. Both he and Greg suggested I contact the seller. Initially I wasn't going to, as I thought, oh, it's just one of those things, it won't do any good. But then I saw where Ebay has "Buyer Protection" now - if you have a problem and can't resolve it with the seller, they will refund your money.

I'd already decided to buy another digitizer and see if that one worked (the loss of that 'back' key was annoying enough that I decided I'd risk another $40 to try to get it back), so I thought, well, it can't hurt to try. I sent the seller a message last night, very polite, explained the problem, and said I just wondered if he knew of any fixes, or had any more digitizers he might be willing to swap.

He wrote back and, while he was extremely polite, basically told me 'too bad, sorry to hear it,' and went on to say that he "knew the soft key didn't work" and hoped I could "figure something out."

Huh. Because his original sale page description said: "Product is brand new and tested to guarantee it works.

Well now. So I initiated a claim under the Ebay Buyer's Protection thing, and they sent him notice of it. Then we began exchanging emails. The first thing he said was that he had made a mistake, and confused me with another buyer, to whom he sold an actual Droid phone (not digitizer) on which the back key doesn't work ... so he thought I was them. Then he figured out I had only bought the digitizer, and he assured me - again - that it worked fine when he shipped it to me.

I replied that it arrived well packaged and didn't appear damaged in transit, I had an electronics expert install it, and it still didn't work ... so I'd beg to differ.

After a couple of very polite exchanges, in which he continued to insist it worked when he sold it, he offered to refund half my money as a compromise.

This got me thinking. His emails struck me as sincere, he was truly apologetic, and I believe that he truly believed the thing worked when he sold it. I also don't know for a fact that it's not my phone, instead of the digitizer. The bottom line is, there's no real way to tell what happened.

Meanwhile, I'd ordered a new digitizer, through Amazon - it's from an outside seller, but a reputable electronics store with a 5-star rating, so I figure if there's another problem, I'll have a good chance of having some buyer protection there as well. And it was the same price.

So a plan occurred to me. I was concerned that if I continued to be persistent, and Ebay Buyer Protection refunded my full purchase price (which I assume they'd go after the seller for), and then I got the new digitizer and discovered the back button still didn't work, I'd feel like a real moron - because it wouldn't have been the digitizer after all, but my phone.

So I made the seller an offer. I told him that we'd put the matter on hold for a week - if my computer guy installs the new digitizer, and the back button still doesn't work, then it was my phone, not the digitizer he sold me, and I would ask for no refund. However, if the new digitizer works 100%, then the problem was his digitizer, and since he is so sure it worked when it shipped, and there's no way to prove when or where the damage occurred, then I would accept his offer of a refund of half my money.

He was happy with that, and - in a telling statement - even said to me, after apologizing again for my phone problems, said he sincerely hopes the new digitizer works out for me. Well, if he gets his wish, he'll owe me $20 - whether he remembered that or not when he said it, I don't know. So it just renewed my belief that the guy's honest, not trying to rip me off, and actually hopes my phone gets fixed. So I do think the guy's being sincere. But maybe I'm just a big schmoo. Doesn't matter, I'll feel better about it this way, and that's what matters.

Meanwhile, the other night my SD card died. Just died, no reason. At first I thought it was another malfunction with the phone, but then I tried Greg's card and it would recognize that one - just not mine. So I went out today and picked up a new one, and it is fine.

I thought I was safe because I'd downloaded a file manager program awhile back that lets you sync your phone with your computer wirelessly, and backup all your data, and I'd done that when the screen cracked. Well, funny thing - I cannot figure out any way to get the data back onto the phone. I tried everything, went to the website looking for help (nothing at all useful there), zip, nada, zilch. The only thing I was able to recover was my pictures and music (very important, though, so a good thing!) but none of the apps I had installed solely on the sd card.

Well, that wasn't the end of the world, because there weren't that many, and I've been able to replace most of them. A few are acting incredibly squirrelly - I re-downloaded them, but they still won't work. Whatever. I'm tired of screwing with it.

Meanwhile ... one of the black plastic strips that makes up the 'back' of the phone (the back isn't a solid back, but a couple of different flexible black plastic pieces that basically stick on with double-sided tape) fell off and disappeared somewhere yesterday. My computer guy warned me that might happen, after removing and reinstalling them several times. If I'd have known when it happened and got the piece, I could just put it back on. But since I have no idea where it happened and haven't found it yet, I now have a 'raw' strip on the back of my phone that isn't covered (well, it's partially covered with the old double-stick tape, but that's ineffective), I have to try to cover it with something.

This phone is rapidly turning into a paperweight. In another moment of 21st century irony, last night, while sitting downstairs with Greg, when I first discovered that the strip was missing off the back and the sd card was also fried, I looked at him and said, in great frustration, "Well now it's nothing more than a phone." Huh.

But anyway ... I'm hopeful. That the new digitizer will work right ... that I'll find something appropriately quirky to cover up the phone's raw bit on the back ... that I'll fix the broken apps and the new sd card will be fine ... that in a week or two it'll be at least somewhat back to normal, and no longer "just a phone."

(Actually I'm facetiously exaggerating - in fact, most everything does still work ... email, Twitter, games, camera, music, texts, Kindle ... oh, and the phone ... so it's not really that bad).

I also picked up a padded case for it today - it's actually a tiny camera case but it works. If I can get this thing fully functional again, I'm going to baby it like a Faberge egg.

21st Century Irony

I'm considering suicide, but I know I'm changing insurance policies in January - I'm switching from a private policy to my employer-provided group policy - so I'm wondering if I should wait (for the suicide attempt) till after January 1, as if it fails, it might be considered a pre-existing condition.

Gotta love life in the 21st century.

Or not.

(Of course, the fact that 'failure' enters into my contingencies means I'm not that serious so don't fret about this one. The one to fret about will be the one no one sees coming. ;o) )

A Blockbuster Week From Hell.

The thing I'm most thankful for right now is that this week, at least as far as enforced dealing with the outside world, is OVER. This one will go down in the books as a bonified week from hell.

On Monday my boss had an insurance guy come in to talk about changing his group insurance, as it's too expensive. My boss has always provided health insurance for me, but not through his group policy - I had my own private policy when I started there and he just paid that instead.

My boss has an accounting firm handling his books ... I've had my taxes done by someone almost every year ... there was no reason that my boss paying for my health insurance should have thrown up any red flags in my world. But this guy, out of the blue, just blithely informed us that we'd been committing tax fraud for 14 years, as the way the laws are set up, because I wasn't a part of the official 'group' plan, all money my boss paid towards my health insurance premiums should have been taxable income to me, and if I ever got audited, I'd owe taxes on it (minus the part I would have been allowed to write off - if they consider it income to me, they have to allow me to write off what "I" am paying for health insurance, to a point, but there's a cap on it - it would no way have been all of the premium every month).

The astronomical health insurance premiums times 14 years meant I could have owed the IRS upwards of $100,000. Needless to say, I was kind of freaked out. Yeah, only if I got audited, but still ... for someone who is beyond anal about always making sure they do things like taxes absolutely right (I paid a tax person $40 a year for a decade to do my taxes all just because of a $20 a year royalty check I got from a gas and mineral rights contract - I'm anal about taxes).

So I was pretty freaked out about that, but the next day my boss checked with his accountant, and Mr. Insurance Guy Who Thinks He's A Tax Expert was wrong. My boss' accountants DID set it up right, so that it's all legal and above-board, nothing wrong.

Then on Tuesday my boss sprung on me that the day after Thanksgiving, which I've had off paid for 14 years, is no longer a paid day off. I can work it, or I can take it off without pay.

Lovely. I respect the fact that economy sucks, and that a lot of people do have to work that day - but that was low on several levels. For one thing, I've been there FOURTEEN YEARS ... I'd think I deserved a little consideration, especially considering not paying me for the day saved him a whopping $95. Big deal. I'm sure that didn't make or break him financially, but it's 3 or 4 Christmas presents for me - right now, mere weeks before Christmas.

But even more crappy, he could have freaking given me some warning, instead of springing it on me two days before-hand - and that only because I asked, because I'd heard a rumor that's what he was doing. For financial reasons, I'd have probably chosen to work it instead, but after the way my week went steadily downhill (oh, the best is yet to come), I was in NO MOOD and desperately wanted that long weekend to recuperate. So I took the hit and took the day off, without pay.

And that really pissed me off.

Then, the icing on the cake was, I came home and accidentally did this in the driveway.

WARNING: Disturbing Photo To Follow


Yep. That's my Droid. To say I was pissed was the understatement of the decade. I was taking my stuff out of the truck when I came home from work, and it just slipped and hit the driveway.

Sigh.

Initially I thought I was going to have to shell out hundreds of dollars for a new phone (no, of COURSE I didn't have the damned insurance). But something finally went somewhat right. (or, well, it might - remains to be seen).

The phone does still work, completely normally - it's just annoying as hell looking at everything through that web of cracks. But I found out that these screens (or "digitizers" as they are actually called) are replaceable. The guy who does our computers at work has done this many times for people. I ordered one on ebay for $40 (which our computer guy said was a really good price) - it's advertised as being brand new, still in the original packaging, never opened or used. And I did some poking online, and apparently this is REALLY common, and many people have successfully fixed the phone this way.

I only say 'remains to be seen' because it is possible the process could go awry and wreck the phone - it looks complicated to me, as you basically have to take the entire phone apart from the back through to the front, removing the motherboard and all it's guts ... but even if that happened, I'm not out anything but $40, because I would have to get a new one anyway if this wasn't an option - as I said, I can't deal with trying to read anything on the screen through all those cracks for very much longer.

So ... there's hope that it can be restored for a mere $40. Which makes not having the insurance a little more of a non-issue, because with the insurance I'd have had a $50 deductible, they'd have only sent me a refurbished phone, and I'd have had to set it all up all over again. This way I get to keep my phone, all personalized the way I like it, and it cost $10 less.

I think I need to be kept away from expensive electronic equipment. I wrecked the keyboard in my netbook last spring by spilling an entire drink into it (well, that really wasn't my fault - someone set a full drink down RIGHT in FRONT of the keyboard, without me knowing it, while my back was turned - so I turned around reaching towards the computer, and knocked the whole thing over right into it - I never, EVER sat my drink down that close to the computer, so I don't take full responsibility for that one).

Sigh. I just want to go hide in the Imaginarium until next Monday morning.

More Creativity On The Loose

I've been working on some projects.

I made a necklace awhile back, but I don't think I posted any pictures. It's kind of simple, but it was my first foray into working with clay and making beads. The three brown beads are clay, and the strip with studs around the middle bead is also clay (well, the studs are mini-brads).


That was nice as far as it went. But I've made another one.





I picked up that center piece - the heart - at a craft store one day a few weeks ago just because it was cool. I was planning to make a skirt, and had gotten the material for it - shades of brown - and decided that I wanted to wear a brown turtleneck with it, then use that focal piece to build a kind of large, rather simple necklace to wear with it - it all seemed like it would go so well together.

So that's what I did. All of this necklace is from store-bought parts except the twisted brown and tan beads - I made those.


I like this one a lot better. I'm sure over time my skill and creative 'eye' for things will improve. But in the end, all that really matters is whether I like it ... I'm the one making it (and wearing it, for now anyway ...).

In other clay news, I was making my first steampunk Christmas ornament, and finally finished it today, and put it in to bake - and promptly burned part of it! I'm not sure what happened, as the oven hadn't even heated up all the way yet. I hadn't moved the oven racks or anything, and I've been baking my other pieces in the same exact spot, so - I'm kind of baffled by that.

Oh well. I took it out to cool, I'll trim away the burned bits, try to re-fashion it a bit, re-bake, then post pictures. It'll be fine. It was mostly a practice piece anyway. And I need it - the practice - this type of work is kind of complex and tricky, so I suspect it's going to take a lot of practice and trial-and-error, and it'll be awhile before I'm turning out anything really stellar. At least a couple weeks. ;o)

... like another hole in my head ...

Well, I've gone and done it now. I've found a new hobby - uh, art form. I've hesitated to even mention it, as I have so many hobbies that I can never finish anything as it is. But this one ... um, this one feels different. I've never been quite so enamored of a new hobby before. I just spent about 6 hours today working on a project, and didn't want to stop, but had to - had to get a few other things done (like walk and feed the dog!). It's a rare hobby (even a new one) that can keep me interested for that long at a stretch, and I still didn't want to stop - and can't wait for the next session, I have so many ideas!


Oh - what is it? Polymer clay! Holy cow, where have they been hiding this stuff? It's like the perfect art medium. You can do just about anything with it. You can make beads (of an incredible variety), or sculptures which could become anything (jewelry parts, pins, Christmas ornaments, etc.), you can make boxes and vases, cabinet door knobs - pretty much anything decorative that exists, you can create (or re-create) out of polymer clay. You can put things in it (gems, stones, wire, metal), you can paint it or treat it with metallic or decorative powders ...

... I know, I'm gushing. I'm pretty enthralled.

I tried polymer clay many years ago, when all there was, was Fimo. It was hard and crumbly and I couldn't accomplish anything with it. I only bought one or two packages, messed with it once, and I think threw it out.

I had one other foray into clay, a few years ago at an event there was a 'dress up your stuffed animal' contest. I had a stuffed bear I decided to dress as Robin Hood, so I made him a quiver and bow out of clay. Problem was, I didn't know you had to bake it. (duh) So I got the bow made okay, and it looked alright, but when I tried to attach a taut string to it, it just began to bend.

This time I did a little reading up before trying anything. (and they have better quality stuff now - the clay I bought, Sculpey and Premo, is FAR easier to work with than that beta version of Fimo) So my first project was totally successful! It was a necklace - I made some of the beads out of clay, then after that was done, added another clay embellishment to one of the plain beads, and re-baked it. (Yep, you can even do that! and I didn't even have to take the necklace apart to re-bake it, because the low temperatures used for clay - about 260 degrees - wouldn't harm the other metal findings or the leather cord it's strung on). It turned out pretty nice (I forgot to take a picture of it today though).

What really got me fired up (no pun intended) about polymer clay, though was a book I ran onto by accident called "Steampunkery" - steampunk polymer clay sculpture. Totally, completely awesome. (that's what all the detritus in the lower half of the picture up there is - watch parts for steampunk sculpture!)

So some of my first projects are going to be steampunk Christmas ornaments. :o) I mentioned this to my friend Wren, and she wants one, so today's marathon session was creating a steampunk bird ornament for her. It's going really well, but it's not done yet, so no good pictures. I have lots of other steampunk Christmas ornament ideas ... steampunk Santa, and/or steampunk sleigh pulled by a mechanical reindeer ... an airship (of course!) ... wreaths, snowflakes, 'regular' ornaments with various interesting embellishments ... steampunk angels? The imagination staggers.

I'm also working on a second necklace (made the beads for it today, just haven't put it all together yet), and then another necklace - I'm designing these around my wardrobe. (I'm turning into such a girl). I recently bought a turquoise sweater, since most of my wardrobe of late has been various shades of brown, and I thought I needed something colorful. It's a v-neck sweater, so I thought a nice piece of jewelry to wear with it wouldn't go amiss. While brainstorming what would go with turquoise, I decided on a snowy-looking, turquoise-and-white winter theme. There are going to be turquoise and crystal beads, with probably some snowflakes, and a clay snowman motif going on somewhere.

Well, I'll stop now. But I'm thinking some of the other hobbies are going to be hitting the highway, because I'm pretty well seriously addicted to this clay stuff.