Bzzy Little Bee

Not One But Two Red Rabbit Holidays on the Way

 Rabbits, Rabbits Everywhere!

Here's what I've been working on almost nonstop the last couple of months.  And they are almost here!  We're doing our second annual Red Rabbit at Descanso Gardens on December 6th and our first holiday show in Orange County on December 13th.  I'm especially looking forward to the workshops which are always so much fun.  I'm asking everyone I know to save soda cans for me for the pinwheel and brooch classes which I'll be teaching there.  And I can only drink so much! 

Come check out the fun!  http://redrabbitworkshop.com

Crafty Chica Challenge Announced

Get this!  Craftzine: (which everyone should be subscribing to by the way :) ) is having a contest right now featuring the Queen of Glitter herself, the Crafty Chica, to make your own Day of The Dead Shrine.  Contestants are asked to make a personal shrine and post it to the Crafty Chica Challenge Flickr group http://www.flickr.com/groups/craftychicachallenge  The deadline is October 28 and the winners, who will be selected by a drawing, will be announced on November 2nd.  

Prizes include Crafty Chica Gift Baskets, a Maker Shed gift certificate and a Crafty Chica Bobblehead!  (I already have one and it brings lots of crafty inspiration to my studio! :) ) 

Here's the link for more information: http://www.craftzine.com/craftychicachallenge

So make something fabulous and you might just win some great crafting supplies.  And you know you can never have enough glitter! 

(Thanks to Laura Cochrane at CRAFT & MAKE for the heads up!)

Pockets Full Of Posies

Yet Another Excuse To Bring Home Those Old 
Couches You See By The Side Of The Road

Aren't these cute? We're going to be making these vinyl pockets with laced up edging on Sunday at the Red Rabbit show at the Los Angeles Arboretum. Stop by and learn how. It's gonna be fun!!

http://redrabbitworkshop.com

Hippity Hoppity On The Way

Wow!  I'm finally done with the "coco hunt" :), which is how I referred to the endless ever-changing movie I was just on in my "Tweets".  I was actually able to document, in a veiled sort of way, what was happening on the movie by Twittering everyday.  I love Twitter!  I love the challenge of trying to say something succinctly and with wit in the space of 140 characters.  My memory always softens and goes blurry just a few weeks after being on a show but now I'll be able to look at my old Tweets and say "Oh yeah, that's where the director went extra nuts" or "Oh, yeah, I'd forgotten just how many times the director changed that reel - that day" and shake my head incredulously.  :)  Ah, good times, good times.

But the exciting thing is that now I can concentrate more on our upcoming Red Rabbit craft show which is going to be at the Los Angeles Arboretum.  It's going to be really fun with a raffle and goody bags. More details here Red Rabbit Workshop

I'm so excited - the "coco hunt" is finally finished and now the summer can start!  Woo Hoo!!

Swept Away In A Whirlwind of Crafting

The King Midas Upcycle Touch - Turning Trash into Treasure

Goodness! Where did March and April disappear to? They left in a flurry of activity is where they went. In between teaching some really fun computer classes to some fabulous artists at the Sawdust Festival offices, teaching upcycling projects to loads of wonderful kids and packing up Etsy sales, there has been the looming and omnipresent load of this movie that I'm on.  Most movies take 1-3 months to do post-production sound on them.  This one is going on 9 months.  NINE.  MONTHS. Ah but that is another story for another time.....  Let's get to the good stuff!

So first off in early April I taught this class on upcycling in Laguna Beach at the Sawdust Festival Spring Into Art event. Eight little girls for 5 hours. IT WAS AWESOME!!!  My sis Alissa helped me and it was so much fun.  Here's a picture of everyone hard at work.

Little Girls, Little Girls, Everywhere I Look I See Little

I pulled out every tool I could think of for these projects - eyelet punchers and setters, dapping blocks, embossing rollers, wire bending pliers, and these little girls mastered them all! They kicked butt! I think it is so important to teach kids, especially girls, how to treat tools with respect and with command and then with practice comes skill and confidence.  Oh, when Alissa was little I was always teaching her how to switch drill bits or swing a hammer.  It's the best!

And the wonderful thing was seeing how every little girl made her work completely her own.  All the flowers and vases were completely different.  Here are a few examples:

       

It's a FlowerPalooza!

Aren't they awesome?!  I was so proud of my students!

Then a couple of weeks ago Alissa again helped me and we team taught making soda can pins as part of the Imagination Celebration held at the Sawdust.  We must have shown 60 adults and kids over the course of two hours how to make these pins.

Ooh So Bright and Shiny!

So You Takes Dis Heah And You Puts It Over Heah

Step Right Up And Make Something Cool!

Alissa and I had precut all the flower and circle shapes so on the day of the event, we were able to focus on showing everyone how to decorate and shape the metal and cardboard using dapping blocks and embossing tools. Then using stacked button centers, we assembled the flowers with wire and pinbacks. It was grueling, I'm not kidding you, but it was truly one of the most fun and inspiring things that Alissa and I have every done.  It was so uplifting seeing everyone's creativity burst out to make something really pretty out of essentially trash. And as you can see we were swamped!

These pins are actually an evolution from the felt pins which I was making plus the soda can pinwheels!  Isn't that interesting?  My friend Dolores had suggested a project making flowers out of cereal boxes so I thought "Hmm - how about making felt flowers out of metal?"  So there you go!   

  

Poppies, Poppies Will Put Them To Sleep

A lot of visitors mentioned that these soda can pins would be a great Girls Scout project so I'm going to write up the instructions and post them here - hopefully next week sometime.  I will also be teaching the flower pins at our upcoming Red Rabbit Arts & Crafts Market at the Los Angeles Arboretum in July. Oh yeah, now that is yet another story to tell but that will have to wait until tomorrow. :)

Multi-Media Artist

 
I Was Game But The Fish Wasn't

A few years ago, I saw on TV a Hawaiian artist who practiced the Japanese tradition of Gyotaku - wherein that day's catch was immortalized by applying paint to a fish and then printing with it on paper.  It was beautiful. The wind was blowing in the artist's hair as he flung his fishing hook over the ocean and caught rainbow colored fish.  Then, after carefully selecting the most interesting fish of the lot, he dabbed paint on the skin and then pressed it against some handmade paper to make gorgeous prints.  These prints he then made into a beautiful shoji screen.  I was smitten  and I wanted to try it too!  So with this in mind, early on a Saturday morning I hauled my mother and little sister to a craft college which was about 2 hours away.  I promised them that this was going to be great.  I could smell the salt breeze and picture the glistening fish scales even as I barreled down the 5 Freeway trying to make it to class on time after a late start.  We ran into the classroom and threw ourselves into the last 3 seats just in time to see the teacher walk in with a foam cooler.  Yey!  We made it - hoo - what the heck- agh! - what is that SMELL?!  We looked up from our double-overed positions to see the teacher pulling out of the cooler plastic baggies full of some kind of foul-colored gelatinous masses.  Then she explained the whole process and how we would take the fish out of the bags and spread them out on paper towels so that we could apply the paint and make the prints.  It really was an interesting technique and the prints we made were lovely - once we got over the revulsion.  See what the class catalog didn't say was how these fish were actually reused from class to class, week to week, boy scout troop to adult continuing ed.  Imagine what a fish or octopus looks like after having been spread out on a paper towel, had paint applied to it, been smushed onto a sheet of paper and then been dunked in a bucket full of fishy water to be cleaned off - 40 or 80 times.  Yeah.  But I was in my crafting fervor and once my mother and little sister gave up - after like the first 20 minutes of a 2 hour class - I took over and finished their prints.  Nothing was going to stop my mastering this technique.  Hell no.  This was art at its most primeval and nothing but nothing was going to stop me from taking that hill. Not no way, not no how. Least of all a stinky little fish with one eye hanging out and something coming out of its mouth. Bring it on, fish boy.

Oh, and the prints really did turn out pretty.  Just don't stand too close or inhale too deeply.

Glass & Metal Go Together Like Chips & Salsa

Let The Sun Shine In!

Yey!  Two more off my To-Do list!  Bruce and I took a Dalle de Verre class a few years ago and made these glass panels.  Dalle de Verre refers to a technique which uses chunks of thick slabs of glass which are then joined together with cement or nowadays, epoxy.  We had these panels but couldn't figure out a way to display them properly.  So I made some steel frames for them and voila!  It's amazing how ugly rusty metal shines up so beautifully with a little bit (well, OK, a lot) of grinding and sanding.  And I love how the metal frames add a whole other dimension to the glass.  Now the glass is much more sculptural so not only do you see the light coming through the glass but also the shadows cast by the frames.  Bruce made the glass panel on the left and I made the one on the right.  So I call the pair either "Water & Fire" or "Chips & Salsa" depending on how the light hits them.  Or if it's close to lunchtime.
 

Another One Checked Off The List!

Ready For Their Party Clothes

Remember these guys?  I posted them back here in November.  I wasn't thrilled with them at the time so I sketched a page of ideas of how to finish them.  Well, I finally completed them and here they are:

Can You Hear My Hearts A''Thumpin?

The top middle and bottom left hearts are covered with colored foils and the rest are all painted with acrylics.  I think the center green one is my favorite.  It would be pretty to try a white heart with blue detailing to make it look like Dresden Blue china.  Bruce named the blue swirly heart "Starry Night" - so I'm thinking it might be fun to make some real brushy swirly ones in Van Gogh colors.  Agh - and I thought I was done with these but isn't that always the case: one idea leads you down the path to many more. Oh well, what's another project or two more on the list of things to do - the never-ending, elastic-waisted, ever-expanding list of things to do.

My Latest Project - House of Cards Mixed Media Birdhouse

A King's Castle Fit For A Queen

Isn't it funny how sometimes ideas for projects just sometimes pop into your head unexpectedly?  The idea for this little house of cards woke me up in the middle of the night a few weeks ago and I'd been mulling it around, trying to figure out how exactly to make it.  I tend to sketch and plan out my projects very carefully before I ever pick up a brush or glass cutter, but this one only ever existed in my head.  I had an inkling of how to approach it but other than that it was very much spontaneous and flying by the seat of my pants.  I actually had to use quite a few different tools on it - like my scroll saw and Dremel and jeweler's saw.  The base itself is a plain purchased birdhouse to which I added the embossed metal shingles and those shingles took FOREVER to make - whew!  You can't really see but there is small wire flower on the front of the house to the left of the wire-wrapped perch.  This was one of those "crafting blindfolded" kind of projects, the kind that you don't know where you're going when you start but you trust in the process and have fun in the making and hopefully end up with a happy surprise at the end.  Tweet!   

Playing Heavy Metal In My Car

Diamond Plate and U-Channel Steel Are A Girl's Best Friend

Yup, this is what the back of my car looks like lately.  Like something Jethro Clampett threw together - all rusty and greasy and smelling of oil.  That's because Monday morning I went over to the metal shop to buy some material to use in my welding lab which I had in the afternoon.  I've been taking welding at Otis School of Design for the last year and it just keeps getting better.  I started out making frames for some glass panels which I had made years before and wanted to display.  Well, now I've gotten ahead of myself and I've got a bunch of metal frames but no glass panels for them - so I guess it's time to fire up the glass kiln.  But oh, how I love welding.  It's fast and immediate and durable.  And what other medium can you buy for only twenty-five cents a pound?  Twenty-five cents a pound!  Really!  That is if you buy remnants which are what you see in the picture above.  For about thirty dollars I got around a hundred pounds of steel in all sorts of shapes!  Hah!  Thirty dollars at Michael's will buy me - well, not much.  That's the metal you see on the right side of the picture.  On top of that is a small 9" x 12" frame which is meant to "float" about half an inch from the wall when hanging.  A fused glass panel will drop into that and it will be part of a set of three frames.  The yellow bucket contains all my welding tools like angle magnets, gloves and dirty old rags for wiping metal.  I love that leather jacket in the center of the picture.  It's worn for protection against the sparks and heat. Oh, that's a toaster oven under the jacket -  for polymer clay.  Ah, but that's another story for another day. 
 

Good Enough To Eat

Fun & Funky Needle-Felted Cuff

Ooh! - Rebecca over at Rebecca's Soap Delicatessen very kindly posted a how-to that I did for making a needle-felted cuff.  Check out her site - it's full of scrumptious soap and beauty products which sound good enough to eat. (And I blush to tell you how many times I have indeed tasted face creams and lotions.  What can I say, they really did look yami.)  Thank you, Rebecca!!!!

Here's a link to the tutorial!

Having A Bad Hair Day

On walking past an exhibitor furiously twirling a stick with some yarn:

Me:  “Ooh!  What are you doing?!”

Exhibitor: “Twirling.”

…..

……

Me: (waiting for the big reveal) “Yes?”

Exhibitor: “I twirl this yarn around this stick which has elastic and make a long cord.  It’s a great thing to do with kids.”

…..

…..

Me: “Cool!  It’s so pretty!  And then what do you do with the long cord?”  (holding my breath knowing, just knowing that I was about to be given insight into the next wondercraft to hit the known universe.)

Exhibitor:  “Oh, you can tie it in your hair or use it as a doorstop to keep out drafts.”

Me:  (excitedly)  “Wow! That's cool!  And what else?  What else?!” (My mind whirling at a million miles an hour at the possibilities but still drawing a blank.  Here’s comes the secret – I know it – here it comes!)

Exhibitor:  “Um, it’s a great thing to do with kids.”

Me:  (sound of 1,000,000 mph brain coming to screeching halt)  “Oh … cool… that’s nice…. it’s so pretty… well thank you….”

Which made me realize that of all the arts and crafts which I’ve ever done, ever since I can remember, there was always a catch basin category into which fell all the handcrafted items which had neither a function nor a form but were really just meant to keep hands busy and pass the time. But after investing so much effort, I felt obligated to attach some sort of purpose to those long knobby-knitted ropes and endless loomed daisies and what better way than by turning them into potholders and yes, even hair ornaments.  Most of my school portraits are of me with long carefully crafted coils dangling from my ponytails. But the funny thing is that sometimes giving a purpose to a little bunch of well-crafted uglies only makes for an even bigger well-crafted ugly. Dear God – I just realized how much of my childhood was spent with crap I made hanging from my head like a demented hairy Christmas tree.  OH MY GOD.  It’s like suddenly realizing that you had food on your teeth and no one ever wanted to tell you for fear of hurting your feelings.  I HAD CRAP HANGING FROM MY HEAD!!!!!  CRAP!!!  FROM THE SIDES OF MY HEAD!!!!  WHY DID NO ONE SET ME STRAIGHT?!!!!

Deep breath.  Sigh. 

Well, OK, on second thought they really are sweet pictures with me all smiling and proud of my dangly creations and somehow I did get a boy in the fifth grade to declare his love to me in a Valentine’s Day card so I guess those head decorations weren’t all that bad.  Maybe they really were cute after all.

Hmmm…  well, perhaps I was too harsh in my judgment of that twirling stick lady and should revisit for more details.  Hey yeah, my hair is long enough to wear in a ponytail again, don’t ‘cha know.

If You Can't Figure Out What To Make With It,
Then Just Stick It In Your Hair

CHA - Better Loosen that Belt

Aren't these great??!!!  Lead us down that crafty path, Kathy!

The Craft and Hobby Association Expo ("C-H-A" for short although I like to call it "CHAW") is going on at the Anaheim Convention Center this week and if there ever there was a Sizzler's all-you-can-eat buffet for the crafting world, this would be it. We went this morning and, man, are we stuffed! This is where all the craft supply manufacturers gather to present their wares to retailers and designers. It is one big, honkin' Craftapalooza.  Everywhere you look, you see craft world all-stars - Carol Duvall (I nearly fainted when I saw her), Lisa Pavelka - the polymer clay queen, Donna Dewberry - the One-Stroke painting legend, tons of other TV and blog celebrities and then my all-time favorite, Kathy Cano Murillo, the Crafty Chica herself.  She's at the show promoting her wonderful new line of Latin-flavored craft supplies for Duncan Crafts and this morning taught a fun class called "Create-A-Saint".  Everyone started out with a plain white figurine and then decorated it using all the gorgeous new Crafty Chica glitters, paints and glue sticks.  Kathy was adorable, encouraging everyone and chatting about her adventures.  I was originally going to make my figurine Valentine's Day inspired - all red, white and covered in hearts but somehow I found myself adding flames so instead of Santa Valentina of the Sweethearts, I ended up with the Virgen of the Perpetually Burning Love. That's her on the left.  Bruce made a lovely black attired nun who seems ready to start singing "Dominico-ico-ico". But wait!  It gets even better!  After class, we ran downstairs to the Duncan booth to pick up our very own Kathy Cano Murillo bobble-heads!  Bruce and I topped out after about three hours of walking the exhibit hall and even then we only saw about a quarter of everything there.  But that's what tomorrow is for - when I'll go back for a second helping of all that crafty goodness. 

Here are the links:
Craft Chica Blog
Craft and Hobby Assocation
Duncan Crafts
Sizzler 

A Little Scooch of This, A Little Scooch of That

Wooden Hearts Go Thud

Here's the latest thing sitting on my worktable.  These started out as flat heart cutouts purchased in a big bag from the wood aisle at Michael's a few years ago. I had completely forgotten about the hearts until I stumbled upon them a couple of months ago while looking for something else.  Well, all I can figure is that I had some sort of Ray Milland Lost Weekend kind of blackout but with craft supplies instead of hooch, because when I finally came out of my trance, it was later in the day and I was outside covered in sawdust, crazily grinding the edges off of all the hearts to make them more 3D.  My husband says that sometimes I scare him so I'm glad he wasn't home to catch me in my craft supply debauchery.  And heck if I know what it was that I had originally been looking for before I went down this long wormholey tangent.  I'm sure I'll stumble into it sooner or later.  Anyway after sanding, I painted each heart with a few different shades of acrylics (including some crazy experiments with dimensional paints) and though they look cute, I'm not quite satisfied with them. In my book, more is better, and these little guys need more of something, I just don't know what.  So I'm going to try putting faces on a few (like on my gourd ornaments) and covering a couple with candy foils as well as just do some decorative patterns on a couple of others.  We'll see. This is one of those kinds of projects which percolates in the background until it finally comes together.  And sometimes those end up being the best ones of all.

Donutssss - I Mean - Metalllll

Ok, so who would've thought that a metal store could make a person drool the way fabric and crafts stores do?  But once you know the difference between aluminum and steel, tubes and pipes, rods and sheets, and have a few welding and cutting basics down, then a whole new candy store opens up and with it a world full of possibilities.  This post is a little late in coming because the last time I mentioned welding I was just starting my first quarter of welding classes and now I've just wrapped up my second quarter! So now I've got a growing list of metal shops to add to my list of favorite craft shops in Southern California.  First off is M&K Metal Company in Gardena. 

Metals R Us

You can find a lot of great scrap metal here as well as small copper pieces for use in jewelry making.  Then there's Metal Depot off the 5 freeway in La Mirada. I can't believe that I had driven past it for so many years and had never stopped in!  Who knew?!  Ten minutes in IMS Metals near the Bob Hope Airport and your eyes will bug out at the immensity of the warehouse.  And the place is immaculate!

IMS - tidy and organized

But the real corker is King Architectural Metals in Buena Park.  Here you will find every kind of scroll and finial imaginable which you can piece together to make everything from lamps to furniture.  I walked out of there with my head swimming with visions of the wonderful fences I was going to make for everyone for Christmas. Nothing says "Merry Christmas" like a personalized handmade fence. Ah, metal, the gift that keeps on giving. 

The Better To See You With

What Big Eyes You Have

Here's part of my growing collection of eyelets. They look like little Fruit Loops and make great centers for my pinwheels. I love organizing them as much as using them!

Circles and Spirals

All Bound Up

These are two little notebooks I made for my mom and little sister using old CDs and colored paper.  I used a really cool little binding machine to punch the holes and then set the wire coil (Bind-It-All).  The most time consuming part was cutting out the paper using a circle cutter.  Now I can use up all those old CDs and scrap paper that I've been saving for years!  I also discovered that I can use that Crop-o-Dile punch tool to punch perfect holes in CDs and then to add eyelets.  But maybe a laceup CD is just a little too over the top.  :)

Tools of the Trade

Ready for My Closeup

There's something spiritual, almost sacred, about using tools that were treasured by others before us.  Tools are integral to the process of creation, whether it be a chisel carving a figure out of stone or a socket wrench tightening an engine mount. To me, it's so magical when my hand holds a tool, a tool filled with possibility, a tool which will help me get what's in my head and make it concrete.  Oh tool, how I love thee.  (I write this with my husband, Bruce, shaking his head and saying that I scare him sometimes.  LOL)

But seriously, I have a big slotted spoon and a pot which Bruce inherited from his great aunt a few years back.  When I use that spoon and pot to make a nice bean soup, I imagine his aunt's hand doing the same thing, holding that same spoon and stirring dinner for her family long ago.  I feel closer to people long gone not when I look at old family photographs but when I use the implements which were used everyday to make that person's life better. I then remember my loved ones with the joy of life and not with the pain of loss.

So I come to the point of this post, Bruce's wonderful father passed away last year and I was given the opportunity to choose a few of his most precious tools.  He was a skilled handyman, having grown up on a ranch and having a colorful career including time spent as a pilot in the Navy.  Pops had every tool imaginable in his garage workshop but I only wanted the favorite ones, the ones which he would have used the most.  There were drawers and drawers filled with screwdrivers and files, some worn down to the handles, some apparently rarely used, like clothes worn only on Sundays.  I chose a well worn hammer, nicked and shiny from use.  I also selected a few old pairs of pliers which looked like they'd been involved in many household repairs.  But I think my favorite is the little hatchet which he used to chop kindling.  Having grown up a city girl, I am fascinated with all things cowboy and Laura Ingalls Wilder/pioneer.  I'm embarrassed to say that my idea of building a fire is to rip the wrapper off a store-bought pressed wood log.  Needless to say, I will treasure these tools which Pops used so often and think of him fondly when I do.

A Workshop Well Worn

Feeling Punchy

Ooh, So Pretty, So Shiny, So Full of Bounce

Scrapbooking is not for me.  There I said it.  Them's fighting words in some areas but I say it with all due respect.  I just don't have the patience.  But that isn't to say that I don't covet many of the way cool tools that are available to scrapbookers these days.  Like this pink baby - the Crop-o-Dile eyelet punch and setter.  It's got a 1/8" hole punch on one side and a 3/16" hole punch on the other.  And instead of fumbling with lots of little eyelet and snap setting parts, you just spin the little cubes in the center section until you get the combination that you need.  But wait - there's more: the wonderful part of this tool is that it is so strong that you can actually punch through metal and wood!

I got my eye on you, Wachowski!

I tried out the Crop-O-Dile on a piece of metal flashing (about 22 gauge), on a 1/8" piece of wood, on a double layer of blue-striped vinyl and on a triple layer of pink felt.  It worked beautifully on everything.  So now whenever you need a quick small hole in your latest creation, you can just punch one in metal and wood without having to plug in a drill, find drill bits and then clean up the sawdust or metal filings . It's my new favorite tool.  The power!  The muscles! 

I got my Crop-O-Dile from Oriental Trading Company .  I splurged and bought a new 1" grommet setting tool and sweet pastel-colored flower and circle grommets.  They're made for scrapbook pages but I'm going to try them out on pieces of aluminum cans and felt.

Scrapbooking is a huge multimillion dollar industry and I think that a great many exciting new tools and techniques will come from that sector, tools which can then be adapted for use in ways other than for which they were originally intended.  Go, Croppers!

Is There A Peep In The House?

Does this house make me look fat?

This week in welding class we learned how to use the oxy/acetylene cutting torch head.  This little house is actually made up of a bunch of metal practice scraps with a final door blasted in the front.  Other students in the class were making wonderful pierced hurricane votive holders.  Oh the possibilities!  Today a bird house - tomorrow a ship! - I mean another birdhouse - but with two floors and a jacuzzi.  I'll make my own Barbie Dreamhouse thank you very much.  :)

Fire Good

Urban Dweller

Fire and metal, baby.  Doesn't get better than that.  That's what I felt last Saturday when I lit the oxy/acetylene torch and started to melt the two little pieces of steel together.  Sure, I'd worked with torches and propane/oxygen when soldering silver in jewelry making and also when melting glass in bead making, but for melting steel you need a bigger boat - I mean - bigger tools.  Oh yeah.

I've come to the point in my glasswork where my pieces have gotten to the size that I now need to start thinking about metal stands and frames.  So I signed up for this awesome welding class that meets Saturday mornings at Otis College of Art and Design in Westchester.  You get to learn all the different ways of welding and cutting metal including MIG, TIG, gas, arc and plasma cutting plus you get lots of lab time to work on your projects.  I have been dying to learn how to use a plasma cutter after seeing so many people make great things using it on Crafters Coast to Coast.   

Our first hands-on soldering last Saturday was just about learning how to use the oxy/acetylene torch.  It's tricky because you're wearing dark glasses and wearing a thick leather glove on your left hand.  (You can get away with not wearing one on your right hand because it's the one holding the torch and it doesn't get hot.)  My welds were not pretty but oh boy, was it cool.

Weld's A'Poppin

On a different note, it's funny how certain sounds and smells can transport you to a different time and place.  When I walked into the welding shop, the grease and oil smells along with the clanging sounds of other students at work instantly flooded me with memories of being a kid visiting my dad's work in San Francisco.  Before he retired, he used to be a diesel truck mechanic and he had actually been working on engines since he was ten years old.  He came from a large humble family in Mexico and had started contributing to the household income from such a young age.  They say circus people have sawdust in their blood, my dad had and still has oil in his.  It seemed to me that no matter how hard he scrubbed with his citrus hand cleaners and harsh Lava Soap, the perfume of the engines would not go away.  Sundays called for extra scrubbing because not only was it Church day but because we’d very often go visit nearby relatives and acquaintances – the tios, the tias, primos and compadres.  My shiny, bright father would pomade his hair with Brilcream and pat on some Jockey Club scent but underneath it all there was the odor of oil so faint, so subtle that in my mind it became as much a part of my father as was the color of his thick, brown hair and his quick laugh.  The thick hair has thinned a bit now, gone more silver than brown but the laugh is still there and excitement still fills his voice especially when he regales his children with stories from his youth, my dear father, the hardworking boy-mechanic.