A Little Zoo Fun

Here is a special visit to the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, SC.

We witnessed these little ladies hanging out together! 

They just want to touch and taste everything.

Of course one of the moms is nearby to check on their safety.

These are the internet stars in the viral video of gorillas not wanting to get wet in the rain. 

I love the thinker pose in the background below. Dad simply chills out all day in the shade entertaining the humans with his funny poses.

We also witnessed a seal and sea lion feeding for the first time.

This little guy did some tricks.

For some reason onlookers are not standing on this side of the habitat so Jim and I experienced front row viewing.

This zoo has a wonderful aquarium too. Photos come out terrible due to reflections and dim lighting. These eel things poking out of the sand were photogenic though!

My favorite aspect of the aquarium is the living coral. It is stunning with its endless colors and shapes!

We also saw one of the gibbons walking the tight rope with great dexterity.

I hope these photos made you smile today!

On the business front, here is a custom order I just filled for a teacher. She requested 5 ID lanyards in the school colors to surprise her co-workers with.

After viewing the school website the combination of leopardskin jasper, silver leaf jasper, white howlite and black obisidian captures the theme perfectly!

Thank you for stopping by! ~Val

This Past Week Update

Custom Lanyard
This request was for a lanyard using the 7 chakra colors. My customer loves the fancy jasper here and wanted the chakra colors to be muted to compliment this particular stone.

The charka colors are stacked near the bottom of the lanyard.

I used for the following stones to represent the colors:
violet - fancy jasper
indigo - lapis lazuli
blue - blue lace agate
green - fancy jasper
yellow - calcite
orange - fancy jasper
red - red jasper

This was a fun project to take on and I'm thankful to my customer for asking me to do so!

Progress
This was the backyard on February 15.

The deck furniture was completely buried! Luckily the deck didn't collapse.

This is the yard on April 1. We have had more melting over the past few days too!

I don't think we will be seeing much of the early spring flowers this year. The bulbs will likely be confused!

It would be nice to put the shovels away but being a New Englander I'm well aware of the possibility of an April snowstorm. Of course I'm hoping for none!

Almonds and Chocolate
I had a bag of these roasted salted almonds.

My taste buds felt they were way too salty, hence inedible! The solution?

I coarsely chopped them and mixed them with melted chocolate. The result? Very edible salty almonds!

Jewelry Making Journal
Here is my latest post seen in the most recent issue of the Jewelry Making Journal!

Thank you for stopping by. Happy Easter and Happy Passover if you are celebrating! ~Val

Custom Lanyards and Handmade Cards

Custom Lanyards
I had the honor of creating 2 lanyards for a woman who lost her husband. He was a pilot for an airline whose color was blue. This lanyard features the cutest airplane bead!

I will be adding an airplane lanyard to my line as well since it is perfect for an airline employee as well as someone who loves to travel.

He also lived by the sentiment "because nice matters". How great are those words? So this is the other one I made.

It feels wonderful to create items that will be cherished and have such meaning.

JSS Shepherd
My niece and nephew celebrate summer birthdays and I came across the sweetest sheep cards for them from JSS Shepherd on Etsy.

For her:

For him:

JSS Shepherd is full of cute cards like this one for Christmas:

This one for someone special:

This Halloween one:

This get well card:

A card for someone who inspires you:

I could go on and on! Stop by JSS Shepherd the next time you need an adorable greeting card for any occasion! If you sew, this shop also has a  selection of patterns and other goodies!
Alice
My little girl. She is so pretty.

Yes I still have my big pupil!!! After talking with a few people who have dealt with stuck pupils in the past and learning that they all went back to normal gives me some reassurance that I may look normal again in the future.


I am loving the new shape of my eyeballs! Yes, they are a new shape. It never occurred to me that they would be different. Having an astigmatism before meant that my eyeballs were football shaped, now they are baseball shaped! My eyelids sit better now. I thought they sagged before due to being almost 40. While this is one of those things that no one will notice but me, I feel great because it looks like I had an eye lift! Hehe!


Thank you for stopping by! Enjoy the rest of your week. ~Val