Friday, October 31, 2014

HA3 Terminators

Happy Halloween Folks!

We're flirting with winter here in New England this weekend. It looks like it will finally drop below freezing at night so I can pretty much guess what lies ahead. At least those darned ticks will go to sleep soon and leave my cat alone.

First a report on the Sweethearts. I'm delighted to announce that we raised $2360 for the Cure SMA charity and the donation has been sent to them! Hopefully that money will go towards research and support for families dealing with this difficult illness. Thank you again everyone. The tremendous strength of character, generosity and kindness that you all possess shows itself time and again. It's a beautiful thing indeed. ;)

Today I have a small batch of Terminators to offer. These are aluminum with rifle knurling and natural HA III hardcoat. They are feather light and look fantastic on the Yellow Jacket cord. I've been saving these for quite a while as the batch is pretty small. I kept hoping we could make a few more to get the numbers up but it doesn't look like there will be enough machine time coming up anytime soon and I would rather use the available time for ti 5 flute beads anyway. So off they go...

The HA3 Terminators will be $30 plus shipping and it will be a two per customer limit on them please. As always, thanks for stopping in today and have a great weekend!

These are gone, thank you!





 

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Stainless Sweethearts

Hi Folks,

You may recall that I was coming down with a cold during the last sale more than two weeks ago...well, I'm still recovering from the darned thing! What a nasty one, a very energy draining virus and the worst cold I've had in many years. Anyhow, I'm finally feeling much better and my energy is mostly back.

As many of you know, my little 2 year old niece Elena was diagnosed this spring with a rare genetic disease called Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA). This debilitating illness affects the nerves controlling the muscles in her body. Luckily her condition is of the less severe variety but nevertheless it is doubtful that she will ever be able to walk and she has a number of associated disabilities that will require constant lifelong care.

My sister Megan realized that the family would need a van with handicap accessibility and was quite shocked to discover how expensive they are. So they held a couple of fundraisers over the summer including an online one. I had posted a small link to it on the blog here (which I have recently taken down). I can tell you that we were all absolutely blown away by the MANY kind and extremely generous donations as well as the supportive words. Truly we cannot thank you all enough! It's very humbling indeed.

Well, Megan's original goal of a brand new van turned out to be a little ambitious but she finally settled on a more affordable used Honda Odyssey with low mileage. The family is currently having it outfitted with the necessary wheel chair accessible gear and it should serve them brilliantly for several years. Elena is doing pretty well all things considered and I look forward to seeing the whole family around Christmas time.

Today I have a cute little item to offer. I came up with this idea over the summer while thinking of my family situation and I gave it a lot of thought. The Atwood Sweetheart is a simple lightweight key fob design in 304 stainless steel, just a hair under 1/8" thick. The tool does feature a cap lifter but I think it's most important and meaningful function may be a bit loftier. Is there anything better than love in this world? I think not... With that idea in mind, half of the proceeds from the Sweethearts will be donated to charity, in this case Cure SMA, (curesma.org) which is the only organization devoted to Elena's illness. In future runs of Sweethearts, I might do something different as far as a charity target but this seems like a great place to start.

The Sweethearts will run $45 each plus shipping and the link is below. Once again, on behalf of my sister Megan, niece Elena and our whole family, I thank you all so very much and God Bless!


Sweethearts are sold out for today but I have a few more coming shortly. Thank you all once again!



Saturday, October 11, 2014

Tipplers: Second Round

Hi Everyone,

Sorry for the long silence. It's been a busy fall so far, albeit a little frustrating...it started with a few days away which were nice but then progressed to a series of machinery maintenance issues in the shop which are now solved. In addition, the change of seasons often brings colds and I'm about to come down with a miserable one if other family member's experiences are any gauge of the situation. Finally, autumn only comes once a year here in New England and those nice colors and light are here for just a brief time so I've been out shooting photos like crazy for the past week when not dealing with all the rest of it. Anyway, it's back to the grindstone for now.

Now that my tumbler with the leaky and cracked bowl is fixed up again I can get back to working on several projects which have been delayed. I will have more copper 5 flute beads with added embellishments coming up soon, also those Roll Bars I had mentioned a while back, more ti Atwrenches and some new key fob items.

Today I have more of the 303 stainless steel Tipplers finished. This is the second half of the batch with the same elegant design as the previous ones. As before, these will run $65 each plus shipping and the link is below. Thanks for stopping by everyone and for your endless patience. Have a great weekend!


Tipplers are gone for now, thanks so much everyone!