COUSCOUS SALAD

I have to share this recipe my friend made for our golf tournament last week. Our club members brought so many delicious salads and desserts, and we had platters of Subway sandwiches too. Great fun and great food.

COUSCOUS SALAD

1 box plain couscous ... general rule: 1 cup couscous takes 1 cup water to swell.

1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
Pepper, to taste
1 tsp. curry powder
3/4 cup orange juice

4-6 green onions, sliced diagonally
2-4 tbsp. Italian parsley, chopped
3/4 cup Craisins
Chopped dried apricots to taste

2-3 tbsp. olive oil
1 lemon, juiced
3/4 cup nuts (walnuts, pecans or almonds) toasted and chopped

In bowl, mix together couscous, salt, sugar, pepper, and curry powder. Bring required amount of water to a boil and pour over mixture. Add orange juice and stir once. Cover tightly and let stand a few minutes. Stir again and continue to let stand until liquid is completely absorbed, 5-10 minutes. Fluff up with fork and add remaining ingredients. Better served at room temperature.

ENJOY!

A SMALLER BOHO RING

Sadly, our Boho Ring class ends on November 1st, in just a few days, but I feel pretty confident in continuing to work with sterling silver again. It's been years since taking my jewelry classes at our local community college. Now we can all look forward to the next class with Leslie. She hasn't announced a date yet, maybe after the holidays, and I'm guessing it will be CUFFS.

I finished my sixth ring yesterday ... a smaller version of the regular size. Again it wasn't smooth sailing, but it turned out well. How boring this would be if it was easy! Here's a photo of it with the last ring I made. I used one of my own dichroic glass cabochons.

MY BOHO BUDDIES!

A NEW BOHO RING!

I spent most of the week preparing lists, score cards and scoring sheets for a two-day golf tournament our club hosted. It was very successful, and the weather, golf course and food were all perfect.

So yesterday and today I was able to work on my fifth BOHO ring that was textured using the cupcake wrappers. The texture was so beautiful, I wanted to make this ring very simple. I domed two cut flower patterns and added silver balls in the center of each. And added a decorated flattened silver ball made in the Tucker Shot Plate to the shank. I love the stone, which is Chinese Blue Larimar .... from Cabtopia, an Etsy shop .... where I purchase all my stones. Will work on a smaller ring with a smaller 10mm stone next.

MY GREAT NEW TOOL!

I just got a new tool that I used today for the first time. It's a bending tool from Potter USA. Actually, it's called the "Joni Bender". She demonstrates using it to form a bracelet in this video.

The bender has three aluminum tubes, the largest one for bracelets, the smallest for rings. The middle one? Smaller forms, I guess. Here's a photo of it in my cute little bench vise that swivels from Harbor Freight ..... another new tool I bought this past weekend.

I used the smallest tube for forming my BOHO rings today. I finished forming two rings in about 30 minutes ... from flat metal to fitting my finger. They were first formed in the Joni bender, the seams soldered, then reformed after soldering. What a time saver! The photo shows a scrap piece of copper in the slot you use. It'll be interesting to try a ring with an additional layer on top that previously took me 2 to 3 hours to bend! I know the Joni Bender will make it easier.

A NEW TEXTURE!

It's always exciting to find a new texture to use with the rolling mill. I recently ordered some filigree cupcake wrappers from Amazon after seeing a post somewhere. I'll definitely be adding a few more patterns with my next order.

I don't quite understand how they are used with a real cupcake. You usually bake cupcakes in cupcake papers, right? ... so do you just wrap this wrapper around the cooled cupcake as an attractive way to present it? The paper is quite heavy so it would be reusable ... unless it got covered with frosting!! And it could probably be rolled through the rolling mill a second time too.

BOHO RING #4

I still have some finishing work to do on Ring #4, but it is looking good.

It was also looking pretty good a few days ago, all polished and ready for the stone setting. I had the stone in, formed the bezel wire around the stone, but one scallop on the bezel just would not sit right. There was only one thing I could do .... remove everything from the top of the ring and start over. YIKES! (I think I may have used another word at the time).

Here is the ring with the bead wire and bezel removed. The red stuff is yellow ochre which is mixed with water to form a paste that you brush on. The mixture prevents the solder from flowing in nearby areas. I also took off the two balls still showing.

I was able to work on the new additions yesterday and finished it this morning.

BOHO Rings -- 3 Started, Waiting for Cabochons

I started three rings Friday and hope to get my new cabochons Monday or Tuesday so I can continue. I made a new template for the smaller ring and really like the way it fits. The regular sized one has a new addition, a second design layer on the top. Forming two layers into a narrow ring was a nightmare! It took several annealings, all the tools I have, and lots of pounding! Surprisingly, my bad shoulder still feels pretty good.

I made a second one the next day ... and for some reason it was easier, probably because I knew just what to expect.

Hope to show you finished rings later this week!

BOHO RINGS ... TWO MORE FINISHED

I won't go into the gruesome details, but these two rings went to hell and back! I had completely different plans for them, but when "things happened", saving them was my next plan.

This little one suffered the most. After realizing I had forgotten the beaded wire ... when I thought the ring was finished ... I had to remove all the silver embellishments from the ring. That's when I melted the end of it. So becoming a short cute perfect sized ring is the result. I love it.

The other ring didn't suffer as much, and a lot of filing and sanding save it too.

Maybe a day of rest tomorrow. And I need to clean my work areas before I can continue!

BOHO RING IS FINISHED!

My first Boho Ring was quite an experience. Everything that could go wrong ... did go wrong! But I got the Bad Boy done this afternoon and it looks good.

I added one of the decorated shot plate balls to the shank too as an added element.

I tumbled it, polished it. Fortunately I did the polishing in my garage work area. The new cotton buff wheel shed tons of stuff ... I was covered with "chicken feathers" (if you've ever lived on a farm).

I put the Beauty on my finger, came back into the house, fed the dogs, and decided to photograph it for the BOHO Ring FB group and this blog. If any of you are like me, in our older years we misplace things at least ten times a day. I couldn't find the ring anywhere! But, of course, it was on my finger. This ring is SOOO comfortable! I'm so pleased with it. Tomorrow is another day, and I have two more formed rings....and more cabochons! Hope it gets easier.

BOHO RING LOOKING GOOD!

Here is a photo of my progress from yesterday. It was exhausting, and I was in bed at 8:30! The ring looks good, but there is a problem. With all the filing I did to form the bezel to the ring's curve, the bezel is very short. Was it Gilda Radner's character who said, "It's always something ...." Well, onward. I'm going to deal with the stone this weekend ... finish it somehow ... and show you my final polished beauty soon!

PROGRESS ON MY BOHO RING!

In my previous post I was etching sterling silver in order to make a Boho ring. I also listed the website of Leslie Kail Villarreal where you will see examples of her beautiful work. (It's not too late to check out her class and join her Facebook group.) I ordered her on-line class and WOW it has been a lot of fun ... and frustration. But I remind myself I haven't done metal fabrication and soldering in a long time. Just want to share photos of my progress so far.....

This is my first ring using the silver that I etched.

It really looks great ... BUT unfortunately with all my filing and futzing, the ring was too small for me. Even after annealing and stretching, annealing and stretching, it still would not fit. Leslie had a brilliant idea which enabled me to save the ring and make it fit. It worked beautifully! That was yesterday morning. I had also used the rolling mill to texture two more pieces of silver and got them soldered as well! Here are the three rings from yesterday.

This afternoon my order from Rio Grande was delivered, so tonight I'm making bezels for the rings and hopefully can show you progress maybe tomorrow or .... when I have something! The hard part is just starting, and it will be quite a learning experience. Adding a bezel to a curved surface is just the beginning!!!