10 on the 10th, uhm, 9th - Dogs

Early once again. The 10th is Thursday - silent movie day.
So I'm already here today to talk about the prompt "Marsha in the Middle" gave us - our favorite dogs. Dogs??? Everyone knows I'm a cat person (you will know it even more in a few days)!

Luckily, I love dogs almost as much as cats in all shapes and sizes, but obviously I never lived with one. Marsha gave us an escape route for that, though. 
"They can be dogs you've owned, grew up with, are on tv, dog food cans, whatever!" Sure, Marsha. I always fall in love with dogs on dog food cans, sigh. But hey, I think I know a good "whatever" ...
As usual, the order is quite random.

1. Flocki was the first dog I met on the farm on my friend's parents. As the farm wasn't close to us, I didn't get to see her as much as I would have liked. I loved that sweet girl and I still miss her. I even got a tee with a picture of her once, it must still be in my wardrobe.
There's one unforgotten story. Once my friend visited her parents over the weekend and I came along and slept on the living room couch. The next morning I woke up to a nose in my face. My friend's mother told me that Flocki had insisted on seeing me first 🥰 quite the shock to my friend who was usually the first one to get woken up by her on visit weekends. When Flocki comes up in our stories, so does this story ... my friend still isn't over it, hehe!

2. I don't have a picture of Hera because she was the German shepherd on the farm of my godmother's parents when I was a kid. When I think of Hera, the first image that comes to mind is her waiting for the kittens to be done when raiding her bowl.

3. Chloey is a family member's dog. She's a French mademoiselle who found a new home in Germany via a shelter for polar dog breeds.
She keeps reminding me of a fox with those ears and this face and red coat (lighter or darker depending on the light), so I like to call her "onser Fichsle" which is just Swabian for "our little fox".
Do you see her grinning? That's because she knows exactly she has her two people wrapped around each single paw. The motto is: "Everything for the dog. Everything for the dog." (You're legally bound to say it twice, I know because we have the same one here, only with "cat".)

4. is a double pack. Kosimo, called Kosel, and Nemo, called Schnuck, are the resident dogs in our house. As you can see they are natural models, so natural indeed that they don't believe in weird poodle cuts (which traditionally had to do with poodles going into the water as they were bred for the duck hunt, but which are merely for optics today).
Kosel is all over me sometimes and I love it even if he had the habit to steal one of my pink shoes from the hallway. He loves pink and had to have this flamingo that his nephew is trying to steal. Just look at those dark eyes.
Nemo holds back with me a bit more after trying to knock me over for a greeting, but the other day we had a big hug.

5. Struppi was the first dog I met at my best childhood friend's house. He was a wirehaired dachshund and for some reason I always think of him as a little grumpy old man. No picture available, sorry.
Of course, there are quite a few memories connected with him, but I'll share just one.
We were in the car. My friend's Mom had made given us both a slice of bread with butter and salami on it. Ah, you know where this is heading, don't you? My friend and I sat in the back and Struppi next to me. One moment he looked out of the window, the next moment the salami was gone from my bread and he still looked out of the window!
In my innocence, I had held the slice of bread up and looked away for a second. It was practically like an offer and he took me up on it so fast I didn't even see it. 

6. Finni was another friend's dog, also a dachshund, but a longhaired one.
I can't remember Finni ever being anything but nice, quite amazing for a dachshund, a breed that can be very stubborn (I knew more than just Struppi and Finni). The only thing I remember her being extremely stubborn about was not eating a certain brand of kibbles.
There is a picture of her somewhere, a Polaroid, in a stack of loose photos, I don't know how well it still looks after all those years. If I find it, I'll add it. 

Of course I have met a lot of other dogs over the years and sometimes it was love at first sight, but often we had to part ways after just one fleeting encounter ... at the vet's, on the train, downtown ...
So here comes the "whatever" now.
There are a few dogs on the internet I'm in love with (or should I say I have a parasocial connection to?).

7. It started with Olive and Mabel.
They are the pals of Scottish sports commentator Andrew Cotter. When Covid hit and there wasn't any sports, Cotter commentated "The Dog's Breakfast Grand Final" - which the older and more experienced Olive won, by the way. Sorry for the spoiler.
Cotter followed up with more hilarious videos, for example Olive and Mabel lying on their online dating profiles or joining a gym, but even just him walking through his garden with the labradors has something very calming.



8. I found Ollie and Tato on Instagram and instantly fell for them. Their videos make me happy and give me a moment of peace, much needed these days. Who wouldn't be happy seeing labradors doing their own version of the Lion King (very impressive, that one), Ollie caring for his own pumpkin or Tato (the baby raptor) and his plotting against Santa?
Animal videos are the only time I'm not even disturbed by AI voices. I live for Ollie's mlems and Tatey's pew-pews.

There isn't much on YouTube as they are mostly on Instagram and TikTok, but here's one example.
Most of the time, they are perfectly normal dogs with normal lives, by the way.

9. I also found the Sisters of the Snoot on Instagram, well, the algorithm threw them in my path, start with one dog channel and they pop up like crazy.
The Sisters are Abby (void horse = borzoi), Cleo (chaos worm = silken windhound), and Marcy (void horse in training = younger borzoi). I have no idea why it's so funny to me to hear them being called noodles.
There isn't that much on YouTube here, either.



10. is not exactly a dog. It's a lot of dogs to fall in love with.
It's a channel on several platforms which constantly makes me laugh and cry, not hard to do even with good things. I'm talking about "We Rate Dogs".
"We Rate Dogs" started on Twitter almost ten years ago by - surprise! - rating dogs or "complaining" about people sending pictures in of non-dogs (aka "seals", "polar bears", "sharks", etc.).
Nowadays "We Rate Dogs" is also on Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, TikTok, YouTube and who knows where else. That could be reason to turn me off in other cases, but the owner Matt Nelson has not only turned this into a job by saying "The dogs were good again this week. Here are my top 5."




Part of the proceeds go to the 15/10 Foundation helping to sponsor dogs with medical or behavioral issues and supporting rescue organizations.

There you go, I made it all the way to 10 😊

P.S. How could I forget Snoopy???

Oldies but Goodies - Favorites of 2020

I don't think I have to say much about 2020. You all know that it was not a fun year, and that is putting it extremely nicely.
The topic for this week's Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge was to pick our favorite pieces from that year to remind us that you could still find some beauty in it. There is a wonderful collection of personal favorites in that post, so you should really click through to see all of them.

For the collage I could only pick a few, to whet your appetite, so-to-speak ;-) I hope it's working!

1 My Bijou Life
2 The Crafty Chimp
3 Jewelry Art by Dawn
4 RioRita
5 Cat's Wire

Oldies but Goodies - Pendant favorites

It's one day late because of the Art Elements reveal yesterday, but nothing stops the Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge, well, almost nothing.
Pendants are many people's favorite pieces of jewelry. I love pendants, I always have. The first one that I remember getting as a child was a silver heart. I wore it for many years, and it's still in my jewelry box. Another one from my childhood was a filigree flower. For some reason I was convinced that it was an edelweiss which it definitely wasn't.
Over the years others joined the exclusive club of favorites, some left it again because my taste changed, some stayed, some are connected with memories, others not so much.

If you make jewelry yourself, especially if it's mostly one of a kind, the memories are different. You may remember a piece custom made for someone for a special occasion or maybe the customer told you why they bought a particular piece. I remember one of the first pendants I sold, a pearl in wire crocheted sterling silver, the customer said she was looking so much forward to wearing it for her wedding. I don't think I breathed until she got the parcel and said that she loved it!
Maybe you remember how you made a piece become exactly what you wanted or what inspired you at the time or, like I often do, what you watched while working on it. "White bead loomed loop choker - first the X-Files episode "Alpha", then the original "Village of the Damned" ... that was the night the ex came home very late from a Japan trip and I almost freaked because I hadn't expected him yet, who dares to make strange sounds when I'm watching a spooky movie"! Does that happen to you, too?

There were a lot of entries in the challenge this time which didn't come as a surprise because it's soooo hard to pick a favorite! Or five! Or ten!!! ;-)
Then I had to pick from those faves for the collage, that wasn't easy, either. Prepare for a wonderful mix of different materials, designs and techniques. Why don't you pick a favorite piece, too?

1 and 10 Jewelry Art by Dawn
2 and 4 The Crafty Chimp
3 and 8 RioRita
5 and 9 Cat's Wire
6 and 7 My Bijou Life

Oldies but Goodies - Necklace favorites

Personally I often find it difficult to pick favorites ... favorite actor, favorite movie, favorite music, favorite piece of clothing, even to decide on a favorite color can sometimes be hard.
Nevertheless the new Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge asked us to name favorites from our own work, necklaces in this case.
I probably feel the same way as many others, the project I am working on at the moment is my favorite. Maybe it has to be that way to help us concentrate on it completely. Yet, looking back over the years I guess we all have those pieces that our heart belongs to even if they have made their way to someone else a long time ago. Perhaps we had a hard time letting them go at all or were not even able to let them go after all.

Now I had to pick from all those favorites for my collage which is never easy. I hope you'll like my selection.

1 and 5 Cat's Wire
2 and 6 MC Stoneworks
3 and 7 The Crafty Chimp
4 and 8 Jewelry Art by Dawn

Oldies but Goodies - Favorites of the year

Welcome "between the years".
This is a time when many people look back in review, maybe start making plans for the new year. On TV there are all the programmes taking us back to what happened, sometimes people tell their own stories, sometimes comedians try to find the funny side in it all.
I thought it would be a good time for us artisans to have a little review of our own and make it today's Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge. I asked my fellow JAC members to share their personal favorites of the year. Unfortunately I can't show you everything in my collage, but with a click of the link above you can find it all.

I am looking forward to seeing more fabulous work from my friends next year, and I hope so are you.

1 and 8 Cat's Wire
2 and 6 Jewelry Art by Dawn
3 and 4 RioRita
5 and 7 The Crafty Chimp

My favorite piece of jewelry

It's time for the JAC blog carnival again and this time the topic is "my favorite piece of jewelry".
My first thought was "that's impossible" and it actually is. I don't have just one favorite. After all there are so many reasons to love jewelry.

I have collected quite a few pieces over the years. There are the gifts, there are the things I made myself and wanted to keep for one or the other reason, there are those I bought myself, there are those I inherited (which I really count as special gifts), and then there are those I would like to have, but can't - like the Hope Diamond ;-)

When I'll show you a few of them, you might be surprised.
These are favorites of mine not necessarily so much for their bling value or for working with all of my outfits, not because they are made with my favorite stones or because they make me feel elegant and classy (yes, I do have those, too). They are not this Gollum's preciousssss (although I actually do own the one ring and love to wear it around the neck like every good little Ring-Bearer who knows what's good for him or her).
These are favorites for their stories and the memories.

I have told you about this bracelet a few years ago. It came to me after my grandmother died who got it from her sister who got it from her husband whose first wife it had belonged to before that.
It's representative for the different pieces of jewelry I have that used to belong to my grandmother.

Are friendship rings between girls still a big thing in these days? They were definitely a must have item in my time. There used to be a jewelry shop with two stores in town. One had the cheaper things and was regularly overrun by teenage girls, the other one had the more expensive items.
When my friend and I went to get our rings in 7th grade, we took a third friend along. You could always rely on having some fun with her. So we went into the shop and looked at silver rings and started trying them on. The saleslady was used to that and was very patient ... until our friend put a ring on and couldn't get it off again. She couldn't stop laughing while the saleslady looked more and more as if she were ready to cut the finger off.
Needless to say there were no fingers cut off that day. The ring finally gave up, and we got our friendship rings. I bet the lady was glad to have us out of the shop, though!

Not long ago I told you about my Latin teacher who hated the color purple. What I didn't tell you was that he actually gave me some purple things back after I was out of school, like a picture of a purple Porsche (he had an old red one himself) saying that not even the color could take away from its beauty.
He had travelled a lot and once he brought me this necklace home from Nepal. The fact that it wasn't purple was a bonus. I mean, can you imagine this in purple? ;-)

From a slim ring to a chunky necklace back to a dainty garnet ring. This and an amethyst ring were a gift from my sister after she started working. Some of my first little treasures ....

You won't be surprised to hear that I own several pieces of cat jewelry.
These cute earrings (from Brightstar 109) didn't seem to want to stay with me, though. I wore them to work and I kept losing them out of my ears, first one side, then the other. I found the first one on the floor, but the second one seemed to be gone for good - until I happened to go to the bathroom because I felt a weird scratching in a delicate spot. The earring had dropped into my shirt and managed to hook itself into the fabric of my, erm, bra. Not in the front, though, but in the back.
Sounds totally like something a cat would do, eh? Claire graciously sent me some new hooks when I told her the story, ever since those kitties don't get away anymore.

The last piece sticks out in this collection.
It's not small and it's not something I ever thought I would fall in love with. I visited a friend of mine, a goldsmith. He showed me some of his work which was beautiful, but not necessarily what I would have worn. We often joked about it. He thought statement pieces would work for me while I preferred it smaller.
This design, however, swept me away. For some reason my friend seemed to think that I only said that to please him and he tried to talk me out of it. I got miffed because I felt he didn't take me seriously, he got stubborn, and the visit ended in awkward silence while he drove me to the train station.
On the train home I got a text from him saying sorry, and did I really want the ring?
I wanted it and I got one custom made.
My friend passed away last year. I still miss him which makes this ring even more special to me.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this post a little even if might not have been what you expected from the title.
If you want to hear other JAC members' stories, check them out here.

Echoes of Ela
Violetmoon's Corner
Jewelry Art by Dawn 

Oldies but Goodies - Favorites

I have been guilty of that question myself. In the artist interviews on this blog I keep asking about what the artist's favorite is. Often the answer is that always the current project is definitely one favorite, but that it's rarely possible to really pick THE one favorite.
At the Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge we were asked about our favorites. At least we weren't expected to pick just one.

Now for the collage I was supposed to pick just one of everyone's favorites. Have I ever told you how difficult that picking thing is? Have you wondered how I pick? Well, tough break. I won't tell you. I will give you this week's choices, however. Please enjoy.

1 Cat's Wire
2 The Crafty Chimp
3 Echoes of Ela
4 Violetmoon's Corner
5 MC Stoneworks
6 Salara Jewelry