Stamped & Soldered Jewelry

Today's Lesson From The Craft Room:  Keep Your Awareness In The Present Moment
Oftentimes I feel like I am not living in the moment.  I find myself either living in the future or living in the past.  Living in the future seems to happen to me a lot when I travel for work.  No sooner do I get home than I am already anxious about the next trip that will take me away from my family and my craft room.  What I find is that rather than enjoy every moment that I am here I am anxious and sad at the prospect of leaving again and that puts a huge damper on enjoying the present moment!  When I am creating it seems that I can focus and remain in the present - time seems to become unimportant and not worth noticing.  Now the trick is to figure out how I can bring this same sense of being to the times when I am not creating - whether I'm driving in the car, walking outside, typing on the computer.  I want to be present.  I want to experience all that this very moment is offering me.  To be real and now.  This is something I am working on.  Here I am, right now!
Today's stamping project is a graduation gift I made for a friend who just got a Master's degree!  I'm so proud of her!!!!  I decided to make her a necklace with her initial and a word that I feel describes her - "unique!"  I stamped the bird from the Nature Walk stamp set (I LOVE this bird!!!!) onto Very Vanilla card stock and colored him in using a cotton swab and Stampin' Pastels.  The word is from a retired stamp set - I think it's called Everyday Flexible Phrases.  Up in the corner you can see a tiny bit of a floral image from Tiny Tags stamped in Crumb Cake ink at half strength.  Here is the other side of the necklace:

I cut a piece of paper from an old book and stamped it with the floral image from Tiny Tags using Crumb Cake ink at half strength.  The edges were also sponged.  Then I did what I'm not supposed to do!  I ran some thin copper foil through the Big Shot with one of my sizzlits - Timeless Type alphabet.  This can damage your sizzlits - they are not designed to be used with foil...but I'm not one for always following the rules :)  Since I was nervous, I ran it through on Tab 2, so the letter did not get cut out of the foil.  Instead, it left deep lines and I was able to take a hobby blade and cut through the foil to cut out the letter.  I used microscope glass, copper tape, flux, and solder to put everything together.  I hope you like it! :)