New Skill- Jewelry Making

We are especially lucky to have a family member (mine and Jenny's Grandpa, Joey's and Kam's Great-Grandpa) who makes jewelry as a hobby and generously offers to share his time and resources.

(This picture was from awhile back. Just look how short Kam's hair is.)

Between Jenny (who took a jewelry making class in high school) and Grandpa, the kids and I have no shortage of teachers. Jenny lets the kids use her wax gun to make designs, which she and Grandpa then cast for them.

Jenny helped Joey make me a beautiful and simple little ring. I love how it looks like a twig wrapped around my finger.


(As I'm looking at this picture of Joey holding my ring, I'm struck by how much her hands look like mine. She looks so grown up here. Which I realize is a strange thing to say about a picture of a hand. But it's true.)

And Kam made a design that became this necklace for his Gram's birthday.

And yes, we let the kids work with the wax gun even though it is pretty damn hot.



This is mostly because we agree with Gever Tulley when he encourages parents to let their kids try moderately dangerous activities, "Trust me, they are going to learn things that you can't get out of playing with Dora the Explorer toys." (Note- head over to that link if you want to hear his Ted talk on the subject. It's a good one.)

They also love to use the flex shaft for polishing the piece after it's been cast.

For now, though, the adults sprew up the pieces and do the actual casting.

Yes, I too am working on some pieces, but since they're gifts, I'll be sharing them a bit later.

New Shavees for St. Baldrick's

Well, it's March. And that means St. Baldrick's! If you've been a reader for any length of time here, you might have stumbled across at least one post about this awesome organization.

(Me and Joey 3 years ago at St. Baldrick's)

No, I'm not shaving my head again. But my nephew and niece are. When our friend Raven shaved her head last year, Jenny's son, Kam, decided that he would be doing it this year.

Since then, Aurora's daughter, Jaden, joined the team, along with her friends, Sara and Maisy. All four of them will be going under the clippers this Friday afternoon. (Maisy isn't in the pictures because she decided to do it after Jenny had taken all the pics.)

A week ago Joey and the shavees got together to film the video below. Then Jenny spent a massive amount of time putting it all together with pictures she took and voice-overs that the kiddos did. I love how it turned out.

One note- The Odd Little Monkeys started as an weekly crafting group, but it's evolving in a way that lets them use their creativity to make a positive difference in the world. This is the first of their endeavors and I couldn't be more proud.

Odd Little Monkeys Presents: IT'S JUST HAIR from Jenny Gay on Vimeo.

(If, for some reason, you have trouble viewing this through Vimeo, you can see the YouTube version here.)

St. Baldrick's is a great organization that provides funding to fight childhood cancer. At last year's event, we listened as one incredibly grateful mom told the story of how her son was alive thanks to the funding efforts of this organization.

So please consider making a donation to St. Baldrick's. And if you feel so moved, we'd love it if you emailed a link to all your friends and family or posted the video up on facebook. The more people who see this, the more kids we can help!

And if they are having one of these in your neck of the woods, it's not a bad way to spend an afternoon, even if you aren't getting shaved yourself. Here are some of the pictures from last year's celebration in downtown Denver.