(no subject)

STOP. STOPPIT. What is wrong with the idea of letting us keep a free and democratic Internet?

(oh right we live in a plutocracy, and 'democratic' is a four-letter word.)

(no subject)

So I finally got it together enough to do the patina thing on my stampy metal jewelry.



These are the QUEER discs from the earrings I showed y'all the other week, plus FEMINIST discs for earrings and a pendant. Note the lovely copper hue and the lack of legibility at any sort of distance.



Same discs, post-patina. Note that the lovely copper hue is ALL GONE and the legibility has not improved any. I swear the discs weren't in the yellow gunk that long—in fact I redunked the big one because it was all coppery still, and it was only down for a few seconds that time and came up all dark—and I think it was actually less strong a mix than the instructions say because it came out of the bottle all gooey and I think a lot of that stuck to the teaspoon measure instead of dissolving into the 1/3 c water. (I was not about to use a full tablespoon of the gunk for five dinky little discs, so I divided both the gunk and the water by three.)

I like the look, don't get me wrong. It's just that the idea was to have lovely copper-hued discs with black text that might actually be readable without someone having to stick their nose practically up against the jewelry in order to read it!

Though it occurs to me, these discs (being from the Bead Buddy disc thing I got for experimentation with) are probably not of the high quality that I got from Rio Grande. So I have lots more discs and it might work better with those!

(nenya_kanadka, we are obviously still in a holding pattern re the stampy metal earrings you wish to commission. Unless you like the look of any of these, in which case, merry Giftmas!)

ETA: At shewhostaples's prompting, I applied steel wool to polish. (Probably not as fine steel wool as I ought to have done)



As you see, the lovely copper tone is back and the legibility is awesome!



So I went on and finished the jewelry. The FEMINIST earrings are just stick the discs on earhooks. The FEMINIST pendant is 24" of copper chain from AC Moore with a a what's the damn word for the clasp with the circle on one side and the rod on the other. The QUEER earrings I felt needed a little more punch, so I went and got copper eyepins and my seed bead stash and now the QUEER earrings dangle from rainbows!

(nenya_kanadka, PM me details of what you want now that I'm confident I have enough skill to accomplish it. I warn you I may not accomplish it well, but I am sure I can do it now. The discs I've got are 1" and 2" copper rounds, plus two stray half-inch ones—the smaller size shown above. And we can talk price in PM.)

(no subject)

Further to the discussion of whether I should take ECON 330 this summer as well as WR 341: if I don't go at least half time over the summer, I owe one or possibly two payments on my federal student loans between mid-August (when my grace period expires) and end of September (when my full-time coursework kicks back in). I do not know, nor do I have any way of finding out until mid-August, how much that payment(s) is and what day of the month it's due. (thanks, loan servicer, real kind of you to make sure I can budget for this shit)

And if I'm doing the math right, I can pay all eight credits of summer courses in cash, without mucking with my financial aid that is set up to pay out in the three not-summer terms. I'd have to save from now till then instead of paying down debt, and pay on the installment plan because I wouldn't have enough saved to pay all ten credits up front as soon as the tuition bill comes out, but I could do it.

And that would, as I said before, get the F for ECON 330 off my transcript provided I pass the course this time, which would give my GPA a nice boost. But I am still not exactly thrilled by the idea of retaking this class. Mom and Dad still think I should not, or not this summer anyway.

ETA: I made up my mind and went to register—and MyOSU is down until sometime tomorrow!