Fimo Fun

I’ve been experimenting with the idea of making and selling jewelry as a way to get more of an income. Here’s a little description of how I make it.

First I make a basic drawing of what I want to make, pick out all the needed colors of Fimo clay, and soften it by hand.
Then I make the clay into different shapes needed to make flowers, grass, trees, etc.
And start putting all the pieces together like a big 3-D, cylinder shaped puzzle.
I rarely do the whole design in one day, as it can take up to 30 hours, but add to the design little by little.
Until finally it’s all put together!

Then I carefully role it down aiming to lose as little as possible on the ends. Once the ends are cut off I’m left with a cane of Fimo clay that has the same design all the way from front to back.

Then I slice the Fimo cane, cook it in the oven, drill a hole in each piece, sand it, buff it, cover it with a special varnish, then wrap sterling silver wire around it and put it on a silver chain. (Or glue the piece onto a magnet for the refrigerator).

I presently have about 14 different designs, mostly mountain scenes and floral designs. I also make them into earrings, bracelets, and more.

Barrio realities

The other day a 12 year old girl was visiting me while I was doing my first ever batiking project (involves dying fabric and using wax to make designs). When she left my cell phone was gone. Being that I knew she’d taken it Bau and I went to find her and hopefully it before it got sold or something like that. Now in all my (almost) 8 years in this country I haven’t had many things stolen. I generally feel that the barrio is a very safe place and feel that people are generally very good hearted, especially if they feel you’re doing good things in their community. Yet at the same time I know stealing can be a temptation for anybody, so it didn’t really shock me. We walked around half the barrio and couldn’t find her, but we did talk to an ex-gang leader who said he’d talk to his friends and see if anyone had bought it from her or anything like that. Then I headed back to my house alone and happened to pass by her. I talked to her for a bit, asked for my cell phone and stuff like that. Then a little bit later Bau went and talked to her and got my cell phone back.

I’m happy that I got my cell phone back but even if it hadn’t I’m kind of glad this happened. I hear lots rumors about some of the young girls in the barrio but lots of times I don’t believe them, I like believing those things aren’t true. Yet I can’t ignore the realities youth face in the barrio; tempted to use drugs, to sleep around, to steal, etc. It was a good reminder that I need to spend more time with people….. with young girls encouraging them in Christ, with their mom’s encouraging them in the Lord and encouraging to love their daughters, and with other believers encouraging them to reach out to the youth and those around them.

More Light in the Barrio

Bau came over the other day and told me that he just got free light bulbs….. it seemed strange but a few minutes later a few guys dressed in red and yellow showed up at my door with a little later and lots of light bulbs. They took out all my light bulbs, smashed them and traded them for more efficient energy saving light bulbs. They went to every house in the barrio doing the same. I didn’t think much of it until that evening when the street power came on after being off most of the day and all of a sudden our barrio was much brighter than I’d ever seen it. These new light bulbs are great, energy saving and very bright! Unfortunately though since that time the amount of street power we’ve been receiving has been very little. I guess there’s a new person in charge of electricity in La Vega, he’s the one who had the idea to give away the new light bulbs. That was a good idea, but it also seems like he’s decided to only turn on our street power a few hours a day now. During the past week we’ve been lucky to get 8 hours of electricity during a 24 hour period, and there’s rarely get enough at one time to make the refrigerators cold or to charge inverters fully.