Frogsong Studio Blog

First, let me say that the Creation Station was THEE best investment I made out of all of my beadmaking purchases.

Having Fibromyalgia made it very hard for me to sit at the torch for more than 20 or 30 minutes before the pain got so bad I had to get up and move around and stretch for a bit to get all the kinks out of my neck and shoulders. This obviously cut way down on my productivity.

When I saw the Creation Station advertised for the first time, I had my doubts about it. It seemed too good to be true. I mean, I have fibromyalgia, NOTHING ever helps. Ha!

But then I saw people raving about it and how it helped them with shoulder, neck and even wrist pain. I finally broke down and purchased it. Wow! The difference in my productivity was unbelievably amazing.

Suddenly, I could sit for several hours at a time making beads with very little stress and muscle pain. It was a Godsend for me!

I have been singing the praises of the Creation Station every since and I’m going to continue to do so.

So here goes…

The creation station was designed and created by Bill & Victoria Gail, (Vglampwork) Also known for creating the “Pull My Stringer” tool.

It has recently come to my attention that someone, who shall remain nameless, has copied Bill and Vickie’s design and is now marketing it under the name “TorchBuddy.” This is a blatant theft of someone else original idea which was more than a year in the making and perfecting.

So please, if you purchase one, accept NO imitations! Support the people who had the brains to come up with the original idea. The people who put up the money, time, and effort to design it, perfect it, and produce and market it to us, making our lives so much easier, and saving us from the aches and pains and stiffness caused by sitting over a torch for hours.

Do not support those who ride the backs of the people who do all the work because they can’t think for themselves.

Purchase the original Creation Station from legitimate suppliers who carry it! Just Google Creation Station to find suppliers.

I personally will never purchase anything from any supplier that I find selling the copied version.

Okay, I’ve told you all about my Lasagna gardens which are doing well by the way. Now let me tell you about my upside down garden.

You’ve probably all heard about the “Topsy Turvy”. That over-priced little thing that you grow a tomato plant in upside down? Well, I did some googling and found that people are growing a variety of vegetables upside down in 5 gallon buckets.

So, not only do I happen to have some 5 gallon buckets, I also had some buckets that cat litter comes in. So I thought, why not recycle and create a hanging garden at the same time? Now, I can get away with this because I live in the foothills and my neighbors don’t have to look at it.

Because we have so many gophers, moles, deer, wild pigs and other critters that wreak havoc on in ground vegetable gardens, I was desparate to protect my garden this year. So we took 4 panels from our corral and made a little upside down garden corral.

This is what it looked like when we completed it.

Upside Down Garden

 It’s been about 2 1/2 weeks since we planted it and I’m happy to say that they are all growing great. We are even starting to see our first little summer squash.

 I would encourage anyone who would love to grow their own food but  doesn’t have the room for an in-ground garden to give this a try.

I also made good use of the tops of the buckets by planting herbs and other things.

 
Here is a list of what I planted upside down. 

Cucumbers
Squash
Tomatoes
Peppers
Green Beans
Egg Plant
Canteloupe
____________________________________________________
In the tops of the buckets I planted:

Basil
Cilantro
Oregano
Green onions
Chives
Arugula
Pickling cucumbers
English Salad Cucumbers
__________________________________________________
Everything is growing extremely well so far and I’m excited about that. I even bought a canner, so I’m ready to preserve all the goodies we get.

Debra Jennings (Frogsongstudio) on Twitter.

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Okay so here’s an update on the lasagna gardening. As I explained earlier, Lasagna Gardening is using layers of anything that can be composted in a raised bed to create the planting medium. 

We made the first one together. Hence, I was there to supervise. Then Ken made two more, however, I didn’t supervise the job which was a mistake. So what did he do? Well, in the first one he threw a bunch of trash consisting of paper, cardboard, etc on the bottom, threw a huge thick layer of chicken poop in on top of it, then covered it all up with store bought soil. Ummmm, NOT!

On the second one, he layed a layer of trash and cardboard in the bottom, then  dug up some dirt in a spot where we plan to build another koi pond and threw that in there with a few shovels full of bagged compost, spotty at best, mixed in, no! There’s a reason we don’t plant in the ground we have. When it’s wet, it’s mud and when it dries it’s like cement. Nothing grows well in it but weeds.

So what did I do? Well I planted in it because I didn’t know what he did. In the first one, everything I planted in it died and that’s how I found about about the huge layer of chicken poop he put in it in an effort to fill it up.

In the second one, the top dried so hard that it cracked and when I watered it the water just ran off the sides.  So I had the lovely job of having to “unplant” everything and redo the beds. That’s what I’ve been doing this week and I have one finished and everything replanted in it, and another about halfway finished.

He said he just didn’t want to have to buy more dirt. I’ve been telling him from the beginning that we didn’t need to buy ANY dirt.  I’ve tried to explain to him the purpose of all the trash we’re putting in the garden and how it works to no avail. I told him, we could grow our garden in nothing BUT paper and trash if we wanted to. He shook his head like I was crazy and didn’t have a clue what I was talking about,  so now I have to make a special one with nothing but trash and paper just to prove him wrong. Ha!

If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. Or at least make sure you’re there to supervise and give them plenty of reason to say all you do is bitch.

I have nothing very exciting to talk about tonight so maybe I’ll just ponder a few things out loud here.

Human Behavior!

What makes people do the things that they do?

Why do some people choose to turn a blind eye to the truth? Is it because it’s easier to deal with? No thinking involved?

Why do some people talk out of both sides of their mouths? Why do they say one thing, but do the opposite?

More importantly…. What is their purpose? Seriously….what is important?

Have a great night and even better tomorrow.

No, I’m not growing Lasagna…haha!

Lasagna gardening is a way of gardening using, well, trash, among other things. Here’s what we did.

First we laid out some old railroad ties in a square. Then we started filling it up with all our compostible trash. Paper, cardboard, and whatever else we had that could go into the compost pile. Over that we threw horse poop, goat poop, chicken poop, old straw, wood shaving, and dirt. Then we started all over again and layered everything just like you would if you were making lasagna. Hence, the name Lasagna Gardening.

So, in our first one we planted two varieties of radishes, mustard greens, and lettuce. Today, I picked 2 bags full of mustard greens which I will have to blanch and freeze. And I picked three bags full of radishes which I plan to make into radish relish and preserve.

We also planted some new things today. We planted two varieties of Okra, some red onion, some red potatoes and some sugar snaps peas. Yum! Needless to say. I’m plum beat.

Tomorrow I will try to get some pictures of the harvest. I’m soooooo glad we are finally starting to warm up a bit.

Okay, so yesterday I made what I will call a Fragon, and got to take him out of the kiln today.  What is a Fragon, you ask? Well, a Fragon is a cross between a Dragon and a Frog. 

He’s a cute little thing, though I am still trying to get the hang of getting nice color from my Terra. He was made on a base of CIM Ginger with Terra kind of swirled over it. I did get some color, though not exactly as much as I was hoping for. Still, I think he’s pretty darned cute with his pink little toenails and fingernails. What say you?

Fragon

I also made a couple of goddesses yesterday following the very nice and funny CD Tutorial recently put out by Kevan Aponte and her husband Antonio. It’s an excellent Tutorial and I highly recommend it even if you already have the Goddess Tutorial by Lavendar Creek. Both are excellent tutorials but two very different techniques for making goddeses. You can find both tutorials, and many more by visiting us at http://www.torchbugs.com and checking out the tutorials section.

Now back to my goddesses. Well, unfortunately only one survived. The other one got stuck to the mandrel for some reason and wouldn’t come off without breaking. But, the other one did survive.  She is made with CIM Ginger which gives you the most perfect flesh color. Her, ahem, nipples are done with Terra which ended up darker than I was expecting, but oh well. Here she is, front and back.

 

Well my fiance, Ken, decided he wanted it so he could show it to all the guys at work (construction workers) so I threw together a little keychain for him with the goddess bead and a couple of beads I had in the Orphan box. And here is the result.

Well that’s it for now.

Okay, I finally decided to get a Blog going. What took me so long? Well, I’m lazy for one thing. I’ve been quite busy for another.

Why is it that I seem to be going constantly but never get anything done? It’s driving me crazy!

But, here’s what I did get done, and why I haven’t had any beads up for sale lately. I decided to create a brand spankin’ new online forum for Lampwork Artists and Jewelry Designers. If you haven’t found us yet, we are www.torchbugs.com.

We’ve been going for just over 5 weeks now and I am happy to say we are a success! We now have over 1100 members and growing. Yaaay!! But that’s not all! We have some big plans for Torchbugs in the future that we believe everyone will enjoy. Check us out and drop in and say hi!

On another note, I did get a dragon made and just pulled it out of the kiln this morning. Thanks goes to Plum Loco Designs for sharing her Dragon sculpting technique so that this dragon could be born. 

So, what do you think? He was made with Vetrofond Petrified Wood, and with Double Helix Psyche toenails and fingernails. Today I made another one out of Color Is Messy Ginger with Double Helix Terra toenails and fingernails, and also a couple of Goddesses. They are all still in the kiln annealing but I will show them to you tomorrow and you can tell me what you think.

 

Meanwhile, have a great night, and don’t forget to Spring forward!!!