LOL! I just noticed this forum...I love it!!

Alright, here goes...

I'm a 32-year-old, mom of 3, divorced. I have loved reptiles and other animals all my life. I got my first snake when I was 11 and that started that ball rolling. I finally got into breeding last year. I figured that if I can keep a retic alive and healthy for 20 years and incubate quail eggs, I can breed reptiles. LOL!

I'm working on a few breeding projects; leopard geckos, corns, gray banded kings and FWCs. So far, this season I have 6 leo eggs incubating. Yay!

I'm into making historical costumes and metal smithing. I make my own soap, incense, tie dye, and more. I love religeons, philosophy and social history. I almost always have a project in the works but mostly, I tend to my reptiles and feeder colonies.

I am outspoken and strong-backboned, yet tender. I tend to be somewhat reserved yet I haven't lost my playful childish spunk....it sneaks out on occasion. LOL! I love to joke, to tease, to be playful and try not to be so serious.

LOL! Ok...that was fun.

Any takers?

Aside from being geographically unavailable, you're everything I've ever wanted in a woman.

Botar

Oh goodness! Thank you, Charles.

(I am sorry that I didn't see your post earlier. This is rather belated.)

Update on those leopard geckos...I have a dozen hatchlings now and another 10 or so eggs still incubating. I also have 2 clutches of 10 sunglow motley x sunglow motley corns. I'm very excited about those!!

Sybella, not that I'm romantically interested in you, hon, but you said you were interested in metalsmithing.... any particular specialities?

beginning silversmith here, but HOOKED. I'm sure if I had taken metalsmithing my first year of college instead of the end of the second, I'd be a jewelery fabrication major instead of a pre-vet/zoology student. *sigh* I wish I lived closer to Rio Grande!!!!!!!!

Oh, and here's the piece I'm most proud of... took me a long time to come up with something reptile themed and not tacky, its a belt buckle out of acid etched copper on a nickel backing with brass hardware.



you can view more pics of my (amateur) work at http://people.emich.edu/wscott1/jewelerynfabrication/ if you're interested.

Darn girl, you took a long time to respond to that guy. LOL. Belated is a understatement! I didn't even know you had a ad on this forum or I would have responded long ago and now that it is up front again, I will have to rub the rust off my armor. Afterall, I must be prepared to defend the Princess of Gringolandia against hairy ogres posing as herpers and fire-breathing bearded dragons. LOL.

Kevin

Kevin, you are sooo funny!! LOL!! Hairy ogres, huh?? You're making me crave a movie, Shrek 2.

Whitney, I did a couple brass and copper projects in a college class but now I just work with silver and gold. After the class, I started making weekly visits to my jeweler's shop to play with his "toys." LOL!! Melting down stuff and milling it is a blast! I made wire and more. I'll have to start going over there again...I miss it. One can do so much more with the proper tools!
Anymore, I just do some jewelry repair and when the mood strikes me, I create something.

Yes, smithing is most assuredly addicting!! Just wait...soon you'll be like me and keep a torch set up, complete with acetylene and oxygen tanks, in your dining room! LOL!

Your arboreal boid buckle is very cute! Thank you for sharing. How did you do the acid etching? What acid did you use?

well first I tried making a bangle bracelet using repousse, and failed miserably, pitch is one thing I can live without.

As for the etching I had to draw out the negative space, started with the lines between the coils, then took it out and scratched off the sharpie in the full pattern.

I used ferric acid (or ferous, I can't remember) and had to suspend it in solution with duct tape because it eats from the bottom and not the top. I'm very happy with how it turned out, but it was a pain in the butt to make...

And yep, I'm looking into getting a work bench, sets of files, pliers, snips, jeweler's saw, hammers, torch set up, pickle, pumice, LOL... the list is very long and expensive! I always did have a knack for picking up expensive past times.

Thanks for the reply, btw. -Whit

I found a few supplies for cheap on eBay; a cabachon and a prong setter, a couple dyes for drawing wire, etc.

My anvil and dremel set (a knock off) came from Harbor Freight. I don't know if you have one where you are but they have a lot of inexpensive tools.

As far as Rio Grande goes, they have a huge selection but Thunderbird's prices are better.

Flex shaft all the way baby !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I dunno if I could use a dremmel now, I'm so spoiled with the lab's flex shafts. (and not in that dirty way, tsk tsk).

There's also supposed to be a big supply shop over in livonia, not that far from me, I think its called Andersons. I have a friend who does mods on paint ball guns so he's got a large scale set up in a shed behind his house, and he said we'll go to Anderson's sometime, but I've been busy with school lately. Plus, large scale projects are soooo labor intensive and ex-pen-sive. I prefer silver to copper usually, and man... I'm sure as heck not gonna buy little 1" by 6" strips from the local art supplier for $16 a pop.

But, its technically my birthday right now so I gotta get some sleep for the long day tomorrow, I'll finish posting later.

-Whit

Well then, happy birthday!! LOL!!