Thinking inside the box...

....or the cushion cut as the case may be.

Last Wednesday night, the tenth of April, two thousand and thirteen, I slept 8 hours of glorious, sweet, and uninterrupted sleep.  This momentous event has yet to be repeated (although Addy did sleep a solid ten hours straight last night!  Alas, his sister did not. Woe is me.), but I continue to hold out hope that it will become a regular occurrence in the near future.

Not only did the sleep restore me to partial sanity, it also gave me the juice I needed to get this project done.  I have been wanting to expand the shape of stones I work with (I get A LOT of requests for cushion cut stones), but something held me back.  I think I was intimidated a bit by the corners.  Round stones are old hat to me by now, but I haven't set a square(ish) stone since I was in school.  I've had this model, unset, kicking around for at least a year.  It's just sterling and cubic zirconium, but I'm pretty excited to make it again in precious materials.  I think the first version will be moissanite in palladium, but I would love to do a more delicate iteration in platinum and diamond.

It wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be, so I feel pretty confident now.  I think I will take another stone setting class this summer though. I would love to do a princess cut bezel set ring in the near future, but I need to brush up on setting truly square stones.  On an unrelated topic, I have a couple of new designs carved already for this year, with the molds made and everything!  I'm super excited about them, but I will save them for another post.  One is a real departure from my regular style, and I feel a little nervous about it.  I'm debating on whether or not I should wait until I have them done done, or if I should share photos of the waxes first.

And on the home front, I have adorable babies.

They are getting SO BIG.  It's crazy.  They will be 4 months in a couple of days.  They both like to practice sitting, so I'm hoping I will have some upright babies soon!  We bought a couple of old fashioned wooden highchairs and I plan on painting them bright colors.  We won't start solids for a while, but I am so excited to give them their first solid food!  I've heard sweet potato is the way to go?