The Lost Ring Of The Lizard King

Reptiles have always been associated with mythology and have been credited with magical and supernatural powers. . Lizards are also associated with the Sun. The movement of a lizard was thought to be able to return sight to a blind person and it also represented good luck and divine knowledge.  Turtles were associated with drought and viewed as the enemy of the Sun God. 

It is also believed that Dragons were the true Lizard Kings.

Belonging to the family of extremely large, long-lived winged lizards, true dragons constitute the most advanced race of lizards known, far surpassing other orders in size intelligence and life-span.

The dragon is the most feared and esteemed of beasts. The beast that all the world knows and the creature that never was. It is the impossible creature that exists in art, mythology, religion and legend. 

The three predators who most threatened our ancestors The Eagle, the Leopard and the Snake, merge in mythology to become a single creature The Dragon. Classical Greek mythology is alive with Dragons… One of the twelve tasks of Hercules was to defeat a fearsome dragon and Zeus also had an unwelcome encounter…

Typhon the Hydra

 
After defeating Cronus, his father, Zeus was confronted by Typhon, Demon of the Whirlwind, a creature created from hundreds of coiled snakes, hundreds of serpents writhing from its shoulders, vast leathery wings and eyes that flashed fire; its roar shook the Earth and flames shot from its gaping mouth.
Fearful of Typhon Zeus fled, taking refuge in Egypt but accused of cowardice, Zeus return to face his formidable mountain hurling enemy. Zeus won the battle at Thrace, wounding and chasing Typhon to Sicily where he crushed him under Mount Aetna. (A thank you to Europas Ice Wolves for some of the Info and the Typhon Image)
 
Gaea, the ancient Greek earth goddess was impregnated by just one drop of blood that fell from Typhons’s head and gave birth to Actaeus, first King of Athens. When she gave birth to Actaeus, she had an alchemist fashion a ring that was magical and gave it's wearer the power of insight and luck, so that when her son became a man, he would overcome all negative forces..... This ring was stolen and vanished until it was recently discovered jammed between rocks in the Agean Sea by some tourists .
The rest you know....

This is the Lost Ring of the Lizard King.....

 

 

 

 

Queensland Flood Appeal

I am offering buyers a 10% discount with this coupon code: QLDFLOODAPPEAL
So sign in to my etsy store here: howlindoggie and make a purchase. You will receive 10% discount and I will donate 15% of that sale to the Queensland Flood Appeal. Leave a comment with your favorite piece of mine & you may win a pair of earrings at the end of January. I will pick out a name randomly and announce the winner on my etsy shop.

Thank you In Advance.

Our Little Visitors

 This beautiful spider cam to visit last night as we had quite a bit of rain at about 3am. As I love spiders AND rain, I welcomed both. This spider is a typical Australian house spider called a huntsman. They are not dangerous, although can grow to be enormous.  This little spider is as big as my hand. A bit scary that big, but only the notion of it crawling on me. Otherwise I let them be in the house, especially in the summer months as they catch mosquitos and other little insects... I have to think of a name for both of them....

Any suggestions?

Things That I find Really Tedious About Running a Business

The things that make me yawn and push me to be lazy about my business are mostly 'bookwork' related, ie. doing my tax stuff especially, even though I have a great accountant, I still have to have all my paperwork in order.

Now in addition to that paperwork, I have been closely monitoring the Australian Dollar, as it has shot up and for a while has been pretty much one-on-one with the US$.....so.................

I have needed to change my US$ prices in order to accommodate our Australian costs... ugh what a pain!!! On top of that making stocklists with all the different prices and costs... I had done paper & pen ones, but decided that i must update them into my computer as they will be much easier to alter & keep track of...

So out comes Exel and a New List is born... Hurray!! At least I've started... BUT since I'm on the computer and not doing an all nighter filling wholesale orders, I have to distract myself to blog since it has been a while since I have put words on the blog...

Well, I had better get back to the business of keeping track of the business side of the business....
Exhausting... I much prefer just being in the studio...

And the worst thing is the price of Gold AND Silver has gone through the roof.........

Etsymetal Charm Swap #6

It's on again!! One of my favorite swaps. I'm a member of Etsymetal, which is a group of Metalsmiths who have stores on Etsy.com.

A few times each year (or maybe that's only twice a year) 20 of us (the group is much larger than 20) sign up for a Charm Swap. There's always a mad scramble to sign on, as there are so many extremely talented metalsmiths whose work we all  would love to have. The Charm swap ensures that each participant gets to have 19 marvellous pieces of work (plus your own = 20 pieces in total) in a small form which  can be placed on a Charm bracelet/necklace. Since this is the third CHarmswap that I have participated in, I already have quite a hefty charm bracelet (so far there are 40 charms on mine, and I anxiously await the next 20, one of which is mine). Here are some shots of my progress so far.

This is what I was toying with,  as I came in to the swap late July, which didn't leave me much time. Some one dropped out as I was lucky enough to be one of the stand bys, so I was in!! YAY!!
A decision was made and I started on the Kikuchi Kamon Charm for the swap. I have now almost finished all 22 of them. We each make 2 extra Charms so that we can make up one bracelet to sell in our etsymetal store on etsy and one single charm to sell in the store as well.

These are the progress shots of the Kikuchi Kamon Charm that I am working on.