At the Movies!

And while we are talking of movies.........My parents are visiting from England at the moment which means I haven't had much chance for making jewelry. However, I did quickly manage to make a little something for myself this week.

It is the Sonoma International Film Festival this week - starting tomorrow. It is our favourite event in Sonoma and I always look forward to it. I therefore decided I should have some "movie" jewelry to go with it. How come I've never done this before I hear you ask???? Don't know - but this time I'll be fully equipped!! And making something for me was nice too!

I've made some film reel earrings and put them as ear threads so the threads sort of look like the film......

OK - so maybe they don't use film reels anymore and it's all digital but how pretty would DVDs look as earrings?

...and I also made a clapperboard!

And do they still use clapperboards? I think so - but they are electronic????

I'll let you know if I get any comments - or maybe Bruce Willis (who is being honored at the festival) will want to buy some for his new wife???!!! I'll be sure to let you know - and tell you about the best movies too.

March in books and movies

End of another month, so time to share with you the movies I've watched and the books I've read. Let me know if you've watched any of them or read them too.
Movies
Gideon's Daughter
Seven and a Match
24: Redemption
Dirty Filthy Love
Transsiberian
Kinamand
Penelope
Memento
The contract
The Vanishing
Breaking and Entering
Mortal Danger

I have to say that I loved Gideon's Daughter. A major part of that is, I confess, due to the fact that Bill Nighy starred in it and I have a bit of a soft spot for Bill Nighy. Basically, I think he is wonderful.......And I know all the words he says are scripted but .....he does have that dry, understated sense of humor..... and he makes me melt! What more can I say! I just enjoy watching him!






Kinamand was also a sweet film too. Quite tender.





We also saw the live HD broadcast of two of the Met Opera's at the movie theater too:
Madama Butterfly
La Sonnambula

In Madama Butterfly, they used puppetry for Butterfly's little son and in a few others places. I tell you, I have never seen such wonderful puppets. Each puppet was "brought to life" by three people - one with the head and one arm, one with the other arm and the body and the third person bent over all the time with the legs and feet. The emotion the puppeteers got from these puppets - especially the little boy were absolutely amazing. I cried. It was heartbreaking. It was so incredibly beautiful and moving - and for me - so unexpected.
La Sonnambula was wonderful too - I highly recommend both of the operas and if you have a chance to see any of the HD broadcasts - take it! I guarantee you won't be disappointed. They have been a highlight of our winter.

Books
I haven't read many books this month. Just don't seem to have had the time..... Anyhow I have read:
Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano
Paths of Glory by Jeffrey Archer
...although I haven't quite finished Paths of Glory.....just a little to go.

I enjoyed Paths of Glory but it's not quite as gripping as the other Jeffrey Archer books I've read. The book is all about Mallory who tried to be the first to climb Mount Everest. As I haven't finished the book, I can't give anything away....but I'm eager to get to the end to see what happens. If you've never read Jeffrey, do give him a try. The others I've read are "Not a penny more, not a penny less" and "Prisoner of Birth". Both highly recommended.


So what have you been watching and reading? Do share your month in movies and books!

Crop circle.....or turtle nests?????

Anyone know anything about turtles???

We've had turtles in our pond since we moved here - two to start with, then three, then it just looked like one...but you can never really be sure how many there are. We love watching them sunning themselves but they are quite shy and tend to go back into the water if you go close to the pond.

Well yesterday as I was at my computer, I looked out of the window and there was a turtle on the lawn! Ah. How sweet. Going for a little walk on a warm Sunday morning. I went out and took his photo from a distance, so as not to disturb him and decided I'd keep my eye on him from my desk.


So I carried on with my computer stuff, occasionally seeing him in the same spot. Then one time I looked up and he was no where to be found. I went outside and walked quite a large area - but no turtle. He'd obviously moved fast!

Later - about 2 hours later - I was telling my parents about the turtle (they are staying with us at the moment, visiting from England)....and the turtle was back at the very same spot where I had taken his photo! Like he'd never moved - just disappeared for a short while. We went up closer to him and he didn't do anything.....

As we left shortly afterwards, we saw him making his way up into the vineyard....

So I got thinking..what was he doing on land? We'd never seen the turtles on land before....so I now have this theory that he - or to be precise - "she" had come out of the pond to lay her eggs!!!

Yippee! Baby turtles at Birdland! So today my husband and I have been searching for a turtle nest. It's tricky when you don't know what a turtle nest looks like. Yes, when we lived in Sanibel we recognised sea turtle nests on the beach - but we don't have a beach.

Our wanting to know where the nest is, is more than just curiosity too. As there is a vineyard involved, any day soon, a big tractor will come along and cut the vegetation between the rows and....... :-(

So I rummaged through what turned out to be a mole hole - freshly dug, could have been a turtle nest......and we followed flatten tracks in the grass - and it reminded me of crop circles.... This photo shows one such track - about the size of a turtle, all the grass is flattened....but we can't see eggs......(doesn't show as well in the photo I'm afraid! You had to be here!!!).

So does anyone know about pond turtle nests? Do they bury the eggs? Do they come on land for other reasons? I can't seem to find much info on it......

And then this other funny thing happened today. In my bathroom I have a long string of beads - all different. On my 40th birthday, instead of presents, I asked my nearest and dearest family and friend to each choose a bead for me - something that meant something to them or me. One of the beads I got was a turtle. Well, this morning, the turtle bead is no longer on the end of the string - but he is sat by my sink! Today of all days, he decides to take a walk, jumps off the string and makes me notice him. Hmmm.......

Sunday's spotlight - Lincoln - Part 1

By guest blogger Pete.

It must be nearly 30 years now since I was teaching in Warminster. Other teachers who read this may either be jealous or angry but being employed in a public school, my summer holiday was approximately nine weeks. That is TOO long. To help me relax my wife taught me how to do cross stitch and embroidery. Very soon I became addicted to this. It doesn't take me very long to become addicted to things, as you may have gathered from this bog.

Shortly after we moved to Lincoln my wife took over a needlecraft shop in the centre of the city. This was the beginning of that period when needlecraft really took off and was so popular with the ladies whilst the gents preferred tapestry. Now Lincoln is a very historic city but there were no cross stitch (or tapestry) designs of the many beautiful historic buildings to be found here. Thus I determined to have a go at designing a cross stitch version of our most important building, the famous Lincoln Cathedral. The design I produced is the photo of the close up view of the front of the cathedral.


During the first Iraq war the American forces took over a disused RAF hospital, in the nearby village of Nocton, and turned it into an emergency receiving area for casualties from that war. Fortunately no casualties arrived but this did mean that the medical staff were bored out of their minds. There's only so much preparation you can do. This boredom lead to a big demand - mainly from the nurses - for the Lincoln Cathedral design. Other citizens in Lincoln as well as tourists discovered it and sales took off. So much so that I, FOOLISHLY, decided to try and make designs for all the cathedrals in England. Now that was TOO ambitious. If any of those Nocton nurses read this blog I'd love to hear from them again.

We restricted the sale of the design to my wife's shop and, although she no longer owns that shop, it is still restricted to sale there and continues to do well.

The second - side on view - design of the cathedral was carried out much later and the chart I designed for that was purposely destroyed so that this picture became truly unique. Others of my designs went on to sell nationally and, sometime, I'll show you some of those.

My burning interest in needlework fell off whilst I was awaiting a cataract operation and never returned with my renewed sight. It must be ten years now since I last did any serious needlework. Perhaps one day !!!!!!!!!!!!"

Bright as a button

I just made some buttons for a friend to go on her new cardigan.

She has knitted this great looking cardigan - I've only seen it in the early stages - with sheep along the top.....

Anyhow - she asked me to make her 7 little buttons to finish it off and I sent them to her yesterday. I hope I'll get a photo of the completed cardigan!


I haven't made buttons before.....and I knew she wanted flowers on them, so I showed her a few illustrations and this elegant vase is what she chose. Think it worked out well.

Now if only I had time to do more knitting, I could make my own buttons!!!!

Merry Go Round - favourite recipe

It's time for another ride on the merry-go-round! Jump on and join a group of artists/crafts-women as they link around the world and tell you a little about their lives in art and craft.

This month's question that myself and 10 other women will answer is a little different from usual and not related to our art and craft - but another way for you to get to know us. This month we will be sharing " our favourite (easy) recipe."

I love cooking and baking - and as I have a newly remodeled kitchen (just finished this month!) I'm having a great time playing with my new aga oven. But no warm fuzzy comfort food recipes here.....

The recipe I'm going to share is for strawberry ice cream. I love making ice cream - lots of different flavours and this recipe is one of the easiest and one of the tastiest. I don't like store bought strawberry ice cream - never get it - but just love this one.


Ingredients:
1 lb (500g) ripe strawberries
1/2 pint (300 ml) double/whipping cream
4 oz (100g) caster (bakers) sugar
Juice of a lemon

All you do is mush/mash/puree the strawberries and then add the other ingredients. Stir and freeze either in an ice cream maker or in the freezer. If you do it in the freezer, after a few hours, take it out of the freezer and break up the ice cream with a fork a bit, then put it back in the freezer for a few more hours.

Yummy. You will love it. Couple of options - you can add balsamic vinegar (brings out the flavour of berries) and you can use other berries instead of strawberries -but try this version first and maybe you'll never try another!

Happy ice cream making. Hope you give it a try - or come round some time and I'll make you some.

Take a look at the recipes that the other artists on the merry go round have posted on their blogs today. We have three new artists (* below) joined us this month so get cooking! .......We'll all post either today or over the weekend so if you don't see their post - do check back later....as there is a big time difference between us all.

*Jenny at Jenny Karlsson design http://designjennykarlsson.blogspot.com/
*Nikki at Beaded Zen http://beadedzen.blogspot.com
*Wendren at Wren http://thewrendesign.com/
Sara at Sara's Texture Crafts http://sarastexturecrafts.blogspot.com
Charlotte at Fancy Picnic http://fancypicnic.blogspot.com
Lily at Lily Pang Art http://lilypangart.blogspot.com
Marian at Florcita http://florcitasart.blogspot.com
Agathe at Le Bar du Vent http://lebarduvent.blogspot.com
Fabienne at Easterya http://easterya.blogspot.com
Andreanna at Glamasaurus http://blog.glamasaurus.com
Ruth at Birdland Creations http://insidetheartisan.blogspot.com

Creativity sparks - ideas to inspire: ideas book

One of the key things that helps with my inspiration is my ideas book/folder/file. Just a bunch of sheet protectors in a file that I put little snippets in that I find as I go about my daily living. Then when I'm trying to come up with a new idea, I sit on the floor in my studio on my little birdie rug and flick through the pages.

The kinds of things I put in my file vary tremendously. It can be photograph showing an interesting way to use props in a photo......it can be a font I like.....it can be a saying or quotation.....it can be a picture....it can be a story...it can be song lyrics or a nursery rhyme.....it can be a sticker.....it can be anything.

Just something that catches my eye and makes me stop and look at it twice. If it is in a magazine, I'll rip it out, or online- I'll print it or else I'll write it down or photograph it.

Currently it looks like I need to organize the file a little. That's because it is seriously bulging and won't close and is tricky to flick through! I just need to put everything in either two files or one larger one...but that doesn't seem to happen. I think the disorganization of it all adds to the charm and inspiration.

Do you have a stash of goodies you look at for inspiration? Tell us about it.....

Business Matters - Part 8 - Trademark frustrations

For my "business matters" post today, I thought I'd share with you my frustrations re. a Trademark infringement idiocy that happened this week.

On Friday, I got an email from the administration at Dawanda telling me that they had been informed that "some of my articles may be in breach of the copyright of a protected brand......In the worst case scenario the owner of the brand may initiate legal actions against you". Dawanda had been asked to remove these items.

Naturally this was of great concern to me. I don't want to have any copyright or trademark issues with any of my products. But it took a while for me to figure out what it was all about.....

I won't name the trademark company here specifically as I don't want to catch their attention....again..... - but I'll spell it incorrectly so you can understand what I am talking about. Instead of an "IE" at the end of the word, please read it as "EY". So the trademark company that claimed that I "was in breach of their rights" was smilie - with the altered spelling.

I eventually found two items I had listed on Dawanda that they were taking exception too. One was the "Matt and Ted sheep earrings" and the other was the "Trotter the pig" charm. Now, these pieces do not look in anyway like their smilie and have nothing to do with them at all, but in my description of these items of jewelry, I wrote something like "and they have such cute smilie faces" (with the other spelling) - as both pieces are little animals and I had put expressions on their faces, as the photos show. Now the word (with the amended spelling) smilie is a word in the English dictionary, it is an adjective of "smile" and so I was describing that my sculpted animals basically have smiles on their faces. It was just a cute way to describe them....

But apparently The S Company have decided that they can trademark a single work in the English language and stop anyone else using it ! How ridiculous is that? My use of the word was perfectly correct - there was nothing wrong in what I did yet now I have changed my descriptions because I don't want any hassle. OK -it makes no difference to substitute "smiles on their faces" but I really want to leave the word in the description as I have nothing to be ashamed of, yet I just don't want to risk repercussions. And so the company wins! How stupid is that!

So - sorry! This posting has turned more into a venting than a "business matters" - but I tell the tale to let you all know how silly this trademark situation is getting where companies can choose a word in general use as their trademark and threaten to sue anyone else who uses that word in any business related activity at all. How I wish I could be bothered to fight it. And what about "smilie's people" the book by John Le Carre - what happens to that? Maybe we should re-write the dictionary and take out the word smilie so no-one uses it and therefore doesn't get sued?????

And then you get to thinking about the man-power that this company uses to search for people to sue. Here were two pieces of jewelry of mine, listed on an artist's marketplace. This "bad" word was not a tag, nor meta-tag, nor title, it didn't begin with a capitalized letter.... - just one word in the middle of a description. Gosh - to find it seems amazing to me. How much are they spending on employing people to search for the word? Is their sole business suing "offenders" who dare to use the word????

Birdhouse earrings

Here is my latest pair of birdhouse earrings. Two three-dimensional little bird houses - one with tiny little shingles on the roof...both with little perches to help the birdies on their way inside.


They hang on diamond shape ear wires. The top part of the wire is hinged so opens to go through the ear, then closes to secure.

Just in time as the birds around here are starting to look for nesting places....

On Etsy Front Page last week

One of my pair of earrings was on the front page of Etsy last week. It's great exposure. It is the little row of house earrings, entitled "the street where I live".
Here's the treasury that it appeared in - lots of lovely houses!:

Sunday's spotlight - Kaleidoscopes

By guest blogger Pete

I can never understand why the majority of people in the world drive on the WRONG side of the road! What's wrong with them? Surely they realise that the English way of driving is the best? Now, I'm a wrinkly - a BALD wrinkly too - and although I've driven in the States - I would guess, in all, about 35 miles - it is not my favourite occupation.

When Ruth and John lived on Sanibel Island my wife and I took up cycling. I won't say which one of us fell off because that wouldn't be fair to her. We regularly used to pass one of those road signs that told you how fast you are going and, being delinquent daredevils, we used to speed up and flash by the sign at something approaching 10 mph. No speed cop ever caught us!

It was whilst on Sanibel that Ruth and John arranged for me to meet a character called Dick Shepherd. He had a photography business somewhere in that vast hot expanse that goes under the name of Fort Myers. Now the 35 miles I've driven in the States didn't include Sanibel to Fort Myers. Ruth took me on this occasion and arranged to meet me at a coffee shop called Borders; I think they sold books as well as coffee! However, this meeting place involved crossing a multi-lane highway - at the time it seemed as though there were 50 lanes at the particular spot I decided to cross on. I waited for the traffic lights to favour pedestrians and set off at a good sprint for a 60 something year old. I must have been about 2/3rds of the way across when the lights decided to favour the movement of vast amounts of traffic. That was an experience that did wonders for my prayer life. It is, also, the only time I've argued with a 50 ton truck!

Dick was very much into photographic kaleidoscopes and much of his keeness rubbed off onto me. Kaleidoscopes feed my love of detail. When I got back to that special land favoured by all people with good taste I tried it out for myself using as much of Dick's basic method as I could remember. They were a bit too basic but over time I developed my own method that gave me more detailed kaleidoscopes.

From this:

to this:
The main weakness with my method was that everything had to be done "by hand". Recently Ruth introduced me to a programme (sorry "program") known as "Kaleidoscope Kreator".

It took this photo from this:


To this:
Now this programme offers speed and detail with some amazing results. If you're into digital photography then why not try it out.

(Editor's note: I actually won my copy of the program from the Metal Clay Store - and it can be used to create photopolymer plates for metal clay - but only on a PC, not mac!).

Remember the little things - how it was done!

Thought I'd share with you how I made the "remember the little things" bracelet.

It all started with an idea to do a story-type bracelet. I had this idea a year or so ago but had never figured out anything more than that. After I did the animal and bird tracks bracelets, I decided that using that style would work.


The idea was that I would take 9 drawings/illustrations, make photo polymer plates (PPPs) from them, then use these plates to make the squares for the bracelet and voila!! Easy!!!!

I really can't draw so getting the illustrations was the first trick. I put a request in on Alchemy on Etsy for someone to do some drawings for me. I ended up choosing two artists. The one for this bracelet was Deanna Maree from NSW Australia. I'll do the other bracelet one day in the not too distant future so then you can see that....

I found it to be an interesting process to come up with an idea for the bracelet that was more story-like in that it took 9 squares to tell it, instead of the usual one image with a necklace. I decided on the "little things" and then told Deanna my thoughts and ideas.

Deanna was great. We worked back and forth quite a lot. Her illustrations are lovely but we had some tricky times with the fineness of the lines. First of all, getting fine lines to show well enough on the PPP's was difficult - but then I found that some style of illustrations didn't really show up well when in the silver. I found that telling a story in silver needs bold simple lines and in the end, I took Deanna drawings and adapted them to make them work for the silver, changing the bird, and a few other things. It was a learning process for both of us but good to work with another artist. She subsequently made her drawings into a collection of cards.


The drawings were then transferred onto transparencies and I created photo polymer plates which were then used to make the 9 front squares of the bracelet in metal clay. Once dry, I used little straws as spacers on the back to attach the back part of silver. These spacers make the 'track' so that I can link all the squares all together.

I then decided to name each square with what it represents so made PPPs for the words too and added these to the back.

Each square was sanded, popped into the kiln for 2 hours, more sanding and polishing, assembled and you have the bracelet!

In reality, the drawing part of this took a long time to figure and decide on and the rest what pretty quick.

Remember the little things....

It's all too easy to rush around, getting caught up in work or something else, and life gets out of balance.

So as you own personal reminder, here is my latest bracelet entitled "Remember the little things". It illustrates 9 different things to help us find that elusive balance.


Remember the little things: ( the squares from left to right )

Stop a little....

Entertain a little....

Indulge a little....









Celebrate a little....

Care a little....

Work a little....









Pamper a little....

Love a little....

Play a little....








I'll tell you more about how I made it in an upcoming post. Hope you like it......

Creativity sparks - ideas to inspire: Post Secret

This week's idea to inspire is a blog that I think you might enjoy. It's called Post Secret and it is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard. There is such a variety of messages - on all different topics (so be warned!).

I loved one of the latest. Someone sent in the following postcard:


And after it was shown on the site, someone else emailed in and said:

"I'm a librarian and I've kept all the pressed flowers I've found in returned books over the years."

If you have a moment, take a look at the site. It is an art project in itself - but also inspiring for others too. Hope you like it.

Sneak Preview!

OK - so I've just finished my bracelet!! Yeah!!! but no time for photos as I'm dashing out....

However...here is a sneak preview - of the BACK!!!! I know - what a tease! Hope you can read the words and now you'll be able to guess what the front will look like!!!!

It's nine little squares, and the whole is something for each day....


In case you can't read it the words are:
play..., love...., pamper..., work.., care.., celebrate.., indulge.., entertain..., stop...

More soon.....

Business Matters - Part 7b - 100 Times Rule

When I wrote last week's blog post on the 100 times Rule, I didn't expect it to be a two part post - but here I am this week, writing part b. The reason is that I spent the week kind of regretting writing the post because then I had to listen to myself ;-$


I have spent the last month or so not succeeding in a project..... but have kept going. Last week, it still wasn't working - and as it happened, it was last Wednesday when I was just about to decide that yes, it may have been a good idea - but sometimes you just have to call it quits. But then I realized I had just written the post about the 100 times rule and so couldn't quit - especially on the very day I had put forth how good persistence was!!!

Today, finally - after what does seem like 100 attempts, I think I've cracked it!

As Seth Godin says "Persistence isn't using the same tactics over and over... Persistence is having the same goal over and over."

Yes, every time I tackled this project, I tried a slightly different approach. And if I hadn't made progress today would I have been writing a blog post about quitting while you are ahead or knowing when to give up?? Maybe????......but I felt it was in my grasp.....


I'm reluctant to even say what I have been trying to do - as it shouldn't have been complicated but just turned out to be. Anyhow - I made great progress today and I think I will finally make a piece of jewelry that if I costed it out, would cost a fortune for the hours I have struggled with it.

So do I feel good that I persisted????? I guess I will wait until the project is finally finished before I answer that!

Anyhow else have a burst of persistence this week?????

Special delivery message

The result of the voting to name your favourite message for the special delivery mailbox necklace was "Miss you". Thanks for voting. We did get one new idea too - "Sealed with a kiss" which I think is lovely.

I really hope someone buys it and asks for "will you marry me" as the message! I'll be sure to tell you if you they do!!

Hope you get some lovely mail tomorrow!

Cathedral rose window earrings

Finally I've made some earrings! It seems that all my inspiration tends towards bracelets, bangles and necklaces lately..... Not quite sure why......And I can't even say the earrings are a new design as I have previously made a similar necklace.

Anyhow - the design of the earrings is from the rose window at Grace cathedral in San Francisco where I sing every week. As I sing, this is what I see! Just a gorgeous geometric array for stained glass. Here is the window:

In the earrings, the "stained glass" is actually blue, red and yellow resin.


What I like about the earrings is that the light shines through them, like the window. With the necklace, as you wear it is against your skin so you don't get the transparency of the resin, but as earrings you do. The other great thing is that the earrings are really light weight and comfortable as the silver is all cut out and the resin is much lighter than metal.

Hope you like them....

Sunday's spotlight - "H(igh) D(efinition) R(?)

By guest blogger Pete

I seem to spend quite a bit of my summers taking photographs and even more of my winters developing and improving them in Adobe Photoshop. I was never more than an occasional photographer in the olden days of film before the advent of digital photography but I soon caught the bug for the digital variety very early on and have been addicted ever since. The freedom from film - and the expense - added to the bonus of never being caught out changing a film just when something you would have wanted to photograph passes by caused me to fall instantly in love with the digital variety. Another big plus is the freedom from the number of shots you can take without thinking perpetually of 24 or 36.

With my love for detail it was with some anticipation that I began to experiment with HDR. The "HD" stands for "High Definition" but I've no idea what the "R" represents. Perhaps you can tell me because I've never discovered it (nor have I really looked into finding out the answer either)! With genuine HDR I'm restricted to Photoshop, which doesn't offer the same refinements as the leader in this particular field - Photomatix. Basically HDR is the combination of 3 or more different exposure shots of the same scene, person, etc. The HDR program then aligns these shots and combines the 3 into one image without any detail being lost in shadows or highlights. Photomatic gives you a free 30 day trial but all the attempts during that trial are heavily watermarked and the full program is a little expensive. If the minimum of three different exposures puts you off then you can take one image into Photoshop and make 2 copies, each of which you can give a different exposure to from the original.

I recently came across a program called "TOPAZ ADJUST", produced by "topazlabs.com". This is a more reasonable price and gives very favourable results using just ONE image. The two examples I give you below in this blog are from Topaz Adjust but please bear in mind that I have gone a little over the top because I don't know what difference you'll be able to see on these pages and, if it is good, then, believe me, you can go much further or far less than I have gone. Topaz Labs give a 30 day free trial but with their program there are NO limitations or watermarks at all.

Original image:
Topaz Adjust-ed Image:
I've never seen it mentioned but one thing I have found useful when using Topaz Adjust is to make a copy of the image you want to adjust before starting. When you get the adjusted version if there is ANY part of that image you don't like (i.e. the sky) then you can either put a mask on the new version and paint out the sky with black (thus revealing the original sky) or else just erase the unwanted portion. I have used this quite a bit.

Happy snapping.

Last few hours to vote for Special Delivery message

Only a few hours left to vote for the message you would most like to receive in the special delivery mailbox necklace. The voting is on the side bar!

Anyone can whistle

I recently sold my "anyone can whistle" necklace and the buyer, Claudia from Germany, told me she had bought it as a gift for her husband.

As it is quite an unusual necklace which is a whistle as well - I asked Claudia if she would mind telling me why she selected it and how she saw him using the whistle. Here's her idea behind the gift!

"The phrase "to do somebody's bidding" translates in German "to dance to somebody's whistle"; in other words, if you arrive in chaos, you whistle, get attention and go back to business.

My husband is working with disordered kids (like a "supernanny"- coming to families' homes, checking situations, helping parents and kids). He also works with kids in groups and imagine kids with ADHD/ADS in groups; that can be really loud. The whistle should act as a surprise for those situations.

Second, do you know the title song from "Gilmore Girls"? Carole King: Where you lead. The lyrics are "you just call my name and I'll be there ". Well, he can use the whistle then.

Overall, this is all symbolic; actually, my husband does not like necklaces; either he will wear it on a leather string or as his key ring... I will let you know :) His birthday is in 2 weeks time and it will be his 40th."

So 'Happy Birthday' to Claudia's husband. Hope he likes his birthday present and that the kids will soon associate the sound with him and his caring. Always great to hear where your creations go..... Thanks for letting me know Claudia.