Santa LOVES Miss November Studio!

My work can be viewed at MissNovemberStudio.com

You can purchase my work at missnovemberstudio.etsy.com

Santa always has a way of bringing things I need. This year in particular nearly all of my gifts were for working in the studio!

Santa brought
-Lighted tweezers (brilliant!)
-Multiple tweezers (can't have enough when working with a torch!)
-Magnifying goggles (I may have to post a ridiculous picture of these on my face)
-A super-shiny neck mandrel (this was on my must-have list!)
-A canvas smock with pockets (I destroy my Anthropologie aprons)

And my favorite gift of all: A home made oak anvil.

Let me explain...

Silversmiths use hard oak stumps with a polished surface to work metal. Instead of marring the metal by using a steel anvil, the oak is softer and absorbs hammer blows. It can also be used with a flat steel anvil off the work surface for smaller studios like mine. When I hammer on my workbench everything bounces and tips over making a mess. With my new oak anvil I won't bounce my tools off the workbench anymore! Hooray!

That isn't the reason I love it so much, though...

My darling husband (my highschool sweetheart, swooooon) found a big oak stump on a muddy hillside in Escondido (North County, San Diego) and brought it back to Acme Garage (he's a mechanic) where he spent the better part of the day sawing it in half by hand (I helped a little).

Once the sawing was complete we realized a huge chunk of the stump is actually a hollow burl. Blake would have loved to carve the burl into a bowl or something, but instead we decided it would just be a unique feature on my custom anvil.

If he had cut 1/4 inch to the left the hollow portion would have been hidden. Its like a big empty pocket, you could fit a softball inside.

Top side of the burl. To me it looks like a bear on a scooter!

Blake mounted the chunk of oak on a table base we had scored at a local junk store for $15.

To finish it off he sanded and polished the surface and inscribed "Miss November Studio" in the burl.

The twists in the grain are beautiful! That dark spot is the burl opening. 

I love it!!! Thanks to my creative, crafty, handyman honey!