Thanks so much to everyone who came out to help with our January Blood Drive. Here's the report from our coordinator Leslie at the San Diego Blood Bank: "WOW what an awesome drive on Saturday! With your advertising efforts, new Blood Mobile location and our volunteers we registered 30 donors and collected 28 pints, saving 84 lives in our community. There were 15 first time donors which is amazing. Thank you so much for all your support!" Our pint total last year was 41 and I had modestly hoped to double it this year but we're well on our way so I'm going to go ahead and make our goal an ambitious 100 pints. Help us spread the word, our next blood drive is March 14th, 2020!

Join us for a festive evening celebrating love of all stripes with music, snacks, a jewelry sale and a raffle featuring fun Valentine’s goodies. Free gift wrapping on all purchases and the first 15 visitors get a special Valentine surprise! Peace, Love and Mokume Gane ~ Ame & Anne

Our first Jewelry metal arts outing of 2020 will be to Pala Valley on a quest for tourmailines and other gems with intrepid silversmith and lapidary artist Jules Monroe! We're heading out on Saturday February 29, 2020. There's no cost to join the Anneville Jewelry Club but you'll want to bring some lunch money and $75 per person to pay the mine folks. Get details and sign up!

We're kicking off 2020 with our first blood drive on January 18th. The San Diego Blood Bank Blood Mobile will be parked outside the Lab on Historic Decatur Road near the Liberty Public Market from 11am-5pm. Did you know that you get points every time you donate? Yep, and you can redeem them for gift cards and other goodies. PLUS, this month we're offering a special free snacks and a $20 coupon good for classes and Open Lab time to all donors - just stop by the Lab after you donate and show us your cool arm band. That day at the Lab we're learning torch-fired enamels so you might see some glowing torches in action too! For your blood donation, be sure to bring a photo ID and make sure you're well hydrated. Walk-ins are welcome but it's best to make an appointment. I'll be the first donor at 11am so I hope to see you there! Make your appointment.

What a year! From an empty room and a lot of scribbling on a notepad in October of 2018, we created a fully-equipped metals lab that over the last year has hosted 30 classes taught by 6 different teachers. We've held 14 open studio events, fielded a team of makers to the San Diego County Fair (winning over a dozen ribbons), developed our student base to over 140 and hosted 3 student sales. We also organized a Shop & Swap tool & materials fundraiser collecting $520 for the Jewish Family Services’ Downtown Migrant Center and we sponsored 4 blood drives, collecting 41 donations. Behind those numbers is an intangible that was actually our biggest goal - a friendly, metal arts community. Through births, deaths, accidents, illnesses and politics we've come together to help each other and, in the process, we've learned that the Lab is a lot of things to a lot of people. We're deeply grateful and humbled by the amazing support we've gotten to make this all happen. So here's hoping that 2020 brings you strong saw blades, powerful pickle, and clean solder seams. Happy New Year and thanks for watching!