Karen! Look what you've started!! This chalk thing was my project for today. I made some tiles using the white pearl clay and chalked with a rainbow of colors. Ahhh... Rainbow is my FAVORITE color! :-) I really like how they turned out, but I didn't make enough to do a bracelet or anything, so I haven't scanned them yet. Then, since I had some black scraps on my work surface from yesterday, I had to find out what would happen with bright chalks on black clay. I used copper PearlEx, too, and left a heavy dusting of chalk on the clay. Below is the link to 2 of my finished experiments. Thanks SO much for sharing this technique! I LOVE it! There were my clay and my chalks just a shelf away from each other in the craft closet and I would never have thought to put them together! Here is a link that might be useful: My chalked black clay things

Actually, I do have a little case with dominos in it that I bought for $1.00. Guess I could paint them up--I'll put that on my ever so long list of to do's okay? LOL

I love their stamps!

@JDS ... I designed roof trusses for 19 years, and I've done quite a few renovation drawings ahead of an Engineer. In most cases, beams don't need seals since all of the calculations are provided by the vendor and shown on their drawings along with all of the loading factors used to obtain the final reactions, deflection, and so on. In most cases the Engineering can be run on LPs website, then the output drawing, along with the plans showing the loading path is generally acceptable. If you don't have a full set of plans, then the building inspectors in my neck of the woods do want to see an Engineers stamp and they want a copy in their files. CYA. As far as the roof support goes. We are talking about a newly exposed area of 2' out x 17' wide, give or take. That is really not that big of a deal as far as added loads go in building construction. Exclusive of the added wall weight, using rounded dimensions, and the following loading ... 20-10-30-10 to cover roof (LL in my area) + floor load (LL=sleeping) and average dead weight ( typical - assumed) in both cases, I come up with a total load on the (2' x 17' area = 34 square feet total) x (70' = 2,380# = Total Weight), exclusive of overhangs on the new rafters) and as mentioned earlier, the dead weight of the new exterior walls. That is not a lot of added load no matter which way you turn the roof. These calculations are based on the ASSUMPTION that a new beam will be added overhead to carry the weight of the existing roof. I am using my imagination and commonsense since I have little else to refer to. My intent when I left my original comment was to give domino a little food for thought and to alert him to the fact that variables matter. As far as the wall bracing goes ... they are getting tough on it, and there are two methods that can be used: Simplified and Standard, IRC 2012 covers both methods in detail, with differences between the two. I doubt either method will apply on this particular job since it is a renovation job as opposed to new construction. But if the building inspector wants to make an issue of it, he can. Depending on where domino lives, seismic variables may apply as well. I live in Virginia, so here, we only have to worry about wind bracing. Keeping the cantilever tucked back 2' or less remains within the guidelines of Simplified Wall Bracing. Since I don't have to deal with it, I am not sure if this is true in areas beyond Seismic Category B. If so, then this would be a factor to take into consideration, and again, can be verified though the local building inspector. dominios, if you're still with us, I hope you can muddle thought the garble and pick up some useful information. Ah, decisions, decisions! :)