The Sun Came Out!

As much as we needed the rain and I have sooooo enjoyed listening to all the rain and the birds singing for the past two days with the windows open, I was so very thankful to see the sun come out.  When I saw the reflection of my fingers in the sunlight, it made me inexplicably happy.  Because, well, I'm a dork like that.  And it's the little things that normally make me the happiest.  :)

Lots of buttons shipped out today.  Yay!

I want to eat these!

I am really loving the color and shape of the items on the lower left.

This set should be going into the shop tonight.

As will these eight new buttons.  :)  It's a little hard to see in this pic, but I love the raised silvery dots on the clear button at the top.

I really like this little guy and have absolutely no recollection of what glass I used to make it.  Boo hiss.

Tonight I will be spending the evening on the couch next to my honeys.  I'll be listing beads and buttons and setting up more blog posts.  Tomorrow night I should be back on the torch.  Woot!

I hope you had a most excellent weekend and feel well rested for starting this week!  I know my three day weekend was much needed and yesterday was just the kind of relaxing day I needed and haven't had in months.

Weekend Tutorial and Giveaway

Hop on over to Art Bead Scene when you get a moment.  Lorelei wrote a great tutorial on making your own photo collage using Picasa.  She was even so thoughtful as to include both Mac and PC instructions.  If you leave a comment on the ABS post, you are entered to win one of my new buttons.

A little catch up from the end of this week.  Thursday was our 10th wedding anniversary and we celebrated in high style when the kids went over to a friend's home (another brother and sister with same age distance as our kids).  Todd and I went through the drive-through.  At Taco Bell.  And we were really crazy and ate in the parking lot.  Then we drove to Wal-Mart to buy posterboard, sharpies and tape to make signs for the garage sale I held yesterday and today.  We were out. of. control.  We can also now walk through our attic again.  Yay!

To make up for our lack of celebratory activities on Thursday, we did go out for a nice steak dinner last night and then a movie.  They undercooked Todd's steak so it was still pink and he REALLY liked it (normally he wants it cooked well done or worse so he knows it won't walk off his plate).  I learned that the trick is dimming the lights so he can't see the pink.  Not that I want my steak mooing, but think medium rare to medium is perfect.  Then we saw the new Ben Affleck movie and enjoyed an escape from our reality.

We stopped at the grocery store on our way home to pick up two sprinkles doughnuts for Chloe to eat for her birthday breakfast as a special treat.  But they were sold out, so I woke up early to go buy two before she woke up.  Chloe is my little rooster and was sneaking up behind me before I had my shoes on.  So she was thrilled to go with me to pick out her doughnuts.  In her nightgown, with non-matching shoes (because that's one of the things that makes the girl child happy these days) and her ostrich named Goggle.  She was happy to stop for sunrise photos on the way home and then eager to help with day two of our garage sale.

The kids had a shared birthday party this afternoon which was a lot of fun.  They enjoyed pizza, cake, laughter, friendship and way too much sugar.  Or at least too much sugar for them because they rarely get candy or anything with sugar.  Which made for two hyper kids and a mom who lost her patience.  Which stunk because I don't like losing my cool.  With my kids.  On one of their birthdays.  I was glad when bedtime came and I'm looking forward to tomorrow when we have all had enough rest and the sugar is out of little bodies.  I was glad that she liked her birthday present, which was a very old, brass ferris wheel that spins when the music box is wound up.  The cars even rock and swing in place!

With that, I will leave you with a picture of Jezz trying to get to the highest point possible on my piano to chase some sort of insect or figment of her imagination tonight.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and I'll see you all on Monday!

Friday Buttons

Woo hoo!  The wireless signal from my router reaches out to the driveway so I can have my laptop out here!  All of the shtuff is out on the driveway for our garage sale.  It felt really good to empty out soooo much of the attic yesterday and know that all of these baby items (high chair, bouncy, stroller, car seats) will find new homes and be used again.  But it also makes me sad that this is probably the final goodbye to my kids' baby things.  That there will be no more babies or little feet.

But enough of that.  I've got buttons to list in my shop!  I just finished cropping down all of the pics and will start getting them listed in my shop one by one.  If you see one you like, but are worried it may get snatched up before you can grab another you are waiting on...go ahead and get it.  I have no problem combining shipping and either sending you a revised invoice at the end of the day or refunding shipping monies if you go ahead and pay at the time of purchase.

I like the reflection in this bead, even though I normally try to make sure there aren't reflections of the house, windows or trees on my bead pics.

And yesterday brought a bunch of comments and compliments on the clear buttons circled in bright colors.  I wanted you to know that design idea was Lorelei's.  She and I were video chatting one night last week while I was on the torch and I asked her what she'd like to see, so that's what I made that night.

If anyone is interested in video chatting with me while I'm on the torch, just let me know and we'll set it up.  I love company while I'm melting glass and it's always fun to share what I do with others.  :)

And now I'm off to start listing these beauties in my shop and enjoy my day off.  Have a great Friday!

Done With Sneak Peeks

So I've been showing you pics of these.

And these.

And these.

But were you able to tell that this....

Is actually this?

With two holes?  :D

I only have four button mandrels, so that means I can only make four button beads each evening when I sit down at the torch.

Which is why I haven't been sharing these over the past coupla weeks.

Because I wanted to be able to have close to a coupla dozen to throw into my shop after showing you all.  :)

And now I have twenty two :D

These will all be going into the shop tomorrow.

Another Sneak Peek

Ok, this is the last of the sneak peeks.

At least of these kinds of beads.

There is something different about these from all my others.

But you'll have to come back tomorrow to find out how they are different :)

I won't be on the torch tonight.  Todd has tennis after we eat dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant to celebrate his sister's birthday.  I made her a special painting for her apartment.  I hope she loves it.  Big flowers and using the colors she loves in deep chocolate brown, corals, reds, oranges, golds and a touch of sage green.  I'll instead be working on editing photos and catching up on the family blog before the grandparents explode and begin openly shaking their fists at me.  I haven't updated it in more than a week, so I'm sure there is already some private fist shaking going on.

Tomorrow is Todd's and my 10th wedding anniversary.  And it will be 12 years from our first date.  I can't believe I have known this man for so long.  It doesn't seem like 12 years.  They have flown by.  My mom was looking at pictures taken of the two of us seven and a half years ago.  We both looked like kids.  I suppose we were. 

I'm taking Friday off to do a garage sale in the morning since Saturday mornings are busy with kids' soccer games.  Hopefully that will help empty our attic and garage of stuff we haven't used since the kids were babies.  Or that has sat idle in kitchen cabinets and other closets for years.  Part of my on-going effort to reduce the amount of possessions in our house.

Radio Silence

I can't believe it's been almost a week since my last post!  I promise, I haven't been an all around slacker.  Just here.  On the torch, I have been very busy almost every night.  So here are a few sneak peeks of what is coming within the next week or two.

Do you not have enough time to do everything you want?  If not, read this post and perhaps you can learn to knit.  Or pick up a new hobby.  I thought this post was great!

Here is one of my attempts at a sunflower bead.

Jezzie has doubled in size since we brought her home a month ago.

Meet Sugar (who started out as Rumblebuffin and was re-named Hammy within an hour of coming home and another hour later to Sugar).  She was Owen's 8th birthday present.  When he is home, he gets her out of her cage to hold her on an hourly basis.  It is so sweet.  Yesterday he stayed home to be spoiled by grandparents.  Today he went to camp (our county is out for the week...they take a week off after every 7-8 weeks of school) and asked if I would get her out every 3 hours to hold and pet and love.  I'll see what I can do to get a better pic of her from the front when Owen is holding her another day.

Sometimes I feel unappreciated as a wife and mom.  I feel like I do so much and it goes un-noticed.  For the most part, I am ok with this and do not become resentful.  I don't expect thank yous for doing the laundry, cooking, making the bed, dishes, packing lunches or all the other things I do to keep our family going (although it would be nice to hear occasionally).  But over this past week, multiple things heaped on me (and I may have exaggerated some things in my mind about how I was being ignored or unappreciated having a rare pity party) and I started questioning if I was really where I was supposed to be.  I just needed a little solitude and distance to realize again I would not change my life for anything and love my husband and children.  This post could not have come at a better time for helping put an end to my pity party.  Tis a good one for other moms because we sometimes need humble reminders.  Or at least I do.

Chloe took this pic of me last night while we were at Owen's soccer practice.

ThyHand is having a giveaway on her blog with this bracelet made by Lorelei!

Tonight I am booking a rental home for the week of Thanksgiving in Orlando.  Our kids have been asking for years to go to Disney World and we are finally ready (ie. we have saved up the arms and legs required to pay for the admissions for a family of four).  I found a lovely four bedroom home to share with my Mom, Grandma and Todd's folks.  The kids will be spoiled in love from the grandparents and the splendor of Disney.  I haven't been since I was six and have no recollection of going, other than the pictures taken at the time and stories that I ruined it for my Mom because she wanted to go on the rides and I was too scared.   Todd went to Disney Land as a teenager, but this will be his first time going to Disney World.  I'm so excited about every aspect of this trip!  Lisa, I will email you the dates we'll be in town :D

Last week a new etsian committed to buy these three sets of beads, but never remitted payment or responded to my emails/convos.  So I canceled the sale today and relisted them.  If you liked them before, they are back in the shop now.

Laguna rounds

Candy nuggets

Swirling Willow Eggs

Here is my sunset this evening.

Since Todd has tennis practice tomorrow night and I'll be putting the kids to bed by myself, he is putting the kids to bed tonight.  I'm hopping over to the torch now to melt more glass.

Have a good evening!

Beads and Patina

Here are more beads from last night.  I made rounds this time because I just love these so much.  I'm still so intrigued by this frit because it appears periwinkle and purple, yet turns up this stunning blue.

Here is my supervisor over the photography shoot :)

New Beads

Just a quick post.  Today flew by.  I had to drive into the office (the real one, which required a shower before leaving the house) and a few hours IN the office waiting for one of my laptops to get fixed.  I had left the house around 11:30am and planned on being back home by 1pm, but I was still at the office at 1:30 when my blood sugar dropped on me and I started shaking horribly.  I hunted down a break room and found the vending machines.  I got a Fanta Orange and a Snickers.  I don't remember the last time I had a Snickers, I'm sure it's been well over a year.  It was absolute heaven!

Here are the beads I made last night.  

I turned the captcha function off the other day since Blogger put in place special measures for spam comments.  So far, it has stopped three spam messages from posting.  Yay for things that work!

I'm hopping back over to my torch to make more beads now.  Have a great night!

Tuesday Ramblings

In the last week, I have received this feedback:

Absolutely LOVE the beads that arrived today! I can't wait to create something fabulous with these. Thanks Kelley- And I really like the little extra that came today too!

SO amazing. Thank you!

The colors are so beautiful I wanted to lick them to see if they tasted as yummy as they looked!

Amazing! Beautiful! Not sure how you get them to me so fast. Thanks!

I love, love, love the eggs!! Kelley, your work is so beautiful and your customer service is awesome. Thanks so much.

This makes my heart sing to know that what I make with my own two hands is so appreciated by others.  I love that I can work with my hands and see tangible results.  It also sends me off singing to myself, 'my hands are small, I know.'   Because.  Well.  I'm a dork like that.  :)

My boy turns 8 in three days.  Eight!  Where did the time go?  Did I tell you this boy is cooking us dinner one night each week?  He is.  And he is so proud of it.  He even wants to cook a big dinner on Friday when the Grandmas and his Aunt come over to join us for dinner.

Our downstairs has been in disarray for close to the last month.  We gave away all of the furniture in our family room to friends and moved the furniture from the living room into the family room.  That room is almost finished, with the exception of that broken tv sitting on the floor that we have no idea what to do with it, so it just sits.

The living room is slowly coming together as a study/work room for the kids.  There is one desk in place, but no telling when the second desk will be here because I'm cheap and also content to wait until the pieces come into the outlet store so I don't have to pay retail prices.  The new computer arrived today, so I will get that set up tonight with accounts for each of the kids to login to with limited email/internet access.  The grandparents love to send emails to the kids and now will be able to video chat with the kids more easily.  I hope.  :)

I realized last night that my new bottle of green patina was leaking inside its bag.  At the bottom, I found a few puncture holes that might line up perfectly with Jezzie's teeth.  I believe (due to where the bottle was on my desk and knowing when I moved it last) that she is safe and would have gotten sick by now if she was going to get sick.

My Grandma turned 92 yesterday.  We celebrated by going out to dinner on Saturday night.  She was smiling big when we all sang to her.

My aunt asked me today if I would play photographer at her wedding next month.  I couldn't be more thrilled.  Or honored.  I am already so excited for her to have found a man that she is crazy, head-over-heels in love with like nobody's business.  He is her high school sweetheart.  We're pretty crazy about him, too.

I made new beads last night.  But I'm not ready to share them yet.  Or at least not all of them.  I want to make more to see if I really like them and that they're cool enough to share.  Or if I should just throw them in my orphan box.  Which is probably what I should have done with those blue beads last week.

The photo books of the rafting trip I ordered from artscow.com shipped out during the night and will be delivered in 8-12 business days.  They are coming all the way from Hong Kong, which is 1) why it will take so long and 2) probably why they were so cheap.  I am interested to see their quality and if this company is worth recommending or avoiding going forward.  I am wondering if I will have to pay customs fees, too.

We drove up to Dahlonega Sunday afternoon and watched a college soccer game.  The fiance of Todd's cousin was on one of the teams, so it was good to catch up with him after the game was over.  The kids really enjoyed watching the game.  Still amazed at how much running/sprinting those guys do and also how high they leap into the air!  Now Todd is looking into signing up for a beginner's adult soccer league :)

I have two tales of survivorship that are running through my mind this week.  The first is a book written by Kevin Brown called From Ghetto to Greatness.  Kevin works with my husband and is an incredibly smart guy.  Although his book is published as fiction, I suspect that 95% of the story is all true.  But that's just my own opinion.  Great read for seeing how someone CAN and DOES overcome poverty, broken families, drugs and bad neighborhoods.  Major achievements this man has made in his life and in spite of horrible circumstances and obstacles while growing up.

The other is about my friend Rebecca.  I have known her since the 4th grade when we were in the same class.  We weren't the best of friends in that there weren't weekend sleepovers and I'm pretty sure we never passed notes about us being BFF's.  But I always genuinely liked her and wished I knew her better.  She was quiet and smart.  In high school, it seemed like she was in school some days and other days not.  I never knew what she was going through or why it seemed like she got off track along the way.  But now I know and I am amazed at what she has lived through.  Rebecca blogs here and if you take the time to start from the beginning and read through, I think you  will be equally amazed.  And horrified.  She endured horrible abuse and torture as a child that makes my stomach churn and leaves me feeling numb.  It makes me want to leave work in the middle of the day to run up to my children's school and take them out of class so I can hug them and squeeze them tight.  This is your warning to not read her blog if you are easily upset.  I just couldn't keep this one to myself because I am so in awe of her strength.

And on the note of friends, I am thankful for my own for boosting me up and keeping me laughing.  Some of them laugh with me and others laugh at or near me.  I think you know someone should be considered a friend when you are emotionally invested in their well-being.  How would you define a friend?  Here is my friend Tabitha.  I'm convinced she was my sister, separated at birth.

Here are the highlights on some of my friends this week:

My friend Mallory has been going through a rough spot over the last few months and received a wonderful surprise in the mail from a group of her on-line friends.  Mallory is also a fellow lampworker and isn't afraid to try new things.  She is offering free shipping in her Etsy shop.

My friend Nancy opened up a new shop with Big Cartel and spent ALL day yesterday listing new pieces in it.  Go look and see if you love her glazes as much as I do!

My friend Cas has been adding new pieces of jewelry to her Etsy shop.  I ALWAYS love her blog banners.  And her rings, how I love her rings!  I have two and they always draw compliments.

My friend Keirsten used some enameled cones and made really cool earrings. If you look in her shop, you may find a few pieces using my beads....like this one.  :)

My friend Lori is continuing to make wonderful handbags and stocking her Etsy shop with fabulously unique, one-of-a-kind creations.

My friend ThyHand is finding new purpose in her life and ways to give to others.  She has rockin recipes and her chimichangas are my absolute favorite!  It really helps me satiate my craving for sour cream :)

And my friend Lorelei just hit 1500 sales in her Etsy shop and is doing well in her new Big Cartel shop.  I am in awe of these sales and think that is such a great testament to her design sense, customer service and innovative ideas in making new and different jewelry.  Jewelry isn't a necessity...far from it.  Money gets spent first on a roof, electricity, bread, milk.  Last on jewelry, yet Lorelei runs a successful jewelry business.

Hooray for all of my friends in doing what they are good at, finding the best in their lives and sharing what they do with others.  I couldn't ask for a better group of women to bounce ideas off, harass when they get out of line, laugh with over nothing more than the inane or sigh and shake our heads together when there really is nothing else we can do.

If you made it this far, thanks for sticking with me while I rambled.  I hope you are having an awesome Tuesday and will try to get more in line and stick to beady topics the rest of the week!  :D