Post Christmas Recovery

The tree was taken down this afternoon, along with all the other decorations hung up inside our home.  Our family room has been restored to its normal state and that feels good.  We had a fabulous Christmas which passed by in a flash.  This project was the only one involving yarn that was finished in time.  The rest will be a bit late.

The boy child proclaimed this as THE best Christmas ever.  With the exception of not having all the grandparents in our home for this weekend, I will agree with him.

And the girl child continues to wonder about Santa bringing her a bicycle after how naughty she's been.  We talked about the fact that he likely took into consideration her behavior for the whole year and not just the week leading up to Christmas.  When there may or may not have been discussions of coal, stockings and naughty lists.

This was the first Christmas in over a decade where I didn't have a blackberry to check.  Can I tell you that in itself was wonderful?  Because it was.  It was fabulous being able to soak up time and crafts and more time with my kids and not feel pulled by work, even in the off hours.

My honeys is on vacation for the rest of the year and I am excited to be spending every day with him and our kids.  I'm not sure if there will be time spent on the torch before the new year.  But if there is, you all will be the first to know!

New Beads Coming Soon

For the first time in almost a month, I got to spend hours n hours on the torch this weekend. Woot! I had several orders to fill. I ended up making over 40 beads!!!

Unfortunately, these are the only beads that I have gotten cleaned out and photographed. I like them alot and originally had plans to make similar ones in a deep red. I like how the fine silver melts into little dots as more heat is applied to it over the glass. And on red, you can see a trail of where the silver touched, even after it draws up into these little balls.

But then this weekend came and Santa delivered a five pound package with the Val Cox sampler pack inside. A BIG THANK YOU to Lorelei for her big heart, belated bday and early Christmas wishes for playing Santa after seeing my wish list. She totally rocks!!! It was a spendy pack of glass and I would never have expected one of my friends to go all out. Seriously, that would have been alot for family. I was very touched.

Anyone want to guess what might be headed her way in another week for under the tree? :)

New Jewelry

I made these red and green beads quite awhile ago (I even have another set, just a little bit redder for sale here), but didn't know what to do with them until recently. I had bought some really cool beads in Philadelphia at the 2009 BeadFest and realized the Apatite and quartz beads would be a perfect match. The Apatite ovals are more blue, but the green on my beads has quite a blue tint. The earrings are waiting here for you. :)


Here is the bracelet, using the small coral quartz beads and medium size ruby red quartz. I love how they sparkle!

In the necklace, I used long sterling silver tubes to separate the beads. I think it is pretty eye-catching, but what do I know? I'm only a masked lampworker carrying a lighter around in my pocket for the next unknown bead emergency ;)

These black and white ones were a special request I received a couple of months ago from Perrii to make in time for Christmas. I made alot of different black and white beads, but decided these were my favorite. There is a small core of white under several layers of clear. In some of the beads, the clear tugged on the white, forming a little outward spiral of white which looks pretty cool. Then I used wisps of black over the top. With all of the clear glass in between, the black wisps create little shadows on the white underneath.

In the necklace, I used ivoryite barrels and onyx coins and discs in between my lampwork beads. The onyx and ivoryite were mined in Southern Arizona by a man who runs Sweetwater Gems. I met him at the bead shows in Tucscon in 2007 and have been hoarding, I mean protecting these beads ever since.

And that's another Marsha Neal Studio ceramic pendant dangling front & center. I had been looking for stone pendants, but didn't have any luck. I asked Marsha if she could make any black & white pendants for me and she sent me a TON to choose from. I took pics of them all with the necklace partially strung to show Perrii, who agreed with me that this was the best one.
The necklace and earrings are now on their way across the globe to land under a Christmas tree for one lucky lady. I hope she loves them!

My Wish List

I want one of these. Not the cocoon. Just the baby. Although, I do really like the cocoon. I want for the baby to stay this small and quiet and cute. Perhaps I should just make the picture my wallpaper. For more wonderful baby pics (to get your baby fix!) and adorable photography props, check out Jolie Anne's shop!

I think these white balance lens caps look pretty cool. Would be nice to never, ever have to fool with white balance issues ever, ever again. Ever. Santa, a 52mm would fit all of my lenses. :)

Water for Christmas. Just twenty bucks will provide a supply of fresh, clean water to one person for twenty years. I know there are tons of different charities and so many here in the states for excellent causes. But the stat that 4500 children die every. single. day. because there is not a clean water supply squeezes my heart. And it makes me so very thankful that I am right where I am. That I have the family I do. That I have my health. That I don't have to worry about the water my children drink will cause such horrible digestive problems that they won't live another day. It also makes me feel good to know I am making a difference in someone else's life, whether it is giving to Water for Christmas, Goodwill, the Salvation Army, United Way, Susan G Komen, local food banks or so many others. I don't know that I will ever feel like I am doing enough, but I will continue trying and giving.

Val Cox's sampler pack of glass. These colors are stunning. I want them. Not that I have any place to put them. My glass cabinet is completely full. But I would find room. Even if it means taking over the kids' game closet and giving away Candy Land. I would make room. :D

This is way too spendy for Santa, so I am slowly stocking away my dimes & quarters. But it's still on my wish list of what I am saving for down the road. Way down the road.

Five pounds of this might hold me through spring. My supply of clear has dwindled down quite low.

But most importantly, the things I am wishing for aren't really things. Not anything that can be bought in a store.

I'm wishing for health.

For peace (please Santa, days without any fuss or whine would be so totally awesome!) and contentment.

For patience.

For the wisdom of knowing when to keep my mouth shut.

For the inner-knowing of how to raise my children into thoughtful and caring individuals who give back to their community.

Who don't question their self-worth, for any reason.

Who find a purpose for their life doing what they love and being fulfilled with what they do.


What is on your Wish List?

Where I've Been

After we returned from our cruise, I was in mad-dash mode to get more jewelry made for the craft fair the very next Saturday. Then continued on in that same mode to finish several pieces of jewelry wanted in time for Christmas. Not that this is a valid excuse for not blogging, but I'm going to use it. :D

Below is a floating necklace I made, as well as a matching pair of earrings. A friend saw the beads in my Etsy shop and emailed me "Make my wife some pretties!" And so, this is what came out. I first had to make more of the same beads, since I had only 7 in my shop.


I stared at my boxes & boxes of beads for spacers, but nothing looked quite right. In the end, I decided just swarovski crystals on either side to make into a floating necklace would be the best. Nothing to detract from these beauties.

I haven't been on the torch in three weeks because we've just been into so many other things. We had grandparents visiting (which was absolutely awesome and ended too soon!) and birthdays to celebrate and laundry to do. Oh, the laundry! But I carry my lighter with me in my jeans pocket. It makes me feel just a little bit closer to my torch. Like I could fire it up at any second, if I want to. :)

My Mom's birthday was in the middle of all this, but work was out of control that night as I worked two separate outages until 7pm. Mom had to take over making her own birthday dinner. And her cake. Todd's sister helped with getting it stacked and frosted. Thank goodness for family members willing to help out and takeover when I couldn't be in there. I finished with work just as dinner was being cleared from the table. Just in time for cake!


Look at my Owensk. He just loves to help and jumped right in to secure the clasp on Mom's new necklace that I made for her. :)

Hoping to get back on the torch this week to make new beads. I still have more jewelry orders to fill. And am slowly learning different tricks in Photoshop that are fun (for my family pics, since I don't do anything other than crop my bead/jewelry pics so colors stay true).

I can't believe Christmas is 18 days away. My shopping is pretty much done, but I'm still working on photographs/calendars for all the grandparents. So much to do. So little time.

Are you ready for this Christmas?

Christmas in June

UPS brought Christmas in June for me on Friday of last week!

A thank you note, candies AND goats poo!

Ten pounds of glass all wrapped up in two bundles with saran wrap.  A little frit in some baggies.  And more mud (YAY!  I was running low!)

All unwrapped & ready to be put away in my glass cabinet for replacement colors and next to my torch for the new colors to try out!

 

I bought several new Double Helix colors that I haven't tried before, but I only played with Gaia.  She is pretty!  In rod form, she is a dark transparent green....but get her in the fire and she does all kinds of fun things!  Below you can see what she does on top of clear, on ivory and encased under clear.

And on a black worry stone under layers of clear.  This one took me close to 45 minutes to make.  It is bigger/heavier than any of my others and I really like the shape, as well as the rainbow texture on top.  

Can you tell I was in heaven playing on my torch all of Saturday afternoon while Todd watched the kids?  Wendy even came over and played on the torch with me, which was really nice to have her company!

I spent all of Sunday morning & most of the afternoon at Wendy's making jewelry.  Pics/blog to come of that later!

Christmas & New Year's Resolutions

Here is Owen smiling ear to ear. He woke me up at 5:10am on Christmas morning "MOMMA!!!! This is the BEST DAY OF MY LIFE! Come see what Santa brought me!"And here is the Bean, sporting 3 of the 4 things Santa brought her....Dora umbrella, princess helmet, pink scooter & furry crocs which got cut off by the photographer (thinking I need to fire that photographer!)
And here are the kids scarfing down a package of Pop Rocks that my Dad gave them for Christmas. They had fun listening to and feeling the popping & crackling in their mouths.

I had a wonderful Christmas with both my Mom and Dad, my Grandma (who turned 90 yro last year!), Todd's Mom and his sister with Todd, Owen and Chloe. We were missing another set of Grandparents who stayed up in Minnesota this Christmas. But the house was filled with love, laughter, good food and an abundance of gratitude as we share the holiday and each other's company.

New Year's came and went quietly. We stayed at home and relaxed with the kids, rather than braving the roads with crazy drivers. There was no discussion of resolutions, but I'm pretty sure we adults are all wanting to get in better shape. For myself, I am resolving to work on my brain-to-mouth filter and reacting first with kindness & patience. I also want to expand the reaches of my beads & jewelry hobby that I hope will become my full-time job at some point within the next five years. I am still waffling between keeping www.kelleysbeads.com or switching over to blogger completely (continual problems with posting pics like I'm having tonight are not making me lean towards this forum. grrrrr), but whatever I stick with...I want to spend more time finding & promoting other artists on my website.

Merry Christmas Eve!

Check out Chloe attired in her Christmas spirit.  You may be able to tell she dressed herself and was completely thrilled with her Santa hat, Christmas shirt under the denim jumper, plaid skirt and argyle tights combination.  Always a treat and a surprise to see how she dresses herself :)  

This is before going to an Ugly Christmas Sweater Party.  Todd picked up the sweaters from Goodwill, but his needed to be modified into a neck-less, sleeveless atrocity.  My Dad was over that day and he saw nothing wrong with either sweater....he thought mine was very nice.

I am LOVING these beads and had fun stringing them into a floating necklace.  The base bead is made out of a dark Elphaba green (which I just got and absolutely LOVE) and then is swirled in Smoke Rings.  LOVE LOVE LOVE these and will probably make more!  Taking a chance the recipient won't be on the internet today, but I just had to share a pic of this

It was two days ago when I got the frantic call from a good friend with his daughter asking "Can you please please please make my Mommy a necklace with green, blue and purple beads for Christmas?"  I really like how the colors swirled together and there is great veining going on in the greens that I used in each bead.  And the purple was fun because it reacted great with the other colors to form different shades and separations.  I hope Mommy loves it :)

I bought a new torch!

It is a little propane torch for soldering and I tried my hand at it for the first time.  I realized that I need more workroom space and that the garage is better than my glass studio for this.  When I saw Lorelei's stand that her husband made her, I knew that this was a great idea and I needed to try it out for myself.  I made one a foot tall for necklaces and another 6 inches tall for bracelets.  I'm so excited!  I will be able to use these next Saturday at Cas's house when we have a jewelry party and then again at my house the following Saturday.  :)

Thanksgiving was an excellent day of relaxation, hanging out with my family 

(we were several important people short this year so I didn't have to cook as much....which freed up more hours to just hang out with my Mom & Grandma, look at the sales ads and sneak a nap before dinner!)  Chloe was my right hand at preparing all the dishes Thursday morning...she even made the green bean casserole all by herself!  

I had typed a TON more, but blogger is not behaving and I'm too tired to keep re-typing since I've figured out it doesn't like for me to copy/paste within this Creation Post spot.  I'll try updating later this week, along with a pic of our Christmas spirit and all the windows bedecked in wreathes as of this afternoon.  Check out pics below of beads just waiting to be strung up!