Beads All Over

My mailbox was so full Monday morning.  Just look at this!  It was packed from the back to the front with all the beads scooped up during my last minute update Sunday night.  I have THE best bead customers!

Really, you all rock!  Look at my tracking app.  A full page and more!  As of today, one package has been delivered to Virginia and many more are out for delivery around the Eastern half of the country.

Not many new items are left in the shop, although there are two sets of eggs and a couple of lentils. 

I really like that crackled ivory egg and then the sweet little mustardy one with lavender speckles.

And more eggs.

One etched ivory lentil.

Two swirly encased blue and raku lentils.

I was really loving these swirly beads and made several sets.  The blue ones were scooped up, but not these ochre ones.  They're not getting any love.  Did you miss them? 

The strawberry ones are still looking for a good home, too.

These green ones look like gumdrops to me.  I really want to eat them.

I also have a few barrel beads left that were newly added.  First in topaz.

One in seagrass green.

And then a sweet little set of textured barrels.

And two baby blues.

I think I need to re-take the pics on this bicone as the teal looks darker than it actually is and I can see more detail under the color in the ivory with my eyes.  It's a really cool bead and would be a perfect dangly focal!

I have a couple of special projects I am working on in the evenings this week for friends, so it will be another week or two before I get to play and make new beads at the torch to share with everyone.

This week is flying by.  Can't believe it's Wednesday already!  I have 11 more workdays until vacation and I'm not too far from counting the hours.  :)

I hope you are having a fabulous week!

Shop Update Tonight!

Here are all the beads, eggs, lentils and barrels coming to the shop tonight after 8pm EDT.

These lentils are the only ones are etched.

Only the lavender egg is etched.  I like the eggs left shiny when there are transparent designs on them.

These and all the other lentils will be sold individually.

I like the added depth when the beads are partially encased in clear swirls.

Almost mangolicious!

These two black and one blue barrel beads will be sold as a set.  I'm having a hard time putting these down because the bumpy swirls from one hole to the other are just so fun to touch!

I really like this bicone and how the transparent teal looks like water on the ivory.

And the same transparent teal on smaller ivory rounds.  I love not only the depth in the teal, but how it feathers out to the ivory where the two colors touch.

I want to eat these!

Who doesn't need clear spacers?

I really love these ochre beads.  And the swirls!  Oh, the swirls.  I'm in love with these swirls and want to keep making more.

Yay for four black and raku lentils!

Only one ochre and raku lentil.  I ran out of time on the torch.  Or rather, I ran out of awake time on the torch and couldn't stop yawning.  

More swirls on baby blue beads.  This shade of blue just makes me happy.  Especially when these were lined up next to the ochre beads above and the strawberry beads below.

Strawberry swirls.  Yum!

I will be starting to list the beads after 8pm EDT and expect to be going non-stop for a few hours to get all of these in the shop.  Hope to see you there!

More Beads :)

I finished cleaning the rest of the lentils and three other sets of beads tonight that I had made on Monday.  I still need to take pics of each set individually so they will be ready to list, but wanted to share these with you now.

I really like the barrel beads on the left with the raku and raised swirl wrapping around from one hole to the other. 

And I'm in love with the pink, mustard and blue all grouped together. 

All the lentils and the middle mandrel lentils are all etched.  One of those is a custom order, but the rest will be going into the shop.

Whoops, two more lentils.  Plus two barrels and one bicone.

It felt soooo good to be back on my torch and creating this weekend.  Oh, how I have missed the steady hum of my oxygen concentrator and the flow of glass off the rod.  The slow winding of glass in repeating circles as I turn the mandrel in one hand to make a bead grow in width and length.  The all-focusing grip the flame has on my attention so I don't burn myself.  And the ideas that course through my mind from one bead to the next.  I am still slowly getting back into habit of blogging again, but this feels good.  I have missed you all.

New Beads!

This weekend was so quiet for me.  The kids were gone from Saturday afternoon through Monday afternoon.  My honeys was up in Minnesota visiting his Mom.  It was just me and the hounds and the cats and the ferret and the hamster and two tanks of fish.

I spent Saturday and Sunday evenings on the torch, as well as much of Monday morning.  Here are the spoils from Sat/Sun.  The beads from Monday are soaking in the kitchen sink, but there are many more lentils waiting to be cleaned out.  It felt soooo good to sit down at the torch and create again.  Watching two months slide by without firing it up once was hard.  I don't like being that busy.

Besides torching, I cleaned out both fish tanks and moved one from the kitchen back to the girl child's room.  We'll see if she's grown up enough now to keep her hands out of the tank because her fish want to visit Owen's fish.  I gave a thorough cleaning to all four cat boxes.  That was exciting.  I framed and hung up pictures.  I saw Kung Fu Panda 2 with the kids and my Mom.  I took Little Horse to Petsmart to get out of the house.  I started reading a book suggested by a friend that is helping solidify a current course of action within our family.  And I thought about both of my grandfathers and how they served in World War II overseas and wondered about what they saw and experienced.  How they felt leaving their families behind as they fought to protect the freedoms of their country and others.  I stayed up way late and took advantage of being able to sleep in.  I enjoyed my freedom with no schedule and found myself eating breakfast at 2pm and dinner after 10pm. 

And.  I missed my honeys.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!  I can't believe it's almost Wednesday already.  This week is screaming by me.  I'm trying to get it in gear so I can do a shop update on Friday evening.

Family Expansion and New Eggs!

Last week I hinted that our family had expanded, which initiated a few emails from family and friends --> Are you pregnant?!  The answer to that is a big no as Todd seems to feel he's too old for more and we're done.  Sniff.

But.  We did get a new pet!  One of our Tae Kwon Do friends mentioned to Todd a few weeks ago that his neighbor had an old ferret in need of a better home.  Since Todd shared that with me, I considered that to be consent and promptly brought this boy home.  Meet Ernie.

It has been four years since we have had a ferret in the house.  Our last one was Sammy and she was 8 years old when she passed.  Todd and I vowed to wait until the kids were grown before we took in ferrets again because the passing is just so hard.  But this one needed a good home.  He was old and sick and not getting any attention.  Ernie was extremely underweight (to the point that I could easily see his ribs through his skin) and very dehydrated.  The vet visit last week confirmed adrenal disease (which I expected with his bald tail.  adrenal disease is very common with ferrets and we fought it with many of our other ferrets in years past), his dehydration was gone (yay!) and that he has neurological problems which are disabling him from walking normally (his back end gives out on him).  She said she didn't expect him to walk normally or be able to climb again.  I felt so defeated.

But last night, I found Ernie trying to climb.  He didn't make it into the hanging hammock just above his head.  But he tried and that made me happy.  And this morning, I heard him making noise and when I walked around to see him....he had climbed up to the first level in his cage.  Rock on, Ernie!

This weekend went extremely fast (I can't remember the last time we had a slow weekend, but maybe this coming Memorial Day weekend will be since the kids will be spending time with each of my parents Saturday - Monday).  We spent many hours cleaning up and straightening the house and doing laundry.  A karate festival was in there (complete with a dunk tank where they made sure that the kids got to dunk the instructors, even if their pitch wasn't strong enough to make it happen), a soccer banquet and a get together with friends (which included a walk down to the creek and a cookout).  I also squooshed in time to make 20 new eggs.  :)

I will be making more this week (I hope!) so I can have multiple sets to throw into the shop for the next update.

New Beads!

Here are all of the beads going into the shop tomorrow night after I get my kidlets tucked into bed.  I have other news to share about our family expanding and Little Horse as he moves through his heartworm treatment, but I need a few more days to process the vet visit from yesterday.  

I promise, I will catch you up next week.  Maybe.  I shouldn't make promises when I've been such a shoddy blogger and bead maker over the last two months. 

So.

Without further ado.  Here are the latest beads.

Raku on ochre.

Raku on black.  Because I know you all lurve these.

Coral on blue grey.

Amber and purple tablets.  Once I started mixing transparents and using my smashers, I couldn't stop myself!

A mixed set.

More raku, this time on a pale lavender.

Dark topaz and teal.

Amber spacers.  They can be etched for a sea glass effect if you want. :)

Medium topaz and teal.

And light topaz and teal.  I was just loving this color comb so much I had to try every shade!

Ivory spacers that are a bit more crackly that what you can see in this photograph.

And lastly, light green with teal.  

I loved working with the transparents and even more in using my smashers to make the tablet shapes.  But the transparents are a real bear to clean because every speck of bead release must be removed so it will not be seen in the hole tunnel.  It may be awhile before I come back to this design, so grab em up fast tomorrow night!

I am hoping to find torch time next week and will be focusing on eggs again.  I won't be doing custom orders this time around, but will be making multiple sets to drop in my shop for the next update.

Just a Quick Tease

I just wanted to pop in and share a quick pic of all those 90+ beads I made two months ago and finally got around to cleaning and photographing.

Yesterday was a busy day.  I flew into Pittsburgh and had a lunch and meeting with one of my customers.  I LOVE meeting nice people!  Got stuck trying to leave the Pittsburgh airport due to many flights being delayed and ended up flying into Boston and driving to Providence, RI.  I have never been to Rhode Island before.  So far, it's been a bit wet, cold and overcast.  We'll see if that changes.

This afternoon I will be flying through Philadelphia before heading back to Atlanta.  Depending on free-wifi availability at airports, I will set up more blog posts for this week showing the individual bead sets above that will be landing in my shop this Friday evening.

Happy Tuesday!