Home Sweet Home

We were in Arizona for a whole week and loved every minute of it with our family in the warmer/drier temps. The grandparents (Todd's folks) spoiled the kids rotten with love and daily trips to the swimming pool. Todd and I got plenty of time to rest & get our health back from the flu. We shared delicious dinners with my Uncle Mike, Aunt Gail and cousins on several different evenings. And my cousin Jesse schooled Owen in the fine art of winning at Super Mario Kart.

We (all of the girls --> moi, Chloe, Grandma Eloise, Grandma Sharon, Grandma Suzanney and Aunt Gail) went to the Great Fair in Fountain Hills yesterday where there were 400+ vendors/artists. It was a lot of fun and great weather for walking around all afternoon. Chloe picked out tie-dyed hats for Owen & herself, but I didn't find anything to buy other than Dippin Dots, Funnel Cakes and Ginormous Hot Dogs. It was a fun day! I wish I had a pic of the fountain that went off for ten minutes at the top of every hour. I'm betting it shot up a couple hundred feet into the air.

We are home now and the kids are in bed. Glad we have a day to rest & unpack before getting into the daily grind of work & school again. Although it would be nice if we had another week of vacation to spend in Arizona with our fam or just chilling on the homefront. It has been close to 3 weeks since I've been on the torch and I am suffering serious withdrawal. First on the agenda tomorrow is to change out propane tanks when I run up to the grocery store to buy milk & cereal for the kidlets.

I am determined to get a coupla hours on the torch tomorrow making beads with new/different techniques. I have long been wanting to make black beads with white dots covered by transparents. Those have been on the mental To Do list for months (ok, years) and I just haven't gotten around to it. Not a particularly difficult technique, but they look so cool. I want to make some new color combo twisties. And I want to play with more of my frit that I bought a month ago from Val Cox.

I just bought a TON of frit last night from her and I'm so excited because Sabrina said she was shipping it out today. She ships Priority USPS, so it might come Monday if I'm lucky or Tuesday at the latest. I can't wait!

After I get the camera unpacked & pics downloaded, I'll post a new blog with pics of beads made by ASGB (Arizona Society of Glass Beadmakers) artists that inspired me. :)

Look At What I Made!

Here are just a few of the beads I made on Saturday....a few of the 50+ beads I made!!!! My husband was such a love and watched after the kids throughout the day as I was on and off my torch for an hour at a time as I made beads for Lorelei and played with my new Val Cox frit that arrived that afternoon. Can we say ExCiTeD to play with new blends AND have all day to do it?


Frit makes me happy. Particularly this cranberry/hot pink/fuschia blend! I'm not done playing with this yet and can't wait to try it out with silver. These beads below have little white cores and then the cranberry frit is swirled outwards as it is melted and blended with clear. Great little beads that are already drawing beads on the homefront.

Here is more of the same frit, but I melted it and blended it in with the clear in a heavier volume so the beads are much more intense in color. They look like candy to me!


And then we have the cranberry frit at the core of these big beads that are encased in clear and then have beautiful, deep purple frit swirled around them. They remind me a bit of colors used in the Indian culture. They were by far my favorites and they also got the top thumbs up from my husband as his favorites of the day, too. It makes me happy that Todd is interested in looking at what I make and he offers up positive (and sometimes negative) feedback. Nice to have his support and encouragement :)


There were two other frit blends I tried out last night, but the beads still need to be cleaned & photographed, so you'll just have to wait until my next blog post. And another new blend arrived today....woo hoo! I messed up and ordered two jars of one frit blend. When I realized my mistake, I emailed Val's sister Sabrina who manages her frit company and asked if I could exchange the jar of frit and I would pay shipping both ways. Sabrina was AWESOME, replying very quickly that she would be happy to exchange jars and that I only needed to pay shipping for returning the one jar. My new jar arrived today at the same time I was sending back my extra jar to Sabrina. She kept her promise to send out my new color choice ASAP. I thought that was excellent customer service and don't remember the last time I was treated so well....especially when it was my fault. I am still in awe that she didn't wait for my return.

Two thumbs up, three cheers and FIVE STARS for supportive husbands of addicted lampworkers AND for Sabrina at Val Cox Frit!