Kelley's Bead Studio

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Your Favorite Etsy Shops!

Here is a list of all of your favorite Etsians from the comments left on my April Fools Giveaway. I checked out each and every shop, just to make sure the hyperlinks would all work. Thank you again to everyone who left comments and helped contribute to this wonderful list of Etsians!

Click on the shop name and the hyperlink will take you to it. Check out all of these shops. So many wonderful sites to visit!

Out of 150+ comments, you guys named 68 shops as your favorites. So many wonderful handmade items can be found in these shops with extraordinary artisans running these sites. I have received outstanding service through shopping on Etsy and have been delighted with what arrives in the mail. Personal, heart felt thank you's written on lovely note cards and sometimes extras that go above and beyond what I ordered. I LOVE buying handmade and am always thrilled when I receive an email notification that something in one of MY etsy shops has been purchased.

I sorted the list of blogs with the most votes being at the top and then alphabetically. The number of votes is in parentheses for multiple mentions.

Lorelei (11)

Jade Scott (4)

Kelley's Beads (4)

Miss Fickle Media (4)

Earthenwood Studio (2)

Humblebeads (2)

Patina Queen (2)

SueBeads (2)

Summers Studio Pottery (2)

A Treasure Forever

Adornments for Tarts

amanda davie

Another Country Beadworks

Art and Whimsy

Art by Lisi's Lampwork Beads

Artisan Beads Plus by macarroll

ArtworkbyKD

Barefoot Maiden

Bead Happliy Ever After

Beaded Bird design

Bella's Beads and More

Broken Teepee Designs

H Kellogg handcrafted

Indigo Flameworks

jpolka

kathi roussel jewelry

Nature's Art Melbourne

Vaisto clothing & accessories

White Earth Studio

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Your Favorite Blogs!

Here is a list of all of your favorite bloggers from the comments left on my April Fools Giveaway. I checked out each and every blog, just to make sure the hyperlinks would all work. Click on the blog name and the hyperlink will take you to it. Check out all of these blogs. So many wonderful sites to visit!

Out of 155 comments, Lorelei's blog got 33 votes. Thirty-three votes! WOW!! Go Lorelei!

I sorted the list of blogs with the most votes being at the top and then alphabetically. The number of votes is in parentheses for multiple mentions.

Lorelei's Blog (33)

Kelley's Beads (7)

Nina Bagley - Ornamental (6)

Kate McKinnon (5)

Art Bead Scene (ABS) (4)

Cerebral Dilettante (4)

A Bead a Day (3)

Daily Art Muse (3)

KAB's Creative Concepts (3)

Pioneer Woman (3)

Silver Parrot (3)

the writing and art of Andrew Thornton (3)

Beading Gem's Journal (2)

Belinda Saville (2)

Julsbeads (2)

Mad Designs - Marcia Decoster (2)

Mes illusions Baroque (2)

One Pretty Thing (2)

Vintaj Natural Brass Co. (2)

(The Customer Is) Not Always Right

adventures in dressmaking

AMMJEWELRY

Ana's Chronicles

Artbeads.com's Blog for Beaders

Artgirl Island

Artisan Beads Plus by MaryAnn Carroll

Attic24

Bead Happily Ever After

Beadwright

Beverly Ash Gilbert

bob's bs - by Bob DeLong

Bodacious Boomer

Café Cartolina

café creativo

Carmi's Art/Life World

Cynthia Thornton of Green Girl Studios

Earthenwood Studio Chronicles

Jumping Off the Processed Food Chain One Box at a Time

Molly and McGee (live owl cam/feed)

Pacing the Panic Room

Simple Things Small Joys

Skull a Day

Slipcast- The Ceramics Blog

Thy Hand Hath Provided

Time2cre8

Tollipop

TotusMel

Treasures Found: Inspiration is Everywhere

Urban Natural History

Writings of a Gypsy Soul

Monday, April 12, 2010

Get Lathered!

My iMac is sick and is in the shop today. Sigh. So along with that, the list of favorite bloggers and etsians from my giveaway is off limits. Tomorrow, I'll get them up.

But today, I wanted to tell you about one of my favorite Etsians named Rhonda. She is the shop owner of Get Lathered. Rhonda makes shampoos, conditioners, hand soaps and lip balms. Her shampoos and conditioners are unique in that they are hard, just like the hand soaps. They are shaped perfectly to fit in the palm of your hand.

Todd and I have used her Shampoo That Rocks for almost a year now and absolutely love them. I saw her Conditioner That Rolls stocked in her shop last fall and have been using that ever since. I have thrown out all of my other shampoo and conditioner bottles (or really just moved them to the guest bathroom) and haven't looked back. Goodbye Aussie. Goodbye Garnier. Goodbye Aveda (gasp!). Goodbye Suave.

Seriously.

Love. These.

Rhonda touts them as being perfect for travel or to throw in your gym bag, but I love using them every day. Love the smell. Love how they lather and foam. Love how good my hair feels afterwards. Love that they last.

And her handsoaps. Oh. Her handsoaps.

That circular cream and green one on the left is Spearmint Eucalytpus. It is my absolute favorite! Rhonda has a batch of that curing now, so it should be in her shop soon. When we went to Arizona last month, there was nothing but Bath & Bodyworks soaps at every sink. The scents brought back memories of when Todd and I first lived together. We went on shopping sprees every weekend. And we always had B&BW soaps at the sinks. They smell so good. But by the end of our week in Arizona, my hands were so dry and chapped. I couldn't wait to get home and use my soaps that Rhonda makes. In just two days, my hands were back to normal. Yay!

And her lip balms. I have gone through over a half dozen flavors in this past year and my favorite is Thai Coconut. It is a mild scent, which is good for me because anything strongly scented tends to not go over so well with my nose or stomach. And it is so smooooooooth! I always have a tube in my jeans pocket to go with me. How cute are these tubes?!

Rhonda is quick to ship, uses fun packaging, always includes a little extra something and above all else, creates excellent products & provides outstanding customer service! I would love to see her set up for creating all these different products and a step-by-step picture journey of what goes into making these because, well, I'm just a nerd like that. I love to know how things are made. So until I get a personal invite to stop in on our way through Indianapolis this summer when driving home from Minnesota, I will just wonder. And enjoy my shampoos, conditioners, lip balms and hand soaps.

*Dear FCC, neither Bath & Bodyworks or Get Lathered requested or paid me to blog about my opinions on these products. So there.

Friday, April 9, 2010

We Have a Winnah!

Although I did hear much begging and received a few threats "IT DANG WELL BETTER BE ME!" from a few, un-named friends (I am envisioning them shaking their fists at me right now).....I couldn't bring myself to rig the contest. There is a lot of loot at stake here. One and a half pounds of beads, people! That is serious business. :)

I have been excited all morning about finding out who would win. The Random.Org site had to wait a little longer because I was driving the kids across town and back. On Fridays when there is no school with the strict 7:30 start time, we treat the kids to Dunkin Donuts. I'm sure their camp teachers are loving us this morning with them jacked up on sugar. I got a glazed doughnut, but it only re-inforced for me that I just need to stop buying doughnuts for myself because they no longer taste as good to me. I have silently been following a handful of bloggers for several months who have eliminated sugar from their daily life and I do feel better for it.

I truly enjoyed reading all of your comments and literally laughed out loud. Cindy's was my favorite. She has such enthusiasm which always brightens my day, but this comment has had me laughing every day since she posted it!

OMG! I just died and went to heaven girl! And I'm not a beader - BUT OMG Imagine the possibilities of combining these with my silver!! OMG OMG OMG..

NOW... I don't feel right doing this on YOUR blog... but my absolute FAV blog... in the whole world... is Keirsten Giles ~ cerebraldilettante.blogspot.com OMG she's so talented and funny ... omg FUNNY...sometimes I pee myself!!

Thank you all for taking the time to leave the names of your favorite blogs and Etsians. It took me a few hours last night, but I got them all in a list and verified names/addresses. Since there were 99 different blogs noted and 68 shops, I will be doing two posts to keep them separate. Out of 153 commenters, 32 of you name Lorelei's blog as your favorite. She was also the top favorite shop. I do owe her big thanks for alerting so many of you to my giveaway and will be sending Lorelei her own goody box of beads for being at the top of the list of favorites for blogs and shops by leaps and bounds beyond any other blog or shop named. Yay Lorelei!

But enough of my morning and other ramblings, you folks want to know who is the Lucky Winnah! So here you go.

Count with me folks. Twenty two was easy. Not too far down on the list at all. When I count down to commenter 22, I get to Nicole Campanella of Beadwright.

Congratulations Nicole!!!!

You are the winner of all these luscious beads :D

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Thursday Ramblings

Last night I found a bunch of my business cards in the wash. Specifically after they had been through the wash. I was surprised at how well they held their ink.

They rolled up tightly, so now they can easily be held in a closed hand. How bout that?

I am waiting for the rain to roll in and wash away all of our pollen that is coating our sidewalks, streets, cars and everything else. The pollen count has been over 2000 this week and the weather experts say that a high pollen count is 200. The pollen has prevented us from opening our windows over the past two weeks, which is a shame because the temperatures have been so lovely. But then it got hot (up in the 90s!) and I was pushed into turning on the air conditioning on Easter Sunday because we couldn't have family and friends come over and sweat themselves into puddles at the dinner table. With this rain comes cooler temps and the hopeful promise we can turn off the air conditioning for the next week. Maybe later today I can open the windows if the rain stays awhile.

I had an ocular migraine this morning. It sounds bad, but it's not painful. Just a nuisance because I have to stop everything I'm doing and rest my eyes. My vision does funny things with ocular migraines. Similar to how the pixels freeze on a tv when bad weather blocks a satellite signal and then the pixels move in splotches, but slower than they're supposed to while others stay frozen. That's what happens to my vision, no matter what I look at or even if my eyes are closed. I saw my eye doctor about this several months ago and he said I just need to rest to let them pass. They last anywhere from 20 minutes to a few hours and then are followed by a dull headache behind my eyes for the rest of the day. What worries me is that they typically come in multiples, one day after another for 2-4 days. I'm worried that I will miss my kids' soccer games on Saturday or time on the torch. Crossing my fingers this one has no follow-ups.

Yesterday I wrote about what I would do if I could sit at the torch all day, instead of my full-time gig with the phone company. What I would pursue. Techniques and artists whom I admire. Julie Nordine emailed me back and challenged me to a little exercise in finding my own voice in lampwork. A style all my own. I am thinking on that now so I can take the time this weekend to do what she suggested. I'll make a little photo-journey of it and then blog about it later to share with you all.

I am really super excited about how many comments have been left on my GIVEAWAY for one and a half pounds of beads. I'm thrilled I have gained new blog followers over this past week and am still going through all the links of shops and blogs you all have left. I am working on compiling that list for a post next week because I think it will be so fun to have everyone's favorites listed in one place. Complete with hyperlinks to those sites. :) It may take me awhile to get it all together, but it will publish once I have everything sorted through. One more day left to leave comments on the GIVEAWAY! I'll be going to random.org tomorrow to choose the lucky winner. Be patient, as I will be counting through the comments multiple times to make sure I'm counting correctly and don't miss anything.....there are sooooo many comments!

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Dream Job

A little while ago, Keirsten of Lune Designs commented: I imagine like the rest of us you have a to-do "wish list", like all the things you would do with your art if you didn't have a day job. So! IF you were suddenly liberated from the day job, and were able to spend all that time doing your art, what projects/new skills/designs would you pursue?

I'm now off in a warm daydream of being liberated from corporate America, escalations, 3am conference calls and all the office/PC catch phrases like "the net net is..." or "piggybacking off what she said..." or "it's not that she's lazy and doesn't do her job worth a flip, but is really just a little less than exemplary." If I had the equivalent of a regular work week filled with torch time every day, I would do more things that I don't find as much time for now. Right now, while I do enjoy making the beads I make, I spend the majority of my time making beads I believe will sell. I can't have a bead hobby if it doesn't pay for itself, right? As a result, I don't spend as much time making focal beads or worry stones because these take significantly longer to make (both in the pre-planning of what colors/design to work towards, but also in the whole melting/bead creation process time at the torch).

I would love to master the Double Helix colors that are filled with silver and other metals to elicit beautiful reactions and metallic finishes. Julie Nordine and Karolen Dupree are two lampworkers that I greatly admire for their abilities to control Double Helix and other high-dollar, silver glasses. Compared to the $11-30/lb cost of much of the glass I use, the silver glasses are $80-100/lb. Significantly more expensive, so I tend to hang on to them and use them much more frugally than the vast majority of my glass inventory.

I think Julie Nordine of Credit River Art Glass does a wonderful job bringing out a large spectrum of colors using the silver glasses. I had the pleasure of meeting her last August in Philadelphia at Beadfest 2009. She has only lampworked for a few years, but her work is absolutely amazing. I am in awe of her talent for the designs/patterns she creates, the colors she brings out of the glass and the colors she chooses to use together in new and interesting combinations. But then, this should be expected when you bring a previous interior designer into the world of lampworking. Here is a picture of some of her beads that I think are so phenomenal.

I admire the beads of Karolen Deupree of Bead Abundant and her ability for showing off metallic lusters of silver glasses or encasing them to highlight stunningly brilliant purples, blues and greens under layers of clear. She has an incredible control of her reducing flame with these special glasses that I have yet to even remotely control. I am in awe. See these gold beads? I can get the metallic/mirrory finish over the belt of the bead and then it pretty much just disappears on me the closer I get to the hole or it's just plain splotchy.

And these blue and purple beads. Gorgeous. Karolen is so consistent in her ability to reduce silver glasses and either leave them all cool and mirrory (yes, mirrory is a word in my world) or encase them and get these delicious colors. Again, this boils down to flame control that I do not have. I intermittently lose the bold colors in the encasing process.

In addition to yearning to improve my abilities with silver glasses, I would spend more time honing my skills at detail work. A lot of this is working with stringers (really, extremely thin rods of glass that are about as thick as toothpicks) and making sure they don't melt all over the bead while in the flame and make a mess. But also using them to pull and move the glass in order to make the design.

Caitlin Hyde has awesome stringer control for making geometric patterns and a gift for simplifying designs into the bare minimum. Caitlin taught classes in Atlanta (which I couldn't attend) in February and then did a demo at our monthly glass meeting (which I did see). She clearly explained how she made each component of the bead and sent me home so inspired to try new techniques. See the curvy black/white lines at the top and bottom of this bead below? They don't bleed into each other. They are perfectly laid out on the bead and just making that portion of the bead before going into the animalian or geometric designs took close to 30 minutes. Such patience! And then Caitlin spent an almost equal amount of time making the crow, moon and geometric design appear on this bead.

Each one of these ladies has created a style that is easily recognizable in her own beads, no matter the color or shape. They are all cohesive because each lampworker sticks to mainly the same color palette and/or technique. Without their names associated with the beads, I'm fairly certain I would know who the lampworker is with any of their beads if they were spread out on a table in front of me, along with hundreds of beads from other lampworkers.

I feel like right now, I'm all over the place and I don't know that anyone would really know by looking at my beads that they are KELLEYSBEADS. Perhaps with my nuggets? I'm not sure that many other lampworkers are into making nuggets. Or worry stones. But then I don't spend much time surfing Etsy for other lampworkers to see how I compare or what (if any) are the latest trends.

I'm interested in what you all think of when you hear Kelley's Beads. Do you think of my beads? If so, which beads? Or do you think of my blog? My photography? My Little Horse?

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Another GIVEAWAY!

I made a special pair of earrings for my blog friend (she is known as Thy Hand) to give away on her blog. Go see HERE! You'll need to check out one or both of my Etsy shops in order to leave a comment (on HER blog) to qualify for her giveaway. She is randomly choosing a winner this Friday.

You might want to surf around a little more beyond just her giveaway post. She has great (and HEALTHY!) recipes. Tons of em! And I am fascinated with her stories and pictures of how they grow much of their own food, home school their children and make ends meet as her husband completes his pharmaceutical degree. The determination she and her family shows to reach their goals is so inspiring to me. What a wonderful example they are setting for their children in a society that is so full of entitlement issues!

I first found her blog when Sarah of Clover Lane interviewed her about her Mennonite faith and being a mother. I have been glued to Thy Hand's blog ever since. I would love to share a morning with this woman, chatting about the similarities and differences in our lives. Our joys and challenges in parenting. And how she thinks she will react when her kids are older if they want to wear combat boots and shave their heads. :)

Unfortunately, I don't think that will happen any time soon as I believe she is a good day of driving away from Atlanta. Now shoo. Go check out her giveaway!

Bead Talk #1

Some of you have asked about how the glass looks in comparison to after it has been melted into beads. Here is a video clip discussing how I use the glass and what it does in the flame. I also show you the glass rods in the video with the beads.

Here are the greenish nugget beads that have that wonderfully ethereal quality with the mother-of-pearl appearance. The inner core of the bead that was unexposed to the reducing flame maintains the original green appearance. The exterior took on a metallic finish until I encased (covered) it in clear. That's when it turned to this lovely mother-of-pearl coloring which I love! These will be added to my shop tonight.

Here is the same green metallic luster glass on ivory. I love how I can see into the depths of the green in some areas (like the bead on the left) and the crackling of the ivory underneath is visible, like the bottom of a creek bed. I love the dark outline that surrounds the green where it meets the ivory. This is a typical reaction with any silver glass on ivory. And then that fun metallic, mirrory finish created from the reducing flame is seen on the bead on the right.

Lastly is the pic of the striking glass on rubino (pink) and teal glass base colors. It changed from the clearish color to yellowish greens and blues. I need to work with this more to see if I can get any purples out of it.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Popped Kiln

Here's a glimpse at the beads that came out of the kiln yesterday afternoon. The morning was so busy with Easter baskets and church I completely forgot to run into my studio to check my kiln for all the beads I made on Saturday afternoon/evening. Can you believe that? That's not like me at all. Especially considering I had the time to play around with new colors and techniques!

And this little guy kept a close watch over me while I was taking pics. He'd fly up close to get a better view and then dive bomb any other insect that flew remotely close. He chased off the other bugs and let me shoot in peace. Wasn't that sweet?

I'll have posts up later this week with more pics and information on the individual beads that I made. I'm really excited about those blue swirly nuggets in the middle. I used a faux-boro technique for those and am pleased with how they turned out.

If you haven't already, don't forget to check out my GIVEAWAY for one and a half pounds of beads. You just need to leave a comment about your favorite blog or Etsy shop on the giveaway post.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Yay for the Weekend!

This month really couldn't be starting off any better! I'm so happy for so many reasons. I may even be too happy. Quick, someone slap me.

I'm finally feeling human again after having the worst case of strep I've ever had (hello, a fever of 104.5 is just not cool!) and was able to run errands this morning without getting worn out.

Our Dylan boy came home after a very long three and a half weeks of training. He was very slow to adjust and feel comfortable with the trainer before he began taking treats. Training a dog that has no treat or food motivation is a difficult task, so there was a good week and a half of waiting for Dylan to get with the program. Throughout the program, I was worried we were just throwing money away as day after day I was told he was making little to no progress. But he very thankfully pulled it together over this last week. The trainer, along with three other trainers from the facility with over 50+ years experience total and who have worked with Cesar Milan, told us that Dylan was the most disconnected dog they had ever worked with in all their experience. Last night was the first night he slept in his crate without whining. At all. Hallelujah! The training was worth it....we got sleep and can now think about packing away his Weeping Pony moniker.

Lisa Crone of A Bead a Day blogged about my beads this morning. Go look here! She emailed me with the link this morning and it was the first thing I read (on my iPhone...I love it!) before I got out of bed this morning. What a wonderful way to start the day!

My GIVEAWAY now has almost 90 comments. Wow! Never imagined a pound and a half of beads would draw so much interest. I am loving all the comments with peoples' favorite blogs and/or Etsy shops. After the giveaway is over next week, I will be pulling together a post with links for all of them and the most popular ones at the top of the list. What a great bunch of blogs & shops we'll have named all in one place!

Todd is at a tennis match this morning, but will be watching the kids this afternoon so I can get a few hours of torch time. I've had ten pounds of it sitting on my torch counter since Monday and I haven't even unwrapped it. So very sad. It has sat almost a week untouched. That really shouldn't ever happen. ;) I am excited to know that in another hour or two I will be happily sitting at my torch, playing with fire, catching up on a couple of orders and then the majority of my time will be playing with new colors and combinations. I'm excited! Todd, come home already!!!

Tonight I will start prepping food for tomorrow. We'll be headed to an early Easter service at our church in the morning and then coming home for lunch and to relax. Our dinner table will have 9-12 people sitting around it and I can't wait. I LOVE cooking for a lot of people and I LOVE having our dining room table filled with those whom we love the most. Holidays, family and jam-packed dining room tables make me happy.

And the sun is out, giving us temps in the high 70s and low 80s. I've had the windows open and been wearing short sleeves. Laaaaaa! It's almost like the angels are singing, but perhaps it is just the singing in my head that I hear as back-up singers to my joy over our weather.

I hope you all have as wonderful of a weekend as I am anticipating!

If you celebrate Easter, then a very Happy Easter to you :)

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Jackpot Giveaway!

This GIVEAWAY HAS ENDED.

Please go HERE to see the winner :)

No, this isn't an April Fools Day joke. Nor is it Fools' Gold.

But it will be a nice box of loot and beady goodness to the one lucky winner!

The box with all the beads in it weighs over one and a half pounds!

One and a half pounds people!

Not only are there Beads Galore beads in this giveaway that I bought a few weeks ago in Arizona, but lots of other beads that are in my own personal stash. Like those white and yellow turquoise beads at the bottom of this pic below.

And double drilled turquoise long beads. And some big crazy agate tear drop shaped beads (at least I think those are crazy agate!). And green turquoise.

And one of my early worry stone beads, as well as a handful of more of my lampwork beads. Lotsa good beads in this pile, folks. Lotsa good beads.

All you have to do to enter to win is leave a comment naming your favorite blog or Etsy shop. I figure this will be a good sharing post of where to find the coolest stories, photographs or handmade goods that can suck many of us in for hours.

Hours? Who said hours. Blogs don't suck me in for hours. Whatever.

Let's get to it. Name your fave blog or shop.

I'll be using random.org to pick a winner next Friday, April 9th. Please leave only one comment because any/all repeats will be deleted.

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Sick Again

Normally I am pretty healthy and don't get sick easily. But not this year. This year, I seem to have hopped on the Effective Weight Loss Train. In January, a stomach bug got me for a week and I dropped ten pounds. This week, I caught a heavy dose of strep throat that hasn't let me sleep or swallow and I've dropped a couple more pounds.

The strep has stolen my appetite. Seriously. There are brownies in the kitchen and they don't even sound good to me. Now that is just plain sad. We rarely have sweets in the house. Especially brownies!

When I started feeling crummy on Monday (specifically at 2:30am when a sore throat woke me up), I figured I was just run down from doing waaaay too much over the weekend. So I weathered through the day thinking grass/pollen allergies were part of the problem, so I wasn't going to make a dr's appointment. But then I kissed Todd goodbye before he left to fly up to Washington DC for some work meetings and my fever started to climb. It got up to 104.5 Monday night. Nope, probably not allergies.

I got in to see the doctor at 9:30 yesterday morning and tested positive for strep throat. I'm pretty sure I ran one very red light on the way to the doctor's office. He asked if I wanted a shot in the butt with the promise that I'd feel almost back to normal by today, but I turned it down. I was already crying for no good reasons yesterday morning (like driving away from the schools when I dropped my kids off. or when the cars wouldn't let me out to turn left when they very obviously would not be moving forward anytime soon because they were paying attention to red lights. or that the sun was out and the sky was blue and I didn't know what the heck was wrong with me, but not being able to swallow was torture).

So now I have four doses of penicillin in my body and I'm feeling a little bit closer to human. So far, the fever is laying low and my throat is feeling tons better. I'll be going back to work tomorrow, which isn't thrilling. At least I can stay in my pajamas and my customers will be none the wiser.

But the real reason I'm signed onto the computer is to blog and remind you to check back tomorrow. I'm throwing a little giveaway for a pound and a half of loot!

Monday, March 29, 2010

Giving Back to Haiti

Check out the fabulous collaboration between Lorelei Eurto and Andrew Thornton!

Hey! I think I took that picture of Andrew & Lorelei last August at BeadFest :D

They worked together to create this gorgeous necklace and are now auctioning it off HERE.

All proceeds will be donated directly to the American Red Cross/Haiti Relief Fund to help victims of their horrible earthquake.

Just comment HERE to enter your bid to win this wonderful piece of jewelry and help folks in Haiti!

Beads Galore! - The Loot is Named

Big brass beads on some strange rope material that reminded me of corn husks. I have never seen anything like these before, but I thought the design was so cool. These are too big for any of the jewelry I make with my beads, but they will be good for an upcoming giveaway!

These were simply named 'stone' which was unusual. Normally BG is so good at accurately naming all of their beads. I think these look like some type of Jasper. I loved the shapes these were cut into.

Golden Horn moons. I liked the variation in color from light to dark.

Wooden beads that are very wobbly in shape. Such a light blonde. I would think these could be stained for a variation in color.

I love how this Horn was carved into bicones and with the stripes and dots. So earthy!

More horn. These are so smooth to the touch.

Terms of the GIVEAWAY with all these beads and more will be posted on April 1st. But it will not be an April Fools Day joke. It's gonna be BIG!

Sunday, March 28, 2010

The Shelves - Finished!

I finished the second coat of white on the shelves yesterday morning and sponged on the purple last night before I went to bed. Early early this morning, the boy child helped apply the yellow to the front.

Todd helped me move the shelves out of the garage and upstairs. We moved the bottom section into place and left the top section out in the hall. Henry had to supervise.

Then Todd took the kids to a Bounce House to burn off some energy before taking them out for pizza. I spent close to four hours getting Owen's shelves set up, bolted to the wall, arranged and then cleaning/organizing both his room and Chloe's. Both rooms look so much better and I feel like I accomplished soooooo much between Friday and today!

Owen was thrilled with how the shelves turned out once he came home :)

My Mom painted those O-W-E-N letters and gave them as a Christmas present to the boy. I finally got them hung up today. That is my old roll top desk and my Mom made the quilt hanging behind it for Owen. I just love it. It makes me smile every time I walk into his room.

I built those shelves to the right of the desk when we lived in our last house. They held all of my craft supplies and fabrics, but I think they work better now in Owen's room. I had to cut off a couple inches on the top so they would fit in his room. What I'm loving the most right now is that I can see the carpet at the base of those shelves!

And here are pics of some of the beads that I made Friday night after the kids went to bed and the new tank of gas was hooked back up. These are being made into a pair of earrings for an upcoming giveaway on a friend's blog.

This is a focal bead with a burst bubble. I liked the texture inside it (which I really struggled to adequately photograph) and decided not to melt it closed before annealing.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Day Off!

I am most of the way caught up with work from everything I missed being out in Arizona all of last week on vacation. I didn't have any conference calls scheduled, so I decided to take the day off to get things done around the house.

After weeks of looking at all those whiteboards resting on the garage floor, I was ready to do something about them and finally make the shelves I had promised the boy child. I wanted to clear my desk and clean out my studio cabinets, as well as spend some time on the torch catching up on orders.

The morning got off to a great start with cheerful, well behaved kids. Then I pulled out the power tools and borrowed a measuring tape from a neighbor, since I learned this mornings ours had been broken.

I had drawn out plans with measurements of the shelves weeks ago and stuck to them pretty closely, with the exception I built them in two sections....a top and a bottom. Since they are 6.5 feet wide and over 7 feet tall, I wouldn't be able to get them through doorways in our house.

No, I don't wear safety goggles or use real saw horses when operating power tools. Please do not try this at home. I still have all my fingers and toes, but I have cut a recycling bin in half.

I used a brad nail gun (hooked up to my air compressor) to nail the shelves together and tightened it up a little with a couple of L-brackets that I'm screwing in here.

As I shut down after finishing the bottom section, I found this feather. I wonder how it got in our garage?

I headed inside to eat lunch and spend an hour on the torch before returning to the garage to finish the top portion of the shelves. I started off by cleaning my rods of clear with little alcohol swipes to mitigate any smurkiness from appearing on my beads.

I started working on orders, but had only made a few beads before my tank of gas ran out.

That threw a three hour monkey wrench into my plans. My wrench didn't work for removing the hose and regulator from the tank of gas, so I ran out to Home Depot to buy a new wrench. Came home, removed the hose and loaded the tank to drive to a welding supply company in the next town over to get it refilled.

Yes, my shirt says PLAYS WITH FIRE. I love it. Was a great birthday present last year from a good friend. I loved that I was warm enough to wear it today. :)

I finished building the shelves and got the first coat of paint on them. I hope to finish painting the shelves tomorrow to get them moved into Owen's bedroom on Sunday. After the kids went to bed, I fired up the torch again and spent an hour and a half melting glass before I felt too tired to safely continue.

I hope to get more time on the torch this weekend, but we'll see. Soccer games for both kids will take up Saturday morning. And Sunday I'll be helping my good friend Tabitha on a photography shoot of the newborn of one of our other friends in our neighborhood. Good weather is coming our way and I'm looking forward to playing with my camera to capture all the good things going on. I had fun using my tripod and remote today. Could you tell? :)

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