Beautiful day.

It was such a beautiful day today it was hard to work! But I really needed to get some beads made so I forced myself into the shop for some one on one time with my torch. So tomorrow, after some bead cleaning in the morning, I can take the afternoon off and enjoy this wonderful sunshine. Get back into the garden and get the peas, broccoli, cauliflower, and artichoke starts in that we bought last week. I can't believe I'm excited about gardening. I'm never excited about gardening! It's amazing the difference a raised garden bed can make!

Yeah for beads!

Here's some new beads I put on etsy. I really like the colors in these, and the tiny bubbles make me think of being under water.

I've finally gotten back into the rhythm of bead making and have really been enjoying it. It's just too bad I still have those taxes to do! It's the first year that I've been married and am filing joint, so now I don't only have to deal with myself whom procrastinates, but my husband, who's even worse. Oh dear...

Dark Night.

I realized yesterday that I never use black. And I don't know why, because I love black. Actually, it's probably because black, and dark dense colors take more heat to work and when they're molten they are really blinding! So I would get tired out pretty quickly. ( I am such a baby!) But now that I have my new torch, the black melts down like butter! And as far as the blinding issue, I just need to remember to flip down my dark lenses, duh! These Dark Night babies are going on etsy.

My Kiln is Possessed!

Oh! What a day! It's enough to drive me insane! My stupid kiln has a mind of it's own! I turn it on, set it on my usual holding temperature, then bang out of no where it's ramping up to over 1000 degrees! WTF?!? So I turn it to low and it won't settle down, finally I just had to turn it off. And this continued all day. I'd turn it on to low, it would get crazy hot, I'd turn it off, and on, and off. I could barely go inside for a drink of water for fear it would get raging hot and ruin all my beads! My husband thinks we just need to change a switch...I hope he's right!

Sorry this is so grumpy. On a lighter note, I do think I made some cool beads today. I'm looking forward to seeing them tomorrow! :)

The Beads and the Life.

Here's a set from yesterdays batch that I thought were neat, but they were so hard to name! Usually when naming my beads I look at them and try to quickly associate with them, but this morning I was stumped and kept thinking about spicy exotic food! You'll see more of this when you see another set I'm listing called Creole. (I guess I'm hungry.) So I ended up calling them Toasty because they're all the warm colors of a roaring fire. They'll be going on etsy.

Now on to the life portion of the blog... So we have this coyote that has been hanging around. When I first saw it I thought it was so cute, out in the field, hunting for mice or what ever. But then I realized it was watching our house! And then I thought what if it's stalking our cats! THEN, I worried about the walk I take down to the mail box every morning. (It's a little less than a quarter mile down a wooded driveway.) My husband assured me the coyote is probably more scared of me, but still. What if it's rabid?!? Ok, now I'm just being an alarmist, but I'm carrying the machete with me none the less. Ha!

What the?!?

Surprise! This is one of the reasons why I love boro. (For those of you who are unfamiliar with bead making, this may be technical blah, blah.)

So I was making these beads and I was going for the blue greens, but I threw some persimmon in there for fun. I always flame strike, instant gratification I guess, but I figured if I didn't flame strike the persimmon wouldn't come out. Boy was I wrong! That color popped like no other!

These surprise babies are going on etsy.

SUPER SALE!

I've started a super sale in my etsy shop. Since I'm closing shop for March, (details below in Mondays post), I've decided to offer free US shipping, $2 international shipping, and put lots of sets on sale up until then. Since I'm holding off on ebay until after I get back I should have lots of new bead babies in etsy.

Stress Case!

I'm a stress case this morning! I've been running around like a mad woman trying to get my beads packaged and in the mail before the mailman comes and whew! I think I did. Now I can relax and get to my least favorite job, the bead cleaning. Fun times. I wish I could just make beads all day. If only I had a neighbor kid that needed to make some extra money! ;)

Here's a sneak peek of some of the beads I'll be listing this week.

Ahh, Sunday Morning...

Oh Sunday, usually my day to relax. But not today, as I sit here enjoying my morning coffee, I'm also preparing mentally for a very productive bead day. It will be, it will be, it will be!!! Ha! Yesterday was such a gorgeous sunny day it was hard to be in the shop. But today it's cloudy, sooo...

I usually try to take the weekends off, but the beauty of your own business (usually) is you can create your own schedule, and my husband has been bugging me about this snowboarding trip to Mt. Bachelor in Bend, OR and, well, it was his Christmas present so I guess I better deliver! :) We like to do these things mid-week. Beat the crowds and save some bucks. So weekends? Work, work, work!!!

Back to the Blog!

I've started to get into reading blogs, I know I'm a late bloomer, and decided I would do my own. Put a life and a face behind the beads. I hope you enjoy it! :)