It's Monday and this blog posting is LONG overdue!

I have been lax in updating my blog lately. I've just been swallowed up with show-prep/class-prep for all the upcoming fall events and the blog was put on the back burner. There are SOOOOO many readers, however (cough cough... not really...just making it sound good) that I felt guilty leaving them without something to read about me me me! ;)

What's been brewing in the studio???? New beads. Beads for ornaments and kits. I've been experimenting a lot with color, which is really fun, but also can lead to non-pretty beads that go into the "I think not" pile. (which I need to go through and take to the Beads of Courage dropoff!)

I've been really into hollow beads lately...mostly because they are the core of my Christmas ornament collection (and this year the halloween ornaments too). That is what I spent today on... orange, black, purple, lime and a little white. They're really cute and I can't wait to assemble them and see a finished "halloween tree" :D I'm hoping to have a good selection of these for the show in Detroit next month.

So... I apologize for my absence, but hopefully you will forgive me. I will be posting lots of pictures of new things (as soon as I get a chance to photograph them) on the Facebook fan page. If you haven't visited there... check it out!


have a wonderful week!! (but hopefully I'll be back before the end of the week. I'll try to do a better job of blogging)


tiny blah blah blah...

coffee - yes! yummy starbucks cinnamon dolce latte

music - my "Chick Flick or Should be" playlist.

Wednesday... already??!!!

Seems like time is flying by lately!! Maybe because it's getting to be show crunch time and I've got so many things going at once.

After returning from California, I've been tweaking the Flora Flora project, working on my samples for the kits and doing some research for a new project that will be WAY down the road, but I want to do some work on before the idea escapes me.

I'm ALSO working on pieces for upcoming shows in Nashville and Detroit. LOTS to do between now and Detroit especially. I want to have a couple of new special things for that show. (not that Nashville doesn't merit special too... I just don't have time!!!)

The Blackboard of Bossiness in my studio is full of "to-do" list and attitude this week. Hopefully I'll make my way through some of the list. (and for those California girls reading this, the baby faces for Sunshine Ring ARE on the list!!! I promise I'll have more for you soon!!)

ok... back to work!

coffee - oh yes! Today was a Starbucks day... Cinnamon Dolce Latte!!

music - my Christmas playlist...which had nothing to do with what I was making. It was just what I was in the mood for today.

Hi Wednesday Blog-reading friends!!!!!!!

I'm back from California, teaching the girls at Creative Castle. What an INCREDIBLE weekend of fun and beads!!! I love Carole's store and it was soooooooo tempting to snatch up every little bag of seed-beads she had, but I showed some restraint! (I didn't even LOOK at the crystals!! I knew she had some good ones too... but I was a good girl and stuck to what I needed...a thread zapper and size 11/0s and delicas in shades of blue and blue/green)

My classes were full of incredibly fun people who also happened to be talented beadworkers. They made my designs shine...adding their own personalities to their pieces. I loved that!!! The first day was the Sunshine Ring and we had a smaller group for that one, but it really let me get to know those 5 beaders before our larger class on Saturday/Sunday. I can't even begin to tell you how special they all made me feel. I can't imagine another job that would make you feel so personally appreciated...not just professionally, but to be appreciated on a personal level.

By the end of these classes, I knew that I had truly been missed in bead-world. It wasn't just me that missed it, but I was really missed as well. That was huge. I also left knowing that THIS is what I do (which is exactly what NanC Meinhardt told me back in 2001 and I thought she was crazy) This IS what I do...and it's what I love... and it's what I truly can make a living doing. It just requires working my butt off to do it. And I intend to!

So... Flora Flora was a big success. I loved the way all the kit colors turned out (only 2 of the 7 kit colors remained un-beaded, so I need to get samples done of those ASAP... people need to see the subtleties of the pastel one and the richness of the grape-colored one) I'm not going to sell the project on my website for quite a while, so the next months will be dedicated to finding teaching venues for it and then I'll launch it at Bead and Button in the summer (2011)

Between now and then Head Over Heels limited editions will continue, Christmas decorations and glass sculptures will be created and I will work on another new design to have ready to teach at Creative Castle in a year. I PROMISE I will be back there, girls!!!!! You won't have to wait another 7 years for me to teach!!!!

In the meantime, I need to get other classes booked, get all my shows scheduled and get busy making more things!!! Off to do that!! (after I get Thing2 to school)


coffee - oh yeah... I have it in hand. We had an EARLY morning and I needed the Cinnamon Dolce jump-start!

music - not yet, but I'll be playing CHRISTMAS music in the studio today. Time to start prepping for fall shows where I'm selling my new ornaments!

WOO HOO WEDNESDAY!!!

A very exciting week and a lot to do today! Very excited about the new project I'm teaching this weekend. FUN names for the kit colors. YUMMY colors in the kits and more lampwork beads than I have EVER put in one project. (I'm re-thinking my pricing for future classes now that I've done the production work for this one.)

Lots to talk about next week, but had to stop in and say WOO HOO! Class-time is almost here!!


tiny blah blah blah...

music - James Taylor greatest hits.

coffee - definitely! Might need 2 today!

Totally weird blog phenomenon Thursday!

ok.... if you've read my blog for a while you know that I get a little obsessive over my blog statistics... where readers come from, what they search, etc.

So there was this weird thing that happened yesterday... weird weird weird. More than one actually!

1. 25% of my viewers were from U.S. Government servers. CRAZY! I'm paying you to read my blog???!!!! (ok... not just me, but all citizens are paying taxes so people can read MY blog????) weird. At least 2-3 government entities are listed as readers a LOT, so this shouldn't surprise me... it just hit me as a bit weird when I saw the percentage (that said... I didn't have a lot of readers yesterday)

2. WAY weirder than #1 is that 2 different people visited my blog yesterday and read the archives from the same month in 2002 within 30 minutes of each other.... in 2 TOTALLY different foreign countries. I think that's just bizarre. Truly bizarre. It made me have to re-read the entries from that month and see if there was anything worth reading that happened then. Nope. It was same old same old from 2002... me working my butt off making beads for kits and classes. Nothing truly earth-shattering.


SO... that was the weird news of the day.


In other news.... I'm making beads like a mad woman. I'll be ready for my class in California next weekend, but I've got a lot to do between now and then.


tiny blah blah blah...

coffee - nope... Dr. Pepper reigns supreme this week

music - Groove Tunes. Singin' with Gladys

It's "Wigging out Wednesday"!!!

No, we're not wearing fun wigs at the studio today.... although that sounds fun. No... I'm just wigging out a little over all the stuff that has yet to be done before my trip next week.

I'm trying to remain calm and just plug through the list, but the list is loooooooong and just seems to get longer.


and typing this entry isn't helping it get shorter, so I'm going to go eat a quick lunch and go back to working and wigging! :)


tiny blah blah blah...

coffee - nope. It's an iced tea sort of day

music - Pandora