Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Look what I did today...WOO HOO!


It doesn't look too exciting, but trust me it is! It's a kiln full of 260something beads!!

With today's haul of beads (shown above) I've ALMOST crossed the "cool colors" list off the Blackboard of Bossiness!!! You might not be as excited as I am about this statement, but for me, it's a big deal. I'm TIRED of green, turquoise and purple. REALLY over it!!

I've tried to be very methodical about prepping for shows the last year... working in one color palette until all the beads are made before moving onto the next palette. This keeps my glass a little more under control and seems to help me stay on track a little better. This cool palette, however, just about killed me!! Mostly because SO many of my kits use beads in those colors.... I still have about 30 or so beads left to make, but I should be able to knock them out tomorrow morning and I will have made all the beads for the following kits....

Flora Flora - Cool Chick, Hot Chick, Sassy Chick (still have 4 chicks to go... not looking likely that we will be seeing City Chick (black and white) or Chick-to-be-named-later (grape-y) at Bead and Button.
Sweetheart - Cool, Bright, Hot, Green/Purple (these don't have cute color names yet)
Springalicious - Cool, Hot, Bright,
Say So Ring - Alex, Stacey, Margo
Stack Ring - Alex, Stacey, Margo
Berry Bloom Earrings - Cool

That list makes it look like I've barely started... but I've been doubling up on beads for some things, so I've got a bunch ready to go when I get to the grape-y kits. That said, there is still a LOT to do. I'm hoping to move on to rich browns/coppers tomorrow afternoon. HOPING.

ok... this probably was boring to anyone other than me. Sorry. I'm just thinking through my "to-do" list.

and now... I'm going to reward myself with an evening out! YAY!!


tiny blah blah blah...

heavily fueled by Starbucks and Dr. Pepper
music - 7 hours of great playlists... my long mellow list AND my long "groove-tunes" list

Friday, April 22, 2011


So here it is.... the piece that made me cry... more than once. The piece I was working on for Convergence III... the piece that was not to be.... Angels Want to Wear My Red Shoes.

It's not HORRIBLE. It's just not what I wanted it to be... in lots of ways. Now that I've been away from it for a little while (I hid it in a box so that I wouldn't throw it away. I reeeeeeeeally wanted to throw it away) I'm able to look at it and see some possibilities.

What's shown above is an edited version... I shortened it to bracelet length. It had been a necklace. I almost like it as a bracelet, but I don't think I'll ever REALLY like it. That said... I have been letting the thing sort of steep in my brain, like tea and I've come up with a couple of cool ideas that actually stem from this piece.

Just like you saw in the entry earlier in the week... for me, art happens in phases. One thing leads to another, leads to another. I think the little links I made for this piece will show up again in a project which I've given a working title "Cirque du Sprout" I'm not sure how it's all going to come together, but I created a component in this project-gone-bad, which I think I actually like and will use again.

Will I use these colors again??? NO WAY!!!!! In real life, when the whole thing is put together (not just a bracelet length), there are more clouds and more hearts which make it very red-white-and-blue, and to me, it looks very "cute-sy/craty" like a 4th of July parade threw up and made a piece of jewelry. And that's how I REALLY feel about it!

But I look forward to what I'm going to be able to take from the experience, now that I'm able to look at it again without hurling or weeping.


tiny blah blah blah... but not so "blah blah blah-y" today

I had a coffee today with sugar free sweetener. ICK.

music - my praise music mix. Even though I was working today, I was really focusing on Good Friday, now that I understand it more completely... the day that is a reminder of how much God loves me... loves all of us. It's unfathomable, his amazing love but I'm completely grateful for His love and grace.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

I need elves. Like little tiny ones who come in and fix your shoes while you sleep.... but these make hundreds of little flowers and spacer beads to my exact specifications for my kits.... or I need to be Marcia DeCoster.... one or the other.

I'm going CRAZY getting these beads made for Bead and Button.... and right behind it are Best Bead Baltimore and classes in Michigan.... so I don't see an end in sight.

I know the elves aren't going to happen....and because of that SOMEONE has to make these beads that go into my kits... because the kits are designed around them and I'm the only one who can make MY beads, so I'm stuck being the designer AND the bead factory.

WHY do I design things with my beads in them??!!!!! Why can't I be Marcia??!!!!! She blogged today about being in production mode for Bead and Button too.... but SHE put together all the beads for 4 kits today... FOUR!!!!!! I haven't even MADE all the beads for my projects yet... let alone started kitting them with seed beads and I've been in full-production mode since the end of March. It's not fair. It's really not. (and I love Marcia... I really do... I'm just pouting about my own circumstances and the pout-fest was brought on by her beautiful blog post....and don't even get me started on how pretty SHE, herself/her house/studio always look in photos. I can't even begin to think about that kind of stuff right now!!!)

I think what really gets me is that I want to bead.... not MAKE beads, but bead... design, be creative, have FUN. I have SO many great ideas swimming around in my head, but every day I go to the torch and make beads for the kits instead of being able to work on these new ideas.... and the bigger frustration? The more successful I am with these kits, the less time I will have to work on the new stuff.

I see other beaders/instructors posting about their new designs, sitting and working on things, plotting their next move, their books, etc. I can't even think past the projects I'm currently teaching because I'm also the bead-supplier!!!!!! I have to make all these freakin' specialty beads!!!

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! (please imagine me in full tantrum mode, throwing myself on the ground)


ok... time to pick myself off the ground and get back to work. There are beads to be made.


Tiny blah blah blah...

coffee today - obviously too much (but I only had one cup)
music today - obviously not mellow (Groove Tunes dance mix)

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

What I did on my morning off.....

I got a haircut and went to the glass store (Flametree Glass in Roswell)


While I was there, I said "Maureen, will you take a picture of my new haircut so that I can post it on facebook??!!!"

and she did....


One of the only pictures I like of myself... probably because it's in one of my favorite places, taken by one of my favorite people. I'm sooooooooo lucky to have such a great glass store so close to my house. Look in the background of the picture at all that glass!!! And that's just one tiny bit of it, there is another even bigger wall FULL of glass, and another full of TOOLS and it's HEAVEN having them so close.

I'm going to just continue my gush and say that Maureen and Lance are two of the nicest people around and if you live in Atlanta and aren't shopping there for glass or taking classes there... you should! Support our local glass store so that we can continue to have one... we are SOOOO lucky (ask just about anyone who doesn't live in Atlanta how lucky we are to have them so close)

and if you don't live in Atlanta, but you're East of the Mississippi... you can order from them either by phone or online and get EXCELLENT service. I've seen how fast they pull orders and ship them and I know from personal experience what a WONDER Maureen is with color... if you need a certain batch of coral or pink, she'll know what you're talking about better than any other glass supplier (sorry other glass suppliers... it's true. she's a whiz at color!)

so, thank you to Lance and Maureen for being so great and moving your store so close to me. :D

And thank you Maureen for taking my new head-shot! I didn't plan it that way, but it turned out great!!!

Sunday, April 17, 2011

A Long Long Posting about Provenance, Inspiration and Originality

Sometimes we need to look at where we've been to appreciate where we are. Sometimes we need to look at where we've been to learn from our own history or to document our progress, but SOMETIMES we need to look at where we've been to just say "yikes! that was one scary face!!!"

This is the story of how one scary face became the Angel that I adore.

Once upon a time, I made this...(Scary, huh?)

In the summer of 2000, I had just taken a class with Sharon Peters in which we made dogs that were made up of a separate body and head, assembled as a pendant (I made a really fun Afghan Hound). After the class, I decided to go in a non-animal direction to do my own thing and made the crazy girl above. Yikes... she was a hot mess! I have no idea what the inspiration for the big hair or fun outfit was, but I have always loved combining patterns... dots/stripes/flowers and I put them all together here. (note the bubble skirt with the ruffle below...cute, huh??)

I had so much fun making that piece, that I avoided doing the mermaids and fairies I was SUPPOSED to be making. (if you need pictures of that work, look up at the top.. the mermaid without the face is what my work looked like back then... peaceful serene fairy-tale, but no faces...and now you know why!)

After making that crazy girl piece, I worked on perfecting faces, using some other techniques so that they wouldn't be quite so scary!

I also took a seed-bead class from Jeanette Cook in which I learned brick-stitch (I think I've talked about this before). We were supposed to be beading around a plastic tube. I rebelled and chose not to use the tube. Because of that, I ended up with things that looked like lampshades... NOT what I'd intended. The lampshades sat around in the studio along with the cute faces while I avoided some work I was REALLY supposed to be doing.

Beads by Design in Marietta, GA sponsored a contest in October 2000 (which I talked about in an October 2008 entry, so I won't re-tell it here) but Head Over Heels was born from that contest. I combined the glass faces with the funny "lampshades" (as skirts) and added the same striped stockings from "crazy girl" but beaded them instead of making them out of glass.
(Head Over Heels was born...and everything changed from this point!)

I kept working on the little faces and took multi-bead pieces, similar to the "Crazy Girl" but with not-so-scary faces to Tucson in 2001. They didn't get a great reaction, but I was really happy with them. I also took Head Over Heels to show off... not sell, just show off. IT got the best reaction and my work moved so that it was more seed-bead oriented, with glass being a sideline.


Multi-bead Girls Circa 2002 (available at Beadin' Path)

I loved making the faces and found some other things to do with them besides Head Over Heels. I added them to my focal beads...mermaids and a new Fairy Godmother, inspired by the multi-bead pieces above.

Fairy Godmother and Mermaid Focals circa 2005
(approx 2" in height)

Also in 2005, I added angel wings to the tiny faces and then made small totems out of them, again making a multi-bead piece. I chose to make them as non-wearables and mounted them on copper stands. (I didn't like the copper stands, so I didn't make a lot of them)I also made a few Christmas Ornaments for family members that were the same sort of stacked beads, but jesters... no pictures were taken, but they were cute!! (all of the totems/ornaments were about 3-4" high)

I took a hiatus from 2006-2009. When I returned to doing shows, I went back to the most comfortable thing for me... Head Over Heels. I decided to do a little spin on the idea... what the Head Over Heels girls would dress up as for Halloween.
After that, I thought that more seasonal Head Over Heels would be fun, so I created a Holiday version. It answered the requests I'd had for years to make a jester. I didn't want to make a male version, but doing an elf let me make the jester hat that my customers had wanted.In making the jester hats, I was reminded of the ornaments I'd made in 2005 and I made new Christmas ornaments combining the heads with hollow beads that I was enjoying making...

I had such a good time with these! Mixing the patterns and colors on the hollow and accent beads was (and still is) one of my favorite parts about making these multi-bead component pieces.

That summer, at the Bead and Button show, I took my mermaid focal beads and put them on stands for the first time. I had made the stands using a technique that my friend, Marcy Lamberson uses. She makes little "scenes" that include several beads sitting on a patch of grass, or a log, etc. I went a different direction and made stands that had little petals, like flowers at the bottom and put my mermaids, fairies, etc. on the stands.
(Bead and Button inventory for 2010 show.
Not the best photo, but hopefully you can see the little flower stands)

In October 2010, Flametree Glass announced their Halloween contest. I knew that I wanted to do a non-jewelry piece... I just didn't know what. I didn't want to make another Head Over Heels, but I'm still who I am and scary halloween was NOT me. I wanted whimsical and fun and a tiny bit dark, but still me. I came up with the "Zombie Girl Totem"

Zombie Girl Totem - October 2010
Approximately 8" high

She was a combination of hollow beads (which I was still grooving on making... especially after a great class with Jari Sheese!) and "girl" beads that I'd made before (only a little less cute and colorful) I struggled with how to add arms, but finally decided not to even try. I remembered my jester ornament from the year before... it had no arms, but still worked and if it did, then this could too!

I was inspired by a big mix of things, but they all came together cohesively... Winona Ryder's character in Beetlejuice (the stockings, which echoed all the striped stockings I'd done in past work), Helena Bonham Carter's character in Harry Potter movies (the hair and the facial features), Bride of Frankenstein (the white squiggle in the hair), Mondo from Project Runway (the mix of khaki along with Black and White, as well as the mix of patterns on the hollow bead that becomes the skirt) and a touch of Jack the Pumpkin King because my youngest son said I had to (and I'm glad I did).

Note all the elements that came from my earlier pieces... Big hair from the original crazy girl, circa 2000. No arms, a body made from hollow beads, like the 2009 Christmas ornaments...a hollow bead for a skirt, with a ruffle bellow (this time as a separate bead) and striped stockings right below... Shoes with a little ruffle at the ankle, like Head Over Heels from 2000.... All stacked up like my totems from 2005, but on a stand like my flower stands from earlier that year (only with spider legs instead of petals).... I loved seeing how all these different elements came together to create something new and exciting and TOTALLY ME.

As soon as I finished her, I knew I had something special that I wanted to continue exploring. I was sooooo proud of this piece (I still am!). I knew that at that moment there was nothing like them out in "glass land." I immediately started working on follow-up pieces, but I also made sure that the piece was seen online to claim the design as mine as soon as possible. .

First came the Sugar plum fairies.
(Display at Bay Area Bead Extravaganza November 2010)

Smaller versions of a totem, with one hollow bead, a face, feet and wings, but no stand. I showed them on a Christmas tree, but really wanted them to be seen as something non-holiday.

After making the sugar plum fairies, I started exploring doing a larger scale version blending the sugar plum fairies with the totems. I decided to play with making their skirts into flowers by adding petals to what had before only been a ruffle.
First Fairy Totem - November 2010

I took the first of these fairy totems to the BABE show in Oakland. I got a great reaction to that body of work...and I was really happy wih the direction I was headed! I came home and worked on Christmas ornaments and more totems!

Christmas Totems - November 2010

I wasn't totally happy with the Angel, but I liked the idea and put it on the back burner, along with the tree... a non-girl totem.

In January, when I was preparing for The Best Bead Show in Tucson, I realized that it was imperative that I take the totems to the show. Not because I was ready to sell them, but because I had to make sure they were seen as mine before other people started making their versions and I was accused of copying them.... Because, let's be honest...that happens. Someone who is an innovator, if they haven't publicly shown the work in a timely matter, can be seen as the "copier" of someone who was better at getting their work out there. SO, that's why I went ahead and pushed myself to have a body of work, based on the totems to show in Tucson.... And I did!

I took this grouping to Tucson, along with smaller totems based on the larger ones.

Totem Group - Tucson Best Bead Show - February 2011

I also took some new stands with more pattern and play, which come from the combination of patterns in the girls skirts/legs. I liked the idea of having stands for the smaller beads that were reminiscent of the larger totems AND give them a bit more presence than the small flower stands do.Mermaid Totem - Best Bead Show Tucson - February 2011

The stands that I started making LOOKED like multi-bead components similar to the skirts of the Fairy totems, but were actually all one solid piece. The mermaid is a separate piece, but everything below her tail is one unit. It's sort of a trompe l'oeil in glass. :)

From there, I decided to bring it all together with an Angel totem that sat on the same sort of stand....Angel & Mermaid Totems - Tucson Best Bead Show - February 2011
(doesn't the angel's face look as sweet as Cindy Lou Hoo?)

The angel was my very favorite piece from the show. And guess who caught the eye of the editor from Bead Unique magazine??? My favorite girl. :)

I got the issue in the mail this week. Here's a picture of me opening my mail!
Bead Unique Magazine - June 2011 Issue (page 73!)

And a better photo so that you can see how cute she is......and how far I've come since Scary Girl, circa 2000.


The editor of Bead and Button magazine once told me back in the late 90's (and this is not a direct quote, but as close as I can remember)... "I look forward to seeing your work when it's not so derivative." I didn't really understand her issue at the time and I still have some differences with what she was saying, BUT her words stuck out to me as I looked at this progression. There is absolutely NO DOUBT IN MY MIND that this work is all mine.... you can see the progression that happened over 11 years... from the big-hair and tiny face to the ruffled shoes... this is all me.... and I'm proud.

And watch out... because there is a LOT of exciting stuff on the way after this!! That's the thing about being original... you can't sit still or you're in line behind the people who were influenced by you and you're no longer seen as original. I intend to keep moving! (and wait till you see what's next!)


...now it's time to get back to work, making more pretty!!!


tiny blah blah blah...

coffee - CDL
music - not yet, but I'm thinking it's dance music in the studio day!




Friday, April 15, 2011

A new day... a new blackboard of bossiness!

(I don't usually show the blackboard updates here... just on facebook, so I thought I'd let the blog-readers who AREN'T on facebook see what I'm talking about)

It's not a NEW blackboard, but rather an erasure and re-chalking. I needed to see a little more of the "big picture" of what I have left to finish before B&B. Not to freak me out (although it does) but to keep me on track and allow me to cross things off. For instance... I got to cross 8 things off the "big picture" column this morning. Those beads are all cleaned and bagged and ready for seed beads to join them!!

I've moved on to a new color grouping... all cool colors and I'm hoping to knock out even more of that list by the end of next week.... if I can stay on track and stay focused and stay energized.

I've been making beads for 15 years (wow) and when I first started, I could go all day long... literally make beads for 8 hours straight. Now? 4 hours is about my limit. There are days when I go longer, but not back-to-back week-after-week. I'm just OLDER and my body doesn't like sitting in one position like that for more than 4 hours. I COULD just take a break and go back to the torch, but by the time I take a break and get a little non-torch work done, my kids are home or I need to go pick them up, or whatever.... my life is just different now than it was 15 years ago.... so I adapt! I work focused while I'm at the torch.... and today I was focusing on pieces for the Flora Flora kits.

The beads in the kiln today are all flowers. PRETTY PRETTY aqua, lime and violet flowers. 24 pretty flowers waiting till later tonight to "bloom" I really like this color-way (not that I don't like the others too... I just love these cool tones. They make me happy)

What else makes me happy? That I have 593 fans on Facebook! And a LOT of them I don't know... so it's not like all my friends just said oh, I know her, I have to "like" her or she'll know! No.... these are people who really DO like me and clicked "like" to be fans. SO, I'm seven short of 600... how cool is that??!!


ok... time to grab some lunch! Hope you have a great weekend!!


tiny blah blah blah...

no coffee - Chick fil A Tea instead
music - Dixie chicks sing-a-long

Thursday, April 14, 2011


KITS KITS KITS!!!!!!

I've been working like a mad woman making lampworked glass beads for all the kits. I snapped some pictures just to remind myself how much progress I've made. I have 10 kits of every single color-way, so that's a lot of beads and I still have a lot of "chicks" and "springaliciouses" and "sweethearts" to go! SO many kits to make... which means SO many beads.

(and right now, all the other beadwork instructors/designers are putting together hundreds of beautiful kits full of seed-beads. I won't even GET to the putting seed beads in the kits until mid May. YIKES! But it's worth it. My kits will be FAB!)

Here's a glimpse of what's been coming out of the kiln....


off to rest for the night then get up and do it again.... amen. (I'm feeling the "struggle for the legal tender" line from that Jackson Browne song!)


tiny blah blah blah...

it was a caffene fueled day - CDL and Dr Pepper
music - my "Chick Flick or Should Be" playlist which has TONS of 80s music mixed with current singer/songwriter stuff.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011



I rock.... but I have a long way to go before I can roll! Bead and Button is only 50something days away and I need every last second of that time!

But today I feel like I made it to a mile-marker...Today I finished all the beads for 7 different kit styles. I'm only a few beads short of having another kit to add to that.... and that will make a total of 80 kits. Each kit has an average of 10 lampworked beads, so that's a lotta lampwork going on!

And this is before the seed beads and other accent beads go in!

Here's a picture of the lampworked beads for one of the Flora Flora Bloom Boom kits - Sassy Girl
I had some other fun " aha" moments in the studio today, but I'll have to save that till tomorrow... I'm up too late!

tiny blah blah blah...

coffee - yes, but much earlier in the day!

music - I was singing along with my country music playlist today.... "All My Exes Live in Texas" and other cheezy fun songs with a healthy dose of Taylor Swift and the Dixie Chicks

Monday, April 11, 2011

This is the story of the LEAST glamorous part of making glass beads... CLEANING them. (and this beadmaker's story has a happy ending!)

For those non-beady types, when I melt glass, in order to leave a hole AND in order to have a stable work-surface, I use a stainless steel rod to build the glass on... when the glass is cooled, where the rod was is a hole that goes through the piece... the catch is, in order for the glass not to permanently stick to the metal, the stainless steel rod must be coated with a clay substance...we call it bead-release (the indians call it Maize...jk) that separates the glass from the metal, but breaks apart when the bead is removed from the metal.

The catch? The stuff is chalky and yucky and in the middle of our pretty glass beads, SO it must be cleaned out... and is a total pain AND time consuming.... especially if you've got THOUSANDS of beads (and by the time I'm ready for Bead and Button i will definitely have thousands of beads)

In the past, I've cleaned them out using water and a bead reamer, or a dremel with a diamond bit or even the stainless rod itself (which works pretty well), but it's SUPER time-consuming and my hands end up pruny and you only want to do this for an hour or so AND you'd rather be doing just about anything else creative, but you're stuck doing this mindless yucky job.

I've delegated this job to other willing souls (thanks mom and dad... thanks ex-husband back in the day... thanks friends... no thanking teenagers, they were unwilling) but it's not something that ANYONE likes doing and they all have better things to do than clean beads.

SO, how does my story have a happy ending? WELL, my fairy godmother, miss Lori Greenberg wrote a blog posting a while back about "hands free bead cleaning" Hmmmm, I thought, I wonder what that's about??!! I read and re-read her blog post about this method and then decided to go for it. I bought a rock-tumbler and shot and gave it a try.

and the happy ending???? It works GREAT!!!!!! I cleaned over 800 beads this weekend with minimal effort. The most time was taking the beads off the mandrels (which I would have done with my old method), and putting them onto the twisted pipe-cleaner wire, but that took hardly any time at all. SO, I'm a happy happy girl with no pruney finger-tips for now.

I'm not confident enough to try putting more fragile beads like my flat flowers and angel wings in the tumbler because I have too much time invested in each bead to risk, BUT I will try some trash-beads like that at a later time and see how they do. I'm just in AWE of inventive Lori and her findings that have HUGE benefit to beadmakers.

She said that I'm the only one she knows of who has really tried the process after she posted it, so I want to make sure people go read about it and give it a try... especially if you already have a tumbler... it WORKS!!!!!!!!


off to the studio to make more beads that have to be cleaned! I've crossed a lot of things off the blackboard of bossiness, but there are still a WHOLE lot more beads to be made!


tiny blah blah blah...

coffee - CDL from starbucks!
music - not sure yet, but I'm thinking Dixie Chicks or something to sing along to!

Thursday, April 07, 2011

Some days you win... some days you make pumpkin heads that look like they have giant blobs for mouths.

These horrid beads are still in the kiln, but I will take a picture of one of them tomorrow to show how I, like every other beadmaker has BAAAAAAD days at the torch.

I have been asked to make more of my zombie girl totems... that made me think "hey, what if zombie girl was a head over heels girl??!!" I got really excited about it and it's on the "to-do" list for bead and button AFTER I finish all the beads for Flora Flora, Springalicious and the Sweetheart bracelet (we haven't talked about that one, have we? Well, it's cute!)

ANYHOO... I'm not supposed to be making zombie girl things until AFTER those other beads are done. The blackboard of bossiness has NOT said anything other than those beads for 2 weeks now.... but what did I do????? I went "off blackboard" and tried to make pumpkin heads... and they were horrible and a colossal waste of time! SO, after making 8 good beads for flora flora and about 10 horrible beads for zombie girl I quit for the day.... and that was the "lose some" part of the story.

HERE is the "win some" part. As I was driving down the road today, I had a huge AHA! moment that concerns the project from hell that I worked on for 3 weeks straight... the project that ended up looking like a 4th of July parade threw up. WELL, I think I have a great idea that might be stemming from that horrible horrible pile of beads. This is why we don't immediately trash beadwork that goes awry... sometimes it's just a stepping off point to somewhere great. If I'd thrown away the crazy lampshade looking "beads" that I made in Jeanette Cook's fandango bead class (it was my own fault they were horrible... I wouldn't follow the directions) then I wouldn't have ever made Head Over Heels!

SO, I'll play around with this new idea in the evenings as I prep for B&B. I have to have some new projects ready to promote at the show... to show what's coming in 2012.


ok... I'm off to do some non-beady things! Have a great day!!


tiny blah blah blah...

coffee -yes, but i could use more now. (I had a free drink coupon... yay!)

music - Adele and Corinne Bailey Rae.

Wednesday, April 06, 2011

I love it when I open the kiln and have a nice color surprise!

THAT is what happened this morning. I made some beads the other day that made me say "hmmmm" maybe I need a new color combo for Flora Flora (I know... I already have too many choices, but this one just said YES! so I couldn't resist) Anyhoo... I knew the overall color palette, but didn't have the specific color combos for each bead decided yet... so I just dove in head first and started putting glass on mandrel as if I did!

I crossed my fingers, hoping that the little flowers I put in the kiln would come out the next day in their cooled form looking like I imagined them. You can't always tell though. BUT these flowers turned out SO fun!!!!!! I'm already in love with this new color-way for the project.


I put the question out on facebook "_____ chick" to help me name it. I've narrowed it down to 3 choices and will decide for sure when I see the whole kit put together.

I LOVED all the suggestions for names and honestly, a lot of them were better than the ones I had in the first place, so some kits might get renamed! Stay tuned for the full list of chicks.


ok... off to relax. I've worked hard this week!


tiny blah blah blah...

Starbucks - yummy Cinnamon Dolce Latte!
music - Mr. A-Z (Jason Mraz)

Tuesday, April 05, 2011

The new and updated Blackboard of Bossiness!!!
(please hold your applause till the end of the blog posting)


Since I conquered the long list from the prior weeks B.O.B., I erased the list of HOT HOT HOT colors, which, honestly I was getting pretty tired of! Now it's the Cool/Bright mix list... which still has a lot of hot colors included, but I get to add lime green and turquoise! I'm very orderly about this process this year... not letting myself make beads that are 'off list' colors!

Last year I worked a little differently getting ready for Bead and Button... this year, I'm trying to work through one color palette at a time, which keeps me from having a million kajillion different colors in front of me at once. I just pull stringers (thinner "rods" of glass) out of the few colors that I'm working in and have those ready to go.

This color palette (because I know you care) is... orange, yellow, pink, turquoise, lime and purple. I don't have a name for it like hot, cool, rich, etc. and I need to come up with something for the Flora Flora version. "_____ Chick" Suggestions are welcome!

The great news is that, after working all day today, I'm finished with about 1/4 of the beads in this color-range. I think that by the end of the week, I could be moving on to ALL cool colors! (woo hoo! I'm making it through the list, which is good considering the countdown number in the top right corner of the B.O.B. 50 days! I was wrong yesterday!!)


have a great day everyone!

tiny blah blah blah....

Coffee - yes and it was yummy!

Music - more Sara Bareilles Genius list. (I need to publish that playlist because it's really good!)

Monday, April 04, 2011

I am a beadmaking MACHINE! (well, not really a machine, but I'm a darn productive beadmaker!)

I have now completely finished ALL the lampworked beads that go into the kits that have HOT colors... and every single kit I do has a "hot" variation (hot pinks, reds, corals, etc.) The beads for Flora Flora Bloom Boom are really time-consuming and I wasn't feeling like I would EVER be finished with them... but I am!

I can cross HOT off the blackboard of bossiness... and move onto Mixed Brights. I don't need as many of those, so I'll feel successful faster.... and then move on to Cool which will take me just as long if not longer than the Hot colors. Love me some blues/greens/purples... until I realize I have to make 1,000 of something!


tiny blah blah blah...

it was a coffee-free day. Lunch with Marcy meant skipping Starbucks, but conversation was great and made up for any lacking lattes.

music - 2 different "genius" lists on the ipod. One was based on Adele and the other Sara Bareilles... both were great mixes of all kinds of similar stuff.

Friday, April 01, 2011

Happy Friday!!!

I'm busily getting ready for Bead and Button and trying to be realistic about my abilities and time between now and then. This has led me to believe that I need help... and lots of it.

I've "hired" a helper for booking my classes, which was really needed because I needed someone organized who could push me a little without me feeling too pushed. So, I'm very very thankful that the right person showed up at just the right time.

I've "hired" a person to put together kits as I get closer to B&B... that will be a huge help. (you would think that 2 teenage boys would want to earn a little extra $$, but they are NOT interested and I am happy to find someone who really wants to work and will do a good job)

(and hire is in quotations each time because I'm not really employing anyone, I'm being creative in my compensation methods... that was just for those of you who are way too interested in my financial-status)


NOW I'm looking to "hire" some sample-makers. I really really need some advanced beaders who would be willing to bead one of my kits in exchange for another kit for them to keep. If you are interested in doing this, please comment here, email me or message me on facebook. I'm looking for advanced beaders... preferably those who have made my projects before and kind of "get" me.


ok... back to beadmaking. I've just finished all the beads for any kits with HOT colors... now I'm on to mixed brights (pinks, limes, turquoises, purples) I love this combo! (and I'm sick of hot pink and orange after making 600 beads in that color scheme)


music - a mix of praise music from church.

coffee - oh yeah! CDL which was a little strong. I guess they thought I needed an extra shot of espresso