Soundtrack Contest!

Since Heather of Humblebeads had her "Mix Tape Challenge" last week I've been hooked on searching out songs on Playlist.com. It got me thinking about soundtracks which lead to a fun contest idea! I've put together a list of songs that are all featured on a soundtrack! If you can correctly guess (no cheating!) which movie the songs are from you'll be entered into a drawing to win a fun beady prize! Don't forget to leave a way to get in touch with you! I will draw a winners name Thursday!

I'm FREAKING OUT!

Hyperventilating! Must calm down! Breathe in. Breath out. OMG! I'm on the cover of Step By Step Wire Jewelry! OK! TOTALLY FREAKING OUT! Squealing like a school girl! Only dogs can hear me now!

Vacation! Part II

Well, I finally got my s#$% together and figured out how to down load photos from the camera... Ok, Robert did it! We saw many baby duck on our trip! A true spring vacation! Next time I'd like to give the kids their own cameras to get a kid's eye view!



Sha-mu! Sha-mu! Sha-mu!



CUTE! Baby ducks at the San Diego Zoo!



The Inauguration! Lego style!





Rhino!



More baby ducks!

Ok...
Next time I'll have some new beads to look at!

MIX TAPE CHALLENGE!!!!!

Join in the trip down memory(ex) (get it memory/memorex) lane as we stroll down a road that for some of us needed some serious guard rails! That's right folks! It's a high school mix tape challenge! Sponsored by Heather over at Humblebeads! Nice! Er, Radical Dude! Oh. MI. GAWD! So "Pump up the Volume" and do a little chair dance to some of my H.S. faves! Thanks Heather! And head over to her blog to see the challenge rules and enter to win some awesome beads!

Who can't remember listening to to the Beastie Boy's "Brass Monkey" during driving class or dancing all night to "Pump Up The Volume"! I couldn't stop at just 5 favs so here are my 10 + 1! (see muzak player for song list!)

If you don't want to cry...

don't see Marley and Me. What? Too late for that is it? Those marketing people know what they are doing. It's the same way they got us to take the kids to see "Bridge to Tarabithia". I'm not saying they aren't great movies. I'm not saying that I'd not see them if they were more honest about the true weepy content they were hiding. Although they'd have a tougher job getting our asses into the seats if there was full disclosure. At least I can weep openly in the privacy of my own home. Not that the sight of me weeping openly in my kitchen would be a shock to anyone that knows me, but, seriously? Copious tears and lots of snot. I didn't say it was pretty. • Not so spoiler alert • Ok. I'll say it. THE DOG DIES. How did I trick myself into thinking otherwise would happen. Was it the cute blonde couple? Was it the cute blonde dog? They know where they can put their cute, funny blondness. If you have kids and have to watch movies in two to ten parts like we do at our house, when we resumed watching the next night it was like some hideous, back in the day Foldger's commercial. "Watch now as we replace their funny sweet movie with a gut wrenchingly sad story". Yah. We're a wreck over it. But go. Go and rent. Just don't forget the mop and bucket people. Mop! Bucket! I'm going to my happy place now....

Vacation!

We took our very first family vacation this easter weekend! IT WAS GREAT! We did the whole San Diego thing and in record time. Actually it was our first vacation since 1994! If you've not been to an amusement park lately be prepared to spend money like it's printed in your basement! Since we've not been out of the house in over a decade, you can only imagine what a shock it must have been for us! But we had such a great time it hardly matters! At Sea World, I cried like a baby during the Shamu show! Killer Whales are just amazing and it made me a bit sad that they are kept in captivity, though they surely live well and are protected. If I can figure out how to get the photos off of my antiquated digital camera I'll post some! I think the kids actually had the most fun in the hotel's swimming pool as it was quite the posh experience for us all. Cabanas, heated pool, and abundant towels!

In spite of my good intentions to bring work with me, and I did, it just didn't get as much done as I'd have liked. And you know what they say about a watched pot.... well, when I'd left on vacation I only had a handful of orders to wrangle but returned (thankfully!) to a pot over boiling! Thanks bead lovers! So now I'm in extreme catch up mode! Up early! Up late! I'm working really hard to get things out to you fabulous people in a timely fashion!

Here are some new sketches...



and some new earrings! I may have to turn into Frida Kahlo now....



I'm hoping to get some of my inspiration from our trip out on paper today!

Not quite right...

It is that time again! "Submission" time! With a flurry of activity in the studio I got all my pending packages in the mail and on time! Whoo Hoooo! It feels like I submitted about a million things to about a million magazines and I still managed to for get to send photos to submit some things. How did this bracelet not make it into the email? I create a list and yet it still got overlooked?



It's already gone through a bit of a redesign with a handmade clasp and some more dangly beads...


And yet sometimes things aren't accepted and I know before the verdict is in that they aren't up to muster....


Like this necklace...



"One Fine Day" is so much more of a Spring than a Fall. I've already started a redesign.


Or this one, which showed more promise from the sketch....



than the actual necklace that I made....



I think if I'd actually followed the "plan" it may have turned out better....

If it ain't broke...

Well, actually it is, so it will all need replacing of fixing! It seemed like one thing after another this week it has become comical at this point! First off our cars are older than dirt and covered with it. I just can't be bothered to clean a car when there are perfectly good beads to play with. So, our older that dirt cars both have maladies that let us limp around town but they haven't failed us yet and as I loathe to hand the mechanic over money I don't have, we'll keep on limping until absolutely necessary. One has a leaking radiator (if you see me around town with the hood up, I'm just adding coolant, give us a wave and keep on goin'! We'll be ok!) The other car has trouble shifting. It's an automatic. I hate an automatic. I could drive the s#%! out of a broken clutch though. But I digress. So, if you see or hear us ah-clunkin' through town, once again, give us a wave and we'll see ya later. I had to laugh out loud (total reflex response here) at the Mom who standing in front of my 1994 sedan parked in front of my son's school and was complaining loudly to another parent about her "old" 2003 car. It just slipped out! So now my dish washer decided that water was optional for cleaning. What ever. We found it used in front of a house that was being renovated. SCORE! That baby worked great for 2 years! Since we've not had the fortune of finding another this way we were forced to actually shop. And we lucked out big time by finding a floor model unit that was, get this... $1200. WTF!?! I didn't even know they made them for that much!? I don't get out much I guess. So it has a tiny baby dig in the door and was last years model. It was less than most of the lowest priced new ones. I have to say it does look like a diamond surrounded by filth in our little kitchen though. Time to start scrubbing! So there you have it. Us in all our falling apart glory! I'm not complaining. I just think these are the funny gems in life.
Here... look at this great mermaid picture my little three year old did for a party (ok, I helped with the words)...

Happy Monday All! XO Gaea