A Few Beads... And Another Chance To Win!

Make us all a wee bit happy!

I thought I could just pick a winner, but truth be told every reward was just so lovely and in reading them all I imagined each of you doing it! It was a relaxing reward in itself!  So I just picked a random winner! Happy Memorial Day everyone!

Congratulations to...

Greer!

Who said... "All kinds of rewards - chockies, reading, chilling out, but my favourite is to spend some time on line checking out all kinds of creative endeavours in all kinds of fields."

Please email me with your info and I'll send you your beads! Thanks everyone for leaving such great ways to reward yourself. I hope everyone has gotten a chance to do just that! 

I'll be having another giveaway this week to celebrate the beginning of summer vacation. I'm call it an "Up For Grabs" giveaway! Remember is school when someone would hold up something awesome from their lunch and scream "UP FOR GRABS!" and then someone would grab it? Same here! Goodies will quickly go to the first to respond! Keep your peepers open! It may happen more than once!

Well, Read.

I have been stacking up the books lately and lamenting the lack of time I have to read them.

One that I have read is ceramic artist Sabine Brunners tale of "My Cat Kevin" which is sweet and cleverly illustrated with her ceramic work. It is a book about an adopted cat is at the top of our bedtime reading.

Jewelry Upcycled! is another satisfyingly photographed gem of DYI jewelry inspiration by Sherri Haab and is exactly what it states. Unlikely items that seem to be at the end of their life are turned into fabulous works of jewelry art. Who knew the ass end of a plastic soda bottle had such potential!

Tragically, I finished The Hunger Games trilogy and am haunted by it and being in desperate need of a laugh picked up Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss. Her humorous chronicle of the demise of punctuation has me laughing out loud and at myself! I'm sure she would have a field day with me!

What's turning your pages?

Seriously? A Most Amazing Giveaway. Ever. Seriously.

Artist and seriously lovely person Andrew Thornton is seriously giving away a most seriously awesome treasure trove of trinkets!

Check out his blog for the detail. It. Is. GOOD! Seriously.

It's Not Always The Destination...

I was cursing when it happened but I learned so much from it that I couldn't be too mad. It also reminded me to pick up new tools and the gem fair and am really excited to use them.

The honking chip out of the ceramic piece could have been avoided if I was just a bit more patient. Not with the hammering but with the soldering. It seems to be much harder than the copper and if it ends up anyplace you need to hammer or bend, forget about it! Which is what happened here...

Now I am waiting for the super snazzy hole punch that I ordered online, that will make a perfect hole in one punch, unlike the super unperfect hole I made with my super cheep hole punch. But again, punching the hole right on the edge taught me something as well... how to solder a ring to the edge...

But I really feel like I'm getting a bit better with this soldering thing. Apparently you need more than 2 hands or to really plan things out...

I Scream!

For ice cream! This months Earthenwood Design Team items are just delish and perfect for spring! The sherbet colored mini rounds seemed to be a good fit and I've had this lovely lavender silk from Class Act Designs in my stash for ages! It makes me think of summer vacation!

Check out what the rest of the team has been up to!

Andrew Thornton

Gaea Cannaday 

Denise Yezbak Moore 

Erin Prais-Hintz 

Erin Siegel 

Heather Powers 

Lorelei Eurto 

Lori Anderson 

Jean Yates 

Marie Dodd

The Birds and the Bees

Just feeling a bit cheeky!

Etsy. Soon.

Done.

This picture says it all.

Weekend Fun.

It has been fun reading what people reward themselves with for hard work or a job well done! Many of us are enjoying chocolate (not so much a reward at my house, but a nessessity like air or water) while others of us are glad to uncork a bottle of happy (sounds good to me!). Feel free to add your favorite reward to the list (here) to win some beads...

The Santa Barbara Bead and Gem Show was this weekend and as yet another way to reward myself for some hard work, I went with my very talented jewelry designer friend Caitriona Meek.  We've known each other since we were 12/13 and I always have such a good time with her. The show was pretty quite but we found what we were looking for and then some!

YUM!

Can't wait to play!

The Bees, Moons, And Stars

These bees came out of the last firing and are a bit bigger than I intended but then I forgot that they will shrink again by about 1/4" after the next firing. Perfecto!

The moons have stars. Sweet.

Do You Reward Yourself For Hard Work?

As incentive to get my work done, I'd promised myself I could spend some time at the metal work table. With that in mind I added a few cabochon style pendants to the firing as extra incentive. And the second my orders were in the mail I got to work...

What do you reward your hard work with?

Leave a comment with your favorite reward and win these 3/4" and smaller beads...

I'll pick my favorite answer to send a gift to by noon, Monday May 30th!

The Jack Pot!

Of giveaways! Art Bead Scene is giving away the mother of all giveaways in honor of the new Beads 2011 issue! So many talented artists are shown in this years issue of Beads 2011 and many have donated beads as part of the prize! Here is a partial showing...

Enter by midnight May 30th!

Good luck!

More With More On The Way...

More is more, it would seem. Usually I would say less is more but not when it comes to etsy. And I have to say the the etys circles feature is quite addictive! So here are some of the more that will be added shortly...

Don't Panic!

What do you do when the color combo your customer picked out just didn't live up to it's full potential and the clock is tick toking down to the wire? Dream for a light bulb moment!

These little lovely daisies were to have medium blue petals and a yellow center. The challenge being my lack of a nice opaque medium blue glaze. Lovely Tracie picked out a really pretty blue from my color chart that resided on top of a golden, very groggy clay. In my mind I would put the perfect amount of glaze to show the pretty blue but not chip off when applied with a heavy hand. "In my dreams" should have been the very next thought...

So here they are. Pretty but not what the Doctor (actually nurse in this case) ordered. My mind was a spinning/panicked! Do I fire up my huge kiln for 10 beads and try to mix a few of my glazes together in the hope that "the magic" would happen in the kiln?!

I was moping the floor, a very rare occurrence at my house, but when a bottle of sticky juice is spilled and the dogs track it through the house, you do what you gotta do. That is when that elusive bulb clicked on in my head! Many years ago I made my first beads with sculpey! It isn't my usual material but it is worth a shot! It is quick to bake and can be painted in any color you have at the ready! A beaders emergency dream! I'm no Heather Powers but my customer got what she needed and was very happy! It also felt really good to play with paint!

Queen Bee.

On occasion, I put the cart before the horse. Sometimes I have and idea but not the time to make it, so I will add that to my website with similar items and then wait for someone to find that idea to be a good one and place an order for it. Like this bee. I make a bee pendant, but had not made a framed bee pendant....


until now! Some glaze will do her good!

Happy Mama's Day!

A gift for my mama! She loves green. I experimented by making this bezel with the new copper I got in the mail a few days ago. It took some figuring out and I know there is plenty of room for improvement, but I had such a fun time! I Have a lovely hole punch set somewhere in my studio. It decided it didn't wan to be found so as a last resort I had to nail the holes and then widen them with my dremel tool. I was hoping that a good tumble would make the light and dark patches less noticeable but they are actually growing on me.  The green floral square was an extra piece I had left over from a order and had no idea what to do with it. I was pleased as pop corn to find a matching heart in my stash for the bottom. My mom has had a life long love of Ireland and I remember that as a child, green was her favorite color. I hope my mama loves it.

Candy! Candy! CANDY!

With me being off of sweets I had to indulge in something! Why not these sweet beads by Amanda Cargill Austins. Lovely glass beads.... So sweet and juicy! She makes them up for us to drool over...

YUM!

A bird, a rabbit and a goddess all walk into a bar...

Sounds like a joke that I haven't quite got the punch line for...

New rabbit design. Robert thinks the lines should be carved in. I like it as is.

I love that this one has a bird and is shaped like an egg. See! Inspiration for a holiday that is just past! Oh well, next year! 

Blessed...

Coming soon to my Etsy!

Welcome to June little beadies!