Stuck

I'm just not feeling it lately. The beads, that is. I see status updates from my beading designer friends who are just awash in ideas (and time), and I start to feel a little worried. I know that dry spells are always part of the creative process - you just can't be tuned in all the time, every day - but I feel like this latest dry spell is lasting waaaaay too long for my tastes.

That said, I took a little break after receiving a fabulous order of gemstone beads from Lima beads and made myself two pairs of earrings from Marcia DeCoster's book Beaded Opulence:

I got the cubic zirconia teardrops from Lima Beads, too. (I'd been waiting for them to come back in stock over at Artbeads, and they finally just disappeared altogether from that website! Ack!) I love the black and fuchsia pair - it makes me want to take Tom out for dinner so that I can dress up.

We had a fabulous day for Father's Day yesterday. We all went to the Keene farmers' market for opening day, and Colden loved the kites from the kite festival and seeing all the dogs. I loved catching up with the friends I'd made the last few years, and we came home with way too much food - French breakfast radishes, homemade organic berry jam and gourmet cupcakes. Colden fell asleep in the car on the way home and let me tuck him into bed when we got back, so Tom and I had a quiet lunch and then we started cooking for dinner with his folks. Dinner was fun (again, way too much food!) and then we had a relatively uneventful evening as I put Colden to bed.

So this morning it was back to work (which isn't a bad thing, ha ha ha!) and in a little while I'll take a break and start throwing together some dinner.

I keep thinking about this huge ammonite necklace that I saw at the farmers' market yesterday. It was made by one of my favorite local silversmiths, a woman from St. Regis Falls. I bought a bracelet and a pair of earrings from her yesterday, but I might have to go back and get that necklace next week... It was at "old" silver prices, too, before all this madness with price increases...

How Long Has it Been?!

It has been a really, really long time since I worked in an office setting with  more than one person. I'm becoming painfully aware of that fact this week as I try to keep up with my deadlines and not drive my new co-workers completely bonkers.

I'm absolutely in love with my new job right now. I get to write - which I've always been good at and enjoyed - and I get to write about beads. I can't decide which part is better, the beading or the writing!

Yesterday I had my appointment to re-check the cysts that they found on my remaining ovary 6 weeks ago. The good news is that the two huge fluid-filled cysts have totally disappeared and the remaining dermoid is still too tiny to really worry about. The bad news is that because I'm still having weird symptoms with the dizzies, arm pain, jaw trembling and other junk, it's time to go to the neurologist to rule out things like MS.

One thing that I did yesterday was to see my massage therapist. It's been way too long since I had a massage, and anyone who tells you that things like massage therapy, chiropractic adjustments and acupuncture don't work has obviously never tried any of them. The massage was wonderful - I left feeling refreshed and optimistic, and my other symptoms seemed to have eased up today. So I'm going to try to schedule a monthly massage and see if that gives me some relief, while I continue the chiropractic and acupuncture treatments.

The weather has been really weird this spring, too, and I feel like that's been throwing me a bit off balance as well. We had snow for what seemed like four months straight. Then it was freezing cold and rainy and damp for another month. Then for the entire months of April and May, it just rained - and rained and rained and rained. We had flooding like we haven't seen in over 20 years. Our basement (and my office) were completely trashed. And we have never had a problem with water in our basement. Ever. Now we're swinging back and forth between boiling hot temperatures in the 80s and 90s one day with dramatic drops back down into the 50s and 60s the next day. It's like my body can't figure out what to do next.

Maybe that's why the massage therapist recommended to me that I try to stay grounded yesterday. At one point before she started the actual massage, she was doing some energy/body work with me. At one point when she was down near my feet, I found my thoughts swinging violently back and forth between two extremes. It was sort of weird, but I just went with it and let my mind go where it wanted to go. After my mind had sort of quieted down a few minutes later, she said to me, "Are you feeling a little more balanced now? I felt your energy swinging back and forth between your left and right sides there for a few minutes." Totally weird. I hadn't spoken a single word during that time, instead allowing my mind to just go where it wanted to go and observing it. But somehow she had sensed that my thoughts were swinging back and forth between one extreme and the other. Sort of cool in a freaky kinda way.

Yoga tonight after dinner, and maybe a walk through the backyard with Colden and his little red wagon.

Blog, Take 2

Okay, so I tried to do my blog over on my newly-designed website, VanBeads.com.  And unfortunately, I got slammed with so much spam it made my head swim!  Oy!  What is with those spammers?!  Do they really think that there are people out there dumb enough to fall for those "Check out this website where you can marry a millionaire" links?  Double oy.

So, what I've decided to do is move my person blog back to this site and I'll maintain the blog on the Vanbeads site with stories about my work. 

What have I been up to since December?  Yikes, more than any one person should have to recap in the space of one blog post!  I've been busy.  New job, new projects, and we're almost ready to start a new farmers' market season.  We're now almost halfway through June, and I can't believe that it's been a year since I did any markets or shows.  I know there is probably no way that I will be prepared to set up shop at the first Keene Valley farmers' market on Sunday, so Colden and I may just head over there as buyers and peruse the vendors, visit with friends, and enjoy the sunshine.  (If the sun decides to come back out!)

For now, I have other blogging and writing to do.  Spent the morning working on two beading projects that just didn't turn out.  That's the nicest way I can think of to say it.  They just didn't turn out.  The good thing is that I can take that Fireline and stretch it out and reuse it for something else that hopefully WILL work out. 

Back to it!

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Beads

Okay, so I'm gonna try again for a shot at the Sisterhood of the Traveling Beads!  The box has so far traveled to Vermont, Utah, Texas, Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Virginia, and I would love to have this box sent back to New York so I can have a crack at it!

The box was conceived by bead artist Heather Powers, who cleaned off her work table one day and came up with the idea of sending this box of beads on a trip around the country to see how long she could keep it going. 

I've watched the box travel all around the country through Facebook and the blogs of the other artists.

If you want a crack at the box, you can leave a comment on the blog post of the current holder of the box, Cindy Wimmer of Sweet Bead Studio.

Wish me luck!

The Tree is Up!

Colden had a massive meltdown around lunchtime and was totally uninterested in anything like food.  He kept crying about "putting up my Christmas Tree", and we finally gave in, stopped trying to clean the house in preparation for putting up the Christmas tree, and just put up the Christmas tree...

I think it's the biggest tree we've ever had since we moved in together back in - yikes! - 2000.  And Colden had so much fun decorating it with us this year - and then knocking down the candy garland, and shaking the branches so he could see the ornaments bobbing about precariously...  Tom even took the little piece he had to nip off the top and stuck it in a vase so that Colden could have a "Christmas tree" right in his bedroom!  Too funny!

Another Big Giveaway from SandFibers!

Oooo, check it out - Carol Dean is having another big giveaway to celebrate her (well-deserved) 2,000th sale on Etsy!

 

It's so easy - just leave a comment on the blog post, and she'll pick someone at random using her trusty random number generator to win a $100 gift certificate!  Do you have any idea how many beading patterns that will get you?!  A lot.  Believe me.

Or maybe you'd rather have a custom-made peyote stitch cuff?  Carol's workmanship is truly incredible.  Her color sense is impeccable, and her stitching is immaculate.  

I was the lucky recipient of a lovely herringbone lariat of hers a few months ago, made with some satiny Delica beads, and it's a piece I wear as often as I can because it's just so well-made and so easy to throw on with pretty much anything.

What have you got to lose?  Leave a comment on her blog!  And while you're at it, post it on Facebook and Twitter it, and you'll get two more chances to win!  Oh, yeah, and you can blog about it, too, just like I'm doing!  ;-)

A Strange and Wonderful Day...

The Universe seems to be pointing me in a very distinct direction today.  I don't want to spill all the beans, but it seems like things might just be happening for a reason...

And on that note, in my blog post from earlier today, I mentioned something about a new project, and here it is: The Messy Beaders' Club! 

That photo I posted on Facebook of my messy bead table really hit a nerve - it seems that hobbyists and professionals alike all have issues with messy work areas! 

My favorite comment on the photo came from Jill Wiseman of Tapestry Beads.  She wrote, "Oh, Jen, this makes me love you." 

And the idea for the blog and the Facebook page came from Diane Hyde of Designer's Findings, who coined the name "The Messy Beaders' Club" and gave me the idea to start a blog about messiness, organization and creativity.

So, there it is.  Check out the blog at the link above, and submit a picture of your messy beading space so you can be featured on the blog!

Embrace the chaos!

Friday Again?! Already?!

I have no idea where the days are going lately... They just seem to slip right by me without any warning. All I know is that I wake up (usually sandwiched between Tom and Colden with Moose sprawled out on our toes) and get breakfast for me and Colden, and then BOOM! It's bedtime! Where do those hours GO?!

So, the first thing I want to share are these AMAZING beaded beads, called Blooming Beads, designed by my buddy Carol Dean Sharpe of Sand Fibers. She originally designed these for a birthday project for another beader, and then lucky for us, she decided to write up the directions. You can purchase the tutorial for these through her Etsy shop by clicking on the picture. She's got "Volume One" in the title of the tutorial, which makes me think - dear God, there are going to be MORE variations on these?!

They are so much fun to make - once you get the basic idea, they go fast. I found myself sitting at the dining room table one evening while Colden was sick, exhausted and really craving sleep, but I had my Blooming Bead on my work tray and I kept telling myself, "Just one more petal...just one more petal..." I had to force myself to put them away for a few days while I get through this last show tomorrow at Keene Central School and then get caught up on the other beading that I need to get done!














And this is what my work table in the living room looks like these days. Am I in project overload? Definitely. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. I posted this pic on Facebook yesterday, much to the delight of my beading friends, and one of them gave me an idea which I will bring to fruition this afternoon after I get my work done... Stay tuned!

Boogers and Beads

Yup, that's where I've been for the last week. Boogers and beads, but mostly boogers...

It started on Thursday morning when Colden woke up with a fever of 103 and a runny nose. We took him to the pediatrician who didn't see anything obviously wrong with him, and we decided to cancel Thanksgiving with Tom's folks to let Colden rest. (I also woke up feeling pretty crappy that day with a runny nose and a sore throat, so I needed some rest, too.)

The next morning, Colden's fever hit 104.7 and I panicked. Sandy came over and held Colden and let him sleep while I packed a bag and we got ready to go back to the pediatrician.

The next few days are just a blur in my memory - trips to the pediatrician, my fever climbing and my sore throat getting worse and worse, and our frustration at the pediatricians' refusal to give us an antibiotic for Colden because they kept insisting that what he had was viral.

Finally, yesterday, I woke up with my throat so sore and swollen that I couldn't really swallow. I took some Motrin to take care of the pain and went to the walk-in clinic where I'd been a few times to have someone check me out and give me an antibiotic - I was sure that this was another round of strep throat, which I have had before, and which I seem to get when I'm under a lot of stress.

They tried several times to get a throat culture from me, but every time that swab went near the back of my throat, I threw up. I finally told the p.a. to just give me an antibiotic and send me home, because I was tired of the torture. She looked at me like I was five, shook her head and said, "I can't do that because that's just not good medicine." I nearly jumped off the exam table and strangled her with her own pony tail.

"Oh, but it's good medicine to let me go home with an untreated strep infection?" I countered.

"Well, if it is strep, then we need to quarantine you for 24 hours. You won't be able to go to work -"

"That's fine, because I work from home."

She said that she needed to go talk to her supervisor, the doctor who owned the practice. He's a bit of a horse's ass himself, but that's another story for another time.

I heard them conversing outside and then she came back into the room and told me that I had a few options, one of which was giving me an antibiotic without a throat culture.

"Give me the antibiotic," I said again. She sighed and sat down to write me out a prescription for Amoxicillan which I promptly took to the nearest pharmacy and had filled.

Later that afternoon, I sat down in the exam room with Tom and Colden and the pediatrician and told the pediatrician that we wanted an antibiotic for Colden and we were done waiting for the fever to go down. She FINALLY relented and gave us a prescription for Zithromax.

Now, as a former pharmacy technician, I understand the concerns with antibiotic-resistant infections and superbugs. But this, I think, is ridiculous. We've gone from giving antibiotics out like they were candy to restricting their use like they're controlled substances. Why is it impossible to find a happy medium here?

After just two doses of the antibiotics, the swelling in my throat went away, and I could eat and feel normal again. After just one dose of Colden's antibiotics, his fever broke. Coincidence? Maybe. But we probably could have had a much better weekend if the pediatrician had just given us the damn antibiotic on Saturday instead of making us wait all weekend.

Okay, getting off my soap box now.

Tomorrow, beady stuff, I promise!

Survived the Weekend and Back in the Game!

Tom left for his annual hunting trip downstate on Friday, leaving me along with the kiddo for the weekend. I managed to get all my work done on Friday and I got EIGHT - EIGHT!!! - new peyote beading patterns finished and published on the site. I was on a roll, and it felt great.

We spent Saturday running around in the morning, and then I taught a beading class in the afternoon while Colden took a nap at Oma and Opa's house. Then we had pizza for dinner with Oma and Opa.

While I was reading Colden his bedtime stories, I noticed a strange sound - kind of like the sound that the furnace made last weekend when we discovered that it wasn't working properly. Sure enough, I went downstairs after Colden was asleep and found that it had stopped working again. It was trying to turn itself on, but wasn't igniting properly. So, since I couldn't remember where Tom had hit it with the wooden board to make it start working again, I shut it off at the switch like he told me to and just waited for him to come home.

He arrived home a little earlier than he had planned, mainly because he wanted to see if he could get the thing working again so that we might have hot water intermittently until we could get the replacement part. He did manage to get it working again, but we have to keep an eye on it and as soon as we hear it making that noise, we have to shut it down for a while. Hoping we can get that replacement part sooner rather than later!

His hunting trip, however, was a great success, and he came home with his deer tags filled for the year. He was thrilled, and was even able to leave some venison behind with his friends as a thank-you for hosting him this weekend. I had to help him hoist one of the deer up in the garage yesterday afternoon, something I have to admit I never thought I'd find myself doing. But the good thing is that he now has enough venison to make sausage and jerky, and some really great tender cuts for roasts with is parents. And Colden, of course, looooooves those tender cuts of venison.

Tom took the day off today so that he could butcher and package the venison, so that means that I get to go to Starbucks and edit my newsletter, and that's where I am right now. Peppermint hot chocolate, egg white and feta cheese wrap, Jimmy Eat World, and the view of Main Street from the front window. I'm in heaven, and back in the game!

















Aaaaand I'm also having another great sale in my ArtFire shop - 30% off your total purchase by using the code HOHOHO30 at chcekout. That includes my newest piece, the Glamour and Goth beadwoven necklace, with a handmade ceramic cabochon by Marsha Hedrick and those funky onyx gemstone drops! The coupon code is good until December 15, because that's the last date I can guarantee shipping in time for Christmas, and you can use the code more than once.

Shop now for best selection - I have two holiday shows coming up in December and then I won't have any new inventory back in stock until January!

Poor little man...

My little boy was not in a good mood this morning. Everything that he tried to do ended with him in tears, and I could not figure out what was wrong. I finally abandoned my plans to do anything and just gave him my 100% undivided attention all afternoon, and he fell asleep on the bed with me while I was reading to him, just before Tom was going to take him to Plattsburgh.

Before Tom left for Plattsburgh (to get a replacement key for the car, which we lost back in July around the time I had the miscarriage), he asked if there was anything I wanted him to bring back. Considering all the b.s. we've been dealing with in the last 24 hours - health insurance company denying the claim from the hospital again, the ineptitude of the hospital billing department and claims manager, and the medical collection agency that called us on behalf of the hospital last night - I suggested something, ANYTHING, with chocolate.














So while I still have a chance, I'm stitching away on these tiny little beaded bezels for the typewriter keys for my beadpunk piece. I'm sorry to say that these two pieces have been sitting half-finished on my work table for far too long, and now that I can finally see the light at the end of the beading tunnel, I'm going to finish them in the next few days!

I Don't Know What it Is...

I don't know if it's the cold rain that started last night, the volume of work I need to do this week and next, the gray, sunless morning, the early nights, or the mounting medical bills and the idiots at the billing department at Adirondack Medical Center who decide to send us straight to collection without sending us a bill.

Whatever it is, it is really ruining my mood today. I think today is going to be a day to get as much beading done as possible, maybe some blogging and article writing, and basically doing whatever I can to divert my attention from the feeling that we're drowning.

I'm very much looking forward to yoga class tonight.

How to Train Your Dragon

This is, without a doubt, my new all-time favorite scene from a movie. And in particular, my new favorite movie.

To me, this is a movie about trusting yourself and earning the trust of others. It's about knowing who you are and using that knowledge to the fullest. It's about following your heart and doing the right thing.

And mostly, it's a story about a boy and his dragon.

More than once, Tom and I have watched this movie with Colden, and then turned to each other and sighed and said, "Don't you wish that dragons were real?"

Beautiful Cabochons by Marsha Hedrick of Amazing Porcelain

Marsha Hedrick really picked the right name for her business: Amazing Porcelain. I finished another piece using one of her beautiful cabochons this time:




















I chose the blue and gold cabochon because I don't work with blue very often, and I wanted to see what I could do with it. I was also interested in beading around the cabochon because of it's unusual shape - definitely not your everyday round or oval cabochon!

The fringe and the strap were a bit of a challenge for me. As I wrote previously, my original plan to attach the piece of a brass collar covered in leather didn't work when I discovered that I didn't have the right color of leather and that I lacked the necessary glover's needles for stitching through leather. (The glover's needles have since arrived and worked perfectly for finishing the leather collar!)

I decided to use a variation of flat spiral for the strap, using Czech fire polished beads and some inverted onyx drops from a project I made years ago. The fringe repeats the colors of the cab and uses more of those onyx drops. I tried the piece on and found that the fringe hangs wonderfully from the strap and the cabochon, and the strap is so comfortable to wear that I almost forgot I was wearing it!

The cabochon itself is truly a miniature work of art from Marsha. I love it. It's thin and lightweight, but substantial. The raised texture on it feels wonderful to the touch, and the colors are true and vibrant.

Marsha has some of this style available as slides for beaded and kumihimo ropes, and she'll have some available soon as cabochons. She also has them in red and gold, and has a set available with some of her yummy porcelain cones. Check out her website for all the options, including some other beautiful art nouveau styles of slides and cones!

If I'm Too Busy to Blog...

Then that's a good thing, right? It means I'm doing what I love to do - beading, writing directions, photographing tutorials, making beading pattern graphics or chasing after Colden, or going to playgroups and play dates or cooking...













In case anyone has been following the adventures of the first Best Little Bead Box, we are now taking applications for the second round of The Best Little Bead Box! You can find the application on the blog by clicking on the tab at the top of the page. Applications should be sent to both me at vanbeads@yahoo.com and Carol Dean Sharpe at sandfibers@yahoo.com. You also have the option of including a picture of your very best beadwork.

The applications are all due by December 1, and the announcement of the next 12 beaders will be made on December 15. The next round of the box will start sometime after New Year's and last for 12 weeks.

A big thank-you so far to everyone who is supporting our little project!

Beadwork Exhibit at the North Country Cultural Center for the Arts

I just finished taking over 200 photographs of some of the most amazing beadwork I have ever seen in my entire life. Many of the pieces I've seen in advertisements, online and in books, and it was an incredible experience to be so close to them.

The colors and the forms and the beads were enough to take my breath away. I loved seeing the pieces by Sherry Serafini, Jeannette Cook, Carol Cypher, Robin Atkins, Melissa Grakowsky, Laura McCabe, Suzanne Golden, Jean Campbell, Diane Fitzgerald, Kelly Angeley, Huib Peterson, Carol Perrenoud...















I've seen this piece by Carol Perrenoud for many years, and I think it's one of the first pieces of beadwork I saw that really inspired me to learn how to stitch. It's made with size 20 and 22 seed beads, and the beaded fringe really resembles twisted cotton cord.

It's the kind of beadwork that makes part of me want to go home and just stitch for the rest of the day and the other part of me wants to curl up under the bed and whimper at my lack of talent.

How Time Flies...

What was all that stuff about Saturdays and Sundays being days of rest? Ha! Not in my world!

Saturday was full of our usual stuff - housecleaning, cooking, running errands. We were invited to an appetizer party at our friends' new house, so I made a HUGE batch of hummus and we brought along some crackers, carrot and zucchini sticks. We met a lot of cool new people, and got to catch up with some others that we hadn't seen in a long, long time. Colden had a great time playing with some of the other kids, and when we saw him getting cranky around 9, we decided to call it a night. Which was smart, considering that I had to get up early the next morning, and we had that daylight-savings-time thing to consider, too.

Tom woke up on Sunday morning in a full-blown panic. "It's 7:30! You have to get out of here by 8:15!" I asked him if he had set the clocks back before we went to bed, and since he hadn't, we got to relax a little bit.

I came into the kitchen after I got dressed and found my little dude sitting on the kitchen counter, eating an egg sandwich and drinking from a big boy cup! He looked so grown up!

I spent Sunday morning at the annual Hanukkah bazaar up at the temple in Plattsburgh, and it was so much fun. I made some new friends, got to catch up with folks I haven't seen in months, and brought home some yummy lavender salt scrub. It made my hands feel so nice that I actually bought some new nail polish and cutesy, sparkling little flower decals!

Who am I, anyway?!

On the beading side of things, I have FINALLY finished the last two projects for Marsha Hedricks! I wish I could show them to you now, but we've had nothing but rain, snow and sleet for the past 48 hours, and I can't get any decent photographs. The sun is supposed to come out tomorrow for a peek - we'll see what I can do then.

Tonight, I talked to a very old and very dear friend on the phone for a few minutes before The Toddler dragged me away. I miss her so much, I decided that after I finish whatever else I need to do for the evening (blogging, etc.), I am going to set aside all my other work and start on a necklace for her. It features a pendant of Frieda Kahlo that I got from Andrew Thornton. It should be a good necklace.

Plan B

So, here is the start of Plan B for the cabochon by Marsha Hedrick:




















I found these awesome onyx upside-down drops that I used a few years ago on a piece I donated to the local PBS station's art auction and thought that they would just look perfect with this handmade porcelain cab. I was right, eh? And I found the perfect shades of turquoise and gold to go with the colors in the cab. I can't help but feel like it's a little bit Goth, a little bit Art Nouveau.

I've got the rest of the beads for the strap laid out in little piles, but I have been having the worst time getting that strap started! I've had about six false starts, fraught with split thread, cracked seed beads, and difficulties with tension in getting the beads to lie just right. I've got another idea in my head for how to execute this strap, I just need to find some time to do it.

And here's the other Plan B:














These turquoise pencil-shaped beads that I got at the Syracuse Gem & Mineral show last summer have been floating around with my "current projects" for a year and a half now, and when I realized that the leather-covered collar was just NOT going to work for the cabochon, my mind instinctively went to this strand of beads. I've also got some turquoise scarab beads leftover from a project I did five or six years ago that have been languishing in a plastic bag in one of my bead cabinets - and they shall languish no more!

Last night, I thought I'd start edging the collar with brick stitch and seed beads and discovered the reason why I don't usually use real leather. (I usually use Sensuede, Ultrasuede or another type of synthetic suede fabric.) When I tried to push my size 12 beading needle through one piece of the leather, it went right into my finger and up underneath my fingernail. If I hadn't been so worried about waking up Colden, I would have screamed in pain. That HURTS.

Hence, my first-ever order to Shipwreck beads this morning included a package of Glover's needles, which are super-sharp, triangle-tipped needles that are designed especially for stitching through leather.

So the turquoise collar is going to be put on hold until I get those needles, because I'm not into self-torture. Not even for my beads!

And on that note, I have to get back to work... Colden is at Oma and Opa's today, and I am trying to get as many patterns, tutorials and articles published on the About.com site as I possibly can before Sunday and my new Starbucks-on-a-Sunday-morning ritual!

Sometimes, Designing is HARD.

Seriously. There are times when I sit down to write or design a pattern, and it feels like my brain is just a total blank.






Like tonight, for instance.

I had a wonderful morning, but a very trying afternoon that included several joyful utterances of the sentence, "Mommy, I made a BIIIIIIIIIIIG mess!" So when Tom came home and Colden decided to grab a handful of my hair and yank on it for the umpteenth time, I was ordered to take my laptop and go to Starbucks so that I could work and decompress for a while.

But once I got here, I found that working was harder than I had thought it was going to be. Armed with my list of about fourteen articles and hubs that I could publish and put together for the site this week, I found my attention drifting and wandering... I thought I'd catch up on emails to "warm up". Then I thought maybe I'd try to design some Christmas and Hanukkah and winter holiday patterns.

But nothing seems to be flowing right now. I got two bracelet designs finished, and I can publish those tomorrow.

I got one beading stitch tutorial done for tubular netting, to go in the beaded ropes hub and set of articles that I want to publish.

I started writing my review of Jean Campbell's new book. But that stalled when I realized that I could just not find the right words.

It's just not working tonight.

So what I'll probably end up doing is knocking off a couple of blog posts and editing a set of photos or two and then heading home to do the real work tomorrow while Colden is at Oma's house for the day. And then maybe some more on Friday, and maybe some more on Sunday when I come back to Starbucks for my Sunday morning ritual.

Meanwhile, I'm getting into some good old John Mayer. Whatever you might say about John Mayer, I love his voice and his tunes are catchy.

Price Increases

Nobody likes 'em, and it seems that everywhere you turn, the price of things is going up, and sadly, that's the case with my Venus Necklace as well.

I went to place an order for some more pearls from my usual source and found that the price of these pearls is now three times what they were when I ordered my last batch earlier this year!

So, unfortunately, I have ONE of these necklaces left in my inventory right now at $95. After this one is gone, the price is going to go up to $115 to cover the cost of the pearls. You can find this piece in my ArtFire Shop by clicking on the picture, and everything in my store ships for free via Priority Mail.

Tomorrow: pictures of the ceramic cabochon that I posted yesterday. I spent all evening covering a brass collar in turquoise leather only to discover that it was the wrong shade and clashed terribly with the turquoise in the cabochon. On top of that, I didn't have nearly enough of the light turquoise blue seed beads to put an edging on the collar. But as I was laying in bed trying to fall asleep (which shouldn't have been that difficult, seeing as I was completely exhausted), I came up with a better design idea that involves a whole bunch of these cool upside-down teardrops in black onyx that I've had for several years. I won't have much time to work on the piece tonight, but maybe tomorrow...

Oh, and the brass collar that I covered in turquoise leather? Turns out that it's a perfect match for the gorgeous turquoise pencil-shaped stick beads that I bought in Syracuse last summer! So there's another project half done!