Off to torch but just posting to say do not forget to sign up!  I need more papers in a hat for my daughter to pick!!  ok, still waiting for my Jim Smircich class beads and the beads I bought.  Stay tuned on that and also beads at the end of the week!  Too many things to do and not enough time!!!  I’llll be baaaack (my Arnold inpersonation)!!!!

more cat pictures

hello out there, i just returned from an amazing two day class is the wonderful town of Lafayette Indiana (Purdue university)!!  I took a class with the “Heat control Master of the Universe”!!!  I came away with a lot of new knowledge about glass and heat and gravity!  Jim is a wonderful teacher and is very methodic about the steps in which to take to make a fine shaped bead!  I thought that we would really not be working on techniques so much and so i was prepared to give my brain to Jim and let him mold it into what he saw fit.  We did some techniques though that were really cool.  I did not know that gold fuming ivory turns it a beautiful pink, an AHA!!! moment!  i had many of those in his class!  He is a very nice and fun dude and i enjoyed meeting him and picking his brain!!!  Besides, he was friends with the one and only Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane!  I knew he had a fun spot in him, i just needed to poke at it, lol!!!!  One of the funny moments from the trip was at dinner.  He ordered a char rare steak!  he wondered if they would cook it to his liking and i told him “Jim, you are the master of heat control, go back there and show them how to char the outside while maintaining the rareness inside”!!!  he chuckled at that!!  I will post my pics with him tomorrow and I am still waiting for my beads that i made, the vase i won, oh yeah, i won it alright!  i told everyone not to even mention it or look at it because it was mine and you know what?  I WON!!  i walked away leaving my new armrests and the beads i bought sitting on my station, ugh so they are being shipped along with my second day class beads!!  Please go to the left of this blog for a link to his website, what a lovely man!!  I encourage everyone to take his class, it is quite amazing how he teaches and believe me you will have some lightbulb moments in his class!!!   I was so humbled to be in his class because he is one of the few pioneers in the American lampworking community that has brought this craft/art back onto the map!!  Thank you Jim!!!  I will always remember the class and meeting you!

This is just embarassing, I do not have many people signed up for my “Around The World Free” contest!!!  If you look to the left you will see a page marked for this contest!  I will draw on the 1st every month and I have a sneeking suspicion that once everyone sees what they win they will want to be a part of it!  Like all things human, it will have to generate a following, so come on, sign up, you never know!!  You have to read the page to the left “Around the World Free” and accept the criteria mentioned and then sign up!!!  I want to meet people from around the world and know about where they are from for goodness sakes (Deep breath in, hold, exhale)!!!  lol!!!  Oh, by the way, i am gone tomorrow and friday so if you sign up i will get back to you on saturday!!!!!!!!  Peace out bead lovers!!!

This is Susan Allen’s bracelet from Alabama!!  I hope she loves it and takes a picture of herself with it so i can put it on here!!  It is a mixture of my glass beads with Hilltribe silver mixed in and fun and bright swarovski crystals!  Enjoy!!!  God Bless the USA!

By now you have figured out that I am home two days early!  Yeeeessssss, my family decided to return due to Mark having business, Amanda starting her summer quarter at UC and the hormonal teens Anna and Shannon needed to attend Teen Night at the local swim club!  This leaves me!  It is true that I need to make beads and I am also leaving for a Jim Smircich class (kudos to Sue Daniel for picking me to win 1/2 of the class fee, yay) on Thursday!  However, the fact that they all have told me to never book a 10 day trip again because it is way to long for us to be gone just made me frown!  I am the only one in the family that enjoys loooonnnngggg vacations and they enjoy 1 week vacations.  Ok, ready for this?  here is the kicker, i mean kick you down the street and then kick you some more kicker!  We were due to fly out on tuesday (again, tomorrow, not today, not yesterday, but tomorrow) and of course it would have cost us more than the ticket itself to fly home early, and a one way was over 500 per ticket, soooooo (here it comes…..) my husband and Amanda had the idea to drive 16 hours home!  They started this on Friday night and I told them that there was NO WAY I was driving when i had  a perfectly fine ticket to fly me home!  However, the next morning it was incredibly stormy and it was to last the whole day and the next day!  Mark and I were sitting under an awning drinking coffee and watching the storm which was oddly like Heaven to me (I love storms and the sounds they make, so watching one over the ocean was perfect!).  I called Yelton’s to find out how the bead situation was and Tina said “We need beads, AND we have orders”!  Mark then (with a smile and a devilish look in his eye) started whittling me down to nothing and working his magic on why we should leave and the benefits to myself!  I gave in and told him and everyone else that I would only do it if there was no arguement when I had to stop for a bathroom break( I am afterall almost 42), a pecan log or any other drink or snack that I wanted!  I also did not want to drive (hint:  I would have but he does not need to know that)!  They agreed, we packed and were out of the hotel within 1 1/2 hours of watching that beautiful storm!!!!!!!  I have never seen them move sooo fast!  Anna and Shannon were happy but also could have stayed!  We took our car back and rented another car for a one way because Enterprise currently does not allow that!  We rented a full size with comfy seats and we were on our way!  We stopped around 1 in the morning because my back (two back surgeries) was hurting (boo hoo) and we got 2 rooms, slept for 5 hours and continued on.  We did not get out of Tampa until 4:30 pm!  We arrived home yesterday around noon!!  Well, that is the story of our return!!!  Now, take a look at the pictures and ejoy!!  We had a great time and loved every minute of it until the family reached their limit on 5 people in a room and sand!!

A girl has to have fun!!

SUNSET!!!

our snorkeling trip!  Great shot of a dolphin around our boat!

Hey, i thought I was the Ca, oooohhhh, I am the KAlypso queen!!!!!

 Ok, these are the houses of 4 celebrities!!  For sure the third house is Hulk Hogans house where they filmed the first seasons and to date, Linda has the house now and Hulk lives on the Beach in a condo!  The fourth house is the former house of Tom Cruise!  One of the other houses is John Travolta’s house and the other was Heather Locklear and Richie Sambora’s house!  We also passed Lisa marie Presley’s house where she lives now!  I loved seeing Hulks house because i watched the show!  The guy driving the boat says he is the nicest person in town and that when the kids were young he and the kids were always in town (clearwater) and on the beach or eating and that he was a good dad!  It is terrible everything that is going on with the family right now!  I think it is a bad time to be getting divorced when the son is going to jail, how lonely for the two of them to deal with that without each other!  oh well, i really do not know except to say that i hate divorce, it really tears people apart (no pun intended)!

Yes, they took pics of each other the whole time!  It was a ritual to get dressed with makeup and everything to go out in the evening and take pictures of each other!  Notice there are not any of me?  i guess i have passed that stage, YA THINK?  The perils of age spots!  there are a couple though!

OK, IS IT ME OR IS CAPTAIN JACK GROPING MY TEENAGE DAUGHTER?????  I was not there for this! 

My Beauties!!

Alrighty, the story of the alien!  He is always at the beach in the evening and really thinks he is an alien!  He walks up and down the beach and will stop and just stand for a while!  This is what the people of Clearwater say!  he comes from a wealthy family and has been doing this for a looooonnnnngggg time.  i say it is a schtick!!!!  They say he really believes it.  Anna came home from clearwater last month and told me about him so when we saw him she and Shannon had to have pictures with him!  Well, not WITH him, but close to him!!  hee hee!

shannon is taking the picture!

I am home early, explanation to come!  Just checking in quick and I will be posting my pictures later today!  Meanwhile there was great jubilation over my return (hee hee)!  It seems everyone gathered together with their diet cokes and mentos to welcome me home (I wish)!  watch this!

Ok, so I hear that my beads are really selling and already yelton’s is taking special orders!!  The thing is, I will be gone until June 27th!  I will start on beads as soon as I return, I am sure I will be missing the torch a lot by then!!  Thanks for being patient and I will be happy to make bunches of colorful beads after sitting my rear on the beach for sooooo long! lol!!  Take care and enjoy this video!!!  Therapy 101, if you stare at it long enough you will smell the ocean!!  Ha ha!!!

Yelton’s received more beads from me today - hmmm I think that makes a total of 80 beads in one week!!  Yes, i need a few days at the beach!!  Later Gators, oh, that’s my Florida slang! I’m so cool! Well, I will be hot on the beach, no not that kind of hot, temperature hot! Picture me with my high sunscreen and hat!! What can I say, I turned into my mother!!! time for bed! ZZZZZZZzzzzzz……..dreaming of beach….zzzzzz..dreaming of a breeze and the sound of seagulls…….xxxx - oh, wrong letter…zzzzz

Here are some pics of the peyote style bracelet that Linda made for me!  I love it, it is soooo different and definately ME!!  The other picture is a bracelet i made with my glass beads.  Let me know if you are interested in an original design (It can not be duplicated as each piece is special) from Linda!!!!  Thanks and Have a great night!  Hopefully I will be able to post from Florida, if not I will return June 23rd!!!!  Here I come beautiful beach!!!

Hello out there!  This is some quick pictures i promised, OF COURSE they still have bead release in them and are uncleaned, even dusty!!  Oh well, the finished product is cleaned and ready when i take them to the store!!!  Take a look at them and see what you think.  The sun was going down so color is not great!  Have a great night!!!  Happiness to all!

Making beads can sometime feel like an assembly line.  But then, something strange happens when I stop for the night!!!  I wake up and realize why i do what i do, I LOVE IT!!  I have the greatest job, it is a passion and it makes me smile~  It is kind of like when your kids are young and you cannot wait to get a weekend away.  Then, all you do is think of them and are so happy when you get home!!  I hope that makes sense!!  I hope you enjoy this video of LUCY!!  Assembly line?  classic!!! If only my beads tasted good!!

Well, i could not put all of the pictures on here but a total of 45 beads is going to Yelton’s today around 4 oclock!  Also the special orders!  i will also have another batch next week!  I hope you like some of the pictures of the beads!  I had fun playing with them.  How about the totem????  I am such a nerd!!  lol!  That is spidey in the first picture, he was with me the whole time (about 1 hour just in case you are a specific person)!  He jumped on my lens a few times, ha!  i love spiders, they are so intricate and their webs are amazing!  BBBUUUUUTTT, i do not like it if they touch me, or get on me!  I had one on me this week in my car and my friend was with me and i was freaking out, it was on my arm!  She is a nurse and very calm, thank goodness because i was not liking it very much!  This guy did not jump on me but he reared his little head and front legs at me, hee hee!  The amazing Spidey!!!  Watch this adorable mama when she is scared by her own cub!  this is what i looked like in the car, and probably was eating too!!  see ya,

steph

So busy but i thought i would put a couple of cool beads on the site.  they are not cleaned out yet and they will be lined with silver.  i love the way the silver collects like a grid and appears to be gold on the second photo.  Yep, those are untouched colors, doesn’t raku do lovely things?  The first pic is wide and looks like a napkin ring, hee hee, i would wear it around my neck though!!!  That is my pinky finger!!!  more pics tomorrow!!

Peace

A RAINBOW appeared outside after the blackness went away!!  The picture does not do it justice with my camera but oh well, it was lovely!!  i hope that is the end of the storms for a while!  Check out my gallery, there are some new pictures added!  Have a great night, off to watch “So You Think You Can Dance”!!!

Ciao!!

Oh my, we have had so many thunderstorms today, AGAIN!!  My oldest daughter and her workplace have taken cover in their basement and my family and I are in our basement!  Alot of Tornado warnings all around us are happening and the sky is black!!!  This has been two bad days in a row!!!  I was in my studio torching and my daughter came and said “Mom, look outside, the sky is black and it was fine two minutes ago”!  I could not hear because i was listening to Raskal Flatts and firing away!!  i am going to keep an eye on all of this and then return to my beads later!!!  There will be some eye candy tomorrow on this blog!!  Check out my around the world page, i would love to hear from you!!!!  This video is extreme!  I will probably be dreaming tornadoes tonight, ugh, I hate those dreams, they are so real!!!  Watch this!!

steph

Today we had bad weather which normally amounts to thunderstorms, tornado watches and maybe a tornado warning somewhere other than where we live.  Most of the time it is in Northern Kentucky!  I love thunderstorms but i am deathly afraid of tornadoes!  I feel for the people that live in the land of Tornadoes!!!!  I have been torching today, i will post a couple of pics tomorrow, nothing too exciting, stuff i have done before and needed to make for special orders.  Going back to bad weather, this guy is nuts!!!  Watch this!!
object width=”425″ height=”344″>