The beads went to yelton’s today but they are having a pandora event so i am sure that they will not even get processed until Monday.  If I were you guys I would just wait because it is so crazy in there that they did not even have time to look at my beads or talk to me!  Have a great weekend!!  You guys are going to love the “Inner Diva” beads and the “Gold Digger” beads.  A new style that i am sure will you will all like!  I am going to have to make me a whole bracelet of them both!!  Oh, and before I go, i took a picture of my first pmc creation, it is a two sided lentil with a bail attached to it!  I put it in the liver of sulphur to patina it and it turned out pretty good for my first time.  hey, i love doing things like that.  Now i get to work with pmc which is metal clay, silver or gold or bronze.  You mold it, texture it, fire it, sand it, patina it and polish it, yay!!!!

Well, I just cannot have a contest with 2 emails so i am suspending the “around the world free” contest for now!  When and if more people show an interest in this contest I will try again!  It is unclear whether people just do not want the beads, do not want to send me something, I don’t know!  I know people are busy and I thought it would be a cool thing to do but I cannot win them all so for now, no contest!  Take at a look at the new beads below, more out of the kiln in around 3 hours!  i love that time, it is like looking under the christmas tree when I was little, as I ran down the stairs and started counting the presents that were mine!  Honestly, it really is, making things are so cool!!!

So here are some of the beads i made yesterday, just a sampling!  i really love the goldstone with the cz’s.  these are bigger than the troll size but could be a ending bead on the bracelet or wear with the stock.  I love them.  Also, i made some dichro smaller beads for the bracelets but the dichro was sooooo bright that i muted it by etching them to give them a glow like frosted glass.  hope you enjoy.  Beads to yelton’s very soon!!!  There are more in the kiln and then more i will make tonight!!  I love the simple nature of the goldstone beads and the dichro beads.  sometimes less is more, you will just have to see these to love these.  I hope to be able to make tons of these, although the goldstone ribbon and cz’s and dichro happen to be the most expensive things to use.  1 oz of goldstone ribbon is 80.00 because it comes from a famous glass artist named Vittorio Constantini!  He lives in murano and made a bunch of the ribbon for Mike Frantz and Mike decided to sell it because virtually no one makes it.  This was a Corina trip thing.  I was able to get my hands on more of it so YAY i am happy.  I work with murano glass but WOW what a beautiful place, so peaceful you would never want to come home.  Sometime I am going to write a little bit about the history of beadmaking and how it came to be and how it has now come to the west.  It is exciting to be a part of a history so rich in meaning and culture.  ok, no more rambling for now, i hope you love the new beads i used these great components with, you will not see goldstone of this nature any where else I believe!!!  Have a great day!!

Pictures tomorrow of some of the beads i have been working on.  They are definately not stuffy or snooty, but fun and funky!!!  I used a little bit of goldstone, silver glass, dichroic glass and some cubic zirconia’s (the top grade kind)!  You will just have to wait for pictures tomorrow.  Oh, and i had glass pop onto my face, which has happened before but this time it stuck and burned really nasty!  Blisters are forming, oh know, not my beautiful model like face, hee hee!!!!!  A big shout out to Lindsey my awesome friend who so liberally gave me a bunch of silvadene cream (prescription).  It really needs to work its magic on my face.  Maybe i should wrap it up, you never know i could come out looking like Angelina or something!!  Ok, a girl can dream! ha!  tomorrow then, and yes I know that i type in fragmented sentences.  I do it more when i am tired so please forgive me, pretty please????!!!!!

Oh my gosh, hidden cameras (especially Howie Mandel) just crack me up!!!  It is amazing what people will do while their brains are obviously not engaged.  This is what makes us humans survive life, just taking things as they come and not having the slightest clue as to what is going on!!!  Hee Hee!  What would we do without laughter and fun?  I guess we would pay more at Jiffy Lube!!

Well, today is a nice crisp fall day outside and I made it out this morning to take a few quick pictures and then down to the studio, no longer a dungeon, but still enough in disarray that i feel like I have ADD!  I have to focus on glass but i want to organize and play around as well.  I still have three glass boards to make for the rest of my glass.  BOO HOO, life is so hard that all i have to worry about is making beads and cleaning up my cool space.  What more can a girl ask for??  Here is a picture of my three amigo’s this past week.  We walked for Team Yelton in honor of Lindsey’s (in the middle) daughter Adams.  There was quite the turn out and we were all amazed to see how many people showed up.  The red and white balloons twinkled with light and we carried gold balloons which represented a lost life to this terrible disease.  It was really exciting to see the support that everyone felt.  You could feel it in the cool October air and it really was a touching but bittersweet moment to see all (including my friend) walk for a cause greater than themselves.  I hope that it will not be too far off that cancer will be wiped from the earth as it has taken so many of our loved ones.  Now, back to the torch because time is a wastin’

 Diana, Lindsey and Jan!

cz’slittle lentils!

Sooooo, my wonderful and just plain cool friends left yesterday and I spent the rest of the day putting my glass on the wall!!  Well, i still have plenty of glass and i need about 2 to 3 more of the boards.  I was back at the torch for the first time in two weeks today and spent 5 hours playing.  All of you who have ordered beads will have them soon because those are the first beads i have torched.  i should have a shipment to Yelton’s by friday and yes I will have some new and fun stuff.  So, for now i am signing off because i need to get back downstairs!!  Tomorrow i will show a couple of beads and a couple of pictures of my friends.  stay tuned….oh, and it is nice to be back!! 

Here is the latest pictures, but, the floor is not done yet, neither is my glass put up or my desk in there or some other pictures.  However, good enough to get the idea.  Oh, no door either, it is coming soon!!!  I cannot wait to see what we do in there, these are talented gals!!!

two stations, oops oxy not bolted to the walls yet!!!  Messy table with stuff i need to organize and put away still.  I really need a nice floor, huh????  You cannot see the other corner to the left, that is where my L shaped desk will go for all of the really important things going on in my life, hee hee!!!  You know, email, shopping and writing this blog.  Oh yeah, and bills, ugh!  now back to my studio!  I must get my rug for the main part, not where the popping glass goes so it burst out in flames or anything, just a pop of “coolness” for the floor!  Also, I need more pictures and my tables still for my jewelry area and my riveting silver area.  So, there is still a lot to do but at least we can get in there as of today!!!

And this is my new clock, her tongue swings back and forth and she needs more coffee.  i got this at the Seattle airport on the way home from Corina’s!!

 That’s it for now!!!  Fun times ahead, many fun times but for now I must leave you to go play with my friends! 

Well, my studio is just about complete, I am hanging pictures and working on my glass wall storage and generally still de-dusting, if that is a word!!!  I am so excited that I will be back to work so there will be a lot more beads at Yelton’s sometime in the near future.  My friends from Chicago are coming wednesday and I am excited to see them.  When they leave I will be sad but I will be ready to be in the studio all day long, everyday!!!  While I might be as excited as a Bird of Paradise, I am certainly not as interesting of a subject!!  Check out this video made by Planet Earth, the world of creatures make me smile from ear to ear and dance from the inside!! 

Well, I am gearing up for the debate party I am going to tonight!  The election this year is more important than ever and I am going to be rooting on my guy and of course chastising the other guy!  Of course I am not injecting politics into this blog because this is a place where people can come freely and not have opinions forced on them.  So, I will keep “my guy” a secret, except to my friends in attendance.  I am sure it will be a riotous event and I will have a good time.  Aside from politics my space got painted today and the ceiling will be tomorrow.  It is getting closer and I am going bonkers to get on the torch at this point, maybe I am addicted to the propane and I am having withdrawal??  Hmmmmm!  No, I am missing my glass, it is sooo pretty and fun to work with.  Enjoy your weekend!!!

moar funny pictures

Ok, well, um, I am sooooo bored beyond belief.  I can only do so much laundry, cleaning and label making.  Yes, I am making labels for all of my glass because I am determined to be organized.  If you work with glass you will understand when i say this.  How many times have you mixed up your glass only to open the kiln and have a cracked bead??  Well, I do not do that very often BUT for the purpose of my organization I had to write something.  i am very excited because when i went to see Corina she had this cool way of wall organization of glass so she could see what she had with the glass lying horizontal and not in cubbies, this way the light grabbed on and you could look up and see right away if you had a glass that you wanted or were inspired by just looking at all of it.  However, since I have soooo many colors, probably at least 100 or more (I don’t really know so I guess I will find out) it will be nice to display it this way.  I will show you pictures once it is up.  As of right now, the builders are NOW coming friday, saturday and sunday.  So I will probably be on the torch by Tuesday and my friends come on Wednesday!!  They can give me ideas!  As of right now the walls are primed but the ceiling is not up yet and then they have to paint the walls and the cement floor.  Whew, I am really getting impatient because I want to be in my new room.  Check out this kitty, man oh man my dogs would be mince meat!!! You have to run your computer mouse over the black box to get the arrow to play this cute video! Meow!

Funny Videos

Ok, this is just sooooo funny!  Enjoy!

Soooo, the builders will be here tomorrow to do my ceiling, paint my walls and move my stations out to paint the concrete floor.  The end is in sight, but the dust is NOT!  Bare with me and I should have beads in the next week or so!  Right now it is impossible to torch because everything is unhooked and they have to bring my ventilation down to put up the ceiling.  So, there is not much to talk about in the way of “interesting” banter.   These are my words for the day, “Express Yourself”!

Well, so I have been still down as far as the torch goes, too much dust AND they had to disconnect from the oxy and propane because they were going around the hoses putting up the drywall and encasing my outside to inside hoses with a cooler look than just holes in the brick!!!  Yay!  So, i have been reading, well, and making homemade vegetable beef soup!  I have gone so far to make my own broth and believe me that is really not like me at all!  So anyway, I have compiled a list of recycleable items that can help out charities, imagine helping others less fortunate out?  I am so lazy sometimes that I forget that lots of different items can help others you would not think of and so I thought I would point them out to you!

CELL PHONES - The Wireless Foundation fixes old phones and then hands them out to domestic violence survivors (www.calltoprotect.org)

COMPUTERS - You can donate old computers to www.Nextsteprecycling.org and they will repair them and give them to schools that are underfunded and needy families

CROCS (Yes i typed CROCS) - Take your old crocs and mail them to Crocs Recycling West, 3375 Enterprise Ave., Bloomington CA 92316 and they will recycle them into new shoes and donate them to underpriviledged families.  NOW THAT is NOT a croc!!!

EYEGLASSES (METAL) - Donate old or broken glasses to www.neweyesfortheneedy.com and they will fix them and give them to the needy.  Also you can donate sunglasses and plastic frames in good condition as well.  If you do not want to send them, stop at any LensCrafters or Target Optical and they will send them to www.givethegiftofsight.org

GADGETS - Recycle PDA’s MP3 players and other devices to www.Recycleforbreastcancer.org and they will send you prepaid shipping labels.  They will then recycle them and donate the proceeds to breast cancer charities.  It is a win/win because they also stay out of landfills.

HEARING AIDS - used hearing aids, any make or model even if they are quite old can be fixed and be donated for reuse to someone who cannot afford or does not have healthcare.  Go to www.donateglasses.net/hearingaids.html and you can find a collection center

HOLIDAY CARDS - St. Jude’s Ranch for Children www.stjudesranch.org (a non-profit home for abused an neglected youths) uses old cards for the kids who cut off the fronts of the old cards and glue them onto new cards and sell them in which they earn money and it creates confidence in them.

*****CFL lightbulbs might last a long time but be careful if they break because they have mercury in them.  You should wear rubber gloves and ventilate the room for 15 minutes.  Clean up the debris with cardboard and secure small pieces with duct tape and put it all in a plastic bag, seal it up and throw it in the trash

This is just some of the things I found informative in the September issue of REAL SIMPLE!  If you want to see more, and there is LOTS more, buy yourself a copy!!!  I loved this months copy, so much so that it was real simple to give you all a little info!!!!

OH YEAH, PICS OF MY STUDIO, IT IS SOOOO BIG, I AM SOOOO LUCKY!!  As you can see, not much going on there in the way of making beads, I cannot wait to show the finished pics.  Oh, and the first picture is the finished part TRASHED, ugh!!!!

Yes, I have a window that is in the insided of my house so I can see out to the woods through the house and get also natural light.  the door opening will be double french doors with NO grids, just glass!

my covered work areas for my two torches and my great ventilation piped outside

The left side going to the new unfinished part, double doors will go there and my desk and computer will be to the left of those in an L shape

Peace!!!

Hello all, i will have the beads there on Monday but they have been so crazy getting back to normal and Tina out of town that they will be on the floor Wednesday, so try and stop by or call then!    Check out these Angora Bunnies, are they the funniest or what???  I know I need a haircut and color but this is ridiculous!  They are adorable, what you can see of them!!

 ”Help me, someone put me up on this table and if I move I will fall!”

Yes, it is official,  the builders are currently in the basement working on my new studio and I am hoping to maybe be in there one more day for more beads before the drywall guys come.  It will be way to dusty then and the ceiling will require me to unhook everything.  Right now I can sneak in there until Saturday.  It is so loud today while they build the walls, they started just 2 hours ago and I have a kiln full of beads so hopefully I will like them.  There will be no more delays, wind, rain or shine, they will be there on Monday.  The update on my back is that I will have surgery when I can no longer stand it.  Picking up sticks and stuff really threw me over the edge and I am not moving very well.  It is so hard to stand out there and stare at people clean up when you want to help.  I cannot rake, that motion will put me in bed, but bending down with my legs and picking smaller pieces up I thought would be ok, uh, NOT!!  I am so peeved!  What is worse is that Mark yelled at me the whole time to stop and I said , “oh, this will be fine honey, no problem”!  He replied “I really mean it Steph, stop”!  I said “No honey, I am not going to just stand here” and he said “I don’t want to hear it when you cannot move”!  DRATS!!  I hate it when he is right!  Ugh!  Oh well, take a look at this Japanese prank, don’t worry you do not see any major body parts!!!  This is hysterical, just like all the others.  Those Japanese people are funny, what senses of humor they have!  I love it!!!!  You have to wait until the end though because the prank changes and it is laugh out loud funny.  Just imagine if this was you!!  But really, who walks around naked like that?  We women know better, ha ha!!