Beady gift

my one and only "beady friend" has decided to give up beading, which saddens me quite a bit, as she was my only buddy that I had to share my bead addiction with, go to bead shows with ect......sure I still have my hubby , he is a willing victim, he will go to the shows with me, and will look at my projects, and even make some decent suggestions and comments on my efforts.....but its just not the same.....Sure Jayne and I will still be friends, but some how its not the same....we are getting together tomorrow evening......she is gifting me with all her beady stuff......and I am happy to give it all a good home, but will be doing it with a sad heart.........I'd much rather have her as my partner in beady adventures.......

on a happier note, one of my hubbies friends is going to help me get my own website set up to try and market some of my jewelery, he is a computer nerd/ photographer....so will help me with both taking pics of my work, and getting it online!

Happy Birthday Lori Anderson

Today is Lori Anderson 's 1000th blog post birthday! Happy blog birthday Lori! She is doing a give away on her blog in celebration of her 1000th post, so head on over and check it out!

Gem and mineral show

I went to the Gem and mineral show, this past weekend, it was supposed to be just me and my hubby........but my inlaws dropped in unexpectidly, so they went with us, and we had a great time. My mother inlaw is crafty and my father inlaw indulges her just like his son does me, so its all good! There were so many vendors selling so many beautiful colors of crystal, it was almost like sparkle overload, almost too over welming. I had sold some jewelery this past week so had some spending money I could use with out feeling guilty.......and I have to say I went a little crazy, I was looking for a particular shade of blue....a light blue with a slight grey tinge to it, and of course I forgot my sample at home, so I crossed my fingers and bought what looked closest to what I remembered it to be. Then I found some deep red kind of opaque crystal rondels, that were really unique, they looked velvety, and sparkley at the same time, a very rich red that looked like fresh drops of blood, I named them in my head vampires kiss, after I made some earrings out of themI think they would make some really awsome vampire genere jewelery.....
I am still frusterated with my use the muse kit, they just don't supply enough beads to get any where with it.........I am out of the toho hybrid beads, and can't order them from Art beads,(they are out of them) which is the supplier for use the muse. I searched the net and finally found them at Bello Mondo, so have ordered some, the blue crystals were something I had added to the kit, and ran out of, so now thanks to the weekend shopping trip I have plenty of those. I had some size 11 matte blacks in my stash, so when I ran out of those I used mine......I ran out of all the crystals in the kit, now have more, so just waiting on the toho apollo/ jet hybrid 6's........hopefully they will get here soon as I am at a stand still till then..........
I finished a swap bracelet tonight........for a swap called rebelious mothers day bracelet, my partner and I discussed it and weren't sure what a rebelious bracelet would look like, something out of the norm? but everyones idea of normal is different........so I did two drop peyote, in browns and greens, earthy colors, my partner likes gardening, flowers and bugs.........so my bracelet is called garden path.......it has flowery fringe on the edges, a toggle with butterflies on it,
and a dangle with a dragonfly on the end and branched fringe with leaves and flowers on it, it turned out really cute, but not too rebelious........ I will post a picture as soon as I can take some

Use the muse

well ......I have been working on my use the muse project, and am almost at a stand still, as I need to either order some more beads on line, or go to my lbs and buy some more beads......but that will have to wait till mid week when I have some money.......I can probably do a couple more inches on my chain before I run out, and I still need to figure out how to Incorporated the muse into what I have going.......I have a beautiful lampwork vessel that I bought from Highwater Studio in Coquille Oregon, that has swirls of the same colors as the beads in the muse kit, I added a few colors of my own to make it go even better, so I plan on dangling the vessel from the muse, I just have to figure out how to do it.........but I figure I'll worry about that when the time comes.....when I have the chain the length I need .......its looking kind of interesting and organic in a way.........earthy colors with tigers eye, and two types of dark grey pearls, some two tone hybrid size 6 beads and two sizes of golden shadow crystals and a pretty light blue rondel crystal, and some shiny black 15's some soft brown matte 15's and some matte black 11's, plus some fall colored size 8's as core beads..........kind of a mix of matte understated colors and muted crystal sparkle.....I think its going to work

Bead swap

When I got my mail this morning, my package from my swap partner was waiting for me! It was full of all kinds of cool beady stuff! and some really nice pendants and a really pretty enameled butterfly! I really loved the butterfly...... Lots of gem stone chips and some candy jade beads that are very pretty, and some wonderful furnace glass in green( my favorite color!) woo hoo!! I am going to be good and not play with any of it till I get my Use The Muse project done.........its going to be hard to do, because the muse isn't talking to me.........unfortunately it is something totally outside my comfort zone, I am really going to have to work hard at integrating it into my project..........I love the over all colors of the bead kit, but had to add a lot of stuff to fill it out enough to actually make something........I have never done the use the muse competition before so didn't really know what to expect. Well the weather here today is beautiful, and supposed to be in the 60's so I think I will put on a light jacket and go for a bike ride and enjoy the sunshine,
its really looking like spring, with all the cherry trees in bloom !

pics of my latest work

here are a couple pics of what I have been working on, the cabochon is one of the ones my hubby bought me this past weekend, sorry about the glare on it.......the necklace it a bottle covered in peyote stitch, done in my favorite shade of red, it looks almost juicy and delicious in person!

gifted with a treasue chest of goodies.......

Last friday my hubby came home from work saying he had been chatting with the ladies in the office at work, and my beading came up, well the man that is in charge of HR over heard in passing....so he asked my hubby if I might be interested in a box full of jewelery findings.......so Ed came home and asked me, but he had already told Chaz that I would definitely be interested. So yesterday Ed cam home with a storage box that was literaly full of beady stuff.......lots of clasps, some 14 k, and lots of SS, some SS beads and gold filled ones too, some nice bone barrel clasps with metal insets, some beautiful cobalt blue glass beads, and a bunch of really nice bead caps, and a lot more stuff too numerous to mention......needless to say, I felt like I had been given a treasure chest. or at the very least christmas had come early! It was so much more and such nice quality I was really suprised to be gifted with it, silly but I feel blessed

What a deal !

My Hubby surprised me with a weekend at the coast this past weekend! It was a combination holiday/ work trip.......he had to check on a job site at the coast, so the company paid for a motel for us and he spent a few hours working and the rest of the time with me! We had a lot of fun, and he took me to several bead shops! one of them had a trunk show the lady does fused glass and dicro cabs, and did I ever get a good deal, she had 4x4 baggies, and you could fill them as full as you could and still close them for 20.00, I managed to get 13 into my baggy! a large pendant, two dicho buttons and 10 other nice sized cabs I've added a couple pics of some of them..........so between beach combing bead stores and eating all kinds of fresh seafood. I had a perfect weekend! even the weather cooperated, it was light clouds gentle winds and sunny! in the low 60's it was amazing......