old friends

a few months ago, actually back before my dad passed away, an old friend from my distant past, contacted me.......She was my best friend during my childhood years, and teen years.........we drifted apart as we moved in different directions, she went to Seattle, I moved to Portland........we got together once on thanksgiving at my moms house, when my kids were about 5 and 6, we haven't seen each other since, its been about 25 years.......So she was in town yesterday, and we got together for lunch, had a great time, and discovered we are both jewelery makers, she is more into metal work, chain male and the like, I am a bead weaver, but starting to branch out into a little metal work myself,(going to teach myself torch enameling) She brought me a strand of mauve pearls she had just hand knotted, they are beautiful.....and she picked out a pair of beaded earrings from my stock pile.....we went window shopping and had a wonderful time.........wish we lived closer, it would be nice to get together to make jewelery together.........I was amazed that we just seemed to pick up where we left off all those years ago........So I guess I got my Christmas present early........getting my old friend back!!!

I won't be able to submit a picture of the finished piece, for the jewelery swap, because I didn't get to do it yet, we have been working on my work space, I bought a complicated armoire thing called a scrapbox, its nice with lots of storage, but we haven't figured out lighting for it, and my room it is in has bad lighting, and my eye sight is failing, so need to use a mag light for beading, so haven't gotten my project finished yet, sorry
    As soon as my work area is well lit, I will get my swap project finished,  and put some pics up

Norma's zoo

I am beginning to feel like I am running a zoo........it started out with two kittens, back in August.......they were tiny black and white tuxedo babies. Now they are 1/2 grown cats getting big and sleek and beautiful, and very spoiled, then the day before halloween, my hubby bought me a Pom puppy, black and tan, he looks like a walking powder puff on speed, he is so hyper........Then last night he brought home a short haired tiny kitten that has obviously been surviving on its own for a while, it was almost hit by a car on his job site, so he rescued it and of course brought it home to me she is mostly white with dark gray and orange spots, I would have named her moo, because of the spots, but hubby insists on lucky..........let me tell you my original two cats are pretty pissed to say the least,(please excuse the language)but it fits they are very angry not only do they hiss and swat at the two new babies, they also hiss and swat at me, and these were my babies..........I am sad they are so upset, the puppy is driving me crazy......I never pictured myself with a foo foo dog, (old lady dog), but I guess its official now I am an old lady, I was at the casino the other day, and found out I an now considered a senior by them, I get the senior discount..........much to my hubbies delight, he thinks its funny, he told me it was ok to have an old lady dog, cause I was officially an old lady now..........I turned 55 on my last b-day.........I'm sure once the puppy is older he might calm down a bit     (I can only hope)......he is adorable, every where we go he gets all kinds of compliments, he smiles all the time.........and can he ever scream, he met my grandsons dog,.....a large mutt of some kind, and scared the poor thing to death, my puppy started screaming at the top of his lungs, so loud he had my ears ringing, we were all cracking up it was so funny. Ok........ I thank you for letting me vent, I'm sure things will improve in time, as the critters all start maturing, I need to take the two older ones in to be spayed and neutered, and I need to take the younger two in for their first visit to the vet, I guess it will have to be three trips, so as to not have a war going on in my pet carriers.........I asked my hubby last night, what he was bringing home next time..........with him, the thought kind of scares me

playing with clay

digging through some of my unpacked boxes, I ran across some poly clay, from about 15 years ago, when my son and I tried our hands at making beads (really ugly beads)......well I decided to see if it was still good, so I kneaded it for a while and rolled it out and used some of my new rubber stamps to put a textural design on it, then used a plastic tube that a pair of ergonomic tweezers came in,( it is square shaped with rounded edges) to cut tiles out with.....then put holes in to one corner of each tile, and baked them....they looked ok, the design  on them looked good, but they were just plain matt grey colored, not too interesting. so then I went to my local michaels and got some Rubn'Buff, in antique gold, and used some of that to high light the raised portions of the pattern, it looked much better, but then decided to cover the edges and back as well.
Now I am happy with them, and plan to use them as dangles on earrings, I even made a pair to try them out.
  I just got my beads from Juls from Juls beads, I bought her skills on the torch for a day, and all I can say is wow, wow, wow!!! they are so beautiful! I used one of the earring pairs I got from her to make the above mentioned earrings and will post pictures as soon as I get some taken......

.waiting isn't easy

last friday I contacted Juls Cannon, about her offer to sell a days worth of her talent on the torch, I have ordered beads from her in the past and love them......so thought I would really love a whole days worth of beady suprises from her, I am so excited to see what she has made!!! because I really have no idea what she might come up with, other than I requested some focals and earring pairs-I will combine the earring pairs with the copper domed disks, I am planning on making as soon as all my supplies get here..........I found out my hubby has to teach a class on Saturday.........so my new work area/ storage  armoire won't get done till maybe Sunday, if I am lucky....it sure isn't easy waiting, but I'm sure one of these days I'll be doing the happy dance all over the house!!!! if the wait doesn't kill me first

getting back to my beading

I was checking out someones blog recently, and she was showing her studio, and her work area and storage....she mentioned she had gotten several or her studio items from overstock.com.........so I checked them out, and found  something called a workbox crafting  cabinet, I think it was intended for scrapbooking, but I thought it would fill my needs for beading and jewelery making as it has lots of storage and a work desk all in an armoire so I bit the bullet and ordered it, ..........it was kind of scary, as it was more money than I have ever spent on a single piece of furniture, and it was just for me, hard to justify, but I did it ......then had second thoughts a few days later and tried to cancel, but it was already on its way to me..........then I got a call from the company trying to deliver it to me, only to find out it would be coming in a semi truck, my house is in a neighborhood not accessible by a semi........so I had to have my hubby pick it up in Portland at the airport, and bring it home to me here in Longview..........so now it is sitting in the garage waiting for time when my hubby can take apart the big corner computer desk I have been using to bead on, and then put together this new cabinet........it will be beautiful, as it is nice quality furniture.........not some particle board type thing, its real wood, and an amazing amount of storage...........my only concern is lighting for the work area, but I guess we will deal with that after its all done.........I am anxious, to get it together......I want to start creating again.....I have bought some books on metal work, and want to try my hand at etching copper, and making some of my own jewelery findings......maybe even learn to do enameling.......I am slowly getting  my tools and other equipment together to do the etching, I have ordered the chemicals, got some copper blanks and a dapping block, I have a permanent ink stamp ordered, and have some really nice stamps, and I am getting excited...........I guess my muse has resurfaced!...........come on weekend hurry up and get here, I have some  honey- do's for hubby, and I want to create!!!

cute pumpkin bead give away

Raida  from Havana Beads is having a give away for these beautiful little pumpkin beads......I just love them!