Bead Soup Blog Party Partner

My bead soup party partner is Sandra Richardson of Sandy's Coloring Box, we have been in contact with each other several times through email, and even once through a phone call........she is a multi talented lady,and has many different creative outlets, she paints beautiful pictures, works with polymer clay, does glass fusing, and many other things as well.........I sent off my bead soup to here last Thursday, and she recieved it yesterday, ans says she likes it alot, in her package of yummy bead soup was a set of Juliana Cannon's beautiful lamp work beads, one of a set I got in one of her days work of torch work, that I recently bought from her, as hard as it was to part with them, I thought I would share since I don't actually "make" my own beads yet..........some day hopefully I will!
   Any way Sandy said that she has my beads all ready to go, she just has to drop them in the mail! I'm really excited to see what she has chosen for me!  And can't wait to get started on creating some thing from them!

new babies in the house

I know this blog was set up mostly to talk about my bead obsession, and to show my bead work......But last night a friend of my husband and I, discovered  something cool in our aquarium.........our Cichlids  (convict fish) have become parents......We originally were given a bunch of fish by another friend, about 8 or 9 years ago, and the parents of my two cichlids were part of those fish. they layed eggs and since we had a community tank I put the fry into a tank of their own, and raised them separately from the other fish........we had about forty babies survive, so I gave a lot of them away, and over the years we lost all but the two remaining fish.
   All this time I thought the last two were both male, so it was a big surprise to find babies in the tank last night! I am excited, the tank was looking a bit empty with just the two fish.......So looks like I am grandma to about 75 or so cute little baby fish!

seed bead giveaway!!!

Julianna Cannon of Julsbeads (my absolute favorite bead artist) is having a seed bead give away on her blog!!! all the goodies shown in the pic above.... lots of beady goodness!!! so if you are wanting some beady goodness head on over to Julsbeads and get in on it!  or maybe don't.........I want them !!!!

Bead Soup Blog Party

The Bead Soup Blog Party is just around the corner!!! And I for one can't wait, I have participated in all of them so far, and have really enjoyed them. Its so nice of Lori to do this for all of us beaders, its a good way to connect with fellow beaders and stretch our creativie abilities,  I know I have learned new techniques with both of the other parties...so I am looking forward to doing it again.....maybe this will wake up my muse?

a good time was had by all.......

we did a very untraditional Christmas eve  this year, since my daughter was working, and couldn't be with us, my hubby desided we would go to the casino to play a bit and have the sea food  buffett, he gave me and our son each a hundred dollars to play on, but mine didn't go very far, it just wasn't my day to win.  But my son did really well, he won a  950.00 jackpot! I was really happy for him, since he doesn't have a job yet, this will keep him going for a while,  my hubby did ok too, leaving a few hundred dollars over what he started with!  Dinner was wonderful, this place has the best buffett food I have ever had, the sea food is so fresh and yummy, salmom done about six different ways, the same with shrimp,  oysters on the half shell, and pan fried, mussels, steamed clams and fried ones, crawfish cajun style several different types of crab legs......prime rib, and rib eye steak, and a desert bar to die for......
   I did a traditional Christmas dinner, and it was so nice to have both kids home to share it with, its been a very long time since we have had Christmas as a whole family
  My daughter works for a very up scale grocery store, so she bought my christmas gift with a  gift certificate she got from her work, a big basket of gourmet goodies, including some Belgian fruit beers in bottles that look like small champagne bottles, they even had corks in the bottles, under neath the  metal caps......I has one with dinner tonight is was Pomme Lambic,(apple beer) it was so good, it was amazing, can't wait to try the other two .......one is peach and the other raspberry........its cool getting to try things I would never other wise try because of the expense, she got to use her employee discount on top of using her gift card so it didn't cost her anything, and it was a very nice gift!  And she was very happy with her goodies as well, she had hinted she was wanting a toaster oven, so that was her main gift, then I shopped all year long looking for small goodies I thought she would like, and also made her some  jewelery (some thing she just expects) I think her favorite was a pair of earrings I made from some poly clay kitties like the figurines you see in chinese  restraunts, she has commented  that she would like a figurine the last time we took my dad out for dinner.........so I thought she would like them, and she did

Christmas came early at my house!

A few weeks ago Juli from Julsbeads ran a special, limited to the first five people to respond, if I remember correctly it was 30% off of her skills on the torch for one day..........well I responded in time to be #2, and these beautiful beads are the result..........I haven't made up my mind which are my favorite, the funky little birds remind me of the birds depicted by the northwest native americans in their totem poles and the like.....
And the cross focal is destined to belong to my sister inlaw, if I can part with it.......it just looks like something she would love to wear, and the tabular focal and accent beads on the right hand side are just so beautiful, I think they will be mine fore sure.........looks like I am in for some fun times beading real soon!
   I had a suprise yesterday, I got a phone call from my son in Las Vegas, he wants to come "home" he has lived in Vegas now for about 8 or 9 years, and he really misses the northwest, all our trees and rivers and the ocean.........it just finally got to him I guess, so at this moment he is layed over in LA but should be here some time soon, can't wait to see him, it will be nice to have both of my children close to home again! What a wonderful Christmas present!
  I hope all of you have as wonderful a Christmas as I have been lucky to have!!!

early Christmas present

my christmas gift from my husband was delivered today by UPS.........and it was exactly what I wanted, he got me a nook, and I love it , I've already downloaded close to 50 books into it, I bought a couple, but Barns and Nobel has a pretty big list of free books, even a few I have heard of, so I got a couple cook books, and a bunch of fiction, its amazing how fast they downloaded, I ordered them from an email, and they went directly to the nook........I've already finished reading the first book I bought, its almost 2:00 am, I should be in bed, but can't sleep, so guess I will start another book.....