Well I am sure anyone following this blog (and surprisingly there are a few) can feel the absence as of late.  These summers are just brutal.  Try 99% humidity, 90+ degrees, a hot garage, a 1000 degree kiln, a 1400+ degree torch, and hot machines running.  It truly is unbearable and very stifling for production.  I know others go through this also and can relate.  We have so much going on here right now, that I have decided to take a break and reopen my store again when things calm down.  Lampworking for me is an outlet for creativity.  It is not full time, not part time, just a hobby and I sell to keep my hobby going.   After you really sit down and calculate how much you spend compared to how much you take in, on an average over a year, I lose money but I sell to hopefully lessen the constant glass buying and tool buying blow. 

We are also undergoing some house remodeling especially the kitchen, some electrical work for my studio, painting, my job, college is about ready to start again for Mark, its almost planting season again, the list goes on… So I am taking a break and will have a grand reopening when stuff is sorted out and its cooler out.  I am still planning on blogging occasionally, so still look out.

I hope everyone had a wonderful July 4th.   My hubby and I had a cookout and relaxed.  It was a really nice day. 

The bead sales have been pretty slow these last few weeks and it has given me a chance to wrap my mind around finally making this house mine.  When we switched houses with my parents we spent so much time getting our other house ready for sale, that we kind of never really settled into this house and set it up as our own.  We are getting ready to start rehabing our kitchen.  When we left the other house, we had just got done starting from scratch rebuilding our dream kitchen which is twice the size as the one we have now.  It is the only thing I really miss other than its open floor plan.  We are not planning on putting in new cabinets as it would be too expensive right now but new countertops and painting out the cabinets and taking down the wallpaper and possibly making our pantry work better for us.  We are going for a grey cabinet door with white base, glass tile backsplash, a light lime green wall, and glass knobs.

I haven’t been on the torch in a week or two.  I haven’t had any custom orders recently and just haven’t felt very much like sweating.  For anyone that has read my blog for a while, I am sure you have figured out that the heat in Florida just doesn’t do anything for creativity.  I really think that is like that for a lot of people.  What I am working on is a message center for us that includes a dry erase calendar, a wine cork bulletin board, a fabric covered picture board, and a magnetic board.  My dad is going to frame them all in the same wood and I plan on painting them the same colors as the kitchen colors.  I will definitely post a photo after I am done.  I have 700 wine corks here just waiting to be used.  Funny part about the whole thing is Mark and I don’t drink alcohol.  Neither of us have ever liked the taste and I just can’t get past what beer looks like poured.   I am hoping that it will help us better keep track of our schedules and to keep better track of our planting schedules in the garden.  There is nothing like home grown tomatoes and cucumbers. 

Anyway, I just wanted to post an update and let you know what is going on with me and make sure you knew I was still living. 

It has been a while since my last post.  It has been super hot here this week and the air conditioner is straining under the pressure.  We are definitely going to have to get it upcharged.  It has been raining here nearly every day and for a while there it was nonstop.  Flooding all over the place here and the stream in the backyard was creeping up.  It makes it very difficult to get to the torch as I am not able to torch when it is raining, though I have gotten some torch time in to try to keep up with the orders.  On top of everything else, my laptop has croaked.  Something with the hard drive.  Mark has been trying to get it working.  It will work for an hour or two and then the hard drive goes to a blue screen and I can’t get WinXP to boot again.  I think it is time to get another computer. 

Mark has been working an internship for the last month and I have barely seen him.  Have been taking that time to continue this decluttering of our house.  It feels good to let go of some of the stuff.  The other day I litteraly shredded 6 garbage bags of old bills and papers that I had been hanging on to.  With all we have gone through in the last nearly 10 years, it was very cleansing to shred all that and kind of just let it go.  I went from 3-1/2+ filing cabinet drawers to 1. 

We also decided it was time to get better furniture that worked for our lifestyle.  Our first purchase has been new end tables.  The ones we had were kind of student style basic black with 4 silver legs.  No storage whatsoever.  I am an avid couponer and like to have all my stuff close at hand and it seems like it is forever lying around in the living room.  We found a great deal at JC Penney on what they call a Bill Payer’s Cart.  It isn’t the best looking for the location table we could have gotten but it definitely is working out so much better.  There is a lot of space in that.  The bottom is a full filing cabinet drawer, middle is a drawer you would use for remote controls and pens and such, then an open shelf, a pull out extendable table, and the top with a removable basket area.  Take a look  It originally was $259 and we got them 2 weeks ago for $59 each on sale with free shipping.  And of course they are on wheels so you can pull them out to vacuum and such. 

Still on the list is to go through a royal ton of photographs and trash the silly ones and possibly send the rest to get transferred to a DVD so I can reclaim my shelves.  I am not the sentimental type when it comes to photos, so just as long as I have a copy of them somewhere I will be good. 

Anyway, now that I have kind of rambled on…  I was kind of appaled to see my ranking on google drop, so I thought it was time to update.  Will get back at blogging again more religiously again.

Night beadies.

It has been a while since I last updated the blog.  It has been pretty crazy around here or the last month or so.  Mark had been sick and then immediately after he got sick, he started having mouth pain and problems.  Three weeks later and over $2000 worth or oral surgery and dental work, we are finally on the other side of it.  Well now except for finals.  I can’t wait for tomorrow to be over and the last class is done and no more school for him for the whole summer.  It won’t be without its craziness though.  He gave up summer classes to do an internship, possibly in hopes that it might turn into a full time position down the road.  I sure hope so.  There is a lot riding on his school and it would sure be great to get him out of retail.  Lots of praying and fingers crossed. 

I also had an influx of custom orders and am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel as I only have one order left.  I love getting custom orders and I love being able to do my own thing.  It sure is a balancing act to not get too bogged down that your creative spark goes.  After this next order is complete, I am going to take a torching session to just create. 

A couple weeks ago, I did get a chance to try out a tutorial I had purchased.  Silver glass and I have a love-hate relationship.   Sometimes, It just sings for me and other times I am hating myself for wasting the super expensive glass.  The tutorial I purchased finally made more sense out of it.  Pictures speak a thousand words..  This is the same exact bead in make up – Opal yellow, silver glass, and vetrofond clear pretutorial and posttutorial. 

While I find the first one beautiful on it’s own, it is not what the second one is.  I would guess I would have to say it had not reached its full potential.  I absolutely love the second one.  You would not believe the opalescence in it that you can’t see in the photo. 

Anyway, Mark took a break from studying and we were watching a new DVR’d episode of Greensberg on Planet Green.  It is a town that was destroyed by a tornado that is rebuilding energy efficient and responsible.  While I don’t get involved in all the hype about global warming and such, I do get the fact about being responsible for your own consumables and doing what you can to be energy efficient.  We grow as much as we can of our own veggies and do our best to recycle and keep our gas/energy consumption low.  

Anyway, I started thinking about after receiving the most beautiful package of beads from a friend that lordy, my packaging looks pretty meager in comparison.   She had the beads in a ziploc bag, then put into a bubble bag, then into a chiffon drawstring bag, then into their own box, the box placed into a larger outer box filled with those according folded picecs of paper, with an invoice, business card, and a coupon.  It was packaged beautifully but seemed a little overkill and wasteful.   My packages are not that pretty but my beads get there safe and sound and knock on wood, to this date I have not had any break in transit.  If I have it, I will reuse it.  If I don’t have it, I try to get it free from someone else that wants to recycle.  If I can’t get it free and have to purchase it, I do try to buy the most economical environmentally sound product. 

After thinking about it, if a customer was looking for this kind of thing, they surely would be disappointed receiving my package.   My standard is a bead – bubble wrap eggroll, wrapped in tissue paper, business card, and either a bubble mailer or a box. 

• Bubble wrap – Not the best thing for the landfill but I most of the time have recycled bubble wrap and the person who receives my package can take the bubble wrap and re-recycle it.  It also is the best for padding so I don’t have to go to far more extremes for padding.
• Tissue Paper – I used to have a store and purchased thousands of pieces of tissue paper for it.  I do like to give some nice packaging but once this tissue paper is gone, it will be gone.
• Business Card – I do need to have some sort of identification and this seems to be the smallest, best way.   If you were looking for an invoice, I don’t normally provide them.  You get e-mailed one and you have paypal.  It saves a piece of paper.
• Bubble Mailer/Box – All my boxes unless I am shipping priority comes from Mark’s work and are recycled boxes.  Bubble mailers are recycled from packages I receive or I get free.  I do occasaionally have to buy some but I find that the next people often reuse these and the cycle continues. 

Anyway, I decided that I needed to let people know that I really don’t have frilly, fru-fru packaging and there is a reason behind it so I have been working on a webpage explaining it and a graphic for my home page.   Thought you might like to see.  Will be working on it more this evening. 

Anyway, it is getting to be that time that I have to get to work and think I am going to take a 20 minute catnap before I have to start transcribing.  Have a wonderful evening.

A new bead from me just listed on etsy.  I broke out some oddlot glass to make this – Effetre’s Sunny Mango Coral.  I wish I had more of it, it has such a beautiful glow about it and variation in color.  Effetre makes a lot of coral but they never seem to come out the same twice – sometimes more orangy, sometimes more rosey, sometimes pinkish.  It really is a crapshoot to get the same color twice so if you want lots, better order it the first time it comes out.  I have about a pound total and hoard it like its gold.

The hibiscus is new for me and I like it.  It will take some more practice to get it perfect but I think its a pretty decent start. 

Well this has been a long time in the making.  I purchased my bead liner back in November, then the tubing and mandrels in January, and thought I was good to go but the tubing I purchased needed a larger dye for the liner, so I had to wait until I had the mullah to purchase that which I finally got.  There is a learning curve to lining them.  It definitely takes loads of practice.  My next step is getting hubby to bolt it down to the desk as I think I lost some beads because it wasn’t.  But I did get some really nice beads that I am really happy with plus a larger slider bead.  I have some prices listed if your interested in purchasing before I get them listed. Drop me a line if your interested.

$15.99
 

$15.99

$18.99

$16.99

$19.99 with free stainless steel ball chain

Well I just got through watching American Idol and I thought it was time to do a blog post.  By the way, who is your favorite?  Mine was Matt Sarver but now that he is gone, Danny Gokey or Adam. 

Anyway, I just wanted to post about my new category on my website that I will be adding to – Less Than Perfects.  Beads that I would normally put into a large orphan lot.  Perfectly fine beads with no sharp edges or cracks or anything just small color problems, etc.  Since I am not doing eBay anymore, I don’t think large orphan lots would be good on etsy, so thats my compromise.  I am offering them at a real discount.  I started with one of my Northern Lights Marquis focals that I got some of the wrong frit on and not good color. 

Anyway, off to plan tomorrow.  I am trying to declutter my office some more since my charms are nearing their end and reclaim my space.  I also need to add the bails and photograph my new polymer, scrabble, and photo pendants. 

Been extremely busy around here.  I am closing out the last of my italian charms and it has been a ton of counting and packing.  I am down to a few lots.  It feels like I am losing a safety blanket but sometimes you have to let go of something to get a fresh start.  I have never been able to give glass and my handmade items 100% while my time was occupied elsewhere.  The italian charms did give me a living for years, redid my whole kitchen with my sales, and built well over 10,000 feedback with it.  For that, I am very, very thankful. 

I was able to get some time on Saturday to play with some polymer clay, glass tile, and Scrabble pendants.  I plan on adding them to my etsy store.  They just need some more acrylic and they will be ready to go.  I am trying to find a good place that has some nice papers and reasonable shipping, anyone have any ideas?

They say admitting you have a problem is the first step.  Problem is, I am not sure if I really want to treat it.  I have a problem.  Since I started working at night, I tape everything.   It’s so bad that I make sure they are scheduled before I go in the office to work.  So, what do I religiously tape now and when they are on(this is going to be embarassing)…  Here goes…

Amazing Race, Cold Case, Celebrity Apprentice, The Unit, That’s Clever, NCIS, The Bachelor, Survivor, Without a Trace, The Closer, Leverage, Saving Grace, American Idol, Project Runway, Little People Big World, Jon and Kate plus 8, Top Chef, Real Housewives, Top Design, Next Food Network Star, Next Design Star, the Law & Orders, Friday Night Lights, Criminal Minds, Hell’s Kitchen, Ace of Cakes, America’s Next Top Model, Iron Chef, Beads, Baubles, & Jewels, Bones, ER, Life, Lie to Me, Eleventh Hour, The Mentalist, Make Me a Supermodel, CSI, CSI: Miami, and Private Practice.

That really is a problem isn’t it.  You can see my interests – mostly Realityand Cop/Medical type shows with a little DIY thrown in..  What does that mean about me.  There has to be some psychoanalysis babble that would say I have issues with reality but I definitely know the difference between reality and fake.  I did make a conscious effort not to start recording Dancing with the Stars this year.  I guess you have to start somewhere.  I know there has got to be others out there that DVR everything.  I watch some when I get done working and the rest I catch up on during the week most of the time just listening as I work.   I say this in some jest though as we all have our vices and I don’t plan on fixing it any time soon but I surely don’t want to get into any more programs as what do you do when there are too many programs on at the same time and your DVR will only record 2 at a time.  Is there any way to jerry rig a external hard drive, anyone know?  I sure would love to record movies and keep them permanently but I am sure that is against copyright laws or something.  Anyway, I am watching Saving Grace now..  LOL..

I am having my etsy store featured on http://audreyscountrycrafts.blogspot.com.  She found my blog through Entrecard and etsy and hosts an etsy store every 2 weeks.  Check it out. 

I also was able to create a Treasury on etsy today which I haven’t done in a really long time.  Check it out.

I hope everyone is having a great Wednesday.  Mark is off school this week for Spring Break so we had the day to spend together.  Spent the morning relaxing and then working on bead photos.  It was so hard to photograph some of the transparent beads.  My Minolta camera is on its last legs.  We have another digital camera but it has no optical zoom and just  isn’t made for taking photos of beads. Take a look at the new photos..

I also just entered Lori Greenberg’s giveway for Val Cox’ Frit book with my Aurora Lentil/Rounds bead set.  Its my absolute favorite set of frit beads I have ever made.