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.