5 years.

Wow. Hard to believe yesterday was our 5 year anniversary. A lot has happened in 5 years! Pau surprised me by keeping his morning routine the same (as far as I could tell he was headed out the door to work as normal) but he cam back with my favorite breakfast! Turns out he took Thursday and Friday off from work! So we had breakfast in bed and played with the boys, later his mother came over with her nieces and stayed most of the day to play. We had delicious homemade pizza and finished off with a hilarious movie. Such an awesome day. My favorite part though was the ecards that Paul had set up to be sent to me every 2 hours either informing me of the next surprise or just letting me know he loves me. Am I blessed or what?! Love you, Babe!

I have the attention span of a gnat.

You will notice this in my work if you look closely. I like to make pieces that have variety (materials, colors, techniques). This is for a couple reasons. I usually make beads or pendants just because I want to try a new technique or color scheme and then I figure out how to make them into jewelry later. I usually end up making my components (clasps, connectors etc) on the fly to suit my vision for the current piece. Should I sit down and make a bunch of clasps? Probably. But I haven't. I don't really plan on it. Because right now I have been typing about it during that time 6 ideas for new beads have popped into my head...later! Here are a few pictures to illustrate my point :)

PS. I am working toward a redo of my Etsy shop so keep an eye out ;)

Whoa! Check out this giveaway!

I don't think I have EVER seen anyone do a giveaway like this one! Head over to Denise's blog and check out this AMAZING pile of beads!

Check out what my partner made!

My partner for the Bead Soup Party was Janeen at Wild Vanilla designs and she revealed one of the pieces she made with my soup today. It's awesome! Go check it out here and then take a hop through blogland see all the other gorgeous stuff people created. The complete list is here.

Bead Soup REVEAL!!

::streamers:: ::confetti:: ::balloons:: ::bubbly drinks::

Today is the first day of the Bead Soup reveal and blog hop!

Hosted by Lori Anderson.

My partner was Janeen Sorensen.

But you know this already, right?! Ok, OK! HERE ARE THE

PIECES I MADE!!

Links to the other reveals today!

Sorry, I meant to put up the links to the other reveals today but it's a little crazy here (today is Isaac's 4th birthday :)

1. Lori, Pretty Things

2. Lorelei, Lorelei1141

3. Norma, Moonlit Fantaseas

4. Beth, EB Bead and Metalworks

5. Katie, KatieBead

6. Kimberly, Bahama Dawn

7. Debbie, Prairie Emporium

8. Lisa, Joolz by Lisa

9. Kate, Tropical Blonde

10. Janet, Singing Woods

11. Julianna, Juls Beads

12. Erin, Treasures Found

13. Jen, Jen Judd Rocks

Awesome lampwork!

I recently won a gift card from Holly's Folly by voting for her on these sites (hint, hint....go vote and maybe you will win :)). I recently spent my certificate (plus a little extra because she has SO much great stuff) and so far I have had time to get one piece made from these fantastic babies.

Also, the Bead Soup Party hosted by the amazing Lori Anderson at Pretty Things starts it's reveal segment on Saturday and I will be posting my pieces so drop in and see what you think!

My new obsession....

Cinnabar! I picked up some awesome pieces of this while restocking my stash and I LOVE it. I already made one simple pendant which you see here ad I have another piece commissioned. I also cast them so I can reproduce the patterns on other pieces :) Gotta love polymer.

Copper Diem Giveaway

Head over to Copper Diem and check out the pound of bead candy she's giving away!

Look at all the fresh color :)

The clay order arrived! Woohoo! Too bad I have to finish cleaning the old house today :( But then, there's always nap time. ;)

Restocking my stash.

Moving has given me a great chance to reorganize and evaluate my stash of bead and clay materials. Guess what? I found that both were seriously depleted. I was discussing this with my mother over lunch, speculating on what I wanted to do to replenish my inventory. We were generally laughing about this thing I do when I only have a little bit of something left I AVOID using it. What really makes it funny is that my mom is a quilter and she DOES THE SAME THING! Anyway, Mom went back to work and later that afternoon I get an email from my clay vendor saying "my order will be shipped in 24 hours"...she ordered a 12.5 oz brick of almost EVERY color I needed. Am I blessed or what?! When it get's here I'll have to show you :)

But wait, there's more! A local bead store had a fire a while back and had to close. Now they are trying to get rid of their stock by selling slightly sooty beads out of their garage. My mom is on their mailing list and forwarded me an email letting me know they were taking 80% off their retail prices. She also gave me $XYZ and said "Go buy beads and nothing else". YAY for me! Here is a picture of just the STRANDS of beads I picked up. There are several other loose pieces I will share later!!

Progress

I deliberately put boxes and stuff to be sorted on my work station so that I would force myself to get things done before getting spun into that great creative spiral that tends to have me throwing out little things like meals and house work. I finally got through enough stuff for to allow myself a little creative time at the table (I have been beading some in front of the TV on my nights off from my part time job).

I even have a little corner in my new studio to display a few things :) Yes, I know the top middle one is edited out (they are my Bead Soup pieces and I didn't want to give too much away).

Yum

My creative bent doesn't extend itself to cooking (or maybe it does and that's why I a not good at it :)). However, baking and I get along just fine for the *most part*. I got these stacking wire racks for my birthday and am just now using them (2 months later). I LOVE them...the cookies turned out great too!

Stepping out a little.

I submitted a piece to the Art Bead Scene Challenge for this month. I am a little nervous about posting work in a group that has SO many artists with such fantastic talent but this is me putting on my big girl panties and doing it anyway ;) Check out the challenge info here. The other entries can also be viewed on Flickr. Here is my entry.

The faux pink quartz is some of my polymer work. There are also handmade wire wrapped beads and the clasp to coordinate with the genuine turquoise fans and rondelles.

Barefoot sandals Swap

I decided to try something new and make a set of Barefoot Sandals as part of a Facebook swap. I am recieving a pair of these awesome accessories from Paula Hisel at Simply Beadiful and sending a pair to Nancy Dale over at Nedbeads. Since I don't want to risk posting any sample picks that aren't my own (coming soon though, I promise), click here to see a google images search of what barefoot sandals can look like.

Feeling blue...turquoise to be specific.

Juls over has opened a de-stash shop on etsy and I couldn't resist picking up a few things from her delicious smorgasbord of beads. They came in the mail (complete with candy I might add, how cool is that?!). Here is a snap of the turquoise I got and I am so excited to start working with as soon as I unpack some more boxes in the new house :)

Bead Soup Sneak Peek

I am participating in the Bead Soup Party hosted by the fantastically creative Lori at Pretty Things. My partner is Janeen over at Wild Vanilla Designs. Here are a couple pictures of the soup Janeen sent me. I will show you what I am doing with them on the reveal date of

June 19th.

On a roll with redos

We moved into our new house and we're LOVING it! We have so much more usable space inside and out. You saw the dresser I repainted for the boys a couple posts back...here's what I did over the holiday weekend. The chairs and bench came with the house along with a table (the landlord was going to donate them but I told her to leave them and if I decided against them I would take them to ARC). I put the table in my new bead room because it was really too big to be in the kitchen where they had it originally and replaced it with a smaller table I had already redone. Below you can see the before and after shots of the bench and chairs. The best part was the price! It took me $3 worth of spray paint and the fabric was on clearance at Hobby Lobby so I recovered all three pieces for $3.50 with a little to spare! The padding was just some egg crate and batting I have around for such things :) Not bad for less than $7!