Friday, September 30, 2011

And The Winner Is...

Lori Dorrington of Lori's Glassworks!  Congratulations!  You are the lucky gal that is the winner of the Bead Soup Blog Party earring giveaway!
Don't forget we have shows both Saturday and Sunday!  Hope to see you there!

Kudos for Chris

Yesterday Chris received word that his beads would be featured on the CIM (Creation Is Messy) glass website!  Here are the beads he submitted:
Monster Fingers using Elphaba Glass
Trition's Treasure Beads using Fremen glass 
Autumn Beaky Bird using Canyon de Chelly glass
Congrats to my very talented husband!  Don't forget we will be in Exeter tomorrow (Saturday, Oct 1) at the Holiday Avenue Showcase from 10am-2pm and in Hastings at the Harvest Celebration at Prairie Loft on Sunday, October 2 from 1-6pm!  Hope you can stop by!  Happy Weekend!

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Fun with Marching Band

Mina had her first high school marching band performance last Saturday in the Melody Roundup in Hastings.  She was a bundle of nerves and DESPISED her uniform.  I pointed out to her that all the other kids were suffering the same fate, and hated them just as much as she does.  I also pointed out that it could be worse because some uniforms involved plumes and capes and hers does not.  Here are some pictures I took.
This is the "humor the parents" shot.  Gosh, she looks so grown up in her uniform!  It was hard on me for a few minutes!

This is the "I love band, but not this uniform" glower.

This is the "if you put this picture on the web, I will NOT be happy" picture.  The first in her hat. 

Only my daughter could get two left handed gloves!  First thing she did when the bus arrived was find a right one!

Everything is better with your best friend!
Things I didn't know about marching band:
  1. All of you hair needs to be inside your hat.
  2. Certain instruments wear different kinds of hats.  Mina now wants to play the tuba instead of a trombone so she can wear a beret.
  3. When the kids are all lined up in their uniforms marching, with their hair concealed, it is very tough to find your child!
The kids sounded great as always and will perform this coming Saturday in Grand Island at the Harvest of Harmony parade.  Sadly, we didn't know this when we signed up to do the Exeter craft show!  So Mina will be in Grand Island and we will be in Exeter and won't get to see her perform!

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Gone Batty and Hanging with the Zombies

I mentioned the other day that Chris has a new design "Batty Bats" and he also made a Zombie guy (which strangely looks like one of Mina's teachers!)

Zombie Guy:


Batty Bats


We would love to hear what you think of the new designs!  The batty necklaces are fun, the bats hang from mono-filament line so the line disappears against your skin and makes them look like they are flying!  Chris designed both the bats and the necklaces and put them together while I was working on other things.

Friday, September 23, 2011

I Am Still Here

First of all Thank YOU to all who have stopped by the blog during the Bead Soup Blog Hop to check out my designs and for all who have left comments.  DON'T FORGET! IF YOU LEAVE A COMMENT, YOU ARE REGISTERED FOR THE EARRING GIVEAWAY THAT IS IN THE POST.  GIVEAWAY RUNS UNTIL SEPTEMBER 30TH.  I will post the winner on October 1st.  Here is what I have been up to this week:
  • Parent/Teacher conferences: Teachers love Mina (that is GREAT), but I DON'T know for sure they were describing my child.  Their description (positive, helpful, participates in class, leader), my experience at home (bursts of laughter, followed by long periods of surly, grumpy, cranky teenager).  I am sure they are correct and I am WRONG (I have been informed of this many times).

source
  • Have spent a great deal of time beading, beading, beading, petting the cat, rubbing the cat, scratching the cat's tummy, moving the cat out of the beads, telling the cat "no, you can't go outside", moving the other cat out of the beads.  Suki (always wants to go out, only allowed out with brief periods of supervision), Luna (just wants to be cute and loved, but likes lying right where you don't want her to) enjoy spending time as our studio cats, but Suki can't understand why Chris won't pay attention when he is trying to torch.  She is VERY persistent!





Just a reminder:  We will be at the Highland Park Farmers Market tomorrow (Saturday, September 24) from 8-12 and it will be our last weekend at the market.  We want to thank all of our wonderful customers who shopped and visited with us at the market!  You guys ROCK!  Our fall/winter show season is getting under way so you can find us at these shows or contact us if you need something!  We GLADLY take special orders and feel blessed that you would ask us!

Show Schedule:

  • Exeter Avenue Holiday Bazaar, Exeter, NE Saturday, October 1 10 am-2 pm
  • Harvest Celebration, Prairie Loft Center, Hastings, NE Sunday, October 2 1-6pm
  • Lincoln Bead Show, Lincoln, NE, Saturday, October 15, 9 am-5 pm
  • (tentative) Geneva Craft Show, Geneva, NE November 20
  • Blue Hill Christmas Bazaar, Saturday, December 3 9 am-3 pm
  • CPI Customer Appreciation show, Tuesday, December 13.
We have also been invited to exhibit at the Columbus Art Gallery in Columbus, Nebraska!  This is new this week, we received the invite and accepted to participate in their Holiday Showcase starting in November.  We also always are exhibiting at Graham Gallery in Hastings, Nebraska and will participate in their Holiday Showcase as well.  BUSY, BUSY, BUSY!  Happy Weekend, and look for Chris's newest design "Batty Bats" to appear here shortly!

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Bead Soup Blog Party Project Reveal Day!!!

 Welcome to the Fall Edition of the Bead Soup Blog Party!  A GREAT BIG THANK YOU to Lori Anderson for hosting the event and for being the brilliant woman who began the Bead Soup Party!  

This is my third round of Party participation.  My first was the Spring 2011 when I created this:
My partner for that round was Shea Zukowski.
Then came the Fairytale Mini Swap this summer.   My partner for that round was Sandra Richardson.

For this Fall round, my partner is Valerie Norton.  These are the goodies she sent me to work with!

And this is what Chris and I sent to Valerie.
Don't you just love the Beaky Bird Chris made especially for Valerie?!  We can't wait to see what she makes with it!  So with out further ado, here is my first piece (I created two very different designs to compliment Valerie's two very different dichroic focals).


This focal SCREAMED at me 80's Retro!  So I went very FUNKY with it, using fun items to compliment the bright, beautiful colors in the dichroic glass.  I visited one of my favorite Etsy shops, MyElements, and picked out some of her fun gizmos and flexible tubing to add to the piece.  When I thought of funky, retro, and color-the only place I thought of was MyElements.  I love her stuff!  So anyway (got distracted, bead, oooh shiny!), on one side I made my own chain links using colored wire run through the hollow tubing to be able to shape it as I wanted to.  On the other side I used round gunmetal chain and wire wrapped all the goodies to it.  On the side with the rubber links, I took apart some of the chain links to use as jump rings for connecting the pieces of tubing.  As much as I LOVE mixed metals and all the varied finishes on the chain, it can be a challenge to find the right findings to go with the finishes.  Also by using the pieces of chain it tied the two sides of the necklace together without have them be identical.  When I got to the finishing part, I used a mix of hand dyed silk strings and ribbon, and black satin rattail cord.  I did loose braids with them so that you could see all the colors in play without the cords running around willy nilly on the ends of the necklace.  I used bead cones to attach the lovely sterling silver clasp Valerie sent in my soup mix. I don't know that I am crazy about this aspect of the piece, and I may yet rip it apart and redo that issue.  What do you think?  I would love your input!
For the second piece, I went more Antique Autumn.


I used a bunch of the beads and the focal Valerie sent me in this piece.  There were two strands of tiny Druk beads with a clear/antique bronze color that I used in my wire crocheted strands, there are freshwater pearl, Chinese and Czech crystals, mother of pearl rings, and Czech glass pressed leaves with some gorgeous metallic finishes.  ***Please let me apologize for the quality of the photos above.  I had to finish the pieces quickly enough to get in on the natural light before it ended for the day.  At the point of the photos, the necklace was actually TAPED to my neck with a strip of blue painter's tape.  Consequently, it doesn't hang as gracefully in the photos as I would have liked.  I did complete the piece around 10:30 and promptly whipped up a pair of earrings for a giveaway using more of the leaves and beads and some lovely twisted copper spacers Valerie sent in my soup mix.***  In the necklace I made wired dangles for the beads using 26g Vintage Bronze colored Parawire and hand twisting each bead on the wire.  When I connected the beads to the wire I used the twists like a head pin and twisted them on to attach them.  I counted and there are 58 dangles on the necklace.  I happened to add 29 to each side!  Gosh, I am good!  The crocheted ropes gave me a bit of a dilemma in how to attach them and have the piece flow together.  Chris suggested I use some coordinating jump rings to connect throughout the rope, and then I wrapped the wire tails to the chain links near the back of the piece.  I finished it with a floral textured antique silver toggle clasp.

Now for the Antique Autumn Earring giveaway!

If you leave me a comment on the Bead Soup Blog Party post, you will be entered to win these lovely earrings!  I will put all the names through a random generator on September 30th and choose the winner.  Please be sure to leave a way for me to contact you or stop back on October 1st to see who the winner is! 

Please visit the other Bead Soup Partiers, there are 362 of us!  Here is the list with links to all their blogs!
These are the partner pairs.

The Hostess, Lori Anderson and her partner, Manuela Wutschke


19. Anna Sabina­­­­ and Erin Siegel
















Popular Posts