New Items Part 3~Natural Stones and Our Beading Blitz

Chris and I occasionally sit down at our kitchen table and spread as many bead containers as we can fit on the table, and do a beading blitz. This particular one happened last week. We were selling our jewelry, beads, ceiling fan pulls, and suncatchers at the Country Crafts and Friends show near Giltner, NE. Some of the gals Chris works with were planning on heading out to see the show, and wanted turquoise in particular. So we whipped out the bead boxes, tools, and crimps and this is what we came up with. This first bracelet has accents of copper and lovely "beach glass" nuggets I got from Carla at beads and botanicals. I really love how the nuggets set up off your wrist and the light shines through them so your arm literally "glows". There are earrings that match it down the post a ways.
Another turquoise bracelet with copper, etched spacers made by Chris, various other stones that were attracted to each other.

This bracelet features matte finish carnelian triangles with foil lined lime green glass beads. I got this strand of bead (the triangles) at the Central Nebraska Bead Show in March, and I really love to just take them out of the box and finger their smooth texture. Is that too much information?!

Here are some fun and lovely earrings from our beading blitz.

This pair of earrings is made with copper links of chain and I wired the spacers Chris made to them for dangles. Gorgeous!

New Items Part 2~Autumn's in the Air!

Though this is technically not a strickly autumn piece, I really love it! I took Chris' tatterpiller beads and wire wrapped them into a charm style bracelet and then connected them to their very own garden of Lucite flowers with Swarovski crystal centers, and leaves to finish it off. I followed the appropriate code of ethics for tatterpillers, they are wired facing each other, instead of facing someone else's tatterpiller behind!
These GORGEOUS autumn focals were made by Chris and are for sale at beads and botanicals in Hastings.

This focal comes with matching spacers in autumnal (ooh big word, I must be getting tired!) colors. They are also for sale at beads and botanicals.

The groovy green leaves and spacers are at Carla's also.

New Items Part 1~Make Jewelry, Not War!

This is a gorgeous multi strand necklace that has a fun and funky acrylic flower as its focal. I really love the flower focal, and the vibrant red just begged to be put with the favorite colors of Nebraskans! Reminds me of the "Flower Power" type flowers from the 1960's and 70's. "Make Jewelry, Not War" should be the motto for this necklace!

These are more rings I worked up over Labor Day weekend. I love the yellow one with the tiny buttons and the lacy edge. I was going to use a Swarovski rivoli on the lavendar one, but couldn't find the right bead magazine that had the ring pattern in it! I only have a ton of bead magazines, but evidently not the one I needed at the time! If anyone knows which one I am talking about, please help! Those poor lonely rivolis are dying to have a ring of their own!

Here is another version of the "Make Jewelry, Not War" necklace. This time in purples, and lime green. Mina wore it to school today with her favorite Tinkerbell t-shirt, and said her teachers really liked it! What's not to love though!

Finally, for this part one post, a gorgeous bracelet of autumn colored spacers made by Chris and some were also etched for a great effect with the shiny spacers, and he put the bracelet together with copper spacers and a great hammered copper toggle.

In Our Yard

These are some pictures we took in front of our house. This busy spider, was the first of its kind we have seen. We have the usual black and yellowish garden spiders, but this one was different. Our intrepid young entomologist Mina. was right on top of it, keeps us up to date on what is in the yard.

This pretty pansy is a volunteer coming up from seed off the plants from last spring. Pansies are among my favorite flowers and this one is really pretty.

These are our "tie-dyed" morning glories. I think they are so pretty because each one is different even on the same plant. They take their time about blooming, but sure make up for it when they finally get to it!

New Blog Link

Yesterday, while surfing my favorite authors websites, I came across a blog I wanted to share. It is written by 9 paranormal romance authors, who take turns each day posting on the site, Witchy Chicks on blogger. I really love the Bewitching Mystery series by Madelyn Alt and the witch series by Annette Blair. I have not read the other gals' work yet, but I will soon be looking into them! Anyway, I posted the link with my other favorite sites, and even if you aren't into the paranormal, they have some great reads just about their daily lives and some really awesome pictures too.

A Mom's Prerogative...

Yesterday, my smart 6th grade daughter came breezing into the house after getting off the bus, and was very excited because she got a 100 on her science test and was the only one in her section of 6th grade to do so, and she made the Quiz Bowl team! Mina is the only girl on the team! Very exciting! I am so proud of her. She and Chris have such a great time (usually) studying for her science tests, it is fun to listen to. I am usually called in on the grammar and punctuation issues. I can't believe that we have our first semester parent/teacher conferences in two weeks from today! They said on the radio this morning that there are 8 weeks left until election day! That is November! Yeesh, I don't know where time goes, but it sure does fly!

Weekend News

Happy Tuesday morning! Weather report in Lawrence, beautiful! A lovely cool fall day with rain that makes me want to be at home tucked in a comfy spot beading or reading and watching a great movie on TV. Unfortunately, I am at work instead! Oh, well it pays for the books and the beads! We spent Saturday and part of Sunday with our friends from Peru State where we went to college. We lost one of our college friends last year in July to cancer, and since have decided to meet every year at least once on Labor Day weekend to catch up on our lives. Since our get together last year, our friend Schaun has divorced and met a really wonderful gal Michele and they live in Omaha, our friends Doug and Crystal (we meet at their place near Ashland) have bought a house in Gretna, and are expecting their 6th baby in November!, and we got to see Jim who didn't make it last year, but did make it this year with his son and daughter. We had a great time laughing about the silliness of things we did in college and Mina had a terrific time playing with Doug and Crystal's 5 kids, Michele's 2 kids, and Jim's 2 kids and she was the oldest of the bunch. Lots of kids, fun to her since she is an only child! We decided yesterday that we are quitting Girl Scouts, as there have been issues with me being the troop leader and that the girls are not happy with us as their leaders. I considered doing a different troop, but this has been pretty heart breaking and difficult, so Chris and I decided to not be involved. Mina will still be a GS as she really loves it. There are pluses to this situation, we cleaned out all of the paper that goes with being a leader and found our bedroom! Chris will have more time to take the glass blowing class through Hastings college that he wants to take to further his glass working abilities, and I will have more time for beading that doesn't involve staying up til all hours of the morning! We may in days to come find our kitchen, living room, and Mina's room! We also want to unclutter the north end of our front porch so that it can be made into a studio workspace for me. Then we won't have beads from one end of the house to the other! Have a great week! Chris is making glass leaves for fall and you will soon see pics of them here!

Baubles, Baubles...

Here they are as promised. New pictures of new jewelry for our show at Giltner, NE. The craft show starts Thursday, September 4 and runs through Sunday, September 7 and then again on Thursday, September 11 through Sunday, September 14. This charm bracelet uses the beautiful Lucite beads purchased from The Hole Bead Shoppe in Oklahoma. I really love the Lucite, it is almost like making jewelry from the garden! The folks at the shop are very fun, and helpful~check out their new items if you haven't!
This is a fun Halloween charm bracelet which I made from charms purchased after Halloween last year. I added fun seed bead charms in Halloween-ish colors and this is the result! It is one I hope doesn't sell, but that rarely works out for my jewelry box!

This lovely piece is made with rondelle slices of various stones, spaced with silver seed beads, and complimented with dangles of the same and stone hearts that were purchased while we were in Columbia, MO.

This very feminine bracelet uses lovely rose beads from beads and botanicals along with Swarovski crystals, filigreed silver rounds, and a gorgeous lead free pewter heart toggle.

This trio of "hags" were made by my talented husband. They are strung on waxed cotton cording and complimented with spacers done to match them. Very festive and fun!

These are not your average mummy! Chris did his bead making magic to create special glass canes to give these lucky guys "aged" bandages, and they are SOOO cool!

These are our version of "Frankenstein's Monster" (does that make Haussler's Monster?). Frankie is also strung on cotton cording with matching spacers. The one on the left got a bit burned in the flames from his burning windmill, giving him a superb smudgy monster look!

These are earrings made with some new style beads Chris has been playing with. They are made with a masher/shaper thing and then decorated with dots. I strung them with Swarovski crystal AB pendant style on the bottom and white alabaster on the top.

This is Chris's field of ponies! Ready to go home with any horse lover!

This adorable moo moo is a ceiling fan pull. She has a chicken and pig to keep her company until they are purchased for their new homes!

These roses are also ceiling fan pulls. Chris's brother Todd asked Chris to make some for their newly updated bedroom, and he made these to be sold with the farm animal pulls.

More Halloween! We do love Halloween at our house. It is quite a fright here on a daily basis! This cute necklace has ghosties a plenty made of course by Chris, and he also strung the necklace. What a talented guy!

These ghostie earrings are ready to swing onto your ears! I made them in a trapeze style with a wire wrap and seed beads to compliment them in Halloween colors!

I made a bunch of sun catchers for the show using various glass beads, and a beautiful Swarovski prism at the end of each one. This one is my favorite as the prism is huge and has a unique shape to it.

This three piece set is made with crazy lace agate, river stone, Bali silver, various colors of Swarovski crystals. It is so lovely, and the neutrals will go with so many outfits! What are the odds of this one coming to visit my jewelry box?!

This quartet of rings were hand stitched by me using seed beads, tiny Lucite flowers (again from The Hole Bead Shoppe!), and Swarovski flat back sew on stones/flowers. I am so addicted to making these! The variations are endless as are the types of stitches and sizes of seed beads that can be used to make them!

This fun bracelet was also made by Chris. He made the lampwork and then strung the bracelet using his beads with faceted black onyx and white stone, and rectangles of blue goldstone.

Beading Blitz

I spent yesterday afternoon (after a luxurious nap) beading my fingers off! I made a bunch of sun catchers for the craft show at Giltner (which starts the first Friday of September), finished up a bracelet Chris had put together with his beads, prepped some Lucite leaves for a charm bracelet, and made a really pretty seed bead ring using a custom Kool-aid Mango Mania mix that Carla at beads and botanicals put together for the Hastings Kool-aid Days celebration. It is a mix of orange, peach, and cream and then I embellished the ring with 3 tiny Lucite flowers across it's top. I really love making the rings. Carla taught me the ladder stitch style and I have since come to love all the combinations, stitch variations, and embellishments that can be added. They are quick to make and a great seller too. The sun catchers are made with a Swarovski prism at the end and the sections of glass colored beads along the cording to add to the beauty of it. Chris has been joyfully appreciating his new kiln and making all types of new things! Yesterday he made his first marbles! He is also working on some new fall leaves to take into beads and botanicals. Hope to get you some new pictures, as we need to work on the pricing/packaging/photographing of our items for the show and get them boxed up and ready to go.

It's Official~Summer's Over...

Mina went to sixth grade this morning. She has been in school for about one-half hour now. They are starting at 9:30 all this week to accomodate sports practice. She wasn't quite ready to go back to school this year, and honestly we weren't ready to send her either. The summer just went by so fast, most of it is a blur! We have also almost come to the end of the month of August too! Chris and I are getting things put together to take to the craft show in Giltner the first two weekends of September. I go and drop stuff off next week for that, and then we start with getting things ready for Christmas shows. We are having fun making Halloween beads currently. Chris is working on ghosties and bats that seem to come from the doofus end of the gene pool, but those are too funny. I will get some pictures up of the bats and ghosts and he will also be trying his hand at jack-o-lanterns, witches, Frankenstein, and maybe Dracula. With the fang issue on the bats, Dracula could turn out pretty hilarious too! We spent yesterday afternoon with friends at the water park (I kept a lounge chair company as to not hurt myself again!) and then went for a quick tour at the park next to the water park since the kids weren't ready to go home, and we weren't ready to stop visiting with our friends. What a great blessing friends are. They make you smile, laugh, and just feel good. Have you hugged your friends today?

Wedding Photos

This is our beautiful, junior bridesmaid, daughter, all decked out for the wedding.

Here are Bridget and Nathan with all of Nathan's brothers. From the right, Kevin (oldest), Brian (second youngest), Todd (second oldest), and Chris (middle).

Here is Bridget, swinging into her new life!

This is the bride and groom with the bridal party. The colors were beautiful together, and the girls carried silk daisy bouquets. The bride carried a fun spray of confetti. Very festive and fun, it fit Bridget's personality to a T!

This is Mina with the bride and groom, Bridget and Nathan. Nathan is Chris's youngest brother.

This is Mina from the back, at the park where the wedding was held. Her hair has been curled, and pulled up, with daisies pinned in it. She also has make-up on and her toenails are painted and have jewels on them, but you can't see that kind of detail from this angle!

The weather was perfect for an evening wedding, and the lake/park was a beautiful backdrop. I told Bridget that it was very romantic and lovely. Don't you agree?!

Vacation's over now back to reality...

Hello! We made it back from vacation and are glad to get back to the daily routine. Don't get me wrong, the break was very welcome, and I had a great time at Worlds of Fun. Chris and Mina weren't as adventurous (spelled crazy) as I was, but they said they had fun too. I really enjoyed all of the roller coasters and had fun with my brother and niece and nephew, who were just as crazy as me. Chris said he enjoyed listening to my crazed giggling from the ground! I can't help it that is how I react to riding the rides, I just start laughing crazily and don't really even know that I am doing it until someone says something about it. Oh well, it could be "roller coaster Turret's syndrome" where you use every cuss word and can't control that! Laughing is much more polite! The wedding went well, though there were many disasters to be averted during the day of the wedding. It was very romantic and the evening turned out to be just perfect. On a sad note, we found out on our way home Saturday, that Chris's Grandmother had passed away early Saturday morning. Her funeral is in Arapahoe on Wednesday. She was 96 years old and had a full life. I hope to get some pictures up from vacation and of Mina in her wedding garb (she was so BEAUTIFUL and looked WAY to grown up!) soon, if the picture upload and my camera can cooperate long enough to do that. Is anyone else having this problem?

Myself

This is my self portrait for Graham Gallery's juried show in August.

New Pictures

These are some of the pictures of the kits that I wrote about last week. The pictures weren't wanting to load very well, so we have the pics that would load.
Purple organza ribbon with Swarovski crystal~Beautiful!
Unakite rectangles with peach Swarovski and khaki green Swarovski.

Green fiber optic tubes, peridot crystals, and medium emerald added in for contrast.

Pink quartz twists with light pink Swarovski pearls and amethyst crystal for contrast.

I am not sure on the stone beads, but the crystals are topaz, mocha, with a few dark brown Swarovski pearls thrown in.