New Rules According To Stephanie...

A good blogging/Facebook friend recently posted the rules according to her, so here are the rules according to me!
1. Under NO circumstances, listen to negative thinking. It gets in your head and heart and NO amount of therapy can erase it permanently.
2. Laugh. A LOT. OFTEN. Whether with friends, family, strangers, or even alone, Do It As Often As Possible. (Try not to laugh at others and cause rule #1 to happen).
3. Love A Lot. Often (repeat Rule #2 here).
4. Do something you enjoy EVERY day. Life is too short to not obey this rule. For me, that would be beading, reading, video games, movies, or laughing with Chris and Mina (though often we break the rule above by laughing at our pets.)
5. After being married for 18 years, you should get another household shower to replace towels, sheets, etc. that are worn out and ookey. Yes, that is a technical term.
6. Catch up with friends, classmates, and relatives you have lost contact with, even the ones you didn't especially care for. Time changes people and you may have been the jerk to begin with!
7. Relax. Don't take life to0 seriously, none of us get out alive! If you can't fix it, pray about it, share it with a friend, write it out. Problems usually aren't as bad on paper, as they are in your head.
8. Find peace. Whether you are sitting in church, watching the sun rise, enjoying a cool fall breeze on your face, or seeing the twinkling humor of a good joke on the face of a child, find the little things in life and relish them.
9. Be You. No one else can do if for you, and you know inside what you like and don't, so listen to that little voice. I bought sparkly, purple frames for my bifocals yesterday. Yes, they may be over the top, but sometimes so can I. I am soon going to have a line of jewelry called "Steph Colors", because all my friends say that to me. "Oh, I saw something and thought of you because they were "Steph" colors." You have NO idea how many times my friends have said this to me! What are Steph's colors? Bright orange, lime green, coral, turquoise blue, fuschia, and any variety or mix of all of the above at once! I have a sweater at home that has ALL of those colors and I feel really great when I wear it. Sparkle, it will blind people so they can't see what's wrong with you!
10. (Though I could go on longer) Dream. Big, small, possible, impossible. Doesn't matter, just do it. You can't have dreams come true without the dreams to begin with!
So what are the rules according to you?

It's Official~I am OLD...

Yesterday, age set in. Oh I crossed the 40 year mark a couple years ago (one of the worst birthdays EVER, not due to age either~no gifts, no celebrations, NO CAKE! You know who you are!), but it struck me yesterday that it has caught up to me. I got my eyes checked (rarely a positive experience~they always get worse, and cost too much money), but now I am going to have to wear BIFOCALS. Yes, I know that with the progression of my vision, it was inevitable. However, I FEEL OLD TODAY! Silly, yes. Ridiculous, yes. BUT TRUE!
On a more positive note, we have started looking for a different car, after a long, ugly story involving not having my Subaru since the 22nd of May, we decided to not put anymore $ into it, and to find something else. Not a task Chris or I enjoy. Hopefully, it doesn't take long! Happy Weekend!

Wow, Where'd the Month Go?

Yes, I am still here. Haven't been though for a while, by the date of my last post! The month has been full. The beginning of August saw us getting Mina ready to go back to school and finishing up with her de-tasseling job. We have gotten started making autumn jewelry and beads, and we sent Mina back to school last week. Over the weekend, we got to spend time with family in Lincoln, and meet our beautiful, new baby niece, Zoe. It has been a LONG time since we had a new baby in the family (Mina was the last!), and Zoe is so sweet and snuggly and wonderful! Zoe was born on Mina's birthday, in the same hour even! They have an even bigger connection as they are the only girls in the family, and Mina certainly enjoys keeping her "boy" cousins on their toes with the trash talk and joking around. So that brings us to now, I am getting jewelry ready to go to Giltner next week for a 2 weekend show and Chris sold some Goddess beads to a gal in New Mexico yesterday. He made a beautiful hollow pumpkin bead last night, and has been working on some crow birdy beads for Halloween time. New pictures soon!

Summer Jewelry

Recent pieces made by Stephanie. The animal beads are on a new display from Sally Jurgensmeier. It is great because they can all stand up, instead of laying on the table! The blue fringe bracelet was a donation to the PaC2 annual fundraiser in Hastings.



I really love this picture with the bracelets. They are some of my favorite recent designs.

Theses are some felted pins I made just before we did the Flatwater Festival in June. I really loved the green and pink heart, which sold!

Peace necklaces I made for Cottonwood. The green one sold quickly, I think the blue one is at Graham Gallery right now. Will be at Art in the Park Sunday in Hastings!

More New Beads by Chris

Here are more of Chris's new floral beads. The green one with the pink daisy is MINE! All MINE!

New Beads by Chris

Chris has been working on his floral technique with his beads. These are the techniques he learned at the Leah Fairbanks class back in March. Don't get too attached the blue and purple beads have already sold!

Weekend News

How can it be Monday already? Weekends just fly by, but then I guess the weeks do too! On Friday night, we took in a movie with good friends, Jerry and Carla, who are getting ready to depart for a BIG change in their lives. We all enjoyed Star Trek at the Hastings Museum. It was great to see the scifi movie on the BIG Imax screen, and the movie was FABULOUS. I never realized how much I loved scifi until a few years ago, and now it is one of my favorite genres. My Dad, brother Mark, and I used to watch the original Star Trek on TV, and Mom tolerated it. But the movie definitely played to the original series and was just terrific. On Saturday, I enjoyed spending the morning with our local seed beading group. What fun gals! They way outdistance my beading, but it is just so much fun to chat and bead (and rip out the beading because of too much chatting)! Chris showed off his newest floral and Goddess beads, made for the Hastings Art in the Park coming up this week on Sunday (August 2), and several of them will not be for sale now! Saturday was also the Lawrence Q125 celebration, and though we didn't make back in time for the parade (which had more than 75 entries!), the chicken barbecue was very good! Our town has a population of 325 according to the sign, and I think the population easily was doubled on Saturday. They serve 588 meals and it is said the the polka Mass at church was standing room only, with the balcony and all pews filled and still people standing in the back. Wow! Congrats to the Lawrence Community Club for all their hard work, it turned out terrific! On Sunday, Chris and I lolled around the house in the morning, as Mina has been detasseling and leaving the house about 5:40am each day, and then we did some chores and ended the afternoon at Carla and Jerry's house for a retirement/going away party. Beautiful evening to sit out in their beautiful yard and visit. Also, good food and drinks (I really loved the Crab Dip!), and to see them one last time before their move. Very bittersweet, so happy for them, but so sad for all the rest of us! This week involves a ZagBag purse party tonight at my friend Leslie's (she throws the best home parties!) and the rest of the week will be spent preparing for Art in the Park Sunday at Libs Park in Hastings from 9-4. Hope to see you there, have a great week!

Twelve Years Ago...

Twelve years ago, I was in a LOT of pain! I was giving birth to my beautiful daughter. Mina was born at 5:13pm and she completely changed my world (and Chris's!)! She is fun, unique in her tastes in clothing and bicycles, is obsessed with everything Twilight, and still loves to play with her toys. Mina loves to play with Legos, draw, color in coloring books, and watch the Disney channel, Cartoon Network, and Nick on TV. She loves stories about ghosts and ghouls (my work here is done : ) ) and to play Wii. She often out fishes her father and other male relatives, loves to play ball and hang out in the garden with Chris, is fascinated by insects and every summer hatches out butterflies from the caterpillars she finds in the yard. Mina is often goofy, a devoted friend, does not do DRAMA that often happens with girls her age and avoids it by hanging with the guys in her class, and though she is only twelve, she has an old soul. Her Great-Grandma often says Mina doesn't have to say a word, she can say it all with a look. She is nearly as tall as her mom, and wears the same size shoes. We often tell the story, that when she was born, Dr. Adam, didn't say it's a boy or girl, he said, "Don't buy her any shoes, they won't fit!". She had very long and skinny feet at birth and still does, making it a nightmare to find shoes that fit her!
She is my world, and I thank God every day that she was given to me for a few short, amazing years to mold into a beautiful human being.

New Eye Candy on Etsy!

Check out the new items on our etsy store! Pretty, fun earrings for summer! Beads coming soon!

New pictures, just not here...

Hello! I did get new pictures of jewelry and our shows up on the Internet, they are on my facebook page, just haven't had the time to do all the editing/cropping involved in posting them here yet. If you are a friend on my list check them out, or if you are on facebook, check out Stephanie Sanner Haussler's page for the pics or add me as a friend! I will get them on here this week. Hope you had a great Independence Day, couldn't have asked for better weather, though I certainly could have done with less mosquito bites! Have a great week!

Sorry for the long silence...

Hello again. Sorry it has taken me so long to sign back in. We had another great show last weekend at the Flat Water Festival in Hastings. Setup on Friday afternoon was pretty miserable with the humidity and heat, but Saturday was beautiful, and we had great sales and fun chatting with friends and customers and the music was awesome! Our next show will be Sunday, August 2 in Hastings for Art in the Park at Libs Park from 9am to 4pm, hope you can stop out and see us! In the time between now and then, we will be celebrating Mina's 12th birthday, having a baby shower for a soon to arrive new niece/cousin, and Chris will be catching up on special orders. Mina has spent the past three days in Nebraska City at Camp Catron (GS Camp) for a training retreat for the GS Advisory Group. It was a big honor for her to be chosen, they are a group that gets to plan events and activities for the Girl Scout councils, help with training volunteers, work at events, etc. Plus she got to go to a camp that she had never been to, and they are stopping in Lincoln for lunch and some shopping on the way home today! I am so JEALOUS, that would be so much more fun than work! Have a great 4th of July and I hope to spend time this weekend editing pics for the blog and for facebook!

We Survived!

We made it through the Cottonwood Festival! That is not really a surprise, but it is exhausting. We had a great show, met lots of wonderful people, hung out with all of the fun artists from Graham Gallery, and there are lots of people wearing Pixybug jewelry or have new beads to play with! Now on to the Flatwater Festival, this coming weekend at the Prairie Loft Center, also in Hastings. We will be exhibiting on Friday afternoon/evening and from 10 til 10 on Saturday. Stop out for great music, food, and crafts! Be sure to stop and say hi if you do!

Cottonwood Week

This is a big, crazy, busy week for us. Mina is going to spend tonight and Tuesday night with Grandpa and Granny H. to help with the crazy schedule. She is going to do her first Girl Scout P. A. (program aide) assignments at Camp Cosmo on Tuesday and Wednesday. This could have been an issue since she has to check in at 8:30 and is done a 4:30, which doesn't jive with the work schedules of Mom and Dad. Grandpa and Granny to the rescue! God Bless Them! So we take her to their house tonight and pick her and Grandpa's pickup, up from there Wednesday night. She has band lessons (God Bless Mr. McMurtry, too, he is so AWESOME!) Thursday morning, (I am taking a break from all this craziness to get a pedicure on Thursday am), then she has her sports/7th grade physical in the afternoon. We are having lunch with one of our favorite friends, Carla, also on Thursday to do crafting show and tell. I have lots of great new jewelry to show her, and she is going to show us her really fun key fobs. In between all of this craziness, we need to take pics of all the stuff we have made, price it, pack it, pack displays, tables, Chris's demo table, tools, glass, and be ready to set up on Friday for the weekend at Cottonwood Festival in Hastings. If you are going to be in Hastings, please stop by and seek us out in the Graham Gallery Artist tent on the east end of Brickyard park this year. Lots of great family things to do, kids 12 and under are free, a weekend advance pass good for all three days is just $15, and that includes a Charlie Daniels concert on Saturday night. My sleepless nights have begun (and I wasn't even staying up to make jewelry), so if you here no more this week, you know where and what we are up too! Hope to see you this weekend at Cottonwood!

Car problems, no pics, beading like crazy...

Happy Tuesday! We woke up this a.m. to thunder and lightning and a tiny bit of rain. I think that by the time we heard it start it was over! But we are thankful that we were not hit with the large amounts of rain and hail they had last Friday not so far from here.
We have been suffering through a spurt of car problems. This seems to fit the "when it rains, it pours" addage. My 1999 Subaru Outback had to have a new engine put in (ugh)! Today, our 2000 Impala will have a new tie rod, ball joint, and hub put on the front end. This will be followed closely by having it aligned after the repair.
On the beading front, Chris spent almost all of Saturday at his torch and made some wonderful stuff! I spent most of Sunday beading, and was up until 1am this morning with another round. Chris came out and chased me to bed or I would have been at it longer. I didn't sleep that well, so I should have probably just kept beading!
Mina comes home today after spending several days with Grandpa and Granny Haussler who live just north of Hastings.
Pictures will be taken soon, sorry for the delay!