Beauty in the Palm of His Hand

Chris added some eye candy to the Etsy shop on Sunday.  Have you seen them yet?  Top: Copper Blue Heart bead, Chartreuse Swirls marble, and Love is Complicated Heart bead.  Chris created all of the goodies and trust me, they are even more AWESOME in person!

I received the beads I ordered with my prize gift certificate from Palm Tree Queen today!  Delicious, mini donuts that are calling to me (strangely just like the life sized real ones do!) to make them into jewelry!  Stay tuned for pictures!

Who's Ready For Mardi Gras?

I am!  I made this last night and MASTERED a new stitch in the process!  The stitch is flat spiral stitch and I found my instructions here.  Now if I can figure out what to do at the ends to add my clasp, I will be set!  Loved the new stitch, may compete with Russian Spiral for my favorite stitch!  It went together quick too, about 3  1/2 hours while watching "Water For Elephants" with Mina.  Excellent movie too if you haven't seen it!  Mina assures me that the book was awesome too.

My Prize Package

Prize Package from The Hole Bead Shoppe

Here is my beadiful prize package from The Day of the Dead contest!  Technically, the cash came in the form of a check but I cashed it as to not display the bank info from their account.  Isn't it awesome?!  I still can't believe I won.  Chris said now I can tell people I am an "award winning bead artist".  In addition to this bounty I have a years subscription to Bead Design Studio (which I already subscribe to) and $40 worth of beady goodies from Debi Cogwell of Palm Tree Queen lampwork beads.  She is the artist that created our Day of the Dead focal beads for our kits.  I ordered these:

Donut Beads!!  I know EXACTLY what I am going to do with them!  I have some coffee bean and coffee cup jewelry that matches my coffee sweater from CJ Banks, and these donuts will be worked into the designs.  Aren't they fun!  Now if only they would help me lose weight by wearing the donuts instead of eating them!!!  
Have a terrific weekend!

Silliness with Pets

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While shopping at Hobby Lobby on Friday, Chris and I purchased one of these for Luna.  Luna loves to play, and this wind up bunny has a good history of exciting the cats at our house.  When Chris presented it to her this evening, Luna picked it up by the ears and carried it off.  She practiced her throw by tossing it up in the air and then she carried it to the back porch.  Chris was worried it would come to rest in the litter box, and went to rescue it. 

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We also have one of these.  Suki loved playing with it when younger but it is definitely Luna's favorite toy.  She plays with it daily and will even pick it up in her teeth and carry it around by the stalk.  Funny that this cat even LOOKS like Luna! 
Our cats are also fond of these kitty teasers:

However, they don't last long if they contain this many feathers.  Feathers = Birds = Need to be EATEN!  Mina has a vase of peacock feathers on her dresser which continue to taunt the cats and to get them in trouble with Mina!

Our cats also love their catnip toys.  The favorite being one that looks like a road kill squirrel.  Too funny, I am thankful for my kitty cats every day.  They love me and make me laugh on days that laughter is tough to come by.

And The Winners Are...

So I just received this email, and wanted to share the results.

Hi Designers and Judges of The Day of the Dead Challenge,

We're happy to announce the winners of our Day of the Dead Challenge. First, I'd like to say two things!

Thank you so much for all your hard work. We so appreciate all the effort you each put into your designs and we know from experience how hard deadlines are - but even with the deadlines you all did a SUPER job.

All of the JUDGES......including Lauren Vasil and Debi Cogwell had lots of questions and worked so hard to judge fairly, by the contest rules for participation and make sure they got all information they could from the entries before casting their votes.

As a matter of fact - MOST of the judges votes were cast at the LAST minute because all the designs were so beautiful.

A note to the judges - thank you for complying with my harsh rules of NO likes or comments on the designers pictures before we announced the winners....you may NOW post whatever you like on the photo albums and blog. You're both amazing judges and I can't say how much we appreciate your hard work with your busy schedules.

So - I'll stop blabbing. WINNERS: Please CONTACT ME with ALL your information so prizes can be sent and forwarded. You can see all prizes on the blog...http://theholebeadshop.blogspot.com/

And thank you Debi RAE Cogwell and Pamela Hawkins of Bead Design Studio for your gifts.

And of course, you can announce that you won. We're going to list all the winners after our "Jar oh' Lucies" contest is over - but we would LOVE it is you told your friends that you've won. And congrats! And.......AGAIN thank you ALL for making our FIRST Bead Challenge so much fun. We LOVE you all....very much.

First Prize: Stephanie Sanner Haussler

Second Prize: Shelley Nybakke - Pleines

Third Prize: Beth Dewey

Fourth Prize: (Facebook FAN -Blog - People's Choice): Wendy Baker

Thank you again for all your efforts to make our contest a success.

Kelli and The Gang.....much love. 


Did you see what that says?!!!  It says I WON!  Oh MY GOSH!!!  I can't believe it!  I never thought I would win, maybe second but never first!  

Now for my Thank You speech:

I have to thank Chris and Mina foremost for putting up with all of my beading craziness, and for supporting me.  I am a VERY lucky woman to have you loving me every day.

First I would like to thank Kelli, Michael, Tarlee, and the Gang at The Hole Bead Shoppe!  You guys have been awesome and encouraged me since we "met" on the web.  Thanks for such an awesome challenge!  So fun, and I have NEVER put more work or time into one piece.  Thank you.



I would also like to thank Carla for teaching me to bead, it has enriched my life in a way I could never have imagined in the beginning and for your friendship I am very thankful.  Thank you to Julie for giving me a job that is never a job, because I am the Bead Girl and I love it! To Sherry Serafini and NanC Meinhardt for completely changing how I bead.  I want to thank Lori Anderson because without participating in her Bead Soup Parties in 2011, my beading would not have moved to the harder design level that has also completely changed my beading.



Thank you to all of my friends, family, and customers for your support of my beading passion (obsession) and for making me thankful every day to have something I love to do that makes others happy!  Thank you for letting me share your lives!

Thank you to Debi Cogwell for the fabulous focal!  I really loved your beads before I got to work with one, but now I am a huge fan!  I can't wait to use my gift certificate! 


Congratulations to all my design challenge competitors, your bead work is also very beautiful!  I never thought I would win! 

Voting Reminder For My Day of the Dead Challenge Piece!

Voting ends January 10th.  If you haven't voted yet please do, and if you have THANK YOU!

I would appreciate if you could stop by and vote.  You need to list my name, photo# or the name of the piece in a comment to place your vote.  The piece is called Garden of Skulls and it is photo #1.

Garden of Skulls by Stephanie Haussler

Thanks so much for your help!

You can now VOTE on our Day of the Dead Challenge by leaving a comment. The comment should be for your favorite piece/designer. Share this link with your FB friends, family, whomever. These votes will be used in conjunction with votes on Kelli Burns page, The Hole Bead Shop fan page.
Our offsite judges PalmtreeQueen Lampworks Glass Beads and Lauren Vasil will help the staff at The Hole Bead Shoppe select the other three prizes. Let the voting begin. http://www.theholebeadshop.blogspot.com/

Humor in Words

Chris and I saw this on a billboard while in the car on New Year's Eve.  It made us both laugh out loud!

Pinterest

I completely believe in this one!

I love this one!

This I hope will be my motto this year!

I found all of these on Pinterest!  I love that website!

Our Life With Cats

I have often written about our crazy kitties.  In 2011, Sassy our 12 year old calico passed away and we added Luna, a Siamese mix, to the herd.  The Girls add such joy and aggravation to our lives it would be a horrible thing to live without them.  Here is a collage of our kitties!

 

Poor Luna is having her "surgery" today.  Hope she doesn't suffer too long!