Tucson Bead Buying Trip Wrap Up

Well, guest blogger Chris fell down on the job.  No updates came while I was gone, did they?  So here is the photos of some things along the trip to Tucson!

Just before leaving Julie's Xpressions on Tuesday (in the blizzard).

Me getting settled in the van.

Dressed for the day of travel (blizzard over, delays yet to start)

Mary, Julie, and Jacee caught unaware of me sneaking photos with my iPad.

Plane beside us at the terminal, we were loaded on the plane an hour and a half before taking off, due to 

frozen lines etc

 

a de-iced plane gets a weird green color when the process is finished

 

Me and Deb Brooks goofing around

Irrigation pivot rings in the snow from the airplane.

Deb expressing her feelings on our several hour wait for our connecting flight from Denver to Tucson

Me in the Denver airport (apparently developing an eye twitch!)

Photos at our arrival at Tucson Airport!  The sun was on the mountains and it was lovely!

Deb letting her hubby know she is safe in Tucson

view from our balcony

Hotel courtyard

Hotel living room

Hotel work/bar area

One of the few photos of the bead show I took (at the Gem Mall)

Polymer clay pile at my Christi Friesen class

My creations from the Peaceful Leaves class with Christi Friesen

Bead Mecca Here We Come...Much to the Cat's Disappointment.

Our cat Luna, looks a bit sad here.  I have just informed her she can not fly with me to Tucson.  Poor, pitiful kitty cat.  Yeah Me!

"But PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE Mom, I promise to be a good kitty while I hide in your suitcase"!
"No, Luna you can't go!  Julie said no cats are allowed on this bead buying trip!  There has to be more room for BEADS, so NO CATS."

"Oh, bother!  I will just not leave your suitcase!  It is going to be cold and snowy here and though I love to snuggle with Dad and Mina, I want to go with you on your adventure".  Poor sad, Kitty.  I love you, but you must stay home.

Ok, if you are a pet owner, especially a cat owner, I am sure you pack the suitcase, unpack the cat, pack the suitcase, unpack the cat, etc. etc. repeat, repeat, repeat.  My suitcase has been out for about a week, slowly accumulating my possessions to fly off to Tucson on a bead buying extravaganza with my boss; Julie, her daughter; Jacie, Mary Powell, and Deb Brooks!  In that time, Luna and I have repeated this ritual on a daily basis.  She is so adorable, she was purring the whole time we were doing our photo shoot this morning!  But, I am leaving and she is not!  We head off to Omaha tomorrow afternoon and fly out before the cats even get out of bed on Wednesday!  We have to be at the airport around 5 am and we will be in Tucson shopping for beads around lunchtime!  Whoot!  Whoot! On, Friday night we will play with polymer clay at the Friday night party with Christi Friesen and Deb and I are going to take a class on Saturday with Christi Friesen, learning to use Art Concrete and polymer clay!  In between we will be Julie's little worker bead bees, hunting for all sorts of goodies to bring back for the store in Hastings and to add to our own bead hordes!  Watch here for updates from my Guest Blogger, Chris (also my very favoritist guy in the whole world)!

New Marble Additions Getting Ready for Marble Crazy!

Yesterday's creations

Nugget Marbles

Eyeballs

Desert Days

Vapor Vortex

Classic Ivory w/ Turquoise

Goldstone Glitter marbles

New Jewelry Designs - Hugs & Kisses

It has been a long while since I have designed an original design.  With my Dad's passing in November, the grief and day to day demands have sucked hard at my creative stream.  Do you ever experience this?  I often feel as if there is nothing but the demands and dealing with them.  But with the new year it is time to get back in to the creative mode, shows are coming!  I designed this piece last night.  I started with an art pendant created by Melanie Brooks, Earthenwood Studios.  When I held it in my hand, I knew what the finished design would look like!  Does that happen in your world?  It rarely happens that way for my designs.  I added bunches of wire wraps with Chinese crystals and Czech glass beads.  There are also X and O letter tags added for a bit of whimsy, going for the hugs and kisses feel.  Those are from the scrapbooking embellishment aisle, made by The Paper Studio, Spare Parts.  I love hunting for the bits to add to a design to make it unique.  The letter tags match the matte antique silver finish on the chain also.

My Muse also urge me to create a couple pair of earrings.  When I did my end of the year inventory, I realized how many earrings I have in stock, yikes!  However, I get tired of looking at the same earrings, and they are so fun to make, I couldn't resist the siren's song!  The black pair are a matte finish Czech glass bead with peacock coating on the tiny triangle design.  I added odds and ends beads to pick up the colors in the peacock finish for the dangles.  The pretty hearts were made with Clay River Designs hearts and the dangles are Czech glass hearts and Chinese crystals.  Mina said she thought these look like Sweet Tarts candy, and would actually wear them!!!  I just about handed them over to her then and there!  It is a VERY RARE thing for my beautiful but low maintenance daughter to want anything to do with my jewelry!  I felt like she hugged me without even touching me!

This Year in Review Part 1: The Marbles

The marbles created by Chris have been a HUGE part of this year!  Chris had professional photos taken of his marbles early in the year, and in June they were published in The Flow magazine.

Source

Our first show of the year is always the Marble Crazy show at Moon Marble Company in Bonner Springs, KS.  It is a wonderful, fun show and this was the second year of many (we hope) that we participated!

 One of Chris's most popular designs.  Our friend, Frank Brooks, designs twisted forks for the stands for the eyeball marbles.

 Chris doing demonstrations (which he does at many of our shows) of marble making at the Moon Marble show.

 New design, marbles with heavy frit on the outside that when illuminated, shine from within.

 Ladybug Summer, also a popular design.

A mix of show demonstration marbles after the kiln annealing.