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)!

Happy May Day!!

This is going to be a rather random post.  The month of April was so busy and flew by so quickly, I am still rather dizzy from the affair.  So here are some random recent photos to share with you!

These pieces were made by Chris and have been donated to Girl Scouts for the ArtVenture silent auction.  The program is a wonderful one that we have participated in the past couple years.  Girl Scouts are paired up with artists of various media and they spend time learning about that artist's work.  They girls/artists create a project for the girls and one for the auction.  Chris taught two girls how to do chain maille this year.  Chris has been have fun learning and creating with this new media.  He has taught classes twice and has created about a dozen pieces since February. 

Caterpillar Spring.  Chris's little caterpillars were languishing in the bead tray so I designed this lovely piece with the caterpillars crawling through lovely Lucite blossoms.

Penguin Wedding Party.  What spring would be complete without a wedding!  We have big plans for these cuties!  Hope to have the details worked out soon!

New bailed pendants.  Chris has just recently started making these and we have sold a bunch!  Nice way to make a simple, artbead necklace.

New Spring Tweet bird bead Chris made recently.  I am continually amazed at the expressions on the faces of his critters!

Suki and Luna enjoying the spring weather open windows at our house!  They are so funny when the birds are on this platform in the mornings!

Tulips in our flower bed

crab apple tree blooming for all it is worth!

more tulips, these were planted when we moved in 21 years ago!

Flowers in the yard and spring storms in the sky!  These ominous clouds were hovering a couple weeks ago.  My family calls them hail clouds.  Can you see a face in the clouds?  I can see several!

Happy May Day!  Hope you receive a lovely May Basket!

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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!

LONG Weekend, need REST and a Preview...

Chris found this on Facebook, and it was appropriate.  Our cat, Luna, looks like this cute baby and is often right in the middle of whatever you are doing.

We had a very long weekend, having two shows in two different places this weekend.  We were in Exeter on Saturday and in Hastings on Sunday.  Mina marched in the Harvest of Harmony parade with Blue Hill's band in Grand Island Saturday.   Chris went to visit with his classmates at his 25th get together in Doniphan, while I ran into Hastings because my Mom had gone to the ER at the hospital.  She has shingles (on top of Parkinson's Disease and osteo arthritis and heart issues) and is miserable from the pain.  I arrived at the hospital as they were getting in their car to head home.  I drove back to Doniphan to join Chris and stayed for a few minutes to meet his classmates.  We left to go to a gallery opening in Hastings, which ended about the time we thought it was supposed to start. Consequently, we didn't make the show, so we ate and headed home instead. 

We covered about 250 miles on Saturday and about 60 on Sunday.  Can we spell TIRED?  I don't know about spelling it, but we sure do feel it!

I am participating in Michelle Mach's Fall Beading Challenge, with the reveal happening tomorrow.  Here is a preview!

See what I mean about interrupting?  As I type, she is determined to cause problems!  Chris says "the only thing saving her is that she is SO cute!". 

This is a tiny part of my challenge design.  Stop by tomorrow for the reveal!

Completely Random...

Watering The Herd

custom wine stopper order for couples gifts for a September wedding

Suki getting comfortable on the "princess pillow" formerly known as the kitchen chair cushion

Chris's Marbles and Beads at Hastings Art in the Park

custom wine stopper order for couples gifts for a September wedding

The "princess" has perched

Our cutie patootie birthday girls.  Mina (on the left) and Zoe (on the right) share their birthday.  They were born on the same day, in the same hour, 12 years apart and are the only girls in the family!

custom wine stopper order for couples gifts for a September wedding

Another "princess" in the family.  Waiting to have her 14 candles lit on her cake.

I had difficulty finding a topic for the blog the last couple days so I went to our photos and picked randomly from the past couple months to share with you.  Happy Thursday!

Meet Luna

This is Luna, sometimes called Luna Baboona.  She is our new kitten and keeping Suki on her toes.  This allows both of them to leave Sabrina alone (mostly).  Unlike Suki, Luna has "fluff" for brains, not a lot going on up there, except how to get herself into trouble!

She is very playful and really quite skittish yet, quick movements or startling her will shoot her from the room.  Luna is very cute and has a BIG voice for such a small cat.  Though with the size of her paws, I doubt very much that she will be small for long.

She loves tails flicking in her direction, as Sabrina's is here.  Sabrina...not so fond of this fascination.  Luna also makes typing difficult as she pounces on your fingers and the keyboard!