Allergies and the Muppets

You might be wondering what in the world do allergies and the Muppets have to do with one another. Take a good look at the guy on the left. This is the way my eyes feel and sort of look like due to my lovely seasonal allergies. Just thought I'd share this and hopefully give you a laugh at the mental image. What is my bag?! That would be eye bags.

Lorelei's Gotta Giveaway!

Lorelei Eurto is having yet another great giveaway on her blog. Visit, leave a comment and you're in for a chance to win some beautiful beads donated by Nan of Spirited Earth!

A Little Help Please...

I needed some help with my PMC work and also wanted to learn a couple of new techniques. Who to turn to?! Erin from Dragonfly Beads in Manlius, of course! I've taken a few courses from Erin now and it's always a pleasure to go to her shop and pick her brain. It was her shop that I got all the beautiful turquoise from at a trunk sale she had.

Here is the lentil bead that Erin helped me make. I just finished sanding it this morning. It's so pretty and fun! Now the decision is whether to antique it. I think I will in order to highlight the flowers. I can always sand it all off again (ugh).

What about the ring? Well, I made this a while ago however it looked quite different then. To be frank, it was downright ugly. It had the garnet in the middle but a different surround that I had textured and three round pieces on either side. I had also antiqued it. It looked like some goth piece of poo.

It's not perfect but it is miles better than it was. I talked to Erin at her trunk show about what we could do with it and she gave me a couple of options: add a couple more embellishments or saw off what I didn't like. Guess which option I chose. Erin was too nice to say the original was ugly but I know she was just being nice.

Erin is a great teacher. She taught me a few tricks and made me realize that I knew more about working with PMC than I thought I did. She even asked me if I had bought the ring blank. Nope, made it my very self, first time too. (Yes, that was a very blatant pat on the back.)

For the Love of Turquoise!

Take a gander at my latest purchases! Aren't these beauties?! I went to a trunk sale yesterday and sold my first born son in order to get these. (Okay, so I exaggerate. It just took my left arm.) A guy from the Southwest stops in at various bead stores, as well as bead shows I believe, and opens up boxes and boxes and boxes of bead strands to sell.

The top left and center picture show all four strands that I bought. Starting with the upper right-hand picture and going clockwise are green pebble/potato turquoise beads I think he said these were from Arizona (it was really hard to keep them all straight as I was asking about a lot of different strands), Kingman turquoise pebbles and a strand of chunky, graduated beads from China. These are unbelievable! They're all about 4-5mm thick and range from 13-21cm wide. I think I'm going to have to sell at least 1/2 of this strand in order to get part of my left arm back. There is also a strand of uniform rondelle/disk beads that are from Arizona and are similar to Carico Lake turquoise (in the picture of all the strands). All of these beads have been stabilized and are natural color!!

This guy was really interesting to talk to. He talked about a mask that had been found in Mexico that contained turquoise from Kingman, AZ. He also told me about some ancient digging sticks found in an unearthed section of the Kingman mine. Truth or lore, who knows. It was entertaining to listen to. Well, that was my adventure for this weekend. Now to make something with all my pretties...

Dino BBQ - Yum!

Last Saturday was my husband's birthday and the one thing he really wanted was to go up to Syracuse for lunch at Dinosaur BBQ. Who was I to refuse such a simple request? Yes, I'd have to choke down some delicious food in a neat restaurant enjoying the company of my family but I was willing to make the sacrifice. So, up to Syracuse we went where we met my sister and father. We had a great lunch and terrific service in a fun atmosphere. If you haven't been able to make it to a Dino BBQ before and you live within driving distance to Syracuse, Rochester or Manhattan, you MUST go. I promise, you won't be disappointed.

No Fooling Around This Thursday!

This is one of the latest necklaces I've made and I have a problem with it. I don't know whether to keep it or sell it!! I really like it even though I'm not a huge wearer of necklaces. (I know, what's up with that?! I make jewelry!) It features an adorable letter pendant by Jade Scott.

I also made another necklace featuring an owl pendant by my friend, Daniele, of Thistle Farm. I was going to add a string of chrysoprase chips with some black and brass beads to complement the green glaze on the owl. I held the string of beads I had next to it and really preferred it in this simpler presentation. I'm going to add an extender to this and list it later today.

A Sneak Peek...

This sneak peek was supposed to have been posted last night but my computer had other plans. It's still not too cooperative this morning. Anyway, here is what I was working on this week. I finally got some smaller mandrels to fire these filigree beads. The bead on the left has white enamel on it. I think it looks so neat. It reminds me of snowflake obisidian stones. The chartreuse green is one of my favorites too. It's amazing how the enamel changes color in its cooling process. Who thought this bead that was the color of baby poop would turn into this cool shade of green?! The copper headpins were a little tricky. I had made these to use with resin (those will be making an appearance soon) and thought "Why not try some in enamel?". My technique with these needs some refinement. One of them went "Poof!" like I was doing a magic trick.

I'm having a lot of fun with this torch enamel stuff and I'm working on a necklace incorporating one of these filigree beads. Which one of them will I choose? Hmmm...