Get To Work!

So I finally post after months of absentia then I disappear again!  Definitely need to get into a routine and back on track!

I've been holding out on big news and was waiting for a nice regular blog posting roll to slip it in but apparently my randomness isn't going to allow that so time to spill the beans...

Tucson or bust baby!  Not sure if I'm excited or scared to death but I'll have a table at The Tucson Bead Show February 9-11!  Who's going to come join me?  I'll need visitors and giggles and people to go out to dinner with (hopefully I'll have shoppers too)!  You can pre-register for the show right here to save time at the door.  There are still hotel rooms in Tucson available now too so this is a great time to make plans (and it won't be 134 degrees there like it is right now!). 

All this means is that I need to start kicking up my production...and no procrastinating!  So even though I'm going to try to start hoarding some pieces specifically for the show, I will try to be better about scheduling regular updates to my website with new pieces.

I pulled all the accent beads I had on my website and some others that have come out of the past few firings but that I haven't gotten around to photographing...I thought they would look better bundled up rather than just loose as I've had them in the past so I pulled out the raffia I have for my packaging and starting stringing them in batches.  The question I have though is what do you prefer for bundles?  Do you like groups of beads that are done in the same glaze or do you prefer a mish mash of coordinating colors?  I love this pile of bead colors all together but I'm also more likely to purchase monochromatic strands myself...

Also on that note, I finally took photos of pieces I've had kicking around for quite a while.  There are a few new glazes for reveal as well as some exciting color experiments that I'm messing around with.

There's this pretty green and brown that I am calling "kelp"...

and then this pretty rutile glaze...still chewing on a name for it...

and buttons! So many buttons!

So what would YOU like to see me make?  Sets, coordinating beads, colors...?

Fresh from the Kiln...

I had a couple of stragglers for an order I needed to fire this week so I thought I'd try to fill up the kiln as much as I could with a glazing marathon. I have a couple of new glazes that I needed to try out and thought I'd try to make some sets rather than my usual random glazing. I quite like these rust and pistachio and rust and blue combinations, particularly on a smooth pendant or one with very pronounced designs.A couple of pieces went to the BOC Etsy shop but everything else has gone into my Etsy shop or on the website. I continue to mess around a bit with my potter's wheel but I can assure you that nothing with any semblance of symmetry has come off of it yet! Luckily once filled with succulents my wonky little pots are actually a bit charming...at least that's what some kind people are telling me :)

No danger of me abandoning pendants for housewares, that's for sure!

Summer is starting to wind down for me...I'm feeling the need to try to try to be super productive for a few days but also have to balance it with a little more relaxation before the reality of fall hits!

What do you feel like you still need to accomplish this summer or have you mastered the art of summer relaxation?

Etsy Update Monday...

My much neglected Etsy shop is going to get some love tonight!

The dish of goodies here are all going in the shop...several of them are brand new shapes and there are a few new glazes I'm testing as well. I'll start listing things at 6pm PST so if you see something here that catches your eye, stop by early! I've been AWOL from the blog because my niece Madison was visiting for the week...we had Disneyland, SeaWorld, Safari Park, Zoo and haunted buildings to get to, which kept me zipping around town for a few days. Unfortunately I didn't pull out the clay until the end of her visit...turns out that she's a round bead making inferno!

I promised that the beads she worked on would soon make their debut in the shop and on the blog so stay tuned!

Fresh from the Kiln...

Whew! I've just finished editing over 100 new pendants to add to the website! In preparation for my trunk show in Long Beach last weekend I was a glazing machine and managed to fill the big kiln.

Most of the fresh from the kiln designs are using these wonderful hand carved wooden fabric stamps from Pakistan that I recently acquired...

This is only a snippet of what I came home with! They're a bit of a change of pace for me, I usually do embossed designs rather than imprinted and I found that the stamped pendants are a bit thicker than my usual pieces but are still lightweight. I just adore the variations in the stamps that show you that they were carved by hand...the little imperfections are beautiful and each stamp is unique. When I broke the bank buying them all up I had plans to sell about half of them, but now that I've tried them out I'm not sure how I could choose what to part with!

Despite being on my summer break right now, it's been a whirlwind around here! Next post I'll catch you up on my most wonderful long weekend trip to Napa/Sonoma that I just returned from and I'll let you in the destination for my BIG trip this summer...guesses anyone? I'll give you one clue...thin air!

Back in the Swing of Things...

Although much of my trip last week was of the not cheery nature (more on that at another time probably), I did have one evening with my mother at a succulent bowl class at a local greenhouse.


I love the variety of colors and textures in the plants...so many ideas for beads here...


Unlike in Canada where succulents either live inside for much of the year or they succumb to the elements, here in San Diego they flourish on my patio all year...which meant that I was sorely disappointed that the bowl I created chock full of beautiful plants stayed with my mom! (pretty sure that I would have had a bit of an issue at customs if I would have tried to transport it across the border!)


The Firesticks remind me of a field of coral...


They had beautiful "living walls" with succulents in frames that hang on the wall...this was one of my favorites...


I am extra fond of birdie photos and although the hubster had a day where he spotted three Woodpeckers and a BlueJay, I only spotted this little Robin.

However, I spent a good chunk of time on separate days following a flock of Canadian Geese down the riverbank...

They were remarkably cooperative!


In beady news... I was pleased to discover I've been featured in an Etsy treasury...

Dawn of Northern Adornments Jewelry Designs created this beautiful necklace with a Viking Knit chain in matte mint and silver and one of my Lagoon Batik pendants. Go check her work out!


I've added some of my new pendants to the website already in the Architectural section and the remainder will be updated today. Don't forget to swing by the Art Bead Scene Blog and sign up for their newsletter- I'm a featured sponsor for the challenge prizes this month. There's even a special discount code this month for ABS readers! A few bracelet bars are left although they go fast! I'm loving these new designs, the only problem is that I need to come up with names better than "Architectural 1", "Architectural 2" and so on... Suggestions are welcomed!

Much to get done now that I've been home for a week and still so very much to catch up on so I should probably stop procrastinating with this lengthy post and get to work. Thank you so much to those who sent me such kind emails/comments last week...it never ceases to amaze me how I've "met" such wonderful people via blogging. I truly appreciate you all :)

The Big Reveal...

This will be short but there are still some things to say so I won't skip posting...

Here's a sneak peek at a bunch of my new designs, I'm really just beyond tickled petunia pink by them! They turned out even better than I could have imagined...the challenge will be naming them all and keeping them all straight in my head, especially because they're pretty much all architecturally inspired.


I'm going to do my very best to get what's come out of the kiln up on the website but I'm not sure I'll have time tomorrow. Sadly, my mother in law passed away this afternoon so as you can imagine, there are plenty of other things that take priority over beads for a few days.

The last detail before I go into a bit of a radio silence mode... I'm scheduled to be a sponsor for Art Bead Scene for the month of May. These are my contribution to the goodies that are up for grabs in their giveaway:

Along with the giveaway I'm offering a special discount code so be sure to check out ABS (or make sure you're signed up for my newsletter which really is going to go out right away-there have been technical glitches slowing me down) for the details.

Blog partner peeps, I'm still planning on getting your special items out in the mail to you on Monday so the show will go on.

Other than that, any orders coming in over the next week will have shipping (or production if there are made to order items) delayed until the 10th. Thank you for your patience!

Oodles of Bracelet Bars...

Ok, not really oodles but quite a few! Also glazed back buttons and a couple of Big Circle connectors. These guys will be on the website tomorrow evening.

You still have time to enter the giveaway from my last post...I can't believe it but no one has guessed what I have planned for my fabric!

Hello Bunny...

So how many of you forgot to set your clocks forward for this morning? I still haven't done the rest of the clocks in the house but at least we had the alarm set correctly!

This cute little munchkin was hanging out this morning...he was quite unconcerned about my presence and went through his full grooming routine for me...


Pretty sure I haven't actually dropped any pounds and become impossibly fashionable just by carrying my new camera bag but as promised, here is a little peek at it in action!
Lowepro Passport Sling Camera Bag (Mica)


It has plenty of room for my camera with a lens attached, a second lens, wallet, keys, cell phone, extra battery and memory card, notebook and pen, a few filters and the manual. Here it is with the back zipper opened to increase the interior by about 30%...


There's a nice padded insert that my camera fits in just comfortably and there's enough space for my camera strap to fold up on top. Notice those two little black flaps? Those are the pockets for a cell phone and the extra battery.


Here's the thing for anyone with a larger camera like mine, the insert comes with a handy dandy divider that you would theoretically use to snuggle your extra lens into but when my camera is in the insert there's no room to spare. I figured I'd give you a picture of how it would look with the divider in...use your imagination that there's a camera there too!


I have a solution though, I plan to sew another side on to the divider and make it into a little pocket that will go beside the insert instead.

For those of you who are here for the beads, here's a peek of some of what came out of the kiln yesterday... This interesting glaze has a matte finish and did a neat antiqued kind of effect in places. I said I wanted a glaze that reminded me of the flamingos from my zoo post... I think I almost did it!
Now I must get some work done- I need to start pulling together last minute numbers before our ever so fun trip to the tax man this afternoon. I hope you have something more fun planned!

New Stuff!

I've been doing some playing around in the mud over the past few weeks and finally have everything up on the website! Shown above are a bunch of my cut out pendants, some on the website and some are off in the mail for consideration in the upcoming issue of Beads 2011.

Also on their way to Beads 2011 (but a couple on the website) are my new nests... I hesitated to make them because there are so many great nest beads out there but I felt like these were different enough to do with all the individual "twigs" that I should go for it. What do you think?There's no prominent hole for them but the open nature of the nest allows for a thin stringing material or bail to be inserted. I also think they would be ahhhmazing glued to a flat backing or bezel...ring anyone?

I've also been playing around with pushing my porcelain pendants to the limit as far as thinness...this time with pierced designs. One is on Etsy already...Major losses in both production and firing with these guys and the glaze results are still not 100% what I'm looking for but I love how delicate they turned out. I had some of the pendants where the holes fully filled with glaze, kind of a stained glass effect, which is what I wanted but it didn't happen consistently.

Be sure to check back later this week for a super special giveaway opportunity. The generous folks at CSN stores offered me the opportunity to do a product review or another gift certificate giveaway...I thought I'd spread the love to all my wonderful peeps so I chose the giveaway. One lucky person will receive a no strings attached gift certificate code for $45 to spend at any of their shops! They have so many great things and reasonable prices so the winner should be able to find something wonderful, whether it's a splurge or a necessity.

Home!

I have returned from the frosty North! Note the bone chilling white ground cover (and the $35 amazing steal Kenneth Cole wool coat I stumbled upon at the most random of stores while there). This is the front of my sister's house...temporary stairs in place until the thaw. A Christmas miracle...my sister actually allowed me to take a photo of her with my nephew... a) yes, we do have the same parents b) she's a photographer and I don't know if I've ever been able to get her in a photo with a smile c) as far as I know she doesn't read my blog so she won't get mad at me for sharing the photo d) yes, her hair is naturally that curly and that color. Naturally when in a deep freeze climate one seeks out gelato... Honey Ginger was the flavor I finally settled on but this only shows about half of the options! Unfortunately the glare on the glass got in the way but they were presented so gorgeously I had to try. Just enough of a layover in Minneapolis on the way home for hubster to pose with a moose... Although it's nice to have snow for Christmas, it was also nice to be home in my own warm bed by Christmas morning. Since returning home I managed to post a few lingering items that came out of the kiln before the trip. These handpainted Zinnia charms... Some stoneware beads... and a funky chunky pendant molded from an ocean stone...
And just for Cindy...the recipe for the amazing white chocolate gingerbread biscotti from my holiday baking spree! (adapted from All Day I Dream About Food) They were definitely a hit and although I primarily made them because of my biscotti loving neighbor friend L, I had to keep my fare share which disappeared promptly!

Gingerbread White Chocolate Biscotti

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp salt
6 tbsp butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp dark molasses
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped dried or candied ginger (I used Trader Joe's version which isn't coated in sugar but a sugared candied ginger would work as well)
1/2 cup slivered almonds

(you could also have extra melted white chocolate if you want to dip your biscotti...I just add the chips to the dough so I can skip a step!)

Preheat oven to 325F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or my favorite kitchen item ever, a Silpat: DeMarle 2406 Silpat 11-3/4-by-8-1/4-Inch Nonstick Silicone Baking Mat

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, spices and salt. In a larger bowl, beat butter and sugar together until combined. Beat in eggs one at a time. Mix in vanilla and molasses.

Beat in flour mixture until just combined. Stir in white chocolate chips, chopped ginger and almonds. Dough will be stiff and sticky.

Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface and divide in half. Roll each half into a 12-inch log and transfer to prepared baking pan about 3 inches apart. Flatten each log into a 3-inch wide loaf.

Bake until loafs are almost firm to the touch, 30-35 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool 10 minutes, but maintain oven temperature.

Carefully transfer one loaf at a time to a cutting board. With a serrated knife, gently saw back and forth to cut loaf crosswise into 3/4 inch slices. Place slices, cut-side down, back onto lined baking sheet. Bake until firm and golden, 8 minutes per side. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Once cooled you could dip one end in extra melted white chocolate and allow to dry on the lined baking sheet.