2/8/08

Goodness sakes, look what popped out of my kiln this morning!

There are some nice ones in this latest bunch.

It's snowing again... Cold and gloomy and dreary. And they still haven't finished with the RV. I just called and they expect to be done with it today. Next I have to call Pleasureland and see about getting it in to get the AC circuit looked at, and the fact that when it rains, it leaks in through the roof air conditioner. Not pleasure in a thunderstorm, as we found last winter in Louisiana.

Well, I'm off to make some more beads.

2/4/08

Well, I'm starting to get in the mood to go south. I took the RV in last week to get some mechanical work done on it. I sure hope everything works out. It would be so nice to have some warm sunshine. It's another cold gloomy day, although not as cold as last week. They're talking snow today. That's OK, we need some ground cover so the perennials don't freeze out.

I got new glass and new toys last week. I just started playing with the glass. Here's a couple of new colors with shards. I really love the Pale Old Gold color; it's a creamy translucent yellow-orange.


I also got my disc cutters and transfer punches. I'm waiting to get some tubing and silver sheets from Monsterslayer, then I'm ready to make beads caps and start coring some beads. I'll post pictures when I get some done.

1/29/08

Here I go again, whining about the weather. It's -1 and the NW wind is howling and rattling the roof. It is so cold...

I was going to take the RV in today to get some work done on it, but it ain't happening! Instead, I think I will just drool over some seed catalogs. That and run in and get a refill on my propane tank. It ran out last night when I was getting ready to make a bead.

I posted another couple of beads on etsy. This one I really like, with the metallic reflections.

1/21/08

Not much luck with the coring machine. I busted 2 beads so far. I think this is going to take a bit of practice. In the meantime, I'm still struggling to get good pictures with my camera; everything seams so out of focus. Very frustrating.

Here's one of my latest focals:

1/18/08

It is Frigid! out there, -8° with a northwest wind. I hate winter. I wish I were in Florida right now, even Texas would be better than this!

I got my new silver coring machine today. I'll give it a try and post a picture of the results.

And I just posted another bead on my shop at Etsy. It has dichroic glass under the flowers, so there's glimmers of magenta red and orange popping through.

1/9/08

I've been playing around with some new glass, ASK 104. There are a couple of violet/lavender colors that I really like. Here's a couple of florals:


It's another gloomy Minnesota winter day out there. Sometimes having nice big windows isn't so nice, like right now, although, yes it does look kind of nice with all of the trees covered with a frosty coating.

I've decided I'm going to order another oxygen concentrator to get a hotter flame on my torch. I've been following threads on Lampworketc. and everyone says that's the way to go. Maybe I'll go with Christian tomorrow when he goes shopping & I'll stop off at Menards to get a splitter to hook both of them up.

There was a post on Lampworketc. this morning about things to be thankful for. I've been reading Ahmed Al-Omran's blog, Saudi Jeans, http://saudijeans.org/. He's a Saudi Arabian blogger, and lately he's been writing about another SA blogger who was arrested for writing about the SA government. I remember back in the 70s when I was in college. I signed a petition calling for the release of a person who had been arrested for doing something against the govenment, I can't remember any of the details other than that (gosh, I hope it wasn't Patty Hearst). But as I was walking away, I got a scared feeling that I shouldn't have signed it, that the FBI might come after me for signing it. Ridiculous, huh? But think about the courage of these SA bloggers, knowing that they CAN be arrested, and still they go on and declare to the world the injustices perpetrated by their political system. Our country has its share of problems, and corrupt politicians is a big one, but even so, I'm so thankful that I live here.

1/6/08

Yippee Skippee!! I sold some more beads on Etsy! In the last 2 weeks I've sold as much on Etsy as I did in 2 months on ebay. I hope it keeps going like this.

It's a very nice day today, 41° and partly sunny. Spring is on the way; we just have to go another couple of weeks for the temperatures to officially start to warm up.

I got some new glass from Double Helix today and made a couple of beads with it. And Wednesday I've got a shipment of glass coming in with some new colors. Fun, fun! I need a little boost in creativity. I've been struggling lately to come up with something I'm really getting a kick out of doing. Maybe I'll try making another vessel. I like the way the last one turned out.

I love working with silvered ivory and getting that marbled look. Cool!

12/29/07

Another day of snow :(

I made a couple of beads, got Lukas up & dressed & fed, cleaned a bit, read a bit & took a nap. Another exciting day...

Well, at least I got some photos of my beads done and listed a couple sets and some prints on etsy.

12/23/07

Yippee Skippee!!! I made my first etsy sale! A print, not beads, which is just fine with me.

12/23/07

It's snowing and the wind is howling from the northwest. Well, at least the days are getting longer...

I have decided to shift away from making sets of beads, for a while anyway. Since I got back from going out west, I have been selling beads for too low of a price on ebay trying to build up a following, and it just isn't happening. So I'm going to make beads that I like to do, and do just focals for now. If they sell on Etsy, fine, if they don't, fine too. It least I'll be enjoying myself making them.

Diane on wetcanvas posted a butterfly tutorial, and I'm going to give that a try today. I was thinking maybe I'll try it with boro.

12/21/07

I just had to put on the pictures of a couple of beads I did this morning. They turned out really nice, especially the reddish brown with peach dots.

12/19/07

The gremlins are out to get me, truly. The cat knocked my trackball down on the floor, the ferrets found out that the scroll button has that nice, soft rubber that they just love to chew on... Scratch one trackball. Not even 5 minutes of using a mouse and my wrist is starting to ache. I know where I'm going Saturday: Best Buy to buy another trackball.

12/18/07

Oh, this winter just gets better and better... We went out to do chores and Suzy, my cow, was down in the barn. Yes, she was old, and yes, I had planned on putting her down before it got too cold, but I just kept putting it off because she was still getting around. I called the vet & he put her down. I am so tired of crying.

12/15/07

Only about another week until the days start getting longer!!!! Can you tell I DON'T LIKE WINTER!?!

I bought another ferret. I was so depressed with everything happening, I went to Petco to look at ferrets. They only had one left, and she bit me so bad the store clerk had to run for a bandaide. (They gave me a discount. What could I do? If someone with less experience had bought her, she would have ended up in a cage or released outside. Not my baby!) It took a couple of days handling her with leather gloves, but now she's such a little sweetheart! (I named her Fang.) She falls asleep behind me on my chair when I'm on the computer, and she loves to play with snow, and Pip and her play together. She is just so much fun!

This is Frankie keeping Fang inside the dirt box.

This is Fang playing with Bandit

I have flexible tubes for the ferrets to play in, and this is Frankie keeping Fang inside one, with Taz watching

And here is Pip playing with Fang. She's hiding in a watering can.

I've opened a shop on Etsy. I have so many beads laying around, I have to do something with them, and ebay is such a let-down lately. I'm just not going to sell my beads for $1 a bead when it takes me 10-15 minutes to do one, and then to have to pay ebay and paypal fees... I'll see how Etsy goes, and maybe sell my orphan beads on ebay.

12/2/07

I had to laugh watching NBC Nightly News last night. They were covering the winter storm and the reporter went on to mention the frigid temperatures in Minneapolis, then they flashed to a bank thermometer showing 19°. This time of the year, 19° is, well, maybe not warm, but it's bearable. When it gets to -19°, that's frigid!!

I put some beads on ebay, but they're not selling. It's quite discouraging, especially when I stupidly reached across in front of the torch and burned the inside of my wrist a couple of days ago.



Tammie suggested etsy. I think I'll open an account there and give it a try. It's cheaper than ebay.

I haven't seen the cardinals for a week or so. I so enjoy their color. Right now I have the blue jays, nuthatches, juncos, goldfinches and sparrows. Adds a little life in a bleak, dark, cold landscape. Can you tell I hate winter?

11/27/07

How much darker can this winter get? My mom (who's in the nursing home) isn't eating and is losing weight. My sister says she's given up. I've been saying goodbye to her for 5 years now, since the dementia took hold. This life can be so horrid.

8/17/07

Quasimodo died this morning, and it hurts so much. My big, fat, white, fearless (Well, almost fearless. I can remember once accidentally scaring him. He screamed and ran!), playful, into everything ferret. What a character he was, bringing so much laughter and joy to me, and a few scary moments too, like the time he pulled the floor vent up and got into the furnace ducts. He was unique.

8/5/07

We're in Bozeman, Montana for the night, and glory be, they have wifi. I had to stop driving early today, about 4 p.m., because of the wind. One gust caught me and scared the crap out of me. Lots of wildfires out here, the air was smoky for a hundred miles.

I sure am glad Scott is along. It took longer to find an alternator than it did for him to pull it and put the new one in. And it works perfectly!!!

We got through eastern Washington and Idaho pretty quickly. We stopped in a small town on the interstate in Idaho to get some coffee and take a break. It's a town that progress passed by; they kept their old buildings instead of tearing them down and putting up new. The coffee shop was originally a tiny little church that was built in 1907. Still had the original floor and stained glass windows.


This was at Neah Bay, at low tide. Those are bald eagles in the foreground.


This is a picture I took the next morning.



Our last day at the beach. It was foggy, and I and Pip took a nice long walk and collected shells and sand dollars.


This was a cedar tree by Olympic National Park.


This is from our campground at Mt. Rainier.


There was an awful lot of damage to the roads on Mt. Rainier (and on Mt. Hood) from floods they had late last fall. This is a picture of one of the roads we were on. Unsettling...


And here is Pip relaxing. She certainly knows how to make herself comfortable.

8/3/07

Well, instead of heading up to Grand Coulee Dam, we're sitting at the Walmart in Moses Lake in the middle of Washington, with a dead battery. The voltage gauge started dropping this afternoon, and when we stopped for gas, it almost didn't start. Scott checked the connections & everything was OK; he figures it's the alternator. We just barely made it here. I called a mobile repair place & left a message, he called a auto parts store to find an alternator. After a while the guy from the mobile service called back. He doesn't do chassis work, but he told Scott how to use jumper cables to hook up the house battery to the car battery, and as long as we run the generator, it'll charge the car battery. And tomorrow morning, Scott is going to get up & pull out the alternator, call the auto parts store & they're going to run the alternator over here for us.

If that fixes it, we're headed for home. I've had enough.

8/1/07 Photos

Mt. St. Helens


Beach Pictures