I've Been At It Again

I have my first jewelry show / party scheduled for next Saturday, December 8th.

I'm a little nervous. OK, that's an understatement. I'm a LOT nervous. The party is being hosted by my two lovely and gracious sisters-in-law, who know pretty much everyone in their smallish hometown outside Houston. So far the Evite doesn't look like the entire town is coming, but I still want to have enough jewelry made that everyone can leave with stuff.

So I've been beading like mad, and working on my torch like mad. Oh, and not posting much. Which may make a difference to you if you're one of my two faithful readers. Otherwise, not so much.

Here are the bead sets I've finished or almost finished. A couple of caveats: there is white stuff in all the beads. It's called bead release, and it keeps the glass from sticking to the metal rod (or mandrel) that the bead is made on. I clean it out after the beads are annealed (put through the kiln to strengthen the glass). Since these beads are new, and since I don't own a kiln, they haven't been annealed yet.

Also, when I photograph beads, I often use ticky-tack to make them stay put where I want them. You can see it in some of the pictures. Oops! If you see a yellow blob at the bottom of a bead, it's not glass, it's ticky-tack.

The first picture is of a black and white set I'm playing with. I haven't decided if the two beads in the back "go with" the one in the front. What do you think?




The next pic is two cute caterpillars (or callapidders). Guess who requested that? I like to have two good ones to put in the kiln. I thought I had a good one the first time, and then one of his antennae fell off. Tragedy! So I may make one more before the grand annealing run next week.

Next is Christmas trees. If the friends of one of hubby's sisters are anything like her, these will all sell. (One will probably go to sis herself.)

These beads may look familiar; I've posted a pic of similar beads before. But the more of these I make, the more I find that people want them. I make a few of them every time I sit down at the torch. I finally figured I should probably (DUH) make earrings to go with them, thus the smaller ones in the back. My sister and one of my best friends have already stated their Christmas wishes for these...

Likewise, you may have seen these white-on-clear beads before. I've posted pics of these either like this or after they've been through an acid etch -- they look frosted rather than clear when they've been etched. I will etch all the ones in this pic after they're annealed. As in the pic above, all the small ones will be earrings (four pairs in all in this pic).

I posted the pic of this black swirl bead before, but these are the actual beads it will go with. I didn't like what I had it paired with before. I will make others to go with it as well; this isn't a finished set just yet.

And ah yes, another crowd favorite -- the clear jewel toned shaped beads. Again, I make a few of these every time I sit down. It's fun to figure out a different shape for each one, and since I don't have molds or presses, shaping the glass is an interesting challenge.

Last but not least, my old nemesis: the guitar bead. Apparently people liked the pics I posted before, but I was not satisfied with those beads. At long last, tonight I made one I was happy with! I took my time and made each detail right. There are even markings for the fretboard.

There's also a huge crack down the front. Tragedy, part 2! Back to the drawing board.

Yes, there's plenty of new beaded jewelry as well... you can find all of it here. And there will be more to come in the next few days; I will put it up on the site as I finish it and get it photographed.

Thanks for indulging my overgrown kindergarten show and tell once again. =)

I tried to be good!

I went to lunch yesterday with my hubby and a couple of my former co-workers. We went to a local restaurant, and I had the salmon with rice, steamed broccoli, and... ok, I'll admit it, mashed potatoes. I lovelovelove mashed potatoes. Nothing like a good mashed potato, I always say. And while everything was yummy, the mashed potatoes were divine. Mmmmmm.

Anyway, I was mostly being good, and I had a lovely lunch with all the guys. Trey had bought a new vehicle -- much needed since he had been driving a 12-year-old truck -- so we talked about his new FJ, fun times at the ol' sweatshop, all that stuff.

And then (I won't go into details) I spent most of the afternoon and evening visiting Sir Porcelain. Everything tasted fine, so I don't know what the deal was. I don't think anyone else felt horrible, although we all ate different things. I've heard food poisoning takes four hours or so to set in, and this was faster than that, so maybe it was something else. I have no idea. Everything else I'd eaten in the last 24 hours was stuff I've eaten at home with no problem -- a PBJ the night before, cereal that morning, etc.

Regardless of the cause, I bet that's the last time I eat fish for a long time.

A Whole Lotta Nothing

That's what's been going on this weekend.

Yeah, we ate some food with friends. A lot of food with a lot of friends, in fact. It was good. They gave us some leftovers to take home. Those were yummy too.

Then we watched the aforementioned football game on Friday, plus a few others. Lots of good football on this weekend (unless you were from LSU).

And I played a lot of World of Warcraft (WoW). My guildmates and I went back and did a lot of "old school" stuff that we haven't done in months, just to blow stuff up that's way below our level and have a good time, instead of doing stuff that's really challenging, which is what we're usually doing. So we did Zul'Gurub, a 60-level raid, with an almost full group of mostly level 70 players, on Saturday, and today we did UBRS, another (much easier) 60-level raid with mostly 70s. Lots of laughter was had and friendships were built. We have several new people in the guild, so it's good to bond with them.

Everything in WoW costs gold -- money -- it's just like a "real" economy. The thing that costs the most money is called an epic flying mount. It's the very fastest way to get from place to place in the very large world. Lots of my guildmates have had their epic flying mounts for months. They're ridiculously fast. The usual way to travel long distances is to fly on the griff -- the hippogriff -- but these are just as fast, so you never have to pay for a griff flight again once you have your epic flying mount.

So we did a bunch of quests this weekend, my husband and I. He has three level 70 characters, one of which has its epic flying mount, and he's been on a mission for a while now to get up enough gold to get me mine. After all our questing and goofing off this weekend, we finally made it. And now I have my very own epic flying mount. If you care, you can see a picture of it here. If you know me, you won't be surprised to find I chose the purple one.

Now that I have nothing to spend my gold on, I guess I'll just go string some beads. =)

38-30

Man, what a great day... I launch my web site AND we beat t.u. 38-30 in a nail-biter of a game.

Not as much of a nail-biter as the LSU-Arkansas game -- wow, what a game! -- but still.

Two more things to be thankful for.

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!

The Web Site Has Launched!

Just in time for the busiest shopping day of the year!

Although it would have helped if I'd checked my email before I went to bed and posted then. :-P Silly Lisa.

Anyway, please forgive my shameless self-promotion, but my new jewelry web site has launched. I've been working on it for a month or two with my amazing webmaster, and I think she's done a great job. Thanks, Rose!

I have a few new things I need to put up -- I haven't had time to photograph them yet -- but the store is open and ready for business. If you ever have questions, you can always email me at lisalisalisa(at)gmail[dot]com.

And now back to your regularly scheduled blog-surfing.

OK, I Can't Stand It Anymore...

I've been very good... haven't talked about beads or jewelry or lampworking... but I got a bunch of beads back from being annealed (heated in the kiln to make them stronger) today, and I'm pretty excited about them. So I'm going to share with y'all. If this bores you, you can skip today. =)

I'll start with the ones that I've either sold or that are in process to be sold.

This cute little froggy dude is the culmination of probably a month's worth of work. A frog bead takes about an hour to make. Cindy asked for a frog necklace as a gift, and I had a book with instructions on making a frog bead, so I went to work. I think this is my 5th frog. I love him almost too much to sell.

It's a "feature" (or an annoyance) of this green glass that it occasionally makes lines as you work with it. In this case, it was a happy accident that this little guy ended up with a line right where his mouth should be. I could never replicate that in a thousand years.

The other beads are similar to the bead the frog is sitting on and will go on the same necklace.



These are frogs 3 and 4 (note their lack of mouths... you miss them now, don't you?). People have told me how cute they are, but naturally I can only see their flaws. #3 (on the right) is off-balance -- I made his front feet to the left with regard to his back feet, so he's twisted, and his right front leg is really long. And his right front foot is just all wrong. #4 on the left is better, but he has a hunched right shoulder.

I'd show you #1 and #2, but they unfortunately broke. =( I haven't yet glued them back together. I am the master (mistress?) of SuperGlue, but it bonds glass THISFAST, and I really don't want to ruin one of my little froggies. Both of them separated from their beads.

OK, on to not-frogs! I have a friend who is mastering my web site, and she does many others as well. She requested joolz for a musician friend of hers who shall remain nameless. I'm not at all happy with these... they are three of the first four attempts (one broke). You can see the crack in the pink one; it may break. So these are a work in progress. We'll call them the alpha versions; I'm not sure they're even beta level yet. They're certainly not ready for prime time.

This is another set for the same nameless musician. She wears a lot of black and white, so this is my first attempt at something around that. The flat bead in the center is a pendant. The bead on the upper right was my first idea for beads to go with it, but I wasn't happy with how it turned out, so I went with the other idea (top left and bottom right). This set isn't complete yet; it's a work in progress.

Next we're onto sets that aren't spoken for yet. This large bead is one that I made a long time ago and decided to make beads to go with it. Probaly one pair of the small beads will be earrings and the other pair will go into the necklace.

These beads have been a huge hit with everyone who has seen them. They are pale pink glass with hot pink decoration -- a real girly girl bead. I envision these in a bracelet with Swarovski crystals, but I'll be making a bunch more, so there may be necklace, earrings, etc.; who knows?

This last set was a lot of fun. The owner of the shop where I buy all my glass showed me the chemical reaction between ivory and turquoise glass -- it makes an outline anyplace the two colors meet. The five large beads will go into the necklace, and the two small beads will be earrings. I love these a ton. I may price them a little higher in hopes I get to keep them. Is that wrong? :-\

That's all I have right now, although I'm also working on another necklace (or maybe two)similar to BooMama's... one ordered by someone who got the idea from the same place, and I may just make an extra for the jewelry party since apparently everyone in the world just loves that necklace.

Thoughts? Which ones do you love / hate? I thrive on feedback, so please tell me. =)

Today, a New Person!

So, I've been stuck for blog topics.

Here's the thing: my all-consuming activities right now are A) getting my web site online, which I keep thinking will be any day now; and B) making jewelry for Christmas and for a jewelry party I'm doing with and for my hubby's two sisters in Houston on December 8th, plus stuff that people have ordered.

And since I don't want my blog to be about nothing but jewelry, I have nothing to talk about.

But today, this very morning, there will be a new person in the world, so I thought y'all should know about that.

Our neighbors across the street, who are really the best neighbors anyone could ever ask for, have lived there longer than we have (we've been in this house for ten years). When we moved in, "Junior" was probably 16 or 17 years old, the youngest of four brothers. Now he's about to be a daddy! Shannon's labor will be induced this morning at 7:30, and our dear neighbors will be grandparents for the fifth time. Little Junior moves up a rung on the generational ladder. *sniff* Makes me all misty. Except I'm really not a crier. Hee hee.

And no, they are not naming this new baby boy Trey, or Al the Third. Grandma-to-be told me his name, and I promptly forgot -- bad Lisa!

An update: for everyone who's been concerned about Son the Elder, he's doing well. He's not in much pain from the shingles -- says it feels a little like a sunburn -- and the sores are starting to fade on his front and scab over and heal on his back, so hopefully we're on the downhill side of the shingles.

If you're traveling this week, please do so safely. Be thankful -- always, not just this week. And shop wisely if you must do so.