And the winner is..................Lanyard Lady (Cherin)

Cherin, aka, LanyardLady won the give away.  Please email your snail mail info so I can mail the beads on Saturday.  Thank you to everyone for participating.

I leaving for a few days, and not taking my computer, gasp, horror!!  Just don't want to hassle with it at the airport.  Plus our airport has the new full body scan.  YAY!!  NOT!

I'll check in on Friday evening.

Peace and love Bead heads.

P.S.  Here was my random chooser:  the random chooser  easy peasy lemon squeezie!

The give away is closed

Sorry, I'm packing and got a little delayed.  But the bead give away is closed.  I'm using the random name generator to pick the name.  Back in a minute.

Perhaps I've gone too far....Nah..........

I'm one of those creative types that likes to look at creations that are not practical, but in my dream head wish I could really wear, say, a red tartan plaid 6 ft. chicken hat to work. (I'm still working on it...)  So that is my disclaimer.  I have become obsessed with my cairn beads, especially since I wire wrapped them into 2 sets.  I've kept them by my computer while I surf or "research" and glance over at them and think...hmmmmm... 

Well one day I was at my day job desk and my mind wandered away (as has been my pattern all my life...I'm Elizabeth, I'm a daydreamer) and it dawned on me....Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh....(insert angels and choirs here)....A BRACELET!!!  But how, BUT HOW, really, yes, you can...

So I started playing this morning and shaped one of the wire sets across my hand (keep in mind these beads are on the large-ish size).  But fear not, the 6 ft red tartan plaid chicken hat had possessed my brain and there was no stopping me!  I gathered some simple chain and several jumprings and worked the mechanics...and before you could say "Bob's your uncle", Voila, est aqui!

It's WEARABLE in a sense, if you like big floppy things on your wrist, but the key exercise in this became making the "clasp" by wrapping the black bead with a chain contraption.  So below you will see that "clasp".

I made a "toggle loop" by enclosing the chain with two jump rings spaced about 3/4" apart.  This wraps around the black bead and is secure, again if you like big floppy things at your wrist, aka a bracelet.  It's not uncomfortable, per se, because the beads and components are light, despite the diameter of the beads.

I think it could stand some charm action for the two dangly bits.  Also, as an aside, it is a good thing I didn't wake up as a teen and go to my parents and say, " Mom, Dad, I'm not going to college, I've decided to become a hand model."  EEK, that is an unretouched, almost 57 -year old, Irish-DNA'd (thanks, MOM) skinned hand (run save yourselves, LOOK AWAY!!  LOL) 

Anyway, you get the idea.  So the last part of my creative process tale is that this exercise led me to think about a necklace as more "practical" (6 ft red tartan plaid chicken hat alert).  I'm going to "engineer" a necklace with the other set, and probably rework this set into a necklace as well.

What are your thoughts???

Another detail just for grins.

It's Friday.  We have a little heat reprieve here in Desert West Texas.  Had a nice rain last night, so I don't have to water today....YAY!

Don't forgive my bead give away.  Get cracking on those comments.

QUESTION:  DO NECKLACE LEND THEMSELVES TO MORE IMPRACTICAL COMPONENTS THAN OTHER TYPES OF JEWELRY?  Let me know what you think...

Peace and love, beadheads!

In honor of my 57th Birthday....

Next Monday is my 57th birthday (O M G)  really?  REALLY, eek.  Right smack dab in the middle of the baby boom.  Which reminds me, where is my Jetson's car???  My fourth grade science book said we would be living in pods and using robots to clean our houses....sooooooo...Where is my Jetson's car and Rosie the Robot, for that matter?

Anyway, I digress, in honor of my 57th birthday, I am giving away a stash of beads (see below). I want to give thanks through a give away for all the blessings I have had over 57 years and all the lessons, some hard won, that I have learned that have made me the person I am (for better or worst). I'm am so blessed to have a good job, a good home, my beautiful doggies/children, wonderful friends and all the rest that make a good life.

What do you have to do to win, you ask? Just comment here until Monday evening at 8 PM MDST (Think Denver). All comments on this post through to Monday at 8 PM will be counted. You don't have to follow me, blog me or twitter me.  However, let people know in case they want to join in the fun!  I will draw the name by assigning a number (1,2,3,.....) to each comment in order.  I'll put all the numbers in the random name/number generator and voila, a winner.  (That military time thing sounded good in theory, ha, but I forgot how bad I was in math, LOL).  Wait, there is more, the winner gets to pick a friend who will receive a mini-stash.  We will work that all out when the winner is notified.

Here is the booty so far...I'm going to add some more stuff as the spirit moves me, so the rest will be a surprise...EVEN MORE FUN!

I will announce the winner on Monday evening.  However, I will be travelling next week, so the prize will go out next Saturday.

So get to commenting, what are you waiting for?????

Peace and love bead-heads!!

Give away alert at Fashionable girl

The Fashionable Gal is having a gorgeous give away of a 1928 brand bracelet.  If you are not familiar with this jewelry line, think ROMANCE.  Very girly and frilly and fun.  The giveaway is a tie in with Sex and the City 2.  The link gives you all the details....

                                                         The actual bracelet (above).  Yowser!


Give away scout is a great website (Thank you Andrew Thorton) that scours the internet blogs and alerts on give aways.  It is a must read!!

Had to give my fellow beadies the heads up!

Peace and love, bead-heads!

I coveted something too much, I think

Okay, gonna pour out my soul today.  I rarely can say that anything personally hurts me anymore, but yesterday I was clobbered upside the head with a wallop of hurt feelings.  Back story:  I've been applying for campus level jobs because I want to refocus back on one set of educational issues not an entire district,  reduce my work days (health stuff) and my travel requirements (stress reduction).  So a job opened at my previous campus (I was there for 13 years!) for which, in my opinion, I was well qualified for and suited for.  Another plus is that it would be a completely new endeavor which I could use right now,  as well. 

I interviewed almost two weeks ago and was told to check with HR on July 12 to hear the outcome.  So yesterday while I'm on hold with HR I notice on the job postings that the position had been reposted for 1 day.  I am here to tell you a Mack truck couldn't have flattened me more, in an emotional sense.  Then came the personal hurt:  I was interviewed by people who knew my work ethic and qualifications!  I had worked with and had continued to support this team in a significant and labor intensive way.  Well, then the tenaciousness and anger set in, so I hit the resubmit button on the application in a kind of "double dog dare you" to refuse me sort of way.  At that point, I'm angry AND hurt, not a good combination.

Well, today I realize many things after licking my wounds and bingeing on diet pudding.  You can indeed covet something too much.  Perhaps, as Thomas Wolfe told us, "you can't go home again."  I'm interviewing for another position tomorrow that I am equally well suited for and would probably enjoy (downside: change of districts).  So I have put my big girl undies back on and I'm gonna attempt to kick some educational a** tomorrow.  We'll see..............I'll keep y'all posted.  Thanks for indulging my pity party.

On a lighter note:  here are two of the pups after a romp with the tennis ball in sweltering heat (we didn't go too crazy, I'm careful with the heat).  Enjoy.

Queen Tessa in all her glory with her little pink hot dog tongue!

Daisy with some fun effects to emphasize the big pink tongue monster!  She is the tennis ball freak!  Gotta love 'em.

Peace and love all my fellow bead-heads!

Great bead giveaway

The greatest green giveaway (beads that is) I've see over at Jen Judd Rocks (Jenn Judd Rocks).  Get yourself over there and comment and blog.  What are you waiting for???  Get thee to the giveaway!!

Jen Judd's Bead Give Away! (photo by Jen Judd)

This just part of the give away. 

2 PEOPLE ARE GONNA WIN.

Woohoodee-woo-dee-hoo!!  She is celebrating being published!  Good job Jen. 

Peace and Love, beadies!

A while back

A while back I posted about some disc beads in solid colors that I called cairn beads and the idea was to stack them like Irish cairns (they are not shamrock green, however) and I finally got around to making a version of pendants with them. ( You can revisit that post here  cairn beads in the beginning).  You will see that the idea has morphed a little and I added some other discs with a more primitive edge.  They are large pendants, but I kinda made them just for fun, as a creative exercise, and as muse pieces for my studio.

(excuse the fuzzyness, spur of the moment photo)

There is something warrior-esque about them to me, what do you think?

On a prettier, more traditional note, I've played with the bezel beads I made.  The pink flowers were meant for a friend of mine who is mad about pink and she loved them.  They were just abstract enough for me to enjoy them, as well.  Once I varnished them, the shine added the bling I liked.

On the weather front, it was gorg-E-ous today.  About 85 for a high and cloudy.  Ate lunch on the patio.  The pups laid at my feet just soaking in the day.  Had my Ipod playing some old soft mushy songs (Van Morrison, Donovan).  It was bliss.  Little unexpected days like this in the desert in July are to be savored and sipped, no devouring allowed.....

Hope everyone is staying cool, where ever you are....

Peace and love, fellow beadies!

Something besides clay

I played today with some ceramic pendants I got a little while ago from MaryAnn Carrol at Artisan Beads Plus.  They are such a joy to hold in the hand and I wanted to give everyone a peek at what I completed today.

The ceramic is a two hole bead perfect for some very amateur copper wire wrapping.  I then included a yellow jade tube with some Swarovki crystals in red magma.  The chain and wire are all copper.

I like the station ideas and will definitely explore this more. 

On the doggie medical side, non bead related, it is confirmed, Rudy, my oldest pup, has an inoperable mass on his muzzle.  He was such a good boy at the vet yesterday.  He let them poke and prod and investigate, but we agreed I would just let him finish out without much intervention.  He is going to make it to 15, I just know it (December).  He is eating well and still playing with his "girls", so we are not mourning here.  We are celebrating,  Ah oooooooh!, that he has more time.  I know you all will send good vibes and we love all of you for that.

Peace and love to all.

Instead of cleaning today, I

Made beads and more beads and played with clay.  I deconstructed some canes and really like the results.  Here is the pre cured bounty.  Enjoy!

I'm challenging myself with more color these days and it feels adventuresome.

The pan ready to go.  This is a hodge podge of stuff and ideas.

A few months ago I bought some silver plated bezels from FMG and hadn't had a chance to play with them until now.  I made some polymer clay cane "fabric" and filled the bezels with "cabs" from the fabric.  This was SO MUCH FUN!  I'll take better photos of the bezel pieces once they are cured.  They are just little delights.  The will actually work well for earrings, noticeable but not overwhelming.  And they will be so finished looking.  This bezel thing is dangerous.

Well, I'm off to eat dinner and watch some wonderfully horrible reality TV.  I'm Elizabeth, and I am addicted to reality TV.  It has been 12 hours since my last viewing.....

The pooches say "hey".  Rudy has shots tomorrow and then Tess and then Daisy.  They can't all go at once, Mom is too old for that.

Not blog photos again, geesh!  C'mon mom, give us the gosh darn cookies already!

Peace and love to all.

Happy Independence Day

WARNING: POLITICAL DIATRIBE AHEAD!

Why do I love America?

I'm climbing up on my soapbox again, so be patient with me.  America comes with lots of struggles and warts and things that, as a proud American, I not very proud that we have been a party to.  Having said that I know for sure I'm American not only by birth but in the true spirit of the idea.  I love being able to say what I feel.  I love being able to hang out with whomever I want to, whenever I want to and, for the large part, wherever I choose.

BEAD BREAK!

In the grand scheme of the world as it exists, America has done many things "right", not always in a timely fashion, but eventually right.  I feel we have to remember that America is at its essence only an IDEA.  Freedom of speech is an idea, unheard of prior to the Bill of Rights, even in ancient Greece only certain members of the society had the right to speak about what they wished at will.  Equality is an idea born and fought for only in America. True, we are not there yet, but we keep trying.  Other nations give lip service to equality, but even the "evolved" British and French still have heavy class systems.  Free assembly was an idea that became tangible in America.  The YouTube video of the tragic murder of a young Iranian female student last year is graphic evidence of where MUCH of the world stands on free assembly.  And yes all these ideas have been defended by the most unseemly of cases to the Supreme Court, but those are exactly the cases that make sure our most rational expressions are protected.  It is the extremes that protect the middle.  This would not happen elsewhere.

BEAD BREAK!

Okay, is she talking out of her a**?  I'll give you my background and you decide.  I discovered just how American I was when we lived on Okinawa (now Japan) in the 60's. Okinawa is a gorgeous island, lush and tropical with amazing people. I was a young, impressionable teenager.  We lived on an Army base so I was surrounded by the sheer might and force that America can be (and which I'm sad about many times).  You have never seen an Independence Day celebration unless you are on a military base in a foreign country.  We Americans can get a little garish, but I digress.  The school I attended was a former WWII Japanese POW camp used to house Allied prisoners of war.  It was a series of quonset huts surrounded by a 20 ft chain link fence.  The local Okinawans had not been happy for quite some time about the American military presence, especially the servicing of B-52 bombers and wounded service personnel from Viet Nam.  One day all the students were lead into the old airplane hangar that was our gym and told that they didn't know when we would be let out from school as the buses couldn't get in due to protesters who had surrounded the school.  They had surrounded our school to drive home the fact that they thought more young Americans were being trained to occupy their island, which they opposed (even though the local economy was heavily funded by American dollars).  That is when I KNEW I was an American, because someone saw us, me, as the symbol of American power. Pretty heady stuff for a 14 year old.

BEAD BREAK!

I live in El Paso, Texas now (check out Google or Yahoo maps and what I'm about to say will become very clear).  Everyday people who are trying to escape desperate poverty, social inadequacies, political oppression and, now, a cruel, senseless drug war face a 30 foot wrought iron fence telling them, "Nope, can't come in, but you are soooo close."  Of course people still make it through surviving obstacles that would make many of us horrified.  By a happy accident of birth I'm allowed all the privileges of America.  Does America owe the world what it has? I don't know but we sure have something that everyone wants:  the IDEA of OPPORTUNITY.  The idea of it, not the actuality of it, just the idea.  And for all the bad we have done, our good has made up for many evils around the world.  I know, because everyday I see people dying to get a chance at our ideals.  And make no mistake, despite the hate speech from some fanatics, the people of the world, one on one, love us.

So, I love America, warts and all!  No tattered flags waving here, the IDEA of America is strong in my heart!

God bless you all and God bless America, on this, her day!

(May the wars end soon and may the borders be safe but free)

Peace and love to all.

Beads for sale at my Etsy, Firecracker sale until July 8th!

Hi all you beady friends.  I've finished listing a bunch of new items, including a lot of handmade beads in my Etsy. (click here if you are interested Elizabeth's Etsy) I'll give you a little tease below.

this....

and these.....

and these!

Also, I would appreciate any critiques on descriptions, the look.  I wear my big girl panties so I will take no offense.  Thanks.

Oh yeah.  I'm having a firecracker sale in honor of Independence day.  10% off any purchases until midnight July 8th!

Peace and love to all.  Happy Independence Day!

Rock on America.