I’m meeellltttiiinnngggg!!!!

It is SO hot here right now, it’s ridiculous!! Seriously ridiculous! How do you people that live in hot areas stand this? We’re at 36 degrees Celsius right now, with a humidity of 50% (which apparently makes it feel about another 8 or 9 degrees hotter than it is). BLECH! We are completely unaccustomed to this kind of weather. We’ve had little rain this year, and now we have heat, heat and more heat. We don’t have air conditioning in our house or our car. We have many fans going and all it does is swirl around the hot air. How is this fun? LOL Needless to say I’m not getting a whole heck of a lot of anything done. I spend most of my time just sitting here melting. Not productive, but keeps me from really over heating. Maybe this is the year we buy a hot tub and the next time we get this ridiculous weather, I can put ice cubes in the hot tub and cool off that way.

We picked up our new aquarium, got is set up in the corner of the living room with the sand and salt water and the filter going. I’m going to take some pictures of it as we put this thing together. But we are taking our time and it will probably take about a month to get it completely set up and looking good. We shall see!!

Well, back to my melting. Hope it’s cooler in your world (like some people I know who actually have air conditioning!), I’m praying for rain!! Cheers!

Fraser Valley Bead Show Classes are UP!!

Hey!!! I get major kudos this week! I finally got all the classes posted to the website – check it out – Fraser Valley Bead Show. I decided at the last minute that I myself would teach a class. Why should I let everyone else have all the fun?!?! So I am going to teach a class called “All in the Details” or the ‘the Fine Art of Using Paste Solder’. here’s what my class sample looks like.

I’m going to show students how to make that set, as well as demo using paste solder to do a bunch of other nifty tricks. I’m going to have a written tutorial done for it as well which I will put for sale in my Etsy store after the show in October for anyone who can’t come to the class.

You guys didn’t just come here to read about me prattle on about the bead show – I don’t show nearly enough jewelry, so here you go – some custom pieces

And here’s a pair of earrings that were originally going to be the project for the class at the bead show – but I don’t like them! And I dropped more ’stuff’ making these than you can believe. So I figured if I was dropping all the little bits and pieces, then students would be too!! Bad idea!! What do you think of the earrings though?

I have some other stuff on the go, but those are all that are finished. My friends are coming by on Monday so we can play with the etching some more. I find I prefer having someone here when it comes play time. If I’m on my own, I feel compelled to work on stuff for the gallery. Weird huh? Oh!! Almost forgot!! On a totally different note, I won a complete saltwater aquarium setup – tank, fish, coral, crabs and all!! How cool is that?!?!? It’s a small tank, about 2ft in diameter (hexagon shaped) with a stand and top and fancy lighting. It’s been established for a while, so once it’s moved in here, you won’t believe the pics I’m going to take! LOL It will be just like living on the bottom of the ocean. I’m thinking of having a sign made for the yard – we almost have enough fish/critters to open our own public aquarium! Go figure! But this new one is free, and one cannot turn down free stuff. It’s just wrong! LOL Stay tuned! (I’m thinking more inspiration ideas too – those corals, fish and stuff are amazing!!).

On that happy note, I’m heading off to work on getting the dishes done. I’ve been slacking this week!! Hope you all have a great weekend! Cheers!

Play Date!

My friend Lise and I spent the day yesterday playing with etching. OMG! I have done etching for years, but I’ve always used nitric acid which is a very dangerous chemical. And it involved all kinds of special safety stuff, had to be done outside (hard to get it to work well when it’s cold outside!), so/so results more often than not for students, and the list goes on! Well, just so happens Lise took an etching class at the Puget Sound Bead Fest last weekend and was raving about ferric chloride. So we decided to give it a try together – I’ve had ALL the supplies for this for years. And I mean years. Why the heck haven’t I tried this before?! Check these out!!

Before (you can see a couple of the images on the blue paper)

After:

Pretty cool huh?? I’m LOVING how easy this is. For those of you in our area, this class will be offered at the Fraser Valley Bead Show this year! Better sign up as soon as the registration is ready!! Won’t be for a few more days, so don’t panic, but it promises to be a fun one!!!
And for those of you not so near, I’ll be making LOTS more textured stuff in the near future!! Stay tuned!!

Cool New Design Tool

Ever been stumped half way through a project? Me too – happens to all of us! Well trust Tim McCreight to come up with this brilliant idea – check out here – he was supposedly inspired by the Magic 8-ball for this one. At first I thought it was funny, but you know it could really help push you in directions you wouldn’t normally go. Could be a very good thing!
No, I haven’t made anything lately. I’m slacking (ssshhhh! Don’t tell my husband – he thinks I’ve been VERY busy!). I guess I’m going through another slump – happens occasionally. Too often actually. Seems to me that it gets the worst when I don’t have any classes going on. I get rather ho-hum about being home alone all the time. I need company! I have my wonderful Wednesday night girls (check out my website for details on the Wed. Night Drop In Classes) and I hope we get more people on board with it. But it’s the rest of the week that kind of sucks. So I spend too much time online rather than making jewelry. Sigh!! Any brilliant ideas out there for breaking this kind of slump? Besides having you guys all drop by for a visit – some of you live way too far away for that!!
Guess I’ll try putting the computer away and at least trying to get in there. Can’t hurt, right?! Hope you have a great week! Cheers!

Nothing new here!

Happy Canada Day!! There’s nothing new going on around here lately!! I really should get into the studio again, but have just been procrastinating like crazy! My brother is staying with us for a few weeks, so we’re adjusting to having another body around (can’t believe how easily we adjusted to having no one around here after the kids moved out!!). He tells hilarious stories, so it’s fun to listen to him go on!
Oh, dh is calling, guess I best go see what he wants – I do believe we have to head to town for cat food (they’re giving me the evil eye – they can see the bottom of the bowl!). Have a great day, hope you’re being way more productive than I have been! Cheers!