Fluff Five Meme

I was tagged by thebeadden for this. I had to look around and see what a meme is before I could post. So here goes.

Five things in my bag:

1. A carved amber bear my Grandfather made. It has coral and turquoise accents on it.

2.A bead book. It has all my beads listed in it by color and supplier. That way, if I’m ever somewhere and see beads I want, I know if I have them or anything to go with them.

3.A small journal/diary I started when my son was born (22 years ago). It has all the major milestones in it that babies and kids go through from that 1st tooth to H.S. graduation and more.

4.Altoids dark chocolate dipped mints for when I decide to fight the cigarette cravings.

5.A 2 year planner calendar so I can keep up with when I’m suppose to work and when the new state quarters come out.

Five favorite things in your room

1.My bead cabinet.

2.The view of the woods out the window.

3.My feather pillow.

4.The cedar chest of drawers my husband made.

5.My jewelry box with the pieces I have made for me in it.

Five things I have always wanted to do

1. Surf the Hawaiian pipeline.

2.Go to the Czech Republic and tour the Ornela factory

3.Go to Japan and tour the Delica and Toho factories.

4.Join the Peace Corps.

5.Mine my own gems at one of the places in the states you can go do that.

Five things you are currentky into

1. Beading and designing jewelry.

2.Becoming more self sufficent.

3. Baseball.

4.Politics.

5.Saving the St. John’s river.

I don’t know five people to tag for a meme so I wll pass on this one.

 

 

 

 

Totally Teal Lariat

After the last necklace I made, I wanted to do one more spiral before I get back to the ornament drapes. I have never made a lariat, so I decided to make a spiral one. I used DyaMite transparent and matte, teal 11’s, Czech FP 4 & 6mm crystals and teal Ornela bugles. It’s kind of hard to tell that the necklace segments alternate transparent and matte, but they do.

Turquoise teardrop necklace

A few posts back, I mentioned a turquoise teardrop that I was trying to work with. I tried a few different stitches for the necklace and didn’t like any of them  I finally decided on a spiral using rootbeer beads (Ming Tree)  for the inside and transparet aqua (DynaMites) for the outside of the sprial. I also debated about making a beaded bezel for the stone, but I decided that simpler is better for this piece. Since this was my birthday present from me to me, I knew I could make it however I wanted to. The bail is a 3 row peyote band with a 6mm aqua druk and it’s 10 beads long on each side of the druk. I wasn’t real happy with all the brown in the toggle clasp, but I didn’t feel like re-doing it and besides, my hair will hide it when I wear it. LOL!

Hands-on Heaven

This is a network similar to Indipublic, but not as large-yet. It’s here http://www.handsonheaven.com/ ”a utopia for hands-on creations”. I’m there and so are several other seed beaders and talented designers who work in metal, glass and wire. So drop in and check it out. It’s run by a great, talented lady named Angela, who just happens to be on the cover of  the new edition etsy book, along with other incredible talents.

R.I.P. Zippy Kitty

Zippy Kitty got attacked by a huge fox this morning and did not survive. I am so sick of these fox. This one will have a major migraine I hope. Before my husband could get out with the rifle, I was screaming like crazy at the fox to let the cat go, I picked up a brick ad threw it at him and hit him in the head. If he has a fractured skull, I won’t lose sleep over it, that’s for sure.

Zippy Kitty is sort of a Katrina refugee. His mom got dumped off at work while pregnant. She was a really sweet cat, but at the time we had 4 cats and 2 dogs. Hubby said absolutely not to bringing mama home. I did bring her food and we fed her at work. When the kittens were about 6 weeks old, one of the guests at work wanted to take her home. She was a sweet lady, so I said cool, but you need to take the kitten, too.( By this time all we were seeing with mama was one. ) I got to work the ext day and mama was gone, but Zippy was still here. I had started calling him Zippy Kitty because every time he heard a noise he would zip off. Another guest, who was a regular every six weeks said that if I could get the kitten socialized some, she would take him home with her next time she was here. I eventually got Zippy to trust me and got him home.

Well, this guest who was going to take him, traveled the southeast calibrating medical equipment. Then Hurricane Katrina happened and her route got changed to the midwest. She called me at work and told me she wouldn’t be back, so Zippy Kitty became a permanent resident at our house. He continued to be paranoid about everything and lived up to his name.

I was sitting on the back steps this morning having a cup of coffee, enjoying the morning and I saw Zippy go into the brush at the back of the yard. He like to sleep there under the grapevines, so I did’t think that much about it. A couple of minutes later, it all hit the fan. I don’t know how the fox was able to sneak up on him. Maybe he just attacked him in the vines. It really doesn’t matter now. Zippy Kitty is gone. One day that fox will be, too.

My Grandfather was good at helping hurt animals and I am kind of good at it and I tried to help Zippy. Suffice to say that the clothes I was wearing this morning are now in the burnpile and I wasn’t able to help him

This is the only picture I have of him. When I got my new camera, I forgot to turn the flash off when I took his pic and it scared him, as did most things. From then on, he would disappear into the woods or under the car whe he saw the camera.

Good customer service

Is not dead-at least at FMG (Fire Mountain Gems). In my last bead order, I got some Ming Tree SL (silver lined) pink bugle beads. In my Bead Stash entry, I wrote about that brand. Great for netting pieces, but not structured stitches.

Well, I started working with those bugles yesterday and was incredibly disappointed in the color of them. It was very inconsistant-from a very pretty pink to nearly white. Some of the MT seed beads I got in my last order were really inconsistant in size, too. Now, these are generic beads and I expect to do some culling with them. That’s never been a problem. These are not the quality I have been getting from MT beads the last couple of years. The first box of seed beads I opened from this order was not up to par either, but hey, everything can have a bad batch now and then. The second box, a different color, was not that great either-neither was the third. However, the others were fine.

I decided to call FMG and give them a heads up. I figure I may not be the only one having a problem with MT. When the service rep. answered the phone (I believe her name is Kathy), I explained why I was calling. She was super nice. She looked in the computer to see if there was an alternative they could send me, but there wasn’t. I already knew that the MT were the only SL pink bugles they had. She offered to send me some twisted pink Ornela’s, but they won’t work for what I want them for. I told her that I just wanted them to know that the product is not as good as they were last year and they might want to check it out.

A few minutes later, my phone rang and it was Kathy. She wanted to verify what I had told her because she was filling out whatever form they use to do a customer complaint.( I really hate using the word complaint here.) She offered to credit my accout for the boxes of bad beads, but since I can work around the seed bead size problem, I didn’t really want to credit for those. I did end up with a credit for the pink bugles because I don’t know how I will use those. She and I chatted a bit and she was telling me that FMG has classes for employes and last night she had gone to one and made a peyote/Swaro ring. We also talked about maybe giving some of the company’s more experienced beads a couple of boxes of the MT’s and see what they think about them.

I know people moan about the handling charges FMG has,but I figure whoever packs up my box of goodies needs to get paid. This is only the second time I have ever needed to contact them about an order. The first time, over a year ago, a number got transposed on the order and I got SS head pins and not little the little storage boxes I had ordered. I called them and explained and they told me to keep the head pins and 2 days later I had my little storage boxes.

So in this day and age of usually lousy customer service in nearly everything, it’s nice to know that there are still places out there that will pleasantly work with a customer to resolve an issue.

Design woes

I love making ornament drapes-especially the ones that other people have designed and have put those patterns out there for sale or for free. I’m hardheaded, so I am attempting to design my own.

I have made some small components with seed beads (what else) and for the last 2 weeks have been trying to combine them in a netting effect over a shatterproof ornament. I have taken it apart 5 or 6 times while I was working on it, thinking I had a better way to do it. I use some of the cheap beading thread from Walmart for my “experiments”. That way I don’t feel bad about wasting thread when I cut something up. LOL! I also had to remake some of the componenets because in cutting them apart from each other, I managed to cut the thread in a couple of them. That’s ok. Gave me more time to think about how to put them together.

I think I may be close to finishing a prototype. I have it over the ornament now and it’s close to being closed up. It would be a good time to have an octopus for a pet because trying to hold slippery seed beads over an equally slippery ornament requires a lot of firm holding onto both while trying to get a needle through a nearly full seed bead with one hand. I tried painters tape and that gave me enough help so I could baste a few together so I could see what needed to be attached where.

I see bugs and kinks in it now that I have decided not to correct at this point in time. I will work around them just to get it finished and see if the idea in my head looks remotely like what is in my hand.  I will deal with the kinks if I decide to do another one. That is still undecided.

It’s been an interesting, not to mention a time consuming experience. It has shown me that I have more patience than I gave myself credit for. LOL!

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I had a weird day off

I had a very strange day off yesterday. I’ve been working 11 hour shifts because my boss is gone and I get to be the head inmate running the asylum. I was tired when I got up, but couldn’t sleep any more. I was working on that first, wonderful cup of coffee, looking out the window to see if the deer would show up. (We feed them.) Then, I noticed a large fox had one of the cats, Mr. Skits, cornered, seriously considering having him for breakfast. That was probably the next to last thought the fox had. His last probably was “whoa, what was….? The fox started showing up a few years ago. At first, they were kind of cool-they ran the coyotes off. Now, I think they should be wiped from the face of the earth-well, not literally. They have wiped out every ground dwelling creature that used to live in our woods. There aren’t any more rabbits, whip-or-wills, very few snakes, including indigo snakes which are already an endangered species, quail and this years crop of gopher tortise-they ate the tortise eggs. So I am pretty much fed up with the fox. All the does we feed are pregnant and I worry about what will happen to this seasons fawns when they are born. I guess that’s why that one zeroed in on Mr. Skits-they’ve eaten everything else and he’s a little chunky.

So after that excitement, I was doing some beading-all comfy in my bead chair, waiting on the storms that were forecast to be heading our way. I’m making some componenets to put together for an ornament drape. I absolutely love thunderstorms-especially southern ones. The house was open because it was nice and warm. The storms announced themselves with a huge gust of wind that blew through the house and SLAMMED the back door closed. I jumped-apparently higher than I thought-over turned my bead tray and spent the next half an hour picking up seed beads off the floor. Anyone who has ever done this knows how much fun this is-NOT!! At least they were colors that did not blend in with the carpet.

Then the storm really hit. At one point, I think we were having close to 1000 lightening strikes an hour-my kind of storm. I have always love thunderstorms-even when I was a little kid and most of my friends ran screaming and crying from them, my parents were pulling me out of the window. It was cool until the sky got that weird greenish cast to it and we got a bunch of hail about the size of those big, fozen peas. I was a little spooked that we were going to have a tornado, but happily we didn’t. All we got was a major cold front that has kept the wind chill around 40 or lower today.

All in all, yesterday was one of those days that will definately remain memorable.

Just plain hectic

That’s how work, life and beading have been lately. I know the Daytona 500 is part of the reason work has been nuts, not sure what the other reasons are. Spring break starts for some schools up North next week, so that will just add to the confusion.

I’ve been designing some ornament drapes and tried my hand at writing tutes. Kudos to those who write seed bead tutes. I decided to try and bead a few rows, write down what I did, then bead a few more rows, and so on. That worked out pretty good-until I lost the paper I had written the first rows down on. AAARRGGGHHH!!!!! Turned the house upside down looking for it to no avail. After about 3 days of this, that’s when I decided to leave the tute writing to the real pros. LOL! The drape is coming along nicely, though.

The weather has been gorgeous lately and that lures me away from the beads,too. I messed around in the flower bed the other day, pulling weeds and junk like that. I really prefer being outside especially after winter. I love the feel of the warm sun on my face. I think that’s one of the reasons I love fishing. It’s outside, it’s on the water and I’ve always loved the water, and it’s fun. It’s really fun when you catch dinner, but I’m happy being outside.

Yay Giants!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so happy that the Giants beat the Pats. Not that I’m a big Giant fan or anything. You see, I am a Miami Dolphi fan. I remember how the Dolphins rocked in ‘72 and so did our whole neighborhood. Both my parents were Dolphin fans, so it’s in my DNA. Since I am hard wired to be a Dolphin fan, I am also hard wired to NEVER, EVER root for the Pats. I can’t believe the way the Pats played. I was terrified they would be stomping all over the Giants by half time. What a delightful halftime score that was. Good half-time show, too. I used to et to see Tom Petty play at the St. Augustine armory-for $5 bucks. Of course, that was before he was really famous. The last 5 minutes of the game were spent on the edge of my chair-beads on the table. I’m sure I freaked a few deer out whooping and hollering the entire last 35 seconds of the game. They will get over it. What I would like to know-what’s up with Belichek not shaking Coughlin’s hand after the game? I know he had already left the field, but he should have come back out on the field and done that. Maybe he was mad because he couldn’t cheat this time. Boo on you, Mr. Belichek. Just one more reason to not like the Pats.