Sue Beads

Busy busy, that's how it always is here anymore! Which is a good thing, considering how many things need to be done! On Friday, we "took the day off" and took all the kids to Idlewild Park ! They have a new wave pool, so we did that first for hours, then went to the amusement park part for hours! We had a great day, leaving the house no later than 11:30 am and returning about 11:00 pm! Here is a cute photo collage of our day. Lots of stuffed animals were won! Today, we did some mulching in my front and side yards. This was a much-needed chore as well, and we got all the kids involved. Things look really great! There is still some mulching to do, so later this week the rest will get done. Of course, it wouldn't be a weekend without starting a totally new project. The bottom right photo in the collage shows how the omni-stone bricks were picked up to be reset - this week as well. Finally, I thought I'd give you a pool update. This is how it looks now. Pr...

Today is the last Friday of the month, which means it's the Artisan Clay Design Team reveal day! (Please check Kristie's blog for the other participants - I too cannot figure out that in link thingy). As usual, I waited until the last minute to make my piece. It wasn't all my fault - the first piece Kristie sent me got lost in the mail so she had to send me another one. I chose this gorgeous turquoise/green/cobalt piece - it's one of her made-to-order items made with recycled glass. I was a little stumped at first - I know it had to be the focal, with very little to take away from it. I wanted to make a bail out of seed beads, but I just didn't have the right color mix. So I took my 18 gauge copper wire and made my own. I'm pretty proud of it, I must say! I made the toggle as well. I am just getting into wirework so it may take a bit of time to perfect my skills, but I'm happy with the results. I (finally) used some of my own lampwork ...

I have been on a raku kick the past few days! When you use this raku frit (it's really called iris orange), and you use a press or a roller, you can get the pretty blues, greens and purples instead of just the browns that you frequently see. Of course, this is dependent on the base glass as well; sometimes raku just wants to be brown on certain colors of glass. But I love using the round roller and some pretty nice raku colors are showing through! And I was in a bit of a beachy mood too! All are listed in my SueBeads etsy store now!

I mentioned a bit ago that I finally received my peanut beads in the mail from Whim Beads and I was so thrilled. I finally figured out what to do with some of them! These lampwork beads of mine (called Daydream) are my favorite creations of late and I made these earrings with them!

The Claw "vertigo" effects Him! Last night I was at the U2 concert here in Pittsburgh! While I'm not given to hero worship, every time I listen to these guys or see them in concert (this is my third one) I am reminded why I admire them so much! It was awesome. Interpol opened for U2 - I don't really know who they are and maybe heard one song from them before. They weren't the best band to choose for a venue like Heinz Field, but, whatev - I was there for U2! They came on about 9:10 and opened with David Bowie's Space Oddity . This would be foreshadowing for a really cool experience later in the concert! Gabbie Giffords' husband Mark Kelly recorded a cool special message for this concert while he was in space - it was awesome and gave me chills! Later in the concert, there was a message from Aung San Suu Kyi (which I couldn't hear because at this point I was deaf) who has finally been released from house arrest in Burma for her non-violet dem...

Well, not free...had to buy the romex in the first place, but I had my sweetie handyman save the discards for me. 12 gauge copper - gonna have to figure out what to do with this!

Top Row: Erin Prais-Hintz, Susan Kennedy, Sally Russick Bottom Row: Sandi Lee James, Jennifer Cameron, Mallory Hoffman Today is reveal day for the charm exchange Jennifer Cameron, of Glass Addictions, hosted. The guidelines were simple: create a charm based on the theme of "PLAY" and make enough charms for everyone plus one extra to auction off. We are actually auctioning off two sets of charms! The proceeds from the auction benefit Beads of Courage . My charm was based on the beach - my family has a house in Hilton Head, South Carolina, and I have been going there for years! My charm is a beach ball with a shell dangle attached! We love to play on the beach! Spring 2011 Participants : 1. Jennifer Cameron: Glass Addictions by Jennifer Cameron 2. Sandi Lee James: Do Be Do Bead Do 3. Mallory Hoffman: For the Love of Beads 4. Sue Kennedy: Sue Beads 5. Sally Russick: Wireworked 6. Erin Prais-Hintz: Treasures Found You can find the auctions by using the following links! Eb...

This is the other thing I have been spending my past few weekends on - new landscaping out by the pool! My sweetie helped make everything possible, although I put in a few hours myself! The top mosaic is in daylight, the bottom at night when it's all lit up with the landscaping lighting! I love it. It's on a dusk/dawn timer, so I don't even have to mess with it. I think in the winter it will look spectacular, too!

Well, here's the status of the pool! I mentioned that a spontaneous rip occurred in the pool liner on Thursday night, out of the blue. This is the status of the pool right now. The first mosaic shows when the water started to really drain out on Friday. I had to turn off the pump and call my pool guy. He was very responsive and I ordered the new liner - it's the photo on the bottom right. It's going to be sooooo pretty when it gets put in! The second mosaic shows the pool as of today - water drained all the way to the deep end, liner starting to sag in, just a big mess. I can't wait to get it done. Tomorrow I'll give you an update on my landscaping we finished this weekend! It looks so great, especially at night!

I mentioned that I had been busy cleaning up my basement storage room, and painting it, and tossing things out, and building some shelves. I was all proud of myself and happy happy happy that it finally got done! Things have been let go here for about 5 years and I am finally getting my energy back and my ability to get things done on my own, so I was really happy to have something like this accomplished! I never take before photos, a fault of mine, but here are some afters. We painted the long room with that drylock paint, which is thick and sandy. The floor still needs to be painted, but I sure didn't feel like doing it after painting those walls. That paint is thick! It's even more organized now because I got another shelf unit to put up. All in all, I'm quite happy with the progress! And then...apparently karma struck. My pool liner, which has needed to be replaced and was scheduled for that in the fall, when it's pool closing time, decided to rip itself a ...

I have been absent on blogger here for a few days - I've been busy. It's hard to do things the way you usually do them when kids are home from school. I wish summer break was shorter! Bad mom! There are so many things to coordinate with them, and I have been working on house projects as well as making a bunch of jewelry for my show in October. My basement storage room was painted with waterproof paint on Tuesday by my daughter and I, and I have been pitching junk, rearranging and building shelves, etc. for that room! Another project has been the wall in my backyard by the pool. It was falling over and needed to be replaced, but took longer than I thought it would. Last night we finally started mulching all the planting we did last weekend. I still need to buy some lights and I am going to get some cement Japanese lanterns for the area. I leave you with a pretty portulaca flower from my yard! It was blooming this morning before it turned 95 degrees outside!

I have some new beadies showing up in the SueBeads etsy store in a bit! Check them out!

Have you heard about the new eMag, Everyday Bracelets? You can get one here! I'm so thankful to Lorelei - she used some of my glass headpins in a bracelet design she has in the eMag!

yay, I got my computer back yesterday! After hours of messing around with it, so far it's behaving fine. I finally listed some new beads in the SueBeads etsy store , and the 25% off coupon went away - sorry, but thank you to those who took advantage of it!

Here's a coupon code for my SueBeads etsy store until I get my darn computer back! I'll let you know when the coupon expires. In the meantime, use GET25 to get 25% off any bead order!

Today my computer received the gift of a trojan horse virus. Because of the bad behavior, the computer is now residing at Best Buy for a week of reprogramming by the Geek Squad. I am on my laptop and don't have all my photo editing programs, etc. on it. Therefore, I don't know if I'll be able to post any photos of any new items or bugs. But I will keep you informed without photos if I have to! In the meantime, please feel free to take advantage of the web site sale I have going on - just click on the link to your right!

I just listed several sets of large hole beads in my SueBeads etsy shop ! Take a look! I've seen some fantastic jewelry created lately with large hole beads, and not just strung on a pandora bracelet but using leather cording, etc!

Have you wondered what to do with those cute filigree pairs I just listed in my SueBeads etsy store? Here's an earring idea! Start by making an eye pin with 22 gauge sterling wire. Open the eye pin and attach the filigree finding. Add a bead to the eye pin and make a wrapped loop. Open your ear wire loop and attach the earring unit to the ear wire! I made these ear wires with 20 gauge sterling. That's it! Very easy! You can use gemstones, silver beads, swarovski crystals, whatever you can think of! The nice thing about these earrings is that although they dangle, they are very light! The first set is made with china pink filigree and blue crazy lace agate faceted rounds. The second pair is made with sky blue filigree and green magnesite pumpkin beads. The third pair are made with violet filigree and turquoise teardrops that I got from a bead store in Savannah. The violet really didn't want to have it's picture taken today.

This very weird bug was on my front door today.

I just listed a bunch of enameled filigree beads, perfect for making some quick earrings! Take a look at the SueBeads etsy store!