Sue Beads

Time sure flies - we leave for Portugal tomorrow. I'll try and get on the computer and post some photos from time to time! I'll be looking for some beads store and some nice tiles, too! Have a great week!

Still free shipping in my etsy store through tomorrow, in honor of my Portugal trip!

Street in Obidos, Portugal Hey everyone - in case you didn't know, I am headed to Portugal for a week! This weekend, I will be going to Portugal for the engineer's professional society meetings, along with my kids and my parents. If any of you readers out there from Portugal have advice or info, I'd love to have it. We will be spending a few days in both Cascais and Obidos. We will only have hours in Lisboa, from dinner to the next morning. I would love to find some bead stores, tiles, and good wine! If you know of a restaurant we have to go to in Lisboa I'd love the name!

an alternative to NYMO?????

Last night, after I made the kids dinner, they went back outside and found all these great berries. The only rule was, if you find it, you eat it! The raspberries have been there for years, but now are full of blackcaps. I think I need to get some new bushes! The blueberry plants are at least 10 years old and finally came into their own last year - you should see how many berries are on those bushes and how nice and big they are getting! Today, I saw a robin fluttering around inside the cage the engineer built with deer netting and pvc pipes. I don't know how it got in, but I had to open the little door, and stand back. It finally got the idea! If you click on the photo, you can see how nice the bushes are! BTW, all the bushes are from Martha Stewart, back when she sold such things. I wish she still did!!!! Have a great day! It's going to be a hot one here! Hard to sit in front of a flame and kiln!

I keep getting this question, lately, due to the project in BeadStyle July 2009. My standard answer is "No, sorry, I don't sell wholesale, but if you place a (Large) order, I'm happy to give a discount." My beads are made from high quality materials, I spend a lot of time on them, and think they are pretty darn good. I don't charge as much as I should for my beads, either. I don't make a lot of money on my beads. Yep, you can buy chinese or indian beads that are not properly made or made with low-grade glass and not kiln-annealed for a LOT less, and your customer will be the one who pays for that in terms of broken or shattered beads. I am a one-person show; I make all my beads, clean them, pack them, mail them, etc. Selling wholesale to me always felt that if you made such a large number of beads, you must have people working for you, making that same design, because how could one person with kids and a house, etc., spend that much time??!?!?! I will ...

Kristin, at Waking Beauty Designs , tagged me with a silly little game - name six silly things that make me happy. To play the game, you list who tagged you with a link back to them, list your six silly things, and then tag six more people and link to them. I hope I can find six things, and six people. 1. I like getting packages in the mail! 2. I love my kids' laughs! 3. Wine! Although that's not really silly. 4. Very occasionally, an Egg McMuffin with cheese! 5. Flowers from my engineer! 6. Chocolate! Tagging and I apologize if you have already been tagged: Melissa , from Strands (and yes, I still owe you a post from tagging me!!!) Nancy , from Round Rabbit Rosanne , Fab Fibers LLYYNN , Lynn Davis Mary Jane , Maire Dodd Silver Parrot , Kelly, who recently gave me a very nice blog award!

Here's a photo I took of the bracelet I whipped up today. It's made from some beautiful turquoise I got at a bead store in Savannah - they had just got it at a bead show. It's more green than the photo shows. It's accented by 5mm sterling saucer beads and a paisley toggle clasp from Fusion Beads. I like it a lot! When the engineer isn't busy later, I'm going to see if he can look at my camera and tell me what's up with it!

We never did get the bad storms they warned us about incessantly all day yesterday. But they never warned us about the storms we got on Wednesday. If the sun comes back out, I will take a photo of a bracelet I made today for myself!

Thanks to everyone who left me well wishes about the big horrible storm we had. I know my pool was trashed, but so many people had it so much worse. Through all his hard work, the engineer has just pronounced the pool swimmable. Just in time for what appears to be another round of severe storms headed our way later this afternoon. If you don't hear from me again, it's because we have no electricity!

I made a little poll, to the right------>. The reason I am asking is because someone just bought 5 of my beaded beads from the etsy store, and I want to restock them! I have already made a "rainforest" one, and want to know if I should offer pairs, or what!!! Thanks!

Hilton Head Beach Lentil charm by Susan Kennedy Here's another idea for something you can do with my Hilton Head Beach Lentil bead. I made this charm with sterling saucer beads and a shell charm from Fusion Beads. Really easy; you can hang it on a cell phone charm, your purse, or a chain!

My pool got trashed, I had water in the basement and coming in windows, but we didn't get it nearly as bad as some people just down the hill from us. There are roads closed all over the place, there were funnel clouds and hail, it lasted forever! We never have storms like this! It was crazy. The pool was overflowing, there were little waterfalls coming from my neighbors' driveway, and all the pine bark mulch that is in my planting area is now in the pool; the filter somehow got clogged with mulch and it's going to take DAYS to get it swimmable again. The mailman never took my mail yesterday so some people who are waiting for beads are going to have to wait another day...sorry. I'm going to run them down to the post office, I guess.

There are horrible storms here - we have a slight reprieve in the electricity - if you don't hear from me for a couple days, it's because we don't have electricity. All kinds of water in the house. Be back whenever I can!!!!

My new friend and customer, Kris, sells her great ocean-themed jewelry in New Jersey, in some stores and with some friends! She even has her own personal sales manager, taking her wares to and fro to sell them! What a great friend. Here's some work she did with some of my beads - she hasn't been selling on etsy, but maybe she will soon? Let me know if you want her to make you something, too!

Heather Powers, of Humblebeads , just made an excellent blog post on the merits of using yellow in your summer jewelry designs! Speaking of yellow, I just made a customer a set of yellow squeezed beads. I made two sets, and sent her the ones made from Bullseye yellow glass. These ones were made from effetre yellow glass, and I etched them, because well, I love how etched glass looks! I'll be listing them tonight or tomorrow in my etsy store - methinks more like tomorrow because I think I'm done for the day today! Also, a bunch of new beads are now available for sale on my web site, SueBeads , in the made to order section! Check them out!

Pam, from cooljewelrydesign on etsy, made this necklace with my Chinese Lantern lampwork beads. You can click on her shop name to find the link. I like necklaces like these - they show off the beads and are nice and simple. Pam likes lampwork and you can find many things in her store right now! I have to take the day off from making beads to get the laundry done, pay the bills, and I think I'm going to try and sit in the sun by the pool for a bit. We had fun with friends watching the Stanley Cup last night, and I was up way past my bedtime! Need to chill out today!

In case you weren't paying attention, the Pittsburgh Penguins just won the Stanley Cup playoffs!

Rainforest Beaded Bead I am busily making beads for the orders I have been receiving - thanks so much! You really don't know how nice it is to get some business! My daughter graduated 8th grade yesterday (high school, here we come) and my propane tank ran out the other day. But I finally got to make some beads for orders today. Nothing new to show all of you - just thought I'd put some eye candy out there for you! Have a nice day!

Well, I was making beads for my backed up bead orders, and I ran out of propane. I wasn't having that great of a day anyways, so decided to wait until later to move the grill propane down to the basement. So, I have some time on my hands (well, that's relative, of course) and decided to put some new things in the etsy store . I particularly love this khaki beaded bead and I love the wasabi raku beads too. I also have to go to the post office to mail some international packages, but the boy is out riding his bike and I can't leave until he comes home. So, here's some eye candy!

I have been wanting to post a tutorial on my blog for these earrings that I just LOVE (made with my beads, of course) and I was going to do it Tuesday to make it Tutorial Tuesday! I saw I was tagged by the wonderful Melissa Lee and was going to do that today. But I just don't have the time to answer all those questions today, so I'm going to do this earring tutorial instead. You can buy these beads in my etsy store ; I should have them in my web store soon, and you can always just make a request! Blue Southwest Flower Earrings Supplies: (2) 3" eye pins (2) ear wires, any kind will do! (4) 3mm sterling saucer beads (2) 6mm faceted blue chalcedony rondelles (2) southwest flower lampwork beads by SueBeads! On your eye pin, place one saucer bead, one lampwork bead, one chalcedony rondelle, and one saucer bead. Make a wrapped loop. Make sure your loop direction matches the eye pin loop at the bottom, for consistency. Open your ear wire and attach with the loop. Repeat fo...

The BeadStyle 2009 Magazine is out - and in case I didn't mention it, I'm in it! I submitted a necklace I had made for my mom's birthday with my own lampworked beads - she just got it back (her birthday was in November!). Better late than never! The beads I made for the necklace are now listed on the home page of my web site ( www.suebeads.com ) so if you want to purchase any, you can! Also, the beads Naomi used in the bracelet are also featured on the home page, in case you want those too!

The new Art Bead Scene challenge for June has been published - it's Farbstudie Quadrate by Wassily Kandinsky. I can see some beads for this already - I hope to get some made tomorrow! I'll hopefully get something made, myself, and also offer some for sale!

They opened while I was in Baltimore - aren't they gorgeous! You should smell them! Doesn't everyone want a geek engineer?????

Jellies painted on the brick (yes!!! really painted on the brick!) Heritage Walk sign (in Korean, I believe; tried to get French one for my kids, but didn't work out) Jellies painted everywhere! USS Constellation; ship now a museum Harbor Lighthouse