Stuff

Lots of things going on, nothing really Earth-shattering.

Yesterday, we went to visit (and feed!) our son at Ursinus College. It's not a very long trip - only 1-1/2 to 2 hours and I really don't know why we haven't visited him more since he started last year. Part of it is that he comes home pretty often. Apparently the driers at school don't work! He does his own laundry so I really can't complain and it's good seeing him and meeting the friends he brings along.

I snapped a picture of the cooling towers at the Limerick nuclear plant. It's pretty close to Collegeville, so it seems he's moved from the shadow of TMI to the shadow of Limerick.

This, though is what I've been working on lately. I was asked to make 12 aromatherapy vessels for a well-known essential oil company and thought I'd give it a shot.

Originally, I resisted because I would really prefer not to do anything resembling production. There's enough of that in the soap business.

I can't seem to do more than 3 or 4 at a sitting, but I did get them done. They are the Caliente glass that I love.

I broke down and ordered a few other colors. Probably not enough of any of them to do another full order, but plenty of experimenting. Some are reducing colors. In other words, the metal in the glass rises to the surface when they are flashed in a reducing flame (propane heavy rather than oxygen heavy which is called an oxidizing flame).

I'm also working on an autumn necklace which will include all the leaves I made a few weeks ago. I wanted to make some acorns and some oak leaves to add to it and while we were visiting the campus yesterday, I found some fallen acorns to use as models.

I have tried making acorns before, but they look more like a male body part! Maybe with real models in front of me, they'll look like what they are supposed to be!

On the other hand, the oak leaves I have made before actually have turned out pretty well. We'll see.

Today, we're probably going to make some "seasonal" soaps for the holidays. A bayberry for sure and probably something apple-y and spicy for fall.

Tina already reported on the Colonial Day show we did this weekend. I was saved by some prior orders that I have to deliver at the show and actually, the jewelry went all right, but nothing like what we had imagined.

I'll try to get back on a routine of posting again. It seems I often forget my camera and I really don't like to post without a picture!

I did want to mention the memorials yesterday and how touching it was watching the people who had lost loved ones 5 years ago. Yesterday, as we drove down to Rob's school, I was surprised at all the billboards and signs in memory of the disaster and I was also surprised at how raw and close to the surface all those memories and emotions still are. Even though I didn't lose anyone close to me, we as a nation lost our innocense once again.

The Egg & I

Lookie what Bob brought in to show me today!

He came in from letting the chickens out for their daily roam around the area with his hand closed. I hesitated to accept his proffered gift, because we have different ideas about what one should hold in their hand! He turned it over and Wow!

We were like new parents! Well, not that excited, but pretty pleased that the chickens have finally produced an egg.

It's pretty small, I have it in an egg box with two "large" size regular chicken eggs. "Our" eggs will increase in size and number soon. How cool is that?



Here's the gang. I forget if I posted an actual picture of our own little "flock".

We've gotten used to each other now. They roam during the day and know enough to come in to their coop for a safe night's sleep. Just as it gets dark, Bob goes out and shuts the door.

Between the chickens and the gardens, we're becoming a bit more self sufficient. It's a nice feeling.

Well, I'm off to make a number of vessels for an order. Just finished all the soap beads and they're ready to go out. I have a set or two of regular beads that I want to finish up before "Colonial Day" in East Berlin on September 9. Plus, of course, there's always soap to make and wrap.

Okay, okay!

So, I saw that Tina bugged me to post my angel.. Just remember you can click on any picture and it will come up larger in its own window.

Since so many people call my fairy beads angels, I thought I'd make a real angel. She's dressed in white, with goldstone stripes thrugh her skirt, a goldstone halo and a bit for sparkle in her wings.

I'm not sure how many of these I might do. I seem to be on a white kick at the moment and made a victorian lady before the Gem Miner's show. She's mostly ivory, but has white "fur" around her hat and skirt hem as well as her muff. No picture of her today.


What's really been taking up my time this week is making a bunch of soap beads. They were ordered last week and I've been trying to get them done ever since the show. I have a lot of trouble doing the same thing over and over, but I did make a plan to do one color each day.

Now they're ready to be engraved and then they just need to be popped in the kiln to round off the corners of glass and set the enamel. Once they are made into charms, they are ready to go out.


I feel like I have to do something to break up the monotomy when I have a bunch of soap beads to do and there is a charity auction going on here for a place for women to get a fresh start called "Milagro House". I thought, since I often donate soap to them, it would be nice to make something for the auction.

This purple winged heart seems like something that might be appropriate. I even sifted purple enamel over it and it looks pretty cool. I think that special charms are called Milagros (miracles), I may be wrong, but this just seemed right. I want to make it into a pendant, maybe with a few crystals added, and I think it will be perfect.

Winter Wonderland

I'm still getting ready and attempting to produce as much as possible before the Gem Miner's Jubilee in Lebanon this weekend. It's a 3 day show (Friday through Sunday) and today, I'll be going up to get things set up.

This set is called "Winter Wonderland" because it reminds me of a winter landscape. The black tree branches against the snow. And silver sparkles all over everything.

I was just experimenting without a lot of direction and this happened. A good share of wonkies and orphans were produced yesterday, but when I hit on this combination, I went wild, even adding a big old focal!

The kiln is clicking, which means it is ready for another day's work, so off I go... Can't wait to see what happens next!

Capsules

I was sitting at the torch. Made some more leaves plus spacers to go with them. Eventually, I'm going to have a killer leaf necklace. Of course, it's a fall color scheme and by the time I have it done, it'll be spring or summer!

I was lacking in inspiration and happened to glance up at the wall in front of the torch where I have my inspirational photos! I have a number of pictures of Jen Geldard's beads. Someday I hope to take a class with her, but meanwhile, I have some of her beads up there just because I love the style.

These are my pale imitations. The shape is right and the general "feeling" is okay, but, of course, the surface treatment can't equal hers, and I don't seem to capture the inner glow hers have. I do like the shape though and the whimsiness.

I also believe Jen has moved on in her creations. She's off on other tangents at the moment, but I seem to be stuck with this shape and style. They are pretty cool as pendants. The center purple bead, I left alone, but the side beads, I etched. That gives them a velvety texture that I really like.

More for the Weekend

I've been trying to get more beads made for the Gem Miner's Jamboree this weekend and these are some of what came out of the kiln today.

So, I did another set that is very not me. I call it "Rickie Tickie Stickies" and it reminds me of the wild flower stickers that were stuck all over everything in the 60-70's.

It's another blatant copy of another artist's work, but I just had to try it.

Then back into my usual comfort zone, nice muted combos and the half and half, straight sided lentils I've been making lately. I really like this combination. And the silvered ivory just shines so prettily.

I call it "Starlit Seas" because it just looks like seafoam at night with the stars and moon dancing across it.

And a couple of floral/focals:

The green one has a dark green base with two layers of a frit alternated with clear. The flowers just look like what I would expect if I were walking across a meadow as the sun rose. They would just be opening and shining with dew...

I call it "Enchanted Meadow". Sorry I got a nasty reflection in the photo.

And finally, "Pretty in Pink". Another one layered with frit and clear, this time over a white base. Then a vine cane and flowers.

I added the pink ends just for the fun of it. If you click on the picture, in the enlargement, you'll see I managed also to collect a number of bubbles in the encasement. Oh, well.

The flowers on both of these were the same combination. Silver pink base dot and then light pink transparent. It results in a delicate pink, but definitely a pink!

Lititz & Shibori!

This is how we spent the morning yesterday. We have some of our soap products in a coop in Lititz, PA. Lititz is a sort of "Artsy" town, one of those little hometown places that has actually achieved the rebirth/renewal thing that a lot of small towns seem to be striving for. Many quaint shops and well attended arts and crafts fairs throughout the year, a real destination. It probably doesn't hurt that Wilbur Chocolate is there sending wonderful smells into the air!

We had agreed to do a soapmaking demo on the porch of the coop (that's Tina behind the table). Unfortunately, we were too off the main street which had been shut down for a street craft fair, so had little traffic ourselves. We made our soap, visited with the other craftspeople on the porch, then packed up and left around noon to get home in time to see Tina's daughter off on her way to the beach for a week with her dad.

Meanwhile, I was inspired to make a new set of beads on Friday. I'm kind of excited about it, just because it seems like an unusual color combo for me. The picture behind it is an ad which was on the back of the latest "Ornament" magazine. I bought the magazine for the article in it about Sage & Tom Holland's Islamic folded beads. (The article was fascinating, btw.)

The magazine was lying face down on the coffee table and when I started out to the shop to make beads, I saw the ad on the back. The colors just popped and I thought, "I wonder if I could make a bead with those colors."

They're not perfect, but I think they convey the colors and movement of the dress in the ad. I call them "Shibori" because that was the company the ad was for.

By the way, I finally got some new vessels up on my website. I'm working on updating all the pages, but you can check out the vessels page here.

Autumn Leaves and stuff

These are the autumn leaves I mentioned that I made yesterday. I'd like to make spacer beads, sort of like the flower bead in the center, or maybe just plain ones of the topaz glass... hmm have to think about it.

The leaves are pretty big, probably would make a stunning necklace. They are over an inch long, not including the bead/stem.

It's certainly seasonal - or will be soon. Isn't that a sad thing to think about? Well, it is today since our weather is some of the best of the summer. Mild, low humidity, just beautiful.

These are still in a summerish vein. I wanted to try making some patterned beads and only etching the backround. I wasn't the best resist painter, so there are a number of spots where the clear base didn't etch, maybe I'll try it one more time.

Etched glass always reminds me of sea glass and the colors used to decorate these are definitely ocean colors... cruise colors.

Finally, this big boy was another experiment. I was reading some threads on a lampworking forum and decided to download some of the pictures for inspiration. This is very close to being an almost exact copy of someone's bead.

Copying is a pretty big issue, so I won't be doing a lot of these, but I think to try a technique, often we wind up copying, before we manage to come up with our own interpretation of the idea.

Man in the, uh, Soap

So, in the past two days, we knocked out 8 batches of soap. Today, I was cutting some of them and this is one of the slices it produced.

I thought it looked a little odd and even seemed to see a face in it. A lot like seeing the man in the moon, who was very clear and easy to see last night.

He looks a bit sinister here, but when I separated the bars, the middle turned out like this:

I think when the bar is seen alone, it looks a little like the man in the painting "The Scream".

Don't his eyes look haunted? And isn't his nose sort of aquiline and sensitive looking?

Yep, that's what happens when you soap a little too much! As I cut the soap, my mind wanders, especially when I cut the marbled soaps. They reveal so many pictures if I let my imagination go wild.

I made some beads today, too... autumn leaves. Show ya tomorrow!

Pickles & 'Maters....

So, I haven't done any freezing or canning for years. Last week, we spent the morning freezing 46 bags of corn. This week, we had lots of cucumbers and decided to make pickles!

Here is what we started with - an overflowing basin of cucumbers and a few tomatoes. We figured we might as well can a few tomatoes while the kitchen was heated up.

Neither of us had ever canned pickles before and we were going to use a recipe for dills that looked especially good. When I was buying the jars (threw out all my old jars a few years ago!) I saw the pickle mixes and bought the Polish dill mix. While she was at the store later, Tina bought the bread and butter mix and the sweet pickle mix, so.....

First we canned the few tomatoes we had available. As I recall, this is a job usually done in the early part of September, but, oh well... The red ones don't seem to be coming along as quickly as the yellow ones, so we did a mix and threw in a little extra citric acid, just to be sure the solution was acidic enough since the yellow ones don't seem to have as much acid content as the red ones.

Then, the pickles. Our sinuses have been cleared and we have pretty much used up all the vinegar and sugar in our house! We made 6 pints of Polish Dills, 4 pints of Bread and Butter and 6 1/2 pints of sweet pickles. We chunked the sweet pickles and the chunks appear to have floated... oh, well.

We have more of the mix left and may make some more of them later. It was fun and it will be exciting opening these jars this winter to serve with special meals.

So long ago...

Yesterday was actually our anniversary, 32 years. We got married that day so long ago because that was what we had decided a month or so earlier, that Bob could get away for a few days "when the hay was in". We "eloped" to Alexandria, Virginia on the recommendation of one of my co-workers. There was no waiting period and we could have our blood tests done that day. We got there, found the courthouse and were given a sheet of instructions. We followed them and were married shortly after lunch in the basement of the courthouse. I don't even have any pictures from the day, or from the few days we spent afterwards in Wildwood, NJ!

The day we were married was a Monday and on Thursday, we got home and went out. We invited everyone we saw to come over for a picnic on Sat to celebrate. It was a fun party. Our real honeymoon was the next February, when we spent two weeks in Acapulco. There are pictures from the party and from the trip, and one day I'll dig them out an scan a few in...

So, here we are, 32 years later. And they said it wouldn't last!

I started the day early yesterday and made a couple of new sets of beads. This first set is a pretty simple pressed set using the Autumn green frit Rachel gave me on a brown. I can see the flatter diamond beads as a bracelet, alternated with silver diamond beads I have. One of the "gem" beads would be a dangle on the bracelet and the other two would be matching earrings....

These "tablet" style pressed beads have a poppy frit on the turquoise base with ivory splashed on top. I love them with the branch coral.

We went out for a very nice lunch yesterday to celebrate. We had the house to ourselves again since Rob was away, so it was a nice quiet relaxing day. Like a lot of the days way back when...

Well, looks like today will be pickle day. We have tons of cucumbers and Tina and I both bought some pickle mixes... Polish Dill, Bread and Butter and sweet pickle mix. This is something new. We'll see how it goes!

The Great Turkey Roundup

Well, I had all good intentions of getting out to the torch early this morning but hesitated because Rob had some friends here from school and I wanted to see them off early - on their way to Odicon (I guess that's how it's spelled) in Baltimore.

I went out to the shop anyway and was toying with the idea of heating up the kiln when the phone rang. It was a neighbor - at least half a mile away. It seemed the turkeys were in her peach trees and she wanted us to do something about it.

Bob wasn't here, but I got in touch with him and he came home right away. He headed right over to the neighbor's house. Apparently the turkeys had left - on their way to terrorize someone else.

About 15 minutes later, the phone rang again and it was the neighbor's neighbor. The turkeys were headed back their way. So, we piled in the pickup, Bob, Rob, Rob's friend Molly and me. We had a number of cages in the back along with something that looked like a large butterfly net.

We screeched into the neighbor's driveway and searched the area around the peach trees for signs of turkeys. Finally, we spotted them out in the field across the road, seemingly headed for home.

Bob headed out on foot with his herding tool (the butterfly net). He told Rob to bring the truck and so Rob and Molly took off after him. Meanwhile, two other pickups stopped to ask if the birds were wild turkeys.

Rob came back and got me and then we all proceeded slowly down the road home. Bob was out on the road, herding the turkeys and Rob kept them from coming across the road and getting out of control.

I was relieved when we turned into our driveway because Bob and the turkeys were really exposed if any other vehicles had come flying along the road the opposite way.

So, the turkeys were "home", but of course, they weren't staying here. They immediately headed up the hill to our next door neighbor's yard. It was extremely hot and at least they were out of the peach trees, so we just decided that when they came in to roost tonight, we would try to capture them. We have another neighbor who actually raises a lot of birds and haad said he would like to have a pair of the turkeys, so we figured he'd be happy to see at least two, possibly four of them.

Rob and his friends left on their latest adventure and we made plans for the evening.

Mid afternoon and Bob was going out to prepare things for the big roundup tonight. He was outside for probably 45 minutes and came in looking quite proud of himself. "The turkeys are in the big pen!", he said. It seems they were headed down from the neighbors and Bob asked the kids and the neighbor's wife to help him guide them into the pen. They calmly and slowly guided them in and shut the door...

Later he took two pairs of them over to the bird guy's place. The rest, 5 of them, are all males and I think they may be going on a ride to the State game lands tomorrow.

The moral of the story is, don't allow wild game birds to imprint on humans. They had absolutely no fear - and no sense. I think we may be finished raising Wild Turkeys. The Pheasants are still great and certainly not tame as the turkeys were. The Chukkers had to be released so the large pen was available for the turkeys. They certainly didn't imprint on us - just the dang turkeys!

Back and Posting

Well, after that great flurry of posting, I feel kinda bad having missed a week or so.

The computer being sort of incapacitated threw me for a loop, and then I had the bead show to work on in York. Came home to some soap orders and then restocking to be done, but now I'm ready again.

These are our stargazer lilies. We planted them some years ago and they have rewarded us every summer since with a fabulous show. It is short, but so gorgeous!

Every year, it is a little better than the year before.


And the chickens...

I can't seem to catch them all at once, but here you can see our rooster. We've decided they must be Scandinavian, so his name is Sven. We have Olga and Helga and are trying to come up with some other Scandinavian names for the girls.

Finally, this is one of the best beads I ever made. She is a purple fairy. Her proportions are great, her hair all stayed on, the ends are smooth, but... Even though I tried really hard to pay attention to keeping her evenly heated, her skirt just splintered beneath the surface.

I'm thinking I have a bit of an incompatibility problem. I used both Moretti and Lauscha. It should all work together, but, I guess this time it didn't.

I am really heartsick about her. But I have the picture and I'm actually thinking of painting her with resin so she will hold together. Maybe I'll encase her in a cube of resin and keep her as my "frozen fairy".

Life in the Country - Kaboom!

I started to go into great detail, but suffice it to say that Tuesday afternoon and evening, we experienced a real "Thunderboomer" - and a little too close for comfort! We're not sure exactly where it hit, but it was close.

It took out (fried) our cable modem and router along with two desktop computers. My laptop is still fine, but this is the first I have been "connected" since the strike. Our electricity was out for 13 hours. The telephone line to the shop is not working.

Thunderstorms are usually not so destructive, but when they make a direct hit, they can wreak havoc. All the repair and insurance calls have been made, new surge suppressors have been installed.

Life in the country will now return to the usual chaos.

The Good, the bad and... the turkeys

First the good news. This is one of my first uses of gold foil. I think the combination of clear cobalt glass and gold foil is magical. It reminds me of shooting stars at midnight, but I call it "Goldrush".

Imagine the feelings of those 49'ers. It must have been amazing, lying under the stars, late at night, dreaming of the big strike.


A second piece of good news is this vessel which I call "Green Jaguar".

The pattern is something I wanted to try that the originator calls "dragon scales". The color reminds me of the rain forest and the spots of something sinuous and stealthy... a Jaguar.

The lighter clear glass in the middle is my favorite, pale emerald, because it catches the light so beautifully.

And then the bad...
I say bad for two reasons.
First, you can see that I somehow burnt the handle. See the black spots on the inside of the handle? And second, on the other side of the vesel, there is a pinpoint hole. I saw it while I was working on it, and thought I had covered it, but, alas no. This was a lot of work. I pulled a number of twisties to lay on the surface and then placed a twisted flower right on the center. On the back, the design is more abstract, with raised and flattened dots.

Oh, well, I'll have to try it again like I did the mermaid yesterday. No photos yet, but she turned out very well.

TURKEY REPORT!! A neighbor stopped in yesterday just to tell me how much she loves the turkeys. She wanted to ask if she could feed them corn. Sure, make more poop. She didn't say, but, from her very forceful, "I like the turkeys!", I get the feeling that all the neighbors might not be in complete agreement.

Also, a PennDot crew was working on the road in front of our house. I left while they were there and noticed the whole flock of turkeys had settled in along the orad to watch them. Apparently, Bob, my husband, left shortly afterward and asked if the turkeys were bothering them. The "Stop sign guy" replied, "Oh, no, they're so tame. We almost caught one!"

So, now we know what the PennDot guys do. When they have a chance, they chase turkeys!

New Mermaid & Pea Blossoms

If you click on any of the pictures, a larger version should open in a new window.
A new mermaid. Her tail is covered in fish scales, though not as precise as I'd like. I'll have to give it another shot today on another one, maybe. I do love her hair. The stringer came out pretty well and gives the curls lots of definition. Looks like it's just floating around her. And, she's modest... Sometimes those mermaids just don't know how to cover up!

The hole on this bead is lengthwise and mermaids look really nice as pendants, with a fringe of matching beads and seashells pouring out beneath them.

This color combo turned out really well. It's dramatic, but a really nice way to use the ocher and coral together. The little green turquoise beads I used as spacers match it perfectly and I call it "Pea Blossoms" even though I've certainly never seen pea blossoms that color, but the spacers look like little peas.

Oh, look, Rachel, they aren't glowing! I was trying to change the color of the backround with layers and found I must change the original or the glow "happens". Doncha just love Photoshop?!

Never a Dull Moment

Back in May, when it was first built, I posted a picture of this structure. With all the rain we have had, plus judicial care on Bob's part, they have grown at an almost frightening rate. Part of this "care" included installing electric fence around the whole thing to keep the turkeys out.

He also felt the need to install electric fence around where the turkeys slept the first night because we think a fox carried one off. This (I'm not sure if it was the fox or the electric) led to their most recent perch which I showed you just the other day.

The turkeys were not at their usual spot last night (thank heavens!), so we aren't sure where they are spending their time now. Bob's worried, but I think they were just probably insulted since he washed away the piles of excrement that they left on the brick path to our back door!

Okay, back to the gourds. They have started actually bearing fruit. These are just a couple of the tiny baby gourds forming all over the vines. These particular ones look like bottle or bird house gourds, but there are also snake gourds, dipper gourds and mini gourds that I think might be fun for jewelry use (somehow)!

This morning, the new rooster started crowing. A sound Rudy, our pooch, has not heard before. Rudy decided that the correct answer to this noise should be a howl! I was outside, talking to Tina on the phone when this interchange began, and both of us were highly amused. The rooster would crow, Rudy would follow with his answer, and it continued for some time.

Honestly, there is never a dull moment around this place!

Name challenged

Today I worked with silver and copper blue frit to make these lentils. The silver and frit combine to create this glowing finish. I looked and looked at the picture trying to come up with a name. They remind me of some splendid reptile. Although reptiles and amphibians don't necessarily make me think of jewelry... or anything pretty. Maybe "Enchanted Rain" because it looks like rain spatters on dry ground, only sparkling deep turquoise spatters on silvery ground.

I thought of the men in space right now and considered calling them "Nebula", but the next set is much closer to a nebula.

Looking at the picture of these has convinced me to change the original name "St. Elmo's Fire" to "Orion Nebula". They just remind me of the first pictures sent back from the space telescope. They were so amazing, with myriad colors and so many swirls and sparkles.

I remember how unimaginably beautiful those pictures were in, was it, National Geographic?

St. Elmo's Fire, gargoyles and Silver Wyandottes

We'll start with something pretty. This is the beginning of a set I'm calling St. Elmo's Fire. I'm going to pick out colors from the )Raku) swirls and make a bead using each one. It's going to be pretty and Tina bought a bunch of the color changing beads (which some of us remember as mood beads) a few months ago.

This is one bracelet where they would make sense since no matter what color they are, they will match something in the main beads.

Then we have the turkeys - again!

Every evening around dusk, they come in and roost at the end of the pergola leading to the back door. The first time they did this, we weren't aware and when we turned around and looked at the entrance, it was like finding our own set of 11 gargoyles staring at us!

The one on this end doesn't seem to be too keen on the flash.

Somehow we got on the subject of chickens on Friday night and Bob immediately began researching them. He found some that look like these at a farm nearby and fell in love. This morning, he will be going to pick up 5 hens and a rooster - Silver laced Wyandotte.

Yep. More birds. These are really pretty and I'm thinking they might actually have some purpose for a change. Apparently, the rooster really doesn't make much difference as far as egg quality goes as long as you collect the eggs when they are fresh and if we decide we'd like to have some babies, bingo!

I must have a talk with brother Mark and his wife Pam, though, about mentioning any new animals...

Today and maybe tomorrow

Just one set today, and it isn't topaz. I've been wanting to make something in pinks and today was the day. This is a combination of pastel pink and transparent pink. The transparent tends toward peach, and I added a roll in salmon frit before I swirled the glass. The transparent is lighter than it appears in the picture, but I decided not to do so much fooling around with Photoshop today. (I don't know if you know this, but if you click on the picture, you'll get a bigger version in a new window.)

Most of the day was spent helping with Tina and Molly's official move. The one that included pickup trucks. So, now they are officially in. Even though they've been sleeping at the new house, half their stuff was still at the apartment.

Maybe tomorrow I'll start working on organization... yeah... tomorrow....

Instead of cleaning

Well, I really intended to get some work done... cleaning the shop ... but instead, I had a bracelet to finish and decided to make some beads and put one more together while I was at it. This first picture is the bracelet that was ordered from a set of my beads. It's called "Funky Friday" because I felt the khaki and blue denim colors would be perfect for casual day in the office and the clunky shapes made it funky.

This second set is my own fireworks, a purple version of the aqua set I made a few days ago. I just love the swirls and the straight sided lentil is a more solid version of the lentil, so it takes the poking and prodding necessary for a design like this one.

I think I'll do another set like this with topaz, ocher and ocelot frit. It should be quite colorful with a bit of tortoiseshell look to it.

I call this bracelet "Olive Petroglyphs". The scrolls and lines remind me of ancient petroglyphs, the colors are great and all the silver makes it extra special.

Okay, okay, maybe I'll get back to the filing and rearranging. Oops, nope, gotta do some grocery shopping. Well, I evaded it for today...

Yeah, I know the pictures "glow". I'll have to work on my photoshopping....

And we pause...

To celebrate our Nation's 4th of July.


An annual tradition with us, this year was better than most. Lots of people in our rural area have fireworks exhibitions of their own, along with the large displays in the various communities.


Saturday night, we gathered on the deck up at my sister's and watched the neighbor's display. From the vantage point on the hill, we could also see probably 3 or 4 other large displays, although farther away.


Last night, we had our own and while our "boys" were setting off their own, another neighbor proceeded to send bottle rockets screaming over our heads.

Rob and 3 of his best friends have been doing this (more or less), with lots of adult supervision, since 7th grade. Now, they are almost all 20 and staged their first (almost) solo presentation.

What a blast (sorry about that)! Tomorrow, it's back to beads, etc.

Beads - oh, and turkeys...

When I uploaded these pictures, they were in a different order, but I'll go with the way they came up to comment.

These are called "Sailing away" and I only made two of them to begin with - as a sample to see if I liked them.... well, I did. I made three more, so they are now a nice sized set. The gray-blue faceted spacers were one of the things I found at a show in Timonium on Friday and I was very happy to find that color since it matches one of my new favorites. It is like a well worn pair of jeans. The gray-blue makes a nice contrast with the sparkling medium blue transparent and the whole effect with the curling waves makes me think of sailing the seas!

Another set which includes the same color of gray-blue along with some purples and an ocher. It was a day of trying things... stringers, dots and twisties. I call it "Lollypops and Jawbreakers".

These guys again! Remember the little, ugly wild turkeys I showed you a month or so ago? Well, we set them free. Unfortunately, they seem to have imprinted on humans, specifically our family. For a while before we let them out, they set up quite a ruckus whenever they saw me or my sister since we had gotten into the habit of bringing them piles of chickweed to munch on. Now, I walk between the shop and the house and turn to see them (all 11 of them) walking quietly behind me in single file. It's kinda creepy. Reminds me of the velociraptors in "Jurassic Park"!

While mowing the back yard the other day, the whole "gang" suddenly emerged out of the woods. (A little unsettling!) They loved the cut areas with all the things hopping around rearranging their lives, etc.

And finally, some more beads. This is another of those unmatched sets. The only thing that they have in common is the colors and the shape/size. Another set of vintage porcelain beads used as spacers did the trick and really made them work together.

Soon, I will have my website updated. Some of the things I have shown on the blog are already sold, but many of these will soon be available on the pages of Torchsong Studio.