What I'm Watching/Reading Currently... and Downtown Oakland Interactive Map for Bay Area Bead Extravaganza

MOVIES and TV SHOWS and BOOKS

Watched the X-Men prequel today. Now I feel like I must find the other X-Men movies and catch up. :-)

So I finished watching the only two seasons of Reaper. Liked it, but the show kind of stopped midstream. I don’t know if they’ll ever revive it.

Then I watched all eight seasons of Monk. Those were enjoyable.

That led me to re-watching Murder, She Wrote. It’s so funny seeing how dated some of the clothing, actions, and plot lines are, but it’s still kind of fun.

Probably sounds like I watch a lot of tv… and I guess I do, but it’s never just plopping my rear-end down and watching. I like to have something going in the background when I’m doing certain jewelry work (wire-wrapping, photographing, listing, etc).

Murder, She Wrote made me think of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, so I downloaded a couple books onto my Kindle and am reading those before bed (no multi-tasking there).


B.A.B.E.

I’ll be attending a couple classes at BABE (Bay Area Bead Extravaganza ) in two weeks. If anyone else reading this blog will be going and isn’t overly familiar with the area, here’s a cool interactive map
showing some of the things within a couple blocks’ radius.

Hope everyone had a happy and safe Halloween!


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New Wall Art, Kumihimo Video Tutorial, Sign up for email notifications now

WALL ART

I haven’t been too experimental this week. Oh, I did make a wall hanging…



I plan to continue my foray into wall art.


KUMIHIMO VIDEO

After watching this really well-made video on Kumihimo, I took the plunge and finally bought the book that had been in my Amazon shopping cart for the last three months. I figured it’s something I can do maybe in front of the tv in the evenings when I’m too tired for things that take more concentration.


NEW JEWELRY LISTINGS

Here’s a piece I had a lot of fun with. I etched, then enameled the copper leaf shape. It seems a great color to match the BHB I put on this great silk ribbon and once I patinated the sterling it all blended together well.




This bracelet’s pretty wild. It features ginormous Quartz Crystal beads and vintage tin bead caps made by Donna Millard .




I am so in love with these beads (and really mad at myself for forgetting the lampworker’s name who made them…. I’m pretty sure I saw them on LE… and I can GUESS whose they are, but I’m not sure).




And these are rather eye-catching.




MISC

I added a new gadget to my blog here… if you look over there on the right-hand sidebar, up near the top, you’ll see a way to follow this blog via email. (You get notified when I post a new entry.).

Here’s a really heart-warming video about a guy on a motorcycle who rescues a stranded calf.


see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!


see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

Use It Or Lose It and Logging Out of PayPal

BUYING ON ETSY

Here’s something you should know if you shop on Etsy: If you pay via PayPal, when you are done and the page returns you to Etsy, you are still logged in to your PayPal account. Yes, after the usual amount of time it will “time out”, but if you prefer to be overly cautious (as I do), you will open another window (or you can do it in your current window too) and open PayPal (you’ll see you won’t have to log in). From there, you can log out.


KEEPING IT ALL STRAIGHT

Today I compared how many items I have listed in Etsy versus how many items I thought I had listed in Etsy. There was a discrepancy. The missing items weren’t in DRAFT, EXPIRED, or INACTIVE. Shrug. Sometimes I feel so lost. I like everything to have a reasonable explanation, but it seems there are so many things that defy explanation.


USE IT OR LOSE IT… SORT OF

As I was closing one of my drawers in my bead dresser tonight, I glanced down at the contents and saw some beautiful big hole beads. Big hole beads that had been sitting in that drawer for over a year… WAY over a year.

And I was instantly struck by two things. One, my current efforts to downsize. And two, my ever-changing interests. Let’s tackle #1 first.

As I get rid of “things” in my life, I find myself throwing out, giving away, or selling many things that I had the intention of using SOME DAY. Well, my ability to create was much smaller than my ability to collect art supplies and crafting materials, and things easily got out of hand regarding my intake versus my outgo. The end result is that I have to get rid of stuff and it’s rarely at a profit, if you know what I mean.

Okay, #2… sometimes I keep things because I’m not ready to use them. I figure I have to wait until I have the PERFECT idea and more skill… or something. Shrug. Well, what I’ve learned about keeping things is that my interest in doing certain kinds of techniques or designs changes and that framed pendant I bought two years ago and was going to make into a certain kind of necklace but didn’t … well, now it’s just sitting there and I no longer have the desire to make that necklace. My style has changed. The problem is, it’s not just one pendant… it’s hundreds if not thousands of beads and components.

So I say embrace your ability to just use up everything you have. :-) Tomorrow is a new day and you have no idea what you’ll feel like making or what components you’ll come across. Use what you have now to make room for new things to come into your life.

Okay, internal peptalk done.

On to the jewelry. (Click a photo for more details!)







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New Jewelry Listings, Enamel and Etching Experiments, Disc Cutters

Whoa, I apologize for showing you the same newly listed jewelry in multiple blog posts. Maybe I shouldn’t wait until the end of the day (when I’m tired) to do my bloggling.

Anyway, I got out the enameling and etching stuff this past week.

My etching had a few hiccups, but experimenting and practicing are always good.




Then here are some of my enamel experiments. I’m working on cloisonné technique (but at some point soon, I’m going to have to break out the klin).

Only the first photo is an actual listing… the rest are experiments.








I’m thinking of making a charm bracelet of most of these practice pieces. I don’t know, though, how well enamel holds up to the kind of abuse a charm bracelet might cause. My pieces are counter-enameled, at least.

I listed a lot more this week and didn’t do as much blogging… so here’s a bunch of new listings. (Click on a photo for more info.)







One a personal note, I’m up to season 7 of Monk. :-)

From Comments: Hey Chris , I’ve never heard of Two Weeks Notice. Will have to check it out. And I completely agree with you about Sandra Bullock. BTW, I’m lovin’ your blog! It’s so colorful and “inspirational”. :-)

This looks like a good article on Disc Cutters.

Alright… goodnight for now.




see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

New Jewelry Listings, Romantic Comedies, and Photos of Monica

My apologies. I didn’t end up taking any pictures today so will show you the etched stuff tomorrow (I also have a bracelet to photograph).

I do, however, have some new listings (click a photo for more info).











ROMANTIC COMEDIES

So… what’s your favorite Romantic Comedy? I’m always looking for new ones to watch. These are totally my guilty pleasure.

Some of my favorites are:
The Proposal
27 Dresses
Leap Year
While You Were Sleeping
Sleepless in Seattle


MY DAUGHTER

Luckily for me, my daughter’s hockey coach loves taking photos, so my normally camera-shy daughter is getting used to it.

New Jewelry Listings, Blue Tide Video, Lightning Strike Video

Got out the etching stuff today. Learned that I definitely need some practice. Ha!

When I get to the finished product, I have a hard time figuring out what my piece looks like because shiny copper and patina’d copper look almost the same to me. Only in MY pieces, mind you. I seem to be able to see the difference in other people’s pieces. I truthfully don’t understand this at all. Shrug.

Anyway, I’ll photo the two pieces tomorrow probably and show you in my next blog post.

Otherwise, I did get some new listings up…

Long Necklace of Pink and Blue Peruvian Opal in Sterling Silver



Two-Strand Bracelet of Bright SRA Lampwork Glass Beads and Sterling Silver





MISC

Wanna see a close-up of a lightning strike? I don’t know why, but this totally intrigues me.

Click here to go to WIMP for the video

And how about this…

By day, a red tide is unsightly and uninviting, with water the color of coffee. But at night, during this unusual phenomenon caused by a plankton bloom, the waves are a brilliant, almost neon blue.