Worker Bee

I have this sudden burst of "Spring has Sprung" energy! The amount of work I've accomplished in the last few day is impressive. Yes, I've still got piles ahead to slog through, but I'm making progress in a huge and visible way and I feel like Wonder Woman right about now.

My email has been out of control for a long time, but I'm working my way through it. Every time the Bead & Button show sends out another email about my classes they added there I get a flurry of website orders, and requests for Night at the Opera and Kumihimo kits. To answer those questions here - yes, I will have kits available for both classes on the website at some point. I'm working on getting supplies in so I can have a decent quantity on hand before I put them up. So stay posted! You know I'll make sure y'all know about it as soon as it happens.

I'm also working on supply ordering in mass quantities for all the kits I'll have to assemble between now and the beginning of June. If we don't start now, the end of May is going to really be a sad time of chaos for us, so we're working away on what we can do now each day. Just yesterday I spooled Fireline for 90 kits - about 1500 yards of it. Tip of the iceberg!

Mom's been sick with some creeping crud for three weeks now. You can tell how bad she feels just by the fact that she broke down and went to the doctor yesterday. She's on a Zpak now, and I've been trying to make her sleep a lot before she has to return to work tomorrow. And I'm washing my hands about eleventy billion times a day.

I've snuck in a tiny bit of beading time here and there, but more is definitely called for. One project I can't show you for a couple of weeks, but you're going to adore it! And I'm doing some bead doodles of various sorts looking for some new designs for the 2011 class proposal deadlines which start hitting April 30. Yikes!

Enjoy your spring days!

The Cord Tamer

Yup, that's me, the Cord Tamer. Jill has been in Santa Fe at Bead Fest. Initially, I was going to go too, but we decided I would stay home to cut costs. I took 4 days of vacation anyway, and decided I would get some stuff done around the house.

Unfortunately, I had gone to my son's house to babysit for him last weekend and Alexis has had a cold. Of course, I came down with a cold too. I guess that's not unexpected when you munch on a kid that has a runny nose and cough. I couldn't help myself. So I've been feeling pretty lousy, and haven't done a darn thing but sleep, read, and do a little beading.

Jill is on her way home today, and I wanted to accomplish at least ONE thing while she was gone. I decided once and for all to tame the computer cords. Because the computer is in front of a window, Maggie gets in there and is always getting tangled up in the cords. I wish I'd taken a "before" picture, but I didn't think of it. We have a printer, a scanner, a label printer, a postage machine, a wireless router, and the box to run the cable. Each one of those accessories has a cord to the computer and a cord to a power source, in addition to the power sources for the monitor and computer themselves.

TA-DA!!

I went to IKEA and got a couple of these. You wouldn't want to look at the BACK of the desk, but I'm pretty happy with the results.

Reporting in from Santa Fe

If you haven't been to Love Fest Santa Fe, er, I mean BEAD Fest Santa Fe, you really should start thinking about a trip next year. I simply adore this show for so many reasons. Cool vendors, a gorgeous location, and lots of fun classes. The overall vibe is simply joy at this show for the second year in a row.

I've taught both my classes now - and what classes they were! SO much fun! On Thursday a group of us were working on Night at the Opera bracelets, and that's when this photo got snapped of me and one of my students, Fae Hamilton. See my new bangs? I really think I like them! The ladies in the class were super talented and basically needed me there to provide comic relief, I think.

And Friday night a HUGE group of us made Kumihimo with Beads bracelets. It's a bit of a challenge to get around to everyone when there's so many, but we laughed our way through it and by the end everyone had it down. I had many of them stop by the booth over the rest of the weekend and tell me what fun they had, as well as show off their new bracelets.

I started this post on Saturday, but then got distracted (probably by sleep) and now it's Tuesday and I'm finally ready to get back on the road to go home. We had a major (for me) snow storm in Santa Fe on Saturday night that left me driving the 5 miles from the convention center to my hotel in super snowy conditions. Mind you, I've never driven in snow before. It's true. I grew up in Wisconsin, but moved to Texas when I was 14. And when it snows in Austin it's not like THIS kind of snow. Besides, if it threatens to snow at all, the entire city shuts down. I'm not kidding. Everything closes and we all stay at home.

So! That was an exciting few miles, but I managed just fine. ish. And there were no cops around to notice that I was driving down the middle of two lanes. So there.

This is what it looked like outside my hotel the next morning. Pristine! Fluffy! Gorgeous! Alas, it was almost all gone by the end of the day. I'm really glad I got to see it though.

Overall, the show was a total blast. I got to see many of my favorite people in the whole world, I taught a few fun and silly classes where folks learned stuff, and I sold a kit or two. Good deal.

I'm back on the road for home now and will get to hang out there for about three weeks before I jet off to Miami for The Best Bead Show. The following weekend I get to pack an entirely different set of clothes for Denver and the Rocky Mountain Bead Society Show. So I need to get home and get prepared!!

Michael's ad - instructions online

Turns out Michael's was getting a bunch of calls from folks, asking for directions for the necklace and earrings I designed for them - so now the instructions are available online if any of you are looking for them!


Click the photo to go to the instructions page:

Coming from Miyuki...

I just discovered this info about a new bead style that Miyuki is going to be coming out with in a few months. They're calling it a Tila bead - it's 5mm x 5mm, and has two holes. Talk about design opportunities!

More classes at the Bead & Button Show!

Lucky me! The folks at the Bead & Button Show have found some more space on their class schedule to offer up a few more sessions of my classes there that sold out in the first 5 minutes of registration. Yippee! Because I've been getting SO many emails, begging for seats!

They added 2 more sessions of the Quick & Easy Kumihimo with Beads class - one Wednesday at 4pm, and one Sunday morning at 9am.









And they also added a session of Parisian Lights on Friday night at 5pm.

So if you're going to the show and wanted in on one of these, hurry! Sign on up!!

Here's the link:
Jill's classes at Bead & Button

Michael's ad

I did a quick design job back in December that tickled me, but I decided to wait to tell y'all about it. Now that it's been published in the April issue of Bead & Button magazine in the Michael's ad, I can brag!

What's funny to me is that while purpose of the ad is to tell folks that Michael's is now carrying Toho seed beads (woot!) they didn't want a bead weaving piece. Instead my directions were for a multi-strand necklace with a tassel, using mostly Toho seed beads. It's been so long since I had strung any pieces, that it took me a little longer than I thought it would to put the piece together. The main time spent was getting the spacing right on the front three strands. It took several trips to Michael's as I was getting the right materials and working on them. Here's how it came together:

The badly drawn concept I submitted (I am NOT good at drawing!!)














My scan before I sent the pieces off for the photo session
















And the finished ad in the magazine

Gratuitous adorableness

Just because EVERYONE should see this.