Writing the Blog

From June:

I know it’s been a while since we’ve updated the blog. That’s partly because life is comparatively calm right now, and I can’t think of anything to write. Well that’s not exactly true, stuff is going on, but it’s stuff I can’t talk about yet. So…..oh look! What an amazing sparkle.

Okay, I’m back now. Trying to think of something to write about. Winston! Winston, drop that! Winston……!

Back again. Oh, there’s the phone. Out of town number. Probably about an order. I’d better get that.

Hmmmm….maybe I’ll check Facebook while I think about what to write.

Ahhh…maybe I could write about…..oh, just got an order in. I’d better go get that ready to mail.

Okay, now! Although I am a little hungry – I haven’t eaten anything yet today. My brain will probably work better once I get some nourishment.

Wow, lunch made me really sleepy. I bet a nap with all the dogs and cats will refresh me.

Oh-oh. Know how sometimes you wake up in the wrong sleep cycle, and you feel like you’re just underwater? That’s me right now. Ugh. Maybe I can update the blog tomorrow.

Tucson Tales, Part II

The buildup before coming to Tucson is immense. So much planning and creation and anticipation. The appointed day finally arrives and it's instant and pure joy! Seeing my beady friends from across the world, vendors and customers alike. I miss them mightily between shows. They are my tribe! My family! The people that get me and my obsession with tiny beads and the beauty we can create with them.

So for five days, we all gathered at The Best Bead Show (among other shows) and laughed and hugged and bought beads. We played at night, dining and dancing. A few hours of sleep were all we could spare before getting up to do at all again. And then, suddenly...POOF! It's over. My friends stop by to say farewell before they leave for their own little piece of the country, and I pack up all that's left behind. Sometimes I get what I call the Post Show Blues from the letdown of intense adrenalin.

But not this time! Because for all the wonderful WONDERFUL things that happened at the show, it was a rough one this time around too. The frigid temperatures left the vendors outside in tents and on the patio in dangerous conditions. Pipes around the city at hotels and show venues burst, leaving many without heat and water for a few days. I wrenched my back, and dug a huge gouge in the back of my hand while setting up. OUCH for the rest of the show. And to top it all off, I came down with a cold the last day. Tucson, I love you. But you're testing my patience this year!

Back to the good stuff, though. I treated myself to some fabulous lampwork beads from Isis Ray, Bernadette Fuentes, Ellie Mac. I'll have to wait until the sun comes back up to take photos to share. I placed a project in Bead Unique Magazine - I'll keep you posted on when you can find it! And it looks like I'm going to be adding a bunch of teaching weekends around the country soon. Chicago, Albuquerque, Phoenix, and more!

I spent a day in the hotel, sleeping and trying to shake the remainder of this cold that's got my energy low. Because while MY show is over, there are many others out there that need some of my spending money! So tomorrow I'm off to shop. POWER SHOP!! I can't wait!

Tucson Tales, Part I

I sat down tonight to write an email to Mom to tell her all about the craziness of this day, but then I decided y'all would want to hear it all too. So now it's a letter to ALL of you!

So....you may not have noticed this, but it's C O L D outside. I don't care where you are in the US, it's way colder than usual. And I live in Texas, therefore, I do not have cold weather clothing. Sure, it gets chilly for a few days a year, but it's not a big deal most of the time. I don't even have a real winter coat these days. I lost mine a few years ago somewhere, and I've been making due with some sweater/wrap type of things. I own only one pair of closed-toe shoes.

But then this cold front came through. BIG ugly, hairy, wicked cold front. So evil, that as I was driving to Tucson yesterday, I just couldn't bring myself to keep going when I got to the point where I was driving through snow, sleet, and 30mph winds. Enough! So I stopped for the night at a hotel, and made the rest of the trip on Tuesday. When I left the hotel that morning the windchill was below zero, and I was out getting gas in the car in my sandals. I'm not the brightest bulb in the box, ya' know. Luckily I drove out of the worst of the weather and got myself to Tucson, albeit much later than I'd wished.

I did a power shopping whirl around the To Bead True Blue show - so fast and furious that I'd already racked up a security hold on my debit card in the first 45 min. You veterans of the bead show shopping will know what I mean... When you're at the bead shows and buying from different vendors from all across the country/world, it looks like there's credit card fraud going on to the credit card companies and they kindly put a security hold on your card. It's not a huge deal as you just have to call them and confirm that you're really the one making all those purchases. But it is annoying in that moment when your card gets declined!!

Kelli Burns & Jill

I got to hug on Kelli Burns from the Hole Bead Shoppe - we were so excited to see each other we couldn't sit still for the photo! She's one of my favorite people in the whole wide world. I also got to meet a whole bunch of my Facebook friends in real life - it's so much fun!

After the show closed at 6, I had to run by MY show to unload my car into the booth. And it was like a bad Marx Brothers skit. I am using a new set of bins to hold all my kits under the table instead of my usual rolling carts. The table is only 6' instead of my normal 8' setup, so I had to get creative. Unfortunately, the new bins are a nightmare to transport! They all fell apart and spilled kits all over as I tried to get them in the hall. I left a trail of kits and bins behind me as I dropped them over and over again. Rolling carts? I'm SO sorry I strayed! Please forgive me! I'll never do it again! By the time I finally got most of them into the hall, I was so annoyed that I just left them in shambles. I'll have to get to the show extra early in the morning to sort it all out again. Sigh.

I was rushing (surprise) because I still needed to go check into my hotel, freshen up, and then head out to the Interweave party to meet up with a bunch more friends. So I find my hotel. Go to check in. And.....wait for it....they have given my room away. And they're full. And everyone else in the area is full. I feel dizzy with visions of having to sleep in the car for the next 10 nights. When I made my last set of changes with dates on the room reservation online, it evidentally didn't take, and poof! There goes the room. Thank goodness, I had the sense to call Kelli Burns first and she said she thought the hotel they were staying at had some rooms available. So in one phone call, Kelli saved the day. I love Kelli!!!

Stephanie Dixon & Jill

At that point I no longer had time to find the new hotel and freshen up before the party. So I did a little primping in the car. Good enough. The heck with being cute. I was THERE! And I had SO much fun!

I finally FINALLY got to meet the amazing Stephanie Dixon, The Dixon Chick & Swarovski Ambassador from Toronto. We've been Facebook friends for a while now and ADORE each other and it was so great to discover we love each other in real life too!!

I could name drop like crazy and tell you ALL the folks I met and talked to through the day, but I'll spare you. Because I'm in serious need of a bed right about now. I'm going to have to wake at dawn to get ready before the show opens at 10am, and wouldn't you know it, Wednesday is the day we're open until 8pm too. I have plans with Tracy Stanley and Janice Berkebile for dinner afterwards, and we'll probably have others join us as well.

There are a bunch of vendors who are having trouble getting to Tucson with all the weather issues. And the saddest for me is my dear Anna Draeger. Her flight was cancelled, and now she can't find another flight down here. She plans on spending the whole day Wednesday trying to find a seat. I'll cry if she can't make it!!

And hopefully...if I'm really lucky...I will survive it all. Cold weather? Booth disasters? Hotel room chaos? No problem. I got it covered!

Same Song, Same Verse

From June: It seems like no matter how much we try, we can't seem to get ahead when getting ready for a big show. Originally we weren't going to do a show at Tucson this year - Jill was just going to shop. But at pretty much the last minute, we decided to do the Best Bead Show again. So Jill's been working long hours ordering beads and making kits for the last couple of weeks.

But it wasn't enough. It's never enough. We had our traditional Pre-Big Show Printer Meltdown, for one thing. And that's a whole other story. I'm still working, so my help was limited in getting ready - Jill was pretty much on her own. A last minute push, and Jill delaying her departure twice, got it done. I was up until 3 a.m. on Saturday night (Sunday morning?) and was up again at 7 a.m. Last night, bedtime was after midnight and we were both up well before 5 a.m.

In our business, Jill designs most of the complex, special works. I'm not as good a beader as Jill, and I design a lot of the beginner stuff. We always take great care with our instructions, and never is that more important than with instructions for a beginner. We want to make sure a new beader can succeed and be sucked into Bead World with the rest of us. Here are two new beginner kits that I've recently done. I don't have them on the website yet, because Jill has taken all the kits to Tucson, but I'll pull the trigger on that as soon as she gets home.

The first one is called Center Stage, and we have it in several colorways, including an orange/pink combination.

The one below is a wide bracelet - it's called Harmony. It comes with a fabulous button from Sonoran Beads. I'll do another colorway on this one, too. What do you think? Red/orange/pink?

Happy 2011!

You know, I was thinking last night, wasn't Y2K just a few years ago? How did we end up in the double digits of this century so fast??? It kind of makes my brain hurt!

You know what else makes my brain hurt? Preparing for all the new things happening here at Tapestry Beads this year! It's the time of year where we're finalizing a bunch of new kit designs, and picking colorways and making samples of them all. So I've got colors and supply orders on non-stop rotation through my brain. In addition to our regular kits, I'm also working on colorways for some of my national teaching projects, like the Pitaya Necklace, Rosetta Suite, and Evening Song Set. There will be kits available later for these, but for now I'm just scrambling to get colors picked. Luckily I have my beady minions to help me make samples, including my German co-Pitaya instructor, Martina Nagele!

And sometime in February you can expect to see my online video classes debuting with Beaducation.com! I am working out kit colorways for all three of those projects as well.

All together, I'm working on about 25 new colorways between them. AGH! No wonder I was just in bed, but not able to sleep! I decided to get up and work if I wasn't going to be snoozing. And I've missed talking to y'all!

My next blog post, I've got something to show you....It's 3:30am right now, so my photos wouldn't turn out great if I took them now. But in my best procrastinating way, I found it absolutely imperative to organize my entire Delica collection the other night....and tonight's dodging efforts centered on completely reorganizing my Swarovski stash. I know. I know. Believe me...Mom's already given me "that look." You know the one. But the good news is that they're organized! And it will make a huge difference over the long haul. I can't wait to show you my pretty new system.

I leave you tonight with this photo of Santa Jill. My elves were a little too interested in food and Play-doh to smile for the camera, but I guarantee you, there were lots and lots of smiles that day.

Participating in The Best Little Bead Box project!

Please forgive me for cross-posting, but I wanted y'all to know about this cool project I got to participate in if you don't know about it already!

I really don't know how he did it, but my postman managed to get both GIGANTIC Best Little Bead Boxes stuffed into one of our community mailbox lockers. I practically needed a crow bar to get them out of there! And I also thanked my lucky stars that I live directly across the street - because when you're carrying over 60lbs of beads, you don't want far to travel. Yep. That's right. Over 60lbs!!!!

I had a special message from Jean on my boxes too.

Coincidentally, the boxes arrived a day after a special thing happened regarding Beads of Courage, the charity that will be receiving the proceeds from The Best Little Bead Box auctions. I was out of town for the day, but my mother was at home Sunday morning and said she turned the TV on, looked up, and there was Margaret Zinzer (lampworker extraordinaire, and avid Beads of Courage supporter) on the screen! Mom thought quickly and started taping...whatever it was. Turns out it was a news story on CBS This Sunday Morning about the Beads of Courage program. What serendipity! And y'all, I'm embarrassed to say this, but I had no idea. Seriously. I really didn't understand what the Beads of Courage program was all about other than "sick kids get beads." And I'm willing to bet that a lot of you are in that same position. So please pardon my ramble, but can I tell you just a little bit about this program?

Kids with serious illnesses go through so much, both emotionally and physically, and it's often hard for others to understand everything they're dealing with. When a child enters the Beads of Courage program, they are given a length of string with beads that spell out their name. After that, as they work through their treatments, colorful beads, each representing a different treatment milestone are given to the child. For instance, they get a yellow bead for an overnight hospital stay, a white one for chemotherapy, and a glow-in-the-dark bead for radiation treatment. It's not uncommon for children to amass 10, 20 -- even 35 -- feet of beads. It helps young patients track and celebrate their progress, but it also gives them a way to get through upcoming procedures as well as a way of sharing and telling their story to friends and family. It's a visual representation of their courage. The CBS story brought both my mother and I to tears (please click on the link and watch,) but also immediately made us ask, "What can we do to help?"

Which brings me back to the Best Little Bead Box(es). As I opened each treasure in the box, fondled the beads, lusted after them and set aside a pile to keep, I kept thinking about that question: What can I do to help?" And slowly I repacked all the beads but one strand of beautiful purple lucite flowers from The Hole Bead Shoppe. I intend to make into a special, commemorative necklace from it to remind me of how honored I am to be participating in this project. But everything else? I decided I couldn't accept any more. I have more beads than I can use in a lifetime, and I'm lucky enough to have my entire world surrounded with them. So the beads in the boxes? Well...they are for the auction, and ultimately for the kids.

The spirit of sharing and giving also made me dig deep into my own beady treasures to add to the stash. And dig I did! Everything from crystals to glass, seed beads to pearls, and gemstones to lampwork. I've got it all in here. So please forgive the sparse commentary....but enjoy the BEADS!

Pearls (there are a LOT more of the green ones!), a silver chain, Ruby Zoisite, and some glass strands.

Cool side/top drilled pearls, and some interesting finish glass beads

The pink stash includes some Rose Quartz, Button Pearls, and a bunch of glass beads

All glass beads, some vintage

More glass - how cute are those butterflies?

Furnace glass I picked out for a bracelet I never made.

David Christensen Furnace Glass

Um, can you tell I really like Furnace glass?

All semiprecious gemstones

I threw a bracelet I made in there! Why not?

Some of my all time favorite seed beads, including Size 8 3-cuts by Toho. Sparkly!

Some of my specially coated 2mm Swarovski crystals

Green Girls clasp

Sterling Silver clasps

Fun beads from Susan Nestor!

The pendant on the right is polymer clay

Pendants

Lilly Pilly, Dichro, and a stone pendant

Cabochon

Metallic lampwork beads by Donna Mehnert of Blackberry Beads

Porcelain

Lampwork

More lampwork

Adorable small set by Pam Way of Yellow Dog Beads

Another Pam Way set

Assortment of Tagua Nut pendants and beads

Holy Cannoli

Man, when I owe you a blog post, I REALLY owe you a blog post! I have yet to tell you all about the fun and interesting Beaducation video shoot (went great - I'm known as One Take Wiseman there!) And I do have stories and photos. But honestly? It's going to be next week before I have a spare moment to write a coherent account!

Why? Oh, because I'm INSANE! Wait. You knew that already. Why do I keep rediscovering it? At some point I have the nerve to actually convince myself things like "Oh yeah...I have a lot of down time in between Thanksgiving and mid-January." ???!!! NOT

So what I'm staring at right now is having roughly eleventy billion people over to our house on Saturday for our annual Tapestry Beads Open House (and if you're within driving distance of Austin, why aren't you coming??) and we've been rushing around like mad to get ready for it. The new bead cabinet and slat wall means having to fill it all up with fabulous things to buy, so I've been ordering vast quantities of seed beads, tubing and labeling them, and then getting them organized. Same goes for firepolish beads, crystals, needles, yada, yada....

We also have some (a lot of "some") finishing touches to the house remodel. Like hiding all the unpacked boxes we have yet to find homes for. But to hide the boxes, we had to clean out the garage because there was no place to walk in there, let alone hide things. So that's what Mom and I did all day today - and now we have a pile roughly the size of Mount Everest in our driveway for the Salvation Army to take away. Once upon a time, we'd planned to make money off it and actually have a Garage Sale. But then we got over it. The problem is, Salvation Army said on the phone today that they had room in the truck they were sending out for about 20 boxes. HAHAHAHAHAhahahaha....cough, gasp. So whatever THEY don't take, we hope the neighbors steal overnight. Because we need that crap, er, stuff, gone by Saturday!

Want any of this? Please? Car not included.

I've also got a big wholesale order I'm trying to get out the door by Friday, which involved making kits because I was out of some. I still haven't done any of the printing on that. I have to make a special trip to the fixtures store for hooks for my slat wall because when Mom stopped by there Tuesday to buy them, they were out of stock. Of course! So they had them brought in from the San Antonio store. Nothing like doing an errand twice. My last box of seed beads will not be arriving until Thurs or Fri, so Mom and I will be labeling like crazy at the last minute. Oh! And I'm also supposed to be updating the instructions for the Beaducation videos and sending those out, as well as deciding on 3 kit colorways for my class on Dec. 11th, because I gotta get those beads ordered like yesterday.

Meanwhile, proving that delusions are hereditary, Mom thinks she's going to bake brownies and cookies and stuff for the Open House, do all the Christmas decorating, help clean the house, and help label the seed beads, and install the knobs on her bathroom cabinets.

Down time. Yeah.

BABE report

Bead people are SO MUCH FUN! I've discovered it over and over again as I travel to new places from coast to coast and it makes me happy. We share passion for color and texture and beautiful things. We have a joie de vivre that shows in our faces and interactions. We have a common language. A special "handshake" (consisting of going straight to the jewelry one is wearing and exclaiming upon it.) It's no wonder I adore bead shows so much!

And the BABE show in Oakland, California was no exception. I was able to hang out with some of my most favorite people on Earth - fellow bead teachers that live all across the country. I made new friends as well. And who knew how awesome the food was in Oakland??!! I had some of the most tasty meals I've ever encountered! It's hard for this Texas girl to admit the best Mexican food I have ever eaten was at Tamarindo in Oakland!

But let me tell you - this show was also not my finest organizational moment! I forgot: the tablecloth, the boxes that I use to make my riser, the credit card machine, my hair dryer with the diffuser (essential for a curly haired girl), and the display for my 2mm Swarovski crystals. AGH!!!! So I borrowed a tablecloth, used some aluminum pans from a store across the street to make a faux riser, hand wrote all the credit card transactions, and air dried my hair. The 2mm crystals stayed in my bag instead of being sold. I know...you are all thinking "Packing list!" Yeah. I know.

Monday I spent sadly saying farewell to my hotel roomie, Barb Switzer, who was the best roomie ever, and then driving across the bay to Redwood City where I will be hanging out another week. Tuesday brings my first filming day for my online video classes with Beaducation. Eeek! I'd better go get some beauty sleep!

I will leave you with a variety of photos from this weekend's show...

Lavinia Touchton, Jill Wiseman, and Peggy Goldblatt. Some of my favorite students turned friends!

Tracy Stanley, Jill Wiseman, and Janice Berkebile adopting "The Pose"

Nikia Angel caught me working hard!

Beaducators gather together! Tracy Stanley, Jill Wiseman, Kate Richbourg, Dallas Lovett, Barb Switzer, Colin Mahler, Janice Berkebile, and Lisa Claxton