Little Black Dress Beads

I can't help thinking how awesome these beads would look worn as the sole splash of color with a little black dress. I have this set available in my etsy shop now. I wonder how a set in amber and magenta on black would look...

Teal Vermiform Beads

I like the little windows of transparent teal glass in the ivory glass of these "vermiform" (how i've begun referring to this style of bead). This set of ten beads is in my etsy shop now. They feel really nice to handle; their irregular shapes gives them an air of being antique and handmade and thereby "special". lol

Lampwork Chicken. And Oatmeal Cookies.

Here is a little glass bead chicken family that i made today. They will show up in my etsy shop tomorrow, with three new sets of beads.

If you like oatmeal cookies, and you aren't put off my super sweet marshmallow icing... click here for a really good recipe.

New Beads

More bones this week: this is a nice trio of transparent cobalt blue bones with blue blossoms. Definitely not Halloween bone beads. And i made a set of very colorful vermiform beads. They don't look as wormy in bright colors as they do in murky colors. And that's probably a good thing. All of these are in my etsy shop now.

Treasure

My only bead eye candy today is one of the listings i made with some assorted "soft glow" beads that i had accumulated as leftovers from previously made sets. I think the gentle colors of these beads really lend themselves well to combinations. I made three such sets and am selling them for less than my usual custom ordered bead rate since you have no say in the colors or sizes in these selections.

I have been spending the evenings metal detecting with one of my sons, and so even though i have made a few beads in the last week, i haven't gotten around to photographing any of them. Treasure hunting is so much fun... you never know what you're going to find when you get a signal. We have found quite a few coins, the best being a silver one worth $15 on ebay. A bracelet made of sterling silver beads was a cool find also. For personal fun we also liked finding the face of a Thomas the Tank Engine toy, and a metal toy school bus circa 1950's.

And tonight while we were detecting we found a New Mexico blind snake (not my photo). Six or seven inches long, silvery pink, vestigial eyes and a blunt tail. They aren't normally found above ground so we felt incredibly privileged to see this, our second, individual of this secretive species.

Brenda's Bones

These bright shiny glass bone beads (plus another half dozen) are going to a lovely lady in Colorado who turns them into suncatchers, which she then uses in fund raisers for the canine organizations near and dear to her heart. For example, Stiggy's Dogs, which unites military veterans with rehabilitated shelter dogs. She is just one of the truly special people i have had the good fortune to meet through my beadmaking business.

Snapshot Sunday/A Snapshot of My Day

Whip Scorpion

A gorgeous big whip scorpion, or vinegarroon, picked up in the Roswell area yesterday. Son #1 took her out to greet the morning sun in this photo. Later this week she will go to college with my husband and be show-and-tell. His classroom has a fantastic projector system that lets him show the students live specimens of invertebrates magnified on a huge screen.

New Tab Beads

Well, not so new since i made the same kind several years ago, but these are hot off the torch and are going to be made into a bracelet for a friend of my mother. Don't you just love the blue/green!? I call this style faux dichro, because it looks quite a bit like dichroic glass (only cheaper, shhhh). Ya'll feel free to contact me if you need a set of these for your own selves now... :-D

In other doings, i have been making posy tortoises again, and more hearts, also. I remember when i struggled so badly trying to make glass heart beads. I do believe, i've got it down now. :-) See new hearts and turtles in my etsy shop now.

My sales on etsy continue to be achingly slow. The improvements etsy has made to the search options seems to have been the cause. I have revamped all of my titles and tags, to optimize this change as far as i can determine, and i swear i'm having fewer views, and fewer sales. The folks at etsy say it is better that folks can search more relevantly. And they argue that you don't need someone in your shop who didn't ask to be there. I say that has meant fewer people stumbling upon my beads. If you don't know what you're missing, how can you buy it? If you have ever used etsy, you know that the coolest stuff, is the stuff you happen upon by accident. It is part of the greatness of a site like etsy that brings so many diversely talented folks, and their diverse wares, together in one place. Perhaps it is time to try ebay again.