For custom orders, start time for making the beads is at least 2 weeks. All supplies will ship within a day or two. All kits will ship within 2-4 days of order placement.

For the lampwork beads and/or silver rings ordered on the boutique page for the Step By Step Wire Jewelry magazine summer preview issue 2008 please allow 3-4 business days for them to be made and ready to ship. Thanks so much!

Its Here!! My new Lampworking lessons DVDs are finally ready! This two DVD set is now available on my supply page in the Kits & Video section.

May 13th
So sorry for the diappearing act. I spent all night Thursday and all day Friday getting ready for a garage sale on Saturday. Whew... the weather cooperated and we got rid of loads of stuff. I was embarressed by how much stuff we had! Mostly kids stuff that had accumulated over the years. I still had Rubbermaid tubs of the big boys clothes that I had saved "just in case" we had another child. Which we did and it happened to be another boy... but when I look in the buckets, there is a time span of 5 years and those clothes just don't look appealing anymore. Plus, Caiden has sensory issues and it is a ROYAL PAIN getting him dressed. Especially with seasonal changes and clothes that he isn't used to wearing. Making the transition from long sleeves to short sleeves and shorts is so painful for him. All the cute little boy clothes that I would love to dress him in like I did the other boys, I can't. No sweaters on this kid for the life of him. But.... he is 1,000 times better than he used to be. So I don't complain loudly.

I've gotten off track.... then my darn computer died on Saturday. So it is back in the shop and that is the bigger reason why you haven't seen me. This is so painful being without my files. I have stuff backed up on files all over the place as my hubby whines that I had too much stuff on my computer and he couldn't back it up all in one location. We spent 1 hour just trying to find the document for a bracelet kit that I needed to print out last night. Then I just spent 20 min updating all the html on this computer so that I have my website data all up to date and available. What a pain. And to add insult to injury, I'm fighting with the kids on their computer in the play room which is on a tiny desk with a very short chair and I'm all hunched over! So don't expect long notes from me until I'm up and running again on my computer! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that is soon!

Just a head's up. The Step By Step Wire Summer Preview issue should finally be out on the stands now. You can find it at any major book store or craft store like Michaels.

May 8th: Man my mind is just spinning with ideas. There are soooooooo many things that I want to play with and try. I should probably write them down because some ideas are just glimmers and then I move onto another thought and then I remember what I was thinking before and then I'm over here and then I'm over there! But... I have so many orders right now that I just don't have the time to play and let these ideas evolve. I think my best creativity comes when I'm busy. My mind starts wandering when I'm just making the same beads over and over again. It's great because I don't have to sit and force myself to think. The ideas just start to flow.

I have all these really fun beads that I've been making lately (before the orders started piling in. Thank you everyone by the way!). I need to slow down and get the bead sets posted in the gallery for reorders. They are just too cool and I know you guys would love them. I'm hoping next week one night I can sit down and get at least a few ordering options available.

Having said all that... I do have a few simple ideas that will be easy to do here and there. I have something brewing in the pot with Kerry Bogert. We are still working on getting it set up. Our goal is to start in June. We created (or should I say computer savy Kerry created) a blog page to host our monthly project. This alone has already gotten the sparks a flying in my mind of fun beads to make. Just wait... I'll give more in depth details in the next few days. My mind is fried right now and I'm ready to shut down for the night.

I'll leave you with this fun photo that I just drew a few minutes ago. I wish I could draw! That is one thing I never learned how to do! But... I go to an international group called MOPS (mothers of preschoolers). Anyone ever heard of it? It's an awesome program. We meet twice a month. The mentors have something up their sleeves and are asking everyone to email them our baby pictures. I know for a fact that I don't have one baby photo of me in the house. I would have to dig through my parents closets and then get it scanned and so on. Way too complicated. Drawing a picture seemed much easier!

May 7th: I don't think the Summer Preview Issue of the Step By Step Wire has hit the stands yet. The email said it would be released on May 13th if I remember correctly. All subscription holders started getting their's over a week ago though. Sounds like a big lag time but I wanted to give everyone an update. I haven't been to the book store to check this week if they are available here.

Another rainy day. That saying about April showers brings May flowers is running late. We are still getting all the showers with the flowers. We are having a garage sale on Saturday. I think it is supposed to rain. Bummer! I just want to get rid of all this stuff that has piled up.

I made this bracelet a month or so ago. I keep starting to list it on the boutique but then I stop myself. It is so light and comfortable on the wrist.

Silver shanks are in the boutique. I ran out of the ones I already had made, so there will be a few day turn around time for me to make more.

May 5: So much to do and sooooo little time. I just wanted to pop in real fast and answer a question that I've gotten often. I know someone emailed me asking and I think I forgot to answer and my inbox is so overloaded right now to try and sift through the emails that I thought I would share the info with everyone.

The question is "Where do I buy those way too cute word toggles and beads?" I had purchased some to sell on my supply page but then I fell in love with them and have been hoarding them! So here is the scoop. They come from Nina Designs. www.ninadesigns.com. You will love her site. Loads of stuff!

I will soon get the shopping cart ready to purchase the silver shanks that I make for the back of lampwork cabs/buttons. They will be sold in packs of 4 for $22. I'll get them posted in the boutique and the silver part of my supply pages.

Hmmm... what else... too much to going on. And... I think that some emails have not been reaching me. So please... if you don't hear from me within 24 hours of sending me an e-mail. PRETTY PLEASE resend it. I promise I'm not ignoring you. I just didn't get your note.

I'll pop in soon with more activities going on. Monday's are crazy and I had to spend the morning at the darn dentist, go to Target (my highlight of the week and darn it... I forgot to put my necklace on!HA!), entertaining Caiden and now I only have about an hour before the big boys are out of school and then it is off to swim lessons and a cub scouts meeting. No wonder I feel like I'm getting nothing done!

May 3rd: I just completed the necklace with the leather cord. It's such a fun design. It's just too cute not to make more of them. I promise!

May 2: Wow, the kids only have 3 weeks of school left! Time is flying now. I went on a field trip with my 8 yr old's class to the zoo. It was raining cats and dogs this morning and I was convinced we were going to be miserable wet. But by the time we got to the zoo, we didn't have one rain drop. It was a really fun day.

Now I really need to honker down and get busy working. The orders are really coming in fast and I'm trying my best to keep on top of things but these last few days I've fallen behind. I'm going to try to be productive this weekend. Keeping my fingers crossed that I can.

Here are some beads that I've turned into a necklace. But I think I'm going to maybe keep the necklace for me! I love it. It is incorporated with brown leather cord which helps to take a lot of beads and not make it so fancy. More of a blue jeans and t-shirt creation which is what I really need since my highlight of the week is going to Target! I don't get dolled up very often anymore! One of the downfalls of working from home but who is complaining when I can wear pj pants and crocs all day if I want. I don't think it gets much better than that. Although, I have to walk my youngest into preschool 4 mornings a week so I would look funny in pj's so I at least have to put pants or shorts on!

I'm going to be starting a fun little journey with my friend Kerry Bogert. We will give you the details soon. Just something fun and simple to do for inspiration!

April 29th: Things are fun busy here. I've had a few designs in the works in between orders. I've had the beginnings for this necklace for the last few weeks and finally got enough beads made to complete it. I love it. All Hollow lampwork beads and my small size handmade silver rings. It's past my bedtime so tomorrow I will get it listed on the boutique page. I also have the beginnings of another necklace that I'm very excited about. I have the design in my head and can't wait to see how it turns out.

I sold the 4 sets of lampwork beads that I said I would list if there were left overs. I love these beads and will make more when I get more caught up orders. Here is another close up photo of one of the sets.

April27: Well, This has certainly been a fun few days. I guess the Step By Step Jewelry Wire Summer Preview issue is out but I haven't seen it yet. I went to Borders last night but they still had the previous issue on the rack. I'm still so excited that the bracelet made the cover. I posted it on the boutique page for sale if anyone wants it. I also got the ordering option ready for just buying the beads and/or the silver rings on the boutique page.

I've been perfecting the bead set that I was working on earlier. It needed some other fun shaped beads to round off the set. I could spend all day making beads in this color combo/style. I've broken the set down into 4 sets. I have a few gals that want to take a first dibs peek and then if there are any beads left, I'll post them in the boutique.
I'll share photos of all of them shortly. In the mean time, here is a teaser. I learned how to make the pod beads from Dustin Tabor probably about 4 years ago. They aren't fast to make but they are so cool and really seemed to work well in the set. The pod bead is just sitting upside down inside a disc bead. They aren't attached.

Here in something else different I was playing with. I made a silver bezel and then took bits off of my glass rods and permanently inserted them standing up inside the bezel. You can find this bezel in a bracelet design on my boutique page.

April 25th:

I got the biggest shock last night. I'm so excited. My coconut grove bracelet made the front cover of Step By Step Wire's Summer Preview issue of 2008. I had no clue. Imagine my delight when I found out. I just got the bracelet back a few days ago. I'll post it in the boutique for sale when I get a chance.

You can order the lampwork beads and silver rings in the boutique page. This way you can follow the directions in the article and make your own exact bracelet. The article also shows step by step how to make these stamped silver rings. Score!

April 23: I feel pretty oh so pretty. I feel pretty whitty and bright! I got my hair cut today after about 3 months of no cutting! Oh that feels good! I've been letting my hair grow out and I missed my last hair appointment so my hair was really needing a shape again. I've had a bob cut for so long that I was just ready for a change. It feels weird as I feel the hair swishing on my neck. It even got stuck when the dental hygienist was leaning over me today. I have no clue how long I'm going to let it grow. I'll just play it by ear to see what I feel like.

I'm having the toughest time trying to decide what to do with these beads. There are too many options. I think I need to fondle them for a few more days. The cute spacer size beads with a dollop are the clever design of my friend Kerry Bogert. The strand is about 11" long. The photos just don't do these beads justice. Check out the chartreuse color beads. There are a few discs and then the one hollow bead that has green flat polka dots is made with an odd batch of glass. I'm so sad. I only have about 4 rods of this glass. I bought it a few years ago and I didn't like it then so didn't stock up on it. Now it is no longer available and I want more!! These beads really look good on my neck. If I remove one of the big honkin focals, it would look mighty fine.

April 21: Man I felt like I was in a funk. Whatever that virus was just dragged me down. I couldn't get inspired for the life of me! The weather has been incredible beautiful FINALLY. We even went to Six Flags on Sunday. It felt so good just to be outside on a perfect day.

I don't have much in the works but I have been playing with a few beads here and there. I can't decide if I want to turn these into jewelry or just list them in the boutique as a loose bead set. My mind keeps playing with them. The large hollow bead is pretty big. It's about 1" tall and looks just like a sea urchin. I wish you were here to hold it in your hands. It really quite eye catching!

April 18th: Here I am updating my news page and for some reason, my website is down. It usually doesn't stay down long so hoping that is the case once again. I just can't seem to get my creative juices flowing this week. I know being sick didn't help but that funk haze is still lingering. Poor hubby is really in the midst of the sickness. Been there and done that but I feel for him. He is still going to work. I stayed in bed for a few days!

So we had an interesting morning. We got woken up around 4:30 a.m. for the earth quake. We were both in a deep sleep. It was strange. There was this rumbling noise and I knew something was not right but I couldn't clear my head enough to figure it out. Then the hardware on the highboy started to make a jingling noise and it dawned on me that it might be an earth quake. The boys slept through it. Connor was bummed. He said he always misses the good stuff!

April 16: I'm finally starting to feel normal again. Now poor hubby is sick! I'm slowing getting my act back together and getting motivated to get back to beads. Here is a pic of some hollow beads I've made. They are so cool. They look like bubbles! Makes me want to sing that tiny bubbles song!

April 14th: I've been sick these past few days and I'm still under the weather. Just wanted to give a heads up that I'm answering emails very slowly. Give me a day or two to catch up on everything. Talk to you soon!

April 10: Not much going on here. Caiden has been sick for a few days and this morning I can tell that I'm catching a cold. It's this crazy weather swapping back and forth between warm cold rain and sun.

I just added a few small lampwork bead sets to the boutique page. They are made and ready to ship. I think I will have a big batch of modge podge beads ready to list in the boutique too. I need to get them sorted and photographed.

April 6: Yum! I tried out a No Knead bread receipe I got off of an I-pod cast from Cooks Illustrated on making no knead bread. It turned out fantastic and I over indulged and now there is a big lump of bread sitting in my tummy!

April 5: I just added these beads to the boutique for sale. They are all ready to ship. Perfect for spring. Which I'm so thankful is finally here. It has been a long winter!

April 3: Okay... I'm still working on a few technical things with the interchangable rings. I keep saying I'm going to post them for sale but I'm not 100% satisfied with the screw yet. But, I think I've found an answer to what I'm looking for. Now I just have to wait for the suppies to be shipped. So hopefully next week I will have it figured out.

I've listed a few new lucite flowers in the supply page.

In the mean time, I've been playing with some fun bright beads for a custom order. I'm going to have a few smaller combinations of this large set available in the boutique in the next few days. I just need to make a few more beads to round out the sets. I'll post here in the news when they are ready.

March 27: For those of you wondering what was going to be cooked up with that bead kabob here ya go. A yummy custom order necklace! It will be hard to mail this one because it looks very good on my neck!

I hate doing sculpting work but I had a tickle still after seeing the Horton movie and thought I would play around. I didn't put a lot of time into them since I have no clue what I will do with them. Maybe have them be desk buddies but it was fun to do. The purple one is my favorite!

March 25: Isn't this photo great?! Keegan in his true glory. Simple pleasures! These snow flakes were just huge!

March 23: Okay... the original head pins are back in stock and ready for shipping. No word on the extra shiny ones. I'll post here on the news page when I learn something.

I'm exhausted. What a busy weekend. Yesterday was Caiden's birthday party. Then today Easter. There is way too much candy in the house. Not good for a chocoholic. I'm going to have to have the kids hide it from me. It's everywhere! Then to top it off, we had snow most of the day today. We woke up to big snow flakes. It snowed off and on all day. Thankfully the ground is warm enough that it didn't stay long. When we were leaving my parents house late this afternoon it is was snowing really hard in these big huge flakes. It was incredible and so magical. It felt so weird to stand in the middle of it. I felt like I was in a snow globe. Hubby took pictures with his camera. I'll have to see if any of them turned out good.

March 21: Bead Kabobs! Look what my mascot chef has cooked up... They look yummy and have no calories! Unlike the malted eggs I've been eating out of the kids easter candy stash. I'm just going to have to throw the darn bag away. I had no business buying them. They are my total downfall. I bought a bag of the extra large ones and have been eating 2-3 of them at one time about 4 times this day alone. Well, tonight I finally looked at the bag out of curiosity to see how many calories they have. That was a mistake. Good grief, 5 of them have 190 calories! That is so depressing!

Poor Connor! He came down with Strep throat on his spring break. It started Wednesday night with a fever. He woke up Thursday with a fever and sore throat. I took him in that morning just to make sure he didn't have strep. I was just certain the doctor was going to tell me it was a virus. But with that symptom combo I never mess around. Sure enough, he tested positive. I was so relieved that I took him in right away instead of waiting an extra day. So by this afternoon he was feeling much better and spent the afternoon outside playing.