PLEASE READ...January 22th, 2011

Please allow 1 -2 weeks to recieve any custom order jewelry or beads. I will give you a better idea after the order is placed or just email me before hand and I can let you know how the current work load is going.

There are loads of new beading supplies over at my other new Etsy shop called Tickle Me Beads All of the items listed over there are in stock and ready to ship right away. It is basically an off shoot of ticklemebeads.com and has all of the great beading tools, stamps, chain, findings etc. Keep your eye out for some new findings over the next few weeks. But... I digress.. what I meant to say is that this shop is being run by my darling father whom I lovingly call Dumplin and he ships prompto!

February 4th,2012

Shine on baby with these fine head pins. Over at my Cassie Donlen Etsy store.

Have you noticed that I've been trying to post more consistantly? Now that I say that I'll probably blow it and go back to my slower ways. Don't worry, I just knocked on wood so that makes it "ok".

This time last weekend, we were getting ready for the Cub Scouts Pinewood Derby race. Caiden had a tough act to follow as last year he ended up first place in the the weeblos races, first place over all in the finals, and he got a trophy for a design award. So last year he came home with 3 trophies. This year we told him up front not to expect to do as well. He ended up 4th place in the finals. Which isn't a poke in the eye by any means. He was happy. And, his track record wasn't beat so his name will be up on the boards next year. He was happy about that one.

February 3rd,2012

Just sitting here on the computer and watching Harry Potter on the TV, warming up my feet by the heater while waiting for my kiln to heat up.

I just posted a few new toggles over on my Cassie Donlen Etsy store. I'm giving a handful to my Dad to post over on the Tickle Me Beads Etsy store too.

My handmade toggles and my glass head pins were lucky enough to be featured in the December January Issue 2012 of Step By Step Wire Jewelry's 2012 Special Annual Prouduct Review.

I'll list more of the exact toggle on this page available later today. A few of the glass head pins too.

February 2nd,2012 Finally had a chance to create a few new things. They are over at Etsy.

I've been working on nesting in my workshop. So as I've mentioned before, this has been a 3 year project in the making. Can you tell that I'm excited? Hubby built the entire thing and he is a fair weather work. Anytime it is nice outside, he refused to work in the basement. Can't say I blame him. So as you can see, he only worked a few months each year. It feels so good to have an area to work in that makes you happy. The basement was all concrete and drab with cobwebs all over before so this is a jump up and down change. Plus, it is so nice to have a place for the boys to hang out. It has already had several sleep overs and seen lots of action. Found myself this coolest chair for one of my corners. I fell in love with it and snagged it right away. Found the darn thing at Marshalls of all places. I went there looking for a bathroom wastebasket and walked out with this chair (it's even a Broyhill), the table, lamp, pillows, and a basket. It just brought the area together. My next step is wall art. I posted these on my Glass Beadle Facebook page but couldn't help sharing here too.

This is a small room to the right of my beading table. I swiped it from hubby. He wanted it for his workshop but then when he cleaned it out to hang drywall, I moved in while he was out of town. HA HA HA. It now holds my glass rods and there is another table with a chair that has my metalsmithing set up and where I do all of my hammering, sawing, messy stuff. And yes, it looks messy right now too.

There is a fun story behind the chair on the left. For Christmas, I had gotten the boys new gaming chairs and at the last minute, decided that Caiden needed his own chain too. I was thinking bean bag but of course, every store was out of stock. Connor and I were at the mall and we walked by Justice and saw this fuzzy chair in the window. I snagged it for Caiden and about fell over when I realized how comfortable it was. IT ROCKS! So I said, "I so gotta get me one of those." I waited until they had the 40% off sale and then bought one for me. They only had pink. I love pink but this is 10 year old pink and it doesn't go with my workshop but man, for just a jellin and relaxing in my cozy workshop is awesome with this chair. So, I bought a fun bright pillow and grabbed some extra fabric that I have and I'm going to make a cover for this chair to hide the pink. It isn't awesome but the chair is so comfy that who cares!

This is the viewpoint of the kids area. It hasn't been even touched for decorating yet but I'm hesitant to go all out because the boys wrestle and have sword fights constantly.

This is the kids area.

Life is good. I like to hang out and don't want to leave. Hmmm... when hubby travels, I might even sleep here. LOL

February 1st,2012

Lots of fun stuff going on and the days seems to fly by faster than I can even anticipate. I've had so much fun decorating my workshop and I found the coolest lime green chair the other day. So now I still need to put pics on the walls but you know things are coming together well when you like actually hanging out in your area.

So I got my portion of Lori Anderson's Bead Soup beads mailed to Deryn Mentock last week and she did the reveal on her site so it is safe to share what I mailed her here. I love her style and knew that it was so different from mine. I just felt like sending her my bright and colorful beads wasn't the right thing to do. I know we are supposed to "challenge" each other but I want her to enjoy what she received and feel connected to them also. Deryn mentioned that she liked metalics so I went for browns and golden colors. I must admit that I loved the collection and it was so hard to not grab the beads and start designing with them. I'm going to have to make some duplicates down the road to play with.

Here is a pic of everything I sent her.

Below, these are handmade focals I made using seed beads, copper discs, washers, and wire. Think I will write a tutorial on how to make them. They are so much fun!

Also... for those of you who follow Lori Anderson, already know that she is writing a book. It's a great topic and centers around the Bead Soup exchanges she has been hosting for the past few years. It is coming closer to completion and the photo of the cover of the book has been released. Along with all of the participants in the book Bead Soup exchange. There are some incredible contributors and with Lori's guidance, I'm sure the book is going to be fantastic. I am beyond thrilled to be able to be a participant in the book. I have only seen my completed project and I can't wait to see what everyone created.

You can read all about the book and see the list of contributors over at Lori's blog. Lori's blog is a great place to hang out. She is so kind and offers loads of inspiration. She is a gem.

January 25,2012

Oh goodie, you came back today.

And I stayed on track and told ya I would be back today too in order to share with you the goodies inside the Bead Soup package I received from Deryn Mentock. I think this part is my favorite of the Bead Soup exchange. The fabric Deryn wrapped the goodies inside was beautiful. It made for a great background in photos and I can see me using it often just for that purpose.

So when I untied the ribbon and unfolded the fabric, all of these glasssine packages were revealed. As you can imagine, it was so much fun reavealing the contents of each one and seeing the pieces of the puzzle come together for the feel of my future project.

So isn't the little white box with the vintage photo on top intriguing? I admit that I opened it first. It was too tempting. Oh my, look what is inside! Dried rose buds. They are soooo cute. Gonna have to figure out how to use them. I had a few initial ideas but not sure if they will work.

Here is what was inside each packet.

Here is a close up. Check out that focal. It is a big honkin one and so so cool!

I must admit that I totally enjoyed my revealing experience. Now the fun begins. I have zero clue of what I'm going to make with all of these goodies yet. I'm gonna let them sit and simmer on my beading table for a few days so that I can let the ideas seep into my mind. It's gonna be fun!

I will be mailing Deryn's package today. Tried to do it yesterday but the USPS website had no problem taking my money but wouldn't load the print label page. So now they have $36 of my money (I tried several times) and no label. So hopefully the refund process will go fast and they will give my money back soon. I hate using their site anyway and that just confirmed my reasons.

January 24,2012

An awesome birthday gift.... Can you guess what it is????

My cousin Angie the other night jokingly reminded me how I get attached to items and won't get rid of certain favorite things even though they are raveling apart.

I mentioned in my post a few days ago about how we can go back to early childhood memories and tell lots of funny stories about each other. I had totally forgotten this story until she so generously revealed one of my childhood flaws to my hubby the other night.

When we were young, I had this hair brush that I ADORED. I know that it's kind of an odd word to use in the description of a hair brush but it fits here. This was THE only brush in my mind that would work with my hair in my so impressionable teenage years. Angie is 3 years younger than I am and never really "got" the importance of the tools required to lead to beauty at the time. She would take it upon herself on every occasion we were together at my grandmother's house to hide my hair brush from me. These episodes created wars. But the funny part now that I'm an adult is that over those several years of playing hide and seek with my brush, it kept slowly losing bristles. So many that there were very few left at all. I didn't care. It was still THE brush for me. This drove her crazy and she just "didn't get it". Why was this brush so important still? It couldn't even do the job anymore. Looking back on it, I whole heartedly agree with her but back then, that brush was a cherished item. I needed that brush in my daily beauty routine.

Okay...so there is a purpose to this confession of one of my childhood hang ups. About a year ago, Angie was over at my house and was in my workshop. I never thought anything about it until we met for dinner last week to celebrate my birthday. She excitedly pulled out 3 wrapped gifts and set them on the table. I had to touch and feel the gifts before I unwrapped them. Two of the gifts felt identical and I had an immediate picture in my mind of what they were. I didn't really believe that was what inside the wrapped gifts, but it was the first thing that came to my mind. Earlier in the day, I had been making beads. On my workbench are these cans of food and bags of beans on top. I use them as arm rests. They work wonderful. I like to sit up over my torch vs. being at eye level with it. This is a great position except my arms would get tired being held up in the air all of the time. So I went to the pantry and grabbed food cans and a few bags of dried beans. The beans were to help cushion the cans because the rims get uncomfortable. Over time though, the plastic bag of beans starts to wear thin, and beans will slowly start falling out of the bag. Instead of spending $1 on a new bag, I just take masking tape and seal the hole. Well, the more they get used, the more holes that develop until the entire bag is almost wrapped in masking tape. I keep thinking one day I'm gonna buy a new bag but never do.

So back to my earlier in the day story, beans had started falling out of the bag again when I was working. I remember thinking that I'm going to really need to buy a new bag now because I think this entire bag has been taped. So when I was touching and squeezing the wrapped presents, I casually mention that they feel like the dried bean bags I use on my workbench. I never ever expected them to be just that. Well, sure enough. THEY WERE NEW BAGS and Angie had designed darling fabric covers for them and for the large can. I was floored. Totally caught off guard and got a gift I never knew I needed or that had ever even crept into my mind. I asked her how she knew this would be perfect for me. She had mentioned that the last time she was over she saw the taped up bags and cans on my table and thought that I needed pretty covers for the cans and beans that didn't have tape all over them! She was so right. She said she knew how I was and that I wouldn't just go out and buy new bags on my own and then proceeded to tell my husband later that night the story about the hair brush. I thought about kicking her in the shins for that one but the gift was so thoughtful and perfect that I decided to behave myself.

Now that I've entertained you with my hang ups...I'm gonna show a small preview of my Bead Soup exchange that arrived from Deryn Mentock. HEAVENLY! Her blog is beatiful and she has a wealth of information and learning opportunities. So come back tomorrow and I'll post more detailed pics of the loot. I'm gonna have to let them sit on my beading table and simmer in my head. I'm beyond thrilled and can't wait to play. Too many possibilites, and it will be hard to figure out exactly how to use them. It was perfect timing as I had just finished up her package earlier in the day. So they will be mailed tomorrow.

January 18,2012

Well, since my last post, I'm officially a year older. No this doesn't excite me in the least but all the same...birthday's can still be lots of fun. I got lots of special treats and a day to call my own. Plus I can say over and over (which I did all day to the kids) that today is about ME. "No, we aren't going on the hunt for a blue snake Ninjago Lego figure. Today is about "ME" and what I want to do and that isn't it." Boy I Loved that. And little things like...."Who has their shoes on? I need someone to walk this package out to the mailbox." Hubby jumped to attention and volunteered to do it for me. That never happens! And you know what I wanted most for my birthday? It might as well be the same as a vacuum cleaner, but dang I have been begging for it and have been poo pooed left and right from hubby about my desire. I WANTED more RAM for my laptop. I know right? Isn't that silly? His reponse was always "Just shut down some of your programs." and I would be all like "GRRRRRRRRR..... I want RAM". I told hubby if he didn't get me RAM for my birthday he was in big trouble! LOL. I got my RAM and I'm a happy camper he even installed it that day for me.

We also went shopping and I got a pair of bike shoes for spinning class. It seems like practical gifts really get me excited. What is wrong with me? Hubby started road biking this past year and decided I needed to go with him. So he bought me a nice road bike. I must admit that it is very fun except he works me hard and we are out for 2 hours at a time, and I swear he finds every death defying hill possible and makes me ride up it.

So if you travel back in time about 2 years ago, my friend Ilyse has been trying consistantly to get me to do spin class with her. I've always told her, "NO WAY". "That looks super duper boring and there is no way I'm doing it." So a few months ago, I broke down and said,"hmmmm... OK.... I'll give it a shot". But Shhhhh.... Don't tell anyone.... I LOVE IT. It is so much fun. But I always joke with Ilyse, and she addresses me as "The girl that says she hates spin class but secretly deep down inside really likes it but can't let anyone know that she likes it because that just wouldn't be right girl". I think I was the only one in a class of 20 that didn't have spin shoes. So I finally got myself a fine pair of spin shoes and I LOVE THEM too. I think what I like most about spin is the teacher and the commradere. The dynamics just work. So much that you have to reserve yourself a spot in class and you can do it 3 days in advance. If you don't do it the first half of that day, then there is a 90% chance that you won't have a spot. But, I will say that the teacher and the music they choose does make a difference. I've been in a few classes with other teachers that were boring and their music stank. So, if you were like me and have access to a spinning class but thought it looked so boring, give it a shot. You might just surprise yourself.

Doesn't seem like I speak much about beading stuff lately. Guess I better get back on track right?

So made a new bracelet last week that I was surprised as to how much I like it. I had a cluster of extra beads sitting around and I finally grabbed them and wired them up. It turned out better than I expected. The focal bead design was learned many many years ago from a class I took. I'm having a brain freeze. It was either with Stephanie Serseich or Dustin Tabor. The bracelet is on my Etsy store.

And... it's that time of year again!!!!

I got paired with Deryn Mentock of Something Sublime. I love her style. It is so different from mine so it will be fun to see how we both react and create. I'm looking forward to being challenged into working outside my comfort zone. Just keeping my fingers crossed that I'll be able to pull it off. I haven't decided what to send her yet. I know I'm going to tone it down and not make it so bright and have the startings of an idea but haven't gotten that far yet.

So in the mean time of writing this post, I'm afraid that I'm going to have to order a new propane regulator. Last night I needed to make beads and it was stuck at 5 psi. I figured it was just frozen and it was late and I was tired and didn't feel like fooling with it. I went outside to check on it a few minutes ago and even after taking it off the propane tank, the needle was still stuck. So I go onto Rio Grande and see that a new one cost $110 plus overnight shipping cuz I need it now. That stinks. I just paid taxes and I'm BROKE. So I took it off the propane hose and brought it inside. It did slowly move down to zero thankfully. So I'm hoping it was just frozen because it is freezing here. Gonna give it an hour to thaw before I try again. Wish me luck. This one isn't that old. I don't want to buy a new one. That would be another Grrrrrrrr moment. Oh yea... just picked it up. It's leaking a fair amount of water. We had a storm move through a few nights ago and then the temps went from 65 degrees down into the teens. Hoping it still works after it dries out.

1/12/12

Man, do I need some major mojo. I big honkin dose of it. I'm in one of those unmotivated, uncreative, ho hum modes. Thankfully they tend to not last long, and a big part of me is really enjoying this down time and not being in bead overload. But that isn't good for quarterly taxes next week and coming off the high of Christmas bills. So I better get my bum in gear.

I did list a few things on Etsy. Got some new chain in stock, and I made a cute bracelet tonight that I'll try to take pics of tomorrow. And a big weight as been lifted off my shoulders on my www.ticklemebeads.com website. I was ready to scrap the site as the software program had gotten hacked and it was one issue after another and had been going on for almost a year. I had a big shipping issue that the shopping cart wasn't working all the time and orders couldn't be placed etc. But I think after many hours, hubby finally got it working again. So.... I've been trying to give it some TLC and add new products and plan to make it a better stocked beading supply store.

This is part of the reason why I had opened up a supply store on Etsy under the name Tickle Me Beads to help offset the big dissappointment from the website. Which I must say is starting to do pretty well. As I have mentioned several times, my Dad has been running this shop, and I can't express how awesome of a job he does. He blows me out of the water. Seriously, if you guys want anything fast...he packs up and ships most items the same day. He is ruthless and will put everthing else on the back burner to get to the post office and get the goodies shipped. Just imagine a ramped up Dumplin (my affectionate name for him) all hyped up in his white Toyota minivan reving his engine and driving like a mad man to the post office. Or imagine him all happily suited up, packages in hand, and merrily singing as he strolls out to the car "Hi Ho Hi Ho It's Off to the Post Office I Go". Well you get the picture, customer service is his game. To put a face with Dumplin, here is a picture taken of him a few days ago at my Grandmother's house. That is my darling niece which I am proud to say after over 6 months I have finally gotten her to call me "Favorite Aunt Cassie". That is a huge accomplishment. I've been teasingly trying to get her to call me that forever and she is sassy and says "No, you are just Aunt Cassie"

So we celebrated out last holiday event with Christmas in the county at my Grandmother's house. My Dad has 3 other brothers and a big chunk of all our families were there. It's always a great time and the house is packed with loads of adults and even more kids. I love my grandma and have some of the best memories of her and my grandfather when growing up. When you envision a grandma, she is the one that would come to mind. Even her house looks like a grandma's house. Here is a pic of her and I.

Here is a pic of my mom and my brother.

Grandma gave the kids afgans for part of their present. They were a big hit and there were about 10 kids walking around in a parade with these wrapped around them.

This is my cousin Angie and her hubby. Lordy could I tell you loads of funny stories about us growing up and hanging out in the country. They are some fine memories that still have us crying from laughing so hard when we relive them. Her hubby is a keeper by the way.

One of my uncles made a bonfire and of course that attracted the kids like lightening bugs.

The weather was really nice that day and brought the most incredible sunset. It was stunning! Bro and I have the same camera (as I mentioned he is the one who got me coveting his). So we were comparing our pictures. He was smart enough to walk in front of the cars to get a beautiful shot. I was having a "duh" moment and stood there and took a few shots wishing the cars were out of the way instead of just walking a few hundred yards to get in front of them!

So the holidays are finally over, the kids are back in school, and life is starting to get back into a routine. Winter arrived today and we went from warm temps in the 50's to down to teens temps and blustering cold. I won't mention that there are stacks of new shingles sitting on our roof and have been sitting there for a few weeks waiting to get replaced and how it is driving me insane that the work hasn't been started and now there is snow and ice up there too. Grrrr....

12/29/11

Wow, what a great holiday week it has been. I think this is the first time in I don't know how long that I've almost shut down the shop the entire way and took a week off with doing very little bead wise. It has felt so darn good. I have gotten on the torch a few short times and listed some inventory that has been staring at me for months on Etsy but it has been because I felt like it and not because I had to. Love that feeling. Taxes are due in a few weeks though and I need to get my act in gear.

So I hope everyone had a nice Christmas. Ours was wonderful as usual and the Christmas spirit was flying high and in full force. We made a gingerbread house, had a visit from Dudley our house elf that comes every year, did lots of decorating, and even gained the typical 5 lbs from all the holiday joy. Grrrrrr...

Dudley made the boys breakfast and also did some doodling on their photos.

So the boys had loads of fun on Christmas day and I was so happy to be done wrapping presents. I think it was a 3 day affair. I even wrapped presents inside of presents. All to make the experience more fun. I think my favorite was this huge box (you can see Connor sitting inside it below) and I put a pack of batteries inside this box for Keegan. The boys were all oohing and awing over this box and kind of jealous that Keegan got such a big box. But the batteries were for us new Beats headphones so in theory it was a great gift:-) And it goes to show you that kids no matter what age, still love the box more than the present.

In the afternoon we headed over to my parents house to celebrate with my brother and his family. Lots of more gifts, tons of food, and great company. My brother and his wife got my mom the coolest gift. They had just been at Disney World together and they bought my my this huge rice krispy treats Minnie Mouse. It is incredible.

The best surprise of the night was my parents letting the kids know that they are taking everyone on a Disney Cruise when school gets out. She had a lot of fun doing it and gave each kid a word that they needed to unscramble that was made out of squares of paper. Then after each kiddo and parents had one too figured out their word, we had to read it a loud to figure out what it said.

This is the moment when Connor and Sophie found out.

She gave each and everyone of us a box that had all cruise related stuff. There is a pirate party on the ship so she made sure everyone had pirate stuff to wear for the party.

I have the most incredible and generous parents that are loads of fun too. We played lots of fun games and laughed and cried and created the best memories ever. Life is good!

12/13/11

Hope everyone is basking in the holiday season. Christmas is my absolute favorite time of the year. We have been having a great time getting into the holiday cheer. Now that the boys are getting older it is neat to see how tradtions have taken a foot hold and we have to follow protocol or else it just isn't the same. Connor refused to decorate the tree without the Christmas music playing in the background and I had to laugh as he didn't want to decorate the tree during the day because "we always decorate it at night so that the lights can show up really well." We are down to just Caiden believing but that doesn't stop my middle child from talking about Santa and what Santa is going to bring him because he doesn't have a very big list. Keegan is the typical teenager and only has one thing on his list Beats headphones.

Connor and I went out for a secret shopping trip to Toys R Us for Caiden on Sunday night and it was great to spend time with just him. He is 12 now and was saying how he was hoping he would still get toys for Christmas. I told him now that he is older that he doesn't really play with toys much so it makes it hard to do that. His sweet reply was that he knew that and that he didn't want to grow up and not like toys.

Caiden discovered Club Penguin last week and has been loving it. It is an on-line computer game that seems perfect for 5-9 year olds. Although, I must admit that I've gotten sucked into playing the games as they are fun. You can play for free but also pay a monthly fee to become a member which gives you a lot more access to activities. If you are looking for a fun gift for a boy or girl in that age group, I higly recommend getting a gift card for a membership. They sell them all over the place from Best Buy, Target, Toys R us. You can buy a 1 month I think for $7.95 and I've seen 2 and 6 month options.

Hubby had to be in California for 7 days last week which made life crazy back home. To add to the chaos, I made the boys get all cleaned up and we headed out for our yearly photo that I needed for Christmas cards.

Well, I tried adding a link to the photo card but it messed up the entire page. Here is a collection of some of the pics I took. It was a really dark and cloudy afternoon. It actually started raining as soon as we got in the car. We haven't had much sunshine lately. I miss it!

11/26/11 I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday. I've really enjoyed the down time and having the kids off school. Not looking forward to the daily grind again but the Christmas break will be here soon enough.

We had a nice turkey day with my parents. My brother and his family hosted dinner with my SIL's family so they weren't able to join us this year. It didn't stop my mother from going all out and doing the complete fixings. She is an incredible cook and we all heartily ate more than our fair share. Including desserts which included turkey cupcakes, pumpkin pie, and cherry pie.

Connor spent the night at my parents so that he could help my mom cook. That is totally his thing.

We headed out for Black Friday shopping but I totally have mixed feelings this year about the entire experience. This is a tradition and something that we look forward to every year. It is just fun and I laugh and giggle a thousand more times than I do on any other mother and daughter and other family members who choose to join us. This year all of the sales started early and it changed the entire dynamics. The strangest thing we discovered (thanks to my brother who had to work the next day and couldn't join us this year) is that almost every single Black Friday special was available on-line and before the stores even opened. Before we headed out the door, we had almost everything that was important to us already bought on-line. Then while sitting in line 1.5hours before Toys R Us opened, I used the iPad to buy other stuff that came available. It was the strangest thing. So by the time we headed into the store, all we really needed were low dollar dumb items. But it was still fun all the same and mom and I enjoyed ourselves all the same. By the time we got over to Walmart, they were already open and all the good deals had vanished into thin air. We bought simple stocking stuffer things that were not even on sale. Target is one of our favorite places for Black Friday but the line was one that I had never seen before. I swear it was 1/2 mile long of people waiting to get inside. We basically said screw it and sat in our car and driving around people watching until the store opened. After about 25 min, it had cleared out enough where we are able to walk inside. I grabbed the last 5 of the iTunes gift cards that were $20 for $25 and got a few other things and deals that I would have never bought on-line. We waited in line at least 1.5 hours to check out which was a record for us. Then it was off to iHop for a 3 a.m. breakfast before the other stores opened at 5 a.m.

So the early store openings totally changed the dynamics of this shopping tradition. It brought out all of the young kids. I swear every college aged kid and early 20's was out that night. There weren't near the amount of typical older ladies and mom's grabbing all the great deals. We were so out numbered. I remember the days of not even heading out for the evening until after 9 p.m. and staying out late was fun and the norm. Well this appealed to everyone in that age group. I don't have a problem with that but it made everything twice as crowded as normal and I'm sure the stores will continue with the tradition as their sales had to triple doing it this way. I have no idea what to expect for next year but thinking we will be doing all of our shopping on-line next year. Although, part of the fun is just getting out in the hussle so I'm sure we will still go to grab the feeling.

11/22/11 The holidays are upon us. It seems like I just blinked my eyes and they have arrived. I hope everyone has wonderful plans to spend Thanksgiving with family and friends. We will be going over to my parents house for the day. Then my Mom, sister-in-law, and I will head out for Black Friday shopping. Yippee!!! Except I'm having mixed emotions this year about the stores opening up so early. 10 p.m. That is just too early and doesn't give the employees or the shoppers time to enjoy Thanksgiving in a proper manner. Then the other side is happy that we won't have to camp outside at 3 a.m. when it is freezing cold. Although, those are some of my fondest memories of giggling and laughing so hard while not being able to feel my fingers and toes from the freezing cold.

So the basement and my workshop is getting closer and closer to being completed. The boys area needs to be cleaned up and then carpet installed. Hubby worked on installing a few doors last night and he still has to make the entertainment cabinet and do all of the trim work and the stairs but the end is in sight. I can't wait for the boys to have their own area to really spread out and be boys.

My area is almost done. Just a few odds and ends. I hung the grass wallpaper on one wall which was much easier than I expected and I love how it turned out. I set up another beading table and moved all of my beading stuff downstairs finally. Man that feels good to have everything in one area. While hubby was out of town, I moved my metal working table into his tiny little workshop and basically took that room over with all of my glass and bead storage. Poor guy didn't have a chance. I did clean him off an entire wood 8 foot shelf and gave him the area where my table used to be in the other part of the unfinished basement:-) So now it needs some decorating, a rug, and I want to get a cozy chair and table for the empty corner.

I've been working on a few new designs here and there between orders. I'll post photos soon. In the mean time, these are head pins that will be turned into toggles for a custom order and I also listed this bracelet and earrings over on Etsy the other day.

11/11/11 I love today's date BTW. Well, I'm back home and have spent several days trying to get back on track and caught up from being gone. My parents were gems watching the kids and carting them to and from school and their 400 activities in between. I've got to admit that the down time from being a taxi to my kids was really nice.

So the Bahama's was fabulous. Kim lives on the island of Abaco. It isn't very touristy and there are no fast food restaurants. I jokingly said I couldn't live there because there is also no Target or any department store! Kim had invited me to come teach and give her private lessons several months ago. We got all of the details worked out and then all of a sudden the date had arrived. Randy ended up going with me and gave me a fun companion to hang out in the afternoons and evenings. I had gotten to know Kim from FB and her buying beads. So we had it all figured out that I would teach her for 3 days. It worked out perfect. She has the lampworking experience so it was just helping her get to the next level. It was a lot of fun and Kim was great to work with and a wonderful host. She lives in paradise and seems to live a perfect happy life.

So after we spent several hours each day making beads, hubby and I would wander off and go exploring. One afternoon we rented a car and drove over to Treasure Cay which is supposed to be one of the top 10 beaches in the world. This area is not commercialized at all. No big hotels and none right on the beach. Just a great beach bar that was located where a hotel used to be and condos and private homes. It was STUNNING and jaw dropping. The entire trip was worth it just for this view. The resort where we stayed also had an incredible view and beautiful waters. I'm sure I gained at least 5 pounds from all the great food. We had Conch fritters everyday.

I thought I would share a few pics of this beautiful island. Below is Kim and I, Hubby and I, and then a photo of all of us including Kim's fun loving hubby. They had taken us to Pete's Pub for dinner which is right on the beach. The bar is a boat and the floor is the beach. No walls. I loved everything about that place.

View from airplane flying home and heading to Miami.

This was sunset in front of our hotel. We were laying on the hammocks on the beach watching it.

One day I got up extra early to teach since we were going to quit early to go to Treasure Cay and this the view of sunrise from our balcony.

On Treasure Cay. Found a hairy coconut and this was live coral that had washed up on the beach. There were several pieces of coral everywhere.

Stunning views from the Beach Bar on Treasure Cay.

This is the view we saw after parking the car and walking up to the beach on Treasure Cay. My mouth fell open.

There was a 10 min sprinkle at the end of day on Treasure Cay and when we were driving home, this rainbow is what we saw. It was a full rainbow but couldn't get it all in the camera. The pot of gold must have been on the other side! And..photo of Randy holding a conch shell. They were everywhere.

My feet in the sand on the first day we arrived.

Randy standing on the beach at our hotel.

This was at the beach bar on Treasure Cay. Incredible scenes make the food taste even better! More conch fritters. They are so good.

So there were just a few photos of my teaching experience on Abaco. It was a great time and I think Kim learned a lot. Even though it was considered a working trip, this is my kind of work. The combination of making beads and the beach goes perfectly together. I created some great memories and made a really nice friend all at the same time!

October 31st: Happy Halloween. Hope everyone has a ghooling day. I've just been busy working on orders, going to the kids soccer games, a swim meet on Sunday, and a birthday party, and oh yea..a really fun subdivsion party that we got to join in on even though we don't live in the area. The kids had the day off on Friday and it was a wonderful action packed weekend.

I leave for the Bahama's bright and early on Wed. morning. So tomorrow will be my last day of shipping and any new custom orders won't be started on until next week. I'll be sure to take pics and share on all the fun Kim and I will have making beads.

Below is just a few items that need to get posted over at Etsy but haven't gotten a chance to do it yet.

October 25th: Today I feel like I'm partially camping. Our refridgerator started to go out a few days ago and last night realized that it was time to move all of the food out since the repair man can't come until tomorrow afternoon. Most of the food is over at my parents house and the rest is sitting outside in coolers (since it is cold outside). So we have to go outside to grab milk or whatever we want. It just kind of makes me laugh.

So Connor had an awesome time at game 2 of the World Series. The Cards lost which was a bummer but it didn't take away from the experience. The Cards better get their game on. The loss last night wasn't a good sign.

So since I've posted, I've had a chance to play more with the Olympus EP-3 Pen camera. I am loving it. The colors are so rich and deep that I find I need to do little with the pics after uploading them. Makes me realize that my 8 year old camera really was time to be retired. Plus viewing the pics on the the Mac is another grand viewing experience. There is still more to do to get the laptop all set up but I just haven't slowed down enough to work on it. Busy Busy is the word my life.

We had Connor's family celebration on Sunday with his cousins. Lots of Harry Potter dressing up. I love it!

I've listed a few copper supplies over on Etsy and have the makings of some more copper discs in the makings. I also have some new stainless steel headpins available. I'm still selling the original ones but have a new type also. I had these specially made. They are made out of high quality stainless steel 316L. This makes them kind of stiff. They are still usable but you will need to use your tools or extra elbow power when compared to the other ones. But they are less expensive. As a special introductory price, they are $3.99 for 200. In the next week or so, they will go up to $5 for 200 which is still less expensive than the original stainless steel head pins. You can find them on my Etsy store under cassie donlen or also on my etsy supply store under tickle me beads.

October 17th: Changes seems to be the theme over the past week. And I'm LOVING the changes but not all of the work and adjustment that goes with it. I've been working on an outdated laptop and finally convinced hubby that it is time for me to upgrade. I'm a MAC girl now. If you were here you would see me jumping up and down. My hubby the rebel goes out of his way to not like any Apple product and has always told me if I get a MAC computer, I was on my own. I need his computer genious and that was enough to stop me. Well, he has softened enough to agree to help me get it all settled and my programs transfered and updated to MAC software. So here I am typing away on my new Apple laptop. Let's just say I've got to make a lot of beads to pay for this baby and I need to go chain myself to my torch!

So after several hours of just trying to set up email, I think that is finally semi figured out. Then last night he worked on getting me compatible software so that I can do all of the html on my website. I just changed by home page photo for Halloween if you haven't noticed yet.

So, I had to buy new photoshop software and I finally got updated to Adobe photoshop CS5. So that is something else new that I have to learn as I'm coming from CS3. Lots of cool new features and too little time to learn it all.

Then my poor little camera that I have loved and adored has finally died and I ordered a new one. It was on back order and wouldn't you know it, it comes the day after I get my laptop. More beads I've got to go make to pay for this new toy! Geez....but once again, I'm in love. It is incredible and so much to learn and try on it and so little time. I have to thank my brother for this one as he is the one that got me all interested in it. I had never heard of micro four thirds cameras until he asked me about them. Basically it is like an SLR camera except it is a lot smaller and not so bulky which means that you don't mind so much lugging it around to take family photos yet it has all the same features as an SLR including swapping out lens. I am truly impressed. I got to play with my bro's and within minutes I was coveting his camera. Best Buy had a sale on their website and I get a decent deal on it. So the camera is an Olympus Pen EP-3. It comes with a lens and then I've got the panasonic Lumix 20mm f1.8. That is an incredible lens. I haven't had a chance to play with the lens that came on the camera yet. I'm hoping today if the sun is shining in the afternoon.

My sweetie pie middle child turns 12 on Wednesday. We had his sleep over party on Saturday night which included a trip to Six Flags Fright Fest night. The boys had a great time and to be truthful, were no work. Easy as pie. My kind of party.

October 11th: Happy Monday and it's already almost mid October? The kids are in full swing of figuring out their Halloween outfits and we are supposed to end our incredible high 70 degree days on Wednesday of this week. Boo hoo...

I've got new work to post. Some of it you can already find in my Etsy store. The rest is coming shortly. I've got my eye on a new computer and I need to raise the money to pay for it so I'm gonna be hankering down and trying to crank out a lot of work to help pay for it. The holidays are coming so start preparing now as it will sneak up on us before we know it. Heck, all of the dumb stores are ruining it with all of their Christmas stuff out already. Right on her yearly schedule is the neighbor that has her Christmas lights all strung and shining brightly. Grrrrr...

Oct. 5th: Yesterday hubby and I celebrated our 14th year anniversary. I was going to dig up some wedding photos and scan them to share but never got around to it. I might still try to do it if I can find our wedding album. It's always fun to go back in time and look at old photos. Or not so fun when it shows you personally aging if you know what I mean! We didn't get to do a lot of celebrating yesterday but did sneak away for a bite of Mexican food in between taking the kids to swim practice and the school fundraiser for Teachers night at McDonalds. But... hubby is going to tag along with me on my teaching trip to the Bahama's and that will be a little anniversary get away of sorts.

Man did I have fun a few weeks back. It was a rainy Saturday and Randy and Connor were camping. Keegan and Caiden were vegging out so I went by myself to Chuck's Boots. If you are ever in St. Louis and like yourself some boots, then Chucks is the place you have to visit. It is a shopping mantra (what does mantra even mean? I have no idea. It just seemed to fit there.) The place is huge and it is loaded I say with boots. Mostly cowboy styles and even motorcycle and work boots. I've been wanting a pair of cowboy boots for a few years now and have been to Chucks with hubby and the boys on several occasions. It is almost overwhelming and there are so many to choose from that you end up walking away because you don't know what you want because there are too many to choose from.

The boots are mostly arranged by sizes. And there is a full isle of all your size. Then there are end caps of even cooler boots that have all of the sizes there. And... you don't have to wait for a salesperson to grab you the boot in your size. You just walk down the isle from boot to boot trying on each and everyone (well that is if you are me and can't resist touching them all!)

I admit it.. I spent over 2 hours there. It was so hard to decide. I almost walked out and left several times.

It was so hard to decide. I had it in my mind that I wanted a black pair because I have a brown pair of riding boots and needed to have color options. But all of the boots I liked were brown. There were some awesome boots with lots of bling. I should have taken more photos. All of these pics were just taken with my phone so they aren't the best.

So in the end after lots of debating. I found me the perfect pair of boots. I adore them. They are so dang cute. They look nice and worn in. Have turquoise stitching and aqua swarvoski crystals. I even had a sales lady try them on so I could see how they looked on someone else's foot. ha.... I only snapped a pic of one of them. I'll have to take a better photo as they are so deserving:-.

Oh, and I did learn something about buying boots that day. The sales lady said that you want your heel to slip up and down about an inch inside the boot. This will help prevent blisters. So I bought up a full size and it nice to have lots of room in the boot without feeling like your foot is stuffed inside a sardine can.

September 28th: New base metal chain available at both Etsy Stores. Yum Yum!

Septeber 27th:

Howdy everyone. I'm still here just being a busy bee. If I thought life was busy before, I had no idea. Hubby has traveled the past 3 out of 4 weeks leaving me to step up and do it all. And "all" it is. The kids are in full swing of swim practice 4 nights a week for 1 hour and 45 min. and soccer for 2 of the boys. Go Go Go...

I had to make some more PMC ring bases for the rings listed on my boutique page. I always have some extra PMC left over to make head pins with. I learned something that afternoon. Argentium silver does not do well in the kiln. I only had 18g fine silver on hand and I wanted 20g head pins. I've never tried it but have read that you can solder Argentium silver. Well after firing the PMC at around 1200 degrees, all of the argentium silver became very brittle and just crumbled into short pieces. Which made all of my PMC balls and pointy things I had made useless. I guess I could solder them onto wire but that just makes more work. Lessoned learned the crummy way.

And these copper flowers are awesome. I had these as a special request and it took me forever to set up my metalsmithing station again after getting the floors done. Which by the way..I'm still working out of boxes and not fully in the new workshop yet. It's getting closer. Hubby started on the baseboard the other night and then he just needs to add the trim on the doors and my side is complete. I'm starting to learn a few things about soldering with copper too. It likes heat and can be a big pain to work with. It makes it hard when making big items to get the solder to flow. I was ready to throw one of these across the room after a bit kept at it. I'm guessing it will get easier over time after I learn exactly what to expect and how to treat this metal. I love silver now even more. It just seems to flow like butter. I held these up to the copper ball and cog chain or the new chain that I recently started selling and it looks so cool.

Sept. 20th: Just posted a new bead set over on my Etsy store. It isn't my typical color combinations and I love that about these beads. I don't make this style very often and they seem perfect for the Fall weather that is slowly creeping in and starting to make the leaves fall and turn colors on the trees.

And I've got to give a big shout and Kudos to my darling father who is running my other Etsy shop called Tickle Me Beads. He is rocking it out and taking it all very seriously. I mentioned on the top of this page that he ships prompto and that he does.

I got a great email from Debbie who had recently ordered and it was so great to read. I love my Dad! Here is what she wrote.
"I have to tell you - I have ordered several things from your Etsy store and your Dad is lightening fast!! I ordered late one evening, like 10:00, and got an email about 30 min later saying my pkg was on it's way! I'll be darn - it came in 2 days! He's the bomb!"

So if you are needing goodies in a hurry. This is the place to get them fast. We are continually adding new items every week. Have you seen the new polyester chain. We have it in all sorts of great colors too.

Lastly...I wanted to just post that sadly I had to cancel all of my classes for Bead Fest Texas. I was really bummed about doing this but the registration levels just weren't where they needed to be. It costs a lot of money to fly, get a hotel, a rental car, ship all of my supplies, food, and well you get the idea. It is a big time and money investment and there were only enough students registered to maybe let me break even. I thought about doing it anyway because I really enjoy teaching but with 3 busy kids that have crazy active schedules, it just seemed like the right thing to do. I apolgize deeply to everyone who signed up for my classes. Hopefull there will be another opportunity in the future.

I am super duper excited thought that I will be flying to the Bahama's on Abaco Island to be doing some private teaching with Kim in early November. Can you believe that one? Way way cool. Kim and I are going to have a blast playing on the torch and beading away during the day and then late afternoon it is beach and relaxtion time. I'm starting to get really excited about this adventure for certain!! Just to rub it in a tad, here is a photo from our Disney Cruise last year when the ship stopped in the Bahamas. With a view like that, I think I could live in that shack:-)

September 17th: After many weeks of anticipation, the big reveal day is here for the 360+ participants. Isn't that a crazy wild amount of people for one bead swap? I've got to give a big shout to the hostess with the mostess which is none other than Lori Anderson. She is incredibly generous and patient and goes above and beyond when putting these swaps together. It takes a special person with many talents to be able to coordinate and execute such a huge endeavor and she deserves many kudos for putting it together.

I sat down to write up my post and about had a small heart attack. Once again, hubby installed some software on my laptop so that the kids could play dumb Minecraft and when I went to open up website software, it wouldn't open. The old "Ugh... he just promised me he was going to fix this yesterday and here it is today and he didn't fix it and of course he has to be out of cell phone reach on a camping trip with one of the boys. Now what do I do? So I've spent many minutes on hubby's computer grabbing the software, updating and transferring all of my blog html page over to this computer and then finding all the darn public folders for me to move my photos over to his computer. A feat in itself I must say and I can't believe I figured it all out. Just image if I would've missed the big reveal day all because of a software malfunction.

So as I mentioned a few posts ago, I was paired with the very multi-talented Beth Emery (click here to see her blog). She lives in Alaska which seems like an entire universe away and I find that so intriguing all by itself. I can only imagine what a different life style she must live all due to geography. Although, tonight we were at an outdoor concert and it felt as cold as Alaska in the winter time. Ok, not really but when you are cold, you are cold and it just feels to darn cold. But, I digress....back to Beth. Beth is very lovely and has a charming blog. She also is an extremely talented painter. Yes, I admit it. That makes me very jealous as even after several classes it is obvious tha painting is not in my arena.

As a reminder, here is what Beth sent me in the mail. I couldn't bring myself to take all the beads out of the packages. I loved them being seperated and labeled.

It was a total party when I opened up each and every little package. I knew it would be a fun swap as it contained all muted and rich dark colors with hints of greens and blues. And there were also loads of wonderful stones that I never work with so I was thrilled to try something different. As you might have noticed, all of the paper had some cute owls on the outside. Beth had a theme going and within the package was a darling pewter owl charm from Green Girl Studios and one of her handmade and stamped copper owl focal charms. It was almost like you could feel and smell the aroma of a nice sunny late fall day in the middle of a thick lush green forest and hear an owl hooting in the distance.

When I was collecting my beads to send to Beth, I could tell from her style that she is not a live and die "pink" person like I am. I eat and breathe the color. So to not make the palette to difficult off the bat for her, I forced myself not to include any pink beads. But she got an eye full of pink when opening up her package. I chuckled to myself on that and actually inwardly groaned wondering what her first impression would be with the pink overload in tissue paper and stickers and silk ribbon. So as I sit here and type this, I anxiously rub my hands back and forth wondering what concoctions she created

Beth included a personal note that made the beads even more special. I hope she doesn't mind me sharing a part of it but I think you guys would really appreicate her words.

"Even up here (in Alaska) you don't see many wild animals around town. I'd never seen any kind of owl before. One day on my way home from work, I stopped at a red light. Over on a fence there was a huge white owl. I thought it was stuffed but then it lifted it's enormous wings and swooped away. I strongly believe in the fact that animals appear to us when they have something to tell us- - - This owl was telling me to prepare to live in the moment, to cultivate widsom. This snowy owl was so beautiful . So majestic. Since then I always keep owl pendants on my table to sell. I made this pendant in honor of that owl. I hope you are inspired by this story as you work."

Well, how could you not be inspired by that story? It was a joy to read as I visualized what she saw. So I happily pulled all of her beads out of the box and started designing a necklace. I thought it was the best way to utilize such a wonderful collection of beads. I didn't add a lot to the mix. Just a few things here and there such as the turquoise lampwork flat flower and etched copper disc that is the center and another of my lampwork larger flower beads. Then I just added a few bead caps here and there to give some punch and draw the eye to her excellent choice of beads. I also added at the last minute a rust enamel copper disc and another patinaed copper disc. The rest us frin Beth's creation. I loved her owl pendant, the Green Girl Charms, and the big blue and green glass beads. She included several beads of each selection. I tried on several occasions to make a matching bracelet but never felt like I could give the necklace design a run for its money.

I love how the necklace turned out and was very excited to try it on. It isn't a "Cassie Donlen" style and I don't think anyone would ever look at it and put my name as in instant recognition of who made it. I like that and it makes it fun to create goodies that you don't normally create. With the price of silver going crazy, I've been trying to use more copper in my designs and this was a good way to play and create a design with a different medium.

So if you have made it down this far into all of my ramblings, then I shall reward you with several pics of my Aug/Sept 2011 Bead Soup Exchange necklace. I hope you enjoy what I created and that it does the story of the snowy owl justice. The beads and the colors were so perfect by themselves that I felt they didn't need any fancy metalsmithing work or fancy wire work to show them off. All I used was basic wire wrapping techniques.

So in the package and the beads that are used to create the necklace include:...

Beth's handmade copper and brass owl pendant, a handmade and soldered copper ring by Beth, a super duper yummy brass leaf toggle, green and blue glass nugget beads, several wooded beads in different shapes and colors, Green Girl Studios pewter owl and pewter nest, copper chain, green oval jade beads, white oval rainbow moonstone, green gaspite rondelles, round dark green BC Jade, gaspite, and labradorite. Isn't that a fab collection?

The only thing I didn't use in the box was the darling wooden flower that I accidently broke, some silk ribbon, and tigerseye.

If you would like to take a peek and get inspired by over 300+ designs from the Bead Soup Party, then please hop over to Lori Anderson's Blog page by clicking here.She has the links to all of the participants so that you may visit each and every one. I'm sure it will take some time to see them all and just like a good book, you never want it to end. So think of it as a great page turner that sucks you in vs. a fast short story that is over before ya know it!

Enjoy!!

Sept 10th, 2011

I admit it, I've been avoiding posting here this week. It seems like there are so many things that I want and would love to chat about that I don't even know where to start and it seems like a big chore just sitting down and trying to figure out what to write about. So I left it "for later". Which always turns into "later" and "later". I have so many "later" projects going on and even within the house projects that I feel like I just walk in circles and get none of it done.

I finally got a large bead order done that took me way longer than it typically does. I was so happy to get it completed that I did make any beads for a few days.

I've been wanting to brag about this new chain that I'm selling now. It was one of those that you open up the package and drool while the sun comes out from beyond the clouds and you hear angels singing in the background cool. I posted it for sale over on my cassie donlen Etsy store tonight and it is also for sale on the Tickle Me Beads Etsy store. I can't wait to create a few goodies with it myself.

And... it isn't much but I do have a few of the enamel flower toggles posted for sale on my Etsy store. I plan on making up some more in other colors later this week.

Lori Anderson's big Bead Soup Swap reveal is coming up on the 17th. So stay tuned for what I created with my bead swap partner Beth Emery. She sent the most amazing collection of beads and the packaging that they arrived in was incredible. I felt like a little girl at Christmas time having the time of her life opening up loads of little packages that had me giddy with glee. I loved how she labeled each packet so I would know exactly what type of beads they were. She also included a fab note that explained why she chose the beads that she did. I'll give you all the scoop on the big reveal day but for now I thought I would share pics of what came out of the swap box. (yea, I know you all are jealous:-)

August 30th: Well, I just used up all of my time trying to get my html software to work for my website. Finally realized with the help of hubby from 2,000 miles away that he had installed a zip program on my computer which messed up my website software. Go figure! That is when a normal blog hoster sounds appealing. Some day I might take the plunge and switch.

Since I've last posted, the kids have been in school since the 17th and we are finally getting into a routine. All of their activities have started up this week and next week. I've been trying to hanker down and finish up a big order that needs my undivided attention. So after I get it completed, then I will be back with new goodies and more chatty.

In the mean time, I did get some copper toggles made and posted over at my new Etsy shop called Tickle Me Beads I have in the process the makings of more of the etched toggles in brass and then I'm going to start also offering some nickle siver toggles available like the one in the Aug. 10th post. Now those are incredible. The flower and lampwork bead is part of the toggle. And.....when I get this order completed, I'm also going to start selling these flower enamel toggles too. They are devine!

My Dad has been loading the shop up and there is also some new base metal chain that is in small quantities for right now. I did order some new chain that I can't wait to get my hands on. It looks incredibly cool. So look for it in the next week. Here is a pic of the copper toggles that are made and ready to ship on Etsy at Tickle Me Beads

For those of you who sell on Etsy, they have changed the shop search from pulling up results from most recently added to the most relevent. Which makes listing on Etsy and getting noticed and found a whole new ball game. I'm not an expert on it. But my darling dad Dumplin has become quite good at it and so has my great friend Joan. Between both of them, I've been learning all sorts of good tips. Here is a link that Joan shared with me about these changes and how to help change things in your Etsy store to get noticed. Let's just say I have loads to do on my Cassie Donlen Etsy store if I want to take advantage of how the new search system works.

Click here for the link. There are more links within this post that also gives good information. Hope it helps you out as we can take all the help we can get when it comes to being sucessful right?

August 16th: On a fun whim, I joined Michelle Mach's Beading Challenge called Mostly Metals. Today is the big reveal day. She had 3 different kits to choose from. I chose the Brass Filigree Fun Kit. Challenges are well, challenging as you have to create around items that are included in a kit. But, they are also a lot of fun as it helps stoke the creative juices and makes you go in directions that you might have never taken. So it can be very rewarding. I sometimes equate it to a having a really tough workout but then after it is all done, dang that feels good and invigorating and life is great kind of feeling.

I just tried to take the full photo from Michelle's blog to show you what was inside the kit but the link isn't working. Which is not good as I did not take a pic of the kit before I started creating. But here is what was in the kit...

Filigree Fun Kit
1 brass 48mm filigree butterfly-------I didn't end up using this.
1 brass 18x21mm tulip-shaped bead cap ------ I put one of my lampwork beads inside the flower cup.
2 brass 19mm open gears ----these are sliding loosely around the chain that was in the kit
1 brass 25mm open gear--------I added an enamel flower I made on top of this gear to spice it up. Love it!
5 links (3 1/4") of light blue plastic and brass beaded chain ----used this chain in part of the main design
One pink 19mm pearlized vintage cabochon ----didn't use this cab
6-7 glass beads (1 pile of beads not all 4 pictured)----I ended up not using these either as the shade was a tad off in matching the rest of the beads

It was fun using the kit as a source of inspiration. I normally work mostly with silver and hardly ever with gold tones. So that right off the bat made it something fun and unique. I recently started doing some enameling and this was a fun way to use some of the enamel beads I had made. And although I didn't load it up with my lampwork beads, I did use one inside the large tulip flower cap and one inside the other 2-sided brass cap. I had bought this at Bead and Button from Gail Grossman Moore. Love them. The kit included some unique chain that already had beads within the design. I just used all but one link of this chain and since the gears are large hole, just slid them right onto the chain. The largest gear was calling for some adornment so I added the enamel flower on top of it. The toggle is one of my recent enamel creations and I love how it really tied the entire design together. It is a big and chunky bracelet and is very eye catching. There is so much activity going on within in the design that it takes a few looks to capture it all. I love how it is eye appealing and a total attention getter.

Michelle will be hosting another contest soon and I hope you guys join in on her fun. In the mean time though, below is the list of all the jewelry artists that joined in on the fun. Today is the big reveal day so grab a cup or coffee (or a can of Coke for those of us whom don't drink the stuff) and do some blog surfing to see what other's created using the same kit components. I can't wait to see all of the other designs.

• Donetta via Michelle's Blog
• Michelle
• Pam
• Shannon
• Stephanie
• Terry

• Andrew
• Cassie
• Cyndi
• Jeannie
• Ruth
• Vina Jane via Michelle's Blog

• Erin
• Heather
• Jean
• Kelli via Michelle's Blog
• Linda
• Lola

I'm partially back in business. Yippee!!! I got my torch back up and running late Thursday night. It's a good thing as I am buried with beads that need to be made. Had to get a new table as hubby would not let me put the other table back in the new area. It is too ugly he said. I balked and fighted over it as I had been on that table for 8 years. But we found a table that was the same exact height as my workbench and my workbench had an old desk table top screwed on top of it and he removed that and added it onto the new table. The area isn't as wide but I don't mind. I found some great deals. I needed a table to place stuff and found a CD/DVD stand at Target on clearance for $25. It reminds me of a ladder and it got placed right in front of the table. A perfect spot. Then I needed a new TV. Boy did I hit the jack pot. I got a 19" Sylvania LCD HD TV for $44. Can you believe it? I ran skipping out of the store. I didn't even make it half way to the car before calling hubby to blabber about my big score. Amazon sells the same TV for $189. I really want to nest and get all of my beading stuff back into this area but the walls still need to be painted and all of the trim work still needs to be done. So, I still need to be patient. It looks pretty empty and lonely there.

The kids start school tomorrow and I must admit that it really has me in a major funk. I'm really sad. It has been such a great Summer and we have all really enjoyed ourselves. It was busy as usual but it was a leisure busy and not the frazzled rush of early mornings and homework and thousands of evening activites. I think it all hit home when I realized that every night of the week even including Friday's will have something going on. The big boys are joining a swim team and that will meet 3 nights a week, 2 of them are doing soccer and I thank the Lord that both of them have practice at the same time on the same night in the same location. That was a HUGE victory. And then all 3 of them are in Scouts and oh yea, there is a piano lesson in there and hmmmmmmmm.... I guess we need to make room for homework. I guess you can see why I'm not excited about school starting.

August 10th: Just a quick update. I still have no torch set up yet. Our goal is tonight after the kids soccer practice is to start putting part of the workshop back together. I just realized what a huge task this is going to be. The other half of the basement that needs carpet is still so dusty and dirty from all the drywall sanding and tape and mud. Of course, half of my stuff is in this area and everything is going to have to be washed down. So in between the kids school orientation's today, I'm gonna start cleaning all of my stuff and try not to track it all over the new floors. Hubby is going to get canvas and cover up the new floors tonight to protect them as we still have to paint the walls and get all of the base boards on and complete the other half of the basement. So so close now.

I've got some new fun copper color chain over on my other Etsy store Tickle Me Beads. The bigger link is just like the antique silver color one and so darn cool. Then the other chain is a smaller (but not dainty) chain for those that don't like big honkin stuff.

I made a simple bracelet yesterday while packing and getting organzized. I didn't know I was going to do that but there were a few odds and ends sitting on the beading table and before I knew it, I had the makings of a bracelet in my hand. It is for sale on my Etsy store. It is so lightweight and comfortable on the wrist. For some reason that pleasantly surprised me. I had made an enameled flower before my workshop was taken down and I was gonna just list it but my eye kept admiring it. Speaking of which, have you seen those new dimpling pliers? Oh my gosh, these are so so cool. I made some toggles yesterday with them and just wait, you are gonna want one of these toggles. Anyhoo...that blue enameled flower has some bumps in it that were made with the pliers. It just adds some texture to spice it up. And.... you can buy these dimple pliers over at my tickle me beads etsy store too. They come in two sizes. The round part of the toggle is also handmade out of nickle silver. The flower is part of the toggle and the toggle bar is made out of sterling silver. I'm going to be making these toggles for sale also. But I've got to get my torch running again to make beads. Sigh... I miss it!

Aug. 8th: I'm home and back in town. It was a fabulous week away with every day spent on the beach in Destin, Florida. It felt so great to be away from it all with the biggest decisions being made as to which beach area do we want to do for the day and hmmm...where should we eat. But the moment you walk into the doors back home, life comes back in full hurricane force and anything and everything is going on and wrong. The penalty you pay for that rest and relaxation.

The basement floor of course can never go as planned. We have a crack in the floor that wasn't drying fast enough and that delayed the process. Then our a/c went out while we were gone and I'm thankful the floor people were in our house to alert us of the problem as it was over 94 degrees in the house and our cat and birds were in there. So my awesome father rocked it out and met the A/C people and we got it fixed within 2 hours of being notified that is wasn't working. So this delayed the floor getting the final epoxy coat even further. And then a few more problems with the epoxy flooring and we got a final 3rd coat this morning. The floor typically only has 1 epoxy coat but as I said, problems arised beyond our control. Which means, that we aren't supposed to walk on the floors for another 5 days. We are gonna cut corners and set up my bench on Wed. night though. I've got soooooooo many beads and jewels that need to be made.

Here is a pic of one section of the floors. It is truly stunning and it is hard to believe that it is just stained concrete. My workshop area is behind this and behind the plastic covering will be the kids area with carpeting. But...the floors now have a few added touches that made me want to sit down and cry as I had taken a pic of the floor for the blog and didn't get the basement door completely latched. I'm just gonna say one word and you can probably figure out what happened. "Cat".

I was hoping hubby wouldn't notice but I got the dreaded phone call from hubby who beat me home this evening wondering how much the cat walked on the floor before I was able to grab him. Here I was hoping he wouldn't notice but he has a keen eye and nothing misses him. I guess it wasn't hard to miss as the paw prints are at the very bottom of the steps and cat hair is also stuck in the paw prints. I guess the cat figured out that it hurt to get his hair pulled out in the epoxy and went back upstairs after making prints in a small area that happens to be right at the bottom of the steps for all to see. Of course it would go that way. Why wouldn't it? So i've been told we can buff them out and put wax on top to cover the prints. Plus I soothed my damaged nerves by telling myself that thankfully we were planning on putting a rug right there. And.... happily, I'm still alive and hubby didn't strangle me as I was predicting my early demise!

Here are a few pics of the family in paradise. I realized that there isn't one photo with me in any of the family pics. Oh well...just imagine me floating in the water or sitting under the beach umbrella with a good book and that would be me. Oh... and there is a huge satisfied smile on my face too!

July 29, 2011: Today is a special day and a milestone in our family. Our oldest child turns 13 years old today. I can't help but sit here and reflect upon these past 13 years and how special and blessed our lives have been with him. Even in all of his sassy glory, he is an incredible child and I'm so proud of him. He is maturing so fast now and has changed so much this past year. I look at photos from last summer and he looks to have matured by 4-5 years instead of just one year. So today will be an all about Keegan day (even through I told him last night that the world does not stop moving even on his birthday as he complained about the floor people honing in on his big day).

We had an early celebration last night and I love his facial features.

Man was I kidding myself. Here I thought this week would be a week of leisure and down time without my torch. It is just as busy doing beady stuff that I had avoided trying to work on the torch and keeping the kids entertained and managing the floor people coming in and out. And... still not sure when the floors are going to be done. They've tried to come the last 2 days and put the top coat on but it hasn't dried all of the way yet from when they had to saturate the floors with water to remove the excess stain. I can't wait to see the final outcome. I think it is going to turn out stunning.

So mark in your calendars that August 1-3 is the sign ups with Lori Anderson over at www.prettythingsblog.com for the Bead Soup Beading exchange. All of the details are over on her site but the premise is that she will pair you up with another jewelry designer and then you guys exchange bead packets that you personally create and then design a piece of jewelry out of it. Then on Sept 17th, you post what you created on your blog and everyone hops around to each other's blogs looking at all the pretty creations. It is just a fun acitivity that sparks some good inspiration and imagination. So join in on the fun.

Then there are a few other beading magazines that I've got projects in that I haven't had a chance to share. I have 6 projects in lastest issue of Easy Wire. I can't say enough good things about this issue. There are the most incredible designs scattered throughout the magazine. You will find yourself drooling on all of the pages. I'm serious! Find it at your local craft store on on Interweave Presses website. They also sell it as a digital downloadable copy which means you don't even have to hop in your car on a shopping mission to enjoy it right away.

Then there is another magazine issue on the stands right now called Bracelets 101. They included my bracelet that got first place in the Hearts Category of Bead Star 2010. It is on the stands right now also and also has some fanatastic projects. Total inspiration overload!

July 22nd: It's after 1 a.m. in the morning but wanted to let you know that I just got listed on my etsy store all of the enamel toggles I have on hand. Intro price of $10 each. Grab them while they are hot.

We went to go see the Harry Potter movie on IMAX 3D. It was awesome. I'm not a 3D fan and avoid seeing movies in 3D but had to try out our new IMAX theater. I actually liked it way better in 3D vs. 2D. Wish I would have seen the 3D the first time. Oh well.. I'm off to bed. Chat soon!

July 21st: I have loads to share and talk about. I guess that happens when you don't post very often. So I'm gonna try to cram a lot of in in now and then will probably have to come back and finish it all up so I don't bore you all in one post. BUT.. you do need to know that

After this weekend, I will not be on the torch or making beads or doing any metalsmithing work for 2 weeks. So any orders for beads that are placed from here on out will not be worked on until August 8th. I know right? (just had to sound like my almost 13 year old for a second.)

So you guys have heard me whine for the past few years about getting the basement finished. This process has dragged on FOREVER. But we are so close now. This is important for me as my workshop is down there and it is also in the area that is getting finished. We tossed back and forth over what to do with the floor in my area. As there are always bits of small glass all over and hot glass sometimes dropping on the floor. So we decided to go with the process of acid etched concrete. I love this look. We are going with the mahogany color which looks like a brownish red marble when complete. So...we've been waiting for the past 6 weeks for them to come and do the floors. Now the bad part is that you can't walk on the floors for 5-7 days as it has to cure. Thus, no beads will be made but supplies will still be shipped.

Then the following week, the office will be closed for vacation and nothing will shipped or processed until August 7th.

I feel like I have lots to update in the beading world too but want to point out a few magazine issues that I've been getting questions on.

.... oh man you have got to check this out. eMagazines (for electronic) are the next thing in the future. And I can see why. Interweave Press has just released their very first issue of Live Wire eMag. It is put together by the editor Denise Peck from Step By Step Wire magazine. I had no idea what to expect and just thought when I previewed it that it would be just a magazine that you read on the computer that is basically the same format but no hard copy. Boy, was I wrong. It is a totally interactive experience that features great new wired jewelry projects and has fabulous videos to watch on certain techniques scattered throughout the pages. The videos are nice and short and are very helpful. The colors are stunning and I can't think of a better way to spend only $9.97. And..there are hardly any advertisements that I saw but the one that stands out in my mind was helpful as it featured a video using a beading tool that I had never seen or used before.

I have a bracelet project that is featured in the eMag and you will find great projects from other well know artists including my beady friends Kerry Bogert and Cindy Wimmer.

Even watching the home page load is lots of fun. I won't spoil it but man, I can't brag enough about how cool this eMag is. To find it, head over to The Interweave Press Store to purchase for immediate download your first ever copy of Live Wire. That even has a super duper cool name!

So the latest issue Aug/Sept of Step By Step Wire features my Chain of Hearts Bracelet in it. Yippee! I love this bracelet and now you too can make your own. I have listed over on my Etsy store, options to purchase just the lampwork beads to make it, the toggle, and even the red heart. So saunter over that way if you want any of the beads needed to make this design. Oh, and for the silver chain, I did see the cheap base metal chain in this exact patten over at Michael's Craft store or JoAnn's. I can't remember for sure which store had it.

So I'll be back to post shortly about the latest sign ups for Lori Anderson's Bead Soup exchange that sign up start on August 1st for. I wanna give you some details on it and encourage you to participate.

And... I've got some new copper enameled toggles to post for sale and I've got more of the etched copper and brass toggles coming shortly too. I'll just tease you with a small photo. Since I only have a few days to torch before I'm shut down for 2 weeks, I probably won't post these until Monday or Tuesday. So stay tuned as I will give a shout over here when they are ready.

July 15th: Wow, talk about not posting on my blog. It has been 2 weeks and I had no idea! Don't get me wrong, I knew it had beeb a while. Just not that long. Lots has been going on behind the scences. The kids are keeping me beyond busy and it is really hard getting any beading time slotted in between the days. It seems like hubby has been traveling half the summer and that adds even more to my activity list. Now, granted... I love summer activity lists of going to the pool, the movies, Six Flags, play dates, swim team every morning and swim meets one evening a week, piano, swim lessons, and somewhere within all of that I've got to squeeze in work. I find that my problem is that I LOVE each and every activity and LOVE work too. And, in between all of this, Caiden got me hooked on Pocket Frog on the iPod. I LOVE that game. I laugh at myself though as all I want to do is collect pink and purple frogs and color changing frogs.

I'm having Harry Potter anxiety... I CAN'T WAIT to see the final movie. My mom took Connor and my niece to the midnight showing last night. They wore their Harry Potter capes and attire and brought their wands from Harry Potter World in Universal Studios. They got lots of attention and got interviewed and video taped from the local St. Louis Post Dispatch.

So in the beading world... I got listed some of the new chain that I've been using on my Etsy store. I'll soon have it posted on TickleMeBeads.com and you can also find it on my new Etsy store titled "Tickle Me Beads" too. Just go to Etsy, and type in TIckle Me Beads under the drop down "Shops" section and you will find it. This is fun and exciting for me. Do you remember me mentioning that my Dad was going to take over this store front for me when they got back from vacation. Well... take over he did. He is rocking it. I went over yesterday to give him some Etsy lessons and he took to it right away. He got all the items listed that I brought over to him. So, now I'll get ready to round up another batch for him. The slow part is getting the store to take off. That takes some time and there hasn't been any sales yet. But I always say that you need a good 6 months for a store to become succussful on Etsy. So to help my darling Dad (whom I lovingly call Dumplin) to feel like his new store is succussful, here is a coupon code for free shipping on the new Etsy store Tickle Me Beads. Upon check out, please enter the code "Grandopening" (it has no spaces) to get free domestic only shipping. This code is good for 3 days and will expire at noon time on July 18th. Plus, the new chain is also over there!

Here is a simple bracelet that I made with the large linked copper chain. This chain is so dreamy! The bracelet is posted for sale on my Etsy store.

June 29th: Think I will just sit here and avoid doing work. Don't mind if I do. We just finished up dinner, my house is so messy, I stayed up until 2:30 a.m. last night and am ready for bed, AND hubby is coming home tomorrow from a 12 day trip to China. Whew...I sure am ready for him to come home. Although I must say it is much easier when he travels in the summer time then during school. I've avoided cooking and we have eaten a fair share of take out meals and I'm thinking tomorrow I better slow down and clean my house.

The part I can't stand about summer break is my kids picking at each other. I swear they go out of their way to drive me absolutely insane. I thought I was pretty clever on Monday night though and came up with a great plan. My middle child has this most extremely annoying habit of telling me every single infraction that happens to him through out the day. So my new rule is that they can have 1 free tattle-tale a day. So make sure to save it for when it is really needed. Otherwise, they are more than welcome to come and complain to me about every single injustice installed upon them but it will cost them $1 for each complaint. HA! I was pretty proud of this solution. Yesterday it worked great and today it did too. Keegan really knows how to push Connor's buttons. But instead of him coming yelling to me he sucked it up and just bickered with Keegan. That hasn't stopped but at least I don't have to hear about it every single time. YIPPEE!!!!

I can't dog on my kids too much as they really are super duper kids and I'm so proud of them. Boy are they just loving swim team. They have had two meets so far and really did great. Keegan broke the swim team's record on Breast Stroke on his very first meet. He was so pumped!! And Connor who wasn't really enjoying it, got three first places on his first meet in the heets that he swam in. Their meet on Monday night was tough as they had some incredibly fast kids on their team. They had 150 kids and we had around 130 kids competing. It makes for a very long night. I was asked to be a timer for Monday night and that was so much fun. But, I must admit that I was in major panic mode when they asked me. I'm not a swimmer. I've only started learning about swim and all the stuff that goes with it this year. But after my good friend explained it all to me and made sure I knew what I was doing, then I was able to breathe. Plus, they had 2 other timers in the lane with me so I had plenty of back up. Keegan ended up getting a personal best and beating his record by 2 hundreths of a second and Connor got 2 new personal bests. So they go loaded up with more ribbons today. Hubby was in China for both meets and I know he is looking forward to the one next week.

I made up some more etched copper toggles. I riveted some of the enamel discs I had made after getting back from Bead and Button. Someone bought most of the sets before I listed them but the one on the bottom left hand side is listed on Etsy for sale. Snag it if you want it.

While at Bead and Button, I had bought a book about working in steel wire from Brenda Schweder. She was so nice and Joan actually knew her so that made it even more fun. Anyhoo... she had a project to make a steel wire ring in her book that I thought was so cute. So I made one up and added my lampwork head pin to the mix. It is available for custom order on my Etsy shop.

Then the ring got my juices flowing and I took the design in another direction and made this necklace that cages in one of my lampwork beads. I just listed it on Etsy too.

OK, I've procratinated long enough. The night is moving on. Off to work. TTFN

June 26th: Just sitting here through another rain storm. Boy we have had more than our fair share of rain and storms this season. I'm ready for summer and hot days to return.

So you remember the Kick the Can bracelet that I designed for a class to teach at Bead Fest Texas in Oct? I made it in another color combo. This bracelet was gifted to my friend Joan when I went to visit her for Bead and Button. I would have never created it in these colors but she had made the comment that she needed a pink and grey bracelet to match an outfit. I thought this bracelet design would be perfect in these color combos. YUM! I just posted the finished bracelet (made to order) for sale on my Etsy store. I'll post the other color combos for order too.

June 25th: Just spending a leisure Saturday hanging out with the kids. I'm not feeling 100% for some reason so just relaxing on the bed while watching stupid Sponge Bob with the kids. Thank goodness I have my computer to entertain me. We went to go see the new Cars 2 movie yesterday. I think we all really liked it. I love everything Pixar does though. They had a really funny short story from Toy Story before the movie started. It is worth it to just see this short. Then we spent the evening outside at our Town Center to watch the latest version of Karate Kid. I do have to give our small city kudos on local entertainment. They have a band play earlier and serve free hot dogs, soda, and shaved ice. The kids run around and have a blast while us adults get to hang out and socialize too. Since they have to wait until it is dark to play the movie, it didn't get done until 11:30 but we had nothing on the books today so we all slept in. AWESOME I dare say.

We took a small adventure to finally release our tiny little catfish that the kids caught last summer. I was so dumb and let them come home with 2 crawdads, about 5 tadpoles, and the cutest little tiny catfish that was maybe 3/4" long at the most. It really is a boring fish as all it does is sit under a rock. You never see it. Believe me when I say that I've thought many times about just flushing it but I could never do that. It didn't ask to come home with us and so over the past year, I've been giving it fresh water and feeding it. This morning the air pump stopped working. YIPPEE the perfect excuse to let it go. So we took a small adventure in the rain and drove to a nice fishing pond a few subdivisions over and let the darn thing go. Good riddence I said but of course Caiden and Connor were fighting the entire time over who the fish belongs too and who gets to hold the bucket. My reply was that good grief. We are getting rid of it in a few minutes so who cares which kid it belongs too. Whine Whine Whine. You see, I show no pity as those kids paid ZERO nada attention to the darn thing. Keegan even commented this morning "You mean it is still alive?". I had moved it down to my workshop area about 6 months ago and it has hung out with me and the cat. So I did a little happy jig as we drove off from the pond and celebrated by going to the gas station for a Coke and a Butterfinger!

So I just posted a few new things on Etsy while hanging out. The copper disc features one of the enameled discs I made last week. I've got more etched copper toggles to post too. Just need to take pics. Editing photos is not a fast process sadly but you have to have good pics if you are selling on the internet.

Then I made this necklace which is so darn eye catching and knew that my mom needed it. She wears a lot of gold. She wore it when we met for dinner the other night and it was so striking. I wanted to eat it up. I'll have to make another one. I also have this same chain in copper. Way way cool. I have plans to start selling the chain I fell in love with very very soon.

I'm totally smiling. Are all of your kids going around saying "I know. Right?" 7 year old Caiden has just said this twice when he heard me laughing because Sponge Bob made his pants round and no one know hims because he doesn't have square pants. It just seems funny hearing it come out of his mouth.

June 23rd: Man, I feel like I have been running on full blast for the past month and I'm just running on steam. I'm not sure why this summer is different from any other year but it is just CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY busy at home. I've been staying up till 1 a.m. trying to work on things every night for the past week and I've still got neglected emails to answer and have various jewelry designs that I've slipped in between orders that I've wanted to post and share and haven't been able to pull it off. I finally got Tickle Me Beads.com all restocked as inventory was pitiful. And I bought new things to add to the website which I seem to always do and never get listed.

I need some more mini me's. But.... I do think I found a small solution. MY DAD!!! Yes, Dad, if you are reading this then this is another hint hint. I call my father Dumplin. I have no idea why I started doing this but it was probably around when Keegan was born almost 13 years ago. Dumplin is awesome. We all love Dumplin and love to give him a hard time. (Isn't that a fun name to say?) He loves teasing my boys and it can be quite comical to watch the go arounds. Dumplin is retired and has lots of free time. Mom and I decided that he has too much free time. He finally got a Facebook account a week ago and Mom claims that he is on it all the time and lives on the computer. But how can you blame him when he got himself a new Mac laptop not too long ago. (yes, I'm coveting his laptop). So when we were all out eating dinner one night last week, I mentioned that he would be perfect at running my Tickle Me Beads store on Etsy. He could list all my supplies. Add the loads of supplies that I have never gotten around to posting. They have a few trips and activities coming up but after that, I'm grabbing my lasso and bringing Dumplin on board. Wish me luck! As I figure Dumplin should like beads too. He doesn't realize it but it is in his blood. ha! Actually, Dumplin get intrigued by making money on little things here and there. I'm betting that is enough to bring him on board.

I told myself that tonight, I was going to list some of the new creations I made with those beads I showed you the other day. I've made more and have all sorts of ideas for them. But.. golly wolly, I can hardly get posted what I've had sitting here for a week. So I'm ignorning emails yet another night and listing these 2 necklaces. I was going to go to bed early but here it is almost midnight. I've learned that I'm a total night owl. I hate morning. I hate getting up early. I like to sleep in. I'm lucky in the fact that my kids like to sleep in too. Plus, they are old enough that they don't come storming in the bedroom early morning and say something like my little 4 year old niece "Wake Up Sleepy Heads. It is morning. Time to wake up". Then you are up even if you don't wanna be. But, she can get away with it because she is so cute and has the cutest little squeeky voice.

So here are the 2 necklaces that I posted. Whew...that was a lot of typing to just get to these photos!

June 18th: It was an exciting morning in the Donlen household. I got my babies home from Boy Scout camp. They have been gone since last Sunday and I missed their big send off as I was flying home from Bead and Button. I think they had a really great week. (better them than me as a week sleeping on a cot inside a green canvas army tent is not my idea of fun) Their arms and legs are loaded up with bug bites and tick bites but they are smiling and happy. We rushed them off to the showers and then Keegan promptly grabbed his phone, i-pod, and took over the TV. Connor bless his soul is sitting down with hubby right now working on his scout book to see what he needs to do next to become a second class scout. They have an awesome scout troop and it was a wonderful experience for them. It was really hard being without them both but it was really healthy for them to spread their wings and hop out of the bird's nest so to say for the week. So now it is my turn to do laundry and clean up their trail of destruction as it rained a lot this week at camp and everything is wet and muddy. I wonder how many pet bugs they brought home with them.

Hubby was traveling for work all week which left just Caiden and I home alone. That was a nice unexpected treat and I really enjoyed our time together. Lots of attention and fun adventures were had all week. He is at such a great stage right now and is really maturing leaps and bounds. I just look at his cute face and beam when I watch him. For the past month he has had that sparkle and gleam in his eyes. His aura is just glowing and you can tell in his mind that he is sitting on top of the world and loving life. As a parent, this is the most rewarding thing to watch. Man I love that little boy.

So needless to say that my beading time has been pretty limited. And man that is hard to swallow as there are so many things I want to play with and create and rejoice in the hoopla and excitement over Bead and Button. I love all of my fun new treasures and also harbor the fear that all of my overwhelming ideas and thoughts of things I want to create will leak away and I will loose this golden opportunity to seize the day of bubbling excitement and the thill of possibilites in the beading world.

But... I did get to make a few new beads. These are so exciting. It has been a while since I've been excited to open the kiln door in the morning and I've had this fun experience on several mornings this week. I've turned a few of these into necklaces with my new cool chain and have plans to list the beads on Etsy once I get a grip on catching up on bead orders.

June 14th: I made it back from Bead and Button. It was an incredible weekend. I posted a short video on my Facebook page under Glass Beadle. It is an open page and anyone can view it. But of course, I'm not opposed to you "liking" my Glass Beadle page either:-). I forgot my camera on the kitchen countertop and all that I was armed with was my phone. So the pics kind of stink.

Joan and I had a blast and spent way too much money. I'm so excited about all the great finds I made. I was curious as to what to expect this year with the price of silver being so high. I was thinking there would be a lot of booths popping up selling more copper and brass findings. That was certainly the case. Not near as many silver booths and the ones that were there were not hopping like previous years. I was really needing to stock up on silver toggles that were simple and inexpensive but didn't find any of those. The only silver I bought was from Saki silver. We learned that Liz and her hubby Saki are moving to Thiland on Thursday of this week. She said they would be back next year but there was hesitation in that statement. Which is a bummer because their booth of one of the first we usually go to.

Here is a table of all pewter beads. It was huge. About 20 feet long. I've never seen so much in one place before.

So Joan picked me up at the airport in Chicago and we headed up to Milwaukee. We have our operation down to a finely tuned machine. But I must admit I was a tad nervous that we were going to run out of time as in a 2 hour time span, we had only gone to 3 booths. Can you believe that? But it was so much fun. I got some of the bestest chain that I'm super duper excited about. I've had a hard time coming to terms with the fact that I'm going to have to start mixing in base metals into at least some of my jewelry designs if I want to have some fun inexpensive jewelry for sale. Now I'm pretty excited about the prospect as these chains are killer. I have so many ideas floating in my head that it is about to explode. I love that feeling. I'm still going to use a lot of silver but having a combination of both really opens up a lot of new creative doors.

Here is a pic of one of the chain booths.

It has been cloudy and raining here the past few days so I haven't been able to take any good pics of my purchases. But in between orders, I have been playing around a tad. Wait until you see the new beads I've made. One of those that you can't wait to wake up and see what is in the kiln excitement. I haven't had that feeling for a while and it is devine. I bought some enamels for enameling on copper. Already tried it out and added a few discs to my next batch of etched copper toggles to sell on Etsy. Way cool! It takes more time that I expected as you have to coat the front and back with around 3 layers. To be honest, I don't have a clue what I'm doing. I'm kind of winging it. And while I was buying supplies for enameling copper, I figured I would buy some enamels for my lampwork beads. I'm in LOVE with enamels. I've always stayed away from them because of the health factor and the fact that you should wear a respirator because you don't want to breathe in the fumes or the tiny shards of glass. So I broke down and tried it out. YUM YUM YUM. Can't wait to share pics of these beads.

But I digress. So we had about 5 hours of shopping on Friday and then the whole day on Saturday. I think we covered it all. This is the first year that we weren't running to booths trying to grab a last purchase before they closed but that didn't stop us from finding a booth 10 min. before closing and making a final purchase. I met some other really neat artists that I've only known through their work and blogs. Such as Loreli Eurto. Love her work. She has a great jewelry style and is really funny on her blog. Then I also got to meet Heather Powers of Humble Beads.com. Her work is incredible and so eye catching. You gotta check out her new eggs. They look so real! Plus, she had a really cool display. I also had the pleasure of meeting Erin Prais-Hintz of tesoritrovati.com jewelry. She was hanging out at Heather's booth and was really fun to chat with. Go visit her fun blog at treasures-found.blogspot.com. Heather and Erin also are from Art Bead Scene. Which is an awesome blog that you MUST check out. They were all really personable and likeable right off the bat.

I worked really hard this year on making sure that I bought enough of whatever I was buying so that I wouldn't want to not use what I got because then they would be all gone thing. And sure enough, as always... I got back home and thought of all sorts of things I wish I would have bought and other beads I wish I would have bought more of. But it is probably a good thing as a gal has gotta have beads and I ended up pulling out the credit card and now I need to work extra hard to pay off the bill when it arrives. It was worth it though and you can't help but think tax write off. Right?

So, the party had to end and I flew home on Sunday. But not before Joan gifted me with 2 of her buckles and the most beautiful scarf. Joan's buckles rock. You can find them on her etsy store at www.etsy.com/shop/joanlabue.com. I wish we lived closer to each other as we would rock it out. It's 12:30 a.m. here and I'm not proofing reading this thing so please forgive all the typos:-)

June 9th: By the time you see me tonight my hair will be standing on end and I will be frantically making all my last minute details before tucking myself into bed. I'm heading out to Bead and Button tomorrow morning for a devine weekend of girlfriend fun and shopping. I can't remember how many years I've been meeting my girlfriend Joan for this fun adventure. I think this might be my 6th year. It is something I look forward to all year long. Just take a combination of more beads than you can imagine, being able to buy those beads, and having a great friend that likes everything you do and is so much fun to shop with and you have an incredible girls weekend. I would spend a small fortune if I could but I have to be a good girl and buy just the things that shout to me.... "Oh Cassie....you must buy me. I NEED to come home with you. IF you do not buy me, you will be dreaming about me after I'm gone. Don't do that to yourself Cassie. You know you want me. Then I cave and say "Come home with me you cute little bead. I totally need you. Actually I will need at least 6 of you."

The funny thing is that I have special buckets that contain my Bead and Button purchases over the past 3 years that have still not been used. Here is where a confession comes into play. I can be a bead hoarder. If I buy beads where I know I can't get more, I tend to not use them because what happen's if I really like them? Then what will I do? It is totally wigged out. I know. Hubby used to buy me gift certificates for massages which I have always loved. But I let a few of them expire and he swore he would never buy me anymore. (he hasn't either). When he asked me why I wouldn't use them, my reply was that then I wouldn't have them anymore. I liked knowing they were there and that I could get a massage when I wanted one and if used it, then it would be gone.

The big boys are going on a week long Boy Scout camp and they leave on Sunday before I return. So today I've got to get them all packed up, myself all packed and organized, and tidy up bead business.

I'll follow up on this when I return but wanted to give a shout out that I will be listing on Etsy the beads used to make the Slinky Dink necklace that is featured in the latest issue of Step By Step Wire. It has been out on the stands for a few weeks and I haven't had a chance to take pics and get it listed. So stay tuned but here is a pic of what I'm talking about.

June 6th, Finally...a seed is planted and growing.
Over the years we have tried to find activities that the boys like and want to get excited and passionate about. We have done Tae Kwon Do in which they are one belt away from getting their black belt, to soccer over the past years which Connor loves, to piano lessons, to violin lessons, to drum lessons...well you get the picture. If you are a parent, you totally get what I'm saying. Ever since the boys were little, I had them in 1 week of swim lessons every year. That is about it. We spend loads of time at the pool each summer and have noticed that Keegan is a pretty decent swimmer. Connor has great form but not a lot of speed.

This year, Keegan said he was interested in participating on a swim team. YEA! Something he wanted to do on his own. I tried to get Connor interested but he kept saying "no". That is until the night before it started. He decided that he wanted to do it too. I was thrilled. They have a lot of friends on the team and it's a great way for them to socialize and have fun and get some good exercise 5 days a week.

Keegan has found his calling. He is loving swim. And...he is good at it. It makes my eyes smile when I watch him and see his confidence build and his excitement bubble forth. They held time trials today and he beat the kiddo that is supposed to be the best at breast stroke for his age group. It might be beginner's luck but he looks good. Especially since he has never done any of this before. He had a few clinics over the weekend and today to work on his technique.

Sadly, this isn't Connor's cup of tea. At least right now. He just doesn't have the competitive drive in him. It might take time as Keegan didn't either. So of course as the session progresses, Connor will be out done by Keegan and the middle child syndrome will be in full force again. Connor got out done by his 7 year old brother last week that decided he liked some roller coaster type rides which Connor hates. So, I will continue to seek and channel Connor to find something that makes him want to fly.

June 2nd: Wow, I can't believe it is summer break. I still keep pinching myself. We have been going non stop since Friday morning. I usually stay up till 11:30-midnightish and I've been crawling into bed at 9:30 from being so dang tired. The big boys are both doing swim team in the mornings and I've been trying to wake up early to do a quick jog to beat the heat and then after swim, we are in full throttle till bed time. Tomorrow, I am claiming as my own and we are staying home all day!!! We went to Six Flags yesterday and then off again today at Six Flags to do the water park with friends. It is cloudy though and storms are North of us but I think we are gonna me missed.

May 27th: Today my babies hit another milestone. As I woke up the kids this morning I sang that this would be their last day for 1st grade, 5th grade, and 6th grade.

I think today will be one of those happy yet sad days for Connor. He is graduating from elementary school and will move over to middle school next August. He is the sentimental type. He had an incredible 5th grade year. A great class with great kids and a great teacher. We were so proud of Connor as he was one of 2 kids in his class chosen for the "Pride of Pond" award. This is a special award that goes out to kids that have great character. I always say that Connor is the Golden Child for teachers. He is a total rule follower, sweet and caring, and gets awesome grades. He helps make up for the extra hot and spicy character of his older brother Keegan. Keegan rocks and has the funniest personality and is also extremely smart. But he is all about being the class clown and being social. The teachers really like him and say he is a good kid but he is also very outgoing and a bit too social and that leads to a lot of trouble in the classroom.

So on Wednesday...amazingly the weather cooperated. Connor's 5th grade celebration at the outdoor park was a go. I woke up that morning to rain and thunder around 5:30a.m. Tornado warnings were in effect until 8 a.m. But the weather cleared for almost the exact amount of time we needed for the party. I had nothing to do with planning this awesome event and have to give a huge shout out to the mom's that spent all year getting this big event together. Everything was so organized and a total blast for the kids. The day flew by. I hung out at the face painting station and helped to do face paints. The boys always crack me up. Last year, they all wanted red kissing lips. This year, they wanted pink butterflies, and mustaches and facial hair. And I guess Justin Bieber still is high on the list for tween girls and there were girls that had to have Justin Bieber writtin on their arms and 3 girls got together to make a saying with one word on each forehead saying "I LOVE JUSTIN". Although they were saying after the fact that the "I" word should have been "WE".

Each 5th grade class had a t-shirt with a certain color. I loved that idea as it was really easy to keep track of classes and to sort out all the kids that are in Connor's classroom. There were same major games of class against class tug of wars. That is always a huge highlight. And a great show by Juggler Jeff. He really worked the kids well and was very entertaining. He juggled standing on a ball and even had one of the teacher's strap him into a straight jacket and then while standing on this big ball and having a student count to 60 while he escaped from it. Great food was catered in by our local famous Callier's Deli and you can't forget the karaoke machine that was on fire that day and a snow cone machine. Oops...just saw that I repeated a photo twice. Oh well.

So today is field day up at school where they all play outside and do organized stations. I'm getting ready to head up their shortly. I made 3 bracelets yesterday for teachers and gotta go see if I need to do any resizing. I made a few dangle bracelets with the Tantalizing Tangerine Beads that I had for sale on Etsy. Wish I would have taken pictures. They turned out really cute. But it was about 10:30 last night and I just wanted to get them wrapped up and inside the kids backpacks.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend and sending out a huge shout of thanks to all of those and their families that are and have served in the military.

May 26th: Oh my gosh, it feels like winter again here. Of course I sent the kids to school in shorts and a t-shirt and it is raining and 50 degrees outside. I even turned on the gas fireplace for a bit to warm the house up. It is supposed to be 90 degrees this weekend. Typical St. Louis weather for ya.

FINALLY, Etsy made some good changes to their listings and it makes it way faster to add new items now. If you are listing similiar items, there is a "copy" link now and it will start a new listing and you can just go in and change what you need. Huge time saver and it made it easy enough for me to post some toggles, bead caps, and a set of discs over. So they are available now. These are way too much fun!!!

May 25th: Two days! Yes, only 2 days left until the kids get out of school. So I'm very excited about summer break. I've waited all year for it darn it. But I must admit now that it is almost here, I'm just kind wondering about having the 3 kids home all day all summer. There have been so many school activites during the day and night. I think today was the final commitment. And I have Thursday and Friday to myself. I should do something special. I was thinking of just walking from room to room and enjoying the quiet.

I'm in the middle of watching American Idol and have been posting a few things on Etsy. This way I don't feel so guilty for just sitting around and watching TV. Hubby is downstairs priming the walls. We are getting closer and closer to the final steps of getting the basement finished. I'm sure it will still drag out a few more months. But we bought paint this past weekend. Got a few flooring samples for my workshop and I even ordered a few samples of grass wallpaper that I want to put on one of the walls in the workshop.

So over the weekend, I tried my hand at etching some copper and brass sheet. It was a fun experiment.

So I tuned the sheets into some toggles. They are gonna be listed over on Etsy. I've got one set on there now and the others will follow shortly.

All right, American Idol is dragging on. There are still 30 min. left. Let's getter done already!

May 17th: Just a few quick moments between the kids school activites. It's a busy day and night with hubby and I taking the kids in seperate directions tonight. I'm in shock that school is out for the summer next week. It doesn't feel like almost summer. It has been cool today.

I kind of stumbled on a fun ring design last night. It is big but I love it. During Bead Fest Wire 2010, I had taken a 1" copper disc to use as a demo soldering on a silver band. It has just been sitting on a shelf and for whatever reason, I grabbed this ring and I had a big hole bead sitting on my desk. Next think you know, I was epoxying the beads onto the ring. Lucky me, I happened to make the class demo ring in my size:-). These are too cool though and I will offer them up for sale on my Etsy store.

May 16th: Did you notice? I updated my homepage and blog and Etsy Banners. And have new business cards on order. I was just feeling like I needed to update my image a bit. Wanted to be more urban and edgy. I loved the boots photo on my home page. It has nothing to do with beads or jewelry but I wanted to figure out a way to use it. Keegan came strolling into the kitchen wearing hubby's boots. Not sure what inspired him to put them on but I thought they would make a cute photo with his skinny legs. While he was talking on the phone to a girl, I grabbed him by the wrist and made him go outside in the misting rain for pictures. He hated every second of it and that made the pic more fun.

I've got goodies that I will be listing over on my Etsy store over the next few days. This copper flower bezel is one of them.

May14th: We had a fun adventure tonight. It was cold and rainy all day and come dinner time, we were hungry and I wanted to go out for a bite. Hmmmm...but where to go. We are tired of all our cheap standard choices. Hubby came up with the idea to drive out to Youth City to eat at Fitz's restaurant. They are a soda bottling company and are popular for their root beer. It's cool because the restaurant has a viewing window and you can see them bottling the soda. Tonight they were making grape soda. We had about a 25 min wait and hung out at the observation window. Then along came a guy carrying a case of grape soda bottles. He was handing them out to everyone standing around. I must say that I was very impressed. He said to not drink them for a couple of days to let the favor set in. When we got home, the boys promptly grabbed a marker and put their name on their bottle and stuck it in the fridge. I helped Caiden write his name on his bottle and he told me I wrote the letters too small and needed to make them bigger.

This is the beginning of the assembly line. The glass bottles were just washed and there is water and soap bubbles lingering on the floor. The filling process begins here where the soda is filled in each bottle. The color is a very pale lavendar at the top and you can see a glob at the bottom of the bottle. As it works its way around the belt, each bottle gets turned upside down to mix the ingredients and then it is a nice bright looking grape soda.

Then each bottle gets capped, a machine slaps a sticker on the bottle, and at the end of the belt, you can see the worker boxing up the bottles.

Here are the boys with their gifted soda. The pics were all taken on my phone so they aren't the best quality.

We were starving as no one had lunch and lets just say dinner was devine. We all scarfed. And dinner wouldn't be complete without sharing a few infamous rootbeer floats.

So I posted this on Facebook but I haven't gotten around to doing it here yet. Bead Star 2011 is up and going. I've got jewels in the "Glass" category and the "Hearts" category. They aren't the most unique designs, but I'm thrilled that they were even chosen. Voting is strange this year as you can see the number of votes each piece is getting. Let's just say my entries need a little votin love.

So, if you are a Beading Daily member or wanna join for free, you can vote for Bead Star. If you vote for my jewels. Go over to my Facebook page and post a shout that you voted for my entries. After voting has ended, I'll pick a random winner to get some lampwork beads. Yum!

This is the bracelet that made it into the glass category. It is called Chunky Monkey. I had originally designed this bracelet as a new kit (except it has a different clasp as this one is pricey). I just need to get the beads sorted and write up the directions. Click on the photo to go to the voting page. As I mentioned, you have to register or log into Beading Daily.com in order to vote.

Click here to vote.

This is the necklace in the "Hearts" section. It is titled Chain of Hearts. Click here to vote.

May 8th: Happy Mother's Day to all of my fellow mothers. I hope it was a joyful day chocked full of relaxation as that is the one thing that there never seems to be enough of. I know I had my fair share today and just closed my eyes to the 400 things that need my attention. I'm so blessed to be a mother to 3 wonderful boys. I can safely say that there is never a dull moment in our house and that my life is chocked full of excitement and even frustration as these boys are growing up and trying to spread their wings. At the end of the day though, I can't think of a better life than being a wife and a mother. I must give a shout out to my mother as she is truly a saint. Her love, kindness, dedication, generousity constantly flow. The older I grow (yuck!) the more I realize everyday what an incredible person she is. She is the perfect role model that I often say I don't even try to compete with because she is untouchable.

So the big reveal for Caiden's motorcycle happened on Friday night. Randy had it all set up and in the garage. He told Caiden they were going to ride bicycles. Then when Caiden got in the garage his eyes just lit up in surprise. So we got him all padded up with elbow and knee pads, Randy gave him lessons on how to ride, and off he went.

Within 15 min. Caiden was getting pretty cocky and Randy had to give him the lecture to slow down and take it easy.

The big boys rode their bicyles during it all and Connor had to give it a quick ride for old times sake. Then Keegan told me that his friend Eric who had bought Connor's old dirt bike at our garage sale years ago still had it in his basement. Darn it. If I would have known that, I would have talked Eric into selling it back to us.

The weather has been just beautiful these past few days. Dobby hung outside with us the whole time and enjoyed some fun games too.

May 6th: This week has totally flown by. I can't even tell you off the top of my head what I did each day. It has been a tad cool but the sun has been shining today and it is Friday. I love the weekends! Maybe, just maybe, I can entice hubby to go downstairs and work on sanding the dry wall in my workshop. We are so close that I can taste it but as luck would have it, the weather has turned nice and hubby's attention has turned to outdoor yardwork and lots of bike rides with the kids. Caiden has turned into an expert bicycle rider. He had it in his head that he wanted a power motorcycle. Has been begging for one. And, hubby's tactic is to say you can't have one until you are able to ride a bicycle. That is all it took and I think after about 3 days of learning to ride, he was off on a 3 mile bike ride with hubby and the other boys. I was amazed.

I feel like I'm in a time capsule as this exact same scenerio was played out when Connor was around 5 years old. It started with begging for a motorcycle and being told you gotta ride a bike first. Connor got that motorcycle and loved it. Now flash foward 6 years and the adventure is about to begin again. I have a feeling that tonight will be the big reveal for Caiden. Hubby put the motorcycle together a few nights ago and it is hiding in the garage under a blanket right next to the Harley. I can't wait to watch his face and as a mother, I'll just keep my fingers crossed tightly that he won't have any big crashes.

I've been trying to get back to squeezing in some time to work on updating my website the rest of the way. I'm focusing on the Bead Galleries right now and have page 1 finished and updated. No new photos but I've lowered the prices on some of the sets and the big thing is that I have added shopping carts to just order individual beads from each bead set. It is a huge time zapper but is coming along. After I get that done, I want to add new bead sets into the "small bead sets" link as that hasn't been touched yet. But since I haven't been able to find myself my very own mini me, it is just me and only me trying to juggle it all and I can only let laundry go so long before I start grabbing the kids dirty socks out of the laundry basket to wear as I haven't had a chance to wash them yet (insert sheepish grin here).

I made another bracelet header. Now I better drag myself off of this computer and go make some beads!

May 5th: You can tell it is getting towards the end of the school year. All sorts of field trips are being squeezed in. The kids are getting more wild and I'm getting more nervous wondering what the heck I'm gonna do with these kids all summer! I must admit that I love the lazy mornings. Although, I think Keegan is interested in doing swim team which starts at 9:45. Late enough for me to not have any problems about doing it but any earlier and I would be balking.

I was gonna sit down and be chatty but now it is 10:30p.m. and the long day is catching up with me and I've been running all evening between swim lessons for Caiden which is interesting all by itself and then a meeting for Connor's 5th class trip to the Smokey Mountains that will be in a few weeks. My baby will be gone for 4 days. He is gonna have a blast and it will be a great experience for him. It will get him preped for the week long boy scout camp this summer. Better him then me. I'm too old and spoiled to even contemplate sleeping in a tent for a week.

Here are a few pics of the Kick the Can bracelet for Bead Fest Texas class. It is always helpful to get another perspective on how the jewels look being worn. Makes ya want one doesn't it?

May 4th: I got to spend a fun day with my 2 nieces and nephew today. The youngest is 3 years old and you forget how entertaining a 3 year old can be. She is so funny. And I was surprised to see that I was even able to pull off finishing up a bracelet and packed up about 5 beady things to mail.

So guess what. I'm back on the teaching track again. It looks like I'm going to be teaching at Bead Fest Texas now. Yippee!! Registration is now open. They had an outside DOS attack on their servers though and it has effected some of the pages. But it looks like all of the classes are available to view and register. Just go to Beadfest.com and click on the Texas event.

I will be teaching 4 classes this time around. The first one will be a repeat from Bead Fest Wire 2010 of the Summer Garden bracelet that covers fusing fine silver with a butane torch.

If you want to learn some soldering/metal smithing techniques, then the Whimsical Bezels class is right up your ally. We will be making silver and copper bezels filled with glass.

Then the other 2 classes will be the bracelets that I wrote about on the April 17th post. I'm really excited to teach these classes. The Overindulgence bracelet is chocked full with all sorts of learning techniques. From sawing with a jewelers saw, to using metalsmithing techniques to solder, to doming, stamping, wire working, and even making my tangy toggles. You will walk away with a boat load of information. Plus, you get to pick your color choice for making the bracelet.

The 4th class is the Kick the Can bracelet. This is a very yummy bracelet. It is a fun wire working class that includes making fine silver head pins with a butane torch, doming, making a patina finish and working with lampwork head pins and some awesome big hole lampwork beads. Plus, you get to choose your color choice. SCORE!

Gosh, I would love to have some of you guys in the class. Give me a shout if you register or just have any questions about any of the classes. We will have lots of fun as they are mostly interactive classes with soldering stations set up. You won't be bored!