Cassie Donlen: Lampwork Beads, Lampworking, Glass Beads, Jewelry and Supplies

This is the September 2010 Archive Page

SEPT. 23: A new set of bezels that I recently listed on Etsy . As the Pokemon saying goes "Gotta catch them all"!

So Caiden had his first pack meeting last night and was inducted into Scouts. Icky Sticky Paint and all. Each color signifies something. Like the blue represents the sky etc... He was very happy to wear his uniform and Randy is very excited to have 5 more years of camping, mud, and mosquitos on his to do list:-)

Sept. 22: Oops, looks like I jumped the gun. TODAY is the first lovely day of Fall. And it feels more like fall than yesterday did. Rainy and still warm but not hot. I've got cookies baking in the oven, posted a new pair of earrings over on Etsy , updating the blog page while Etsy photos load, yep... I'm trying to climb Mount Everest today. But since it is already noon, I better get my bum in gear! Here are the new earrings I designed yesterday and can ya believe it? I didn't put a lampwork bead in the design and I'm loving them all the same!!

I had an unexpected visitor show up on our front porch a few nights ago. For those that follow the Twilight movies, I won't need to tell you whom this fella is. I gotta hand it to two of my girlfriends, they totally got me. Yesterday morning, Randy found Jacob standing on our front porch looking inside the door. If that wasn't funny enough...he had no clue who he was or what he was doing on our porch. He asked our 12 year old Keegan who replied "it's that retard from Twilight". I know, I did the breathe in take too. So Randy remembers that I've gone to see all the movies with these girls and figures it must be from them. So what does he do? He places the dude (who is 6 feet tall I might add!) in our bedroom. It is still dark outside and I'm still in bed. I'm all groggy eyed and open my eyes squinting trying to figure out what the heck is standing in our room. As soon as I figure it out, I bust out laughing. By the time Randy opens up the bathroom door and says "Care to explain?" I'm crying from laughing to hard. It was a great surprise and if only every day you could wake up to laughter and tears. Wouldn't life be just grand then?

So my buddy Ilyse met me yesterday morning for a run and we took Jacob with us. Or at least wrapped a towel around his neck and made him do a quick jog down the street. He is so tall that we had to stand on our tippy toes to get in the pic with him.

Sept 21: Happy first day of Fall. It got up into the low 90's yesterday and I actually found myself thinking that I can't wait until it cools back down a tad.

So today is kind of a fun day. People that have been hanging out with me for a bit might remember that my friend Kerry Bogert wrote a book on jewelry design titled "Totally Twisted". I was fortunate enough to be able to contribute some of my lampwork beads for her Bang Gals project in the book (Which by the way is really an awesome book. You can buy signed copies on her website).

So Kerry started doing "Totally Twisted Tuesdays" on her blog. On these days, she focuses on various items that relate to her book. And, she is making it a point to post interviews with all of the contributing artists for Totally Twisted. So today I have the pleasure of being interviewed on her Totally Twisted Tuesdays blog post. So hop over to her blog. (just click on the word "blog") and you will see my answers to the questions she asked me. I hope you will enjoy reading how I got my start into the beading world.

And.... we are doing a give away over there. Just post a comment at the end of her post and a random winner will receive a duplicate of my favorite everyday necklace pictured below. If you aren't the lucky winner but really want one of these necklaces, then you can buy one off of my Etsy store.

And....I also offered another deal to Kerry's readers with a discount on my glassbeadle website. So hop over there to see the simple thing you need to do in order to get a discount over here.

Sept. 19th: Hope everyone had a great weekend. We ended up having storms all last night. Randy and the big boys went on a Boy Scouts camp out and they totally scored as they ended up just being on the edge of the storm. I was so excited to be able to sleep in this morning but the darn phone rang twice at 6:30 a.m. and woke me up. I didn't recognize the phone number and thought about dialing back to give them a piece of my mind for waking me up on the only day I had to sleep in but it sounded like too much work.

So I posted a video on my facebook page (under "glassbeadle") on how I take my jewelry and bead photos on a white background. The video is very basic and I just used my other Sony camera that has a video option to do it. So I'm taking photos with one hand and video with the other hand. Needless to say it isn't professional quality but has some good tips in it. I made a second video on how I take photos with a brown background that also covers a few more points on photography. I need to upload it yet.

So if you want to see the video, head over to my facebook page. (click on the blue facebook icon on the upper left side of this news page). I need to get hubby to upload it to youtube because I don't know what account he uses for my videos.

Caiden and I were on our own for 24 hours. It was a fun time. We went to some garage sales on Saturday morning (since we had gotten up at 6:30 a.m. to see the boys off for camping), went to the Scout shop to get his new Cub Scout uniform, and of course a trip to the toy store was in order in the evening. He didn't want his pic taken in the photos below.

Sept. 17th: Fresh hot beads. Find them over at Etsy for $60. Sold. Thanks Meghan!

Sept. 16th: Well, I had been sitting on these for a bit because one of them will be a birthday present for my mom in a few weeks. So close your eyes mother or just pretend to be surprised. Actually, I guess this way she could choose which one she would like. I'm leaning towards the green one but I know she is getting tired of green. I'm not loving putting the blue one on the bracelet. I made it with 2 loops so that I could wire wrap it up into a fun design but ran out of steam. I think I might just put it on a silver chain for a necklace. I think I will keep one for me and make up a few more to sell. I want to make some earrings too.

Feeling the chill in the cool morning air, having Caiden getting excited about Fall and even making me check the calendar to see the exact date that Fall begins, is bringing on changes and the thoughts of new adventures and excitement. Summer is truly my favorite season. I really do enjoy Fall but it is difficult because I know that every day is one day closer to winter and the thought of dark cold mornings, school dragging on, and it getting dark at 5 p.m. can be a challenging thought. So I will make sure to enjoy these mighty fine days.

Yesterday was one of those days. I think we ended up with about 35-40 kids that joined us all at the park. There were games of kick ball, tree climbing, acorn throwing fights (that I was convinced was going to end up in an eye poked out!), walks on the trails, and some good hearted art drawing competitions with the winner of eaching drawing challenge ending up with a quarter. The girls loved that one. Bless my fab mother that even brought up my niece to join in on the fun. It was so cute to see all of the girls flock around my mom just like my kids and my brother's kids do. As a matter of fact, all kids seem to adore my mother. And that is because she is fantastic. No other words needed.

So here is a pic of my niece. Her and Connor, my middle child, are just a few months apart in age. She is so cute and like Keegan, is starting to get into fashion and wanting to wear fun clothes. I love her hat and you can just see how her darling personality shines through in the photo.

Sept. 15th: Oh happy Wednesday. The kids have a half day today and there is going to be a crazy fun afternoon in the works. Most of the moms in our large morning monthly Panara Bread Co outings are bringing their kids, the kids friends, neighbors etc to the park for games of kick ball, wiffle ball, soccer, and whatever else they come up with. I'm sure they will have a blast and I'm sure us mom's will have a blast hanging out and getting a good fix of girl time too. Now that we all have middle schoolers, we are on top of comparing notes and seeing who is texting who. Which child likes which child (yes... I'm sad to say the boys and girls are all getting crushes on each other now) It is our mission to keep on top of this and see what is going on by comparing notes and text messages to keep it all up front and open. Little do these cute little boys know that yes, mothers really do have eyes in the back of their heads and mental telepathy. They just don't know how we do it.

So it looks like the latest issue of Step By Step Wire magazine is hitting the stands (Oct./Nov. 2010 issue). I've got an article in their featuring how to make the bracelet below which I ended up calling Floral Strainer Braclet because when I showed hubby the silver discs, he said they looked just like a strainer. I had to agree with him.

This issue focused on crystals. So this there is a lack of lampwork beads since the editor was wanting mostly wirework and crystals. I couldn't resist adding a few lampwork beads so there are 2 tiny spacers. I guess that doesn't really count for much though. The actual bracelet featured in the magazine is listed over on Etsy for sale.

Sept. 11: Well, I made a commitment to myself to work on updating my website. It's gonna be a long and slow process but will get done in due time. So bit by bit over the next few months, I hope to get it all updated with new goodies and a fresh coat of paint. Did you notice my home page? I think I'm digging it!

It was a good day. My mom makes the bestest ever chicken and dumplings. She learned from her mom and these were always something that I wanted to learn how to make. We celebrated my brother's birthday tonight at my parents and I arrived early so I could learn exactly how she makes these fine pieces of art. Connor and Caiden had fun learning to make dumplings also. I must say they tasted incredible and I'm already planning to have them for breakfast tomorrow.

When I was going thru photos, I found the photo of necklace that I had made earlier for a really swell mom for her daughter's Sweet Sixteen birthday. The swell Mrs. R wanted a necklace like the one that I wear just about every day and wanted to incorporate the words "Sweet Sixteen" somewhere within the design. So this was what I came up with. Kind of a hidden message that won't grow old with time.

Sept. 10th: Why is it that lately that I've been finding strange things in my freezer? For some reason the boys are on this kick to see what happens to toys they put in there. I guess they haven't realized that they just get cold. Last night I found a Star Wars Figure in there and a few days ago I found a rubber ear that came from this toy pack that had different body parts in it. Oh... I guess I should mention there is a nose on my kitchen ceiling that Keegan threw up there. You know those sticky toys that you throw and stick. I kept hoping it would fall down on its own but that doesn't appear to be the case.

Hmmmm... maybe I should break out my handy dandy man in a box to rescue the nose. I found this dude at a garage sale a few weeks ago and just had to crack up because he comes with all these fire fighting clothes and equipment but check out his shoes! Isn't that funny? He also has business man shoes. He is the jack of all trades!

Sept 8: Not a good day for computers. It is always somethin I guess. A few days ago our main desktop computer (which is basically my hubbies computer but he won't admit to that) died. I guess that is okay because it was about 6 years old and led a good life. So my Apple hater hubby agreed to my pleas and arm shakings to get a 27" BEATIFUL iMac. Well, it stayed up for about 5 hours before it was decided that it was going back to the store. We can't run any of our windows software with the biggest being my Adobe photoshop and Adobe Illustrator because we have the windows version. It would cost a small fortune to rebuy these for a mac computer so for now, it just isn't going to happen. I was crushed. Especially since the dude (who said on his name tag that he is a Mac Specialist) told us Adobe would work.

In the mean time, hubby backed up my computer last night and now my photoshop isn't working right and I'm ready to pull my hair out. Plus I've been whining for the past year that it takes about 15-25 seconds to open up one photo on my computer. I've painfully dealt with this fact and it is a MAJOR pain. My Mom wanted to see our Disney photos but they are all on my computer and I told her we couldn't look at them because it takes 30 seconds to open up one photo.

So today I'm calling hubby at work all upset because now, my edited photos will not even open. Adobe says there is a system error. After a Google search, hubby found one guy that had a similar problem. And I'm totally cracking up on the solution. Apparently it is the printer that is messing up Adobe. So I now have no printer but my computer runs like a brand new computer and photos open up in one second. I'm sitting here amazed and frankly relieved because now my time will be even more productive as I don't have to sit and wallow waiting for one photo to open. It feels like I'm 6 years old and it's Christmas time!!!

Oh, I also failed to mention that something went wrong with every single photo over at www.ticklemebeads.com yesterday. Not sure how a file got corrupted but my fab hubby got that figured out today too. So I must say that he is a hero in my eyes today. But lets see what he can do for me tomorrow:-)

Connor's 5th grade class had the opportunity to sing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" at the 7th inning stretch at the cards game this last Friday night. He was so excited and it was a beautiful night. Isn't this an incredible view of the Arch and downtown St. Louis?

And I listed a few new goodies over at I listed over on Etsy.

Sept 1st: Sigh...good bye summer. I will miss you. Hello September and you can stop right there. Do not go any further. Please don't turn into winter.

Well, I guess there are is still time to play and enjoy cooler rainy days. Both of the big boys got new next size up bicycles this week and we reached a turning point with Caiden as he decided he was ready to take off his training wheels on his bike last night. Which is a big deal considering you would have to force him to even ride his bike! I guess Mia down the street and Caiden were on the same wave lengths and they both did this within one day of each other. So they were out last night giving it a go. I'm too much of a mother and hoover just 1" away. Randy does great and just kind of holds him by the shoulder and grabs when necessary. He will learn much faster with him than me.

I made sure to tell Caiden the story of when I was learning how to ride a bike. I remember distinctly falling often and even running into a tree and being so mad at my dad for letting me hit it! But I survived the ordeal and to get back at him, I've had my bike stored in his garage for the last 14 years. I guess you figured out that I don't ride it anymore. Hmmmm... I guess it is almost an antique now.

And Keegan claims that he is too old to play with bubbles and was very upset when I told him I was going to take their picture with bubbles. BUT... who do you think took possession of the bubble machine and would not share with the other boys until forced to hand it over. Yep...you got it. But maybe that was only to torture his brothers. I'll have to ponder that thought.

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