Horay for presents!

Look what I got from my friend Ronnie! He always picks such wonderful gifts!

Head phones and turn table pillow cases! Now I can listen to phat beats in my sleep! :D

If you don't already know I am OBSESSED with anything Cheshire catish! My friend Ronnie thought this was a fleecy throw, but I guess it's like a wrap or something? It has strings on either corner of the top and at the end it has poof balls. I guess you tie them? Pretty sweet huh?! I love the print on it :DRicky(the hubby) and I went over to Ronnie and Martin's tonight to get our gifts before we went on vacation.
I wish I had a picture of the front of Martin's house. It was so beautiful when we pulled up. They had lights around all of the trees in their front yard, those light up reindeer, and these really pretty snowflake lights that hung in the point of their roof. Soo pretty. When you came inside they had a huge tree lit with lots of pretty round glass ornaments and the mantle was decorated with garland and lights. It was very nice to sit in their front room and engage in nice conversation. I told him we needed to have a party next year so all of us could get together and share food, wine and good company :D

I hope everyone has a blessed holiday and that they are able to share it with people they love.

Much love,

Genea

Where the *MAGIC* happens

LOL. I always think it's funny when stars say that when they show off their houses on MTV's Cribs, but I guess it's appropriate for my entry. There was a thread on LE(Lampwork Etc.)
showing everyone's studio. I really enjoy seeing peoples work spaces. I don't think you can view this thread unless you have a login so I will just move my post to here so everyone can read it :D

Here is my downstairs studio where my glass and torch are.

To my right is my Bullseye glass. It sits away from my other stash since it's not compatible.
On my left is my kiln and glass stash for ready to use glass rods. The rest of my stock is in a shelf across the basement.
This is one of my favorite boxes of glass. This glass contains ALL of my odd lot rods :D
In this pic from left to right you can see my Moretti warm colors, Moretti cool colors, Moretti neutrals, the rods sticking up out of that box are Lauscha and Kugler. the last box with the vase with purple rods in it has my odd lots from the first pic under it. I was going through my stash and making sure that I have 1 of every rod in my vases to use for beads. Why have all that glass and not have it where I can use it?
Here you can see my Creation is Messy CiM shorts, regular rods(they don't look as pretty since I kept them in their paper wrapper so they wouldn't get all scratched), and my Vetrofond.
Ok if you go up the basement steps it takes you to my second studio(this was actually the second bedroom, but my hubby let me use it for my jewelry studio :D). Here you can see my super awesome flower light and my rockin pop art turn tables pic :D The other brightly colored things are rave posters:D

If you walk straight from the door you will run into my computer table where I am sitting right now writing this blog:D You can see my inspiration board with some beads on it from
Corina Tettinger

MicheleGoldstein

Stephanie Sersich

and Dustin Tabor



Just behind where I am sitting is my bead table and bead stash :D
That is all for my bead tour of my studios. I hope you enjoyed seeing "Where the magic happens." LOL

I think it's time for me to get my butt downstairs and make some beads!

Much love,

Genea

Ugh.. I should have known!

*****CAUTION! YOU ARE ABOUT TO ENTER A RANT*****

So I had such an easy time with my tags you know it had to be a total PITA to make address labels. I figured since I had some address labels floating around that I could try making some Genea Beads address labels. All I wanted was the GB logo and my address. Simple right? Uh.. NO.. So unfortunately for some reason you can't use the same Avery templates in Publisher that you use in Word. Seems pretty stupid right? Yeah, I thought so too. So the newest version of Word is so technical compared to Publisher. I sat here for literally HOURS trying to get the damn labels to work. I even downloaded this Avery Wizard that has all of the templates in it. I opened the wizard, put in my text and pic and then it loaded the multiple images on the page for printing and for some reason EVERY time I tried to print it it told my alignment was messed up! How the hell does the alignment get messed up when I used the exact template and Avery wizard to load everything?! UH! Seriously! There should be no messing up here, but NO it had to be difficult. It probably doesn't help that I need a new ink cartridge either! Why the hell isn't there just an option for it to just fix the alignment problem if it's not right? Grrr.... I did manage to print 2 pages of labels that look pretty cute except the GB logo is cut off a little on the left side. You can still read the GB and all of my info so it's not a total loss, but it's still pretty lame it didn't work out like it was supposed to!
*****END RANT*****
On another note my little mishap pretty much fried me out for later. It took me until like 5:30pm to finally get in gear to make beads. I made a replacement bead for my sis' cell charm, a few test bead lentils in the new odd lot Vetrofond I got, and actually made some round beads! It has seriously been forever since I have made round beads! I have pretty much been stuck doing holiday stuff with just a few different beads inbetween. I think it kinda fried me out. I decided I will just have to skip Valentine's day beads to just make some round stuff and non holiday beads.

Getting back to my test lentils. I thought of this brilliant idea awhile back.. So this was my ingenious idea I got in the shower( I usually get good ideas in the shower. I think it's cause I am relaxed )... Ok so I was going to make a plain lentil out of every glass I own since it would cost me a small fortune to make a glass shelf to hold it all. Each lentil would be placed in those crystal clear 1x 1 1/2" bag and labelled with it's manufacturer, name and number. Each bag would then get a sticky velcro put on the back and then be attached to a covered board. Each bag would then be placed on the velcroed spots on the board. This would allow me to see all of my glass at once and it would help me choose colors better. Since the glass has been worked and pressed it will give me a good idea of how it will look after being melted. Those of us that lampwork know that you can't judge a rod by it's unmelted color. You might be very shocked that some rods look completely different when melted and manipulated. Anyways... the velcro would also allow me to remove the baggies from the board and lay them side by side to see how colors look together. Pretty sweet idea huh? I just started my first lentils tonight. I thought since I wanted to see what my new glass looked like I would start with my new colors. I will take a picture when I have actually completed my mission so that you can celebrate with me ;) This MIGHT be awhile...

So I am totally NOT one of those people that like to have projects that have no end in sight, but I really think this will help me when I don't know what colors to use. When I normally sit down without a plan I just stare blankly at my jars of rods and can't decide which colors to use. I ALWAYS tend to gravitate towards Lime Green, Coral, and Dark Periwinkle ;)

Well I suppose I should get off of the computer. According to this article on Yahoo you are not supposed to spend the last hour you are awake in front of a TV or Computer because of the waves they emit. I guess they disrupt your sleep patterns ;)

Nighty night...

Made contact

Ok so I finally got a hold of Linda @ Bead & Button. I guess they are just now compiling lists for this years show. When we were on the phone she said she remembered I was very interested last year and that I am very interested this year. LOL yeah, pretty sure that is her nice way of telling me I call her too f*ing much. You know the squeaky wheel gets the grease! ;) So she continued to tell me that she would know more after the first week in January and to call her then. Girl, you KNOW I will! I AM getting into that show! If it's not this year again than it will be the next. Me getting into Bead & Button is like that ground breaking moment when I know I have "made it" yanno?

I am getting a better response on Etsy finally as well. I haven't sold more, but I have made more contacts and that is really exciting. I will be stocking some $50 and under items at a local shop called "Oh Wow,"

Check my style

Incase you are wondering about the title? When I was thinking of the new style of my tags it reminded me of a sick track by Freaky Flow on "The Envy." On the track it says "Check my style" with a super dirty bass line >:D Yum!

Anyways.... Check my style ;D Aren't my new tags even more amazing than the first ones?!

My friend Nicole of Parigo Studios designed the logo for me. You have probably noticed it is the same logo as my banner at the top of the page. I decided I needed to redesign my tags and use this super awesome logo! You can't really read it in the picture but in black at the top of the GB it says "genea.etsy.com" and it says "Genea" in the White "G" and "Beads" in the Limey Ocher "B". It looks AWESOME! As you can see I also made it into stickers so that I could put the new logo on my Chinese take-out boxes when I sell my items :D I can't wait until I can place a huge order with Papermart and actually order shipping boxes that will be just large enough to ship the Chinese take-out boxes :D Editing the design took me about 2 hours to get the text large enough to read. My tags are only 1x1"!

I would like to thank all of you out there that have encouraged and supported me. I could not be doing this right now without you!

Much love,

Genea

Awww yeah!

Yep! I got my hair cut! My sis got me this super fantastic salon hair cut at a silent auction for her store :DThe angle shot.The regular shot.Here is a shot from the side so you can see the angled hair. Yes, I know... I have a big nose. Shut up! ;)

Ahhh! I hate it when blogspot does that dumb crap where it underlines my text and then puts my pics all out of order... Grrr

Anyways, you get the idea.

OMG! Guess what else? We(the hubby and me) FINALLY got new phones!! I finally got my LG Rumor I wanted in LIME GREEN :D:D:D


Isn't it SOOO CUTE?! OMG! I even have my screen saver set to the sweet tropical scene with an ocean view, huts, and palmtrees :D They also have different options for skins and mine is set to the tropical one that is like orchid, pink, orange and yellow like a sunset! :D *dies*

Well I need to get going. We are going to get some Taco Johns for dinner! I am so exctied they have one by us. We had one close by when we lived in Colorado.

Have a great weekend!

Much love,

Genea

Ringy Dingy

HORAY! My phone is back on! So if any of you need to get a hold of me you can call my cell again :D

Ok so news... I have a few things coming up. I have been in a jewelry making mood lately. I feel kinda bad because I have not made beads to sell :( I want to make a few more jewelry type things for my Etsy and then some for a new shop where I will be selling my things locally. I have a $30 limit for my prices for that shop so I will have to be creative when making things to fit in that range. I think it will be a good challenge. I think most people can afford something $30 and under especially with the declining economy.

I suppose that is all for now...

Have a wonderful day!

Much love,

Genea

Presenting my NEW "Heart Burst" designs!

Ok so I have been off on a creating adventure! I came up with a new design for some pendants and rings when trying to come up with a gift for a friend. I wanted to show you all of them when I was done making everything, but I was so excited I will just show you what I have so far :D My creative adventures like to be lime green since it's my favorite color! If you can't read this highlight it with your mouse and it will change it to something readable :D

I would like to present my "Heart Burst" rings and pendants. I will be offering these on my Etsy page as soon as I photograph all of them :D The yellow ring "Canary" is already listed.

Here is a group shot of all of the rings I have made thus far.
Here you can see the pendants side by side. This pic was taken w/o a flash so you can better see the color of the purple. It photographs really brown/black so by the shadow you can see how pinky and rich the purple really is. I made the yellow pendant first and thought that it had too much fringe for the design I had in my head so on the purple pendant I simplified the design to using just rounds. My very last design is the one that fits my original idea best(I will post that one later). Pretty sweet huh?!
Here you can see the pendants together with the flash. I am not sure why this text is underlined, but whatever! See how the purple looks almost black? You will also notice that on the pendants I decided to leave a blank spot where a dot could go at the bottom point of the heart. I left this area blank to leave room for the cords that attach the dangles. Here you can see the original ring design. The only difference is that in the next rings I have only used 3 pieces of cording instead of the normal 4. I wanted the bunch of cords that come through the spacers top to not be so crowded.

It's finally snowing here. I am enjoying watching the snow fall from my studio window :) I made some of Nana's yummy potato and dumpling soup for dinner last night and I can't wait to have another bowl for lunch :D


Ok so it might not look totally appealing in the pic, but it's totally DELICIOUS! The color is from using sour cream and paprika. If you all are interested I will post the recipe for you :D

Well I am going to get going. I need to have some yummy dumpling soup for lunch and work on some more Heart Burst rings and pendants :D

Have a wonderful day!

Much love,

Genea

More Christmas presents!

Ok so this one is MINE :D So I guess it's a Christmas present to me :D These beads were inspired by Sarah Moran's amazing beads. It is entitled " Eye love fire". Why? Well I love eyes and fire so why the hell not?! :D

This one was fun to make. It features all of the little snow people faces I make :D

This was probably the best picture I took out of all of them. The purple is CiM's Simply Berry. It is such a beautiful purple. It is kind of like an amethyst, but it's a little more pinkish. I was really excited about this ring. I made it in the same style as my "Crazy Daisy" rings that are up on my Etsy page. I made a few extras and I think I will make them into rings like this and offer them on Etsy soon.

Speaking of Etsy. It turns out I have been creating lately and I do infact have more items to add to my shop. LOL. I went to type add and typed "ass"! LMAO Isn't it funny when your brain does funny things like that? I always end up typing "party" when I mean to type part. LOL.

*ahem* Anyways... So yeah, I will have some more things going up on Etsy.

I am all scatterbrained tonight. The beads I made today took me freakin forever and they are the ones where you stick them in the kiln and aren't really sure if you like them or not. *shrug* guess I will see what the kiln fairy brings me tomorrow.

I am totally lazy and don't want to do my hair at the moment so I am contemplating doing the following.. making a heart ring like the above pic, making a crazy daisy ring, uploading goodies to Etsy and being a lazy turd. I guess we will see how this ends up. lol

Ugh... my phone got shut off. I didn't quite get my payment in in time. Boo. I have to use the internet to contact people by e-mail or by text messages from the Sprint website. Where would we be without the internet?!

Um.. yeah, so I guess I am going to go do one of the things listed above..

TTFN

Christmas Presents!

Hey everyone! I thought I would share what I have been working on so far. I can't tell for whom the gifts are(one is an order) so I don't ruin the surprise. I figured it would be better to show you the pic and not tell who's it is instead of telling you about the present and not showing the picture!

Ok here it is....

Here is my first Frosty. I have just been making snow girls and boys with roses, holly, earmuffs and hats so far.

Here is a close up of Santa! I am so pleased with the way he turned out!

Here is my special order for Billie!

Here is the special Christmas gift!

In other news the computer is going to get more surgery tomorrow, but I should be back online the same day. Wish us luck!

As far as beads go I have been working on gifts lately and will continue to do so unless I have some special orders.

I made a new pair of earrings and a pendant that I might list on Etsy if I get my butt in gear.

Tomorrow I am going shopping with my mom for the boys presents. It should be fun. I do wish I was out buying gifts for all of my lovies out there, but I am waiting to get some stupid bill stuff paid first. Time to pay personal property tax and get my car all legal again :( Boo! I mean seriously... Why should you have to pay pptax and all have your plates expire in December of all months? >:( Grrr...

Anywho... I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that everyone is enjoying the beginning of the Christmas hussle and bussle!

Much love,

Genea

Almost fixed

Ok so the upgrade is in progress. The upgrade for me was from Win 98 to Win XP, which I am told is now going to totally drop off since the now have Vista. I heard Vista sucks so I opted for XP which is more stable. It's such an improvement for me! You wouldn't believe how much faster this thing runs!

Ok so now for the bad news. I have 20 gigs for memory, but somehow the hd is split and it won't all lump into one place. So at the moment I am running on just 5gigs of memory. This means that I have limited access to my pictures and editing things. The good news is that on Sat. Brandon is coming back to try to fix the rest of the problems.

I was happy to report that my computer is connected to the internet and I do have access to my mail and my Etsy business! Horay!

That is about all for now.

Much love,

Genea

UPGRADE IN PROCESS

Hey everyone,

My computer will be down today until Brandon gets be back online. I am getting an UPGRADE! Brandon is a way awesome computer dude so I should be back up later on today so talk with you later. Please call me if you need to get a hold of me!

Thanks!

Much love,

Genea

Candy Sprockets necklace

Hey everyone!

I am finally done with my necklace! Remember awhile back when I posted a pic of the pendant Melissa made for me out of my Wishing Wheels? Well I finally got a chance to make spacers for the rest of the necklace and put it together this afternoon! I am totally going to submit a pic of it for the Soft Flex article I will be in in spring!

Are you ready?.................................................................

TA DA!

Isn't it AMAZING?! I LOVE it! It makes this really cool noise from all of the glass clinking together when you wear it.

Well I guess that is all for now. I'm kinda lazy and just want to spend some quality time with the hubby this weekend.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Much love,

Genea

New stuff on Etsy and news

*WHEW* Christmas beads are DONE and off to their destinations. I am happy to say I am finally done..... well unless people order some more(since they are totally going to sell out!). heheeheh.

I happened to STILL be awake and took this opportunity to add 3 new items to Etsy. You can see the 3 new items on my Etsy widget at the top of my blog :D Ok.. go now... go buy your Christmas presents in my shop :D

Yeah... that is the NEWS.... Geez! What were you expecting? It's seriously 2am and I am WAY past my bedtime... AGAIN! I need to start going to be earlier so I can be prepared for my Christmas break in Colorado where my inlaws wake up WAY TOO EARLY! lol...

ok I need to attempt to sleep so I am not totally groggy tomorrow..

"Good night, my love, to every hour in ever day..." -Smashing Pumpkins

X-mas Goodies!

And more to come....

Waiting...

Oh.. hey there.. You're awake too? Yeah, I'm a night owl anyways so I am usually up this late. I try not to stay up any later than now, but I'm waiting for my beads to come out of the kiln ;) I made a bunch of Christmas beads last night and I was too excited to wait until later this morning. It will probably only be about another 2o mins until they are ready to come out. Oh, don't worry... I will take pictures so you can see them too :) I like sharing :) Well I supposed I should go and try to start winding down for bed.

Good night and sweet dreams...

Much love,

Genea

Who's the CUTEST pumpkin ever?!

Look what mom got Leeloo! It was on sale for $1.00 from Target's Halloween clearance. Isn't she SO CUTE?!



She kept turning when I was trying to get a shot of her face.

Here she is laying down so you can see the whole pumpkin.

LOL! OMG she is SO CUTE! I hate it that there is no setting for dog red eyes. Her fur isn't so wirey either like it looks in the picture. She is totally silky and soft.

On the bead front I am busily making Christmas stuff and orders.

Yes, I am still sick. I have that lingering stupid tickle in the back of my throat and it's driving me crazy! I feel much better though.

Well it's time for bed. See you all later.

Sweet dreams!

Much love,

Genea

Days 3 and 4

Ok so day 3 sucked! I didn't even hardly get out of bed. Thanks to my concoction of pills and rest I was feeling better today.

I still have that lingering sicky feeling, but I can at least function. Since I was mobile I began getting stuff done after taking a look around my tornado swept house. Yes.. I know.. I should still have been resting.. I cleaned house, got the trash together for trash day, and photographed and edited my mom's jewelry for her new Etsy store Goddess Revealed
She is just getting started so I got signed up to photograph her stuff. UGH! It's a process let me tell ya. Thanks again to Lucas, for letting me borrow his camera!

The poor hubby decided to ditch school tonight since the sicky bug has decided to give him a little bite as well. I'm guessing it's probably all of the sick children he is driving to school every day and probably a little bit of my cooties. Poor guy. He pretty much came home from work, ate and crashed out. He is still sleeping from the time he passed out at 6pm. He rarely gets enough sleep working full time and going to school. He really is amazing. He is totally the reason I get to make beads fulltime. I lubs him :D

Anywho... I am TIRED... I am going to get my butt to bed and rest up so I can work on some beads tomorrow. The only bad thing about being sick is all the things you have to catch up on when you are well again..

Day two

Ugh... yeah, I STILL feel like crap. I felt pretty good after getting 10-11 hours of sleep this morning, but towards the middle of the day I started feeling poopy again. OMG I am sure I am going to have a bloody nub where my nose used to be. I filled up half of a small garbage can with tissues when I made beads today! Do you have any idea how hard it is to be making a bead when you have snot dripping down your face? IT SUCKS! My nose is doing that lame ass being stuffed so I can't breathe out of either nostril, but still dripping. LAME! Wa, wa, wa...

Anywho... I just listed some new items on my Etsy page, as in I just left the page to write here real quick like ;)

I have some wintery beads cooking in my kiln and I managed to "glue" my stubbies together and label my rods. I am not near being done, but it's a start. A sick person can only accomplish so much right? I got out of bed didn't I?! ;) I even made beads, listed stuff on Etsy and voted to boot!

Wanna know who I voted for? Yep, Obama/Biden! Go team. Maybe they can make some good changes and fix our faltering economy. One can only hope right?

Well I think this will be all. I feel the need to dry my wet hair and lay down for a bit before catching a movie tonight with my guys :D

I hope you all have managed to dodge the changing seasons colds!

Peace, Love and tissues,

Genea

It's that time of year again

Yep. My least favorite time... the time when I get my first cold of the season. I am pretty sure I managed to contract it from my friends son. Man he totally sounded like crap today too! It's one of those totally sucky ones. I woke up with a really dry throat. It feels like my tonsils are swollen. You get that awful feeling in the back of your throat where it feels like something is stuck back there, but for the life of you, you can't hack it up. Yeah... MEH! Now that it's later in the day I am starting to get that stuffiness in my nose and the inside of my head is all itchy in my ears :( I took an allergy pill to get rid of those pesky antihistamines. I have also taken 1500mg of vitamin C and a b12 vitamin. I got myself some V8 Splash for more vitamin C as well as other great sicky food such as: Plain lay's potato chips for the salt(it makes a scratchy throat oh so nice :)), tomato soup so I could have grilled cheese and tomato soup, mac and cheese and that's about it for now. I was actually contemplating on getting some cough drops. Yes, I KNOW, crazy right?! I HATE cough drops. They all taste like butt! My favs were the just plain mentholyptus ones that Vic's made, but I have not been able to find them ANYWHERE :( I tried drinking some yummy 8 treasures tea Kathy got me from China, but that didn't really help either. God, I HATE being sick! I do whatever I can to escape the evil clutches of pesky bacteria!

Anyways... the reason for my entry (other than whining) was to say that I will be working on X-mas stuff this week pending my cold doesn't leave me bed ridden and useless. I tried to start that today, but ended up being tired and not really creative so I just spent about an hour and a half "gluing" my stubbies to full rods. I will still be working on my latest project of seeing just exactly what is in my jars of lampworking rods, labeling them, and making sure that I have a rod of everything I currently have in stock in my jars for use. It seems those jars have been a very horribly neglected area of my studio :(

Well I guess that is all for now. I am going to try to go find something else to take to make me feel better.

Much love,

Genea

ImpoZters

Ok I am finally ready to show you all what I have been working on... As you might have read earlier I had become totally inspired by Sarah Moran's Beads (Z-Beads).

In case you are wondering about the title... It is "impoZters" because it is my spin on Sarah's beads. the capitol "Z" for "Z-beads". Clever huh? I thought so ;)
I began my adventure of really trying to come up with my spin on her spectacularly executed beads. I totally skipped out on stacking dots long ago because I am a totally impatient person and I worked on a hot head for many years(yeah, Sarah did too and she STILL made those style beads before upgrading) . Now that I finally moved up to my minor I thought it would be time to explore some of the things that I deemed impossible or pretty much too time consuming. Below are those ideas I was telling you about where I jumped out of the shower naked to grab my sketch book!

In red you can see where I wrote notes about how my experiments turned out and what did and didn't work

Wow! Sure is a lot of FAILURE in this type of bead. If you stack just a little off or use a color that decides to spread, man are you in for it! It's a wonder she didn't give up on these beads! I guess her expertise comes from YEARS of practice! Failure is hard for me being a perfectionist. I want to be good at it the FIRST time not the twentymillionth! I kept at these beads for days because I was so pleased at how the "good" ones turned out! OMG! They have so much depth, and texture. Before I show you the "good" ones I will show you the rejects.

You know I realized that people think that lampworkers always make good stuff all the time and I am here to tell ya, we DON'T! LOL. There are sometimes a lot of flops before we get what we want. Ok so I will tell you what is wrong with the beads above...

The eyes on top- Ok as you can see the silver did not particularly like the orange glass and it turned black on the first eye. You can also see where the orange glass didn't strike and where the white "peeked" though.
On the second eye you can see that yellow spot where the silver actually fumed the surface.

The one on the left was going to be called "Double Bubble" or "Crazy 8's"(remember that game?). Not a bad idea, but still needs some work on design. The same with the one on the right hand side. My hubby said it looked like "boobs". Figures!

The one in the middle of those two beads was going to be called "Wavy Gravy". Don't know if that really worked out.

The heart on the bottom reminds me of Gobstoppers or the Power Puff Girl's heart. My newer design worked a little bit better.

And finally the lips. You know how they made that piercing called a "Monroe". Yeah, I'm not totally fond of it. Mostly when people get it done its a huge ball and looks pretty stupid. The ones that are better looking are the teensy ones that just look like a speck of glitter. Anyways... this was my bead trying out the "Monroe" look. As you can see the clear actually popped off. The CZ did manage to stick in the glass.

You have to be VERY careful with those little babies. If you manage to get them to stick to the glass without falling out , you need to then apply some transparent glass. After burning off the glue from poking the CZ into the surface of the glass you need to cover them with a transparent glass to keep them from burning. You have to do all of this in a split second! if the glass gets cold from trying not to burn the CZ when you apply the hot blob to cover it, it will pull the CZ off of the surface where you just placed it. BOO!

The reason I have taken you the "long way" to the final product is so that you have some idea of the time it takes from inspiration, to experimentation to something worth sharing ;)

*Pulls back the curtain*

Here is a group shot of all of the ones I deemed to be "good" beads. The heart with wings design needs to be revamped a bit, but I thought it might want to be with it's friends. On the top left you will see my "pea pod" bead. It didn't have another beady to group shot with, so it got it's explanation here.

You know there HAD to be EYES since I have had a teensy obsession with them ever since I have been doing art. I even got a tattoo! The tattoo is by David Bolt.

My tattoo is on my back just below my neck(so my jewelry isn't covering my tattoo) and above in between my shoulder blades.Here is a pic of my color faded make up and my eyebrow piercing that I totally LOVE!

Here are all of the one's with CZ's. Soldered pendant is by Diane Thaemart.
Hearts. Who doesn't love being in love and of course RAINBOWS since they have the most color! I'm still working on that heart with wings design. I don't think it's quite done yet.
The flames since you know all lampworkers LOVE fire!

Sarah- Thanks again for all of your inspiration. You and your beads are truly AMAZING! I hope to add some of them to my collection(as soon as that money starts roll'in in!). I have learned more things from my brief encounter with you than you probably realize and I am forever grateful!

Thanks to everyone else for reading.

Much love,

Genea

Quote

"Be yourself. Everyone else is taken."

*dun * dun* DUN*

(you have to imagine someone playing this on an old piano. Totally old skool.)

INSPIRATION STRIKES!!

I even ran out of the shower naked and grabbed my sketch book as not to forget all the ideas that flooded my brain at that moment.

Inspiration is a crazy thing... You never know when it will strike.

I'll let you know how it went after tonight...

Boxed in

So I have come to figure out great deal of interesting things over the past few days. Most of you that know me well know that I am an organized person and a perfectionist. I have found that sometimes those are NOT redeeming qualities. Especially when it comes to creativity. I have come to find that most really creative people are NOT super tidy(that doesn't mean that they are totally gross slobs or anything) it just means that they don't always clean up their bead mat, or desk or whatever creative area in which they work promptly after working. This right here allows creative things to happen. This allows those left over random things to end up sitting next to some other random thing and inspire something creative that you might not have put together if you didn't just happen to see it side by side. Here is one of those things...

My "Space Orbit," pendant on Etsy. This just happened to come together that very way... Crazy huh?

Other things that really creative people do is NOT be afraid to try something because it might not turn out too pretty. It is amazing to see what ends up being inspired by a flop! Here is anotherMy "Wing Dings". These were inspired by a simple bead that just wasn't going round. I furiously took the bead and mashed the bottom with a masher and then went "OH!" Great idea... why not smash the other side?... and VOILA! The "Wing Ding," was born. They are pretty popular too. I think its because they are an interesting shape and open up great possibilities for designs. My art teacher in highschool used to call these phenominons "Happy little accidents." OMG! When knew she was right?! I mean she was a teacher in highschool. What they hell do they know anyways?! ;)
Another one of my favorites that she said was I also liked "No risk, No art"! I think it was even a sign that was up in the art room. It's TOTALLY true!

So for an easy recap incase this is WAY too much reading for you....

Sloppy mess = Creativity
No having to follow a certain design = Creativity

These reasons may be the reason I was feeling totally "boxed in". I wasn't allowing myself to be creative all the way since being a perfectionist means there MUST be rules and a certain way to do things...

Who knew? I was feeling pretty Zen today. I hope my pearl of wisdom lets all of those other perfectionists out there just RELAX.

Much love,

Genea

Look what we did!

Here is a long angle shot of all of our pendants. Mine is the farthest left, then Billie's and then Kim's on th end. Pretty huh?

Here is a shot from above.

Billie and Kim came over and I taught them to make these pendants above. We had a really great time! I am totally in love with this new c-lon color called "cinnamon". It's the color I used on my pendant. I think it's almost kind of pumpkin colored. I would have called it"pumpkin spice, " or something. Anyways, it's a cross between orange and brown. VERY COOL! Thanks to Billie for giving me her newly purchased spool!

Billie and Kim, Thanks for everything! I had a wonderful time! Thanks for supporting me in all I do :)

Oh, I suppose I should show you all the pics of the newest beads I am totally in love with. We all had to have a set. I ended up making these lentils with the newest batch of Red Roof Tile that is almost kind of yellowy and orange with Raku and Silvered Ivory stringer. They turned out so GORGEOUS!

Here is Billie's set. It is entitled "Cave Magic."

Kim's set, "The Hunter." Her set has been put in etching acid to give it that ancient cave wall feel.Here is mine. "What Lies Beneath." I titled mine this because I did a design in Silvered Ivory first and then did the Raku design on top. Way cool.

You can't completely see all of the detail in the pics on the blog, but these beads are AMAZING! There is such a nice reaction between the Silvered Ivory and Red Roof Tile!

I think I am going to take some more pics today and add some more goodies to my Etsy. Be sure to check that out later!

Have a wonderful day!

Much love,

Genea