More flowers and a butterfly

Hello friends, I thought you might like to share my excitement with me. I made some more Super Daisies and I made a new butterfly! I made the butterfly especially for my friend Melissa. She LOVES butterflies and peace signs, so I combined both! :D

Here are the new daisies with the first white one. You know I just HAD to use some super bright colors!

Here you can see them in my hand as a reference. They are about 2" across and up and down and they are like 55mm or something like that. Nutty huh?!

Here is Melissa's Flutterby. She told me NOT to use orange(it's her fav color) so I was kind of at a loss. I used some Yellow Apricot though so it's kinda orange/yellowish ;)

Here are all of them together. I think I am totally going to have to make more of the butterflies! The only problem is that since they are SO amazingly HUGE they take up a ton of space in my kiln so I can't make a ton of them. They also totally fry me out since they take a ton of crazy needing 8billion hands and they need to stay warm all over so you don't lose any petals or wings! Needless to say I am totally stressed out by the time I am done completing one ;)

Well I thought you might just like to see some new beads without an announcement of shop updates. I also thought it might be nice for a little chatter as well ;)

Well I should be off to bed.

Sweet dreams.

Genea

New items

Hey everyone,

I just added new items to Etsy and Artfire.

Gotta go! I need to eat some lunch and get the house cleaned for company tonight.

Have a great weekend!

Much love,

Genea

All continents!

Woo hoo! I did it! One of my goals was to try to get visits from every continent for my Etsy shop! It looks like it just happened over the last day or two! How exciting huh?

Well that is all for now. I need to go make some beads before everyone comes over tonight.

I may list some things later in the day.

Have a wonderful day!

Much love,

Genea

New items on Etsy and Artfire

Better late than never huh? I was busy today!

I went to mail out a package and stopped into Bead Boutique to drop off a gift for my old boss and her hubby. I chatted with Melissa for a bit. It's always nice to see her and visit :)

I went out with mom for lunch and we spent the afternoon bumming around stores.

I got home and edited pics for my stores. I ended up talking on the phone and surfing around the net with Billie.

Ricky got home a bit ago and we went grocery shopping. We are going to go eat some food and catch a movie.

*sigh* life IS good :)

New items on Etsy and Artfire!

Hey everyone,

I just listed new items on Etsy and Artfire. I think my Sunny Skies Loopy Dings are my favorite thing I offered today.

Well I am off to go lampwork. I am going to try to make some more of those amazingly HUGE flowers. I also have a few more designs in my mind that I wanted to try out.

Have a wonderful sunny day.

Much love,

Genea

New beads and jewelry

So it's been a little bit since I posted pictures. I thought you all might like to see what I've been up to. I guess I have been making beads and making them into jewelry more than normal lately. I have just been full of ideas I guess. I had an idea for this other bead awhile back but didn't have the proper tool so I finally got to try out that idea today. Wanna see?

Here you can see I took my "Blooming Daisy" design and tweaked it a little by adding a skull. Pretty sweet huh? Notice how HUGE the flower bead is next to all of the other flowers? lol. Oh btw did you notice I used RED? Yep sure did, and it's totally not as fugly as it looks in the picture. It's actually a nice rich red which is odd since it's labelled "light red". *shrug*Here was the idea in my head. Not too bad for my first one huh? It is freakin GINORMOUS! I was so freaked out I would lose petals from them getting too cold, but they turned out fine. I even did the try to get them to snap off test when they came out of the kiln. Looks like a good, sturdy bead ;)Here is the other idea I came up with when I was falling asleep. I really like the way it turned out. It was supposed to have a small lampwork daisy too, but there wasn't really a place to put it so it wouldn't cover up the daisy link. Believe it or not this took me forever! I changed things around, cut things off of headpins, moved around jump rings and stuff like that. It even has sweet teeny tinkly bells :D

Well that is all for now. I am debating on either going to sleep or uploading to my shops. I had a HELATIOUS headache this afternoon from that front so I got squat done. I spent most of the day into the evening in bed. It was AWFUL :(

Anywho, I will catch ya later.

Much love,

Genea

New items on Etsy

New items listed on Etsy! I really love these items!! My favorite colors!

New items just added to Etsy and Artfire

*whew* just got done adding some new goodies to my shops. I borrowed my mom's camera again to shoot the pics. It's funny how I hated her camera and then finally realized how to take amazing pictures. It took me WAY less time to shoot and edit pics this time. I have also decided not to add "fluff" to my descriptions. Sometimes it's difficult to come up with these amazing descriptions and not have everything sound the same. So I have decided just to "state the facts". I mean if you really like the beads you aren't going to not buy them because you didn't like the description right?

I guess this is a good opportunity to ask you all your opinions on the subject. I will offer anyone who participates to receive a $5 off Genea Beads gift certificate. You can only receive one gift certificate per person. Please feel free to leave me comments and if you don't want them posted you can just e-mail me with your reply's at eyedoglass@hotmail.com This will be extremely helpful to me so that I can make and list things that you all will like. Ok so here we go...

1. Which would you purchase more of beads or jewelry?

2. What style of beads would you prefer? round beads? sculptural beads? lentils? holiday beads?

3. When shopping for beads do you really like "fluff" descriptions or do you just want to know the stats?

4. How often should someone update their shop? Daily? Every couple of days? weekly?

5. Do you check shops daily to see what new goodies people have added?

6. What would you perfer to read about in blogs? updates? general every day stuff? stuff only about glass or beads?

7. Is it helpful or annoying to read when new things are listed in blogs?

8. What other suggestions or comments do you have that you think might be helpful?

Those are the only things I can think of at the moment...

Thanks for your help.

Much love,

Genea

New items just dropped off at Oh Wow! Gallery

Hey everyone,

I just dropped off some new items at Oh Wow! Gallery in the Westport area of Kansas City, Missouri! If you are local stop on by and check out Stacey's shop! She has fun balloon things and lots of neat stuff from local artisans! You can get to their page by clicking on my side bar link. Genea Beads items are only available at their local shop.

Have a happy Saturday!

Much love,

Genea

My NEW Love and Harmony rings!!

OMG! I was SO excited about these rings I just HAD to take a picture and show you!

Here are the dangle rings sitting flat. They have these wonderfully tinkly bells on them. They make the sweetest sound as the bounce around on your finger. This pic doesn't do them justice. The pink heart has dark periwinkle dots which aren't totally apparent in the picture.

Here they all are on my fingers. Excuse my TOTALLY busted hands. My nails look like CRAP! *blush* Anyways, aren't they CUTE?! OMG! I LOVE them!!

Ok well I better git ;) I have more things to create :D

New Items on Etsy

Ok so I am trying to be productive, but play today as well. I made some super cool new stuff! Here is a little glimpse
OMG! Aren't they tiny?! Cute huh? I am excited to make them into something. I think I just might have to make more. It's kind of fun to make things that are so tiny!

I am also making another blooming flower ring and some daisy vine earrings. They are lime green and aqua!!

I also took some photos of some more color blending lentils I was making and I wanted to show you all 2 other topaz layered ones, but they didn't photograph well at all.

This lentil is lt. aqua encased with yellow green with grape ape scrolls. Would you have guess that? I sure as hell wouldn't have lol. Isn't it pretty? I held it up so the light could pass through it so the color would be more apparent. This one is ink blue encased with count von count with coral scrolls. Would you have guess that? Maybe it's more apparent now that you know what I actually used. Anyways, I thought it was pretty cool so I thought I would share with you all. I was working on lentils for Melissa's snowflake pendant. She wanted me to try out the pattern, but to make it in super bright colors. I will post that when I get a chance to make one.

Well I am going to get going. I want to bead some more before going over to Melissa's house this evening for pizza!

Have a fabulous weekend!

Much love,

Genea

New Items up

Hey all! I just posted new items in my Etsy and Artfire shops! I hope you enjoy them.

Well I had better get moving! I am on my way to the studio to CREATE.

Much love,

Genea

Stuff....

Ok so we didn't get as much done as I had hoped so I don' t have any finished projects to share, but I do still have a picture! Ella, from Meant to Bead(a store that stocks my beads) has made some bracelets out of my past beads! Here is a photograph of some of her bracelets!

Cute huh? ;)

Well I am off to go watch a movie with the hubby.

Have a great night.

Much love,

Genea

Super, Happy fun day

So I am really excited to work on some projects today! I am psyched about the beads I made! I even used RED! For all of you that know me you know that I pretty much HATE red. Why? Well for starters it looks like crap on me since I have red hair. Pretty much the only red I can wear is that dark scarlet color. Secondly, red isn't as versatile as some colors like greens that can pretty much go with ANY color. Why did I go to the dark side? Well... I have noticed that red is a pretty bold color. It is actually kinda cool with some other colors since it is pretty intense and well a lot of people like red. I will post pics later so you can see what I made ;)

I just listed one item real quick on Artfire. I don't know if I will get more updating done today, but at least I got one thing up ;)

Well I had better get going. I have to go drop off Kim's beads! What was that? You wanted to see them? OK ;)

Kim's beads were actually a remake in different colors of the original set I made for Billie. This set is called " Everything but the Kitchen Sink". This set was made to kind of have a one of everything set.
Above is Billie's set.Here is Kim's set. Isn't it amazing how different they look by changing a few colors? Kim is more of a jewel tones and pastel girl and Billie is a lover of Pink, Lime and Coral, and well me... I like BRIGHT! ;)

Ok gotta go!

Go forth and be creative...

Much love,

Genea

New on Etsy and Artfire.

Hey all! I just listed more items on Etsy and Artfire! I hope you enjoy them.

Much love,

Genea

Look what *I* got!

My dear friend Lucas brought me back this fantastic mug from Disney World when he was on vacation! Isn't it AMAZING?!

Finally listed on Artfire.

Hey All! I finally got those items listed on Artfire! *whew* Man I was BUSY today. I listed items on Etsy, made Billie's pendant beads, made my special order for Ella, and Melissa and I put together a timeline for a few of our collaborative pieces. Our deadline is in May for the Bead Blast bead show that will be held in Overland Park, KS. We plan to complete our Flower pendant(it hasn't been officially named yet) and snowflake pendant. The pattern will include, step-by-step pictures, and directions and will even include a tutorial on making the lampwork bead! This is a SERIOUS undertaking! It takes a LONG time to do such detailed instrucions and pictures for projects like this. We are VERY excited!

Well that is it for my update. I am pooped! I may try to take a few pics for my listings tomorrow, but I may just totally crap out ;)

Have a wonderful night.

Much love,

Genea

Just listed on Etsy!

Hey everyone,

Yeesh! I had a helluva time trying to photograph stuff yesterday. My mom's camera was giving me hell. I then, for some reason, decided to use the camera on the tripod... OMG... *hangs head* The pictures were SO clear. I mean they were hardly pixely at all. If you check out my listings on Etsy, those are the pics I took with mom's camera on a tripod. So the first time I took pictures yesterday they took me forever. After using the tripod the pictures only took me like 10mins and they are WAY better. UGH! Why did it take me until now to figure this out?!

Anyways, new things are listed on Etsy.

It's a busy Monday as always. I guess even if you work for yourself you can't escape the Monday crazies of being super busy to start out the week.

Melissa is coming over today. I am not sure what our agenda is.

I have a few orders to make as well.

Well I had better get going.

Happy Monday!

Much love,

Genea

Happy Heart Day!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! I hope you are enjoying it with your loved ones.

I just updated my Flickr gallery. It is in serious need of some new pics so I deleted some so I could upload new ones. I will probably add more later.

As you may have noticed I didn't get any items added to my shop for the last few days. I have been super busy. Expect updates soon.

Much love,

Genea

A change of pace

Hello friends, I regret to tell you that I didn't get up any new things on my Etsy and Artfire pages today, but since I didn't I will share some other fun things with you...
Here is a picture showing different blacks over white. CiM's new Tuxedo black is really amazing! It is jet black even over white! you can even use hair fine stringer and it will stay BLACK! Moretti black is still brownish purple and Vetrofond silvers terribly! I think I have found my new favorite black- Tuxedo! You can even get it to bleed and frazzle by giving it some intense heat. Very versitle and cool!
Here are some of my color study rose canes. Aren't they pretty! I started to prep some cane for a order that I am making for a friend. As I was pulling cane for her beads I thougth I would try a few different color combos and see what I got. Pretty sweet huh?! Maybe I should be a glass color mixer! I would LOVE to have that job! Well deciding the colors not doing the chemistry!

Well that is all for now. I am going to go relax until Ricky gets home. I told him we should have milk and cookies when he gets home from school tonight. After that we can relax and enjoy a movie together :D

Finally up on Etsy

Ok maybe they got posted a little later than expected, but they are up now.

The sun is shining today and it is beautiful outside.

Much love,

Genea

It was worth the wait...

Some things are worth waiting for... I stayed up to get my beads out of the kiln before going to bed. I was even a good girl/over achiever. Not only did I take pics for my listings for tomorrow, but I even got Artfires listings done tonight(or this morning. however you want to look at it )! Etsy will be listed in the morning.

Sweet Dreams.

Much love,

Genea

What the jigga?

Has this happened to anyone else? Below are pictures of a Bullseye heart I was working on. The base is Salmon Pink and the flames are Neo Lavender.

Ok as you can see I got a ton of devit. I think this happened because the pink glass got too cold when I was working on the purple flames. It seems like this color doesn't want to get cold at all sort of like EDP. The only difference is that you can't get all of that devit off by making it hot again. Maybe it has to be molten hot again to get rid of it? That is a bit of a challenge if you are working on different parts of the bead....

Ok incase you are wondering about my working enviornment I am using a Nortel minor with a 5lpm oxy con and propane. I used an oxidizing flame since it seems to me that BE likes to be really hot and in a very clean flame.

Why does this always happen with pinks?! In my opinion it's like one of the most coveted colors for beads, and not many manufacturers can seem to make them or make them easy to use. I think BE did the best job of getting more opaquish pinks than most of the glass peops out there. I mean they have an opaquish magentay color and that is pretty cool.

I know I'd like to do some more pop arty beads with an opaque hot pink, bright orange, aqua and lime green. BE pretty much has all of these colors. I really like their color palette since they make a lot of BRIGHT SATURATED colors. These are my favorites! The only downside is that they aren't compatible with all of the other manufacturers :( I guess you can't have it all right?

Hmmm well anyways this is my latest dilemma. I wrote to the experts- Stephanie Sersich, Michele Goldstein and Cassie Donlen. I hope they have some advice for me. I will keep everyone posted when I get their responses. Please feel free to comment if you can figure out my problem ;) It would be greatly appreciated :D

New items on Etsy and Artfire

*Whew* got it done! I finished uploading items to Artfire this morning. I got my Etsy items listed last night at like 1:30am.

I need to get my butt downstairs to make some beads before Melissa gets over today. We really need to get some stuff done. Hopefully she will get out of work on time so we can really make some accomplishments today.

It was wonderful and rainy this morning, but the sun has decided to peek it's face out of the clouds. Supposedly we are getting a thunderstorm. I am pretty excited for this, but I swear they can never get the weather right!

I think I am going to make some more Passion hearts today since I got like 10 new BE colors :D The stained glass store in our area is clearing their BE stock out so I got rods for 50% off! Since I want to have a better selection I think I might try to get one of everything they have while they are on sale :D We will see how far I get ;)

Have a wonderful day!

Toodle loo...

Much love,

Genea

New goodies on Etsy!

Whew! I am pooped from taking pictures and loading stuff into Etsy. I think I had better get to bed instead of updating Artfire tonight. I will update that page tomorrow morning.

Nighty night...

Genea

New stuff for the beadmaker!

You know from time to time I actually get to keep beads for me. In this case I was so excited about my new designs that I needed to have some! As you know my favorite colors are Lime Green and Aqua so those are the ones I chose for my pieces. You know strangely enough I didn't have any of these things in my colors. Now I have a nice set with the new things I made below and a fantastic fringe bracelet my mom put together for me with my lampwork beads! I really like to coordinate my clothes with an entire set of matching jewelry. I even like to match my make up! >:D

Here is my new set- Heart Burst wheelies pendant, Heart Burst ring, and Daisy Vine earrings!
Here is my matching Lime and Aqua make up. When I feel especially froggy I even add GLITTER! There is something fantastic about being sparkly!

I also got some new items added to my Etsy and Artfire pages. Enjoy!

The weather is WAY too beautiful to be indoors today so I am going outside to play.

Have a wonderful day!

Much love,

Genea

Maybe next year...

Hey all... well it's official. I just got my rejection notice for Bead & Button this year... here is the e-mail...

"Hi Genea,

Since you have contacted me numerous times I wanted to let you know that there are no available booths at the 2009 Bead&Button Show. We’ve had some of our past exhibitors decide to come back so the Show floor is sold out. "

Regards,

Linda

Well the only upside is that I would have had to come up with a TON of money I really don't have at this point to get to the show and pay for all of the expenses. I guess it's just "not time" yet and that is ok... I will just be more prepared, and more skilled when I am accepted.

I just wanted to let you all know since I told you I would keep you updated.

Be back soon...

Much love,

Genea

New on Etsy and Artfire

Hey Everyone!

Goooooooooosh! I was busy today.. I played taxi driver lol. My dad and brother needed rides all over to sort out their car situations. I spent most of the day driving around. I got like jack and or shit done today :( I did get some new items listed on Etsy and I just listed some new things onto Artfire. Man, does it take FORVER to get things listed! You know sometimes I can't think of great descriptions. Maybe I should just give the stats and tell you that it is AWESOME and you need it? That would be a whole hell of a lot easier! ;)

Did I tell you I finally ran out my propane tank that I filled back in August? It is SO awesome to be working on a minor with a bulk propane tank. I spent about 4 years of my lampworking career using a hot head with 1lb. MAPP cylinders! OMG, not only does it suck to make beads since it's so slow on HH, but it's SO FREAKIN EXPENSIVE, the tanks only last about 4 hours, and it pollutes the planet with those stupid canisters that you have to take to HAZMAT. Yuck!

I won't get to making beads tomorrow since I will be hanging out with Stephanie so I thought I woudl get some things listed. I think I will list some new things on Etsy so be checking for that tomorrow.

Ok I think I need to get to bed.

Sweet dreams to you...

Much love,

Genea

New stuff on Etsy!

Hey all,

Just a quick "hello". I fought with my mom's f*ing camera all day trying to get good shots of my beads for my listings. Funny enough I think my friends 5pm camera takes more crisp pictures that my mom's 10mp camera! How the hell does that happen? Anways... new stuff is FINALLY up!

I am going to go catch a movie with the hubby now..... He isn't feeling well and decided to skip school.

Much love,

Genea

WOW! Isn't it amazing?!

Here is that pendant that Melissa did with one of my lentils as the center bead. I picked the colors and this was the idea she had in her brain! Isn't that awesome?! This is one of the projects that will be in our collaborative book! :D
I TOLD you she was creative! She even bought more supplies so she could make me one too. I LOVE Melissa's jewelry!
Well here she is! She asked me where we should take her picture so I told her my favorite place to take pictures is in front of my Andy Warhol pop art shower curtain! she decided to go a little further and go IN the bathtub! Lol See why I love her so much? She is so fun and silly!

Notice how her pendant is STILL awesome even though you can't see all of the detail from there?! I made 2 more lentils in that color scheme that are in my kiln as we speak!

I also worked on a few eye beads for Melissa's other idea. I can't wait to see what she does with them.. especially since they are EYES! :D

Well I am going to go for now.. I still have a few pics to take.

Much love,

Genea

Made contact again!

Ok so if you have been following my blog you may know that I have been trying to make it into the Bead & Button show in Milwaukee, WI USA. This is a HUGE show with lots of opportunites. It is one of my dreams to make it to this show. I have been on the wait list for a year and this will be the second year I am trying to get in. I made contact again with Linda Kolatz who is in charge of getting the vendors all assigned in their spots for the show. She told me that more spots opened up and that it looked like she would have a 5X10 booth for me this year! She it will still take a few more weeks to get the show floor all finished and that she would get in contact with me. I don't know if I should start celebrating and working my butt off now of if I should be calm and not celebrate until I get that final call. It seems like if you celebrate too soon it curses that and then things fall through. So I think I will stay the safe route and just wait calmly until I get the final call. I will just try to start working my butt off making beads and things cause you know it wouldn't hurt to have a ton of stuff for you all anyways right?!

In other news Melissa is coming over today and we are going to do some shooting of the swirly lentil tutorial for our snowflake pattern. The instructions and sample project have already been made. I am really excited to get get some photos done! After we do that I am going to work on the text part of the tutorial and that would mean we will have completed out first collaborative project and pattern! How exciting!!

I suppose I should get a snap shot of Melissa so you can see the person I am always talking about in my listings ;)

Maybe she will even let me snap a few shots of our new collaborative flower design! Well I need to get going. I have a TON of stuff to do today. I will be adding new items to Etsy and Artfire today so be sure to check those out!

Much love,

Genea

Shipping changes on Etsy and Artfire

Hey Everyone!

I am trying my best to be able to get my art to you so I have dropped shipping prices for international shipping. I have not yet shipped out of the US so we will see how that works. I have changed my shipping costs for everywhere else in the world to $5.00. I hope this will help you all if there was an item you had your eye on, but thought shipping was too expensive.

Please feel free to leave me comments or e-mail me if you have any suggestions. I would love to hear what you have to say!

Thanks for your continued support!

Much love,

Genea

Wow! Hello everyone!

So I just got Google Analytics for my Etsy and Artfire page. This service is free and it tracks the traffic on your site. It tells you how long people spent on your page, from what contries people have visited, how many visits were new and things like that.

I am so excited to know that with the internet I am reaching people as far as Europe and Australia!

I don't know if you all knew, but when I found lampworking as my passion I decided that I would indeed be famous. When I recieved compliments on my work I would always tell people this. Since glass is my passion I wanted to make it my job and be known all around the world for my work. I had a friend Eric that I knew in highschool and I remember this part of our conversation very well.. He was telling me that one of his fears was that after he had died and after his family had died that he would be forgotton. This conversation didn't really strike me until later. I realized how to be imortal... If you are talked about in books people will never forget you. I don't think books will ever be gone. So eventhough this was never my fear it was something neat that I realized... After I am gone I will still be able to reach out to people through writings in books and my art pieces. Did you ever think about the life of a bead? Say that you buy a bead. You love it, you make it into something and maybe you have a friend or child that you give the necklace to, and then maybe they have a friend or a child or a relative and then get this piece of jewelry... and maybe they give it someone else and then this original bead was made into something that many have loved and passed on to people they have loved and this one bead has travelled to many places and been loved by many people. What a wonderful way to touch people's lives *has warm fuzzies* I am very excited to share my passion and art with you all. It's all so exciting isn't it? Maybe I am having these deeper thoughts and appreciation since I am reading Simple Abundance. It really is a wonderful book for women that helps you better get to know and appreciate the simple things in life. It teaches you to find what you love in life and to grasp onto it tightly. I would highly recommend this book. I feel that after this year I will have gained much knowledge and wisdom from this book :D

Well I should get going. The hubby and I are going on a creative trip to look at and enjoy the world around us.

Have a wonderful day!

Much love,

Genea