Third Eye Gypsy(Genea Beads) 2011 by Parigo Studios 2010

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

New items on Etsy and Painting the town RED

Hello friends!

New items are up in my Etsy shop! I just listed another blooming skull daisy in RED... I know?! What has happened to me?! I guess it was a red kind of deal. I made that Passion Heart in that red, lime and lavender combo and it just really struck me visually. I actually made this blooming flower awhile back. I was going to make a ring out of it, but when the other one sold on Etsy I thought I might list this one too since it's RED and you know I don't really use red much.

I also listed a pair of earrings I had waiting to be made today! They turned out SO cute! Another red, lime and lavender combo! They are like my daisy vine design only HEARTS! Woo! I will be so excited to make the heart burst ring and heart burst wheelies pendant in those colors that has been sitting my my drawer. I need to get on Billie to come take her classes so I can get the pieces made :* Love you Billie!

So I bet you want to see how that red, lime and purple came out from yesterday huh?

Here you can see a little test bead I made before making my set. The smooshy dot bead is a base of Moretti Pea Green with Vetrofond Light Red dots. Notice how the Pea Green "swallowed" the red dots? Unfortunately the Moretti green's are notorious for eating dots. As you can see in the set below there is a lime green base with red dots and they are ROUND. How did I do it? Well... magic, of course! ;) Actually, I remembered back to my color testing for CiM Elphaba. I did a test with an Elphaba base and white dots. Their green doesn't swallow dots!! How cool! That is how I got this design to work for me! Pretty sweet huh? ;) Ugh.. I hate it when it underlines my text! Anyways.. Here you can see the sets I made with my color choice from yesterday. You proabably didn't notice, but If you look at the twisted rose bead and the green leaves you will see that they are flat instead of having a little raked line through them. Usually when you heat a small blob of glass and rake it across the surface you will get a nice leaf shape with a creased line in the middle. Since Elphaba is stiffer than Pea Green you get a nice flat leaf instead. Pretty cool ;) This set is called "Cherry Berry Blitz".Here is the second set I made called "Berry Cherry Limeade".

I also have another RED picture to share...


OUCH! See my little red burn! I touched my arm down on the rest for my kiln and got a doozy. My particualr kiln has a little fire brick shelf thingy and on the very edge and underneath is metal. Well I tapped that edge ever so slightly when I was putting my bead into the kiln! If you can't see the cute hearty font it is called "Cherie" and if you click that link you can download it for free :D I am a fontaholic too :D

I also have some little sprouty pictures to show you!!

WOAH! Go babies, go! Look at them growing!! I still have some empty guys. Hopefully they are late bloomers. I left the cover slightly off of them and paired back a few of the larger sprouts to the biggest one. I hated to pull of the smaller guys, but only one can get the grub yanno?

Well I think that is about it for today. I hope you enjoyed all of my PICTURES :D

Have a wonderful day!

Much love,

Genea

Monday, March 30, 2009

New items on Etsy and Artfire

Hello friends,

New items are up in both shops :D

Look what popped up!

Horay! It wasn't even a week! We had little sprouts popping up after 3 days! The package said anywhere from 1-2 weeks! I am SO excited! Now if only we had little tags so we knew what was growing! LOL. We didn't get any when we got our seeds, but we figured by the time we transplanted them it would be pretty obvious what they were!

Hmmm so for todays lampworking.. I think I am going back to that lavender, lime and red color scheme.
So incase you were wondering what that color scheme would look like.. I was thinking like the red, lavender and lime heart you see in this picture of my new Passion Heart designs. These were all made with Bullseye and I am using Moretti for the set instead since BE is what I call, "watery" looking. Since their glass are Opals they are not super opaque when you pull them into stringers and melt them down.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

How 6 songs collide

This is so amazingly beautiful I just had to share it with you all...

Saturday, March 28, 2009

EARTH HOUR 2009 Kansas City, MO

EARTH HOUR 8:30PM MARCH 28TH

Show your support by turning your lights off for one hour starting at 8:30pm!

We<3 Earth!

Ricky and I played Yahtzee, Farkle and Uno by candle light at the kitchen table. What did you do??

Friday, March 27, 2009

Sasha's Silver and other silver glass findings...

Ok the long awaited color report... with CiM's Dirty Martini, Peace, Grumpy Bear, and Moretti colors.

Ok so keep in mind that silver glass is VERY challenging to photograph so beads are even MORE beautiful than they appear. Also about the ones that don't look like they have anything on them, they do, there are little "oil slicks" all over them, they just don't get picked up by the camera.

Ok so here is my explanation about this pic. As you may have read all were done with Sasha's silver, but one bead which has been labeled ;) M058-V odd is an odd lot of Ink Blue, M252 is Dark Gray, M260-BP is bubble gum pink odd, m014 is Medium topaz.

I think I was the most shocked about Ink Blue and Dark Gray. I mean would you have guessed that that's what the colors were before the fuming of silver on the surface from Sasha's stringer? Me neither! Pretty though huh?!

Now as for the Medium Topaz and SS stringer and Peace and Aion2 stringer. The beads ARE actually pretty! They have that oil slick on them that you can't see in this pic. You have to have them right under the light to see the iridescence.
Now for this picture... DD stands for "Dirty, Dirty" why? why not? lol I used a "dirty" almost totally propane flame to get those results. So here is what I did. For the beads on the right I used that little lapping reduction flame they show on Double Helix's website and got those results. Some prettier than others, but they do have "oil slicks" on them. I did get curious though. I was thinking the stringer was still kind of gray looking, but the rest of the bead was so pretty with all of the silver that had fumed onto the surface. I wonder what adding some more propane will do...

Well as you can see in column too using a DD flame brought out even MORE color. Does that makes the beads in the other column ugly? NO, it just makes them more subtle.

So how did I do it? Well I will tell you... For the DD beads I melted in my stringer per usual in a neutral flame. I then cranked up my propane and began reducing in a almost totally propane flame. I put it in the little tip of the orange flame heated both sides until glowing( not molten, but warm), I then pulled it out to have a look. I re-introduced it again into the fatter part of the orange flame. It seems like it gets more metallics if you put it there. If you decide you want more color turn the propane down a little and wave your bead around in the flame. I did this about 5 times before putting the beads into the kiln. Pretty spiffy huh?

So anyways, there are my findings whilst playing around with the glass. I hope that this inspires you to make something pretty or that it answered some questions you have about this glass. I, in no way claim to be an expert in silver glass,but I thought you might like to find some new things out and give them a try. It's a total bummer when you spend an entire day or whatever getting nothing but mud ;)

All right .. now I am really off for the weekend! Have a great one!

Much love,

Genea

New items up in both shops and pictures!

Hello everyone!

Ok my listings in Etsy were my inspiration beads from yesterday. OMG they turned out SO cute! Wanna see??
Aren't they so cute?! Isn't that just the saddest thing ever? A grumpy raincloud with a tear drop? Awww. I named that pendant "Little Black Raincloud" like from Winnie the Pooh :D Then we have Sunshine and Cloudy :D They were tons of fun to make. I was so excited about them that I made them into pendants and listed them in my Etsy shop immediately. We will see if everyone else likes them as much as I did :D I even decided to list them on Friday so they would be up for 3 days. I had other things to list, but decided I wanted to list these first :D

I listed some yummy chocolate chip cookies on my Artfire page. A sure delight since they celebrate CHOCOLATE :P

Here are some pics of the things Ricky and I planted... I would have taken a pic of my little greenhouse, but it's pretty unexciting since it's all steamy and is just a bunch of little peet moss pods at the moment.
Horay for flowers! I was kinda bummed to find out that some of these babies won't be coming back next year! Well, I didn't claim to know everything about gardening ;) You know I HAD to get daisies! Gerbers are my favorite flower, but they didn't have any seeds for them in the 20 cent section ;) So if you don't know what they are, I got: Sunflowers, Foxglove(which I have never seen in rl, but they look SO pretty!, California Poppies, Shasta Daisies and Bachelor's buttons. I could have seriously bought out the place with all of the stuff I wanted to plant, but we just decided on a few;) I can't wait to get some more $$$ so I can get a palmtree to plan in my yard. I found some that can withstand -20 degrees!! I LOVE palmtrees too btw ;)
and... Wechtibles! Woo hoo! We got: zucchini, cabbage, lettuce, squash, spinach, cucumbers, green peppers, tomatos, basil, green onions, red jalapenos, baby cucumbers(the hubby thought we NEEDED them lol), carrots, and parsley!

Man they give you a shit ton of seeds don't they? I seriously have enough to share with like 10 people. We planted several pods of each so hopefully if one doesn't grow the others will. I am SO excited to finally be able to plan a garden. In the meantime we need to dig up the backyard and make a little gated off dealy to close in the garden a little. It has this wirey little fence outside of our regular fence that should keep most animals out. We are getting some coyote urine for around the garden to keep the little weggie eaters away!

Unfortunately I don' t any of my silver glass test beads to share yet. I made a ton and didn't get a chance to get them all photographed last night. I do have some very intersting finds to share! I will get to the pictures later so stay tuned for that.

I am pretty excited about this nasty weather we are supposed to get. Hopefully it actually hits us instead of blowing over per usual ;)

Well I should be off. I am going to make beads for my and Melissa's Snowflake pendant and Flower pendant projects for the Bead Blast.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Much love,

Genea

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Down for maintenance

Hey all,

Just a quick note. My computer is going down for upgrades so if you don't hear from me for a bit that's why....

Did you notice?

Ok so I spaced on blogging to let you know that the new Etsy listings were up.

Know why? Well I wanted to add other pics. I was going to show you all what Ricky and I planted :D

I was also going to show you the pics of the silver glass test beads I made, but today I was thinking about how I got pretty oil slicks on the surface, but the stringer was still kinda gray or brown. I did a bit of tinkering and OMG did I make some amazing discoveries. I will show you these tomorrow when I get my new beads out of the kiln. PRETTY SWEET!

Um whatelse... uh .. OH.. ok so I was inspired by my friend Kristins gloomy mood today. Weird huh? Well I sent her a little thing to cheer her up and it inspired me to make some beads. I also had an idea I thougth about awhile back and it happened to fit this theme so I made some of those too. I can't really give you too much more info so I don't ruin the surprise, but I will have some swee things to photograph!

So that is all for now. I think I will photograph some stuff today and tomorrow and have a nice picture heavy blog for tomorrow. Sound good? Cool!

Much love,

Genea

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

New on Etsy and T- is for theft

Hello friends,

I just got my new items up on Etsy. Some SUPER, BRIGHT, YUMMY things today! Another AMAZING super daisy and a multi-layered eye!

I got to a late start this morning and didn't wake up until I received a call from my good friend, Kathy.

Why was I so tired? Well that brings us to T- is for theft. I woke up at 6am because I drank WAY too much water the night before(this new diet we are following requires you to drink 96oz of water a day). When I had settled back into bed Ricky opened the bedroom door to inform me that someone had broken into our car(which was parked in the driveway instead of in the garage)! By "breaking in" I mean they stole things since my hubby LEFT THE DOOR OPEN! *sigh* Now he will stop getting on me for getting on him about LOCKING THE DOORS.

So.. moving on... apparently the burgler rummaged through the glove box and things, but just decided to take Rickys really nice REI outdoor backpack with ALL of his college books in it! They didn't take the radar detecror or cd player or cd's or anything(not that any number of those things is worth anything since they are all old). WTF? Really? Why the hell would you steal the super heavy backpack with all of the books in it? Were they in a hurry? The crappy thing is that the side window that faces our driveway is halfway open because that is where my hibiscus is for the winter to get the most sunlight. That means that they could see right into my house and see that no one was coming when they were rifeling through my vehicle.

Now the really sucky thing is they stole from us when we really had nothing to steal and THE HUBBYS PERSONAL TRAINING FINAL IN VEGAS IS IN TWO WEEKS! ALL of his books that he needed to study were IN THE STOLEN BACKPACK along with his flash drive he used for his school projects! That is just down right shitty if you ask me! Luckily the people at his school are pretty much like a close knit family and Ricky is one of their star students. I pretty much think they will get him back some books or whatever he needs so that he can still study for his final.

So in other news I am kind of doing a hodge podge thing today for bead making. I have an order and a suggestion on trying a glass combo together. My good friend, and customer, Kim suggested I try some different glasses together and see what I get. It's always nice to have other people there to have ideas for you. I am curious to see how they turn out. I will post pictures when I am done.

I never did get to that other color combo I had wanted to try. I ended up being busy with an Etsy transaction, doing an invoice and packing up beads for Funky Hannah's and other office stuff that pretty much kept me busy until Ricky got home. After all that we went to the store to get a few needed things, gas for the car, fruit and the thing I am most excited about GARDENING STUFF!

YEP! We are going to be green thumbs and see what we get! We got one of those little peet moss pot thingies with lots of veggie seeds and some FLOWERS! I will take a snap shot of those and post them in my next entry. I think we are all over due for some pics on my blog instead of just text ;) I mean that IS why you check my blog right? For the eye candy? ;)

Well since I am off to a totally LATE start anyways, I should be on my way.

Have a wonderful day!

Much love,

Genea

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

New Items up on Etsy and chatter

Hey All,

New items are up on Etsy. One of my fav things is my Cosmic Cone! I only make a couple of these and totally forgot about the design. It's a must see! Lots of cool texture and color.

I also uploaded a new peace sign design using Messy's new color Grumpy Bear! Very cool!

I made some more of those cool Dirty Martini and Sasha's silver beads. Infact, by accident I ended up making a whole collection. The only crappy thing is they are SO hard to photograph. It is almost impossible(for me ;) to capture all of the amazing "oil slicks," you see on the surface of the bead. You also have to be under super bright light to see them ;) If you are wondering about which beads I am talking you can find the heart I did with this combo in one of my past blogs.

Well I suppose I should be on my way.

Much love,

Genea

Monday, March 23, 2009

New items are up on Etsy and Artfire and chatter

Hello friends,

New items are up on Etsy and Artfire. I think I will be updating Artfire a little less than my Etsy shop. Maybe 2 times a week.. like Monday and Friday.

I am totally LOVING this little set with a peace sign, heart and daisy. If you check out my sold items on Etsy you can see the pendant I made. I really LOVE they way it turned out! I need some more of those darned bells or just brass wire, brass jump rings, brass chain lol

Hmmm let's see for today... well I have 2 ideas... Maybe a set with red *shreik* yeah, I know.. RED. lol or maybe that silver glass set that I have had in my mind ever since I made that super sweet heart bead.

I dunno...

It is FREAK'IN WINDY today! OMG.. the wind is just wooshing through the windows and blowing things all over. You can hear the wind chimes in the neighbor hood going nuts! Now where the heck is that rain??

I am SUPER excited 'cause usually when we are going to get rain I am down with pressure headaches. My super amazing friend Brandon has been adjusting my back and neck and after 3 adjustments I am not getting headaches. I am hoping that this isnt' just a fluke since it's been such a short time that I have not gotten headaches from rainy weather I am afraid to claim I am cured just yet. I feel loads better though! I am trying to sit up straight and let that work he did do me some good. A lot of us bead makers and jewelry designers slump over our projects so we can stick them in our faces and see what we are doing lol

Well I suppose I should get to it. I should be seeing Melissa later. We are going to do some photographing of the lampwork tutorials today. Hopefully that will go well...

I might just see Billie and Kim today too ;) Could be an all around party lol

Have a wonderful day.

Much love,

Genea

Friday, March 20, 2009

New items up and chatter

Hello friends,

Well some new items are up in my shops. It seems like the bunnies are pretty popular so I have added a tiny sampling of Easter goodies to my Etsy and Artfire shop(only has one).

Hmmm let's see what's on today's agenda.... Well Easter and stuff for the Meant to Bead show are done, and I finished my custom orders that were placed earlier. Hmm I guess today is make-whatever-you-want day. Yikes! It seems like after a long list of to-do's when you actually get to the make whatever day sometimes you are like " What am I going to make today??". lol I have had this set of Dirty Martini and Sasha's silver beads on my list for awhile. Maybe I will make those today. Hmm.. I dunno. I guess we will see ;)

Well I suppose I should be off....

Have a fantastic weekend and I will see you next week :D

Much love,

Genea

Thursday, March 19, 2009

New items up and chatter

*whew* well I got my Picasa problem ironed out. I got many questions about it from friends the other day. Picasa is a free photo editing program by Google. So I checked out their site for help and found out that my problem was infact a glitch. I just had to uninstall and reinstall to fix the problem so we are all good there.

I got my new listings up today on both sites ;)

I also got a Malware warning from my virus scan when I was uploading pictures on Etsy and Artfire! Malware is somehow related to Spyware, which if you don't know, is BAD, BAD, BAD for your computer! I was kinda freaked cause this gray window popped up to warn me and I was worried it was a fake that would actually dl the file to my computer(do you believe they have virii like that out there?!). It turns out it was infact my virus scan and it blocked the connection. I contacted Etsy and Artfire right away to let them know so that hopefully it will protect other people! I would seriously DIE if my computer crashed!

Well I suppose I should get to it.... I am off to go make beads ;)

Have a good day!

Much love,

Genea

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Picasa on crack

Ok so I don't know what the frick happened to my Picasa, but it's on crack! It has either lost or moved around my photos to all different folders. It even does this thing where it will show one photo, but if you open it up it's a different photo! WHAT THE CRAP?!

So... needless to say my listings will be somewhat fragmented today until I wrestle with this problem later. I have listed one item on Etsy and I am listing the other on Artfire. I will add more photos when I get to the bottom of this problem.

More later....

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

New items just listed and thoughts on Smurfy

Hey all,

New items are up in my shops. I added a few Easter things that I had to spare in my shops for today. Most of my Easter things are going out to my other shops.

Looks like today I will be finishing up the last of what needs to go to Meant to Beads show. *whew*

Not really too much else to report for now. You may want to check the Creation is Messy page under CiM products, 104 compatible and then choose a color. I have been making some lovely beads with their glass :D I am totally in love with their new color Smurfy! Its this fabulous new dark turquoise that doesn't silver! It's so saturated and wonderful! Want a peek?
I made one of my Pop art ducks out of it ;)
Here are some swirly flowers I made and below is the jewelry.

Here is what I made out of them. Amazing what it turns into huh?

Here is another bead with Smurfy as the base and Cranberry over Dark Pink for the hibiscus... and the back side.


Well now hopefully if you do make beads this has convinced you to run out and try some of this fabulous new color. If you don't make beads you can always just buy some from me then >:D

Have a wonderful day!

Much love,

Genea

Monday, March 16, 2009

New items up and some chatter

Hello Friends,

I just listed new items in both of my shops! I uploaded another pair of those cool new Tendril style earrings I just designed! I also offered a cool peace, love and flower power set. I made this awesome peace, love, flower power and harmony pendant that sold in my Etsy shop recently. You could do some sort of cool layered pendant like that with the beads.

I WISH I had some more of those amazing little bells! I am pretty sure I can track them down again and I actually have quite a bit of them in brass! I was super excited to find them while sifting through my "gold" colored bead box. I had hoped that somewhere with my old pewter pendant stash I had some more of those awesome little silver colored ones, but alas none. Oh well, I will just have to come up with a cool brassish design :D

Busy, busy today. I still need to do some more beads for Meant to Bead's show coming up, photographing and the like. I am trying to decide if I will have time to get together with Melissa today or not. Dunno. I suppose I should by on my way!

It is absolutely beautiful out today. All of my windows are open and a lovely breeze is coming through. I can hear the birds singing in the trees and the sun is shining :) *sigh*

Much love,

Genea

Saturday, March 14, 2009

D is for Desaturation!

Holy wow have I been having WAY too much fun with this new tid bit I learned from the very sweet and talented Kevan of Dancing Star Beads.

It's almost like magic. Remember those crayon things you could make where you took a bunch of different colors of crayons, colored them in any which way on paper, color over the color in black and then you could scratch out designs in color? SO MUCH FUN! This is pretty much the same way. I guess "There's an app for that", on Itouch's. It's pretty slick if you ask me! Want to see what I mean? I thought you might!
Ooooo dramatic huh? Doesn't it make everything AMAZINGLY BRIGHT? Yum! :p
WOW! Will you look at that purple? The color in these pictures was not touched up at all. The background was merely changed to black and white.
It is much less distracting in black and white than in color. Doing this really makes the beads *POP* I still like to use pics with my hands or wrists to show how items will look when worn. I think this is pretty important or well if not important just interesting :D

Well I suppose I should get to doing something with the rest of the day.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Much love,

Genea

Friday, March 13, 2009

Test to see if e-mail notification works

Testing, 1,2,3.....

Ok so the following people added to my notifications are:Kathy, Billie, and Kim. I guess I only have 10 people I can add to this list. If you want to be one of them please send me your e-mail.

Thanks!

Much love,

Genea

New items are up

Hey all,

New items are up in my shops. This will be all of the listings for the week. I will load new items on Monday!

Oh, I didn't tell you... I FINALLY got Google Base to work! Horay! Now if only I could find my items it is supposed to have in the search. Anyone else figure that out? I did a search and couldn't find my stuff... Well never the less.. it's ACTUALLY working. *whew*

I will be photographing my beach designs and posting those later. I still need to make some more things in my beach theme,but my time is running out to get Meant to Bead some stuff for their show. I was trying to get my stuff there for their sneak peek on the 20th, but I still have more stuff to make. I wanted to make an entire lot of Beach beads, some pop ducks and some cupcakes. I spent a bit of time on new beach designs so that kind of slowed me down. I still wanted to make some surf boards, a sand pail, flip flops and that fun stuff, but I dunno...

Well I should get going. I have tons of stuff to photograph.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Much love,

Genea

Thursday, March 12, 2009

New items are up

Hello friends,

I just got some new items added to my shops.

I am still working on my beach beads. Instead of making singles to make a set I am making several at a time so it seems like it is taking FREAKING FOREVER! lol. I even tried tweaking my designs slightly to make them even more enjoyable. Pretty cool. When I am totally done making beach beads I will upload photos and tell you where the new elements are.

Ugh... is anyone else totally OVER this whole daylight savings time crap?! I am for sure! I have been getting to be at about 2am and waking up late. Today was a fluke. The last time I looked at the clock it was 3am and I woke up at 9.... *blegch* Leeloo was making some mouth noise so I took her out incase she decided she needed to puke. You know it's NO fun cleaning up bright yellow dog barf! Uck... anyways...

Well I should be on my way... More beachy things to make. Now if only I had some 311 to rock out to while I make them! Funny enough I am making beach beads when the temp here is a whopping 22 :( Winter or Spring? Make up your FREAKING MIND! Meh...

Well wherever you are I hope it's warmer than 22! Have a great day!

Much love,

Genea

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

New items on Etsy and Artfire!

Hey all,

I just listed some new items! Be sure to check out my new Tendril earrings! I LOVE them!

Well I have to get going..... lots of beads to make and things to do!

Much love,

Genea

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Easter Beads and items just added to shops

Hello Friends, I just added new items to my shops! I am excited to offer 18" sterling silver snake chains! The chain ends are small enough to fit the loops of my pendants and other small treasures :) I finally got done with this years Easter beads! Here is a sneak peek of all of them in my drawer.
Did you see some of the new designs? Pretty sweet huh?
Here is my NEW lop eared Easter bunny in white.
New lop eared bunny in tan. This color always makes me think of the tan Hello Kitty. She is SO cute! ;)
A fuzzy chick. I think they have the cutest faces!
This design was tweaked a little from the previous design. The first design had some dots on the eggs and they just floated on the top. This year I decided they needed to be sitting in some Easter grass! There are actually polka dots under neath everything on the back side, but with all of the stuff on the front you might only just see one or two dots.

And the last two are some of my favorite NEW designs yet! I especially love the names!
Here is Chubby Bunny's butt. For some reason it loaded these pics backwards >:(Here is Chubby Bunny's front. Remember that game? Well for all of you that don't there is a game we played as kids where you stick the giant marshmallows in your cheeks and say "chubby bunny". You continue to do this with as many marshmallows as you can fit into your cheeks. The person with the most marshmallows wins! lol Isn't she CUTE?!

Here is Phat chick's butt. Cute huh? I love their little tails :D
Here is Phat Chick's front. Now before anyone gets offended the name is just for fun ;) I'm a thick girl so I can get away with it :D There is also something terrible cute about chubby beads :D When I envisioned the chick bead I really wanted to get the cute little feathers at the tops of their heads. As you can see it works best if the hole goes from side to side so that you can place the dots for head feathers right at the very top and middle of their head. SUPER CUTE!

Ok well now that you have been cuted to death by Easter beads I should be off to create!
I am working on some Beach Beads for Meant to Bead's yearly Glass Artists show at their shop. If you are in the Sun Prairie, WI area you can check out the link to their shop on my right side bar of my blog.

I have some NEW beach designs I am excited to share with you when I have a bit more beach beads to show!

Stayed tuned!

Much love,

Genea

Monday, March 9, 2009

Google Base

What a clusterfuck! Well the hubby and I tried to get my Etsy page hooked up with Google Base. Apparently this feature puts you in a Google search by a category or you can make up a category. I used "lampwork beads." So what this service is supposed to do is take your Etsy items and make them available through a Google Search. When you log onto Google and do a search it will pull up what you requested. At the very top of the page there is a teeny blue link that says "shopping". This is what you are supposed to click and then type in "lampwork beads" for the search. Did anyone else even realize that there was a shopping like option there? I sure as hell didn't! I guess it makes searching a crap ton easier huh? So yeah, I set my Google Base to schedule new updates at 12 noon daily. This means that my newest items should shop up on Google's search at that time. The idea sounds good. I am excited to see if it works in getting the shop more sales. :D I will keep you posted on how it's working in my later blogs.

No updates today for the shops. I am waiting to buy my OWN camera. I think we are going shopping later on today if I end up getting a bead check in the mail ;) I will post when new items are up again.

Talk with you soon!

Much love,

Genea

Friday, March 6, 2009

Bassackwards!

Hey all,

I did things basackwards today. I made beads first before doing my listings, so if you were eagerly awaiting today's offerings the wait is over! Lots of fun Limey things today :D

I did my last run of Easter beads today. I made one multi bead set on lentils with different characters like: a bunny head, a chickie, carrot, Easter eggs and grass, and flowers.

The other mini set has: a bunny head, a chickie and Easter eggs and grass.

Oh, I also made 2 more lop eared bunny faces ;)

I am pretty happy with my productive week. I listed items and lampworked every day. I usually end up missing a day throughout the week where I don't lampwork because I went out during the day. So all around pretty cool.

We are going to our friends Jon and Steph's house tonight for burgers! Ricky made some of his awesome Quinoa salad and Potato salad! He had my taste test his potato salad when it was WARM. YUCK! I mean it tasted good, but it's supposed to be COLD! ;)

So yeah, it is another lovely 72 degree day and all of the windows are open in the house. I can feel the breeze come in the window and hear children laughing and playing outside :)

Well I should get going. I have to shower and get ready for tonight. I also have to tie up some earring pairs that I will be offering next week ;)

Have a spectacular weekend!

Much love,

Genea

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Easter fun

So as I mentioned earlier I have been working on some Easter goodies for my shops. Unfortunately I won't be offering any of these beads in my online shops(unless you request that I make more. I do aim to please you know ;) I thought since I went totally crazy on Halloween and Christmas that maybe I made TOO many holiday things. So for Easter I toned it down a bit and just made a nice sampling for each of the stores. Unfortunately you won't be seeing those beads in this post... No.. wait.. You aren't leaving are you? I will post them when I get mom's camera back(should be this weekend sometime) ;)

I tried out a few new ideas and I think the names are TOTALLY funny, but you may not. Afterall, I have weirdest sense of humor. I really don't think all of that mainstream stuff is funny. You know all that slap stick stuff and people flailing around with some wild animal attached to their neck. Yeah, NOT funny. It's DUMB actually... So, yeah.. lol

Well that is about it. I am going to go finish stringing up my beads so that they are ready for glamor shots later.

Nighty night,

Genea

New items added to Etsy and Artfire

Hello friends,

I just added new items to Etsy and Artfire!

*sigh* It's absolutely gorgeous out today! It's an amazing 69 degrees here in Kansas City. I am finally accepting that Winter is over and that Spring is ready to awaken from it's long Winter nap. I never did get that crazy-omg-it's snowing so badly we can't go anywhere snowfall, but at least it snowed 4 days ago and stayed on the ground. I guess that will have to do for my winter fix.

The warm weather and birds singing makes me ready for spring. I can hear windchimes in the distance. It makes me want to go dig my Cheshire Cat windchime out of the garage and hang him outside my door again. I brought him in for the winter so he didn't rust. Ricky and I are going to start planting our veggies indoors so when it gets warm enough we can actually start a garden this year. I am so excited!!

I got some more Easter beads done yesterday, but I think I will still do another day or maybe two of Easter things before being done. I majorly stock piled for Halloween, and Christmas so I will be a little more conservative for Easter. Besides there are so many wonderful pastel colors to make beads out of!

Well I am off to eat my breakfast and get to making some beads so that my kiln will be done cycling by the time Ricky gets home. It is a lovely dayto take Leeloo on a walk and get out in the nice weather.

Much love,

Genea

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

New items on Etsy and Artfire

Hey all,

I just got some new items up on my pages.

I got a bunch of beads tied up and tagged last night. That means that now they need their glamor shots next! Wa, wa, wa wa.... lol. Na it's not too bad. It's much easier to take pictures a bunch at a time and then just edit as you go. I usually shoot the photos crop and adjust lightning and then export as I list them. It is nice to be able to just hop on and get your listing ready with your pictures mostly done. It goes WAY faster ;)

I just started doing my Easter beads. I tried out a few new design ideas and I think they will be a hit. ;) I think I have my creative pump "primed" from yesterday so the motions today will be more natural. It's always a little hard to jump back into holiday beads especially when you have some new design ideas. It's much easier the next day when you have tried out those ideas, approved them as new designs and then make more.

So incase you were wondering about the "primed pump" I was reading my Simple Abundance book this morning on "Priming your creative pump." You are supposed to form a daily ritual type thing when you go into your creative process to get yourself transitioned into creative mode. Not a bad idea. I guess I kind of already have mine ;) I get up and make my coffee, then check e-mail, and edit my listing pics and update my sites. After this I make some breakfast and then begin my lampwork session. It is much easier for me to lampwork when I am fresh at the beginning of the day. I use all of my creative energy to make my beads and then whatever "juice" is left I use for making jewelry or whatever else needs to be done. It seems like creating beads takes the most creative energy ;)

Well I suppose I have left enough for you to read today so I should get to my breakfast and beadmaking.

Have an inspiring day.

Much love,

Genea

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

New items just listed on Etsy and Artfire

Hey all,

I just started the morning out with getting some new items up in Etsy and one new item up in Artfire. I think I will be listing 2 a day in Etsy and only one in Artfire(at least until it gets some more traffic). Since Artfire is a new site I am keeping a bulk of my stuff in my Etsy shop. I am pretty happy with what I have listed. I think it shows a nice array of styles and skill :D

Well I should get moving. I need to go make some breakfast and head down to make beads. I need to get started on my Easter beads!

Have a wonderful day!

Much love,

Genea

Monday, March 2, 2009

Daisies and Butterflies

Hello night owls,

My beads just came out of the kiln. I made 2 super daisies and 2 butterflies. It looks like one of my daisy petals has a teeny hairline crack in it which makes it unsellable! Boo for that, but it will go to good use in my mom's bead stash. It is still totally lovely and may not ever crack across the petal all the way so it will at least be nice to wear ;)

I had my pretty pastel one turn out fine. This time I made it face sideways instead of up and down like for a pendant. The super sweet thing about this design is that it is perfectly weighted so you can wear it in either direction and have it sit perfectly!

I made 2 butterflies. I used frit on the wings for some different color, but I am VERY limited in frit. Unlike most beginners I didn't use much frit since I was on a HH and all it really did for me was burn. That could have also been because I was a nubie ;) Heh.

I think it would be fun to have some nice bright frits to add to things like the butterfly wings or daisy petals. I guess I will have to add that to my shopping list. I wish spiral dance frit was still in operation. I guess they closed up shop. I remember randomly getting an email from them one time. I guess my email popped up on some list or something so they forwarded me a newsletter or something .

I had a good time with Melissa today. We didn't get a whole lot done, but we did go out for some yummy sushi! Sushi always makes me happy! It's SO delicious!

Ricky started his xternship for school today so he was actually done with work and his xternship by 5pm! He would normally not get home from work and school until 11pm. It was so wonderful to spend the evening together and have dinner! I really missed him being gone at night. It is so much easier to have him gone during the day when I have a ton of things to do anyways ;)

Well I suppose I should go clean my beads.

Sweet dreams!

Much love,

Genea

New items on Etsy

Hey everyone,

I just added some super bright and amazing new things to Etsy! I hope you enjoy them.

I am off to create with Melissa!

I will upload to Artfire later so keep an eye out for those listings!

Much love,

Genea