Dings and Things

Hello friends!

Are you frantically scrambling to finish up all of your holiday loose ends? I am happy to say I am just about done with mine ;) I loaded the last of my new beads and jewelry designs into the shops today. Wanna see??

Here are the NEW pretties I added to the shop! The top two pairs of earrings I made for gifts, but the others  on the bottom are in the shop. Do you ever look at your beads and immediately think of people? Well that's how it was when I made my new Dings and created the earrings :) I love it when that happens.

The bottom two designs just kind of came together ;) I used my new "silver snowfall" glass headpins for the "Silver Snowfall Spiral" earrings on the left because I received some GORGEOUS wooly wire that matched them perfectly! The other earrings I created I called "Circus Carousel". The gorgeous verdegris patinated hoops are from Starry Road Studio and the super amazing batiked spikes are from S L Artisan Accents. I had some of this design in my mind for a long while, but mostly the spikes and the hoops together. When I pulled out my beads I found some awesome matching Wing Dings from my "Bright Earth" set! Magic is all I can say!

More dings! Do you remember "Lagoon"? It's been FOREVER since I had that set in my shop! I was really happy to get some more made. I even did some new stone neutrals in the weeny ding size. They are super tiny and super sweet! I just love their small size and texture :D

Here we are again back at square one with my dreads. My last set were coming loose and they were so full of wax they weren't dreading. I was sad to have to brush them all out and wash with dawn soap. It was a nightmare to say the least! Luckily my friend Joey that just finished up beauty school was kind enough to section all of my hair for us. It took him 2 HOURS to get all of my hair sectioned into nice even pieces for Ricky to dread. 

Here are the new dreads so far. Wow, they look like a HOT MESS, but they will tame down in a few days. We tried the twist and rip method and the back combing method. NO WAX this time so they will be a fuzzy mess for a bit. It's ok though cause I don't give up easily. All things worth having are worth fighting for. That's my little quote to myself. It's always true ;) 

Well on that note I should go grab some late lunch/early dinner and get to creating some more Christmas gifts!

Wishing you and yours a most magical Holiday Season!

xoxo Genea

Early Bird Black Friday Sale for Newsletter Subscribers and Black Friday- Cyber Monday Public Sale!

Hello Friends!

Can you believe it's almost Thanksgiving already?! Where did the time go? Well now that it's "that time of year," you know that that means.... Black Friday Sale!! We are giving our newsletter subscribers a head start! If you want to shop our Black Friday Sale early at 8pm Thursday evening you can get the details here.

Here is some of the awesomeness you will see available in the bead shop.

Here is the "open to the public" sales info(join our mailing list for the early bird shopping code)!

Our Black Friday 30% OFF SALE will run from November 27th at Midnight- November 28th Midnight CST. Use coupon code "GBBF30" at checkout to receive your discount. Will you miss our Black Friday Sale? You can still receive our 20% OFF discount Saturday-Cyber Monday(November 29- December 1st) Midnight CST. Sale is in both of our shops! Genea Beads, Genea C-K Jewelry.

Did you know that our discount code is even good on already marked down items? That makes our already marked down goodness 55% OFF! So don't delay! We expect to sell out fast! Hooray for Handmade!

I am excited to have gotten the jewelry shop stocked with some gorgeous new jewelry! You can see these designs along with some of your old favorites in our Jewelry shop! Don't do beads or jewelry? We have some wonderful wall art, and wine charms in our jewelry shop as well! 

Thank you all for your love, and support!

Wishing you and yours a Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Holiday season!

xoxo Genea

Wine, Dreads, and Spumoni Zebras!

Hello friends!

Here's what's been happening in my neck of the woods....

 Before the temps really started to drop on November 1st I had the pleasure of doing the "Wicked Wine Walk" with my friend, Ronnie. This is a wine tasting done in downtown Kansas City in the Power and Light district. You visit several restaurants, taste wine and eat little nibbles. As you can see we had one helluva time enjoying our wines and taking silly photos! 

Guess who got some dreads? Yep, ME! Aren't they AWESOME?! We have kind of been toying around with the idea since we live in Portland. Dreads sure aren't for the faint hearted. They are a TON of work. Lots of little maintenance for nice CLEAN dreads. Know what the best part about them is? I get to make LAMPWORK BEADS FOR MY HAIR :D Woot! 

I also didn't get to post my "Bronze Berry Bliss" series of purple and metallic bronze beads in the far right corner. They went SUPER FAST so I think there is only one pair of headpins left and 3 pair of lentils. I really LOVE the metallics and chemical reactions I got with the glass on that series.

I also spent some time playing around with new glass combinations and found when I paired silvered ivory with this awesome older batch of odd lots glass I got this super neato frito metallic mauve! I paired it with another odd lot of this really gorgeous yellow mint green with splashes of aqua. I called this series "Spumoni Zebras" since it kind or reminded me of the ice cream ;) I was excited to hear you all really have been digging the new styles. You can find them in my Etsy shop. 

Well this is all the goodness I have for you today, but I am "cooking" up some ROCKIN' new stuff in the studio!

See ya soon! Thanks for stopping by!

xo Genea

Babies, Beads and Toilet Bowl Cleaner.

Hello friends!

Lots of exciting things going on here. 

On October 25, 2014,  a star has fallen from heaven down to earth. My beautiful niece, Ayla Isadora Copeland was born at 1:37pm. She is a healthy 6 lb 13oz, 20 1/2" baby girl ♡  Finally our sweet baby girl is here for us all to enjoy. I took the photo only 2 short hours after her birth in my mom's arms. Isn't she a sweet little thing :)

I finally got back to my somewhat regular schedule of making beads. I tried a new spin on my batik style design and here is what I came up with. I wasn't sure if this was a "one hit wonder" or if I should continue making more. I had such an overwhelmingly positive response to them I SOLD OUT before even getting a chance to list them!  I really wanted to get some more of these beads in the shop, so off to work I went cranking out more beads, but....

I ran into a few road blocks. Some of our glasses produce a muddy metallic sheen from being heated and cooled slowly in the kiln striking the glass. This color combo is no exception. Well I did my normal toilet bowl cleaner treatment to clean up the beads, but ran out of my old bottle. To my surprise they CHANGED THE FORMULA from 20% hydrogen chloride to 10%. ACK! In this photo from left to right you can see the difference in each bead and headpin. The far left is untreated, middle is the new 10% hydrogen chloride(still a slight metallic sheen), and the 20% hydrogen chloride from my older bottle(very clean look with no metallic sheen). Well shit! 

So I went to my trust glass collective, The International Society of Glass Beadmakers for some help. I started a thread on their facebook page and got a wealth of other techniques to clean off the metallics. So much, that I will be posting a blog about all of these other great techniques! 

Here is my series of, "Tanzanite and Sky Silver Thread Batiks". Pretty schnazzy huh?! 

Here's a closer look at the new pretties in the shop!

Like my *fancy* photo collages? Learn how to use Pic Monkey with my video tutorial here.

Well I must be off! Lots of beads to tie, and pack up before heading out to spend some time in the sweet sunshine. It's supposed to be 67 today!

Have a great weekend!

Thanks for stopping by!

xo Genea

Workin' my way back to "Normal"

Hello friends! 

I am trying to get back into whatever groove my new "normal" is. I made these beauties this week. I'm still having a little bit of a hard time getting on a normal schedule since everything is so not normal. Luckily awesome beads are still working their way out of my hands :D

Um, HOLY DELICIOUS, huh?! 

Here are some of the beads I made last week. Some of them have already sold, but the pile of beads was pretty ;)

Here are the NEW beads you can find in my Etsy shop.

I made this AMAZING pair of earrings for my friend, Karen Totten of Starry Road Studio. I made them to match her special birthday necklace her husband commissioned me to make for her birthday. Aren't they going to be magical together?!

Are these, SEXY or what?!

She is going to be the envy of all her friends :P 

Things are still all kind of crazy around here as I try to get my schedule back to normal. In baby news, we are still waiting for little miss Ayla to make her appearance. It was an up and down roller coaster for all with the doctors trying to decide what to do as far as delivering her early. I was told she is a nice healthy 7 lbs today and looking awesome! Her induction is scheduled for this Saturday, but I am hoping she comes earlier naturally. I heard induction SUCKS BALLS :( I also hope she makes her appearance before the 24th so she is a Libra instead of a Scorpio >:D There has been a huge fuss over it being "Scorpio Season" and celebrating that little Ayla will be a Scorpio. We shall see... 

Well I best be off! I have some dinner to eat before visiting my little sissy at the hospital.

See you soon! Thanks for stopping in!

xoxo Genea

Season of Change

Hello friends!

Have you been enjoying fall? I have definitely been enjoying the cooler temperatures and thunderstorms that have been hanging out around Kansas City. The season is changing from summer to fall and my life is moving along with that change as well.  Life has decided to take a slower pace. Where is everyone these days? I know I have not been online nearly as much as I have in the past.  

Here are some photos I took of the yard the last few days of September. I am amazed at how different the yard looks already just in that short time. It was really beautiful and sunny when I took these photos. 

Here you can see the Papyrus grasses seeding. The weather has been cooler and the skies have been pretty gray. Hard to believe when looking at these sunny photos.

In this season of change I find myself having less days to work after the show when I had anticipated  creating like a crazy woman preparing for Christmas. I have been rotating my work time with taking care of my sister that was put on bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy(She is due November 15th). So I'm just rolling with the changes and trying to be a little more kind to myself with crazy deadlines and production expectations. I got a chance to work on a small collection of fall beads that are currently listed in my Etsy shop. 

I'm really happy with this collection of work. I really love the rich colors fall brings :) I had wanted to do more of a collection, but had to stop here. In the mean time I placed a small glass order to restock some colors. I should be getting that next week sometime :D

When I've been over at my sister's house we have been keeping things pretty low key. She was put on bed rest since her blood pressure was a bit high and the doctors worried she may have had the beginnings of preeclampsia. She mostly has to lay in bed or sit, but was allowed to go out if she rode an electric cart or was pushed in a wheel chair. Dad had invited the two of us out for lunch the other day and after we decided to stop at Target.

Lord help me! I had to go to the store with dad in the electric cart while I pushed  Nina in the wheel chair. I can't believe how slow those motorized carts are. Yeesh. I could push Nina around faster than those motors go!

Ok so we had a little fun in the Halloween area. I made dad and Nina put on the silly foam hats and pose for a photo lol. 

I also joined in the fun with these silly large foam glasses. Lol. 

I have been lucky enough to be able to attend a lot of music events lately. I was pretty surprised and for these next electronic music events that are only a day apart!

I will be seeing Big Gigantic on Saturday in the arts district at a restaurant called Grinders. This is their last outdoor event before the winter. It will be a nice balmy 49 degrees that night! Dancefestopia all over again with the cold temps! At least we won't be on the riverfront this time ;) 

Monday night I will be at the Midland Theater seeing The Glitch Mob. 

I'm pretty stoked! Lots of great music to enjoy back to back! 

That's pretty much what's been going on in my world in my internet absence. I hope to get to making some new beads next week. You can check in with me on Facebook for news ;)

See ya around!

xo Genea

A Little a Time Away

Hello friends!

Well this certainly isn't my normal blog setting. It's midnight and I am writing to you from the comfort of my bed. I lay here and wonder why I don't write to you from here more often! I guess I feel like my blogs have to have lots of photos and links of things to interest you. Maybe I don't and maybe  you just  enjoy reading about my life? I dunno. Anyway, I have been away taking a break after the show. I have been taking time to rest and reflect on things. Regroup and come up with new ideas.

I recently had the pleasure of attending Dancefestopia, a 2 day rave/music festival on the Kansas City river front (September 12-13th).I really enjoyed listening to the music at such a beautiful outdoor setting. I am so glad I got to go. A special thank you to everyone that made it possible! I really needed to relax and enjoy this event.

I have also been spending some time just visiting with friends and enjoying the fading of summer into fall. I am loving the cooler temperatures and the start of watching the leaves changing colors. Fall is my very favorite season! I love:hoodies, warm socks, chai tea, crisp air, leaves crunching under your feet, knitting, and snuggling under warm blankets :)

I also love fall colors; rich browns, metallics, and silvered ivory. I finally got back to creating beads the other day after a month long break. I'm so glad that I have been making beads for so long that even after taking a long break I can sit down at the torch and just create like I have only missed one day at the torch. I think it took me about a good 3 solid years of making beads consecutively to finally be able to do that. Working in glass for over 11 years, making beads has become such a normal function it's just like breathing :)

I'm really excited and happy with my newest work and can't wait to share it with you soon! I will also have some more news about some new happenings for Genea Beads. It won't be anything too crazy, but just more little tweaks on the business to help it to grow and run smoothly :)

I suppose I should start gearing down for the night, but glad I got to write to him from the most comfortable place in my house ;)

Good night and sweetest dreams to you!

Xo Genea

Life After Bead Fest

Hello friends!

Wow what a crazy ride it's been. I can't believe Bead Fest Philly was just under 2 weeks ago! So let's catch you all up on my last couple of weeks.

A view outside of my car window on the trip to PA. This photo doesn't do it justice at all. The clouds looked like feathery wings outstretched. It was really magnificent!

One of the signs by the show. Lol, we couldn't resist taking a photo. 

Here is a shot of our booth. Ricky and I got in and set up in 2 hours. That was record timing from last year where it took us 4.5 hours to set up! Guess we are getting good at this huh?!

Staci and I shared a booth again this year. Here you can see Barbara Bechtel holding down the fort.

A pic of Staci and me at our booths.

We also shared our power house corner with Starry Road Studio and Wooly Wire Etc. It's so much fun to share a space with these awesome women. I wish I had clicked some more photos of their booth's, but I dropped my phone face down 2 days before the show :( You will have to hunt them down on facebook to view their photos when they get their albums posted ;)

I made myself a quick necklace with one of my "Eye See You For All That You Are And Will Become" focals. Nothing like making yourself a piece of jewelry at the show cause you didn't have time beforehand ;)

Here is a better photo I took out in the sun yesterday ;)

I just LOVE this necklace!

Our Courtyard party on Saturday night was rained out, but that didn't keep our bunch of wild gals from partying inside!

I had an awesome class with my students! I clicked some quick photos with Ricky's phone.

Our mother and daughter team that came to class together wearing their finished jewelry :)

Ellen didn't have pierced ears so she purchased some clip earring backs at the show that matched perfectly! 

Our two classmates that met at the class and became great friends. I love how beads bring us all together :) Didn't their pieces turn out awesome?!

Here are a few photos of my students work from class.

I love how everyone's piece is so unique.

While we were at the show, Don, Karen's husband gave her a special birthday present he comissioned me to make for her. May I present, "Gypsy Magic". Holy wow, huh?! It took me about 3 days to design this necklace since I really wanted to bring all of the design elements together.  I am so pleased with the finished piece!

Here is all of my loot from the show :D

From left to right: Hands of the Hills, Maku Studio, Diane Hawkey,  A clay piece created by Staci's son Aiden,Thea Elements, Linda Landig, Kristen Stevens,  Starry Road Studio, S L Artisan Accents, Green Girl Studios, Humble Beads.

Wooly Wire from Wooly Wire Etc.

More Wooly Wire :D

Ceramic eye house from Diane Hawkey.

Polymer clay beads by Second Surf and eye charms from Cynthia's sweet daughter :)

I wanted to wear some of my pieces right away so I put them on chain and sari silk. Awesome, huh?!

The not so fun part of the tail end of show time, the creative mess. This is my upstairs studio. I am STILL getting things organized and back into their places.

In the meantime after show also means SUPER MASSIVE SHOP UPDATES! All of these beauties are in my Etsy shop. It was just easier and faster to update there first. Some of them are in my .com shop as well. I will get everything moved over shortly.

I also marked some beads and jewelry on sale. I will be creating new jewelry designs soon. I can't wait to get back to designing as well as making. 

See you soon!

xo Genea