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