New Jewelry in the Shop!

Hello friends!

Surely this should be some kind of record. I get an award or something, right? ;) I guess I just have had a bit more time at the apartment than usual. I am waiting for a big glass order to arrive so I am planning my studio trip around that.

I managed to get some perfect light for photos this morning. Some of these colors are so hard to photograph in direct sunlight. The nice cloudy sky provided some perfect pictures for todays jewelry pieces.

The "quick and dirty" post so you can skip to the next thing you happen to be doing online, but still get the jist of what is going on here ;)

"Ancient Tapestry" necklace-A gorgeous herringbone woven pendant with a stone textured pendant simple worn on recycled sari silk. A perfect everyday necklace.

"Ancient Tapestry" earrings- YUM, right?! These earrings are the perfect balance of bright and muted colors with that wonderful earthy feel from the fibers and stone textures. You may remember seeing these featured on the Wooly Wire Etc. page a little bit back.

"Tangled Rain"- Some gorgeous pale ice aqua recycled bottle drops are accented with some rain drenched muted blues,and yellows with some hints of warm brown and burgundy. These are done in the same style as my "Space-Age" earrings featured in Bead Design Studio February 2014. Isn't it amazing how different this design looks with a different color palette?

"Earth and Stars" earrings- A beautiful balance of greens and blues with earthy tones and splashes of bright vivid colors. These would go great with the "Love Earth" necklace!

Well that concludes my update for today. Never know when you will see me next. It may be soon considering my recent record ;)

xo Genea

A Life Time of Stuff in Less than a Week.

Hello friends!

OMG! Are you still there? *waters friends* You didn't die on me from neglect, did you? It's amazing at all of the things that have gone on this past week. So I hope you are ready to read! Lol, you may want to take this opportunity to get another cup of coffee or tea.  Here is what I am drinking as we speak...

Bolivia Organic coffee by Parisi with coconut sugar and coconut cream. SOOOOO GOOD! Cup #2 on this rainy and cold day.

Now that I have sucked that down, onto my second favorite drink after coffee, kombucha!

I would have to say their "Lavender" is my favorite, but you know how I like weird things :D

Anyways, onto my stories...

So moving day was Wednesday. Um there were TORRENTIAL  DOWN POURS of RAIN. So naturally the day I have to move the weather is awful.... I will add here that Ricky actually had to switch his day off due to "close-out" at work(the day the weather was just fine). Moving on.. So we were at least able to borrow a friends truck and use our car. We loaded the bed, and the other book shelves and other paper board build "stuff-that-will-bubble-up-when-wet" stuff and the rain starts. We quickly unload everything and I come upstiars and wipe everything down for minimal damage. The rain picks up and is just coming down in sheets!

So we sit inside and set up the computer for the A T&T tech. He arrives, he has trouble with the connection, then we finally get the computer connected and the monitor is flashing spastically to which my hubby says it's the computer. I say it isn't the tech is just standing there. Not offering up any help at all. The internet is connected, but the computer isn't getting online. The tech rushes through his spiel ended by "Is there anything else I can do to help you?" We don't look at him, obviously pissed off about the situation. So he jets out. So we are like "Um YEAH, YOU CAN HELP US WITH GETTING OUR INTERNET WORKING ON OUR COMPUTER, THANKS" *scoffs* So we sit up here with the computer for awhile trying to figure out what is wrong. We call our friend Brandon to rescue us from our computer woes. So after awhile we figure out that apparently I had plugged our monitor into the "secondary" video card plug instead of the good one(Um there is more than one plug? Oops!). So crisis is fixed.

Back to moving we go. Well, not completely. Ricky had brought us some Chipotle to eat since we got a buy one get one in the mail(SCORE!). I unpack and put the coffee on since Ricky was none too happy that I had packed up the coffee pot before we got our morning cup before moving(Oops again!). So we have to wait for the rain to let up. We get a short break before it starts raining again. So we take that opportunity to access what to load and take over first. We load everything up and then unload it under the awning by the stair well. Thanks to my brilliant hubby(I knew I kept him around for something ;) ! So we unload our stuff that way for awhile. The rain lets up a bit and stops. So we quickly load and unload. Now mind you, this is from the bottom floor to the 3rd floor so every load up is 4 flights of stairs( I know, weird how that works out huh?!). So if you take a heavy load you want to die by the time you make it up all of the stairs, but if you take a light load you have to make more trips. UGH... Then I think to myself, "HOW DO WE HAVE SO MUCH STUFF?! WE DON'T EVEN HAVE ANY STUFF?! Then I think about just taking it all to the dumpster... lol. Then I keep loading and unloading. 

Oh and did I mention that I didn't pack up the whole apartment like I had planned? I spent my day packing up orders from my sale(THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT!), making egg salad and chicken curry salad(which I will eat for lunch when  I am done writing this ;) and a little bit of packing. So here we are not even all the way packed taking the other "loose stuff" and packing it, then loading it. It takes us ALL DAY, I mean literally cause we lost like 2 hours waiting for the rain to stop. 

So the evening rolls around. My friend Lucas comes to rescue us. He stops by after work and helps us get the last 2 loads done. The boys go to take the dogs out while I start to unpack. I go to unpack the blender and mandolin slicer....You can already guess what I am going to say next....

I ended up picking it up UPSIDE DOWN and I feel the QUICK AND DEEP CUT. I immediately lift my hand up and pinch it as hard as I can and put my hand over the sink! I squeeze it as hard as I can while talking to myself "Put pressure on it:"! So I stand there squeezing my finger  with a napkin over it holding it over the sink holding it above my heart so the blood doesn't pump to it more. I hold it tightly while saying "Shit, shit, SHIT!". Eagerly waiting for Ricky's return to access the damage. 

I let go to check the cut and the skin just opens up more and blood gushes out. So I pinch harder. Ricky FINALLY opens up the door. I say "Baby, I fucked up! I cut myself with the mandolin slicer"! I take the napkin away and blood gushes out. I say to him "Tell me I don't need stitches". He replies "Babe, it's BAD, you need to go to the ER and get stitches. I handled it really well. I SOBBED.. and sobbed... We don't have health insurance, it's late in the evening. I can't afford a visit to the ER for my STUPID finger! Grrr. So I finally get my shit together while the boys look for the nearest hospital. I ask them to see if there is some Urgent care clinic somewhere. I can't see paying for an ER visit.. UGH and then I think of all of the sale money I just earned and how it would have to pay for my unexpected ER visit and I am just SICK! So the boys find the urgent care clinic. We get in the car and drive over. The bleeding of my finger has slowed, but everytime I take the damn napkin away it opens the cut back up and it starts bleeding. I squeeze the day lights out of my finger to get it to stop. 

So we finally arrive at the urgent care clinic.... IT'S CLOSED! UGH... It had closed just 45 minutes earlier. I  gently pull the napkin away from my finger and the bleeding has just about stopped. F* IT! It's better enough for me. Ricky tells me he will go to Walmart(just across the street) and get me the proper bandages and things for my finger. At this point I am just relieved that I didn't have to get stitches and pay all of this money for my finger! *WHEW* 

Here is what it looked like the next day. 

By now we are STARVING we hop across the parking lot to Mr. Gyro, one of my favorite Greek restaurants in the area. I get my fav, the Greek Salad and a gyro with no pita. We eat, and then I ask to go out for "ice cream" really Orange Leaf, this really amazing frozen yogurt place. I wanted some ice cream since I had a "boo boo"(it works for kids, why can't it work for me? :D). So we drop Ricky off to get the truck back to our friend and Lucas and I go out for some fro yo. It was amazing, btw. 

So we get done and Lucas heads back "up north" since he has to work the next day. Ricky and I settle in for the evening and we decide to make "snacky plates" and watch a movie. We cut open the large block of cheese and when Ricky hands me half of it the block of cheese JAMS DOWN UNDER MY THUMB NAIL(imagine the feeling of when you try to pull a staple out of a piece of paper and it goes under your nail, same thing). AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH! Now I am injured on my left middle finger and my right thumb. I am hand "handi-crapped". 

I did, however have a good thing to my night besides some help, and some good food. My package from the lovely, Miss Love Art(Shanon LeVart) had arrived. I saved it as my "reward" for my hard work of moving :D

 I ended up hanging out the next day at mom's just chillin' since I couldn't work. I ran a few errands and cleaned beads while Ricky was at work. We ended up staying over night and then I kicked it with my sister the next day.

Here are are all of the INCREDIBLE things that were inside! This photo does NOT do them justice at all! Just look at all of these beautiful what I would call "water color washed" metals! So beautiful and the colors she achieves with the layering of different colors is amazing!  She even sent me a necklace, which I love! You can see her gorgeous work here in her shop. I am just so honored to have some of Shannon's work. I have lusted after it for a very long while! I can't wait to make some beautiful things to match my haul! Thank you so much, my dear, sweet Shannon!

So maybe you want to see "My little slice of Heaven". We call it "The Tree House" since we are up in the trees now :)

One of my favorite things about it, other than the immense QUIET( Thank God!), is the vaulted ceilings. Now normally I would call these a waste of space and high bills on heating and cooling. It's amazing how they just make it feel so big and open here. I took this photo while laying on the floor so you could see just how high the ceilings are in the kitchen/living room. 

Here is my bead table, right by the window, of course! Now I can leave the windows wide open without feeling like EVERYONE is just looking in. It's so nice. Oh, and the dogs are much more relaxed too without dogs coming up to our patio and people thundering up the steps.

Here is the view from my desk. Ok, so it's a parking lot, but you will notice the very large naked tree just outside the window that will be beautiful to look at once it starts to grow leaves again :)

The only bummers about this apartment versus the other one is that 1. the car port is BEHIND the building we stay in. 2. The mailbox is literally on the ground of a like 900 box mail storage thingy. 3. The water heater has been an asshole. The water was scalding hot when we moved in and when they turned it down the water has been cold. So pretty minimal(So glad!). 

Today I finally got to re-list some favorites that had not been in stock for awhile!

Here are the ones that are back in stock: "Biscotti Silver", Spiral Earth Stones "Black Lava Silver", and "Cream Silver".

I FINALLY got these recycled sari silk adjustable necklaces done. I received my copper lobster claws the other day in the mail. I sat up til 2am attaching them all! I will have these in the shop at some point. Oh and I will also be offering a tutorial on how to make them! I am working on edits now along with 2 other tutorials.

Here are the beads you will see coming to the shop this Saturday 4-27-13! Stone textured WING DINGS! Spacers, a focal and some headpins! I am SO excited with how well the wing dings took to their stone matte finsh! It's hard to tell how textured they are in the photo, but they are as textured as the coraly orange spacers on the top! They look amazing! 

I had hoped to make beads today and make more for the listings, but it was 32 today and on Thursday and Friday it will be like 66 so, yeah. I opted to stay at the "tree house" today and get caught up on all of this other stuff ;)

Thank you for stopping by!

xo Genea

Updated Shops, New Inspiration Board & Designs

Hello friends!

Wow, it's been a weird week. Ricky has a crazy schedule at the gym now that he is a sales manager. I have been flip flopping days around so we can spend time together. I have so many things I am juggling and all the sudden I began to PANIC about the holidays! I was like OMG... I have to stock my shops, I have things to make, beads to make, projects to do.. AHHHHH. Is this happening to anyone else??

I have even finally completed a small run of special things for my collab with Nellie(Karen's daughter that makes fiber wire). So here is a quick sneaky peeky of that...

So this is the "handle" for the orifice hooks. The bottom is a little hook that is used to pull the spun fibers through the spinning wheel. I had a lot of fun creating these :D 

I had also had a convo with Karen about business stuff and we were talking about niches. Then I had a convo with one of my new customers and "wing dings" and "weeny dings" and I got to thinking, Uh... DUH. I need to make a Pinterest board to show people what to do with them right? I mean we are all artists and visual right? It only made sense. So me being a CRAZY person, I went to work creating this board of jewelry and other things to make with "Wing Dings" & "Weeny Dings".

Here is a new GORGEOUS necklace Lorelei created.

I just love this design! It's so fall(my very favorite season)!

Speaking of Lorelei, I got one of her AMAZING tin snippet toggles! 

Oh I just LOVE my toggle! I can't wait to design with it :D Here is her gallery of tin snippet toggles on facebook.

So now what about those shop listings??

So I updated both shops. A few things I thought you all might need for some holiday jewelry for your designs. I got a few new pieces in my jewelry shop too for people who don't make jewelry ;)

"Desert Serpent Jewel" - so this beauty is like the "Desert Serpent" lentils only this is a focal size with a "Jewel" dot in the center. I don't think I actually sold this one. The very first one went to Staci in a trade, so technically these are still new ;) 

Here is how big it is. I believe it's 1". I forget, but it's in the description ;P

Swirl Spacers "Bold Rainbow"- Mmmm pretty huh? Every color you could want. So you are looking at it wondering why it's "rainbow" with no purple, right? Well the purple glass in this style rod is only a kind of lavender. I wanted a bold rainbow so I used these colors :D

Swirl Spacers "Island Punch"- a bit of brights for fun!

Swirly Spacers "Swirly Sea Garden"- I used these little beauties in my "Vortex Flower Garden" necklace that was in Bead & Button :)

Pretty huh? I love this necklace :D

So speaking of jewelry... Here is what I added to my jewelry shop.

"Galaxy Key" necklace with my hand forged copper pendant. the little rainbow bubble button is actually melted directly onto the wire. I just love this piece! So simple and perfect! This necklace even has one of my hammered patinated clasps :D

Here you can see the necklace worn and the earrings that match :D

"Silver Thread Nebula" earrings. Maybe you remember seeing these on the Inspiration & Collaboration blog.

So speaking of photos....

Guess who ordered new MOO cards?! I just loved my fall photos with the leaves so I thought I probably needed some new cards. The holidays are coming up, and one needs to stock up for the holidays, right? Right!

So here is a screen shot of the cards with the leaf photos. So pretty!

Here is the front. Looks simple, right? WRONG... Seriously everything that should be short and simple for me becomes a horrendous MESS. So it literally took me HOURS to get the top image right. I had to create the image so that the text sat right in the middle. I wanted recycled looking cards, but there isn't an option for one. So I took my cardboard image and made one :D In order to make this image it has to be really tall on the top and bottom and the image part has to sit right in the middle. Such a PITA, but OMG it looks f*ing SWEET! I can't wait to get my new cards :D  

I already have a collector of my cards(you know who you are ;D)

Anyways, I suppose I should move along. It's already 4pm here and I still have  a LIST of things to do before going out with some friends today!

See you soon!

xo Genea

HOORAY for BOOBIES! Breast Cancer Awareness beads and clasps!

Hello friends!

Who doesn't love boobies? Well I decided to do a last minute run of breast cancer awareness beads because I wanted to make some gifts for friends. I decided that everyone might want some of their own boobies to play with(LOL) so I made extras!

We will even be donating 10% of sales of these beads and clasps to the Susan G. Komen foundation! Hooray!! 

So if you are offended by the woman form and boobies, you may want to avert your eyes and stop reading this post.

Here are some of the bead photos from the process...

It's a parade of BOOBIES! From A cup, to DD!

The DD cup boobies have pink ribbons on the back side :)

Here are the glass pins before they were made into clasps.

All of the "Ta ta's" clasps drying from their lacquer bath.

The size of the boobie beads- A(10mm), B(12mm) and DD(16mm).

Boobie A Cup. If you are part of the itty bitty titty committee this may be the bead for you! Maybe you just like the size of the bead. They are perfect for earrings! 

Here is a photo of the simple earrings I made. I will be getting these up in my jewelry shop soon.

Boobie- B cup. The universal size. A nice medium size for designing.

Boobie- DD cup. This mamma jamma is the regular size lentil, but the biggest of the bunch. You can even see the pink ribbon peeking out from the back. 

"Pink Ribbon" spacers. Wonderful for earrings or to fill in a design. Super awesome with the boobie beads :)

"Ta ta's Swirl" s-clasp! My most exciting design! I had the idea to put a teeny boobie in the middle of the clasp and it worked out PERFECTLY! So much fun! I can't wait to use it in my design!

Here is a pic of the clasp in my hand. This is the small size clasp like the "Rainbow Swirl" clasps.

Well I hope you enjoyed my ode to boobies! 

Thank you for your support( he he).

xo Genea

New in the shop- "Bright Earth" Weeny Dings and "Rainbow Spiral" S-Clasps!

Hello friends!

I was really excited to update the shop today! I cranked out some more wonderful weeny dings in your favorite color palette, "Bright Earth" and got a wonderful selection of S-LG "Rainbow Spiral" s-clasps in the shop!

Since it's been awhile, here is a refresher of the size of "Weeny Dings". 

"Bright Earth" Weeny Dings. I just LOVE this tiny size in my(and your) favorite color palette! Perfect for so many things like earrings, dangles or whatever design tickles your fancy!

Check out this GORGEOUS design by Lorelei! I just love her tin focal with the weeny dings! Here is a link to the bracelet.

Here are the "Rainbow Spiral" S-Clasps. Sizes are from left to right: Small, Schmedium(what else do you call an inbetween size?!), Medium, and Large.

Here is a look at the sizes in my hand .

"Rainbow Spiral" S-Clasp Large.

"Rainbow Spiral" S-Clasp  Medium

"Rainbow Spiral" S-Clasp Schmedium.

"Rainbow Spiral" S-Clasp Small.

So you know the whole reason I had an idea to create this clasp was for a new design, right?! Here you can see the clasp in action! Patinated chain is by Karen Totten.

Here is my new design that will be going in my jewelry shop soon(www.geneack.etsy.com). You can also look forward to seeing my NEW "Ocean Serpent Egg" focals in the shop coming soon!

Thanks for stopping by!

Have a fantastic remainder of the week!

xo Genea