Where I've been and where I'm going

Hello friends,

It's been a good long while since I have posted. I guess the last post must have been a surprise to read after a long silence. Sometimes it takes a purge to get things moving in the right direction. 

So where have I been and what have I been doing? Well I was working full time, but had my hours cut just before Christmas last year so this has given me 20 hours of time to sink back into the place where it has always belongs and always should have stayed. I have felt really guilty about it for a long time and I am trying to let that go and just move forward. When I went through my big life change it hit me very hard. All the things I loved were very hard for me to do and in a time of need those are usually the things on which you fall back to help heal. One of those things was glass. I still don't know exactly what happened and why it has been so hard to go back to the thing that had won over my heart. I think it might have felt like if I was doing glass that my past would come back with it and no longer want any part of my past, only my future. 

I took a little artistic detour and really dove back into mixed-media and I felt like as long as I was creating somewhere it would bring me back around to glass. Infact I need to come up with a way to combine the two and really create something unique and awesome!

Here is one of my flower mandala's with water colors, distress inks, paint markers, shimmer watercolors and some images of my carved print below.

It was really cool to do a print after so many years. The last time I did one of these I was in highschool!

I have really been falling in love with sacred geometry and chakras. This piece is on recycled fiber board and features the heart chakra and flower of life.

Christian has even been joining me in the studio from time to time.

Here is one of his pieces using some Artistcellar stencils.

I have had the pleasure of being a part of the Artistcellar Design team. Lisa Cosineau is the lead of this amazing group and owner of Artistcellar.  On the team we receive awesome art products, create art and blog about our creations. You can check out my and the other artists  blog posts here. It's been very therapeutic to sit at a table and create even though it takes WAY longer than making some beads ;) 

Speaking of beads I have decided to go and sell in some of the lovely Facebook bead auction groups. I currently have some things I just listed for sale in the LBA Galleria Elementals group here.

Here are some of the goodies I have up for auction currently :)

My and Christian's art will be on display at a local vegetarian/vegan restaurant called Cafe Gratitude in March. So I have been busily creating some art with that in mind.

I have also started selling in a few auction groups on Facebook like, LBA Galleria Eclectia(Lampwork Bead Addicts), which is a group that sells wearable art and home decor. So my mixed-media work fits in just perfectly there :)

I have also been participating in a fun local thing called Free Art Friday Kansas City. The idea of the group is to leave some of your art out in Kansas City with a photo clue to find it. If you find it, it's yours to keep for free! Here is one of my prints from my carved block above left at a local gay bar and dance club down the street from where I live called, Missie B's.

I have some shows scheduled for the LBA Designers Galleria March 1st and April 2nd, so keep an eye out for that as  those times get closer.

My baby bear, Christian and me.

I had a great talk with Christian last night when we were laying in the dark talking before we went to bed. He reminded me to just simplify my life. He told me to just focus on my art and to just create because it's what I love. To not put expectations on it and to just do it. That everything will fall into place and to just keep at it. It's crazy how we tend to over complicate things when things are actually so simple. I am so thankful for my wonderful partner that provides me with such balance and simplicity. I so greatly admire his free spirit and his joy for life and living in the moment. 

I think that is all I will leave you with today, but I will see you soon with more awesome art to share.

Thanks for coming back to see me. I have missed you more than you will ever know!

xoxo Genea

Something old, something new...

Hello friends!

Brrrr is it COLD! I had just posted in my shop about how listings would be slower as I stock pile for Bead Fest Philly in August this year. Ha ha, so much for that! It is SO cold out I couldn't dream of opening the windows today to lampwork. So here I sit bundled up at the computer typing to you ;)

I re-listed some "old" things, finished up some "old" things and listed a few "new" things. You will see some of your favs appear back in the shop finally and some things you didn't see that I had started and didn't finish til now(the soldered charms).

"Winged Electricity" Man was this hard to photograph! These bright colors and transparents really flash off the camera lens. 

"Flight of Electric Vision" this one was also really hard to photograph.

"Chocolate Bloom" Remember this? I made them after that one comforter I got from mom. Well I had actually been working on several charms to make a design. As you can see I never got to it. They were so pretty I thought I would offer them up in my shop. This one is pendant size(the others were bracelet size).

"All you need is LOVE"- Wow! Now that was  feat to get all of those letters in one charm, but I did it! I must say I am pretty impressed ;)

"Tea Stained Rose" One that I started in the beautiful "City of Roses," Portland, Oregon. I loved the rose image. It's very vintagey looking to me. 

"Hugs and Kisses, "X" and "O"s" named after a Black Eyed Peas song. I used these awhile back and made some cute earrings. I made an extra pair so here they are :)

Here are the earrings  :D

"Sea Limes" Wing Dings - finally back in stock! I was actually pretty embarrassed with how long these were out. Well at any rate a few sets are in the shop and a few stashed away for the show ;) 

Desert Serpent Jewel "Mermaid"- UM, YUM! I just love this combo! Matte and shiny! Mmmm. 

Ok so I didn't re-make these yet, but the dogs on the new focals look more like these than the one in the top photo. Just never know what rainbow color you will get with Raku, but it will be gorgeous! ;)

Well I suppose I should get to it. I already have some sale packages to wrap up and have to tag all of the new stuff from today ;)

Stay warm!

xo Genea

Days have been different

Hello friends!

Just a little update about this and that.

The days of old.....

So let's visit my used to be typical morning....

Mmmm delicious coffee in the Typhoon mug I snagged from my sister(they don't ship to the US anymore :( )

Ricky's latest masterpiece for breakfast :D

Firing up the torch to make KICK ASS BEADS :D

Glass headpins in the kiln. Yes, it's blurry. I didn't want to melt my camera. It is a steamy 968 degrees in there!

Since we are on that subject... Here are glass headpins in their natural environment.

See why I can only fit 3 sets in there at a time? They totally FILL the kiln. Can't get them too close together or they kiss and that means no good headpins :(

Ricky dearest and me. Ah boo, I sure do miss seeing him daily :(

The days of new.....

So my days start out a little bit different now, but they are still pretty cool.  I saw Georgia this morning. She stopped by to pick up some lampwork beads to go with her new beaded bead creations.

 

Aren't they absolutely GORGEOUS?! She knew she could come to me and find some nice limey greens  for her necklace :D I can't wait to see what she makes!

Today I received THIS in the mail :D

The bead I won from Pixiebug's give away during the bead soup blog :) Didn't Chris do a beautiful job? :D

Here you can see my bead in it's new home in my printers tray on the wall. Recognize any other famous beads? ;) My new beady will sit here comfortably with it's friends until I make it into something.

This also came in the mail on Friday! Glass Pattern's Quarterly Spring 2011 with my soldered charm's tutorial! :D:D:D I was lucky enough to have gotten 5 copies from them so I will be doing a give-away for one this week. Just trying to figure out how to set it up. Any suggestions are welcome. I need to find one of those number generator thingies so it can pick the winner.

Here is what I made for lunch. Just cooked them on 400 for 10 mins. They were f*ing delicious. I guess I could just live on eggy scrambles and pita pizzas until Ricky returns ;)

See look! Not that bad for you either :D This was clipped from my sparkpeople.com account. The first column is the calories, second is carbs, thrid is fat, and last is protein. Sorry it's teeny. If you click on the image it will get normal sized in another window.

Thank God there is family......

Yesterday I was feeling pretty poopy and grumpy. Mom invited me over for grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup :D It's silly, but it was really nice to go to mom's and eat such a simple, belly warming and heart warming meal :)

While I was there she asked me to do a few "fixes" to her jewelry. Unfortunately it took me WAY longer that it should have since she didn't have the same supplies or tools. This made me want to rip my hair out and scream. Gotta love tasks and pms... She did feed me chocolate though so that helped ;)

Here is one of mom's fringe necklaces with Czech glass, stones, and my ammonite bead from the class I took with Andrea Guarino-Slemmons. Don't inspect it too closely it was my learning bead ;)

On this one I took some silky cord she had and just simply knotted the pendant to the necklace. Mom wanted me to add the focals to her necklaces.

Mom is also the collector of my "bucket beads". These are my seconds. She is the ONLY one that gets them for her own jewelry making. The "Florbital" on this necklace is a little whompy incase you were trying to figure out what was wrong with it. It has a few stubby petals too. Still a pretty bead though, and I bet you wouldn't have noticed otherwise, right?

So for this necklace I had to get creative. As you can see there is already a center bead. I ran nylon cords through the center of the florbital, knotted it, ran them through either side of the center bead on the necklace, knotted those ends to make stoppers and then strung seed beads and dangles to the cords to make them blend in with the rest of the necklace. They are the little fringies with the little bit of cording sticking out on the left side you can see them best.

Well I guess that's all for now. Even my "short" blogs tend to get wordy and long. Hopefully you made it through this one.

I'm still blog hopping too btw. So I'll get to you eventually ;) Oh yeah, speaking of blogs. I made my cup of soup button for Lori's site today. Here is what it looks like.

It's cute huh? I like it. You know who I am and what I make. Some simple fun wing dings and some very artistic and challenging bead-inside-a-bead-hollows ;)

Ok I'm really going now...

Have a great day!

Much love,

Genea

Green Girl Garden beads and jewelry plus snow bird owl mixed-media set

Hello friends!

Glad to see you today! Wow, oh WOW do I have some amazing beads and jewelry to offer to you today! You will be excited to see some DARK COLORS too!

I have been SO busy I haven't had a chance to think. The last couple of weeks have been so hectic and stressful. I am excited to end my work weeks with adding some new items to the shop!

So to make my life less stressful, I will just be adding pictures with the links for you to visit the shop instead of typing up a description under them. I have to publish the information so many times from Etsy, to Facebook, to Twitter so I will just let the pictures do the talking here :D This little bit of time saving allows me to spend more time CREATING BEADS, which makes both of us happy :D By "us" I mean you and me ;) My head is too small for another personality!

"Snow Bird"- This is the dark set I was telling you about. Super dark Indigo Inky Blue called "Leaky Pen" by Creation is Messy. This glass is so dense and saturated it's very difficult to photograph, but I hope you will get the idea. Nothing can give you a better look at them than holding them in your hands. Full of glitter and magic.
Thanks to Evan Youngblood, my graphic design friend(evandesignsthings@gmail.com) for coming to my rescue and photographing this image to show the detail. Click on the link to see the zoom on Etsy.
"Green Girl's Garden Goodies"


"Green Girl's Garden" earrings.

"Green Girl's Garden" necklace.

"Green Girl's Garden" bracelet.


All I can say is how happy I am with these new designs and beads! As you know those are my very favorite colors for the "Green Girl's Garden" series. I wanted to offer some beads like the ones I made in my jewelry as well. I would love to see what you all are making :)

I really love the way the "Snow Bird" set turned out as well. I had been waiting awhile to do a mixed-media set offering and owls seem to be very popular. As you can see I got a jump start on the winter design too. Not that I want to rush fall, cause I'm all about it!

Thanks for stopping by!

Much love,

Genea