Bailey-Flynn Wedding

Hello friends!

I am finally getting around to posting wedding pictures of our friends wedding. Some of you all had asked me to post some photos, so here they are!

Holly getting her hair done by our friend Virgil. We always tell Virgil he would be KING of the hipsters if he moved to Portland. Lol. His hair is pretty awesome ;) He did an amazing job on Holly's hair! It was SOOO pretty! He works at a swanky salon down town called Blo. So if you are a local I would highly suggest getting your hair needs taken care of there ;)

 

Here is the posing photo. lol.

 

The bride getting all gussied up. I will let you know that just before this shot I was given the finger. lol.

 

The bride arriving in her chariot(my car). 

The wedding party.

 

The vows.

 

Ring exchange.

 

The KISS!

 

The feast! This was a pot luck style wedding with some fab bbq and amazing German Gf goodies. Brandon(the grooms) German grandmother made their amazing gf cake with nuts, chocolate and a lemon drizzle! She also made some amazing nut cookies with some sort of frosting glaze and cinnamon!

 

Ricky and me :) I loved my dress, make-up,  jewelry, and hair!  I also went to Blo with Holly and got my hair done by Bi Bi. She did an amazing job! So if you are local and in need of an up do, she is fantastic!

 

My brother and me. He's looking great! He's lost over 100 lbs! 

 

Lucas(one of our best friends) and me .

Jd(my brother from another mother) enjoying his tasty beverage.

Lucas' crotch shot photos. Ricky bending over. I dunno... lol

 

Another Lucas crotch shot photo. Not bad, not bad ;)

The bonfire! This was lit a little before sunset as lightning one at night tends to draw the cops.

 

My hair at the end of the night. Still looking amazing. Looks like someone got a little roasty toasty in the sun!

See you soon!

xo Genea

MOVING May 31st!

Hello friends!

Well it's official! Ricky has his plane ticket to KC on the 29th of May at 12:33am. We want to leave KC on the 31st and need to arrive in Portland within 2 days. I have been madly searching for some sort of cheapish vehicle to rent to go cross country and drop off in Portland. I am looking for a van/ suv of sorts to transport my studio stuff, our dogs and ourselves. The cheapest I have found is like $800 and that doesn't include gas. Anyone know of anywhere? I would love any help you could give me.

Oh on that note. I'm thinking I should have a sale to help with moving costs. What would you like to see on sale in the shop? What discount would you like to have?

Hope to hear from you soon!

Much love!

Genea

Where the hell have you been???

 

Hello friends!

How are ya? Don't worry, I have not forgotten about you :)

So I guess it's safe to tell you what's been going on now. Lately my plans have been changing by the minute. Crazy for a planner type personality. So what's the news and where have I been?

Well incase you didn't know, Ricky is working in Portland, OR while I am here in Kansas City, MO. The original plan was for him to come back and help me move out of our rental house and then to Portland once our lease is up. So what's changed? Well I got a chance to talk with our land lords and asked to get end our lease a bit early. They were super awesome and agreed. I will be MOVING into mom and dad's for the remaining time that we originally planned to leave(end of May).

Why this sudden move? Well it's been super challenging to run a house hold with 2 dogs on my own. Mad props to the single mom's out there, or everyone else running shit on their own!  So we decided it would be best to make a quick move into mom and dad's so that we could save up some money more quickly to tie up loose ends in KC and move on time. So I have been busily packing up what I'm taking(my studio, bed and just a few kitchen items), listing on Craig's list, and moving stuff over to mom's car loads at a time. 

I decided on a week's time to get this all done because 3 weeks really is way too long to drag this on. So anyways, long story short, I've been doing all of the moving stuff to get into mom and dad's. So this is why you have not seen any listings or heard from me here.

I hope to get moved, and get this place cleaned and cleared by weeks end. I will be re-setting up my studio over at mom's as well, so you will see new work from me before my move.

So since picture posts are much more fun, I will leave you with some designs I have created over the last little bit :)

Stephanie's necklace.

 

Kathy's necklace. You may have seen bits and pieces of this on BTW, but if not. Here is the completed necklace :) I love how it turned out! I had been planning it for quite some time and am so pleased with the results!

 

My sister's 25th birthday is today. Being an artist people generally get creative gifts from me. I asked my sister what she would like for her birthday this year to give me an idea as to where I should start. She said she would like a sister themed wall art or a wing ding necklace. Being a gifter I couldn't help doing both! 

I was excited to go to Kinko's and have them resize my photos in mere minutes on beautiful quality photo paper(don't use real photos for soldering, they will melt!).

 

My sister's most recent favorite colors are purple and turquoise. I used BE glass for her heart since I had some really gorgeous purples. The charm photo is one of us smiling and hugging and one of us making faces. My sister and I have this things where we randomly make eye contact and make crazy faces at each other. Why do we do this? I don't know,but we do and it's silly, so the charm is showing the silly faces side. I attached a lobster claw so that you can flip the image to which ever you choose. I finished off the designs with "sis" in a soldered charm with scrabble tiles. "Sissy" would have been pushing it. You can tape around the tiles to spell words, but it's harder to keep a nice smooth soldered line the longer the text gets.

Anyways, there is the not so quick blip of where I have been all this time.  See you soon! The rough part is almost over!

Have a wonderful rest of the weekend!

Much love,

Genea

My HAUL from my bead soup patner, Mary Harding!

Hello friends!

I am just now getting to tell you all about the amazing things I got in the mail from Mary just a few days ago! I even took photos while I opened the box so even though you weren't here with me you could feel like you were opening the box :)

 

Here was what the box looked like after opening up the envelope :) Sweet! Bonus charm on the outside ribbon!!

 

The box with the lid open. Oh a teaser! A card with her pretties on it. I am not sure if the paper in here is some sort of eco paper towel or what, but I was excited my box came in an eco envelope I could recycle :D

 

 The first layer! WOW! Look at all these goodies!! But, wait there is MORE...

 

Oh sweet! Some MORE bead sets!! :D

 

Oooo What a pretty pendant and ANOTHER  bead set!...

 

HOLY CRAP! Look at all of the AWESOME stuff on the bottom!! A Raku bead, ANOTHER bead set, one of Mary's AWESOME clay flower patterned toggles, and PERSONALIZED stamped copper bead caps with my NAME  :D:D:D

 

 Here is a shot of the loot all out on a bamboo mat! Wow! What a collection huh?! Where does one start with all of this amazing stuff???!

  

Here is another shot so you can see things at a different angle.

 

Here is a close up of that flower clasp! Sweet huh?! I love the hand stamped "Art" bar and the green coated one! So cool! You can also see one of Mary's lovely glass pendants and MY bead caps!!

Here is a close up of my bead caps! They are stamped with: lotus flowers?, swirly hearts, doves, "art", "GB" and "Genea" :D Isn't that SO sweet? Growing up with an unusual name it's so awesome to have something with your name on it :D

So what are my plans for my awesome new stash from Mary?  Well here is the "creative mess" on my bead table. You may have seen it over on the Bead Table Wednesday Flickr pool :)

 

I noticed my super sweet yellow clay beads from Mary would match the pendant that Tracee Dock, of The Classic Bead made for me awhile back! I jumped out of bed and started laying beads out on my table. I even was dreaming about the designs I was going to make to match them!

Here is some other stuff I have laid out on my table. Not sure what I am going to design yet. I am leaving the beads out so they can "talk" to me :)

See you soon!

Much love,

Genea

Week in Review- A little bit of everything

Hello friends!

Well here it is, the crazy blog where "everything else" goes! lol. I had some other pictures I wanted to share, but on their own they weren't much. I also figured before we got snow DUMPED on us I should post the pictures of the last crazy snow we got on the 25th!

Ok well I hope you already ate or drank before you read this, if not you will be starving and thirsty by blogs end ;)

Visiting with Ricky's parents.....

We were actually supposed to see Ricky's parents over New Year's Eve weekend, but they ended up getting snowed in, in Colorado. So we got to see them over the weekend of the 21st.

I was excited to give Malina(Ricky's mom) the bracelet I made for her. 

 

This bracelet style is similar to my "Flying Gobstopper" style bracelet I offered in my Etsy shop awhile back. Incase you missed it, here is a picture. My friend Holly ended up snatching it up for one of her birthday presents. It was pretty sweet 'cause you can either wear it as a bracelet or asymmetrical necklace :D The wing dings, rubber o's and soldered rings with crystal dangles are all "floaters".

 Sweet idea eh? Yes, I know, I should make another. I need to add that to my "to-do" list.

 

This bracelet was called "Green Horizon". 

 

We ended up going to a few of our favorite local places including, Tea Drops in the Westport area of Kansas City. Here you can see Ricky, his mom and his dad working on a puzzle they had on one of the tables. 

 Here is the bubble tea I got. It was coconut, rose and green tea. YUMMY! So delicious!

 The morning that they left we went out for breakfast at another "down home" cooking style restaurant. They sold these KILLER cinnamon rolls! Above you can see Ricky's mom with our cinnamon roll.

 Mmmmm I totally took this picture to tease you. Doesn't it look YUMMY? Well it totally was just as delicious as it looks!

While the Knable family was in town we stopped over at Costco and picked up some groceries. Rick and Malina thought the dogs needed a dog bed too :) As you can see Leeloo is happily laying on top of me on the couch. I had to convince Kayla she wanted to lay on the bed. She kind of did. I guess the side was as good as I was going to get. I guess they are kinda sketchy about the cedar smell of the bed. I think it smells fantastic, but what do I know? Apparently I'm not a spoiled dog. *rolls eyes*

HOLY SNOW, BATMAN....

Can you believe this snow we got?! This was taken the morning after it finally stopped. This was just last week.

 Here is the side of the house. Crazy huh?!

 The front from the street.

 Some WICKED icicles. I knocked them down after photographing them. They could seriously impale someone. The dogs were happy to crunch on them so at least someone enjoyed them ;)

Yummy snacks....

So Ricky and I have discovered the joys of stove popped popcorn. Not only is it delicious, but it's low calorie and way better for you than microwave popcorn. Did you know that not only do microwaves heat up your food, but the COMPLETELY change their chemical make up too? Ewww...

So to enjoy this tasty snack of awesome and win  you will need the following ingredients:

Bragg's Liquid Aminos, Bragg's nutritional yeast, Bragg's sprinkle, sea salt, cayenne pepper, organic popcorn, and vegetable oil, oh and olive oil(not pictured). 

So here's the secret to awesome popcorn. We read this somewhere on the net, but since I can't remember where I will just have to tell you here.

So first you set your stove to 7 heat. For one serving of pop corn you need 2tbs popcorn and 2tbs oil. Don't freak out, you only get half of the oil in your popcorn. The other half of the oil kicks it on the lid and pan bottom ;) 

Ok so you heat your stove to 7 and put the oil in the pan with 1 kernel of popcorn. When that kernel pops you remove the pan from heat, add the rest of the kernels, cover the top with a lid and vent one side of it and shake back and forth across the stove burner until there are only 1 to 2 seconds inbetween popcorn pops. This will help you judge when the popcorn is done cooking. 

 Next you will need large bowls. What is the crappiest thing about getting popcorn out besides the fact that it tastes like styrofoam, the seasoning not being on ALL of it. So divide your freshly popped pop corn into 2 bowls. Do the next steps in both bowls.  Add a squeeze of Bragg's liquid aminos around the rim of the bowl, next a dash of sea salt, a few dashes of nutritional yeast, sprinkle, cayenne(if you like it hot, if not, omit), and a teeny mist of olive oil.

 Combine both bowls together and scrape the empty bowl with a rubber scraper to make sure you get all of your seasonings :D Enjoy! You will be totally addicted, promise. This recipe is only like 156 calories and 9 grams of fat(from the oil). 

Gluten free goodness....

This was my breakfast the other day! HOLY CRAP, was it good! Ricky breaded the potatoes with gluten free bread crumbs. They were corn based so they were super crusty! Yes, that IS a good thing! The rest is eggs with broccoli, onions, and feta! I love that my hubby cooks me delicious things to eat :D

Incase you missed it on Etsy....

 

"Double Love" Watermelon adjustable ring.

 

Love Daisy "Aster"  adjustable ring.

 "Hugs and Kisses" mixed-media earrings.

 

"Love You" mixed-media necklace.

Collaboration!...

Awhile back I asked a few people if they wanted to collaborate after the first of the year. One of the lovely people was Amy Freeland of Copper Diem! Here you can see the complete blog post and reveal!

I made the lampwork beads and she designed the necklace. We are going to be offering it up on Etsy and donating to a charity. I believe it will be going to My Mom Pattie, but I need to double check with Amy. You all should totally check out the shop! It is run by the very talented, Marsha Neal. She dedicated the shop to her mother and they have some amazing pieces to offer! Also be sure to check out Marsha's work! She makes GORGEOUS clay pieces among lots of other lovely things!

What to expect this week....

I have some SUPER sweet stuff in the kiln today! I can't wait to see how everything turned out! :D

I took some pictures for my Etsy listings for the week. I tried to take them outside, but the sun wasn't cooperating with me so I had to shoot them inside. I got some KILLER photos! So be on the look out for some new stuff.

I just got the proof for the "Jaw Breaker" hollow tutorial from The Flow magazine! It looks SOOOO AMAZING! I can't wait for you all to see it. They informed me that it may get in this month's magazine, but if this issue is too full it will go in the next. I am crossing my fingers that it gets in the most recent issue. I will totally keep you all posted!

Here is the bead in the tutorial incase you missed hearing about it. I LOVE making these style hollow beads. I just plain old LOVE working with cane glass period. You can make so many awesome things!

Well that wraps it up for now, but I'll see you soon!

Much love,

Genea