Winter Snow Necklace

See more of this item on my beadwork page

while i was away...

Hi everyone!! Yep, I'm still here :) Life has been ..well... like life gets. So sorry for the absence. I did want to stop in and say HELLO! Missed everyone so much! And to let you know what I've been up to.

Other then just getting by day to day with life's little obstacles...I have also been creating. Not jewelry this time... I've taken my beading into a little different direction. Some place I never dreamed of going, but am so very glad I have.

I have ventured into doll repaints. What is a doll repaint? That's what I asked too the first time I heard it. Essentially you take a doll, strip her down to her base, remove her factory makeup, and if you would like.. remove her factory hair, eyes, what ever you want. And then you begin to recreate her.

That is what I did here. I took a liv doll. Removed her make up, removed her eyes, her hair. And replaced her eyes with new ones, changed out her hair and curled and styled a new do for her. Gave her honey bee wings, and an outfit completely created by hand.

And it was so so much fun! I've always had a love for fairies, so it really was so much fun to create my very own!  I'm excited to create more and will be sure to share them as I do!

Again, so sorry for the absence and do hope to get to spend more time here as things settle down.

Much Love!

Shop Sale

hi everyone! I hope everyone is enjoying their summer, and staying cool!

I am running a Beat the heat sale for my etsy store.

Starting today save 25% off all items using coupon code: beattheheat

We have been running around 110 degrees for the past several months; however, we had two days this week that the temps dropped and we had some rain. It was BEAUTIFUL! Like a wonderful fall day.

Have a fantastic day everyone!

(HUGS)

Fun Nails..

I love having my nails done. However (as all you beaders know) having nails can really get in the way, and can also be hard to keep when you work with your hands all day.

So I am going to attempt to commit to taking time once a week to do my nails in an attempt to keep them from breaking (crossing my fingers).

For any of you who haven't checked out the nail isle lately it has changed dramatically! Now you simple find the nails you want, and press them on. No, not the press on tips. Press on nail polish. So far my experience has been the more expensive they are, the worst they are. I know, doesn't make sense to me either. But I have tried three different types of the more upscale expensive brands, and they never stay on, my nails look terrible with in a day. If you can get them to stick on at all that is.

So I've went with the cheapest brand I can find, and I love them! They stick better, they last longer, and I like the selection more.

So here is this weeks! Although I did spend a little extra time with these. I polished my nails with a shimmery blue, and cut out the flowers. Still even with taking the extra time, I still finished my nails in less then 20 minutes including drying time.  and now when I bead I get to look at fun nails versus broken chipped ones!

Okay.. enough rambling... here are this weeks nails (3 days after doing them) The blue polish didn't turn out as nice as I would have liked, especially for the brand it is, but other then that, I like them very much.

Could this rollercoaster be slowing down??

Well, the past year has been quite a ride, but i think..yes...this ride is starting to slow down finally. Everytime I got one thing patched up, something else would break! My poor fiance came to visit for 3 weeks to celebrate my 40th birthday in December, and he is still here. LOL. He hasn't been able to go home yet. I'd love for him to never go back, but I know that he is sacrificing his own shows and art to stay with me and get me mended.  I have never known such a selfless person as he is. Dare I say.. he may be my earth angel?

I still have one little surgery, and then...i think i can take a break from illness and surgeries for a while. Crossing fingers.

Meanwhile...I have been sketching in my sketch book of ideas like crazy, and have so many ideas I want to try out. I have been struggling to keep up with the actual beading through all this, but the ideas are still coming through like crazy. I can't wait to actually get to make some of these pieces.

I have been working on a custom fish bracelet (shown in previous blog) and will post a picture of that when it is complete.

I have also been working on these little flowers..well...for actually about a year and half, and i finally did make a finished piece. I sent it in for a competition (Crossing fingers again!), so I am waiting to show that piece until I know what is happening with the compeition. I can however, show some elements of the piece.

Real flowers, and my beaded flowers mixed together.

my oldest niece Amanda and one of her dearest friends Devon visited last month, and were sweet enough to model some of my pieces.

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer. Be sure to check out the Love Bird tab on top of my blog. They are the newest addition to our back yard this summer, wild love birds.  I'm sure their inspiring colors will be showing up in my beadwork.

Work in progress

Hi everyone! I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying their summer so far. It is sooo hot here already!

This is still a work in progress. I have to put it on the metal form and do the edging; however I wanted to go ahead an share the progress so far...

It's been a while since I have done a fish cuff so it was a lot of fun to do one again.

Is it me? Or is this one of the worst online bead stores...

SO at this point I am not going to give a store name. Just need to vent a little here. Last month, May 8th. I decided to try out a online bead shop that I had never used before as they were offering free shipping with $25.00 purchase. I thought, okay...this is a good time to try them out.

Placed my order on the 8th.

Week and half later, called to check on it, and was told the items I ordered were on back order. Strange as they were in stock when i ordered, but okay.

Week later still no package. My account is charged for the order, and is over charged by around $15.00. SO I call to see what is going on. They tell me they have confused my order with someone else in the system with the same name, and THAT person was the one that had back ordered items.

So I speak with the owner, he appologizes and tells me to keep the extra items they sent, and they will refund the extra they charged me.

So, they refund me the overcharge.

Week later, STILL no package.

I call. They WROTE the wrong address and it came back to them. LOL. WOW.

So, after the owner tells me to keep the extras they sent, they open the package, take them out and send the package back out to me. HERE Is the problem. They ALSO took out MY items that I paid for.

So now, June 4th. I get the package missing items I paid for. I call. THeir message says they will be opened on June 5th, and then closed after that for the bead and button show. I call every hour on the hour June 5th. NO answer. I sent emails. NO answer.

It is now June 9th, and I still dont' have the items I paid for.

Am I crazy, or is this store just ridiculously poorly ran???? My nieces were running their own business at 13 and 15 and do a better job then this place.  Mixing me up with other customer, writing wrong address, taking back items the owner to keep, taking back items I paid for, not answering my emails or calling me back, over a month now and still not having my order?.....seriously..how does this place stay in business?? Then they close up shop and go to the bead and button show, and don't even check their emails, or phone messages? WHat business just stops checking their phone messages for a week.

6-13-12 update: I heard back from them yesterday. I received a very heartfelt email of apology. So I'm going to give them a second chance. All of us have had those situations where things just spiral out of control, and everything that could possible go wrong does go wrong. I would hope if I screwed up so terrible that my customer would give me a chance to make up for it, so do on to others, and all that....

YEP..more love birds

Today I had 15 in my tree.. including 3 blue parrots, and a mama and baby, whom i captured having dinner...


Want to see more of this story? Visit my Captured Moments Page

Love Birds in Flight

Love Birds in Flight

See many other flight photo's on my Captured Moments page.

Peach Faced Love Birds ...TOO CUTE!

I know I already uploaded a photo for today; however, I was just going through my photo's taken this evening, and this was just tooo cute not to share.

Don't they look in love??

Want to see more? visit my captured moments page.

Lovebird on feeder

This guy/gal has really bright colors...wasn't able to catch the bright blue tail feathers...hopefully I will have better luck next time :)

May 29, 2012

See more on the Woodpecker...

Want to see more of me?

Spring Feeding...

Babies waiting on Mama bird.. want to see us eating?? Click HERE

teaching the craft

My nieces and nephew visited from Michigan this week....

They loved making necklaces!

German Shepard Playing In Sprinkler

This dog was having so much fun trying to catch the water coming out of the sprinklers......so of course I had to stop and take some pictures :) HE was so cute, and just having so much fun :)

Want to see my play in the sprinkler?? See more photo's HERE

Love birds still gathering!

my morning walk in the park...

few more ..

i went for a walk and found some more. i'm not sure how many there are. They flew over head and there were several.. 10-12?

But so far have only caught 3 on film :)  I have to say.. this is way way better then what I usually get to see on my walks :)

A Wonderful Surprise in my tree....

Yesterday I saw what I thought was a canary in my tree, but I dismissed it thinking...why would there be a canary in my tree. 

I was outside today and suddenly a parrot landed in my tree and then took off.  I followed him outside my gate where he went to a palm tree and there were 5 more small parrots in the same tree.

It was such a delightful surprise! I took a picture, but they took off quickly.

I am not sure how they got there, but I'm glad they did! It was a wonderful mood booster.

What I saw on my walk...

One of the beautiful flowers I saw while walking in my neighborhood...

I love how the rocks are colored with petals from other flowers surrounding this one.

Have a beautiful inspirational full day! I will try and share more photo's from my walk throughout the week.

my latest creations

Hi everyone! Yep, still here. Sorry for the long silence. I have been super busy. I had a bought of illness followed by a surgery, and am still on the mend. I did want to touch base though and share some of my latest creations.

This is a custom order I made. I had made one before, and had a request to make another. It is very similar to the first one I made, with just a little switch up of color patterns.

And this piece is simple but very special to me. It is a rosary that I made for my god daughter who is having her first communion this coming sunday.

I have been taking walks and taking lots of photographs of mother natures wonderful works. So I will be sure to get back on this week and share some of those also.

I hope everyone is doing well!

Have a beautiful day!!

LissC

New Beading Loom - looks very cool

hi everyone. I just wanted to share an item that I was made aware of on LinkedIn. There is a site (that I just learned about) called Kickstarter.

Basically it helps people who are trying to get a product up and running to raise money for the manufacturing of their item.

So this woman on LinkedIn (i dont know her, she is just a member of some of the same professional groups i have joined on linkedin) has made what she is calling a bead loom, but it's not a loom like we think. You don't do bead weaving on it. You do single or multistrand stringing on it for earrings, bracelets, or necklaces. It is not for bead embroidery, but I thought it would be a great tool for those times we do just want to kick out a quick necklace and not a bead embroidered piece.

I pledged $25.00 today, which means when and if it gets all its funding for it to be manufactured I have promised to pay $25.00 toward manufacturing in exchange for a loom once they are produced, which is less then the retail price at the store. the pledge process was super simple. I did it through amazon (which I love for all my book buying), and they don't actually charge you unless the item is going to get all the funding for sure.

Again, I am only sharing this because I think its a cool item. I don't know the woman, but she does share detailed info on herself, and the product. And I also think it is cool to support other artists, and jewelry makers out there, and also fun to get a product before it hits the stores. Fun fun!

Here is the link if you want to check it out. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1073198151/the-bead-it-up-loom

- LissC

EBEG Traveling Box

The EGEB team started a traveling box. It is our hope to keep it traveling between the members of hte group, so that we can all share our treasures with eachother. The only rule is that for what ever you take out, you put back in of equal or great value.

I got the box yesterday, so I wanted to share some photographs of all the goodies inside, and the goodies I am sharing.

I took the super yummy turquoise and gold fabric, and a few stones from this wonderful lot.

Isn't the ribbon wonderful? I took a set of blue and cream beads from this.

I took some pretty white shells that I thought had incredible texture to them.

This is my loot that I'm sharing. Lots of czech beds, and some fun stones. Hopefully there will be at least one thing in here that everyone will like.