New Beads!

In keeping with the 'usual' (being late for everything in my hobbies), they aren't particularly in season. I just go with the flow and make what I like, seasons be damned. :)

Personally, I'm looking at a ton of snow out there so I'm game for some snowman. (I have a snow kitty-man on my deck right now. An inspired bit of snow fun by the hubby from the other day. lol)

The snowman are sold separately from the spotted spacers so you can make your own sets up as needed.

A Valentine's set, of sorts. I have a Christmas colored set like this that people seem to like a lot so I did a similar one in pinks. Because if there is one thing I know it's how much people love pink. Pink, pink, and more pink! (It *is* a fun color. Always happy!)

A couple other things too but I won't bore people. Well, except for this:

I lied a tiny bit when I said last month that I had packed up all my 'extra' beads and was starting over again for the new year with empty bead bowls. I meant to say all the extra beads that weren't the spacers and small beads that I like to hoard make in great quantities. Oh, THOSE. *ahem*

I've had to graduate from my bead bowl to this 'bead tin'. A whole tin! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! I haven't weighed it but it wouldn't shock me if it were around 2lbs.  It's a glorious, happy, massive pile of little beads that are MINE, MINE, MINE.

What can I say? I like spacers. They are a good way to use up all the glass rod shorts on my work table. A good portion of them go out in my shipped packages as little freebies but I make them upwards of six at a time on one mandrel (!!) so I always make more than I actually use. I should probably start scouting out a bigger container now. It's just never enough. Heh. :)

Holiday Giveaway time!

 Little bit of blogging first and then I'll get to the free stuff. :)

I haven't managed a day off from work..............yet. But it's coming!!!

Etsy shop is closed down now and I *was* going to wait until this weekend to shut the web store down but I rethought it and now that will be closed sometime tomorrow too. Three weeks without a day off and an annoying bout of dizziness the last couple days have me waving the white flag. I need time to regroup; physically, mentally and just about any other 'ally you can think of. lol

(Also: need to finish cleaning my house and Xmas decorating. The tree is up - with lights but no ornaments on it. *sad*)

I did manage to put together some stuff for a holiday giveaway though!

A little bit of everything - so something stitchy for stitchy peeps and something beady for beady peeps, etc.

The stitchy stuff is a brand-new Blackbird Designs stocking pattern (I overbought but my whoopsie is your gain!) and I made a handy-dandy fabric thread catcher to match. The fabrics on the thread catcher aren't OVERTLY Christmasy though if you want to use it year-round. (I can't promise a couple beads won't work their way into this offering too though. Heh.)

For the beady stuff I did up four different hatted snowmen and wired them up with Swarovski crystals and put them on coordinating lobster claw lariats. Perfect to put on a pair of scissors, your cell phone, etc. - or take it off the lariat and put it on a chain for a necklace! (I went with snowmen because they can work as a trinket all winter long vs. just a few weeks in December.)

So FIVE separate things to giveaway! :)

Here is how you can get them:

1. To enter all you have to do is email me. ( I will ship it anywhere in the world so everyone is welcome to enter.)

 

2. If you have no preference on what you'd like to win, no message is needed on your email. If you'd prefer one thing (stitchy) vs the other (beady) then feel free to put that in your message.

  3. If you are a follower of this blog, let me know and I will enter your name in twice. I do so appreciate my followers and the comments I get here so of course you guys get extra special attention. :)
(If you are not a follower but want to be, just click the 'follow' link on the right side bar. Everybody has a Google account at this point................right?)

4. I will draw the winners names next Tuesday, December 18th using the random number generator. and contact the winners by email for their mailing addresses.

And that's it. Easy-peasy, right? :)
GOOD LUCK!

OH MY!

 Sooooooooooooooooo busy lately. You can tell from my frazzled needs-to-be-dyed immediately and not-quite-red-anymore hair (hate that red washes out so quickly) and the number of mumbled-under-my-breath F bombs I'm dropping per day that things have been, well, busy. Vacation is coming in a week and I'm trying to keep on top of EVERYTHING (work/housework/shopping for a vacation that I have exactly ZERO clothes for) all at once so I don't end up 'last minute'ing everything and.............it has been a little crazy. *whew*

First up.........

Time to say BUH-BYE to the snowmen for the year. It's back to being cold out here but it's time to, sniff, put these away for spring. Loaded them all up and onto (and under............and around.....) the coffee table and packed them away into their bins. It hurts a little because I picture them going "Oh nooooooooooooooo!" in a Mr. Bill voice as I do it. lol (I probably just dated myself with the Mr. Bill reference too. Heh.)

Hey! How crazy is this?

Apparently if you write a polite letter to Patons telling them you are disappointed in their lack of dye lot know-how (see: multiple pairs of non-matching socks done with the FX yarn line) they send you a box of free YARN. That's pretty cool of them, right? Aside from the non-matching dye lots in this FX stuff, it is good sturdy yarn and will make very wearable socks. I do appreciate the effort because I wasn't looking for replacement yarn, to be honest. Free yarn = always awesome.

I threw out the shall-not-be-named stitchy that was giving me grief. Yes, threw it out. It was too far gone to do anything else, to be honest, and keeping it around would have assured I continued to stay butt hurt over it so.......................a quick flash of the scissors to free the linen that was used up and off to the trash it went. I went back to trying to finish the LHN design pictured above and all was right in my world again. (I could *possibly* finish this one this week if I stay monogamous with it and don't start side eyeing the 823423234 other things on tap.)

Does anybody else Lolo Fit? I know fitness posts are uber-boring but I started using their treadmill app last week and it's pretty durn cool and figured it might punch up someone else's treadmill routine too. You set how long you want to walk, load your own music set from your iPod if you wish, and it gives you a walking (or running if you do that..........I don't because OW. OW. OW.) plan that goes through intervals and different inclines to keep you interested. Changes it up every few minutes or sometimes even every 30 seconds. The trainer voice speaks over your music when it is time to change the speed and, surprisingly enough, I haven't wanted to strangle and/or kill her yet. lol It sounds simple but it really does make the hour go by MUCH faster somehow. IT'S TRICKSY LIKE THAT. Gotta love something that makes exercise a TEENSY bit better, ya know? Now I just need an app that magically makes pizza and tortilla chips look like a pile of poo and I will be all set for life!!!! :)

Lots of new beads up!

Including a new 'pet shop' category. 

It only has puppies in it for now but I hope to get some kitties in there soon. :)

 

If puppies aren't your thing (uhhhhh....who doesn't like puppies??) there are also new bee items...

...in honor of my husband who is gearing up to start his beehives again after last year's colossal hive failure..

...and a new Fairy...

This one in a 'Easter Egg' striped theme.

Plus a few other things that you can check out for yourself if you'd like. :)

And the winner is of the beady giveaway is...........

 Random Number Generator picked #59, I sorted all the entries by subject (to mix them up randomly) and counted from the bottom (instead of the top for something different this time) and the name I came up on was ..............Luann!!

Congrats on winning!!! I will have this out to you ASAP.

Thanks to everyone who participated! I will have a stitchy giveaway up tomorrow, I believe. (Or maybe Tuesday as I still have to stuff it and take pictures of it. Heee!)

Beady Lovelies

Look at this nice pendant from Donna Goodman of The Finishing Touch, that uses one of my starfish beads:

 Beach Daze Pendant

And here are the matching earrings:

Beach Daze Earrings

I'm a big fan of Swarovski crystals. Big big fan. I love 'em to bits and love 'em even more when they are clustered up like this. Thanks so much for sharing the pics, Donna! I love seeing what people do with my stuff. You guys come up with the best stuff ever. :)

Lots of new beads for today!

Too many to list here so I'll just put up a few. 

You can see the rest here. :)

And now I think I'll go.........lay down or something cuz that took me like four hours to get everything listed and my arms/shoulder are completely numb now. lol

FINALLY!! Some new beadies are up!!!

Posted over here on the web site. :)

I really was going to post them on Saturday but the weather wasn't cooperating. We had bad thunderstorms off/on, starting at 5am so I stayed off the computer just to be safe. (Spring has forsaken us for the moment because it's hella chilly here all of a sudden. Below freezing last night, will be below freezing again tonight. Very odd considering I had the AIR CONDITIONER on just last week. 0_o) But today is just as good, I guess. :)