Perhaps later than intended, here they are!
Click HERE to visit my shop or the thumbnails below for each item.
Firecracker Floopy Flowers:
Stardust:
Rainy Saturday Floopy Flowers:
Applejuice:
Thanks for looking in… I owe some of you an email after not being on the computer for a few days. But I’m gonna go soak in Epsom salts before I do anything else. Thanks so much for your patience and I do hope you like the beads this week!
Posted in blah blah blah on June 24, 2013|
I don’t know where last week went. It wasn’t the greatest, so I’ve probably forgotten it on purpose. And then my back went out on Saturday night and my dad went into the hospital yesterday morning. Now that my back is feeling better I can get some work done this evening and maybe have a few more beads for you later this week. Maybe. But I have these fantastic beads for you now…
Have a quick peek at what’s coming up on etsy later tonight:
z-beads, week of june 24th
I’m pretty enthused about the Stardust set (second from the bottom), and the Floopy Flowers are probably the last ones for a little while. And the bottom set, well, that’s very experimental and will be priced accordingly.
I’ll be back in a bit!
Click HERE to visit my shop, or on the thumbnails below for each item.
Drunken Bumblebee:
Dotty Isles: Avocado :
Princess Pants:
Vincent:
This week has been better than these last few, and it looks like I’ll be celebrating by washing my hair. Ugh.
Hope you like the beads, see you later!
Posted in blah blah blah on June 14, 2013|
… I do have some beads for you this week! Even with the weather distractions I’ve been able to twirl up a few glassy goods for you. Here’s a peek at what’s coming up this evening:
Look at the blue and yellow beads with stars – these were partly inspired by vintage venetian glass beads and partly by van Gogh’s Starry Night. After all these years, I finally have the encasing down well enough to do this sort of thing.
z-beads week of june 10th… look for us later this evening on etsy!
I’ve also been enjoying an older design of mine that’s been largely ignored for the last several years – the floopy flower. I received an order for some a few weeks ago and was a bit nervous that my floopy flower skills had rusted out completely. Thankfully, not so! But I will say that each one is a nerve-jostling adventure in color and form. For me, anyway, when I’m making them, because they’re tall from mandrel to the outer extremities and somewhat delicate until they’re shaped just how I want them. And when I layer the colors I don’t always know what I’ll get. Then they’re melted and shaped some more, and the petals are allowed to flow into a much more durable thickness. If you’re not sure what to do with such a bead, I was always partial to stringing them up with large Lucite beads between each one. (oh, looky there, WordPress’ autocorrect capitalized Lucite for me – oh, there it went again. hmm.)
Have a look at this necklace I made several years ago – please note that the purple Lucite beads are a honking 25mm, and they dwarf the flowers quite drastically. (actually, “conversation piece” might be a better term than “necklace” for this one.)
shrieking violets necklace – 2006 or 2007 – featuring floopy flowers
So, it may be late this evening, but they’ll be listed for sale before dawn tomorrow, ding-dang it! (not the necklace, though, but I may be persuaded to part with it.) Thanks for checking in, I’ll be back soon…
shrieking violets alternate shot
Posted in blah blah blah on June 11, 2013| 3 Comments »
…I’d be taking it personally.
courtesy of KFOR.com
Tornadoes, flooding, more tornadoes, now unseasonable heat. Busting the long drought came at a dear price. We were also graced with the widest tornado on record on May 31st – 2.6 miles wide to be exact – and the I-40 corridor in OK has been declared one of the top ten most dangerous places to live. In the world. I would have loved to fill you in on all of this sooner, but a flash flood accompanied by straight line winds took my internet out at 4:30 last Wednesday morning and I just got back online. It probably happened when a power line went down at the end of my street. I saw it happen from my front door – I looked outside when I heard a weird noise out there. That weird noise was electricity unleashed onto a flooded street. Talk about scary. And a whole lot of lightning, hail and rain stewed and brewed in the days between. Worse things could have happened, and right now I’m just happy to be alive. (And that my house and car were spared during the record flooding.)
In the midst of all the drama, people have proven themselves predictable as ever: coming to help, coming to loot valuables and scrap metal, and coming up with something to get offended about. The most noteworthy slight was Mike Morgan of KFOR telling everyone to “head south” during the warnings for the May 31st tornado. Those questionable instructions were dispensed for the record setting one, which we found out later featured 300mph wind speeds. This one was just a bit closer to me than the ones on May 19 and 20th. These monster tornadoes appear to be inching ever closer to OKC proper. Here’s hoping the third time isn’t the charm… but the good news is, things are heating up for the season, and the blazing daytime highs probably won’t amount to anything much worse than a hot sprinkle.
courtesy of KFOR.com
I’ve lived in OK my entire life and every weatherman with the brass ones to take a job here has stressed again and again: it is not safe to get into the car and start driving around during a tornado. And if you’re IN the car you’d best get OUT of the car and find a ditch, if nothing else. So that “head south” thing didn’t sound right to me, but I didn’t think anything of it since I had no plans to get into the car. Strangely enough, some people listened to him and now they’re hopping mad and ready to fix up his business.
Well, folks, that’s understandable – but substituting bad advice for good judgment is likely to produce undesirable results. This is why it’s a good idea to have a safety plan (based on common sense) and to stick to it, no matter what some stress addled weather man says. I feel for him, too. He hadn’t had much of a break since the last disaster and was probably running on fumes when he said that. The major news stations have been covering everything nonstop, and are under pressure to compete for ratings. I can’t believe anyone even gives a rat’s patoot about ratings at the moment, but life must go on, right? In addition to monstrous tornadoes, we’ve had numerous flash floods over the last week and a half and people are literally being washed away. The situation here is dire. We’ve been traumatized. And it’s about to get really hot.
courtesy of KFOR.com
Mom told me a story about when she was 5 or 6 years old – she and her mother were at her aunt’s house when a storm bubbled up. Mom was watching the storm through the screen door when she saw a trash can across the street get picked up to right about roof level and dropped back to the ground. The trash can immediately next to it remained undisturbed. She backed away from the door and told her mother what she saw and she said “oh my gawd get away from the door it’s a TORNADO!” Mom says that when she was a kid, it was just a rip-roarin’ good storm and they didn’t know a tornado was coming until it was breathing down their necks.
I haven’t quite decided what I think would be better – knowing what’s coming and not being able to get out of the way, or not knowing what hit you.
But since we can see them coming, I’ve been staying out of the bead cave and glued to the TV. Now that springtime is on its way out, I’ll have an easier time getting some real work done. There are few things more annoying than the power going out in the middle of an annealing cycle on a kiln full of really great beads. I don’t even bother when there’s any thunderstorm chance greater than 20%.
Thanks once again for thinking of me and checking in… I hope to have something good and glassy for you on Etsy later this week. I’ll keep you posted.
courtesty of KFOR.com (this one was taken just blocks from my house)
the z-beads blog 