Head on over to my shop to see it all at once, or each individual listing below. Pretend like you’re decorating the tree and begin each name with “hand me…”
ABOUT THIS MINISERIES: I’ve always been a humbug in the past, but this year I’m trying to twinkle and jingle my way into 2022 all in one piece mentally, and you’re welcome to join me. Maybe these will help. Maybe they’ll get there by Christmas, maybe they won’t, but it won’t be for any lack of effort on my part besides not getting these finished weeks ago. I’ve never made anything like these before and it was fun and challenging. The balls and top shaped ornaments are fashioned after vintage ornaments and have a silver “opening” up top just like your standard ornament, which is mimicked by encased fine silver foil. The trees are super cute, also. Each ornament is stuffed with tinsel, because, of course they’re stuffed with tinsel. Hang them on your tree or around your neck, they’re pretty much ready for any sort of action, capped with sterling silver disks and domes and finished with a wire-wrapped loop, and each one is stamped with my signature Z so you’ll know which humbug you got it from.
Once you pull the trigger, I’ll get these in the mail toot sweet. Thanks for coming and Happy/Merry/Copasetic Inoffensiveness.
NEWS! I’m having what you might safely refer to as an Itty Bitty Xmas Flash Sale. It’s Itty Bitty twofold: There are only 6 beads available and they’re Itty Bitty Xmas Ornaments! Hooray! It’s Flash because I didn’t give you much warning at all, and I really don’t like to do that and it’s not something I will make a habit of. I truly wanted to get on this much sooner, but my life was not having it, and I needed to get the construction just right and I really wanted to do this because they’re so cute and I never do holiday themed things. I’m aiming for tomorrow (Saturday) evening about 6ish CST, in my shop, providing my internet cooperates and I can get it all together, so gimme some wiggle room, pretty please. Domestic mail seems to be running fairly efficiently, and I hope these can get to you by next weekend. FYI, I send everything Priority, so that should help somewhat.
these are they!
After working on a big, fun order, I spent most of my Thanksgiving vacation week making tassels. I’ve never been much of a tassel person until a friend had a bright red one on a carved bone bracelet, and when he informed me he had actually made the tassel, I started noticing all sorts of tassels and decided that I needed to try it. You saw a couple of them in 2020 when I sold a couple of purse charms. To construct them, I used lids I found in my kitchen and heavy cardstock fliers that came in the mail until I discovered that (gasp) Clover actually makes tassel maker things. And lucky me, the minute I discovered this they were 70% off at Michaels, so I got myself signed up for the big one and the little one and pretty much go bananas on tassels when time allows. I want the thing to stay intact, so I go through a lot of trouble to secure the strings. I’ve tried a few different types of thread, mainly nylon. C-Lon is too stiff, even when soaked in vinegar, but is better for smaller tassels, and the big ones are made with Omega, which is going to be best for larger tassels, but is nice and soft. I am quite partial to the little ones that come on the ends of strands of stones from India, but that’s a very specific type of rayon (advertised as silk) that can pretty much only be found on Amazon and ships from India, so I’ve put off trying it until the mail stuff settles down a bit.
big fun order
tassels from india
omega tassels
c-lon tassels
Speaking of which, I announced some time back that I wasn’t shipping internationally, and that was due to the issue I had with shipping to Australia. Turns out that there was actually a suspension in place that nobody in the responsible postal departments bothered to tell me or my client about, and they certainly had ample opportunity what with all the checking on things that we were both doing. I had to find this out on some obscure page on USPS.com, and after a phone call to a very special number not listed on USPS’s website. We still haven’t determined who actually imposed the suspension, but my guess is that it was Australia, and it was probably due to safety regulations. Their covid numbers are dramatically lower than just about everyone else’s, so I guess they’re doing something right and are being extra cautious to maintain that. The majority of the other suspensions on the list are likely due to natural disaster or politics. Good news is, it finally got there 4 months after the mailing date, pretty much the very moment Australia started letting mail and flights resume. If you’re in the US and mail your crafts all over the globe, it’s best to check here first to make sure the countries you are sending things to are welcoming international mail. https://about.usps.com/newsroom/service-alerts/international/welcome.htm
In other news, I FINALLY! got the white ceramic christmas tree I’ve been wanting for so long. I saw one at Hobby Lobby a couple of years ago, but somehow missed it at 50% off. Since I’m so loathe to pay full price for anything, I crossed my arms and stuck my nose in the air and pretended like I didn’t care… until I suddenly pounced before Thanksgiving, so they didn’t even see this procrastinator coming. And when I did, I discovered they had one in PINK!!! Can you even believe it. Since I had allotted the full price ($40) for this venture, and I did catch them at half off, I had to have BOTH. These things are at Target and other places for like $90, and as far as I can tell, they have LED lights and are strictly battery operated, and batteries are a huge turn-off for me. This one is more like the old fashioned ones, it plugs into the wall and accepts a standard C7 bulb, all of which is extremely easy to manage for someone like me, who has been voted most likely to pass out before turning all the lights in the house off. I don’t really understand the point of such things being battery operated, unless people despise cords so much that they’ll go broke on batteries rather than take advantage of the electricity they already pay for. Whatever, more zappity-zaps for me!
calico mo
So I guess I realized that after all this time has passed, you guys haven’t been properly filled in regarding Mo’s passing or formally introduced to BooBooKitty, the little black one with the perfect little halloween cat face who always has to be in on the bead photography. I haven’t even wanted to talk about this because it was so awful, but I lost my precious calico Mo in February of 2018. Mo was 18 years old and in not great health, and had developed a weird growth on her back that ballooned up to the size of a half dollar in just a few months. Long (very upsetting) story short, I had to let her go because it was going to be too costly and traumatic for both me and the poor ancient calico to even figure out what that thing was, and you know me, I’m not willing to go broke and compromise an animal’s right to peaceful enjoyment in their old age when we all know they’re hanging on by a thread anyway.
bbk sees a squirrel
As for BooBooKitty I did not go out and get this cat, she was named BooBooKitty and then fobbed off onto me by a dog person who was trying to be a cat person for a minute. We babysat BBK for her when she went out of town for a week in 2018, and she brought her over for a test visit to see how she would get along with Nelson during that time. After stalking each other for a grand total of 10 minutes, they were playing together without argument. This is the Nelson Charm at work, he might run when the doorbell rings, but he certainly is welcoming to most animals who come around. BBK became ours when the owner declared she had a cat allergy. It is my opinion that she was actually way more allergic to not being constantly worshipped by a dog, and as you can probably tell by the way I speak of her, this is one of the friends I lost in the divorce. Who cares, I got this little kitty and she is the best. She tried to steal a sandwich exactly ONE time and was punished by being lectured and then tossed into the bathroom for 20 minutes. When I opened the door she was just chillin on the floor like it was spa day, and I thought, great, she’s going to be a sandwich thug for life, but this was 3 years ago and it never happened again. (Side-eye to Nelson, who STILL comes unglued with anticipation every time I eat anything, including Thai food heavy on the basil and hot peppers and all food must be guarded at all times.) In fact, the only thing BBK cares about is kibble, cat treats, Fancy Feast and dairy. Her favorite things to play with are ink pens and beads so I gotta be careful that she doesn’t steal your beads right out from under you while I’m searching exasperatedly for my pen to write your receipts. But she finds beads too, she once alerted me to several precious chrysoprase briolettes hiding under the sofa. She went through a phase where she would tell on Nelson when he was getting into something in the kitchen. The only time she joined in on the scam was when he stole some leftover cornbread out of the cabinet and had dragged it into the living room to chow down on, and I caught them both crumb-pawed, whereby they were both put on Fancy Feast Moratorium for a grand total of 2 hours. Sigh.
So, you’ve been comprehensively filled in, and I’m off to do all the things on my way too long list of things that must be done before I sleep, and it’s 10:30pm and I haven’t even had dinner yet. I hope to see you tomorrow at the Itty Bitty Sale, but I do apologize once more for the short notice. The pomp and circumstance for the next sale, which isn’t too far off in the distance, should be much more elegant. Thanks for checking in!
the z-beads blog 