Julie!

My lovely cousin Julie at yesterday's lunch to see her and celebrate her 24th birthday!

Julie is my only female first cousin on my mom's side of the family. She's the youngest of the six of us and the only one who doesn't live in Colorado. We only get to see each other a few times a year and I miss this girl!

Julie's here this week to be maid of honor in a wedding. She has a lot of duties while she's here and not a lot of free time. Since I won't see her again until December, you better believe I took a long break yesterday to drive down to Longmont and have lunch with her and most of the rest of the family. Grandma even brought a tasty carrot cake from Schmidt's. It was lovely to be able to spend an afternoon with my family and to catch up with Julie for awhile.

Friday Communique

Finally, pictures of the beads and goodies that I was lucky enough to bring home from Bead and Button:

These incredible earrings from Stephanie Sersich were my one major purchase at the show.
I heart them.

I've been waiting for a heart from Zoa Art for a long time and instead of one
was treated to two. They're the perfect shade of orange.

Super cool "Power J" ring from my girls at Fusion Beads
and a gorgeous new bead from Jones Art Glass.

Amazing Steampunk components from Earthenwood Studios.
It's impossible to pick a favorite among them...

"Pearls of Wisdon" from Diane Hawkey. Love and magic are my current favorites.

Even more treasures from Diane Hawkey.

A Hedgie and other treats from Heather Powers. Adorable!

A huge THANK YOU to Tony and Lisa, Katie, Lindsay, Rashan, Melanie, Diane, and Heather for coming by the booth to see me and treat me to such lovely goods! You're all as sweet as can be and I'm so glad I was able to see you for at least a little bit. And thank you to Steph's friend Denise for bringing by delicious chocolaty treats and the bird pendant.

All of these great new beads are causing my head to fill up with new ideas of what to make with them. I can hardly wait!

While I fondle these beads for the billionth time, check out what some of my crew were up to this week:

Sara Hardin (AKA SoftFlexGirl) posted a video about knitting Soft Flex beading wire on a knitting spool.

Kristen Fagan created free wallpaper, bookmarks, recipe cards and gift tags for June.

Have a lovely weekend! xoxo

Playing with Wire

The Summer issue of Stringing is out. It's bright and sunny with lots of fun projects. I'm proud to say I have two necklaces in the issue:

High Tide is a sparkly piece featuring a focal piece and clasp from my friends at Green Girl Studios. It's difficult to tell in the magazine, but I braided two strands of Soft Flex Extreme Silver wire around the center portion of the necklace. It makes me think of seaweed.

Coralline was made on request from Danielle Fox, editor of Stringing. The polka-dotted lampworked glass beads caught her eye when I used them in the Come to My Party necklace in Create Jewelry: Glass, so she asked that I used them in a necklace. I had them with me at a bead show and asked Mike Sherman to pick out gemstones to go with them. Obviously, I loved his choices!

Friday Communique

The weather in Colorado is crazy as ever, which means I still haven't managed to get decent photos of the goodies I brought home from Bead and Button. However, I did get this shot:

My dear friend Andrew Thornton posted about a set of postcards he received awhile back and I commented that I thought this was the coolest of the bunch. Sweet Andrew remembered that and gave this to me in Milwaukee. I have a few fabulous postcards in my collection now due to Andrew's generosity and they're some of my favorites. Thank you Andrew - you're the best!

Andrew is one of the people that I didn't get to spend much time with at B&B. I spoke to him and his sister Cynthia (who just tagged me - I'll post those questions and answers next week) for just a few minutes prior to the preview night of the show. Even though we were in the same building for the rest of the weekend, I only saw Andrew again once and never had the chance to chat any more with him. I'm still sad that we didn't get to spend time together. The good thing is, there is always another bead show around the corner, so I hope Andrew and I can hang out very soon!

Check out what some of my crew have going on:

Sara Hardin (AKA SoftFlexGirl) talks about choosing the correct diameter of beading wire.

Kristen Fagan has got a lot of inquiries from friends and family about her Jamaican bus ride so, here is her review.

Have a lovely weekend! xoxo

Downtime at Bead and Button

Bead and Button was a great time this year! Here are some of the fun people I had the pleasure of hanging out with in Milwaukee when I wasn't in the Soft Flex booth at the show. Pictures of the goods that came home with me will come later (if the sun finally comes out enough to get decent pictures...)!

JoAnn and Paula (fellow Soft Flexers) at the Safe House:
Lindsay (Fusion Beads) and Barb Switzer at Water Buffalo:
Katie (Fusion Beads) and I at Water Buffalo:
Lewis Wilson and his Cousin Paula at the Miller Time Pub (where we indulged in cheese curds!):
Sara and Christopher (who is now the official "new kid" on the Soft Flex team. As the previous new kid, I'm happy to hand him the title!):
Sara and I at the Miller Time Pub:
Bead and Button is a great opportunity to catch up with some of the people that I only see a couple times a year. It was great to see so many of my beady friends and I wish I had pictures of all of them. Actually, due to the huge size of the show, there were lots of friends I never even got to see, so I'm thrilled that I got to spend a little bit of time with the people I did manage to run into. Plus I was blessed to meet a lot of new beady friends too!

Summer camp!

In just a few short hours, I'll be on a plane headed to Milwaukee for the Bead & Button Show! Hooray! I'm excited to see all my friends and drool over all the beads. I'm not sure what the free wifi situation is, but I'll do my very best to keep you all updated during the week. If you're going to B & B, please come and see me at the Soft Flex Company booth. I'll be at the demo table, demoing away! I look forward to seeing you all in Wisconsin!

Jewel Box

While poking through boxes of my stuff in Mom's basement last weekend, I came across a hat box full of beaded jewelry. Ridiculous, right? This is no way to treat all these fabulous beads.

Most of these pieces are from the very first few issues of Stringing magazine and from Stringing Style. Back then, it was mostly just Jean, Dustin, Danielle and I designing for the magazine because we didn't have a budget to pay anyone else. This meant making dozens and dozens of new pieces. We would spend Fridays making jewelry, often all congregating at one of our houses and watching movies as we created. Those were fun days!

So, back to the box o'beads. There are many forgotten treasures in here, along with pieces that never made it to print for a reason. Some need to be reworked. Some are great designs that I'd like to make again with different components. There are a few ideas brewing in my head about what to do with all these beads. As usual, with beads the possibilites are endless and the inspiration is beginning to overflow...

Playing with Wire

Elegant Dangles are a new pair of earrings I made with my mom in mind. I always think of my mom when using the Elegant or Sophisticated Trios wire sets, mostly because she almost always wears some form of red or black, but also because she is elegant and sophisticated!

Find instructions for these earrings in the School of Design on the Soft Flex Company site. Or, to be more precise, right here. If red and black aren't your colors, try making these earrings using one of the other Trios sets, there are ten in all. Or, mix and match any three colors of Soft Flex wire. I'm designing a pair using citrine, red jasper, and fluorite wires and some little turquoise rondelles that I've been hoarding for awhile now.

Isn't it lovely just how much a new pair of earrings can perk things up?! These are especially quick and easy to make and I'm going to feel like a rock star when I'm sporting my new pair. Yaay!

Friday Communique

The pool is open! The pool is open! The pool is OPEN! Guess where I'll be this weekend?!

Well, considering it's supposed to rain for the next few days, I'll probably be working on Stringing tech edits instead, but the pool is where I hope to be...

Check out what some of my crew were up to this week:

Sara Hardin (AKA SoftFlexGirl) wants to spread the word about the Soft Flex "Flex your Creativity" Beading Contest!

Kristen Fagan created two adorable scrapbook pages for her sisters bridal party album.

Have a lovely weekend! xoxo

A lovely compliment.

Don't you love it when there is a special surprise in your mail box? A snail mail surprise will always be my favorite kind, but every now and again I get an email surprise that's just as sweet. Earlier this week I was treated to this:

Isn't it gorgeous? Susan Ivey made her own version of my Brass Garland necklace (one of my DOY projects) from the April/May issue of Beadwork and I just love her color choices! The earrings are pretty great too. I might have to make some of my very own...

If you want to see more of Susan's work, check out her etsy site. Thank you for sharing your work with me Susan!