October

Apple harvest should only last a few more days, then it's back to full time bead making!

This morning we picked apples in the rain.

And it really made me want to be warm and cozy in my studio!

Okay, so I'll have to do a LOT of cleaning before it looks like that again. But first, more beads! 

FALL

It's officially Fall!

So I'm working apple harvest

With my Grandpa

Making apple beads

And just generally busier than any other time of year!

New Tools!

ZOOZII'S BUBBLE PRESS

I was fortunate to be able to attend the International Society of Glass Beadmakers Gathering this year.  It was an amazing experience!  I learned so much and met so many great people.  And of course, I also did a LOT of shopping! Thankfully Dusty went with me and not only carried everything, but even encouraged me!  

One of the purchases I made was the Zoozii's Bubble Press. 

I was a little intimidated because it looks so difficult to use, but it made such fun beads I couldn't resist! Amy even showed me how to use it during one of the open torch sessions,

I've made about 15 of these so far, but I already only have these few left at the house.  

I swear the only thing happier than bubbles is bubbly beads!

More of these will be turning up in my Etsy shop in the days to come and of course you can always find them locally at The Sun Dog Bead Co.

Happy Beading!!

Just for fun ~ here's a little music that always makes me feel bubbly!

Richie Spice - Yap Yap

Scavenger Hunt!!

Let's have a little fun!  

My kiln is currently undergoing maintenance so I can't make beads for a couple days. 

So I thought we'd have a scavenger hunt!

There are 3 randomly chosen items currently for sale in my etsy shop with the number 50 in the listing.  If you find one of them send me a message either here, on etsy, or on facebook  and I'll give you

 50% off that listing!! (first one to contact me on each listing is the one who gets the discount)

Good luck and have fun!!

Bead Inspiration ~ Tropics

Once again, I am dreaming of some tropical location and wishing I lived under a palm tree!  I think this week I will focus on all things tropical ~ palm trees, the ocean, sea creatures ~ you name it, I'll be trying it on a bead!

Here are a couple of things I'm going to use for inspiration this week:

And I think I have a really interesting idea for this:

This week I'll start posting pictures of what I made based on the inspiration.  I promise I'll share the good, the bad, and the ugly ~ as long as you understand there will probably be more ugly than anything!

Since it's on my mind again ~

Two Tickets to Paradise by Eddie Money



Have a productive week!

MONDAY?!

Ouch!  Looks like I fell off the blog again.  I think I may have skinned my knee this time ~ they ought to make training wheels for these things!! 

Okay, today's motivation ~  hmmm....  Flowers!  I've been working on improving my flowers lately, and I've come up with quite a few things I like.  But I think I'm ready to up my game!  Let's try something like this: 

Or this:

These might be wishful thinking, but I have to keep pushing myself!

I guess a little music about flowers is in order :)

Scarlet Begonias by Jimmy Buffett

Have a great week, and stay motivated!

Motivation Monday - Kalypso

DH Kalypso

I realized I have a lot of special glass sitting in my stash collecting dust because I didn't feel I was "good enough" to use it.  DH Kalypso is one of those colors.  It's expensive and I'm frugal, so it's hard for me to risk making ugly beads with it.  However, I just accidentally ordered more last week, so I felt it was time to use some of it!

It doesn't look very special in the rod:

But I made this bead with it the other day:

and I'm really excited about it ~ I'm always looking for pink!!

I think I'll do several experiments with Kalyspo this week,

and I think I'll do them to the sounds of the Carribean and this beautiful steel drum soundtrack!

Happy Monday ~ and Stay Motivated!

Motivation Monday - Orange

  CIM Pimento 

I have a new orange to play with! It's such a bright color and I'm really excited about it!  

I see this mixed with a whole lot of other bright colors in my beads today!

And since we're talking orange, I think this is an appropriate song... 

JJ Grey and Mofro ~ Orange Blossoms

Have a great week, and stay motivated!

What's Up Wednesday - The Flow

upcoming events, news, and interesting tidbits

I have an exciting announcement!  I'm very honored to have been included in The Flow Magazine's 7th Annual Gallery of Women in Glass!!  

I can't believe my work was included amid all the truly incredible, inspiring artists in this magazine!  If you have a copy of The Flow I'm number 81 on page 16.  

Thank you to The Flow ~ I can't tell you how thrilled I am!

Motivation Monday - Chinese Character Beads

Things that inspire me, color combinations I love, the music that rocks my studio and 

anything else that makes me want to jump up and make a bead!

The first Monday of 2012!  I'll be in the studio all day today and I'll be working on Chinese character beads since I have a special order and I need to replace some in my shop (plus, they're fun!).  

Here's one I already made:  Friend

Here's the special order character I'll try today: Unity

Whew, this one looks hard!

And I feel like rocking 2012 ~ so I think I'll crank a little Nickleback!

Thanks for stopping by and stay motivated!

Happy New Year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

And a very Happy Birthday to the love of my life and the most incredible man I've ever met!

(and he's pretty cute too!)

Dusty

As we end 2011 and look forward to what 2012 will bring, it seems everyone is making resolutions.  I gave up on resolutions years ago when I realized they rarely last more than a few weeks, and I'm not big on feeling like a failure.  I prefer to make plans.  According to Dictionary.com a plan is: a scheme or method of acting, doing, proceeding, making,etc., developed in advance.  This makes more sense to me. 

 So this year I plan to get back on the diet and exercise program that I used 2 years ago to lose 40 pounds (and then didn't stick to last year and gained 10 back) :(   And I plan to make this the year that Veda's Beads starts supporting me instead of just itself LOL!  I also intend to make plans to travel to my favorite place in the world again.  

So that's it in a nutshell.  Lose 20 pounds and sell enough beads to go back to Belize.  Sounds easy enough!  

Happy 2012! Let's go make it the best year ever!!

Motivation Monday - Christmas Cookies

Motivation Monday

Things that inspire me, color combinations I love, the music that rocks my studio and 

anything else that makes me want to jump up and make a bead!

Today's motivation has to be cookies and carols! 

When I decide to make cookies this is what I see in my head:

(Picture was found on flickr)

and this is a more accurate depiction of what comes out of my oven:

(picture from life as a modern wife's blog)

I'm glad you're buying beads from me instead of cookies!  

As a funny side note, my husband asked me yesterday why I make Christmas cookies.  I said "because I like to".  His response?  "Well, I like to make sandwiches but you never see me make 27 of them and leave them all over the counter".  He always makes me laugh!

and the Christmas carol that always has me singing along (much to the dismay of everyone else in the room):

Silver Bells

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa, and Happy Boxing Day!

What's Up Wednesday

Another regular feature on my blog?  YES!  What's up Wednesday is where you will find upcoming events, news, and interesting tidbits. 

So what's up this Wednesday?   I'm attempting to make a major overhaul in the way I manage my time.  Until last week I managed my time by making a daily to-do list.  Totally sounds like a great idea.  It's not. My list included everything, everyday, and I do mean EVERYTHING! 

Here's a sample:
Make beads,
clean and photograph yesterday's beads,
deliver beads to Sun Dog,
list on Etsy,
Flikr update,
blog,
fan page update,
tweet,
post office and/or bank,
make jewelry
(plus housework, dinner, laundry, grocery shopping, dishes, etc., etc., etc.)

See what I mean?  Basically, I always felt like I was behind, then overwhelmed, and then in need of a nap. Not to mention the guilt over whatever didn't get done.

So my new program is to make a list of everything that needs to get done in a week and assign tasks to specific days.  Many of these things could be done once a week. I don't have to clean and photograph beads everyday; if I do it once a week I only drag out all the supplies for those jobs once (saves time and since it's not on the list every day I don't feel like it's overwhelming me).

Many of you are probably thinking "well, duh!".  But believe me, it's huge for me to tell myself it's ok to put something on the list for Tuesday, and then only worry about that thing on Tuesday.

This is my first week, so I'm still tweaking my schedule - but I see this working really well for me.  The goal is to eventually get everything done, AND be less stressed, and (slightly) less neurotic ~ Wish me Luck!

Unloved Beads

We all have them.  They don't go with anything.  Maybe you made a few more than you needed or they just weren't what you planned when you made them. Somebody asked for them and then changed their mind and you don't know what to do with them. They kick around in the studio forever and all they do is gather friends (and dust).

Well guess what, you can love your beads again! 

I need to buy more pens ~ I know I have more "finally found a way to love them"  beads!

Shout Out!

My life in beads has been enriched and encouraged beyond measure by the people who support me! I think it's time to let them know and to introduce them to you...

My incredible husband Dusty! This man will listen to me talk about beads for hours without even getting a glassy (haha) look in his eyes! He jokes about hawking beads like a carnie - but he's there at every festival setting up, selling beads and tearing down. He's my biggest fan and my most trusted advice giver.

My goofy friend Kristin ~ owner of The Sun Dog Bead Co. the best bead store in town!  She's always coming up with new ideas for me to try and is my biggest inspiration.  This woman sells more of my beads than I do!

My beautiful girls!  Design ideas, tech support, promoters and the people who love even the beads I just want to throw away!

My BFF Melody! Nothing feeds my creativity like the two of us dumping every bead we own in the middle of one of our kitchen tables and bouncing ideas off each other while we make jewelry.

My Dad!  He's always so positive about my work and full of new ideas for me.  I know he's supposed to like the stuff I make because he's my Dad, but he always makes me feel like he likes it for real!

My Sister! (Apparently I don't have a photo) But she's a great promoter and the woman who first introduced me to this addiction!

And I could go on and on.... In-laws, friends, extended family, facebook friends.... all the people who encourage, inspire, critique, and support me ~

Thank you!

New Website!

I just got a shiny new website! 

 It even has that new website smell!  :) 

I was very careful this time to select a host that provided simple drag and drop, cut and paste, point and click set up.  I told the service rep I didn't want to have to know html or any of the other acronyms to use it. Basically it was easy, but there certainly was a learning curve.  After several hours of working on it, my daughter decided it was too painful to continue watching, so she jumped in and TaDah!
http://vedasbeads.co/ was ready to go! And this is why we have teenagers, lol! 

How I ended up needing a new website is a long story, but the silver lining is it lit the fire under me that I needed to set my focus on my web presence.  If I didn't really want to kick some people, I would probably at least have to thank them.

Anyway - I think the last thing to do is set up the gallery so it's filled with lots of beady goodness!  (apparently, I made such of a mess of it that my daughter deleted the whole thing and is starting over. Once again, a reason to appreciate your teenagers!)

I think this is the begining of a whole new side of Veda's Beads!  Check it out and let me know what you think  :)

Coolest Thing Ever!!

Yesterday I was torching (Yay!!)  and I decided I wanted to make a rainbow colored twistie.  I'm not sure what the accepted way to do this is, so I set about figuring it out myself.  I started with a paddle of clear, striped on the colors, and covered the whole thing with clear. I'm using CIM clear at the moment. I took a picture because I thought it looked kind of cool.

This is the paddle, striped and encased.  I usually encase going around from one side to the other, but in this case I was afraid the whole blob would melt off the clear rod if I did it that way, so I striped on the clear.

I got this hot, grabbed the end with tweezers and started pulling the twistie.  Then I decided that since I had a begining picture, I may as well have a pulling picture.  Obviously, with both hands full, I needed help.  So I called to my 12 year old (who by the way is a real shutterbug!) and asked her to come in and snap the pic for me.  Feel free to ignore the mess in the background!

Here are the finished twisties.

While she's snapping pictures my daughter says "Hey Mom, that blob at the end looks like a heart!"  Huh.  It kind of did.  But I'm pulling twisties, so I make several more.  Then I decide to see if I actually could make a heart out of the blob.  I held the blob with tweezers, used the atached clear rod to make a bail and popped it in the kiln.

Then I made a bead with the twistie, just to see if it worked.

Not quite what I was going for. It looks as though some of the colors didn't make it into the pull.  Nothing to write home about, but it's okay.

 
Do you want to see what I pulled out of the kiln?  The coolest thing EVER! And it's the first bail I've made using this method that actually worked! I am sooo going to try to do this again!

                                                      Thank you for the inspiration Jill!!

Local Woman Turns Christmas Gift Into Glass Bead Business

A photographer from my local paper contacted me last Monday and told me he had taken pictures of my jewelry at the local gallery and would love to see the process of making glass beads.  He came over that afternoon and took dozens of pictures and then called a reporter to come intrview me too.  The little article turned out to be a full page! 

Here's a quick excerpt ~ You can read the whole article at wenatcheeworld.com

"As the glass glows from the heat, Jessica Jones uses a knife to help form what will be a tree on a bead she’s making. She heats the glass up to more than 1,000 degrees to melt and form it. The owner of Veda’s Beads, she’s been making beads for sale professionally for two years in what started as a hobby about 10 years ago"

The photographs were taken by Mike Bonnicksen, the article written by Rick Steigmeyer.  Thank you gentlemen!

Last Lesson of 2009

Happy New Year!!  I truly hope that 2010 will be everything you want it to be!  I wanted to share a couple new beads ~ we've been so busy with company I've barely managed to squeeze in any torch time, but I'm pretty pleased with what did show up in my kiln.  Glass teaches me something new everytime I sit down at the torch ~ sometimes with fantastic results!

I'm finally getting the silver glass to look like something other than mud. What I find incredibly fascinating is that both of these beads were made with the same silvered ivory base, the same black and the same silver glass ~ but look how wonderfully different they are!  This is truly a lesson in letting the glass do what it wants to do instead of forcing it to do what I want it to.  I'm looking forward to learning even more in the coming year as every torch session is a new lesson for me.  Bring on 2010 and let's make it our best year ever!

(P.S.  Happy 40th Birthday to my incredible, fantabulous, super sexy, wonderful husband ~ thank you for being my best friend and my hero! :D )