Our Staff Holiday Party...lots of fun

We had a great party tonight at the Globe. The delish food (mmm, spicy local pork tacos, beets with horseradish cream cheese and more yummies...)and even better drinks made all our tummies happy and we really enjoyed the fun of the gift exchange. Every year we have a handmade gift exchange. Each person makes a gift and then we draw numbers and folks get a gift...this year I made a lamp and Galen made a fudgey brownie medley. We had hand knit washcloths, decorated switch plates, journals, knitty jewelry and more. I got an amazing picture of a celebrity in our store. I will share that soon, for now you will just have to enjoy this picture of Lois wearing a lampshade on her head...almost.


The folks at the Globe really treated us right. The food was, as I said, excellent, and the service was nice, too. It felt more like we were in a really nice house than in a restaurant. A house with amazing bathrooms, I might add.

I hope you have some fun holiday parties to go to this year...our staff party is my favorite. I am going to put up more pics tomorrow...after I get some sleep.

Win a semi-precious stone globe...

Help stop hunger in North Carolina today-

We are raffling off this semi-precious stone globe to benefit The Food Bank of Eastern and Central North Carolina. A $2 raffle ticket will help feed a child for a day, 100% of the ticket sales will go to the Food Bank. While the Food Bank gets lots of donations of non-perishable goods (especially at this time of year!) they always need money to fill in the gaps.

Come see the globe in person at Panopolie; you can buy a ticket at either store. We will draw the name on December 30th and if you win you can spend New Year's Eve gazing at a sea of lapis.

The Food Bank is a favored charity of mine, they put almost every cent they raise into programming, not fancy charity balls and high-paid administrators. So many volunteer hours go into collecting and distributing the food to needy people in our area and the Food Bank is always filled with cheerful faces. This globe is beautiful, maybe it would be just the thing for your home or office or maybe it would make a nice late holiday gift for a globe trotter you know. Come buy a few tickets today.

Warm, wonderful snowflakes...

We made these woolly snowflakes last year using felt balls and wire snowflake forms. Press the felt balls onto the spokes and when you are finished with each spoke just turn the wire end with a pair of chain nosed pliers. This is a good family craft, just about anyone can enjoy making a snowflake. We also string the felt balls on thread with a needle and make long garlands. My girls are all about process, so the same garland can get made and cut and made again in just a few days. We keep a big jar of felt balls on our mantle all winter long for crafts; snowflakes, making those garlands, sorting by size and color, even for using as pretend treats at dolly tea parties!


get those wire snowflakes here...I used the medium size but you could use any size...felty balls are here...

Get more great ornament ideas at Ornament Thursday! Sorry I was late this week, ladies!

Betz is coming to town...maybe?

Just to let you know that I am in the midst of a blizzard of emails with the talented Betz White as we work out the details of a visit by Miss Betz to the Triangle. We're working on a series of classes; felty, knitty and more for Valentine's weekend. If you can't wait, head over to her etsy shop and get a cupcake now. Me? I am planning on a really fun weekend in February. Details to follow...

Lisa Daly glass beads...show this weekend!

Come to the Lisa Daly trunk show this weekend at Ornamentea and you can see the devil. Well, if the devil is a one inch high glass bead guy with extra flaming beads on the side that is. There will also be aliens, space-invadery guys and even some monkeys. Lisa's beads have a sense of humor without being dumb. The devil actually looks a teeny bit dangerous and the flame companion beads might be just the thing for that rock-n-roll gurl on your list. Or skateboarder-turned-dad.

I will be teaching another Friday night Artisan Workshop where we'll focus on working with lampwork beads. I will show off a few low-tech silversmithing techniques for highlighting Art beads of all kinds and can help you create your own design. Registration is $10 and your fee includes wine and noshes and some play time with the torches. Call Ornamentea today to register, 919-834-6260.

Now I am off to use that bead in the picture. Not all Lisa's beads are figural, she also makes luminous pretties like the one shown. That noise you hear is me pounding out a special cuff bracelet to highlight the shine on that bead. See you Friday.

See more of Lisa's work and her writing at 16thstreet.net

Crown Sighting!

Ahh, I love it when I am reminded what a small world this is. My hubby and girls went with some friends to see the Carolina Rollergirls recent bout and someone told me that there was a woman at the bout who was wearing a crown just like the one I had made. Vintage do-dads and sparkly stuff and everything. We wondered if she had gotten the idea from my blog or from the store, but you never know about those things, right? Well, not right. Today I see a comment from Scatterbox about her crown that she wore to the Rollergirls bout (and a bunch of other places.) It is a small world we inhabit. Crazy! So here's a picture of the crown that Scatterbox created...you should visit her blog and read her very funny rants and raves about life as a creative genius. Oh, and let her know that she does not look like a dork in her crown.
(That is a picture of Scatterbox in her crown, I nicked if from her blog without permission...I think she won't mind too much.)