Beaded Spider Web How-To Video

This project uses a snowflake frame to create a sparkly web. This might seem like a seasonal decoration to you, but I think I am going to make one for my grandmother, Cleo. She can hang it in her kitchen window and she'll enjoy it year-round.

She never kills a spider. She always says they eat bugs and she'd rather have spiders than bugs.

Good advice, I think.

furry friends

I know you've read all my chat about my chickens and they are my 'favorite' pets for many reasons but I am also a fan of furrier friends. I've loved dogs and cats and I know that some day my family will probably include another four-pawed member. Right now, with my girls young and a business to run the chickens are just perfect for us.

This doesn't mean that my daughters don't long for a dog. They do. They petition, beg, plead, supplicate and engage in every other form of persuasive discourse. When their pleas get very bad we visit the SPCA so they can pet some fur and enjoy the company of dogs. I know it seems like that would make our puppy-longing worse, but it actually helps.

On one of our recent visits a lovely volunteer recognized us and began telling me about the volunteer program. Well, actually what she did was hand me a pamphlet about the volunteer program and say (to my seven-year-old daughter) 'Our volunteer program is open to anyone seven or older, how old are you?' Sparkles. Fireworks. Joy.

That is how I found myself in a classroom at the SPCA last Saturday morning listening to the beginnings of the volunteer orientation. I learned about the incredibly important role of volunteers in the organization and about how they contribute to the daily life of the animals before they find their 'Forever Homes.' I learned about how volunteers work with the dogs and cats, bunnies and rats to keep them socialized, stimulated and stroked. I was really impressed with all that the organization does to put these homeless animals into good homes. No, I didn't leave with a dog but I did leave with a schedule of dates for my daughter and I to go scoop some litter, wash some windows, toss some balls and even fold some laundry. We can hardly wait to help!

For more information about the SPCA please visit their website.
Click the picture above to make a quick donation!

Snowy Day!

Dear Reader-
This blog, my stores and my home are all located in the South. Raleigh, North Carolina to be exact. This means we must at all times be prepared for severe winter weather, extreme snow conditions and the resulting cabin fever. I have taken steps to make sure my family will not suffer if we are trapped for extended periods in our home; we have a good stock of pantry staples on hand, bottled water, plenty of warm blankets and lots of craft materials to keep us all busy.
Thank goodness I am prepared. The National Weather Service predicted a possible 1/2" of snow this morning; last night school was put on an immediate 2-hour delay. The morning dawned with absolutely no snow or ice or even a stray hailstone. Did I mention it was 33 degrees outside? Yeah.

BUT luckily I had the materials ready to help my family through the agony of two hours of cabin fever. We made pancakes. We read a book. Then, we Decopatched some letters. While I am a fan of the Aquapro Glue Varnish in this case we just used plain old Mod Podge. The letter won't be outside or exposed to much wear-and-tear, humidity or touching.

Cleo tore the Decopatch paper up onto small pieces and then applied Mod Podge using a brush or her fingers. She smoothed the paper nicely around the paper mache letter.



Cleo is seven, and her letter turned out quite lovely. Her younger sister is three and she could have done this project as well, but Nora is quite finicky about getting her hands sticky. Cleo shares my love of textures, even goopy, sticky, gluey ones! Nora provided lots of advice and offered wet towels about every two minutes.

The project was finished just in time to get dressed for school. I hope you are enjoying your snowy days!

All materials and supplies are available on line here. The paper mache letters are not listed on our website, but you can contact the store and we are happy to ship any letters or words to you. Good luck on your next snow day.

Changes at Panopolie

We are adding a second classroom at Panopolie. We are doing this with a half-wall made of shelving and some curtains and a bit of this-and-that. It will look great when we are finished and it will allow us to have more private parties (a big deal, especially in the winter months) and classes at our largest store. It also means that we get to rearrange the entire store. I am saying 'we' but what I really mean is 'Tracey and her staff' as the store manager is the one doing all the work. I get to pop in and say helpful things like 'please move that entire display seven inches to the left' or something else just as annoying and nit-picky. I am pretty sure that Tracey does not like having her nits picked, but she is so good at her job that, honestly, I don't get to do much picking! My main contribution to this endeavor so far is saying yes and providing new furniture from my magic supply of flea market goodies. There will be some heavy lifting required, thankfully my business partner (a.k.a. my husband!) will be able to handle that with ease.

We are going to have a family day at the store this Friday and do the bulk of the heavy work. Yes, that means that I will be there with my husband and both children. It is a family business, and that means that sometimes the girls get to help dad and mom drill holes in the walls and hang up fancy chandeliers. They love it, don't worry that they are being worked too much. The girls do a small amount of work and then pretend either to be customers or store workers. The games are similar; if they are customers they go around with baskets and fill them up with beads and supplies. Then the girls like to give me the baskets and switch to pretending to be store staff. I pretend to be their supervisor and tell them that we have a new shipment that just came in and it needs to be put out. They walk around the store and 'restock' the items they put in the basket just a few minutes ago. Sometimes we have very serious-sounding conversations about reordering items or mailing items to customers. If you see me giving instructions to a six year old to pull an order for the website, you will know this game is going on. Do me a favor, ask the six year old to help you find the Toho beads, that will make her very happy.

Mother's Day

We celebrated Mother's Day in one of the best ways possible; we played in the garden all day. I weeded and trimmed, and my husband worked all day to make me a new coop for my chickens. Since the old coop is a 80+ year old shed that is past rickety this is such a swanky upgrade for the hens. The tin roof and the wire mesh came off the old coop and aviary, as did the door!

My mother started a tradition when I was in high school of asking her teens to spend all day on Mother's Day working in her garden. For her it was a great way to get big projects done with a minimum of griping and we teenagers loved the fact that it was a 'free' gift. Screened porches got painted, fish ponds cleaned, bushes dug out and replaced, trees trimmed. We had a good time and began looking forward each year to the day and the work we'd do. My own husband joined in the work when he was still only a boyfriend and he worked so hard my mom told me he was a keeper! Now I get to enjoy the same day in the garden, although my own daughters pitch in at their own scale; they make sand cakes, or have wagon races or make fairy houses in the bushes for me. Someday they'll cut down a tree or repaint the lawn furniture, but not yet.

My daughters played so joyfully in the garden all day, friends came and went and all had a good time. The children were giggling and laughing so hard and we periodically brought out new snacks or beverages to keep them going. In the late afternoon my neighbor showed up with paints and paper and we all sat at the picnic table and made paintings. I realized about 20 minutes into the process that some of the paint my youngest was mostly finger painting with was acrylic paint, not fingerpaint. A l-o-o-o-n-g soak in the tub got her squeeky clean and I am not going to think for even one second about what substances are responsible for those intense colors in the paintings she made!

The new chicken coop is almost finished. The perch and feeder need installed, the water can hung at just the right height. Over the summer we'll add a small enclosed room for winter, new perches and maybe even a sliding hen door to the yard. My whole family be at the Henside the Beltline Coop Tour this weekend, checking out all the fancy and regular coops and maybe next year we'll put our new coop on the tour. The girls will be ready with the sand cakes.

The Henside the Beltline Tour de Coop is Saturday, May 16th from 10-4. You can come pick up a map at Ornamentea on Saturday; bring a few cans of food or a cash donation for Urban Ministries food pantry. More information can be found here.

Getting Ready for CHA

I am off to the Craft and Hobby Association trade show this weekend. It's a big show with aisles and aisles of cake decorating gear, scrapbooking supplies, knitting yarns, sewing do-dads, model trains, fine art supplies; if it's crafty, it's there. The show is HUGE and overwhelming but also really fun. I like looking over a big display from a company that makes nothing but snaps or specialty styrofoam shapes and wonder at the possibilities.

This year I am excited but I am also a bit nervous. I haven't traveled away from my girls in a long time; I have actually never been apart from Nora for more than a day. She's going to be o.k.; she has her favorite person (Dad) and her second favorite person (her big sis) but still...I am trying to talk to the girls about going away on 'my trip for work' in a matter-of-fact manner and since Cleo is now six that is easy. Six year olds are all about matter-of-fact.

me: I will fly on a big airplane.
Nora: why you fly on a big airplane, not a tiny airplane? (Nora's favorite word is 'tiny')
me: because California is really far away and I need to fly on a big plane to get there
Cleo: Mom, California is not really far away, it's right next to the Pacific Ocean. China and India are really far away, California is just on the other side of the country.
Nora: (excited!) Yeah! Mom, you can take a tiny airplane! A teeny tiny one with a mommy airplane next to it.
me: (gulp!) yep, I can check into that, maybe I will try to ride on the mommy airplane.
Cleo: (disgusted) there's no such thing as mommy airplanes, machines don't have mommies

what I am really thinking is that it is WAY too far away...too far for kisses and finding dolly shoes and making banana animals. But then I realized that Cleo's world is big enough to have places further than the ones I am headed to and that is a good thing...it makes me seem like I am not so far away.

The second thing that makes me nervous is my wardrobe. Stop laughing. You know you'd be doing the same thing. I have so few outfits that make me feel 100% great and none of them are warm climate trade show appropriate. I know there is probably some How To Attend A Trade Show site out there that recommends 'comfortable clothes' and suggests jeans and a tee shirt but honestly, that would make me feel like a slob. Business suits would work, but I don't have ANY or the appropriate accessories. I am shallow enough that I like to have a consistent look day-to-day at the trade shows so that I can carry the same tote bag. I have been turning my closet inside out with attempts to find the 'perfect' outfits and I even visited my friends at Galatea and bought one new, soon-to-be-favorite outfit. I think I might lay it all out on the bed tonight and make my husband give me his opinion. That will make him want me to go far away so I stop obsessing about what to wear.

Makes my heart sing...

I had a little company in the studio. The girls just got to work on their own beading projects. After a few minutes I just sat down there with them...

Selling Your Craft Work

Do you sell your craft work? We just had the Designer's Downtown Market at Ornamentea this weekend and it was really fun. Lots of fabulous work from my favorite designers. I know they were all selling as the booths were really busy, even with the heat. I bought several gifts and gifts-for-me, and somehow Cleo spent close to $40. She comes to work with me on the Market days and plays with her buddies from Sissy & Jacks. Usually the worst trouble they get into is excessive consumption of sweets. This time my daughter painted two ceramic pots AND placed a custom soap order. If you aren't already laughing out loud at this image, remember she is not yet six. Oh, and the custom soap order was for favors for her birthday party. Yes, my daughter is the kind of person who wants to custom-order soap party favors for her sixth birthday. Where does she get this penchant for paying attention to irrelevant details? Hmm...

Anywho, I spent a bit clearing up her debt and didn't get to spend all my money on myself. It's like she's my first born or something.

So, if you are interested in selling your work, check out my class here in Raleigh. Crafting for Money will help you out with pricing, explain sales venues and discuss when and why to sell. Plus, I get to remember my way-back days as a jewelry designer* and there will be wine, at least at the night time class.

Call to register...Ornamentea's class is September 19th, 6-8 pm and the class at Panopolie is October 16th from 10 am - 12 noon.

*I used to design and sell my work to catalogs and retailers around the country-before a certain handy husband built me a tiny little bead store on Glenwood Avenue in Raleigh. He just wanted to keep me at home instead of traveling from trade show to trade show...

Oats! Mom's little secret...

It is summer and we are having a very relaxed time. We didn't do any camps or lessons or organized activities at all. For the most part, it's been great. We have gardened and drawn, felted and sewn, read book after book and played a million games of dress-up. Some days, today for instance, I would have given my fingernails for a giant glittery camp fairy to show up and transport my crabby children to riding lessons or cooking camp or even to story time at the library with a patient baby sitter so I could just, please, cook dinner or make a phone call or even pee by myself. Today the giant glittery fairy did not show up. I asked my two year old "What can you and your sister do that will be quiet and fun?" and she said, in her infinite two-year-old wisdom "play with oats." Yep, that is about a cup of dried oats being measured and spooned and even eaten. You can't see me peacefully chopping squash, folding socks and dancing to some music. You also can't see the carpet that is covered in oats, but trust me, it was worth it.

If you see that glittery camp fairy, tell her I don't need her after all.

Making beaded barettes...

or is that barrette? barrett? who knows, but we sure are having fun making them.

Cleo and I have been making beaded barrettes all during little sister's nap today. We both had a lot of fun searching through her tin of mixed beads. She did a good job wiring them on. I attached the wire at the ends, but she actually finished one all by herself. After we were done, she wanted a pretty plate to arrange them on. She then took the plate over by her play cash register and told me to get my wallet. The price was $1 a barrette.

I am so proud. Wait until she hears about etsy.

Getting time away from the business...

I was looking at the photos tonight. We did have a great time on our vacation. Nora learned to blow bubbles:




























I decorated my friend Charles' hat with a big felt flower that made it very warm:





























Cleo did some really brave waterfall exploring. She was up a bit too high for Mom's comfort level but I restrained the voice in my heart that wanted to shout "watch out, you'll slip" and she did just fine.





























I did some very simple and very pleasing (to me) stitching to some of my assortment of thrift store sweaters.
























My husband, Galen, even finished his own crafty project. Watch out, folks, next thing you know he'll be helping you at the work table. As long as your project is finishing a leather craft kit from 1976 you'll be in good hands.

























We had such a great time, it was relaxing and easy and now, after being home for 6 days we are caught up on the laundry and have unpacked and put away everything, even the beads and paint and paper. I am still finding pine needles in odd places, but that could go on for months.

Since my husband and I both work in the business it is hard to take time off in a big chunk. If you work for someone else there is a sense (at least there was for me) that my vacation was owed to me. Even if I had things to do, I still was fine leaving when my time off was scheduled. When you work for yourself there is not that sense of someone owing you anything. There is, instead, a sense of you owing time and energy to the business, the staff, the customers. At least, for me there is. We are also always so far behind what we would like to have accomplished that there is a big sense of being too busy to take off. There is always something you could be doing to make the business better. Our list ranges from cleaning the gutters at the store to creating sample boards to finding a new, better supplier for something we need. Our good friends, Charles (with the adorned hat) and his wife, Nancy, were the ones that first proposed this annual trip and we just booked it in the hazy glow of January. That's why this trip works. We book it so far in advance. We can't back out or get too busy, we go. In the end, the gutters wouldn't have been cleaned even if we had stayed home that week. If you are in business for yourself, how do you make yourself take time off? How do you keep yourself operating at a sane level throughout the year?

The Desk is Clean! Let's get to work!

Voila! Here it is, the cleaned off desk. I found homes for all the bits and parts I had been just tossing on the desk and rolled up all the ribbon and filed all the paper sheets in their appropriate spot based on color or my whim. I even found a few goodies that I purchased on etsy from Blissful Provisions ages ago...so then I decided to search out Beth Quinn from Blissful Provisions and I see she teaches at the Blissful Living Studio in Arizona. Wowee. Those folks are new e-friends of mine! It is a small, small crafty world, especially when you finally clean up your studio...

Now I have to figure out what I am going to make with those mix-matched doll parts I got from Beth...Cleo has already nicked a few of the vintage alphabet cards for using in our vacation journal. She was pretty helpful today during the Great American Studio Clean Out...she wound wool roving, sorted beads and made several cups of lemon tea with her tea set. The amount of tea in those teeny cups really leaves one a bit parched.























We are off for our week long vacation on Monday. I will do the last bit of packing tomorrow. We are not minimalists when we travel like this. I aspire to be a bit Victorian and drag my creature comforts with me on a trip. We rent this sweet little rustic cabin with wood paneling and windows all around. The kitchen is tiny and there is a bathroom that reminds me of my parent's Coachmen motorhome, a la 1977. We bring a giant kilim rug, tablecloths, a lamp, a million baskets of shoes and swimming suits and the aforementioned craft supplies (it might rain! we also craft in the woods!)and all sorts of treats. We don't bring furniture-we just tough it out with the antique This End Up/State University Dorm Room sofa and beds that come with the place, but don't you think that I don't spend a good bit of time thinking how nice the place would look if I could just get a few truck loads of flea-market furniture in there for a cabin makeover. My husband reminds me that if the cabin looked that nice, we wouldn't be able to rent it!

So do go visit Beth and see her fabulous work and read her blog. She has great bits and pieces on etsy, too, if you need a left arm and a right leg and a bigger right leg with a shoe, but not from the same doll.

(and a big raspberry to all of you, including Kiona, who think I NEED a messy desk to work!)

Cleaning off the studio table

This is what my studio table looks like today. 9:15 a.m. I am going to excavate the wooden surface somewhere below all that crafty goodness TODAY. I am packing for our annual week-long cabin trip where I always take way, way too much in the way of craft supplies. This year I am planning on taking:

*journalling and book arts supplies to work on our vacation journal
*crochet hooks and yarn to help Cleo with her crocheting
*embroidery floss and a few garments that could use a patch or decoration to spruce them up (but no sewing machine or embellishing machine, do you see the restraint I am practicing?)
*wool roving and pipe cleaners and beads and ribbon to make felt fairies (oh, and I have to pop by the store and get a bunch of replacement needles for the felting tools, too since I will be teaching new felters to use them)

I know I will drop a few more items into the box as I am packing. Actually, just now as I am typing this Cleo and Nora are going through the markers making a can of 'going on vacation' markers. Ok, so add paper and children's scissors and a few glue sticks...

Anyway, look for a post tomorrow with the CLEANED OFF table. I may add a few pics of some of the other attractive areas in my studio as a treat.

Felted play mat fun

It's cold outside and we made the most delicious egg noodle soup today. Cleo mixed the eggs and flour and rolled the noodles out all by herself. She cut them too, which is why we had a big mix of sizes and shapes. While the soup was cooking, we worked on our felted play mats. I have been really inspired by the recent issue of Living Crafts but we made our play mats using the pre-made felt sheets and the Clover needle felting tools.

You can see we did tiny streams, bushes and bridges. Trolls can live under the bridges and we even put a few fish in one of the streams. Cleo did a lot of felting on hers, Nora did too but I took all the needles out of the Clover tool and she just went crazy pressing it into the felt mat, the floor, her sister. She loved it. My husband walked into the room and said "Um, I am pretty sure you did something to that to make it o.k. for my nineteen-month-old to use it on the couch, right?" He's come a long way.

When you felt images like this onto a sheet you use just little bits of the roving. It is very economical. Also, as a good friend told me you just can't make anything ugly with wool. It somehow always looks good when you are done.


































How did we make those fabulous egg noodles? Here's the recipe. No measurements, don't freak out, you just can't mess these up.

beat two eggs until mixed

add enough flour to make a ball of dough (stir it with a big wooden spoon and if you want to be just like Cleo talk a lot about how we don't eat raw eggs but raccoons do)

divide the ball into four equal dough balls, roll in flour

put a dough ball onto a floured table, roll out until it's about 1/4 an inch thick and cut into strips with a table knife

put all the cut noodles into some broth cooked with celery, carrots, corn, spinach, onions and lots of garlic, add salt to taste and cook for 10 minutes

YUM!

NOTE: as of 12/20/2008 we no longer sell these felt sheets. Sorry, they were swell but we had to import them in giant quantities from the Kingdom of Nepal and they just didn't sell very well. We no longer have any in stock. Try sheet felt from high-quality upholstery stores.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

and here's my front door to prove it...a felted flower wreath. Cleo selected the colors and our door is orange so it's a bit non-traditional. Want to know how I made the flowers? Visit the Notions blog and read all about it.

make your life nicer...

You want to do that, right? Well, I have a tip for you. About two or so years ago some friends invited us to join them in a supper club of sorts and it has made our lives richer, more fun and (really) easier. We have dinner together, our four families, one night a week. One family hosts each week. The hosts cook, set up and clean up for a group of eight adults and nine children under the age of seven. Now, hold on there. It's really nice. Yeah, I know you are thinking 'cripes, seventeen people for dinner? how is that making your life easier?' Well, once a month you do host and that can be crazy (but it really is fun!) but the other three weeks you go to dinner with friends, sit and chat with the adults while your child plays with good friends. The children all know each other's homes and back yards and pets and look forward to the night. The parents get to have adult conversation, eat delicious food, share new beers or a recipe for vegan cupcakes that is amazing or just vent about a current political situation. It is divine.

My house is tiny. We can't seat seven, much less seventeen, but folks sit where they can and we all enjoy the time together. I clean up beforehand or don't. I make home made everything or I hit the farmer's market and make frozen biscuits. I don't dress up. I don't polish the silver. I don't worry about anything. It is sooo nice.

So call your bestest friend and invite two other families you might like to get to know better. Decide on a format (we do Tuesdays at 5:30, vegetarian, byob) and get cooking.

Katie Hacker mentioned me!

in her blog...

check it out!

wow, she's pretty famous here in the bead world so now I am feeling pretty fancy.

Ok, gotta go read a book and change a diaper!

Walk for the Cure - Team Beadfreak!

We had a great time at the walk today and it was fabulous to see so many people there. We got up early and Cleo decided on matching pink dots for her and her baby sister. You can see they were still a little sleepy as they ate their bagels!Galen and I walked the one-mile fun walk with the girls and with Heidi, Mark, Spencer and Heidi's mom, Penny. Penny is a two year survivor of breast cancer and one of the inspirations for Team Beadfreak this year. We also walked for Michelle, Jayne, Denise and so many of our family, friends and customers.

Here is Penny walking over the finish line!
I didn't ever see any of the other team members, they were all walking or running the 5K and that group was HUGE. We watched them taking off from the starting line for about 30 minutes. I will post some photos here later when I get them. Those pink tank tops were LOST in the general color of the day. Cleo said 'this is just a big pink walk!'
If you didn't yet get a chance to donate to team Beadfreak, you can click here to go to Libby's donation page. Somehow, she sent her donation page link out to everyone, so my family and friends all donated to her. It made me look really slack, but it all goes to the same cause. Libby was our team captain, too, so in addition to getting all the donation credit she also got a gold pin that says team captain...we may make her wear it at work every day!

Projects in Stringing this issue!

I have a project in the newest issue of Stringing Magazine. It is a necklace that I love and wear a lot, so it is kinda weird to see it in the magazine. Elaine Ray made the center beads and she also has a piece in the magazine that uses her tangle pendant.

Last year, 2006, before Nora was born I decided that I would try to submit one thing for publication each month. Well, that didn't quite work out. I submitted one before she was born in May (she'll be one on Thursday) and then quit. I did get the book project started in November, so maybe that counts? This year I have done way better with my 2006 New Year's Resolution. Let me repeat that. I have done much better with my 2006 New Year's Resolution in 2007. That just made me laugh out loud which distracted Nora from her lunch of blueberries and crackers.

For another laugh check out my contributor's photo on the Stringing website. That's Cleo behind me!

My List...

just went out the window today. We were going to go to the LEAF festival in the mountains and visit with friends and listen to great music this weekend. We are so far behind (both I and my hubby) that we are about 99% sure we can't do that. We think we are going to tackle our to-do's instead. So you'd think I'd be to-do-ing this afternoon, but it was so nice and we ended up playing in a dish of water in the yard, eating applesauce popsicles and tossing tiny rocks in the frog pond.


Things I SHOULD have done today:

Worked on the book (outline, due May 30th!)
Answered my emails (38 and counting as of 3:44 pm!)
Weeded the yard (Chicken tour, 1,000 people in my garden next Saturday!)
Cleaned out the chicken coop (see above!)
Moved some hostas so the new fish pond doesn't look un-done (see above!)
Laundry (we are seriously in danger of choosing between nudity or dirty clothes!)
Cleaned off the studio table so that I could easily make jewelry
Sorted my mail
Finished an ad I promised to a publication a week ago (they will wait if they want your money!)
Finished a felting project I promised to a publication two months ago (not due for 10 days, so what's the rush?)
Gone to the thrift store to find some handles for the new tote bag I am working on.

So, hmm, would you like an applesauce popsicle?