Hmmm...got kind of behind in posting over the holidays, didn't I? Oopsie. Between vacation and company holidays, I was lucky enough to have a nice, long Christmas break, but I spent most of it in a flurry of preparations (cooking, cleaning, gift wrapping, etc.) We hosted Christmas Eve at our house and then went to my parents' house on Christmas Day.
I got to hit the 50% off sale at the local bead store on 12/26 and that was lots of fun. Super crowded and long lines, but the deals were worth it. I stocked up on lots of the "essentials" such as wire, chain and findings. Then I came home and placed a few on-line orders with my favorite vendors to get me set up for the coming year. This included some more of the great bead storage boxes from http://www.beyondbeadery.com I just love them, but am starting to bust out of the ones I already have and need more storage. Or, I could stop shopping...naaaaahhhh....no fun in that LOL!
DH and I made it out to the movies once to see "Ocean's Twelve." Not as good as the first movie, but still had some funny moments so worth seeing, I guess. Some of Ryan's friends came over and had a play date with him and we all went to a New Year's Eve party at my brother's house. One of his friends is a gourment cook so we had excellent munchies! Ryan kinda ran out of steam around 8:30 PM, though, so we headed home. DH had an early tee time for the next morning so he was in bed by 10:00 and I crashed before midnight as well. We continue in our efforts to be the dullest family on the planet LOL!
We all managed to stay fairly healthy through most of the holidays, but Ryan finally came down with some type of stomach thing on Saturday night and was quite sick all day Sunday but seemed to rally and be a lot better by Monday. Unfortunately, by then he'd give the bug to me and I've been struggling with it since yesterday.
But, in amongst all that, I did find quite a bit of time for beading and will have new items up on the site as soon as I can get them scanned and get the webpages updated. I lost some time as DH used the holidays to completely wipe our computer and re-build it and this put the scanner out of commission until late last night when he finally got it running again. I did a lot of pink and red stuff for Valentine's and some pastel stuff for Spring.
I also tried to have more of a range of prices so there are definitely some bargains for those who are looking for them. In general, I prefer to work with higher quality materials (14kt gold and sterling silver, etc.) but quality costs $ and I know that I need to have something to appeal to the "bargain hunter" as well. Pewter is an excellent alternative as it is cost-effective and wears MUCH better than "plated" items. I use very few "plated" beads, findings, etc. because they don't wear well over time. The plating wears off and you're left with whatever base metal color was underneath. Even bargain hunters shouldn't have to put up with that! So, I made some items with pewter beads and findings - watch for them in the "Bargain Basement" section of the website. Just follow the "Mr. Piggy Bank" icon at http://www.silverparrotdesigns.net !
I'll post an alert here when the new items are up. Going off to work on the updates right now.
Happy 2005 everyone!
KJ
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