Bead Porn Costs

Anyone have ideas on how to turn this into a "pay-per-view" bead porn site? Because I had to completely replace the ignition cylinder in my car (along with a few other minor repairs) and boy did that make a dent in the ol' savings account. It's a good thing I've got about 6 weeks worth of back-up on the bead porn posting AND that I got a bunch of orders for resin beads (from as far away as France and Australia of all places) this week, or else the porn posting (not to mention my trip to tomorrow's bead show) was likely to be pretty darn thin.

At least I have my car back and, for now, it's running.

And now, some fun news to share (and heaven knows I need some fun news after paying that mechanic's bill this morning!): a couple of my items have made it into Etsy treasuries this week!

My "Dandelion Wine" necklace that is in the most recent issue of "Creative Jewelry" made it into this treasury.

Also, my "Sunfire" bracelet made it into a really great treasury that features charm bracelets.




Beautifully patinated in teal, these brass fleur-de-lis charms are from Patina Queen.












A while back, I bought some violet-patinated chain from MissFickleMedia so of course, I needed the toggle to match.

Same story with this white toggle. I'd originally planned to use this and the white chain and links in my "Nautical Menagerie" necklace, but that design ended going more brass and gold and these pieces are copper based. Not to worry, though, I've got more good plans for 'em!

I'm pretty sure this lovely soot-black chain (along with the matching links and toggle I just bought from Shannon last week) are going to go with those etched copper green and black lampwork beads that I posted in last Friday's bead porn. At least...that's the plan for now.

I just love the crusty, rusty look to this and the perfect shade of blue!

Same with these - they totally look like something you'd find on the docks at an old shipyard.

And then there's these lovely sections of patinated triple links. Yumm-o!

I know, but how could I resist something called "Persian Indigo Blue?" I maintain that it's just not possible.

This lovely pewter and resin connector is from Lynn Davis.

And it's double-sided, too!

More carved stone flowers - this time in aqua quartz.

Such pretty colors on thise Czech glass rondelles. I've already used these in a design that I'll be posting about next week.

This is spiny oyster with turquoise embedded into it. I just thought it was kind of unusual and fun.

And the colors are great, too, so I got two different shapes and sizes. All of the stone and glass items listed above came from UncommonBeads.

I've become a big fan of MenagerieStudio and when I saw this black and pink heart design, I just had to have it. I know it's going to look great with one of my hot pink and black French fleur-de-lis or heart resin beads. Can't wait to put that together!

On this one, I made my usual mistake of not checking out the size before I bought it and it's rather larger than I was expecting, but still soooo pretty. I may have to think a bit harder before I figure out what to do with it, but in the meantime, I'm happy to hoard it away for a while!

I'm always on the lookout for great filler or "secondary" beads. Something has to provide the backdrop for art beads after all. I thought these cute, square porcelain beads would be perfect for that.

So, I got some in yellow, too.

Ummm...and green. They all come from ExcellentGem.

I found this stunning purple, blue, silver and copper raku ceramic heart pendant at ElementsPottery. I just thought the colors on it were truly outstanding.

And then I found this ceramic floral pendant in the same shop. I fell in love with the deep mossy green and that hot touch of lavender color. I love finding really unique pieces like this that I haven't seen anywhere else.

Fun and summery lampwork with an etched focal from IMakeBeads.

These sets were so cute and she had such reasonable prices on them - I had to get both. I particularly like the little touch of black stringer work that gives a sense of motion and really makes the other colors pop.

More fairy skirt beads from MermaidGlass. I've already made a design with the purple/teal set I bought a while ago and will post about it next week. I'm having a hard time not buying up these babies in every color combo she lists!

Doesn't Kelley Wenzel make some of the cutest beads ever? I just love the nugget shape and the deliciously sugary and yummy looking colors on these nuggets!

She took a break from her never-ending glass egg production process to make this yummy raku set, too. Such incredible fire and sunset colors! It almost makes me overlook the fact that she doesn't spell Kelley the right way.

Almost ;-)

Have a great weekend and wish me luck as I try to exercise restraint at tomorrow's bead show. Otherwise, it's cat food for dinner next week!

KJ

Winnah! Winnah! Winnah!

First off, thank you all so much for playing in my little contest. I LOVED getting all the comments (no, really, and from now on, I EXPECT to get 46 comments on each and every post!) and reading about how and why everyone got into blogging in the first place. I tried to respond to as many of the comments as I could if they came through my e-mail.

This morning, I put all the names in a bowl and then I made the kid close his eyes, spin around three times and pick out a name. And here's the one he picked:

Sandra Lee James of Do Be Do Bead Do! You are the winner!!

CONGRATULATIONS!!

Just e-mail your address to me and I'll get your prize out the door directly.

In car news...there's NO news. The mechanic didn't even LOOK at it yesterday.

Fab, right?

In my next life, I'm going to make enough money to hire someone else to deal with this kinda crap. And while she's at it, she can run all my stupid errands, get someone competent to fix my oven that's been broken for 2 years, get all my 401k's from all my previous jobs moved to one location so they can be managed properly, tell my healthcare insurance to PAY the bills that are sent to them OR ELSE, and get me a pina colada on demand, dammit!

But, until that happens, here's some new resin beads:

Because EVERYTHING sounds better in French.

And because I wish I was in Paris right now.

Eating chocolate crepes at my favorite cafe on the Rue St. Germain.

Or looking out over the city from the balcony of my apartment on the Rue du Lourmel.

This one sold before I even got it listed on Etsy! It's headed to Canada.

As is this one.

More butterfly wings. This one is blurry because it tried to fly away while I was taking the picture.

No, really.

I love the colors in this one - totally calls for turquoise and carnelian or fire agate to go with it.

Delicately pale lavender, pink and blue with gold and green in this butterfly wing.

Pale blue and bright lime green with dots of black for accents. I keep seeing these with wood slices and/or seed or nut beads and some pretty, glossy ceramic beads with either leather or cotton cording - perfect summery beach necklaces.

These are supposed to be herbs of some sort, but I just liked the colors and how the design has the look of "pressed" leaves.

I made several bird designs in this last pour, but I'm keeping the others to use in some necklaces I have planned. This little bluebird, though, will be going up on Etsy later this week.

Such a pretty gold leaf on a background of green, aqua and blue.

More retro 70's surfer girl artwork.

Just add puka shells!

Pretty, glittery and girly little flower set.

A sweet set of butterflies and coordinating scrapbook paper cut outs.

And, because it's not enough to have JUST a unicorn or JUST a fairy on one bead, I did a design with BOTH!

BAM!

I've been wanting to do something with seashells for a long time and when I found this gorgeous artwork, I couldn't resist. This is an abalone shell.

I had (actually still have it - at my mom's house) a huge shell collection when I was growing up. Not just the typical stuff that you can find on any beach in So Cal, but I had a lot of large, more exotic shells from all over the world. At some point during elementary school, I ended up doing a science project where I identified all of the proper and scientific names for the shells and wrote up little notes about their habitat, diet, etc. The stars of my project were my two full-size nautilus shells - one complete one about the size of a salad plate and the other that has been sliced in half so you can see all of the chambers built inside it as the animal grew over time.

Love the pretty pastel colors on this scallop shell.

And the more fiery, sunset colors on this one.

I'm not sure this is a color combo that actually occurs in scallops in nature, but if it is, I need to get one for my collection. In the meantime, I have this beautiful bead version to look at.

I'll start listing these tonight and throughout the rest of the week on my BeResinable site.

KJ

Am I Crazy Or....

I swear, the weirdest crap happens to me.

No, really.

I mean, everyone has had car problems. The dead battery. The flat tire. Y'know, the typical stuff.

Not me.

No. I get weird-ass car problems that make me think I've lost my mind.

Like today. Kid and I get in the car this morning and it starts up just fine as usual. So, off we head to his school so I can drop him off to his YMCA program and head to work. All goes well until I try to start the car after dropping him off.

The key will not go into the ignition keyhole.

Yeah, the key that I JUST USED 5 MINUTES AGO to start the damn car. WILL NOT FIT the ignition keyhole any more.

The hell?

I actually stopped to ask myself:

1. Is this my car? Like I accidentally misplaced a fire engine red SUV in an empty parking lot for 5 minutes AND I was able to electronically unlock someone else's car.

2. Is this the right car key? Hmm...well...lemmee check. Because there's only one car key on my keyring and I only OWN the one car and I JUST USED THIS KEY 5 minutes ago with NO PROBLEM. So, yeah, I'm pretty damn sure it's the right key.

3. Can I force it in (because, y'know, late for work now)? Ummm...no.

4. What if I try harder? Yeah, still no.

Then, I actually got out of the car. Locked it. Unlocked it and tried once again to insert the key into the ignition.

Nope. Not happening.

Then I got to call AAA and try to explain this to them.

After the AAA lady stopped laughing, she asked me if I was sure the car was in Park.

Ummmm...yeaaaaaaaaaaaah. On account of it's being STOPPED and all.

So, she promptly dispatched a repair truck. The repair truck was driven by George (pronounced Hor-hey). Horhey was a nice guy and he tried REALLY hard to fix that keyhole - using the latest technology (which consisted of an unbent paperclip and some WD-40).

Ultimately, however, Horhey was defeated. So he called me a tow truck.

The tow truck arrived and it was driven by Francisco (pronounced Pancho). Pancho took one look at my car and informed me that he couldn't tow it because it was All Wheel Drive and he was gonna have to order a flatbed for it.

Which was gonna take at least an hour.

"Really? An hour?" I said.

And okay, there may've been whining at that point because I was thinking about all the work time I've missed over the last few weeks between my back going out and having the Black Death and all.

At which point Pancho goes "well, lemmee try something."

Apparently, Pancho is VERY susceptible to whining because next thing I knew, he had my car up on some kind of wheeled cart in the back so that my back wheels were off the ground and resting on this contraption he built and off we drove to tow my car to the mechanic.

Yeah, I had to have my car towed because the A#()$&)!! key doesn't fit in the ignition any more.

I am now awaiting the dreaded call from the mechanic to tell me how much I'm going to have to pay through the nose to fix this. Did I mention that my car is a brand that doesn't EXIST any more because it didn't survive the whole economic meltdown? Yeah, it's a LOT of fun to try to get any repairs done on it.

Soooo...that happened.

And now some housekeeping items:

I did manage to get the contest post updated with more pics so be sure to go check it out. That's still not everything that's in the prize package, but I got some stuff photo'd. Contest ends tonight at midnight Pacific time so be sure to go leave a comment on that post if you haven't done so already!

Thanks for all the comments on Ryan's achievement and on my necklaces - all very much appreciated!!

To Mel who asked about waxed cording: I got mine from Ornamentea, but there are plenty of good on-line sources such as Rings 'N Things as well.

If you or anyone you know is into rubber stamping or uses stamps for beady-related stuff such as poly clay or metal clay, I'm going through another round of de-stashing my immense stamp collection. I started listing new stuff last night and will continue throughout the week. Be sure to check it out and/or forward on the link.

I gots car repairs to pay for ya know!

Tune in tomorrow to find out who won the Blogoversary contest!

KJ

Breaking the Follower Barrier!

I did it! I broke the 200 follower barrier! Thank you and congratulations to Janet of SingingWoods for becoming my 200th follower! E-mail me with your address as you have won a special prize!!

In other news...it appears that I have managed to survive The Black Death or whatever plague it was that I had last week and I am about 95 % recovered. Thanks everyone for the well wishes and the, ummm, interesting cures and remedies that were suggested.

I'm also glad everyone seemed to enjoy Friday's bead porn selection. I was kinda delirious when I posted so I had to go back and look to see what everyone was commenting on. If I can manage to stay well the rest of this week, I'm off to the big Pasadena bead show on Saturday so next week's porn post oughta be REALLY good.

Also, don't forget to check back on Wednesday to see who will win the big beady giveaway in honor of my blog-o-versary! Y'know, the one that I still haven't taken the pictures for? Yeah, that one. Tonight....I SWEAR!

**Edited 7/26 to add: New pics are up on the giveaway post. Check it!**

But I do have SOME pics to share today:

Who won 2nd place at the Cub Scout Raingutter Regatta on Saturday?

Yep. MY KID! With a boat he built and painted himself.

The Regatta was held at the Boy Scout Seabase at Newport Harbor and the boys got to ride on several other kinds of boats including canoes, rowboats and the sherriff's boat (seen in the background).

I had to post this - y'know, just to show that he DOES do other stuff besides ruin furniture and cause floods. Way to go, Ryan!

Plus...couldn't resist the extreme cuteness.

And here's some of the jewelry I created a couple of weeks ago before the plague hit:

Pink and green - one of my favorite color combos.

The focal is one of my resin word pendants on a big square of tiger ebony wood. Accents are some of the carved stone flower beads that I've been collecting.

Brown waxed linen cord knotted with pink and green jade and white shell beads.

I used another large pink stone flower for the clasp and made a loop of the cording to fit over it. The loose cord ends are decorated with pink, green and white seed beads and knots.

Kinda different for me...and somehow it ended up having a bit a of a tropical vibe...which was not my intent, but I ended up liking it anyway.

Then I tried to get all artsy-fartsy with the picture-taking. I like it except that the pale pink beads look white in the pic. Dunno what that's about.

I had some flower beads left over and another word pendant so I tried to come up with another design:

It's kinda funky, I know. I'm not even sure I'm 100% in love with it, but it IS different.

One of my resin word pendants again...

And a lampwork glass unicorn head pendant that I've been hoarding for like, 8 years or something. Actually, this was part of a pair and I'm still having a bit of heartache over splitting up the pair, but I do have a plan for the other one that's COMPLETELY different than this design.

Another closeup of the unicorn and showing some of the other accent beads. Since I used such a bright green in the first necklace, I wanted to see how the pink would look with these darker teal shell disks.

Actually, now that I look at it again, I think I do like it. Not for everyone, though, I'm sure. Only those of us that want to believe in unicorns... ;-)

Happy Monday, everyone!

KJ