Bead Soup is Here

It is Bead Soup time again. I am thrilled that life is allowing me to be participating this time around. Life is good.

I am partners with Laurie from Tree of Life - rooted in my soul. Now if you have been following me and my work in anyway you will surely agree that this partnership is a perfect pairing because of my LOVE for creating trees of life!!!

Tree of Life in my Etsy shop

I am looking forward to this Bead Soup adventure. If you would like to follow additional Bead Soup adventurers please visit our gracious hostess, Lori Anderson at her blog Pretty Things.

Here are a few links to 2011 Bead Soup:

Sneak Peak

What I Rec'd 

The Big Reveal 

What I Sent

Each Day is New

Hi. Thanks for visiting my blog. My life as a wife, mother, sister, employee and artist has been crazy busy the last for months.

I began a part time job in April. I'm still not sure if I will continue with it. I like the job. Working from home, as an artist can be solitary and I miss seeing people so this job has been great fun. The problem is I haven't had a chance to make any beads or jewelry and I am sorely missing being creative. I am praying on finding a solution to this dilemma. I think if I put as much effort into my own business as I am putting into this part time job I could be successful. The problem is having enough discipline while working from home and being accountable to myself can be tricky.

My sister is successfully waging her own personal battle with breast cancer. She has made it easy for those of us that love her by handling the entire situation proactively with an amazingly positive attitude and an incredible amount of Grace. Yes she found Grace. I tell you she is an inspiration! If you are inclined to pray we would gladly accept your prayers on her behalf.

My second son graduated from high school! Phew!!! I am so pleased he is finally out of public school and will be creating his own direction and making decisions about his life. I think this is a wonderful place to be in life. I am excited to watch where he will go. He is heading off to college in the fall, studying film. Look out Hollywood....he will be storming your doors down some day soon.

Now with summer underway I hope I will be able to find some space to make beads and decide which direction I will take. I have decided I can't manage my family, manage my husbands business, work at a part time job as well as run my own business. Some decisions need to made...NOW if only I could decide.......



In the meantime....you can find my beads for sale in my Etsy and Artfire shoppes.

Burns happen

In January I received a serious burn while I was creating a bead. I became so focused on the bead and getting the enamels right where I wanted to apply the color I temporarily forgot about the flame. This is a VERY BAD thing to do. I don't often get so involved that I forget about the flame. You simply can't afford to do this when you are working with a flame that has a temperature in the area of 1500 - 2000 degrees. But it happened. I was working beneath the flame and inadvertently put my knuckle straight into the flame. The words that came out of mouth weren't very nice because I knew it was going to bad. It didn't it even hurt, not even a little bit, not a good sign!

I will spare you the gruesome photos I took in the early weeks. This is what the burn looks like three weeks later. Really not bad considering what had happened.

One of the good things, no I should say GREAT things that came out of this event is that I learned about a product I had never heard of before. It is called 2nd Skin for burns by Spenco. This stuff saved me. Really! My burn was so bad I needed to have it covered, for the slightest brush against anything brought tears to my eyes. Keeping it covered wasn't easy because everything I tried stuck to the wound and caused more pain. I posted a photo of my burn on my Facebook Page and a wonderful fellow lampworker, Bonnie Stow of PuddyTatGlass came to my rescue. Bonnie suggested this product and I must say it worked wonders! It is a gel like covering which I had to secure onto my hand with a band aid or two. I don't know exactly how it works but it FELT GREAT, I was able to actually function with this on my hand and it seemed to help the healing process along. A little gelly miracle.  

You can look around Google and find a price you like. I bought a couple boxes from Amazon for a fair price.

I will keep these on hand but hopefully won't ever need them again.