It's amazing to me how paths cross and how they make your life richer. In March of 2008 I was deployed to Iraq, and one of the folks I got to know was Brian. He's a tall guy so he was hard to miss, and he liked to have fun in the odd way you do when you are deployed. Turns out he was assigned as a young guy to the same base with a really good friend on mine, and we all got together when he and his wife were visiting DC.  Angela is a hoot, and we seem to have similar lifestyles - working mom + athletic daughter(s). Long story longer, Angela contacted me to say she had some pearls from Brian's grandmother, and had two sets of earrings made for her two eldest daughters. Now the third daughter is ready for a set of earrings and her earring making friend moved away...which means she asked me to fill in.  Yay! Angela also sent an orphan earring that she wanted me to use with the balance of the pearls in something she could wear. I asked her to send me one of the original pairs of earrings so that I wouldn't be too far off, here's what they looked like:

I have a lot crammed onto my messy table, to include a give away - so keep reading all the way to the end!

I seem to be on a bit of a shopping binge, to get my bead money just call yourself StudioJuls and tell me you have a coupon code because you are destashing.  Fish, caught.  But she had some pretty awesome stuff, to include this vintage button I HAD TO HAVE.  Because it says Aunt Lornel to me, a sleek, Anna Wintour looking gal that has all of her style but is a gazillion times nicer (sorry Anna, but that's what they are sayin') who only wears black accented with gold.  I already ordered some luscious black Czech glass beads and matte antique gold seed beads to make a beautiful multi-strand collar.  I hope it looks as great for real as it does right now in my head.

Next to that is a pair of earrings that I need to copy with the pearls in the bag behind it.  My friend Angela saved the pearls from her husband's grandmother's necklace and had earrings made for her two oldest daughters, and now needs a pair for her youngest.  I looooooove projects like this.  She wants the rest of the pearls and an earring made into something she can wear.  What fun!

Now for the giveaway...Lori of Bead Soup/Pretty Things fame is putting on a virtual craft fair - 70 artists over 7 days and 70 giveaways!
So the little bit of bead table doesn't in the first picture look so bad, but take a look at the rest.  Out of Hand!  If only I didn't need to sleep I could get alllllllll of my intended projects done!

My sweetie (he just told me he prefers the term "studdog, with two dees") had a business trip to London and asked me if there was something he could bring me.  Well you know what the answer was...a little google research and an e-mailed address and he brought home this lovely bag...

Some how, yet again, the 11 o'clock news is on and I am not in bed.  It's been a good day - a briefing at work went well, I WON A BRACELET from Patty at My Life Under the Bus, and we got some important chores done at home. So here are two craptastic pictures of my bead table, and a lovely picture of one of the chores I helped get done today - an aluminum foil top hat.  Bet you didn't see that coming :-)  Emma has an "adopt an element" presentation to make Friday - can you guess which one?  I keep calling the foil "tin foil" and she keeps saying, "ALUMINUM foil, Mommy, I have aluminum, Sally has tin!"  Yes, ma'am.  Enjoy the rest of your week!

We are chillin' in post-Five Guys-food-coma, Amazing Race-watchin mode.  All four of us spread to the four corners this morning - Emma to a friends and then a soccer game (first victory of the season....awesome!), Michael to his BFFs for go-carting and legoing, Greg on a work trip to London (anyone know any good bead stores there I can send him to?) and me to the Falling for Handmade craft fair sponsored/organized by the Capital Region Etsy Street Team. Everyone except Greg is back home and my military training requires that all "operations" be reviewed, assessed, and lessons learned.

1.  My new shutter earring displays baaaaaaarely fit in my car - but they do fit - yay!  Of course I did not think about transportation AT ALL until Greg and I loaded the car last night. And I needed to drop off the kids on my way--good thing I could scrunch them into the front seat.

2.  I ended up getting there about 45 minutes before the doors opened.  Not much time but I decided the night before that I wasn't going to stress out about the logistics.  It feels good knowing that I can get everything unloaded and set up by myself.  Here is a fuzzy "before" picture:

3.  The CREST team picked a great facility, the spots were well marked, and they promised power - something I haven't had access to before (the twinkle lights were a spur of the moment purchase and I dig 'em).  I had also added hooks to my display to hang my banner up high - diggin' that too.

4.  I love meeting new crafters/artists--like Barb of Buttons by Barb, Street Team Lead Jennifer of Crafty Stitches, Andrea of The Crafty Professor (great intro, "I should be writing papers to get tenure, but instead I make jewelry"), Suzanne of Beautiful Universe, Linda, my immediate neighbor and a wonderful creator of handbags, and Stephanie of SG Designs, my other neighbor, who had the best line of the show, "Who would have thought the pillow lady would have the most customers!"

5.  I got lots of compliments on my display and my designs, except for the one customer, you know the one, "This necklace is nice, but it needs to be longer - see how it would be too busy up near your face? It should be longer. That way you can shorten it if you want and have it drape down your back."  Wha?

6.  Unfortunately there weren't too many customers, and few who made purchases.  I think while the facility was great, it wasn't obvious from the outside what was going on inside.  It could be the 3 million election signs that didn't make our show's signs obvious.  I seem to be stellar at collecting fun new friends at craft fairs because I keep finding the ones with not too many customers.  But I never come away without learning something new, and I am looking forward to my November craft fair 'cause I know it's one that is full of fun customers :-)

I haven't played with resin too much, but I did get my hands on an Ice Resin kit and I find it relatively fool proof - or at least this fool can get some decent results.  I bet it would look cooler had I Mod Podge'd the paper, but I kinda like that it's translucent.  I also found that my husband's desk (shhhhhh - he was out of town for two nights) and my new and wickedly bright photo lights are great for working with resin.

See the empty bottle cap on the left?  Ooops, missed that one :-)

Ever have an idea, seemingly simple, that becomes much, much bigger than you thought?  I am happy with the resin results, but this is just step one.  I decided that the simple holes drilled in the bottle caps wouldn't work for me - so now am committed to gluing on bails.  A couple click clicks on eBay and I found what I wanted - but there is no way I'll get this project done by Sunday**, when I'll be at Falling for Handmade.  It's my first foray into a non-local-church-craft-fair venue - hosted by the Capital Region Etsy Street Team - wish me luck!

** If you are in the DC area please stop by - Sunday, October 16th - 11 am to 5 pm -

Ernst Community Cultural Center
              @ NOVA Community College Annandale 
        4001 Wakefield Chapel Road 
        Annandale, VA

Dear Mums - you are beautiful and rich looking and are about to bloom in brilliant autumn colors.  Please accept my apologies for thickly covering you in fake cob webs.  It looks really cool, trust me.  Love, Me

p.s. - The large purple spider made me do it!

p.p.s. - Check out my Lima Beads challenge here.

p.p.p.s. - Check out other Macro goodness here.

I am short on time, and SO thought I was ahead of the game.  That was until I drug myself to bed last night after a long week and realized that I still had a bit of work to do and no pictures had been taken.  So here it is short and sweet:

1.  I loved the colors and the materials that were part of the Lima Beads kit (but don't have the list of materials - "yellow" and "green" will have to suffice)
2.  I love pearls but find them so hard to work with unless you use stringing wire - I used one of the stick pearls to make a toggle and was able to get some of the small yellow pearls on to thread before the needle broke - grrrrrrr.
3.  I meant to use the small yellow pearls on the necklace with the big yellow stones, and got distracted and used the copper dumbbell chain.  I liked it better, so used the strung pearls on the chain with the green stones
4.  I love the antique copper color - and thankfully had a spool of wire in that color that you see throughout my pieces
5.  I bought some vintage buttons ages go and had a purple one that went great with the mother of pearl bracelet
6.  At the bottom you'll see a first attempt at a wrap bracelet - not related to the challenge but inspired by one Lorelei made - I used a lampwork bead I made as the toggle

Check our Lorelei's blog for links to all other participants!

Ahhhh, the Bead Table.  A constant effort to keep it clean and/or organized.  Kind of like pushing the waves back with a broom, isn't?  For instance, this is what it looked like in my half of the office earlier this week:

About Thanksgiving last year, after the 3 craft fairs I participated in, I turned my focus to Christmas gifts and got out of the habit of listing on Etsy.  The holidays came and went, our annual ski trip came and went (I was going to get caught up on listing while on vacation...yeah, right!), and the longer time went by the harder it became to get back into it.  All I've been doing was relisting expired listings, so that my shop wouldn't fall into total obscurity.  By now there are some things I have relisted so many times I'm not sure why I don't pick someone and just send them the item for free :-).  But I digress.  The upside of the stall is that I have learned lots more things, have been able to participate in fun swaps and classes, and as I have spoken about obsessively, I have some mad new photo skills thanks to Kerry Bogert's Snaptastic course (which you should sign your self up for, seriously!).  In celebration of my shop refresh I am offering a 10% discount (and shipping is free) - just put in the coupon code ALLNEW when you check out!

Do you have a lego fanatic in your house? There is no "kind of" when it comes to legos, is there? My son Michael IS IN TO LEGOs. In fact, "legoing" is a common verb, as in, "What'cha doin' Michael?" "I'm legoing."

I do love the colors and shapes. Good thing. 'Cause the entire floor of his room is covered in the darn things!

Feeding my current obsession with pictures is a need to get 6 months of creations listed on Etsy.  I have a Square ordered and have heard that you can link accounts so that you can easily create invoices which is my kick in the pants (along with better pictures) to get cracking. My challenge was a necklace I made with dark purple enamel beads, and dark green-y/purple-y roundels, and black wire, and then shiny silver and nearly clear lavender glass beads. Settings on my camera that worked with the light beads made the rest of the beads look black, and settings on my camera to bring out the purple totally washed out the lighter beads.  For example: