Monday, October 08, 2012

Galvanized fear no more!

When I started beading, beads that I had access to came in tiny square boxes from Gick or they were hanks of Czech seed beads hanging on hooks in the closest bead shop and I had to get a ride to go there.  I fell in LOVE with these pretty galvanized purple beads that were like purple CHROME! Soooo shiney!  My love was soon speared through the heart as I came to know these beads for the loss of color that happened when I beaded with them or when the piece was worn, the chrome color came off and it didn't always leave a very nice bead below it...  So I lost my love for those beads and moved on. 

Forward 20 years and we have now available to us, PERMANENT GALVANIZED BEADS!!!  I have a few tubes but I find myself holding back because of experiences passed....  So as I gathered beads to make netted pumpkin earrings I grabbed galvanized ORANGE and knowing I would need to stiffen it with fingernail polish, one of the very worst ways to see a bead lose it's color, I beaded them up first.  They are a little smaller than a 50 cent piece and so shiney! 



The pattern is available in my Etsy shop here:


I will get over the fear by using them.  It's nice to have such a cool bead shop here in Redding to teach at.  The Beadman carries so many of the newest colors and styles of seed beads, and they get more all the time.

Sunday, October 07, 2012

WAY lower prices on Violetbead.com

I have totally re-evaluated my pricing on my web site.  I have had this web site for a few years now and I get a sale here and there but nothing very steady.  Since I have had my Etsy site, I have really enjoyed having the connection to other beaders - my customers.  I have been updating my files, adding more photos to them and lowering the prices.  Times are hard all over and if you pay $11 for one tutorial, you have to buy supplies to make it with and that can hurt the pocket!  Then I thought about how you buy one book and get many patterns for $15-$20.  You buy a magazine and get many for even less than that. Sure, my tutorials are going to be far more detailed than the magazine and sometimes the book will have, but that is how they should ALL be.  I'm not paying for a 5000 initial book printing.  I'm not selling advertising space to have places to put the patterns in the magazine.  You will be the one paying for the ink and the paper or you can just bead it off the laptop or e-reader screen and save the paper and ink all together. 

So I spend X hours designing the piece or the pattern.  If it's a tutorial, then I have to make diagrams and take photos.  The reality is that no matter HOW much time I have into the designing and creating the file you get when you purchase them, if I price them too high, they will only sell a couple times.  It's the teeter totter of price it too low, and I am under-valuing my work and price it too high and no one ever buys it.  I designed it TO BE BEADED UP BY OTHER BEADERS!  So I have decided that as gas climbs higher and higher, so that even a trip to the bead store has to be one where I have other errands to do as it's 20 miles each way for me.  I deided I just might not be the only one who would like their beady budget stretch it a little farther.

So HAPPY BEADING!!!!  Keep watching for new patterns.  I have a couple on my list of things to get done this week.


When the Design goes where it wants to go...

So I had 2 doilies come out pretty much the way I intended them to go from inception to completion and then the 3rd one did what it wanted to do.  I knew it, but I have had to show it to a few other people to confirm the fact....  I designed what I wanted to be a Christmas Tree doily with a wreath in the center. 

So there you have it - 8 Christmas Trees in the
snow and a small wreath in the center. 
And no matter how I tried,
all I kept seeing were

BELLS!

And so does everyone else....  you know you do too...

So I went back to the mock up and colored it in silver...



So now I have to make one with bells -
take photos of the steps so I can do
So after the livingroom rearrange -
it's on the list of things to bead -
AFTER a pair of earrings for a customer
AND 3 pair of netted pumpkin earrings
AND maybe a brick pair of Pumpkins in delicas. 
Lofty goals, I better get moving!

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Snowflake Doily Tutorial DONE!

Well she's done!  20 pages and ALL DONE!!!!  SNOWFLAKE DOILY or COASTER



My first ever netted doily pattern.  4 inches across

Monday, September 17, 2012

I wanna learn to bead so I can get RICH!

It's hard when it's in a bead store where you are supposed to be selling beads but what I really want to tell people who come in and say they want to learn to bead so they can make money is:


Learn to bead because you love the beads.  Learn to bead so that you can hold your work in your hands and make it with loving care.  Learn to bead to make things for yourself, family and friends.  Don't start beading with such pressure on the beads to make you money.  You can't love them if you start out with that intent. 

I bead because I have ALWAYS loved beads.  As far back as I can remember my Nana had long necklaces of beads on her bedroom wall.  When we visited her, we could go look but not touch her beads.  When I was 12, we moved from Minnesota to California again but to the San Francisco Bay area to take care of my Nana and then I LIVED with those beads!  She bought me some beads and I strung them but there were no books like there are now.  Then sometime in Jr high we started making these cool barettes with tri beads on the bottom of thin satin ribbons woven on the barrettes.  I even sold them at a booth at the high school one time.  Next came pony beads - oodles of them.  My friend Cindy and I cut a couple tshirts sleeves and bottoms and put pony beads on them.  We even went to the mall....  boldly!  We did pants like that too - they swung in time as we walked.  We thought we were pretty cool and this was about 1 year before it came about and the world was flooded with clothing like that.

Fast forward to 1992 and a work injury that had me looking for things to be productive doing that I could work around my pain.  It became more work and forget my pain, because it's when I hurt the worst that I bury myself into something and ignore the pain.  I found a book at a friend's house and tried to make a single seed bead ladder stitch row - was in over my head and put that idea on the back burner.  Then another friend and I were in a craft store - long ago closed - called The Magic Brush.  This other friend saw a certain parrot earring in a display and with the new nylon wires thought maybe she could re-pierce her ears and she could wear earrings!  So thinking her getting 2 holes in her head - stubborn as she was, I was determined to take classes and learn to make that pair or parrot earrings.  The Magic Brush was the coolest of old tyme craft shops.  There I took classes from a teacher named Beverly Ciancio.  From her I started with brick stitch earrings - not the parrots - those were NOT beginner earrings after all - but triangle top with bugle beads.  I took classes from her then helped her teach classes.  I had access to a Macintosh computer and was learning the graphics program so I took all her tutorials that were hand drawn and hand written and made diagrams and typed text to make them much more professional.  I put all her brick stitch earrings - 175+ pages at least 2 per page onto the computer to - all nice neat and tidy.  Then one day she decided to stop teaching at The Magic Brush and I took over.  Up to 10 students - 3 hours - $5 each and everyone made what they wanted to make.  I had access to a copy machine and I had storage with a lock.  HUGE hanging locked display cases to put all my samples in.  3 - 10 foot tables in a U shape - me in the middle and them on the outside.  I didn't have a car so I took the bus to work most of the time.  My bike has a rack on the back and it held whateven I needed to bring back and forth to the shop with me.  That shop closed.

A couple years later I applied to teach at a bead store - San Gabriel Bead Company.  This was a whole other world.  Here I was one of many instructors teaching specific project classes.  Teaching in a place with a huge selection of beads broadened my horizons for projects.  Here I scheduled 3-5 classes over a 3 month period.  I had a 2 or 3 student minimum set by the shop. 

When I moved to Redding in 2003, The Beadman was a fantastic shop to have close by but no classes so no where to teach.  In early 2004, a bead store opened in a near by town, Cottonwood.  She was having classes and I set up to teahc 3 or 4 classes for her.  There was a meeting with all the teachers and the owners to make the schedule.  One of my classes involved a part the shop didn't carry.  I said then that I would be charging the students my cost - $3 for each of the pieces and the owners agreed to this.  The night of the first class - the one that used the $3 part, when I arrived, the owner informed me that she told the students it was included in the price of the class...  and that she was taking the class.  She had no seed bead experience and not only took the class but took way more of my teaching time than any of the other students who often had to wait while I helped her out of a jam.  After class I had to pick my Mom up at the airport, so I didn't have time to discuss it when she obviously didn't pay me for her or for the $3 parts.  I left and went back the next day when I had a clearer head - had a good nights sleep - all that sort of thing.  She informed me that she could take ANY class she wanted to and that she didn't have to pay me for anything more that she had already paid me for.  I took all my class samples and left.  I did enjoy the clearance sale when she went out of business a couple years later. 

In 2005, The Beadman started talking about having classes and I sponged my way on in to beg to get to teach.  The person handling classes and I agreed about so many things.  Low prices - no extra fee if a student needs to come back for help.  The students got a nice discount on the night of the class on most things they picked out.  Even classier.  I teach there today and it's the best place I have ever taught.  I get to have a class with one student.  I always thought I wouldn't want to be told my class fee wasn't worth showing up for, if I was the student.  So I show up for one student.  I get to have a class any time the shop is open.  I teach with a fantastic wire goddess.  We compliment each with our genuine respect for and lack of interest in doing the styles of beadwork we each do.  She thinks those little seed beads make nice spacers. 

I tell my students they are welcome to make and sell the things I teach them to make.  Sell them and come back to take more classes and buy more beads.  I recently lowered the prices in my Etsy shop because I remember being the customer not the designer.    I'm in Christmas mode as my Etsy stats tell me that is what the customers come in looking for.  I have this cool snowflake beaded doily coming up soon, so keep watching.




But learn to bead because you love the look and the feel of the beads.  If you sell something, that's nice but don't put the pressure on the process, love it.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

New Lower Pattern Prices in my Etsy Shop

So I got to thinking about the prices I put on my tutorials.  You can buy a whole book of patterns for the prices I see out there for a single patten.  As a beader myself, I just can't see that.  When I make a tutorial, I make it long and drawn out with diagrams and text as well as photographs.  I have started stretching out my tutorials, putting a nice cover with a large photo of the finished item and making the diagrams larger.  And then I decided to LOWER ALL MY PRICES.  If I have say 10-20 hours designing the piece and then 5-10 hours into the tutorial and I price it so high no one can afford it - I'm not making ANYTHING.  BUT the time already being spent and the ability to send the end product, the tutorial, many many times, I am pricing them to SELL.

And I have devised something called the Pattern Grab - $12 worth of my patterns for $10 or $15 for $13




New Lower Prices so you can afford the beads to make them up with!  What a concept!

Happy Beading everyone!

Friday, September 07, 2012

2 new ornaments done and then there are the earrings...

So the poinsettia disc ornament is done!  tutorial done!  Posted to all 3 web sites done!







the Kaleidoscope came out of my head looking like this:



and the first doily looke like this


and here it is done - Tutorial in the works

and here


and then there are the earrings that crept into these 2 days at home.  first the eyeballs came out to play and they brought PINK beads with them.  Don't ask...

for sale at my Etsy Shop

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Headed Toward Christmas ALREADY!

Well according to my ETSY stats, I can see that more customers than not are coming there looking for Christmas Ornament covers and drapes. 



So I've put some other beading on hold so I could get a tutorial for a Poinsettia drape:






and am in the works making a cover for both sizes of disc ornament in poinsettia





and have a kaleidoscope in my head right now too, so keep watching.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Catching up and current projects

Survived the fire up here.  Working on replacing the food I lost a little at a time.

I have tackled and won a battle to learn double St Petersberg chain.  It makes a lovely flat bracelet.



Last weekend I was at a horse sanctuary that was having an open house about 20 miles south  of me and 40 miles east and then south of Redding.


It was really nice but there was a fire starting north and east of us.  I checked to make sure that it didn't involve out way out and kept an eye on it on the 45 minute drive back to Redding.




And at the time we had no idea that a week later,  it would grow to burn at 74% containment 27,000+ acres, they say there is a half million feet of fire hose on the ground and that 64 homes would burn down.

On the way home in the rear view mirror I watched it get bigger and bigger so that there was no blue sky that direction, only gray/black smoke.

Then this week, a gal at the cafe up here asked me to make her native american name in a bracelet with the yellow - orange - red - burgandy blend with matte black for the letters.  I love having Beadscape at my disposal, because the pattern didn't take any real amount of time:





It's going slow but steady:




I'm just glad to be beading.  I'm about to start laying my rows out, my eyes are getting tired of looking at the chart.


Happy Beading!

Visit my Etsy shop to see patterns, tutorials, finished beadwork and VINTAGE beads for sale! 

http://www.etsy.com/shop/Violetbead

Coupon Code VIOLETBEAD FOR FREE SHIPPING


Monday, August 06, 2012

Fire in the Forest where I live

So Wednesday August First,  in the early afternoon, a fire started in the center median of I5 just north of the exit I live off of. The next 5 days would prove both interesting and frustrating.




 took this from up on the mountain I live at the base of - O'Brien Mtn

 A plane dropping fire retardant on the fire


This is a helicopter that came down right next to me on the road out to Position C for the Shasta Marina houseboats. It was pretty cool to be eye to eye with a true hero. I gave him thumbs up over and over again.



My house is fantastic but all the outside walls are beautiful pine but it’s very dark. So I could not really bead. It was hotter than it generally gets up here in my Shangri-La in the Shasta Trinity National Forrest, so it wasn’t even encouraging to drag them outside and bead there. The power went out about 4:30 and we didn’t see it again until Sunday at about 1:30. I immediately transferred the 1 gallon bottles I keep frozen to the fridge and it’s freezer, while a 3rd stayed in the chest freezer, which I also threw in a 12 pack of Pepsi. On Thursday, I woke up and took a drive to see what I could see:



this photo was on our local tv station web site as a the featured photo which was pretty cool:





I got permission from the marina to get water so I could keep my plants alive and to flush with. I have a well, so that means no water either. All the reports from PG&E were that their crews were working on restoring our power. I kept getting human beings instead of recordings and they assured me over and over through the day that we would have power restored by 10pm then it upped to 8pm, so that when I trekked to town – 40 miles round trip – I didn’t pack my food up and get it to fridge and freezer there… Who would pack up a chest freezer and a side by side refrigerator of food IF they were going to get power restored that night? So about 6:30, I got a PG&E update recording call saying they could not access their equipment, went on to a human being who confirmed this news. I traveled to Lakehead to Allyson’s Restaurant where the owner told me on the phone I could park to charge my electronics and my brain in her air conditioning, with a bonus, they have wifi! I sent a few of my photos to the Local news station - they are all in the photo gallery here - the last 3 pics.

http://www.krcrtv.com/news/local/-/14322302/15941332/-/2g6ktiz/-/index.html

Going there was informative. I found out from the PG&E crew in the staging area, that they had NEVER yet been allowed to start working because of where it was still burning. I also talked to a couple heavy equipment operators and told them that I was so thankful they were here trying to get this fire out before homes were lost.  The bull dozers make fire breaks to stop the fire from spreading.  By morning most of the food in my freezers was too far defrosted to re-freeze. I saved 2 bags of chicken parts but that’s about it.

Friday, once again the reports both recorded and live voice told me we should have power by that evening. There was apparently a meeting in Lakehead at 7pm Friday night where all of the confusion, no evacuation center, and all the bad information were addressed. I had planned to go to the swap meet with my beads on Saturday, which meant getting up at 5am to get a good parking place. I misted the sheets with cold water and tried to sleep.

Saturday, I didn’t make much more than the booth fee but at least I didn’t spend the day in a dead house. That’s what it felt like with no power. I can bead at the booth so that was nice – I beaded all morning long.

The Saturday paper did a write up about the mess:
http://www.redding.com/news/2012/aug/03/miscommunication-lack-of-resources-frustrated-by/?ref=nf

"The National Weather Service has posted a red-flag warning from 5 p.m. today to 5 p.m. Sunday in the fire zone due to thunderstorms and dry conditions, meaning residents and fire crews can expect conditions ripe for "explosive" fire growth."


Got home still no power but they now said by 8pm August 4th but they didn’t say what year cuz it didn’t happen. About 9:30 I got a call from an actual PG&E worker on the ground here in Lakehead. He apologized for not having it back on that night but they found more equipment damage. He said it would be on by 5pm Sunday. Well I misted the sheet down and tried to sleep. I heard noises and realized I didn’t have the back door shut and the last thing I need is a bear in my back porch getting into my spoiling freezer. So I got up – got something on and went to close the back door. The adult kids of the people next door had a fire less than 40 feet from their house going. I had repeatedly offered them my bbq and they never took me up on it but in the middle of a fire close by, winds and a fire restriction, they thought it good to buy food that had to be cooked and bring it home and make a fire. Did I mention WE HAD NO RUNNING WATER???   Tree branches were overhead and it’s been so dry up here that I don’t think I got to sleep until 1 and I had to get up at 5 again…. *sigh*

Sunday was a better day at the swap meet. I sold more and it was breezy so it never got stifling hot. It was sure better than being here in the heat and the smoke. Smokey is NOT a morning person and he made sure I knew he was NOT impressed so he turned his back on me.  He would sleep all the way down on the freeway then sit up after I got off and yawn all the way to the swap meet...

Then I flipped him over to rub his belly and he stayed that way.


my neighbor who was up here and I texted the boring morning before I and the swap meet woke up. After a trip to the bathroom, I had to text her that they had flushing toilets and a pipe came out of the wall, you turned a knob and WATER actually came out into a sink! She replied that she wanted to know how we could get that…

About 1 she texted me that we HAD POWER!!!! I almost packed up and left right then! A friend had just gotten there and we were having so much fun visiting and I was beading, so I stayed till 2 and gleefully packed up knowing I was coming home to a house with power and water. I would run the AC and make it cooler than usual just for Smokey who with all that fur suffered the most up here. I took all my clothes off to get cool and he can’t take his coat off. He didn’t really suffer but it was worst for him than me for certain. So after filling up the gas tank and getting a pepsi for the road, I got on the freeway, telling Smokey we were going home! He laid his ears back on his head. He did not want to come back to the hot, humid place we left… I promised him it would be better and he settled in for the ride. It’s so nice to be home but even nicer to be home with power.

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Ch ch ch Changes.... and other stuff

I haven't blogged in a while then I started back up the other day. Since I blogged there have been a few changed I thought I would bring up.


 Well I just learned a couple days ago that Bead-Patterns Magazine was going away... I will miss it as I can take all the issues with me on the computer or iPad and they don't weigh anything more at all and yet I have a wealth of projects at my fingertips.


 Sometime when I wasn't looking or beading much for that matter and probably why I wasn't looking, Beadwork at about.com got a real guide! I think they actually went through a couple real actual beading guides but this one appears to have stuck. She has some nice projects on my glance I took today.
 Jewelry Crafts Magazine died a while back. It was the first magazine I was published in and boy was my Mom proud. Finally these beads were leading somewhere, and now it's gone. Run into the ground by the editor who lost interest and instead of passing it along to someone who could put soul back into it, she just let it go and fall apart it did. The start was when they failed to publish the CHART to the item on the COVER. At the time it was just chalked up to the time that Beadwork Magazine published an issue with the word EGYPT spelled EYGPT or something like that but NOT spelled correctly. Now you had to wonder HOW THE HELL a magazine went to bed with a HUGE headline misspelled on the COVER.


But then instead of using the desktop publishing capabilities of computers to make diagrams in tutorials in the magazines these days – I can’t pin point one but I have seen WAY too many hand drawn diagrams for stitch tutorials. It looks AWFUL and is hard to see. When did they go backward to hand drawn diagrams? I started adapting programs on the computer to make my tutorials since 1992 and I took class from an instructor who hand drew all her stuff but back then – everyone didn’t have a computer at home or the expensive graphics program to make the diagrams in. I started on my roommate’s Mac and KidPix, graduated to SUPERPAINT a program by Aldus who got ate up by guess… ADOBE.. SHOCK! And was never updated. 8 bit graphics for those who know what that means. Huge pixels for those who don’t. Said roomie and I sat one evening and went through the WHOLE book and learned how each tool worked and we both knew that program in and out. I grew up to PowerPoint which in many ways works like Superpaint. And believe it or not Superpaint had a couple things PowerPoint doesn’t offer. Superpaint had 2 layers only – one paint and one vector. So it was like having Photoshop and Illustrator on top of each other and switchable.


 I love making my tutorials many pages and many steps so anyone practically can bead from them. I’m not selling advertising space, and I see no need. I also try not to use too many abbreviations. Recently I got a pattern from a friend who bought it but couldn’t make it. It took me 3 times sitting down with it to get it done and even then I said bad words and wondered WHY anyone would put so many intersecting thread paths on one diagram. It also changed words like 4mm fire polish bead to some combination of 2 capital letters which made no real connection to the thing it referred to making them confusing. When you sell a tutorial directly to a beader who has to print it – make it AS CLEAR AS YOU CAN. Why confuse people with multiple steps and abbreviations like the magazines? Give your customers the best product you can. I have been updating my tutorials as I list them on Etsy with extra photo and nice big photos on a cover page of the finished product. Why not give the customer the very best chance of good results with as little stress and confusion as possible?


And I noticed people selling one tutorial for personal use and one tutorial for commercial use as in you can make and sell the item the tutorial teaches you to make. Fun fact – I contacted the copyright office – they are very nice and prompt. They used a pattern for an apron as an example. As long as the item isn’t a registered trademarked item like MICKEY MOUSE, then you can SELL ANYTHING YOU OWN OUTRIGHT. You bought the beads and there IS NO REASON YOU CAN NOT SELL THE ITEM IN ANY TUTORIAL. This does NOT mean you can have the pattern mass produced in China and sold at Walmart. But you can make a few and sell them – no one dies and MAYBE you will use some of that money to buy another tutorial. What a RIP OFF! Someone said that if people were uninformed enough to pay more I should let them but how unfair is that? Isn’t it that for evil to prosper all we need is for good people to do NOTHING? So nope – not keepin quiet here. It’s bunk and they know it. If they don’t, then they need to learn a little about copyright… COPYRIGHT COVERS THE TEXT AND DIAGRAMS OF THE TUTORIAL. It does NOT restrict what you can do with what you make from them.  Don't cheat people, people.  It's just rude.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Eyeballs EVERYWHERE!!!!

More Catching up.... 

this time it's all about eyeballs...   

A couple years ago I went to a bead shop on a vacation and found these cool eyeball cabochons. 

They came in Bermuda Blue blue/purple and Vitrail Medium green/gold/pink

I bought a couple - not cheap either - and played and I made the first pair:


I wore them for a year or so and gave them to a friend who admired them.

Then I made a pair for a gift:


Then this year, I started making stuff to sell so I broke out a pair of green/gold/pink eyeballs....

and I made these:


They sold right away... 
The crystals make them very much the last thing you notice. 
I choose a crystal with gold.pink/green colors and the eyeballs golded up almost hazel.

Another Blue pair:

GROOVY - ridges of purple and blue



Sold about 2 weeks after I made them
need crystals to sell right away apparently

Then the next green pair was ALL GREEN:



These two got snatched up - so I guess I should make up a couple more pair. :-) 
ALL will have crystals from now on I think.

This years Fair Results...

More catching up Blogging here....




I didn't enter the fair last year, but this year I was all geared up for the fair in June this 2012 and I encouraged all who would listen to ENTER!  It's a freakin $1 an item - one allowed per category.  So I entered 5 pieces and all but one got first place, and the last one got 3rd place. 


Necklace - FIRST PLACE




Bracelet - FIRST PLACE




Other - Third Place







Production Beadwork is BORING!

I've been making things to fill my table... I love beading but production beadwork is boring so Tuesday I decided to make something that would make my heart smile. It would still be for sale but would me more of a one of a kind piece than a cookie cutter piece.


I made it this far Tuesday night and then in the morning I finished it!







I'm pretty happy with it. It's for sale in my Etsy shop.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/105283404/hand-beaded-netted-glass-bead-and

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Things that make my beading experience happier:

EXCELLENT Bead Store locally that I get my bead needs filled at and am lucky to teach at - THE BEADMAN in Redding, CA
Furry companion close by.

Thread that doesn’t tangle – no tail. Tie a tiny knot in the end of your thread. Bring the needle down to it and bead. You will pull more but you will tangle less. Most of the time when you do get a knot, it’s a slip knot loop that just pulls out. I think it’s a good trade off.

Improved design on toggle clasps now, so they lay properly. Stem of at least 1 seed bead to act as a swivel.

Triangle Trays and Funnels – keep my beads separate and get them back into the container efficiently.

Post it – super sticky notes – Keep my place on the beading graph and last longer than regular Post it notes.

Round plate with leather on it. I have a nice thrift store find that is a wooden plate – pretty heavy so the thread doesn’t flip it when it catches it occasionally. I keep looking for other similar plates and have had no luck.


I have a plastic eyeglass case that has what I call my pokey tools. It’s a collection of pointy things – tweezers – awls – a huge needle – crochet hooks - wooden sticks. All things I could use to get a knot out or as a support for bead cords.

All my pliers and cutters in their cool purple case. I have a very special collection of tools. Three of them are connected to a good friend – Jen Armour – she gave me the first two. When I started to bead, she was a big part of how I started. She wanted this pair of parrot earrings. So one day we are playing on her Mac computer (she was the first friend I knew who had a computer at home) and I mentioned I needed round nosed pliers. She walked into her kitchen to the catch all drawer and handed me my most cherished tools – a tiny pair of round nosed pliers and a tiny pair of needle nose pliers. I have them in said purple tool case that I bought at another special person in my bead journey. I also have a pair of bent nose needle nosed pliers I bought with Jen at Fedco. Though they have serrated jaws they have been my favorite tool to put ear wires on with. I’ve even had to re-align the tips a few times. I have another pair of smooth tipped – purple handled – bent nosed pliers. A few other tools in the kit but those are the ones that matter.

Having my beading area cleaned up once a week. The go backs have to GO BACK and the area has to be dusted. Then I can begin to create again.

RULER TAPE! on front edge of desk. It's a cheap kit desk and I also drap ruler marks on it with permanent marker.

Velux pads under my wooden plate – give it a nice secure plant on the desk.

My beading corner – a table with this laptop on it and a desk making an L with the table which I have 2 beading lights on – right and left of where I bead. I also take there. Beading area and computer – I often work from the computer and now that I have this thing set up right, I need to start chatting again. Under the tables and desk are plastic drawer towers with other things I need close by.

I have all my size 15’s on the wall in their cases. The charlottes are in their trays and close by.

My old Mac laptop with Beadscape is very close and handy for when I need a file or need to create.

My Delica needles - sabres really - they are very firm and last longer than the bendy ones.

CLEAR NAIL POLISH! - with no Formaldehyde - it yellows in time.

All my beads put in their plastic boxes with labels on both ends. They are sorted first by shapes, things like: leaves, flowers, stars, butterflies, light faceted, dark faceted, 4mm fire polish, small daggers, large daggers, 3mm fire polish and 4x7 drops (dutch spiral beads), pearls, chips, natural. Then sorted by color with purple in the lead with these divisions: purple faceted, purple iris, light purple, dark purple, gold luster. It’s a huge job and the room is about 50% done – a little at a time as the back allows. The 11’s are sorted by color. Then there are 8’s and 6’s and squares and triangles and 10 hex twists and peanuts and 8 charlottes… None enough to sort by color though 8’s might be getting close. I use the boxes that have the divisions in the short width and not small squares.

The Delicas are all in their cases. Another very special friend Carla Szczuka sent me hers and I have added quite a few…. I am learning to love them.

The special friendship and guidance from Charlene Zweerink. She taught me, among other things, the peyote triangle which I have exploded with and has helped me love thos crazy Delicas! I also got the purple tool case in her shop on one of my 4 trips to play at a bead show and teach in Nebraska. I also got to go to HOBBY LOBBY! (SOB!) As we have no HL here.... had a student tell me about getting to one in Tennessee... I groaned properly and remembered my many trips there. Redding needs to start a letter writing campaign to get an HL here....

Designing new things to teach others and share my love of this crazy addiction.
Something to drink – usually Pepsi.

Something on the TV that I can listen/watch or music.

What makes your Beading Happy?