It's a Long Story

Pull up a chair and I'll tell you a story.  Once upon a time there was only one phone company and you had to pay 10 cents a minute to call across town.  It worked very well and many people were employed by this megagiant of the communications industry.  You also watched TV by accessing an antenna on the roof or by a goofy looking device called "rabbit ears" on top of the television set.  Then computers came.  At first, you had to pay the aforesaid 10 cents a minute to use the internet, and this tended to cut down on using computers for much after the first bill arrived.  Then the government said the telephone company was too big and had to be split up, and at about the same time cable television became available to many people who had never had it before.  Now computers took off.  In competition for your business, all calls within the country cost the same and it was possible to get faster and faster service on the internet.  We were all hooked.  Which leads me to today.

After my computer woke up with a migraine and switched off internet, phone and television to keep the noise down, I had to unplug everything then plug it back in one by one to reset whatever it was that was causing it agita.  I then rushed off to the post office to mail a package because I couldn't figure out how to fix the printer for the mailing label that would have made my life so much easier and in the process, locked myself out of the house again.  I locked myself on the balcony earlier in the week and had to shout to the neighbor to call Joe at work to come let me in.  This time I had my cell phone (a diabolical invention in its infancy when our story begins) but due to the decline in craftsmanship brought about by the need to produce equipment faster and cheaper, Joe's cell phone switches itself off randomly and I wasn't getting through.  I eventually got in and the long (mostly) and the short (not so much) is that I don't have any new bead pictures today.

Hopefully my story is amusing.  Here's a picture I didn't post on my blog yet, but it is in my Etsy shop.

Vessels!

 I made a few vessels for the event I went to last weekend, and sold them without taking pictures, so they're gone.  I feel a sense of loss, since they are off to their new homes now and I don't have anything to remember them by.  Horribly sentimental, I know, but that's me.  I just listed these on Etsy, and I do have pictures, so it's all good here.  The above bead is really close to my heart because it turned out nothing at all like I thought it was going to, and I love it more because of that.  Its shape is what really freaks me out.  Here's me thinking I mucked it up royally, and I now look at it and think, "Brilliant!  How could I have known?"

 I will always call this one (just to myself) my three-handled-moss-covered-family-gradunza.  It was meant to have 2 handles but they just weren't doing it.

This one should have been shorter and thicker than it turned out, but I think it really works with the color and deoration and I'm not complaining.

Help!

I just listed these items in my Etsy shop and now discover that the widget for a mini Etsy shop has disappeared from my blog.  No amount of searching on Blogger or Etsy will bring it back.  Does anyone know either how to fix this or at least how it happened?

 At any rate, check these out!  I'll be listing more stuff as time and patience allow.

Post Weekend Warring

My camping trip and bead sale are done and I'm tired.  It was a busy, successful weekend and I didn't even think to take any pictures until pack-up time.  Thus the swarms of people in their colorful clothes, myriad of wares, and my booth are not pictured.  Next year I remember to take pictures just after setup.

 To get there we had to tote everything in the tired old truck.  Joe is a firm believer in tying stuff down securely.  Thus, this tote is secured by duct tape, a bungee cord, rope, and a cargo net.  I don't think it could get out of the truck if it had legs.

 It's a pretty drive.  I took this on the way back around Scranton, PA.  It does have its hazards, though,

 like this falling rock zone....

 or holiday traffic.  Note it's going the other way.  Yay!

The secondary purpose of out trip:  Scoring Joe some scrapple.  I'm not sure if there is a penalty for smuggling pork products across state lines.  Glad we weren't caught.  I wouldn't want to have to explain a cooler full of forbidden sausage.

Kids Project

We all have a lot of beads, some that we didn't like the look of, some that are a bit funky, or in this case some that were done to test what cool reactions I could do.  I've got mountains of them.  To string them all together in a beaded curtain was the original idea, but Joe came up with a better one.

I'm going camping this weekend with a bunch of my history nut friends and many of them have decided to reproduce fairly recently.  Wouldn't it be fun to let the older ones make their own necklaces/bracelets while Mom or Dad shopped?  Yes, it would.  For me and for them.  I've got a bunch of stretchy cord and it's bead away.  Hopefully I'll have a bunch of pictures of the little tyrants--I mean tykes--doing their thing.

You gotta be kidding

I had to leave work today because of stomach issues.  I'll get better, but for now I'm looking for any help I can get to make it through my day.  This helped.  Yes, it really is a lawn tractor that someone fixed by bolting on a kitchen chair.  I think we ticked off the guy transporting this tribute to American redneck society by slowing down to take a picture, but we couldn't help it.  If you are going to put this out in the open, people are going to stare.  I have to hand it to him, at least he secured his load properly.  It is on a real trailer and is strapped down.  Not so sure about the plastic shrouding the delicate electronics from the threat of a sprinkle.  God bless America.

The Wonderful World of Exploration

 I've been playing around with a few ideas I've had for a while, and my reach continues to exceed my grasp.  In trying to make long beads on my hothead, I am constantly running up against the challenge of keeping both ends warm on a relatively cool flame.  This one didn't turn out too bad, since at least I had a good tank of gas and was able to get some decent heat up.  The base is Effetre apple blush and the ends are Effetre dark matter.  I came up a bit short but that's a design feature because I will be making a hanger to allow this to hang from a belt.  For now I've got a spacer holding its place.

 Got some reduction on the DH Psyche there....

 This is the same bead right after annealing.  I got some color out of the Pandora, but I think I reduced it a little too much.

 I like this aspect...

 This is the same combination of colors on a focal.  I love the colors I got and The fuming from the silver is neat.

 I like the color of the Pandora on this...

 This was my first attempt to make a long bead on a half empty tank and was having real heat control issues.  I'd just get one end starting to melt in nicely, go to reheat the other and pop a chunk off.  Neat striking of the CiM Canyon de Chelly, which is under all that, but not enough development of everything else.

 I finally decided that this turd was not going to polish up any better and gave up.  It's a bead only a mother could love, and strangely, I do like it. 

Finally, my first skeleton key bead.  Must scrub the rest of the bead release out of the teeth, unless I want to hang onto the really aged look.