So, I decided not to have a sale.

Here we are, on the much-vaunted Black Friday, and after the weekend is up, we have the so-called Cyber Monday. And you know what? I find that I really don't care. In past years, I've held sales to try to capitalize on these days, and it hasn't really amounted to much. I'm not some mega-retailer who can afford to offer serious deep discounts to lure customers in, and I think that's all people are really interested in.

I find myself increasingly fed up with hype, whether it's the fiction of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, or hearing that some new website is the "next great thing" for selling. I'm spending so much time on-line trying to network and self-promote that I have little time left for making jewelry. It's a little ridiculous, and I'm starting to streamline things to make my life easier. Don't worry, nothing is going to change at this blog. Although many people claim that blogs are a great marketing tool, I love mine just because it's nice to express myself and connect with friends old and new. Even if it never netted me a single sale, I'd keep it around.

I have some interesting plans for my business, which came about during a brain-storming session with Chris yesterday, but I don't have time to implement them before the holidays. As such, I'm just going to do what I've been doing now. Making jewelry, listing it on Etsy, and posting links in a few places. If people like it and buy it, great. If not, well, I have bigger things to stress about right now, like getting my house into order and keeping on top of all the little projects that I take on.

And now I'm off to do a little on-line holiday shopping, where I'll be buying what I had in mind for people, regardless of whether it's on sale.

Thursday Thirteen, Volume Three -- Thanksgiving!

Thirteen Things That I Am Thankful For The other day I was in the post office, and the radio was on, and the DJs were talking about a study that was done recently which said that gratitude and giving thanks were good for your health. I can see the sense in that. If you're being grateful, then you're being positive, and if you're being positive, you're not stressing, and stress is bad for your health. So for me, I want this Thanksgiving to mark the start of being more thankful and showing more gratitude, every day. I want to look at this list frequently, and remind myself of all the things I should be thankful for. So in no particular order, here are thirteen things that I'm thankful for, today and every day. 1. My husband. I probably don't tell Chris enough how much I appreciate all that he does for me. He works hard to pay all the bills, never tells me "no" when I want more beads, or boots, or books, or whatever catches my eye. He puts up with my myriad flaws, supports me in all I do, and basically rocks. 2. My family, in-laws included. They're a pretty good bunch all-around. 3. My health. I've got a couple of small problems, but compared to some people, I am sitting easy. I don't live with chronic pain, I don't have to take any meds, and my health doesn't stand in the way of anything that I do. 4. My dogs. I knew that I wanted a dog (and somehow I ended up with two), but I had no idea how much Daisy and Maggie would add to my life. They're so much fun. 5. My cats. Sometimes they get lost in the shadow of the dogs, but there are still few things nicer than waking up in the morning to find Topher curled up next to me. He has the best little contented look when he sleeps. And Lira, well, she's a cranky old kitty who spends most of her time hiding, but I still love her. 6. My friends. They're funny, supportive, generous, fun to talk to, and awesome. 7. My gaming group, an off-shoot of my friends. Sure, I kvetch about the guys, but they're good guys. They're fun to play with, fun to talk with, come up with some unique characters, and they don't have most of the flaws that people associate with gamers. And they're all very good to my dogs! 8. My house. I'm already starting to take it for granted, and I shouldn't. Living here is such a step up from apartment life, and I'm so much more at ease here. I sleep better, I feel less cluttered and less frazzled, and it's so much easier to have friends over now. 9. Dancing! I don't do it enough, but when I do, it's such a transcendant experience. 10. Writing. Another thing that I don't do enough, but I like having the ability to put words to virtual paper and have it be something that people enjoy reading -- even if sometimes, the only person who reads it is whoever's running the game with the character who I'm writing the story for. 11. Beads. Without them, what else would I be addicted to? 12. The internet. I've connected to so many people here, including Chris and most of my friends. It's more than a tool now, it's a community, and one I'm glad to be thankful for. 13. Books. After too long of not reading regularly, I'm rediscovering the joy of getting lost in a story, whether it's a novel or a short story. There are many more things I could be thankful for, but this is T13, not Twholelots, and I have to go finish getting things ready for my family to come over for dinner. So to all my readers, a happy Thanksgiving, and may you find things to be grateful for, no matter the day.


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The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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Housework, I hate it

Spent the day doing housework, and I still have to sweep and mop the floors and wash a bunch of dishes and cook some potatoes. All of which will happen tomorrow, because it's almost gaming time, and besides, I am desperately in need of dinner, which makes me light-headed.

I'm happy to say that although I didn't get all of the things done that I wanted to before tomorrow's dinner, I did get a lot done. The house is a lot cleaner than it usually is (or will be, once I sweep and mop) because I got to several of the jobs that I usually ignore. I'm really excited about tomorrow. My parents are supplying the turkey and some of the sides, and Chris and I will provide the relish tray, potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce, and hot and cold drinks. This is a big step up from previous years, where we only provided the relish tray. I feel like such a grown-up!

Last night I finished the bezel around the faerie button for my Thanksgiving necklace (which will not be finished in time to wear tomorrow, I fear). Tonight during the game, I'll be bezeling the rivoli and maybe joining them and starting on the embellishing. I think it's going to be very cute. I love how the bezel frames the faerie image, so I'll probably do the same thing for the 5 other buttons.

So to all of my American readers, happy Thanksgiving!

Hey look, it's SNOWDROP! :D

Ok, I'm through delaying! Today I photographed Snowdrop and now she's up on Etsy and ready for your admiring glances. There are three more images in the Etsy listing, including a couple of close-ups if you want to see more detail (and I know you do!).

I created Snowdrop for the Etsy BeadWeavers' December challenge, Snow Queen. For more eye candy, search Etsy for the tag "ebwc" and see what my team mates have come up with!

A wide variety of white and crystal beads went into the creation of this frosty beauty. There's Japanese seed beads in two sizes and colors, Delicas, a silver-backed crystal rivoli, white opal crystals, crystal moonlight teardrops, vintage teardrops, and a big opal and crystal givre teardrop, plus a cute little Czech glass button for the clasp.

The rivoli is bezeled with peyote stitch, and then I added three layers of embellishment. First, the long fringes with accent beads. Then a layer of short, plain fringes behind them just to fill it out. Then some ruffly picots all around, to give it some extra texture.

The necklace itself is a variation of chevron chain. I love this stitch because it's quick, sturdy, and attractive. This particular variation looks like interwoven hearts... although if you look at it just right, it sort of looks like hearts alternating with pretzels.

Now that Snowdrop is done, I can focus on the necklace I'm making for myself, which is never going to be ready in time for Thanksgiving!

Not Snowdrop

I got a slow start today and didn't get out to the workshop again. That's the one problem with the new photo set-up. It seems like a real waste of time to go out there and set everything up just to photograph one necklace, especially when I'll have to tear everything back down on Wednesday night for the game.

Of course, that's assuming we have a game. One player has other plans, due to it being almost the holiday, and if anyone else has plans, we'll just cancel the game for this week. And as much as I enjoy the game, that will be fine if it happens. Gives us more time to get things ready for Thanksgiving!

Anyway, I might whip up some more earrings or something as soon as I get up tomorrow, to make the photography set-up worthwhile. Or maybe I'll take pretty new pictures of some old items and put them up on Etsy for the holidays. I do have a few other Wintry items that could use some love. Maybe Snow Angel? We'll see.

Hey look! Puppies!

Ok, so they're full grown, but they still act like puppies. Chris and I call them our pups all the time. And I swear, they don't spend ALL of their time on that love seat. It's just that since the seat is catty-corner from my desk, and my camera is on my desk, I'm more likely to get a cute picture of them there. If they're being cute in the living room, they'll probably follow me into the office to get the camera.

I love this pose. It's so adorable when they lie together, in sisterly friendship. It's easy to see why the rescue insisted that they be adopted together. They like to be in the same room as each other, they go outside and back in at the same time, they like to cuddle together on the couch, play together, and walk together. One time when we took them for a walk, I got a leg-cramp and had to stop halfway through, and I kept Mags with me because I didn't think Chris would want to walk both of them (they have a bad habit of criss-crossing the leash around your legs), and Daisy still had a lot of energy to burn. The entire time that we waited for them to come back with the car, Maggie sat there looking in the direction they had gone, occasionally whimpering. And when Chris showed up with the car, she and Daisy were all over each other in the back seat. The next time we walked, Maggie wanted to be right up behind Chris and Daisy. There was no way they were getting away from her again!

I'm of course posting a corgi picture to distract you from the fact that Snowdrop isn't done yet. I will be finishing it tonight, but it's already dark and cold out, so I won't be trekking to the workshop to take pictures.

Just popping in

I wasn't feeling great today, so I spent most of the day kicking back and reading a book. Then I went out with my family to celebrate my Dad's birthday, and I ate chocolate cheesecake, and that make me feel a bit better. But now I am going to once more kick back, because the first disc of Doctor Who Season 4 arrived in today's mail, and watching that is more fun than blogging.

Tomorrow I should have Snowdrop ready, however!

Thursday Thirteen, Volume 2

Thirteen Things about AJ This week, it's Thirteen Things I Need or Want To Do Before I Host Thanksgiving For The First Time. 1. Actually finalize plans with my family, as to when they'll come over and who is making and providing what. 2. Buy the things that we are providing. 3. Seriously clean the house. While doing a basic cleaning yesterday, I noticed a lot of oft-ignored jobs that need doing. 4. Wash all the fancy plates. Some people have China. I have heavy pottery dishes with brown and glowing turquoise glaze. 5. Wash the new silverware. We got the style with bamboo-shaped handles. 6. Decide if I want any fancy platters or bowls to hold things in, and if so, purchase them. 7. Come up with an attractive way to cover the hole that one of the dogs chewed in the couch last night. Seriously dogs, we were gone for 15 minutes. What is up with destroying the couch? 8. Design and bead a new necklace to wear, because I haven't made anything for myself for a while! Maybe something involving one of the adorable vintage faerie buttons that arrived in yesterday's mail (goodness, I love Etsy), or a green rivoli. Or both! 9. Make sure that all holiday presents already procured for the family are safely hidden away in the guest room closet. 10. Give the dogs a bath, because no one is ever thankful for stinky, dusty dogs. 11. Figure out where we are going to put all of that food, and more importantly, how to keep the cats out of it. 12. Go buy more olives, because no matter how many we have, it's never enough for my husband and my brother, who will nosh on them constantly while the rest of the meal is cooking, and yet somehow still have room for a gigantic dinner. 13. Pre-write next week's T13 post, because I know I won't have time to blog!


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The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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Egyptian Treasury

It's almost time to schlep myself over to the game, so just a quick post to tell you about the treasury I curated today, Egyptian Mystique.

Serious Chandeliers, Silly Name

I call these Tiger in a Taffeta Dress because sometimes, when I have 5 or more new items to list at once, I just can't come up with beautiful names for all of them. Of course, this can work to my advantage. The earrings that I named "Mulch!?!" a couple of years back sold pretty quickly. Maybe these little tigers will find a home, too.

Actually, they're not very little. They're the heaviest earrings I have in stock right now! And you may recognize the color combination -- I used it earlier this year for the earrings that Denise won in my "how many spools of thread?" contest. I wanted to see how it would look with antiqued brass, and I think the answer is "quite nicely." Unfortunately, I had to substitute vintage glass for the citrine, as the citrine holes were way too small for the bronze headpins. 4mm Swarovski crystals also don't fit on the headpins, which limits my earring options quite annoyingly.

The Snowdrop necklace is coming along very nicely. I'll probably finish it on Thursday. Maybe even tomorrow, if I get up early, push through my housework, don't waste a lot of time on Facebook, and bead through the entire game. So yes. Expect it to be done on Thursday.

Cute keyrings

I call these earrings The Keys to Any of a Number of Things and they feature the little keyring charms that sparked my key-buying frenzy on Etsy. Aren't they just the neatest little dangles? The Czech glass window beads are also pretty. I plan to use more of them in a mermaid necklace, eventually.

My necklace for the December EBW challenge is off to a good start. I'm thinking its name will involve the word Snowdrop but I'm not entirely certain yet.

Chris's job is putting us both under a lot of stress right now, so I'm not feeling very talkative right now. I'm going to go work with my beads some more and see if it makes me feel any better.

Hello and good-bye!

These Hidden Secrets earrings sold within 24 hours of being listed on Etsy. The funny thing is, I told myself that if they didn't sell, I could replace the brass hooks with some bronze titanium and keep them. I really, really like them! But I'm very happy that they sold, it's a rewarding feeling to know that my favorite is someone else's favorite, too.

I have one more of those medallions left, and 2 more of the keys, so I'm thinking of doing a matching necklace with the brass chain I bought the other week. Although, since the earrings are already gone, I may do different bead accents, just to mix it up. Hard to say. Those matte, swirly Czech ovals are rather pretty.

In other news, I'm working on my piece for the Etsy Beadweavers' Snow Queen challenge. I'm not sure what it will be called yet, so the working title is Snow Queen. It's weird to work with these crisp white beads, after a week of the russet, earthy tones of Wastelands Tribe and all the green and brass for the earrings. It's good to mix things up! Not sure what I'll do next after this, though. Maybe more wintry colors, since it is that time of year. Oh, or the magenta/purple/celadon bead embroidered pendant. I guess those are more Spring-y colors, but I don't adhere to seasonal themes as much as I probably should.

Wastelands Tribe at last

I'm still not a great model, but I really needed a shot of this necklace being worn so people could see how awesome it is, and it just wouldn't have looked as good on Chris ;) For more pictures, please visit Wastelands Tribe on Etsy, and while you're at it, you can see all of the awesome earrings I made yesterday, too!

I'm probably happier with how this came out than I would have been with the original design. As I was weaving, I really felt like the necklace had an Afghani or African look to it, so the brass bells really go. And it was fun to work the key and the gear into the design, too. In fact, the gear is really nifty. It's actually two gears on one little axis (axle? spoke? thingie?), and you can move them individually if you have fingernails and decent manual dexterity. They could probably also be manipulated with a pin.

Next up, I'll be working on Snow Queen, but first I have to clean the remnants of about half a dozen projects off of my desk. It's getting way too cluttered here!

Thursday Thirteen Volume 1

So, I keep seeing this meme over at A Rose By Name's blog, and I thought I'd give it a little try. I am a sucker for internet memes.

Thirteen Things about AJ Reardon To start off, we'll do Thirteen Random Things About Me, for people who are new to my blog (I'll try to throw in some interesting things so my regular readers aren't bored), and in future weeks I'll try to come up with some fun gimmick lists. 1. I've been going by my initials since I was 11. I'm getting kind of bored with it, but I still don't like my actual name, and getting everyone to call me by a different name all over again is too much work. 2. I am happily childfree and intend to stay that way. 3. I do not call my cats and dogs my kids or babies, I am not their mother, and actually, I kind of hate it when people call me "Mom" when referring to their pets. 4. I'm not quite as cranky as this list makes me sound, so let's try to be positive, shall we? 5. I like gourmet flavored teas, and in fact have an entire cupboard in my kitchen dedicated to tea and tea-brewing paraphernalia. Last night I found a whole stash of yummy tea that had accidentally been pushed to the back of the cupboard. Woohoo! 6. I am an amateur belly dancer and I love to dance to Collide, Dead Can Dance, Stellamara, and whatever else sounds good at the moment. 7. I love living in Tucson because our winters are mild and we have the biggest gem show in the WORLD. 8. Speaking of gem shows, I hire myself out to various vendors to work as booth help to earn extra bead money. Since I started 8 years ago, I've worked for a Czech glass seller, a silver and beading supplies seller, a resin bead seller, a lampworker, and a full-fledged bead store whose booth is an entire room. It's an awesome job. 9. I collect mythology and folklore books. I especially enjoy going to the used bookstore and looking for old and unusual volumes. My collection includes a copy of "A Dictionary of Non-Classical Mythology" published right after the discovery of King Tut's tomb. I think it's technically my husband's book, but I sort of took possession of it... 10. Actually, I just really like books in general. I like to read them, I like to write them, I like to buy them, collect them, give them as gifts. In fact, the only thing I really don't like to do is pack and move them! They get heavy fast. 11. I am really enjoying being a homeowner. My husband and I bought our first house this year and we're so happy here. 12. I'm a big ol' nerd who is into fantasy, sci-fi, roleplaying gaming, comic books and web comics, steampunk, the occasional video game, and hanging out with other nerds. I really get tired of jokes that suggest that all nerds are socially inept, can't get a date, and live in their parents' basement. And don't even get me started on the assumption that they're all boys. Girl geeks rock! 13. I can be a little opinionated, I like to rant, and I stand up for what's important to me. Sarcasm is my favored weapon.


Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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I'm one of the cool kids now.

I'm writing this on my laptop out in the game room. Everyone else always brings their laptop to the game, so I decided to bring mine out tonight, too. I just finished Wastelands Tribe, finally, and it looks pretty awesome. But I didn't feel like sorting out the Delica/11 mess for Snow Queen, so there's no beading tonight.

Technically I should be gaming, but everyone is talking about Fallout 3, a game which I am not playing. This always happens. Oh well. I needed time to blog anyway!

Chris's mid-week weekend was stymied by his boss, so we didn't get to do our other errands today. Instead, I spent all day doing housework. In fact, it was a pretty annoying day and the current lack of gaming is not making things better.

Tomorrow, I should be working on some neat earrings, and I should be able to take pictures of them and Wastelands Tribe. It's been too long since there's been new jewelry on this blog!

BootsbootsbootsbootsBOOTS!

Today I bought the most awesome black lace-up ankle boots. They're even more awesome than my previous black lace-up ankle boots, which have to be retired due to general falling-apartness. Chris is very amused by my excitement about these boots. While I like clothing, I am generally ambivelant about shoes. The one exception is boots. I ADORE boots of the lace-up or button-up variety. The more psuedo-Victorian the better. Now I just need a pair of brown boots and I will be an extremely happy girl.

This week has been beyond weird. Chris had to work overtime on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and last night, and now he's off today, tomorrow and probably Thursday. As such, today feels like a Saturday, and I kept forgetting that it was, in fact, the middle of the week.

Safety Gear has been redubbed Wastelands Tribe and it was coming along nicely until I realized that I had somehow been 5 rows off on finding the center (despite counting twice...), so I have to take it apart a bit and rework it some, but I do believe it can be saved. It looks nothing short of awesome, with a definite Afghani and African influence. I can't wait to finish it and show it off. In fact, I think I should go work on it now.

Our grand time at the park

I mentioned in Friday's post that we were going to take the girls walking at the park. We did, and it was a good time. We met Chris's friend and former co-worker Clinton, introduced him to Daisy and Maggie, and set out. The girls were pretty hyper at first, because they don't go for walks very often and aren't officially leash trained, but after about 10-15 minutes, and a dog swap (Daisy is too much a handful for Chris, especially when he's talking while he walks), they settled down and really enjoyed themselves.

The path around the park is about 4 miles... it took us around an hour to walk it, which is good, because they say corgis should get 30-60 minutes of exercise a day. Because of their short, stubby legs, a comfortably brisk pace for me is also a quick pace for them, so I'm sure it was a good aerobic workout for them. A dog of their size but of a less athletic breed might have been tired out, but these girls were bred to herd sheep, cattle and horses, so they have lots of energy to burn! They were smiling for pretty much the entire walk.

We had a little trouble, in that Daisy barked and lunged at the first dog we passed, but I kept her in hand and we only had minor pulling the two or three other times that we walked by other dog owners. She also shied away from rollerbladers. Being a country dog, I'm sure she'd never seen anyone on skates. Maggie, meanwhile, was just perfectly content to be out and about and didn't seem to have trouble with anyone or anything.

Because it's such a short distance to and from the park (walking distance, really, but walking there, around, and back would be too much with the shape we're currently in), instead of crating them, I took the center seat in the back and held their collars while they sat on either side of me. They were very well-behaved and didn't even try to get up front with Chris. Daisy seemed a little scared or uncomfortable with the car ride, but Maggie loved it.

After we got home and fed the girls their dinner, they slept on the office chair for five hours. Those pups were all tuckered out!

It was such a success that we're hoping to go on similar walks 2-3 times a week. We could all use the exercise, and the girls need to learn how to walk well on a leash. Besides, it's so much fun when someone walks by, smiles, and says "Aw, corgis!"

My Day of Getting Things Done

Since gaming was held elsewhere today and there were no random people going in and out of my house, I felt really free to get around to doing a lot of things that I had planned. Granted, I didn't get as much done as I had hoped, but I still accomplished a lot, while still having fun and not feeling like I spent half of my weekend working. Today I...

... went to the post office and ran some errands.
... finally received my package of components from Canada and ooohed and aaahed over them.
... began a new blog for my writing.
... gave in and signed up for a Twitter account.
... caught up on reading a couple of other blogs.
... continued to work on Safety Gear, though I had to change my idea and it will need a new name.
... started work on my chapter for the Collector Times Round Robin story, The League of Explorers.
... got a good bit of dancing in.

There's a few more things that I might get done before the night is over. But even if I don't, it feels good to get so much done in a single day.

Much Beading Accomplished

(yes, it's another picture of Dreamwalker Amulet. I really like the necklace, what can I say?)

I'm making great progress on Safety Gear. I have half a dozen stitches left, and then it's embellishing time. I'm only taking a break because I hit the end of my thread, so that seemed like a good time to come over here and blog about it. I might even finish it tonight, and if so, I may photograph it tomorrow.

As I sat here working on it, I had an inspiration for an interesting variation on the design. It's definitely worth exploring, but I won't get to do so until after I finish Snow Queen. I thought about discarding my original Snow Queen idea and doing this instead, but I don't think it would be quite elegant enough, and it would require different beads than the ones that I already picked out.

Tonight we're going to head over to Reid Park (the largest, most awesome park in Tucson) with the dogs to go walking with a friend. It's a little colder than I'd like to be out walking, but it's good to get some exercise, take the dogs out, and be social. Hopefully the girls will behave themselves! They like to wrap me up like a maypole when we walk.

Full Steam Ahead!

Full Steam Ahead is the theme for this month's Art Bead Scene challenge. You know I am excited about it! I've already entered a couple of pieces, and I have a few more to add, including Safety Gear when it's finished. And of course, I'll also be entering The Inventors' Gala Ball, which I just listed on Etsy. Brown and steampunk are both so hot right now that I'm confident this necklace will find a home quickly.

Back to Safety Gear for a moment, it's coming along very nicely. I had a lot of beading time at last night's game, and then a lot of beading time today. And in fact, I'll have more beading time after I post this, too. I actually had to force myself to stop and go do the Etsy listing and all of my other on-line stuff. I was in a nice grove, stitching along, and it seemed almost a shame to let that momentum go.

Meanwhile, today's mail had two packages for me! I ordered some shower gel, lip balm and perfume from Etsy seller Savvii which arrived today. I'm especially pleased with the Chai lipbalm and the Midnight Pomegranate perfume. Haven't tried the shower gel yet, but it smells pretty nice, so it's promising. And I also received the beads, rivolis, and chain that I ordered from Whimbeads. The rivoli is just what I needed for my Snow Queen necklace, so I get to start that as soon as I finish Safet Gear.

All in all, a pretty satisfying day!

Super fast post

No time for a real blog post, since I have to go to the grocery store before the game, so let's cover bases really fast:

Dreamwalker Amulet is now on Etsy, at a reduced price! Yay!
I'm working on Safety Gear again and think it will turn out this time. Yay!
The presidential candidate that I voted for won. Yay!
None of my various Etsy packages arrived in today's mail. Boo!

That is all.

The turtle now has friends!

Yesterday I decided that since I enjoyed the colors in Turtle Talisman so much, I ought to make a bracelet and earrings to go with it. So here they are: Marsh and Trundling Turtles. Singly or as a set, they're deliciously green.

I've had a busy day today. I voted, did housework, made earrings, took pictures, listed things on Etsy, and played with my hyper dogs. All in all, a good Tuesday.

Not quite white

Well, I went to start Snow Queen today, and it didn't work out because the Crystal Moonlight rivoli has a slight yellowish tint to it that looked bad against the white seed beads. Not to be deterred, brought up the Whimbeads website and ordered a plain ol' crystal rivoli instead -- as well as some chain, some Delicas, and some of those new-fangled size 15 Delicas. Because, you know, I had to make the order worth the cost of shipping (ok, I went beyond that. Maybe I felt the need for a little retail therapy...).

The annoying part in all of this is that I'm using the same color Delica and Japanese 11 for this project... and I accidentally dumped the Delicas into the 11s tube when I was cleaning up! Sorting them back out from each other will not be a fun task. I think I might save it for the Wednesday game, that way I don't have to worry about a cat jumping up onto my desk and mixing them right back up.

Anyway, in the meantime, I felt like I should bead something, so I made a green and green crystal bracelet, using some of the colors from the Turtle Talisman. I'm also going to make some earrings with a pair of the turtle beads and some crystals... That way if someone is so inclined, they could get a matching green turtle set. I'll list the bracelet and earrings on Etsy tomorrow or Wednesday, depending on when I get them photographed.

White on white on white on white...

The December theme for Etsy BeadWeavers is "Snow Queen." As luck would have it, I've had several snowy pieces planned for a while, but hadn't worked on them yet, because it wasn't winter. Tonight I decided to pick out the beads for the most appealing one, which has a "Crystal Moonlight" colored rivoli, and some matching briolettes.

If you've been following my jewelry for a while, you probably know that whenever I make an icy necklace, I tend to add light blue to the white, because I like color. But this time I'm forcing myself out of my comfort zone and working only in shades of white. I think it will make for a much icier, snowier necklace. It will probably also be a pretty bridal necklace, something which I am pretty much lacking.

I might need to order some 15s before I proceed, though. The best I could come up with were some plain matte crystal, and I think they're going to look too drab with the white-lined crystal AB Delicas and 11s. Plain white was too stark, and gilt-lined opal white was too yellow... and that exhausted my selection of white beads. I almost never work in white, preferring cream and ivory for neutrals, so I have almost nothing to pick from for this necklace!

Anyway, with any luck, this will work out better than my attempts for the November challenge did!

What I wore for Halloween!

Here I am, dressed up for Halloween. I'm standing in a weird way, trying to show off my cute socks, and holding the neat bottle that I bought on Etsy.

Not expecting a lot of trick-or-treaters, I bought a 25 pack of mini Play-Dough tubs. I won't be doing that again. I ran out after about 20 minutes. There were a lot of people out and about in my neighborhood! I sat outside on the front porch for those 20 minutes, so the dogs wouldn't freak out about the doorbell being rang all the time. Instead, they just freaked out about all the people who were outside! They were a little edgy even after everyone was off the streets, but today they're back to their usual behavior. They're both dozing right now, in fact, in that "tummy full, time to sleep" post dinner haze :)

With Halloween over, I guess it's time to start thinking about Thanksgiving. Mmm, cranberry sauce! I think we'll be hosting it this year, for the first time ever, since we have a bigger dining room than my parents. Should be fun!