Need more time!

Wow, how time has been flying. January is already more than half gone, the gem shows start in less than two weeks, my brother-in-law will be here on Sunday... and Wings of the Morrigan isn't even half done! I need to get back to work, furiously embroidering this week and next, if I have any chance of wearing it to the Swarovski party. I have a feeling I'll need to come up with a back-up plan.

Because I've been so busy, and so stressed-out about house stuff, I've really been neglecting Handmade Jewelry by Erthe Fae Designs. I had all these cool ideas, for the FAETeam's Stag challenge, and for Valentine's Day, but I've barely touched my beads except to make a few custom pieces last week. I have to clean up and put away my beads to make the guest room inhabitable, so I'm hoping to sneak some beading time in as well, as seeing things while I put them away will no doubt inspire me!

OMG, cabs!

Remember when I said I was trying to put all of my beads and supplies away in a nice, organized fashion? Here's some photographic proof! My cabochon collection was spread all over the place -- some were in a divided plastic box, some were in the same hardware drawer system as my focal beads, some were just lying around in the baggies they came in. Not acceptable at all!

When I started this current quest for organization, I put a lot of my cabs into a flat box designed for storing craftbooking doo-dads or other small crafting supplies. I decided that was perfect, and JoAnn's is having a big storage sale this week, so I went out in search of more. They didn't have the exact same box, but they did have a little three-drawer unit, and that is where all of my cabs and rivolis will now be stored.

This isn't even all the cabs... the black and white ones will go in a separate drawer, because they wouldn't all fit in this one. And I know there are more cabs hiding around the house. And then there are the cabs that are already glued down to be embroidered around, or that I've been actively matching beads to for large projects.

I'm boring today!

Tonight is the last week of gaming-on-Tuesdays, unless of course the next session of Krav Maga classes is also on Wednesday nights. I'm not sure if they've set the schedule yet -- I'm too busy keeping track of my belly dance schedule, and already thinking ahead to gem show in a month and a half.

Anyway, since it's a gaming night, that means today is a cleaning day. I got sick of all the clutter and mess that had been building up, so I'm doing more than my usual spot cleaning. It's incredibly boring, but also necessary. I'd like to greet the New Year with a tidy house, and be ready to make some improvements before my in-laws visit in February. Chris pointed out the other day that it felt like we were still living in a rental, because we hadn't done much to make the house ours. What little effort has gone into the house has all been put into the game room, and even that's not finished yet.

Well, back to the grindstone for me.

Feels so... wrong!

Chris and half the guys in our gaming group currently have krav maga classes on Wednesday evenings, so we moved the game to Tuesday. Gaming! On Tuesday nights! What is the world coming to?!? Surely, this is a sign of the end times.

We're also gaming in the main house, because it's cold as heck and the game room is hard to heat. Guess I should go tidy up the living room, since we'll actually be using it.

Time to be social

Snowdrop is today's Daily Special. I guess it fits the whole Christmas in July thing, but it would also be so beautiful on a bride!

Monday and yesterday were the two quiet days of my week-without-Chris. Days for reading, cleaning, and vegging. The next three days will be busy and social. Today, my friend Mara is coming over and then our mutual friend Casey will join us for dinner. Tomorrow, Casey is kindly driving me to Tempe for dance class (because he's awesome like that), and Friday I'm going out with my Mom. Of course, I'll still work some reading and cleaning in on those days (in fact, I should be cleaning now), but mostly it will be spending time with awesome people.

Whenever Chris goes out of town, I always make all these grand plans of things I'm going to get done with my free time, and the vast majority of them don't get done. Faced with the choice between a stack of novels and a pile of cleaning supplies, reading is always going to win. Oh well. At least the office is looking much cleaner, even if I don't get around to any of the other chores I had planned to accomplish.

Bid, bid, bid!

These amazing fully-beaded juggling blocks are just one of this week's BFAC auction items. Go, look, bid! As of this posting, only a few of the gorgeous items even have bids on them. This is a situation which must be rectified!

Funny thing about listing these juggling blocks. eBay, in their infinite wisdom, doesn't have a section for juggling supplies. I spent a good 10 minutes searching and deliberating before I decided where to put them. I hope this doesn't hamper their ability to get bids. Denise Smeaton put a ton of work into these beauties!

No photography yet, I ended up being too busy yesterday. It took me 3 hours to list all of the eBay items, I had some crystals to string, and there was some housework that absolutely had to be done before the mess drove me nuts. That's how I know I'm feeling better after being sick, is when I feel compelled to go on a cleaning binge instead of beading.

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!

Cleaning and organizing, what fun.

So, I'm working my way through the mountains of bead clutter. I've got a lot more beads now than I did when we moved in here 6 years ago. I can't even remember how I moved them last time, but I don't recall it being much of an issue. This time around, it's my main concern. I want everything to go as smoothly as possible, so that I don't have too much beading downtime after moving in.

It's amazing how many half-finished projects and leftover beads I have lying around. I'm such a beading slob! One of my goals is to stop being like that. I need to make a better effort to put everything away when I'm done with a project. It will make my life so much easier, and keep my space so much prettier.

While I'm doing all of this practical cleaning, I'm also daydreaming. I'm going to have a lot of space in my new beadroom, and I'm wondering what I want to fill it with. Do I want to buy some sleek crafters cabinets? Do I want to hunt down a cool old apothecary, typesetter, or watchmaker type desk/cabinet dealio? Or do I want to buy things on the cheap at the thrift store, and use all the extra money for more beads?

Although I always like the idea of more beads, I find myself jealous of people with really cool workspaces. Sure, the desk that I found by the dumpster is great and has served me well for the past 5 or 6 years, but it is pretty boring looking and only has two drawers and one cubbyhole. And the plastic iris carts that I keep most of my beads in are effective, but there's an awful lot of wasted space in the deeper drawers and again, they're boring.

We'll see what I feel like after I've been in the house for a while. To start with I'm going to take my dumpster desk and my iris carts, and see where I want to go from there.

I've got to take some pictures.

Okay, maybe tomorrow I'll clean the gigantic stack of books off of my kitchen table and actually have room to photograph some new jewelry. Seriously, I think there's more than 20 books in that stack. Mostly it's the various gaming books that we cart with us, depending on what game we play. This is why I throw myself off balance whenever I pick up my messenger bag... those sourcebooks are HEAVY!

Today the flippie boxes that I ordered from Out on A Whim arrived, so I got to put away some more beads and rearrange my collection a bit. I didn't quite finish the job. The lids were pretty tight on the little flippies and my fingers started to hurt after a while of tugging them apart. I actually managed to buy more boxes than I needed, so I'll have excess storage for a while. Of course, I still have a lot of larger beads (8mm mostly, and weird shapes) that don't fit in the flippies, so I need to decide where I want to put them. Currently they're all in drawers, sorted by color, still on their strands, but that's not the best solution. I don't tend to think about the beads in those drawers, and when I do use them, I don't use an entire strand, and then I have to tie a knot at the end, and it's just sloppy.

Going through my beads, I realized that it's about time that I did some more "strand collages" or something else which will allow me to use up some miscellaneous beads. It's really just not worth keeping 8-10 beads around when I'm not ever going to restock them!

Mainly, though, my muse wants to play with those new keys, which means I've got to clean them up. I think I'll try the Naval Jelly that Chris used to de-rust his axe. This will be an adventure for me. I'm used to trying to clean up silver, not steel!

My fight against chaos...

...also known as cleaning my beadroom. Once again I've managed to get fed up with the clutter in my beadroom, and I've spent the past two days trying to do something about it. I say "trying" because really, it's like that traffic jam game. I can move the pieces around all I want, there's still only going to be one empty space! At the very least, my clutter is more organized now. I managed to put a bunch of books away on my super-cute book case, and put away some beads that have been homeless since gem show, and re-organize some findings. One reason why I've been doing this is because the beadroom is currently too messy to work in, which means I have to work at the kitchen table. That means that this happens:
Yes, that is my cat Topher sitting smack-dab in the middle of my beadwork. He has this really fine hair, and it gets all over the beading pad and caught up in the beads when I weave them together. Also, it's hard to make jewelry when he is on not just my beads, but often my needle as well.

It's a constant battle between Topher and I. I want to make jewelry, he wants me to pay attention to him. Sometimes we come to a compromise and he lies down next to my Vellux work pad. In fact, I was just beading a few minutes ago, and he's still waiting there for me, dozing off with the expectation that I will come back and shower him with affection. He's insanely cute when he's asleep, so even though I'm done with beads for the night, there will probably be some petting in his future anyway.

Because I've been focused on beadroom cleaning, I don't have anything made for this week's update. I was just struck by an idea for a really cute bracelet, so I'll probably make that tomorrow. I also have a few ideas for nice woven necklaces and lariats, but I don't think I'll have any done in time for Sunday's update.

Today's Cool Thing is this Triple Fuse Necklace. It reminds me of something that some awesome raver chick would wear in a cyber-punk movie! Yeah!