Today I sat down and played with my goodies from Artbeads.com! When I was told that September was Swarovski month, I decided to spoil myself with a few of the newer fancy Pendant styles. The above necklace features a 45mm Article 6905 -- Dragonfly Pendant in Crystal Golden Shadow, and some 8mm Deep Brown Pearls from Artbeads, plus a Karen Sherwood lampwork bead, 4mm Ceylon Topaz bicones and green Czech glass from my own personal stash, topped off with a pewter Dragonfly clasp purchased in New York a couple of years ago. I call this necklace "Dragonfly Goddess" because the swelling of the bicone makes her look quite fertile.
I was really excited about the Dragonfly Pendant when I first saw it at the Swarovski party in February, so I lept at the chance to play with one now. In person, I'm very dissapointed by how asymmetrical it is. Lately, Swarovski has really been leaning towards these bizarre uneven shapes, and as someone who loves symmetry, I'm having a hard time getting enthusiastic designing with them. I definitely will not be buying any more Dragonfly pendants, which is a shame because they'd be perfect for my line.
The Deep Brown pearls, on the other hand, are just what I expected. The color is rich and lustrous, like dark chocolate. Swarovski really does make the best imitation pearl on the market, and I always love working with them. 8mm is larger than I usually use, but I wanted a big bead to be the head of the dragonfly pendant.
I also ordered two Article 6150 Pegasus pendants in Jet. My idea was to just dangle them at the end of some chain, or a few beaded strands, to make a simple lariat. However, while I was in Tahoe I saw this beautiful piece of black kyanite and it reminded me of folded raven wings, and it was flat enough on the back to be glued down for bead embroidery. Together, these components will form the focal point of a necklace called "The Morrigan's Wings" which I hope to start on soon.
Because Autumn is upon us, the shadows are a bit long in these photos... I'll have to try to get some better ones over the weekend.
Note: Technically I should be calling all of the crystals CRYSTALLIZED (tm) Swarovski Elements but who wants to type that half a dozen times per blog post?
Disclaimer: In keeping with FTC regulations, I need to disclose that Artbeads.com provided free beads to me in return for me reviewing them in my blog and linking back to their site. I am receiving no payment for these posts other than free beads, all of which are being blogged about.
Here you go, photographic evidence of the fact that it snowed in Tahoe, and I actually went outdoors! If you're wondering why my arms are crossed, it's because I didn't expect it to snow during the day, so I foolishly left my coat in my room. I was COLD!
The picture was taken by my friend Betcey, who is from the mountains of Colorado where snow is a frequent occurrence, and this tiny dusting would be nothing to remark upon in her home. But she knew that for a desert girl like me, this was a Big Deal, so she offered to take a picture for posterity :)
The snow came on so suddenly that most of the trees in the area hadn't changed colors yet, so you can see the pretty contrast of the white snow on the green leaves in the background. Some plants even had icicles on them, but I didn't have my camera at hand when I saw them.
I'm so glad to be back in AZ where the temps have been very pleasant 70s since I got home!
While I was away, The Shelley House opened its virtual doors! Though our selection is still small, each item is an amazing hand-crafted treasure. I'm so excited to see what the future months bring, and I hope that you'll remember to check in periodically to see what we've been up to.
This is my full report on the Tahoe Mountain Bead Retreat, sans pictures because I don't feel like tearing my suitcase apart to find the USB cord for my camera. I'm going to break it down into The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, as stated above, and I'm going to be perfectly honest, which may not win me some friends, but I think that the bad is just as important as the good, because people should be informed of what to expect if they're in the market to go to a retreat.
The Good
-All of our teachers and classes were great. I already knew that Beki Haley was a good teacher, as I'd taken a class from her at the Vegas Retreat and used several of her on-line tutorials. I also expected to enjoy Sherry Serafini's class, because she's one of my bead idols and the book that she co-authored with Heidi Kumli really helped me become proficient with bead embroidery. I was less familiar with Marcia deCoster, but I found that she was a great, fun teacher as well. I made decent progress on all three of my projects and am looking forward to finishing them.
-Sherry gets extra props because she gave everyone a Halloween goodie bag with mini candy bars, silly rubber toys (I got a spider ring!), crystals and cabs. We teased the other teachers about it all week. "Well, SHERRI gave us chocolate!" I don't think they appreciated that much ;)
-The free classes on Thursday were fun, although far less challenging. I enjoyed the opportunity to play with some new techniques and materials, and everyone who was teaching or helping did a good job.
-Laura Timmons was just plain awesome. Fun, friendly, generous, and quick with a compliment.
-The hospitality suite was well-stocked with tea, soda, cookies, fresh fruit, and other refreshments that I'm less familiar with because I didn't partake of them.
-The other hospitality suite was a full-service Out on a Whim bead booth, stocked with all sorts of wonderful goodies for sale throughout the retreat. You could either purchase things right away, or have a tray that you threw things into until you were ready to check out.
-When lunch ran crazy-late one day, the Bead Unique staff delivered our afternoon fresh-baked cookies directly to our class rooms, so we didn't have to stop beading to run downstairs to the hospitality suite.
-Bead Unique editor Pamela Hawkins sat with various members of my group several times to discuss what we did and didn't like about the retreat and what we might like to see at future retreats.
-Food in the Village was mostly delcious, service was friendly at all restaurants, and the little shops were cute and also well-staffed by smiling, helpful people.
-The swag bags and raffles were full of great stuff.
-Beki made sure that all of us wild and crazy gals from my home bead forum were together in the same class, and that everyone else in our class could handle us when we got raunchy. It was so great to spend 3-4 days with old and new friends.
-Rooming with my friend Maia, who I've known for almost 10 years but only met in person twice before now, was perfect. We both had the same low tolerance for cold, love tea, and were happy to spend our evenings talking with each other or calling/IMing home.
-The room was pretty good, other than the over-zealous heating. We had a full-sized kitchen, a super-deep tub and high pressure shower, a fireplace, and my couch bed was very comfy. The view from the balcony was great, though I didn't spend more than a few minutes on it due to the temperature.
-Dancing for friends and strangers, in a mostly spur-of-the-moment way, in a costume cobbled out of things I'd brought, with a borrowed stereo, and not losing my lunch due to stage fright.
-Generous beaders gave me rides to and from the airport, so I didn't have to pay for an expensive shuttle.
-Sherry and I were on the same flight out of Reno, and my new friend Jamie was leaving at the same time on a different carrier, so we all shared a fun farewell lunch at the airport. It was so much nicer than eating by myself!
The Bad
-After being asked repeatedly what we needed to bring, Bead Unique told us that we didn't need to bring anything, everything we needed would be provided in our kits, we just needed scissors for Thursday's class. While everything we needed was in fact provided for the free Thursday classes, we arrived at Sherri's class Friday to be told that of course she didn't provide needles and thread, because everyone had their own preference. Marcia told us the same thing on Saturday. Beki was the only one who included needles and thread. I was lucky to be in a class full of beadweavers wiser than me, who had packed their own needles and thread and generously shared with me. I hope the other classes were equally lucky!
-Though the restaurants did their best to handle over 60 hungry beaders in a timely fashion, our lunch hours usually ended up running late. This was especially true when we had Saturday's lunch at Twenty-Two Bistro, which had opened especially for us (they were closed for the off-season). While it seems like a nice idea in concept, in reality, the kitchen staff seemed pretty overwhelmed and it took forever to get our food. One person at my table had been served, finished eating, and left the restaurant long before my lunch arrived.
-Snow. Ok, yes, it was pretty. Yes, everyone was right, the cold temperatures feel warmer at a high altitude than they do in Tucson. But it was still cold, I still wasn't quite appropriately dressed, and I still slipped down icy stairs, banged my knee, and sent my luggage flying everywhere.
-Thursday's Meet the Teachers Dessert Social. Yes, you could in fact briefly meet your teachers as you purchased your kits for the week's classes, but if you wanted to say more than five words to them, you'd be holding up the line of the other 50 beaders behind you who also wanted to buy kits. Then by the time you got out of line, your seat had been stolen.
-Did I mention the over-zealous heater? The hotel had awesome heating provided by hot-water pipes under the floor. This meant that you could step out of the shower onto toasty warm tiles. But despite the fact that we had the thermostat set to 70, it never shut off on Wednesday. I woke up at 5am and found the bathroom floor was almost too hot to walk on, and I was drenched in sweat, so I turned the heat off completely. When Maia got up at 8, she went to turn it off because it was still swelteringly hot in the room! We had to leave the balcony door open all day to let the heat out. For the rest of our stay, we had the heater off, but even the ambient heat of the building was sometimes too much. Oh yes, and all of my chocolate melted on that first day :(
-There was a huge discrepency in the quality of raffle prizes. Some were crazy-nice (worth $100 or more), some were very nice ($50 range), some were pretty nice ($10-20) and some were meh ($1-5). Some people won multiple very nice prizes and others won no prizes at all. One friend of mine who doesn't string won a small package of crimp tubes. Twice. I think it would have been better if it worked life past raffles I'd been in, where you could pick your prize. Maybe the big-ticket prizes could have been raffled seperately, and then all other winners could have their choice of the smaller prizes. Then no one would get a book they already had, or something they couldn't use, wouldn't consume, whatever. Alternatively, really small prizes could have been bundled together into goodie bags.
-We were told that there would be sparkling cider for the non-drinkers at the farewell champagne toast. Now, I think this is relatively important. There are people like me who don't drink because they don't like the taste. There are people who don't drink for moral/religious reasons. And there are people who can't drink for medical reasons. When I asked if there was sparkling cider, I was given a weird look and eventually handed a glass of apple juice from a can, as were the other non-drinkers. Someone else said that it seemed like there was *supposed* to be cider and someone dropped the ball on getting it... but even if that is the case, the correct response is "Oh, I'm sorry, we don't have any. Would you like apple juice instead?" (in which case I would have asked for water, because goodness do I hate plain apple juice) not a strange look.
-Did I mention the snow?
The Ugly
As I mentioned before, Cthuhlu took voter's choice for the "I Don't Think So" Ugly category in the Ugly Contest. After the contest was over, a couple of people tried to take their items, and were told that they weren't done with them yet. Everyone seemed to assume they would get them back at the end of the retreat.
On Sunday, they went around announcing when the farewell toast would be. They also said that they would be photographing the Uglies and getting them back to us. I took that to mean that they were photographing them that afternoon and we could retrieve them after the toast.
After the toast, I was returning to my room to get my evaluation form so I could turn it in, and I realized that they hadn't given Cthulhu back to me, nor had I seen anyone else getting their projects back. When I got back with my form minutes later, everyone had cleared out of the hospitality suite and the Bead Unique/All American Crafts staff were getting ready to tear things down. I could see the box full of uglies sitting right there.
I asked if I could take mine back, and I was told no, they still needed to photograph them. I said... when? Could I get him tomorrow before I left? I was then told that Pamela was taking them back with her and she was going to sleep for the first two days she was home (not that I can blame her on that count, I did far less work than her and I'm wiped out). I pointed out that I had spent *two months* working on mine, it was a major project, and I was not happy with their cavalier attitude as to when he would be returned to me. No one seemed to care.
My anger built up as I walked over to the Pub where a bunch of my friends were gathering for one last dinner together. I told them what happened, and I got a strong chorus of support and people telling me that I did not have to let them take Cthulhu. One friend confided in me that I had every right to feel uncomfortable about it, as they'd had one piece of hers for one year and another for two. So I said OK, I'm going back to get him! My friend Nikki came to be my moral support -- or maybe to make sure I didn't hit anyone ;)
When I got back, Pam was back, and I said "I'm taking my ugly." She said that they were going to take them home and photograph them and eventually mail them back. I pointed out that once again, this was 2 months of my life, my most major project ever, and furthermore, I had not signed anything giving them any rights to take him. I pulled him out of the box and left. She just stared at me and didn't respond.
The next day, several Bead Unique/All American Crafts staffers were also on the same flight as Sherry and I. They walked up to say Hi to us, and one of them (Russel I think) told me that I could have trusted Pam with my project. I said thank you, that's nice, but I did not want him out of my hands for any length of time, nor did I want to chance him being damaged by the USPS.
But the truth is, I was worried about a lot more than USPS damage. I was worried about not getting my project back for a year or more. Possibly never. And do you know why? Cthulhu was in the bottom of the box, under some neck displays, with no packaging. No label to say who he belonged to. He had been seperated from the bag of books I'd given for him to sit on (some trashy 1970s Lovecraft paperbacks). None of the items were labeled or wrapped up. I didn't see anyone taking any note on who he belonged to when I turned him in.
Honestly, after seeing that, I was supposed to expect that he'd arrive home undamaged and in a timely manner? I'd have been lucky to ever see him again.
Now generally, I try very hard to promote a good image to magazine editors, writers, and other staff, in case I ever wanted to submit a project or article. I like to have a good reputation within the bead industry -- and I think I've built a decent little one, through my work with BFAC and as a gem show vendor helper and that crazy girl dancing at the Swarovski party. But on Sunday night, I didn't give one whit whether Bead Unique and All American Crafts thought that I was a primadonna, a bitch, or any other appelation applied to a difficult woman. The fact of the matter is that they were the ones in the wrong, for never telling anyone that the Ugly Project entries would not be returned to their creators at the end of the show. That should have been spelled out from the very beginning.
And if anyone's made it through this entire post, I applaud your patience.
I arrived home safely, but I am absolutely exhausted and not feeling that great. Hopefully tomorrow will bring the energy I need to unpack, find my camera cord, and do a full retreat report... but for now I'm going to collapse into bed.
I am so very tired, after a very long day which was chock-full. Friends, beading, snow, stress, righteous anger, pub food, packing, hugs of farewell, it was crazy.
I have a lot of things to say, but no time to say them tonight. I'm leaving here at 9am tomorrow, and I won't get home until around 4pm. Luckily the snow has stopped for now, so I should have a safe drive home.
Regular full-length blogging with pictures shall return soon!
I walked through snow flurries in my pajamas today.
That's really all you need to know.
Ok, I'm blogging after midnight and I should be in bed and I still have e-mail to write, so today's awesomeness will be given in bullet points.
1: Sherri Serafini is a great teacher and I love the project she designed for this retreat. I got a lot done on mine and hope to do more work tomorrow night at the pajama party.
2: The ugly contest was tonight. There were 14 entrants. Cthulhu won the "I don't think so" Ugly, which I'm guessing my lovely friends interpreted as "I don't think he's ugly" because they kept saying how adorable/cute/nice he was.
3. I danced tonight, for a mixed group of my friends and random retreat attendees. A few people clearly didn't like it, but most really enjoyed it. I had my first bout of stage fright, but I got over it. Shout-out to Bead Unique editor Pamela for loaning me her stereo, my friend and retreat roomie Maia for handling my music, and Colleen for taking photos that will hopefully turn out because she has a nice camera and skills.
4: There was other stuff but I'm so tired that I forgot it.
Hello everyone! Tahoe* is great. It's cold, and only supposed to get colder, but our room is so ridiculously hot (even with the heat off) that I'm wishing I had brought my summer pajamas. All of the other public areas have been pleasantly warm, too, so I haven't turned into an elf-cicle yet.
I'm having a wonderful time here with friends old and new. Today we had our free extra classes, an assortment of four relatively simple projects, including wire crochet with beads, and making pendants with Super Gloss or whatever it's called. I really enjoyed playing with some new techniques. I also won some Vintaj components in a raffle, yay!
Tonight was the dessert social, which was also supposed to be meet the teachers... the only problem was that the teachers were also selling their kits, so there wasn't really a lot of opportunity to speak with them. I picked up my three gorgeous kits, ate some dessert, and caught up with friends. I wore my Steampunk Cameo necklace, which got tons of compliments, including from my idol Sherri Serafini.
All in all, a very good day, and I can't wait until the real classes start tomorrow!
*Technically I'm in a place called Squaw Valley, but I really hate that word, so I'm pretending it's actually Tahoe.
I made this brooch for the swap in Tahoe! Isn't it beautiful? I love Dolly Ahles's lampworked cabochons.
In just a moment I'll be taking off for the airport, where I'll take off for Reno, by way of Phoenix, and then I'll be praying that the lovely friends who are giving me a ride will not have to drive through sleet or freezing rain or anything scary like that.
I'll try to keep up my daily blogging while I'm at the Retreat!
Yes, at long last, Cthulhu is complete! I stitched the last beads on early this afternoon, clipped all the stray threads, and basked in the afterglow of the largest, most involved project I've ever done. Just look at that malevolent glare!
All those beads! He's surprisingly heavy now -- I'd estimate he has at least 50 grams of seed beads stitched down to his body.
His back is only lightly embellished, and good thing, too. The closer I got to his head, the harder it was to manipulate the needle, and I managed to snap another one! His dorsal ridge is accented with the same bugle beads that outline the veins of his wings.
I'm really proud of myself for completing this. Yes, I had to scale back from my original plan, and yes, there are some goofs, and yes, I may go back someday and add more beads, but... I beaded Cthulhu! And completed him on time! And only lost 1d100 sanity points in the process.
I was recently invited by the lovely folks at Artbeads.com to participate in their blog partner program. They send beads, I blog about them... what more perfect arrangement could there be? Of course I said yes! And look at what arrived in my mail today, all wrapped up like a present...
I bet you're wondering what's inside, but because I'm a wicked little tease. I'm going to make you wait to find out until I get home from Tahoe and make them into jewelry. In the meantime, if you want to see what another Artbeads partner made, you should head over to the Earthenwood Studios Chronicles and see Melanie's jaw-droppingly beautiful necklace.
I decided to take a short break from beading this evening, since I spent all of yesterday evening and this afternoon (minus Yoga class) beading. Cthulhu's right leg is almost done, as is my brooch for swapping. Though I like this brooch so much that it will be hard to let it go! I'll have to get more cabs from Dolly in February, they're simply beautiful.
Tomorrow, Chris will be in CA for a business trip (flying out early morning, flying home late at night), so I'll again spend almost all day beading -- though time will also have to be made for laundry and packing. I have to get out my winter clothes, because it's going to be COLD in Tahoe. I have to find the pretty chenille scarf that Mom made for me, which I've worn all of once because I live in the desert. And I have to somehow fit 5 days worth of clothes, beads, jewelry, oatmeal, tea and toiletries plus my laptop, digital camera, and a book into one checked bag, one carry-on, and one personal item. Too bad Chris won't be home to help me pack, he's really good at it. I always say "You'll never fit all that into one bag" and yet he makes it happen.
Back on Tuesday, I hurt my ankle at the gym. I don't know if it was too many box jumps, or if I stretched it too far doing dead lifts, but it definitely feels like I jacked up my Achilles tendon. That tendon, by the way, is my body's main way of trying to sabotage my attempts to work out. I would have expected my lack of upper body strength to be the big hurdle, but no, it's my stupid, short Achilles tendon, which keeps me from being able to squat and which now is keeping me from doing anything more active than limping back and forth across the house.
In all fairness, my ankle would probably be fine by now if I hadn't had the brilliant idea to take my injured ankle up to Tempe and dance on it for an hour. I didn't want to miss my belly dance class, since next Thursday I'll be in Tahoe. And honestly, it was an awesome class. Something clicked and I didn't really struggle with any of the moves, and my arms never got tired, and I had fun. The four students in attendance were doing so well that Cari, our teacher, kept picking faster and faster music and changing up which moves we transitioned to and from to keep us on our toes. It was amazing. I feel like I'm really progressing in my goal to dance well enough to perform and teach, instead of stumbling my way through class. I still have a long way to go, but the forward momentum is there.
Now if this stupid ankle would just catch up with the rest of me!
Cthulhu is so very close to done... Just his right leg and his back left to do! I might even finish him over the weekend.
For his leg, I did concentric rings of beads around a Czech pressed glass bead with a spiral pattern. I used those same pressed glass spirals to accent the wing tips, then outlined the veins of the wings with bugle beads. I also put bugle beads on his toes, so they weren't beadless.
It's a nice feeling to have my goal in sight at long last!
Take one last look at these earrings -- they've found a new home!
Tomorrow I'll have to pick a new photo for the right-hand sidebar :)
Elvensoul is today's Daily Special, and it's also still one of my favorite necklaces ever. The colors, the style, the rich, leafy fringe... It's pretty much the essence of my work and inspiration, all in one little necklace. Someday, it will find a good home! If it doesn't sell this week, it will definitely come to Tahoe for Show and Tell!
Speaking of Tahoe, I leave in ONE WEEK and I think I'll actually get Cthulhu done in time! Hooray! Now to see if I can also get my brooch, necklace and Super Secret Jammies done in time. I'm going to try to work on the pajamas in the car on the way to Tempe tomorrow.
This necklace is very special, because it's for an artist collective that I'm joining! The Shelley House is a cooperative effort by a number of very talented Etsy sellers, a shared shop where each item is inspired by the previous one. Because we'll only be adding two items a month, it was decided that we should "seed" the shop with some pieces inspired by Mary Shelley (our namesake!), so that our shop won't look so empty for the first month or two.
In honor of Shelley's heartbreaking life and her most famous story, I made a Gothic necklace featuring a stitched-together winged heart. It will be for sale when The Shelley House opens on October 1st!
The last time that I posted about Cthulhu, I had just started on his torso... Well, the torso is done and now I'm working on a leg! I need to buckle down and work hard this week if I'm going to finish him and all of the other projects that I want to do before I leave on the 30th! I may very well be stitching beads onto Cthulhu on the flight to Tahoe!
I broke two more needles on Saturday night, as I attempted to finish the torso and accidentally found myself stitching along a seam. That brings the total needle death count to three.
I didn't do much worth blogging about today, so here's a picture of Maggie, captured mid-bark. It was taken last month not long after her dental cleaning -- hence the bald patch on her leg where they shaved her for the IV! Those are all grown back in now.
Remember! Tomorrow, I'll post a new picture of Cthulhu!
Today I sat down and played with my goodies from Artbeads.com! When I was told that September was Swarovski month, I decided to spoil myself with a few of the newer fancy Pendant styles. The above necklace features a 45mm Article 6905 -- Dragonfly Pendant in Crystal Golden Shadow, and some 8mm Deep Brown Pearls from Artbeads, plus a Karen Sherwood lampwork bead, 4mm Ceylon Topaz bicones and green Czech glass from my own personal stash, topped off with a pewter Dragonfly clasp purchased in New York a couple of years ago. I call this necklace "Dragonfly Goddess" because the swelling of the bicone makes her look quite fertile.
I also ordered two Article 6150 Pegasus pendants in Jet. My idea was to just dangle them at the end of some chain, or a few beaded strands, to make a simple lariat. However, while I was in Tahoe I saw this beautiful piece of black kyanite and it reminded me of folded raven wings, and it was flat enough on the back to be glued down for bead embroidery. Together, these components will form the focal point of a necklace called "The Morrigan's Wings" which I hope to start on soon.
