Beading break

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.

Something with some sparkle.

This pendant is made with the first two rivolis I ever beaded! They sat around on my desk for a few months until recently, when I decided to stitch them together and give them a simple bail.

The bottom stone is crystal AB with no foil lining. It takes on the hue of whatever's behind it. So against my barely-pink skin, it makes a nice, warm compliment for the brandy-hued stone above it. Unfortunately, I had the brilliant idea to photograph it on this green notebook. What the heck, self? You had a nice brown notebook sitting right there! Also, I didn't quite focus the image right. I'm still working on it, but I'm trying to wean myself off of relying so much on auto-focus.

I spent some time today working on my next rivoli project, which is shaping up to be beautiful... but now I'm packing. 5 days to go and there's still a ton of stuff to go and no boxes to put it in. I just packed a whole bunch of beads in a small rolling suitcase. In fact, that accounts for a huge chunk of my BTSB collection. I've also got my bead desk down to just a few scattered things left to clean up and put away. There may be light at the end of this tunnel after all.

Did I take pictures? No.

Ok, I promise I'll take pictures tomorrow, unless something catastrophic happens. I should have plenty of time, since I don't game on Saturdays anymore, but Chris does. I'll have the apartment to myself. Just me and 50 billion boxes.

Actually, I've been saving the latest issue of Bead and Button for tomorrow, so I'll have some fun reading time. And I'll work on the bezel again. And of course, pack and clean. But a gal's got to have some fun on the weekend, you know?

We're supposed to have our walk-through on Tuesday. The current tenants of the house are supposed to be out by Monday, but so far they haven't budged. I sure hope they have a busy weekend of moving ahead of them. If all goes well, we close on Wednesday and move on Friday. And then... you won't see much of me, because it may take 2 weeks to get a cable connection at the new house, and I don't have any sort of dial-up.

One thing's for certain, without internet, I'll make a lot of progress on unpacking and settling into the house.

The house! One week from this very moment, I can be getting ready to spend the first night sleeping in my very own house. Amazing!

In non-amazing news, we watched War today. You know, Jet Li movies have a lot of action. So do Jason Statham movies. One might expect that a movie with both actors would feature twice as much action, but there's only so much action you can have in one film. So you could at least reasonably expect that a Li-Statham flick would have at least as much action as a film with only one of these men. But somehow... somehow... it's as if their action star statuses canceled each other out. They spend most of the running time doing things other than kicking the crap out of each other. There's double-crosses and car chases and gun battles and investigation scenes and flashbacks and attractive ladies and gratuitous breast shots, but the martial arts don't come out until the end. And when they do, they're pretty mediocre. It was essentially a waste of time, but I'm a sucker for anything with Jet Li in it. Yes, this means that I have to go see that stupid Mummy movie, too. Curses!

So much for beading.

Argh, I swear, these bezels are out to get me. This one should fit the rivoli I made it for, and it's just not fitting. So once again, I'll have to start over. Eventually I'm probably going to get annoyed and stop working with rivolis altogether.

I spent today cleaning up my bead room, sorting through the piles of beads on my desk in there. I'm making some progress, and really instilling in myself a desire to be better about putting beads away as soon as I'm done with a project. I might even finish cleaning the desk off tomorrow.

Photography didn't happen today, I was just too busy and too tired. Maybe tomorrow.

I like packages!

You know you're in packing mode when you find yourself hoping for a package in the mail, not because it means a nice surprise, but because it means an extra box and maybe some wrapping material.

So today I got a package that I didn't expect for another week, and it DID have a nice surprise in it, but it also had paper to wrap my knick-knacks in. Good thing, too, because yesterday I used up the last of my bubblewrap and tissue paper and junkmail paper. I think I'm going to break into the bag of fabric I got from a neighbor and start wrapping things in it. That's the DIY attitude!

In fact... if you take something that's normally garbage (like Capri Sun pouches) and you turn it into something useful (like a quirky purse), then you're not just recycling, you're "upcycling." So if you take an already useful item, and you repurpose to fill a need that would usually be filled by a consumable item, are you "downcycling"? And if so, did I just coin that term? Can I be the latest green/DIY trendsetter? (answer: probably not)

Downcycling aside, I think I'll try to make some time for photography tomorrow. I'd like to show you all the rivoli pendant, the rockin' steampunk transistor necklace that Chris gave me, and the awesome carved dragon pendant from today's mail.

Boxes and Beads and Books.

I'm almost out of boxes... but I'm almost out of places to put boxes, too! Some of them are going to have to go live in the trunk of the car until we move, just so I have some room to work in here.

Today I actually started packing my beads. A lot of them are in these two 4' tall plastic filing cabinets (aka iris carts). This is a great storage method, however, it's a little heavy and ungainly for moving. As such, I've begun the process of moving the beads into smaller containers. I'm still keeping the containers out and accessible -- next week, right before we move, I'll put them all into suitcases, which have convenient wheels and handles for easy bead-moving.

I started another rivoli project tonight, and picked out beads for the next one, too. They both involve green and earthy tones. The second one will be for me to keep, as it involves "little chippies" -- rivolis that have dings on the edges. Sure, I cover the edges with beads, but I still feel bad selling damaged goods -- especially since I got the chippies for free from my gem show job, because she also doesn't like to sell damaged goods!

The books part of the title refers to the fact that I'm working my way through some nerdy astrophysics book called Death By Black Hole. So far it needs more death and less physics, although I did like learning more about the rings of Saturn and why they look the way they do. There's also a lot about the history of physics and general and astrophysics in specific. Last night I read about people learning that we are not the center of the universe. My cats, of course, disagree. They're pretty certain that everything revolves around them, even up to a cosmic level.

So I'm probably going to go read more nerdy physics stuff, although what I really feel like doing right now is writing. I did a short little story for some gaming-related stuff this past weekend, and it reawakened my inner author. Unfortunately, said inner author can't really settle on a project, and doesn't have anything specific she wants to write, she just misses the process. Maybe I can distract her with shiny beads, or bore her to sleep with physics.

Getting things done.

Much of today was spent packing and cleaning. I'm been packing away all my fragile things, and hoping that they're well-wrapped enough to survive the move. I haven't even decided exactly where I'll put them in the house. The shelves I've got them on now aren't very pretty. I might get a curio cabinet or something. The vintage dragonware tea set will go in the kitchen, and that's about all I've figured out.

I did get to bead a little bit today. I finally finished the first rivoli pendant I worked on. I kept it really simple, since it's not really colors that I wear a lot, so it'll spend most of its time in a jewelry box, I'm afraid. But now I feel like playing with more rivolis, so maybe tomorrow I'll come up with another project -- after I finish my work, of course.

Now I'm feeling pretty tired, so I'm just going to do a little e-mail and go to sleep, so I can be prepared for another busy day tomorrow!

Beads: Inaccessable

My beadroom is still full of boxes. Stupid boxes, cramping my style.

Maybe tomorrow I'll get enough of them moved. I did relocate a few today, but not enough.

Now I'm off to tonight's game, where I shall spend my time rearranging the buttons on my bag instead of beading.

Stupid boxes.

Packing is boring.

I spent most of today packing. And you know what? It was boring. And talking about it is boring. And tomorrow, when I do more, it will also be boring.

Part of what I'm going to do tomorrow is move boxes out of the beadroom so I can get to my beads and create! I'm so bored of just working and doing stuff on my computer. I need to make something. I'm not sure what yet, it will depend on what catches my eye tomorrow. Probably something simple and portable, so I can take it to gaming. I'd really love to start another embroidered project, but that might have to wait until after we move.

Moving, by the way, is just a couple of weeks away. YAY!

I miss my beadroom

I packed four more boxes of books today. I think the remaining two should pretty much take care of the few stray books scattered throughout the apartment. But all the boxes are in my beadroom, and I'm not sure that I can really move them to get to my beads. *sigh* It's going to be a long three weeks.

Mom and I went out to lunch, and I went into this boutique that had a few great steampunk-y skirts. It was hard to resist buying them, but the steep price tags on the two I really liked made it a little easier. Besides, I have enough clothes to move!

The only other thing I have to say is that I am SO tired!

Packing, packing, packing.

My beadroom is so full of boxes that I can't even think of starting a new project. I couldn't get to my beads even if I wanted to! Grr. Stupid packing. And I just went and bought another half-dozen banker's boxes today. Hopefully that, along with the 7 I packed today, should finally take care of all of our books.

I was feeling pretty beat after all that packing, so I convinced Chris that we should go to Seven Cups for tea again (it was really hard to convince him, let me tell you). We both tried Puer tea for the first time. I got one that was blended with rose petals, and it was delicious. Between the tasty tea and dessert, and the peaceful atmosphere of the teahouse, I was feeling pretty invigorated by the time we left.

Well, what now?

Locked Away was a big project, and now that it's finished, I feel like I'm pretty much free to bead whatever I want. But what should that be? Do I want to focus on smaller projects while I'm packing and moving, or do I want to follow this up with another biggie?

For the immediate future, I'll probably work on a few small projects. I could use some more anklets on the website, for instance, and I might make some earrings with some of the Earthenwood beads from my recent order. But after that, I might start another large project. It's nice to have something major to work on, it makes me feel like more of an artist.

In the meantime, I've mostly spent today working on non-bead-related stuff, like cleaning and packing and working out. I managed to work out and dance today, which was nice. The dancing was kind of like a little reward to myself after lifting weights and doing crunches. And I put a dent in the stacks of books in the closet. Ahhh, productivity!

Four down, ninety jillion to go!

This bracelet is called Sea Blossom. I kind of wanted to call it Minty Fresh, but honestly, who would buy a bracelet that sounds like toothpaste?

Last night after dinner, we picked up some boxes for our books. I started packing today and easily filled up four boxes. Four of the eight that we bought. Uh oh. This could take a while, and several trips to OfficeMax for more boxes. That was just stuff that was lying around, and on the beadroom bookcases, and that was only about half of what was in there. I haven't even started on the gobs of novels in the bedroom closet.

When I wasn't packing, I spent most of today working on ads and marketing and networking. So if you came over here from one of my new ads: Hi! Welcome to Erthe Fae Designs! Don't mind the dust.

I started back to work on Locked Away today. The outline was still giving me trouble, but I finally got it under control. I have no gaming tomorrow, so I'll probably spend a few hours working on it. Actually, if I spend a few hours, I might finish the second half, and then it will be time to learn how to finish the edges of a bead-embroidered piece. Exciting!

Remember yesterday, when I said I would talk about more things today? I have no idea what those things were.

Tug of war.

Ugh. I feel like I have too many things to do, and that I can't focus on any one thing. I want to bead, but when I go into the beadroom, I see the mess and I start to try to clean and pack, but then there's no place to put things, or I can't get to where they belong, or I'm worried I might need it before we move...

So instead I spent most of today working on a character for a game that I don't even know if I want to play anymore.

I'm really not in a great state of mind today. I did go to B&N and finally pick up Iron Council (the next Mieville book). I think I might go start reading it, which pretty much guarantees that I won't feel like packing or gaming or beading.

Willpower? What's that?

How do you like them apples?

Last night, instead of our usual roleplaying, six of us played a rousing game of Apples to Apples. Much fun was had by everyone! It's good to get together with a group of friends and be silly, especially since I've had to spend so much time being mature and responsible with the whole housing thing.

Speaking of that, it looks like everything is going great, and we'll be closing on June 11th. I spent some time this week packing, and now I've filled up all the boxes I had (I didn't have very many). One problem with packing early is that I now have to deal with stacks of boxes for the next month and a half. For now they all fit under my beadroom desk, but it's gonna get ugly soon!

In anticipation of my new home, I bought myself a beautiful print by Meredith Dillman. It's called Throne of Ravens. I love ravens and crows and pretty winged ladies, so I just had to have it. I purchased it on Monday and it arrived today, so I'm very impressed with her speedy shipping! I'll definitely be buying more from her in the future.