Did you VOTE?

I am editing to add the photo of this week's free beads! Hope you like 'em... just a few simple spacers with some swarovski crystals and a GREAT square focal bead!

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Morning all.. I have lots to unload on you today. First and most eagerly announced is my new bead offer. I have been a member of artzee.net and top-25.com for about 8 months now and my ranking on the sites is about 47. I want move up in the rankings! And the ONLY way to do is that is with votes by people who visit my site. I know of at least a dozen sites off the top of my head that offer "rewards" for votes. So I have hemmed and hawwed for months wondering if I should be doing the same. So I finally am! If you love me, my beads, and my jewelry please go to my website and click the "Free Beads" link. After you have vote for my site using the links on the free beads page, send me an email with "I Voted" in the subject. I will put your name in a hat for a weekly drawing of free beads. I will draw names on Mondays... it'll be a great way to start the week! A couple of "rules"... you can only vote ONCE in 24 hours at each site, if you vote more then once the vote won't register. And MOM, no you can't win... I love you and yes you can vote but you don't make jewelry so you can't have my beads. (trust me people, you don't want my Mom in this! she is very very lucky and wins everything) I will post winners on my website. There will be small sets of 3-5 beads, I have to get this weeks photographed. If you vote 2 times a day (that's once at artzee.net & once at top-25.com), everyday, that's 14 chances a week to win! I really hope you all will vote!

Now to my rollercoaster of a day yesterday... this is going to get confusing and I am rant a bit but this is my BLOG, my personal space to share my thoughts and feelings so here I go. (This is my therapy) Yesterday while surfing the forums I found a post by my former glass teacher about "Idea Pirates". Her initial comments were vague and she didn't name me specifically but the more I read the more I reallized she was pointing her finger at me. She had to know I would see it, she knows it is the only forum I really frequant. She has done this before. In Sept, she accussed my of taking her idea of giving free glass bracelets to Breast Cancer Patients after I posted an example of a bracelet I donated to her Bead for Breast Cancer Marathon, and offered to make more if anyone new some one in need of one. I eventually just took the page down. Yesterday's accussations took my by surprize and really threw my for a loop. I have gone out of my way to make sure my designs are nothing like her's for this specific reason.

I sent her an email expressing my hope that it was not me she was referring to and if it was can she please let me know what it is she felt I had done this time. Then in the meantime I posted a thread on a different forum that I knew she was not a member of and asked what I should do. I explained that I was being accused of coping and had not, did anyone have advice for more. I received many wonderful responses letting me know that I need to be the bigger person and just ignor it. (Which is basically what I did the first time.) One member did end up sending me a private email letting me that my teacher had not posted this on just the one forum but in 3. In one forum in particular she really crossed the line. She actually laughed at and said she would enjoy forever the vision of seeing me pushed down the stairs. She said she had thoughts of sending someone to rough me up at the next show. Told people this is my MO I do it all the time. I was so hurt and upset I had no idea what to do or say.

What happened next really made me feel good. Once senior members of the forums connected the dots and realized who was accussing who, many were outraged and gave her a bit of a verbal lashing about how she is quite the copy artist herself and how she should not be teaching if she does not intend to have her students work look similar to hers. There are only so many ways to make a black bead with white dots. One person said it best with the comment "Pot. Kettle. Black." My teacher did end up calling me yesterday afternoon. I can only assume it was after reading what everyone had wrote. She, I feel, only called to defend herself. She didn't apologize in anyway, she feels she did nothing wrong and is hinding befind the fact that she never actually said my name and website. ASked her to please come to me with any issues in the future rather the publically outing them in inappropiate ways. She thinks that I copied ID bracelets that she has at a store here in Rochester but my "Dream" bracelets. It's a store I, in fact, have never been to. I later say she posted new thread inthe forums titled "A fresh start" where she let everyone know she called the person "wronging" her and "worked everything out". Again, never apologizing, never letting anyone know she was wrong and that I never did copy her.

I got wonderful advice from a women on the forums who I truly consider a friend, Gwen Fisher. She said "Be A Duck"... let the water roll off your back! So that is what I will do. This is the last I will say about this. But should this happen again, I will be contacting a lawyer and have something done about it. I won't be bullied.

Now that I got all that off my chest... my daughter is at my Mom's for the day, the boys are at school and I have the whole mornign to make beads! The kiln is hot and I am ready to get torching! I am going to get my "Free Beads" made, some organics for a bead exchange I am doing and get a start on my "Dragon Wheezing" set! I am hoping today is a good day!