Weekending Randoms

:: just 7 school days left... must use time wisely this week
:: was not wise yesterday, photo evidence below
:: Jacob played in his first lacrosse tournament ever this past weekend!! He scored twice!! (Ran coast to coast from his defensive position to the shoot on other team.)
:: The team made it to the Championship game, but lost to a team called Six Nations.
:: I am one proud Momma.


:: so excited to see my tea roses in bloom
:: hop over to my FLICKR gallery if you want to see other growing garden goodness
:: baseball season is almost coming to a close, next week is the last week (photo of Andrew feilding leds this post)
:: ugh to kids tracking in wet mown grass all over the house... add sweeping to that to-do list
:: must fight time sinks today


:: the above is evidence of my stupidity... my boy had sunscreen on, I did not... I thought my long jeans and long sleeve shirt would save me (and my spf30 face cream didn't work).
:: LOL, just remembered something from our time in the car this weekend. Just Jacob and me for a total of 6 hours driving over two days... he said "Mom, let's talk", I say "okay, what do you want to talk about?", he says "lets talk about life and death." LOL
:: maybe you had to be there
:: note to self: don't laugh, it hurts your sunburn
:: here is to remembering to apply extra sunscreen during the tournament this weekend

Between Me & Me

me: you can't do that...
myself: yes I can.
me: are you crazy? don't... you can't do that...
myself: yes. I . can.
me: OMG... I can't believe you just did that! You did NOT just do that.
myself: yes, yes, I did.
me: Kerry, that sweater took you over a month to make. How in the world could you just rip it out like that?
myself: cause, I didn't love it. I do love the yarn though. I would run away and marry this yarn. This yarn is my favorite. I couldn't waste it.
me: you could have given the sweater a chance... it could have grown on you... you could have learned to like it.
myself: Kerry, you know me... if I don't like it, I don't like it... and you know dang well I would never wear it.
me: but all that time and effort...
myself: this new sweater, its gonna be even better. it is gonna ROCK... I promise I will love this one... you'll see
me: you better love it... I am NOT going to let you get away with this again
myself: yeah, fine... whatever.
me: oh shut up and knit your stupid new sweater.

The Tumble From High Hopes Hill

I have had a completely blissed out few days. I have had music cranking... I have done tripods in a blue tutu... and I in the past 48 hours, doing what I love most, I have made absolute crap!



Here is what happened... I have a boat load of bottle caps at my disposal in my studio. I am talkin' hundreds. I have been wanting to find new way to work them into really cool jewelry designs. I have been pushing my creative thoughts to a place far outside the bottle cap box in pursuit of amazingly awesome possibilities. Suddenly it hit me... I could make them into bead caps... no wait, they need to be more then "caps" for the sides of beads, they need to be the bead. Wait, I have seen bottle caps made into beads before... how can I make them different? OH I KNOW! I will make them BIGGER, I will paint them... oh that would be cool.



Now picture me in my studio on Monday with a bag of bottle caps, a bench block, a hammer, loud music, a dapping set, a blue tutu, metal cutters, and spray paint. Yeah, it was good times. I smashed and bashed and cupped and cut and dovetailed those bottle caps with all my heart. With each whack of the hammer I was getting a stronger foothold and climbing higher and higher up High Hopes Hill. I left my studio with bead parts all over the floor, covered in drying paint, and full of promise. *sigh* I was a happy artist.



Fast forward to an hour into my Tuesday morning... cause ya know, before I even had my morning coffee, 2 seconds after I finished my run on the treadmill, sweaty and smelly, I tried to make those hollow painted bottle cap beads I had dreamed about all night long. I figured out really quickly that these were not going to be as cool as I thought and my slow slide down High Hopes Hill began. I felt determined though... could I ride the avalanche wave down the hill rather then tumble helplessly into a heap at the bottom? Maybe I was going about it all the wrong way? Maybe these caps would make for better bezels than beads? I could still paint them right? Paint the insides instead of the out!!




Insert wasting a few more hours here and start to picture me losing my cool as an avalanche surfer. Although the idea really sounds cool, and in theory it could be really cool... these things are crap. Where is Tim McCreight in your studio when you need him? I bet the King of Metalsmithing could create the lovely things clogging up me head.



Determined to make the most of my studio time, I very very begrudgingly decided to flip on my kiln and light up my torch. What is the beady saying? When you are having a bad bead day, go back to basics. Right? Right. I was having a bad metalsmithing day, but that is just semantics. Whatever. A funny thing happened when I sat at my flame... my begrudged attitude faded out of site within minutes. I picked up my snow covered butt, brushed off the debris from my High Hopes Hill tumble, and with glass in my hand and even more new ideas in my mind, I set to climbing that hill again. This time a little bruised, a little wiser, but none the worse for the wear.

Shelving & Socks

Random things from my mind this morning:

:Jack Rabbit
:the cat is being a spaz
:just 12 days until my birthday
:Lauren sounds like she is getting a cold
:the new shelves in the studio are too deep
:I love the new log splitter Ron bought


:must get to the post office today
:the dishes need to get done, again
:I hate laundry
:I am going to wear blue polka dot socks today
:the cat is now eating a rubber band


:Andrew left the lotion out on the coffee table
:I need to put another log on the fire
:if I can finish the last tutorial I need to write, I can have some time to knit
:gonna skip knitting and yoga tomorrow because LOST is starting
:I need to call my sister.

School Supply Shoppers Anonymous

Hi, my name is Kerry and I buy too many school supplies. It has been 4 days since I last bought any supplies. (now you say "hello kerry", like you are in the meeting with me... come on, you know you love fresh school supplies)



Friends, I have an illness... it truly is a disease... I am starting to think I am a hopeless case. And the fact that I just went upstairs to my school supply stash and inventoried everything just further proves what I hopeless case I am. LOL.

Boxes under my bed hold... (and this does not count what is in tote bags all ready for my kids' first day of school)

36 red pens, 22 blue pens, 23 black pens, 3 red pencils,a long pink pencil box, 7 packs of index cards lined and unlined 3x5, 5 packs of index cards lined and unlined 4x6, 3 boxes of 24 count Crayola crayons, 5 scissors, 2 locker locks, 16 big pink erasers, 1 pack of small pencil end erasers (15 count), 1 pack 64 count Crayola crayons with built-in sharpener, 10 pack of rainbow highlighters, 60 2-pocket folders, 4 rulers, 6 pack of post-it notes, 1 pack of dividers, 16 1-subject wide ruled notebooks, 14 1-subject college ruled notebooks, 1 black pencil pouch, 1 graph paper notebook, 1 five subject notebook, 90 yellow #2 pencils, 5 dry-erase board markers (4 black, 1 green), 1 10-piece 'math' tin with compass and protractor, 13 assorted highlighters loose, 13 glue sticks, 13 black gel pens, 2 packs of wide ruled loose leaf paper, and a partridge in a pear tree... (after all, it is the most wonderful time of the year)



Every year I tell myself I won't over buy. I won't get extras. I will get just what is on the list. Heck, maybe I will look under the bed and fill the list from there instead of getting it at the store and then only get what I really need when I go out to shop. And every year... on some random day... I walk down the aisle in Target and there it is... the back-to-school display. I get sucked into the 25cent boxes of crayons and $1 packs of notebooks and 75cent reams of loose leaf paper. HELLO? 10 brightly colored 2-pocket folders for 60cents?!? How does anyone resist?

Ya know, if I psycho-analyze myself, all this school supply over compensation comes from childhood trauma. I was a very smart girl in school, tortured and picked on by bullies, and all I ever wanted was my spiral bound notebooks to be the same color as my 2-pocket folders with a crisp brown paper bag book cover on my textbooks. Is that too much to ask? Some how, that was never the case. I ended up with the 24 count crayons knock off brand crayons when all the other kids had 64 count Crayola ones. Forget about having a Trapper Keeper! That was just dreaming!! I refuse to let my kids feel even the least bit of school supply envy!!



Breath in... breath out...

Okay, so unofficially, I asked Ron to put me on restriction next year from buying more school supplies. Although the supply box is actually under his side of the bed, I don't think he realizes just how much I pack into the under-the-bed box. Keywords in that first sentence... "next year". Some how I am totally colored pencil-less? And Andrew has colored pencils on his list... and Lauren needs hand sanitizer (that's a new one for a supply list)... oh, and a thumb drive too (weird).

Whatever The Case May Be...

I was an irresponsibile reader last night and stayed up until 4am to finish that last book in the Twilight Series. Yeah, stupid. But... couldn't . put . it . down . Yes, your math is right, I got threw all four books (more then 2300 pages) in just about a week and a half. couldn't . put . it . down . The after 4am bedtime, and the restless sleep that followed has left me wishing I could cuddle back up under the covers. Oh well... maybe later.

In the meantime... I have a new post of on Watch Me Create. There is a certain, basic, lampworking skill that is suddenly eluding me. Go find out what it is.

What's In The West Wing?

aka an example of my total lack of research...

Thursday, last week, I ended up spending about 3 solid hours in the studio. After two solid weeks of book project making, the place was a complete disaster. I mean, scary messy. There was no way I could introduce new equipment into the studio with all that crap all over the place.


So clean I did. What I also decided to do was open up a new "wing" in the studio. You can check out the studio before shots, HERE, and HERE. Remember, I put up the shower curtain wall to separate storage from studio. And you know, I really wasn't thinkin' in the summer when I did that because the vent from the heater is on the other side of that wall. So, lol... my side isn't heated, but the storage side is. (stupid... at least it is heated now.) I call this the "West Wing" because of Disney's Beauty and The Beast. Belle was forbidden to go in the West Wing where the Beast was keeping his enchanted rose safe. None of the kids are allowed in that area of Momma's studio because of the uber hot kiln that is now taking up residence there. You can see it sitting on the floor.

When I bought the kiln and accessories from Rio Grande to start fusing glass, I really didn't do much research into what I was buying or the right materials I would need. I figured I could figure it out as I went. Hey, that is what I do right? I fly by the seat of my artistic pants and make it up as I go. If there is one thing I have learned in my nearly 4 years of glass working, it is that you shouldn't wing it when it comes to glass.

Here is just a few of the mistakes I have made so far...

1)The New Kiln ~ blinded by it's ability to reach high temps, I didn't read the fine print closely enough. So the kiln I thought came with a digital temp control, in fact came with a glorified thermometer and a big dial. So, for my first fusing project, I spent the ENTIRE day sitting on a concrete floor and running up and down basement stairs adjusting the temp dial to get the kiln doing what it should. Oh, and to top it off, that thermometer read in Celsius not Fahrenheit, so all the notes I took from my new fusing book about the temp adjustments had to be converted.


(now I need to buy a digital controller for the new kiln, unless I intend to spend every fusing session sitting on the floor next to the kiln)

2)The Glass ~ blinded this time by my overwhelmed imagination filled with new design ideas, I placed an order for sheet glass for fusing in the same coefficient as my lampworking. I didn't pay much attention to the fact that the kit came with different glass, and all the books use different glass. I was trying to be "green" and work with the glass I had on hand, instead of adding a whole new line of glass into the studio. Turns out that 104coe glass isn't good for fusing because it is notoriously incompatible with it's self. There aren't very rigorous tests done on 104coe glass and while that it okay for making beads, it is NOT okay with fusing. It also has trouble with devitrification on the surface of the glass. Which turns pretty colors crappy.

(so now I have $200 of sheet glass in my studio I can't return and won't use... plus I have to buy the right glass for the job)

I would show you photos of the miserable results of my first fusing project, but alas, I forgot to recharge my camera batteries. I think that is for the best though. I wouldn't want to ruin you opinion of my ability to make pretty things with glass, LOL. Trust me when I say, the results of 10hours of kiln babysitting really shouldn't see the light of day.

My Cat Killed My Mouse

LOL... so, I was down in the studio yesterday, (My studio is right under the living room, so I can hear everything happening in the living room while I am down there. ) and I hear my computer reboot. It is a laptop, so it was like someone opened the laptop.

I call upstairs... "hey, whatcha doing?"

Lauren's little voice calls back to me... "I'm seein' what time it is."

Yes, my 5 yr old fashionista is also a techie and knows that there is a clock in the corner of her Momma's laptop. What a smart little girl.

So I continue to coil away on the latest bracelet for the book when suddenly, I hear it again. My computer rebooting. And then again... and again. Weird! I head upstairs to find out what the heck is going on. What did I find?

R U S T Y.

Yeah, my keypad happens to be Rusty's favorite place to take one of his cat naps, to walk randomly when he has nothing better to do, to pounce on from across the room, and otherwise attack yet love.

I shoo him away, close the laptop, and bring it with me down to the studio. I needed to edit the tutorial I was working on anyway. (Yeah, I write it, then I make it according to what I wrote, and then make corrections as needed to make sure it is just right.) I plug it in on my desk, open it up, listen to it boot up for the 6th time is about 10minutes, and wait to open my document. The desktop comes up and I wiggle my finger on the touch pad to move the mouse...

nada... it didn't move... grrrr.

But hey, the laptop is a few years old. It has it's quirks. It does the no-moving-mouse-thing from time to time. A simple (proper) reboot and it comes back. I ctrl,alt,del my way to a reboot.... wait for the desktop to come back up again, and again... NOTHING!!

Why the heck won't my mouse work?

I tried again, and again, and again. Four reboots, still no mouse. I call Ron in a panic, and he wonders how I expect him to fix it while he is at work and I am at home. He suggested that I get the wireless mouse and try that. I shrug that off... I would have to find it first, and then find batteries. That would take at least 10minutes, and several trips up and down the stairs. So what do I do instead? I update my facebook status to reflect the dire situation and go take a shower.

Although I back up a copy of the book regularly, my laptop is the only computer (of the four we have in the house) that has MS Word on it. If I have no laptop... I can't open my document and work on my book!

AAAAGGGGHHHHH!!!

It hadn't dawned on me... the funny irony of my situation until I did that update... yes, my cat killed my mouse. LOL.

Eventually, I got it working again. Turns out he turned off the touch pad with just the right combination of button clicking when he layed on the keys. Clever cat. I ended up putting him in time out in Andrew's room, lol. He is lucky he wasn't stuck outside in a snowbank.

Professional Procrastinator

I have already told you I am kind of freaking out about being ready for the art show coming up in a few weeks. And I have shown a couple of new pieces that will be coming along with me to the event. You would think that I would spend every moment I can get in the studio, right?


WRONG... yesterday I decided to rip the wallpaper down in my kitchen. Thus earning the title of Professional Procrastinator.

I love love love our new house, but hate the kitchen. The kitchen is the only thing I can't stand about the house. It isn't horrible, but it is very dated and needs more work (in my opinion) than any other area of the house. I plan to spend the few weeks between my art show and Thanksgiving doing a remodel of it. Countertops are getting replaced, cabinets are getting painted, and the back splash is getting tiled.


First thing though... that wallpaper. Little green butterflies. As I scored and sprayed and peeled it off, I thought about the day that a woman flipped through a sampler catalog and saw the example of this in the pages. I imagined her heart skipping a beat and a grin coming to her face as she thought... "this is the one... little green butterflies..." Then I thought about how thankful I was that it was only one coat of wallpaper and how awesome it was that it came off in full sheets... NO SCRAPPING!! And another thing to be thankful for... it was only on two walls. The whole process took about two hours, including clean up!


The walls are prepped and almost ready for paint. A little sanding first, then some primer. But I promise, I am going to work on beads today. No, really, I am... all torch all day long. Seriously, I haven't even settled on a kitchen color yet.

Ode To My Gel Pen

From where or whence it came, I know not... nor do I care. From the first stroke on paper, I knew it was love.

If you don't have one, stop what you are doing, and go get one. LOL.

Yes, I really am blogging about a pen. I have no idea how this thing found its way into my house. But I found it the other day. And first, I used it to write a list of things I had to pick up at the store. Then, I used it to fill out the kids school-picture-day-envelopes. Heaven, people. Smooth gliding ink... rich black color... I swear, my handwriting improved instantly.

I sat down for a bit yesterday with my sketchbook and my new found gel pen. I had ideas tumbling in my head and it was time to get them down on paper. My stars, the pen even made my drawings better. I can't stop thinking about the pictures I drew and making the cool bead ideas that are on those pages. And all because of this wonderful pen.

And, if that weren't enough... I even used it to sign my book contract. Sigh... I feel like such a grown up with my fancy gel pen.

Oh, and I hear them come in other colors too.

Combating Color Causing Crap

I have decided that the best way to combat the color moping I was doing yesterday if and when it returns in the future is to work with some really really expensive glass, LOL. The glass I ordered on Monday arrived around lunch time on Wednesday. In with the Sangre, Kryptonite, Evil Queen, and Pink Champagne was a half pound of something called "Pandora".

I have shown you silver glass beads in the past. Silver glass is an American made glass that contains silver in the rods. The silver forms crystals or something under the surface, blooming and effecting the colors that the beads become. THESE beads use R4 Picasso Blue silver glass, and THIS necklace is made with beads using Double Helix's Terra silver glass. Since making the switch to my Bobcat torch last year, I have had problems getting the silver glasses to react the way they should. In fact, I have been getting no reaction at all and the beads stay the same colors as the rods. It is frustrating, but I don't have the time to experiment for hours with a million and one different torch settings and hope to get it right.

Anyway, I was ordering glass at http://www.flamekissedglass.com/ and saw that Reenie had added the category "Double Helix Glass" to her side bar. I am so out of the silver glass loop that I didn't even know it was being distributed by shops other then the maker's, LOL. But wait... I am even farther out of the loop then that. So, I am scrolling through all the different Double Helix glass colors and I come across this Pandora stuff. It is gorgeous! At least in the puck (little glob of glass that shows the color, kinda like a swatch) is gorgeous. The description says it is easy to use. I decide, hey, I'll give it a try. What could it hurt? I can just sell the rods if I don't like it.

I don't think another thing of it... then yesterday the box of glass arrived. The 13 rods of transparent mossy green looking glass that I paid $50 (1/2lb) for was so intriguing. I decided to give it a try. It is a "striking" glass. But it is very different then say striking red or striking orange, which strike in the flame, this strikes in the KILN! I had to change the settings on the kiln so that the beads would soak at 960degrees for FOUR HOURS then slowly cool down to room temp over several hours. I decided to make hollows. I have a very special necklace that needs to get made, and it needs hollows. Plus I have been having colapsing hollow frustration so I decided to do hollows.

Want to stop wasting glass? Like I said above, use really really expensive glass. Knowing the cost of this glass made me slow down and really work on my hollow form. It made me keep working it until it was right, instead of setting it down and wasting it. I am happy I took the time to figure that out. I think I need to do it with other colors too... slow down... get it right.

So, after my couple hours on the torch, I decided to hop over to http://www.lampworketc.com/ and see if there was a show and tell for this glass. I figured there had to be tons of beads made with it since I am always the last to the silver glass party. There was a thread alright. LOL. Turns out this glass was JUST released, last week. It is the latest and greatest. It is the hottest thing. Everyone wants it. Look at me and my on the ball self, lol. I got some of the must have stuff!! Now let's hope I get a reaction.

As I mentioned, these beads change in the kiln. When they go into the kiln they are transparent mossy green, then, as the hours pass, you can check on them and see if they are changing. I love the washed over river rock look to these. They are almost ceramic looking... sorta raku-ish. I am thrilled with the result. And I love that they are BIG hollows too. I get the chunky size with lots of color effects but without the bulk. Too cool. The photos really don't do these beads any justice. They are so unique. I just love 'em. I haven't been this excited to run down to the studio at the crack of dawn to pull things outta the kiln in months.

I am gonna play with this some more!

Strike That, Reverse It

After the Bead Box Update the other day, I headed down to the studio to make some more beads. And this is what I was confronted with...


Apparently, putting a shiny metallic work surface directly under a bright sunny window was not a good idea. Sure, it would be a great place for a cat to take a nap, or a good spot to work on my total lack of a tan. But bead making... not gonna happen with that in my eyes. Would you believe, my torch is actually in that picture? Can you see it? I barely can. And that is what happened when I tried to make beads. The sun reflected and the torch disappeared into the glare.

So, rather than make beads for three hours on my quiet Friday afternoon, I had to over haul the studio... again.



Basically the desks had to switch places. And I think it was for the best. With the torch station where it is now, we can take out the window under the deck, replace it with plywood and more easily vent the exhaust hood when it goes in. It will also mean that we won't have to drill holes in the side of the house to put the propane outside either. Much safer all around. Just a total time sink when I was hoping to get to play with my glass.

Lack Of Patience

I had such high hopes for this bead. It wins the honor of being the BIGGEST disc I have ever made. It was easily 3ins from side to side. As I was making it, I dreamed of how I would string it up. I planned to line the hole with sterling silver... the hang in a special way. Making a big show stopper of a focal pendant that would be just perfect for the upcoming season.

Alas, you see the condition it currently finds itself in. I am lucky I didn't slice my hand wide open when I broke it. Those edges are SHARP! The hole was just a hair too small for the sterling tubing I was using to line it. So, I was reeming the hole with my diamond bit tool-a-mbob thingy. It was going well, and I thought it was big enough to fit the tubing in. And it was, but I really had to jam it in there, lol. (I think we all know that I have the patience of a small child.) Then I decided I would pull out the tubing I jamed in there to reem the hole a bit more... obviously, I had a tighter fit the I realized and I broke my pretty bead to bits trying to get the tubing out.

If I had thought ahead... I wouldn't have jammed it... I would have realized that I hadn't even cut the tubing at that point... and duh, I wouldn't be sawing said tubing while it was in the bead... and I wouldn't be sanding the rough edges of the silver while it was in there either.

Don't worry, my lesson is learned. Next time I will reem longer and jam less. And hey, I might think even farther ahead and use a bigger mandrel, LOL!! But I will definitely pursue the idea until it is right. I think it will be totally worth it!!

Now, as promised, a close up of the new earrings. I need some feedback on these. Cause all I have heard so far is that my sister thinks they look like baby binkies. (And now that I said that, I am sure you will all think the same.) I like the length on them, definitely... I like the big dot covered bubble of glass... but I think I might need to use a smaller size mandrel instead of the 1/4 size hole one. Lemme hear what you think!!

PS~ Spell check is not working, again. So please excuse any typos!