Watch Me Create!

Today you can see more about my frantic show preparations by reading my entry at
Watch Me Create!

Show Preview!

I'm home this morning with the plumber because the pipe under my kitchen sink started leaking. I'm thankful that this year we, after 20 years of home ownership finally stumbled upon a nice, affordable, competent plumber. As plumbing problems always do the timing stinks as I've frantically been getting ready for Saturday's show, although maybe the timing is actually good because I managed to get two more simple necklaces strung when I normally would be at work.

Here's a quick preview of my wares for the show. I don't have a lot, but for only two weeks (remember I have a full time job!) of prep time I'm happy. Fortunately I'd already made the beads so it's just been a 2 week string-wirewrap-create a display-athon. I still have no idea about pricing, having never sold jewelry it's a bit of a mystery. I think I'll have some friends over for a pizza and pricing party to help me decide.

If you're in the area, the show is 11th annual "Art in the Garden" party at Traces, a local boutique-ish garden shop located at 1432 South 1100 East here in Salt Lake City!

It's happening Saturday, June 30th from 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

My weekend...

How about a quickie catch up... I had a busy weekend trying to get ready for my show (first ever!) on Saturday. Went to the a dinner for a friend who's moving away, went to the Utah Arts Festival, and took the "Fun Bus" to Wendover. That last thing on my list was something a bit out of my element. Wendover is Wendover, Nevada, which is the closest gambling town to Salt Lake. A friend of mine started playing internet poker this year, then joined a local poker group through meetup.com, who organized a Wendover trip for Friday night. I'm not exactly a big gambler;in the 20+ years I've lived in Utah I've only gone to Wendover a few times, and have never taken the fun bus.

The fun bus wasn't terribly fun, but it was definately a great way to go to wendover. For $15 they drive you there, and you get a coupon book with a free cocktail coupon, a $5 in cash coupon, and a free dinner at the buffet coupon. Not a bad deal considering the Friday night seafood buffet costs $22. The good thing is not having to drive over there, and better yet, not having to drive the two hours home. The only downside is you don't get back to Salt Lake until 4 AM so I was pretty darn tired on Saturday.

My night of gambling consisted of dropping $6.00 worth of nickles into a video poker machine while my friend dropped $50 in a poker tournament. We ate the buffet dinner, drank 2 cocktails and hung around a craps table where some nice guy attempted to explain the game to us. (I still don't understand!) Then we headed to the poker room, because my poker playing friend wanted to watch live play. We managed to get "invited" to observe a table were a couple of guys from the bus were playing. We were mostly invited by Matt, a gregarious guy who must have weighed about 500 lbs, who was downing shots (he was up to 22) and rather drunk. A number of the guys were happy to talk to us while they played, and one was rather interested in flirting with my friend while he played. Considering that they had pony up $100 to join the game I'm surprised they let us talk to them at all. We had a bit of a raucus conversation...nothing like a few drunk guys to liven up a place, especially when you are quite sober. Funny, we didn't take up the offer to use his room keys LOL. Like I mentioned before... I'm not exactly a much of a gambler or party girl, so I find it amusing when I venture off into this foreign world where people are really into the party life! I guess I'm a voyeour of sorts.

Happy Feet!

My daughter and I went for pedicures this week. Lest you think I'm a self indulgent spoiled brat, I will admit to you that I have horrible, horrible feet. Gross, thick, cracked, heel calluses that regenerate faster than you'd ever believe. So a couple times a year I spurge for a $25 pedicure. I really should do it every month in the summer. As icky as my feet are, it ought to be covered by health insurance! LOL. According to my mom, my grandma had the same kink of feet, so I guess it's genetic. Unfortunately, my daughter seems to be afflicted with the same problem

So this week Sarah and I went off to the nail salon and had our feet done. I now have happy feet with bright pink "Kinky in Helsinki" toenails.

I think Sarah is the spoiled one. She's only 15. I never had a salon pedicure until I was over 40. Three of my high school friends and I spent a weekend in Las Vegas, and my good friend Linda and I spent an extra night. Since it was Sunday, and the rates were (comparatively!), low so I splurged and got us a night at the Bellagio, where Linda I went for pedicures. My first, nicest and most expensive pedicure. After doing the extra wax treatment and paying the tip it was about $100! Yikes! Being the undecided type, I let the pedicurist pick my polish color. She was thrilled to get to pick something other than the more conservative colors her normal clientele tended to use, so she picked "Kinky in Helsinki". I loved the color, and the name, and it reminds me of great weekend with friends, so I still use that color sometimes!

So what color are YOUR toes today?

Watch Me Create!

I've joined a blogging team!!!
Lori Greenberg started a great new team blog, Watch Me Create , that is aimed at documenting the creative process of lampwork beadmakers. My intro was a week ago or so and today my first "creative" article was published. I think this will be a fun endeavour. It's a great group of beadmakers and it will be interesting to see how they go about creating their fabulous beads!!!

Shapes

This is my latest favorite bead. I am so happy with shape, hopefully I can repeat it someday. I'm always an quest for better bead shapes. Perfect shaping is pretty darn elusive.

Speaking of shapes, I'm working on mine. I've kind of aquired a personal trainer, my friend Carol. She was looking for an exercise partner, and I'm always game for a work out. She's taken control of our work outs and she's kicking my butt!

When I go to the gym on my own I usually do a reps on the weight machines and then some cardio; I either go for a run or split my time between the stair stepper and the bike. Carol has us on the elliptical trainer, and doing arm exercises with hand weights and and ab workouts on the mat. With this change in routine I'm finding muscles I forgot I had....I think my friend is trying to kill me! I guess it's a good thing - my abs are certainly due for better work out.

More from Moab

A canyon country inspired bead!

A few more pictures from my trip to Moab. These are all from Canyonlands, a place I really love. The first shot is from the Green River Overlook. In my opinion Canyonlands is far more impressive than the Grand Canyon. Canyons within canyons for miles and miles!

On my first trip to Canyonlands we almost headed to the bottom of the canyon. It was Easter weekend '85, and we had only lived in Utah for a month or two, having just moved from Ohio. We left after work and arrived in Moab long after dark. We were headed up to the Canyonlands campground. Back then the park was pretty primitive, all the roads were dirt and not well marked. We made a wrong turn, and found ourselves heading downhill on what seemed to be a jeep trail. It was narrow, with rocks rising up to our right and a what appeared to be a 1000 ft cliff to the left. After driving down a bit we realized we must have been on the wrong road and decided to turn around... in our stick shift Honda, in the dark, on a one lane dirt road with 1000 ft cliff and no guard rails. I think we made about a 100 point turn... turn the wheel and pull up a few inches, back up up few inches; repeat about a 100 times making sure to stay away from the edge. It was a little more excitement than we expected on our first trip to canyon country!


I only bring this up because one of the overlooks Rose and I stopped at over looked what had to be that scary road. The picture above shows the road we accidentally headed down. Imagine turning a car around there! The next picture shows where that road headed had we continued. The road is the Schaefer Trail, an old road that ranchers used to take their cattle down to the Green River for the winter. I'd love to know how the first person managed to forge that trail!

I wish that somehow my pictures did Canyonlands justice. It seems to be impossible to capture the expansiveness, grandeur and scale of Canyonlands

Moab Weekend

What a wonderful weekend I had! My beadmaking friend Rose was in town on business this weekend, and we took a road trip down to the National Parks near Moab, Utah. We spent Saturday touring Arches National Park; hiking out to see the arches and enjoying the red rock landscape and desert flowers. The picture is of us standing in front of Landscape Arch, one of the prettiest arches in the park.



On Sunday we headed to Canyonlands, and took in all the spectacular overlooks. 1000 foot cliffs with no guard rails gave Rose a chance to test her acrophobia. For someone who claims to have fear of heights she looks pretty comfortable near the edge of that cliff don't you think?


Traveling with a fellow beadmaker was fun. It was interesting the discuss which glass colors could best be used to capture the colors of Southern Utah. Our consensus was that none of the standard colors are quite right, so Rose has challenged me to try to mix my own. I see a challenge in my future!

Just to pretend it was "bead" weekend here's a shot of Rose looking at beads at the Moab rock shop. OK, we didn't purchase any beads we both got some cool rocks!

This week...

I have been in a bit of a fog this week. After all the excitement of Matt's graduation and having my parents visiting from Florida I was rewarded with a killer cold. I'm not sure getting up at 4 am on Monday to take my folks to the airport helped me any. I've been dreary, and the weather has also been dreary. We've had several days of cold rainy weather and snow in the mountains. It's funny how here in the high desert a couple of rainy days actually feels like a treat!

So I haven't managed to get much done this week, I left work early the other day to go home and take a nap and after I woke up I decided to fire up my torch for the first time in over a week. Turns out it's hard to make beads with a drippy nose, and silver foil flys all over the place with a good sneeze. I did manage to make a new bead I kind of like. I'm calling it Canyon Flower. (Or is it too weird?) Perhaps it will lead me into a new direction.

Speaking of canyons, I'm heading down to Moab, UT, today with my beadmaker friend Rosemarie Hanus. She occasionally comes to Salt Lake on business, and since she's here over the weekend we are going to go to Arches National Park. I'm planning on having an inspiring weekend hiking in the red rock country!

Graduation!

It's hard to believe I am now the mother of a high school graduate. I will swear that adorable baby boy was just born the other day, yet on Thursday night he walked with the Skyline High School Class of 2007. Wow!

As graduations go it wasn't too bad (I expected a big snooze fest!).The kids marched in to the tune of "Pomp and Circumstance" which quickly transitioned in to the "Theme From Star Wars". The student speeches were actually pretty darn good, and (thankfully) the administrators weren't too long-winded. It's a big school, so reading all the names actually took a while.

While they distributed the diplomas, my husband relied on modern technology to break up the monotony. He started text messaging Matt:

"It could be worse... it could be me in that robe."

"We're going to find a smaller school for your sister!"

"Are they going around again?"

At some point Bob pretended to be propping his eyes open, and Sarah took a picture with her camera phone and sent it to Matt.

I guess my family is a little loony!