Look Ma, No Hands

Well, actually, I'm lying. This does require hands to make but, really, not much else. This is an older piece that I submitted to the Art Bead Scene Challenge last month. It occurred to me that I haven't had this on the blog, yet, so I thought I'd go ahead and post it tonight (especially since I once again don't have any new work to show, sigh). The two large focal beads are boro by the wonderful Sarah Moran. The rest are my practice lampworked beads from the summer. It's hard to tell from the photo, but the multicolored ones are "rainbow beads" - each colored cell in each bead contains two colors of glass that blend into one another. This was my first try at making them, so they're not great, but I thought they were good enough to wear. Anyway, this necklace is my favorite type of quick project - the whole thing is made with the glass beads, a handful of No. 06 seed beads, a length of leather cord and two hands. And that's it. Everything else is strategic knotting, including the clasp, which is simply a bead and a knotted loop on the other end. This style is nice, in that it works well with a white tee-shirt, but it also looks good dressed up. I wore it out this summer with a black silk dress and mauve silk jacket and it looked just fine.

I have decided to hold a sale next week in honor of the Husband's birthday. It will start Tuesday evening and run until Friday evening. I won't tell you the terms right now, but I will say that it will be as big a sale as I ever intend to hold, so if you have an interest in anything in the store, you will probably want to check in. On Saturday, after the sale ends, I will start the Short One's Birthday Giveaway. Now that I've finally decided that, I need to hurry up and finish the prize!

Actually, I do have a kiln load's worth of silver to fire, but it's about 14 degrees (F) with a -2 wind chill outside right now where I live, and, for some reason, I'm really not motivated to spent time in our unheated, detached garage tonight...

We had a little separation anxiety issue arise last night. For reasons known only to himself, the Short One dumped a half cup of milk on his best friend, the Jungle Monkey, right before bedtime. The heartbreak that ensued when I explained to him that a milk-covered monkey would not be a good companion with which to snuggle to sleep was vocal and prolonged. After the SO cried himself to sleep, I ended up sitting downstairs with the JM, a damp rag and a bunch of dry ones, trying frantically to get him cleaned up and dried off. They finally reunited around midnight. However, when the SO woke up this morning, I discovered that he'd evidently spent the night wiping his nose (remember that he has a head cold) on the Jungle Monkey's newly cleaned fur (eww), so I wonder how long the JM is going to hold out. I've been considering buying the JM a stunt-double. I just have to figure out a way of convincing the SO that that the two monkeys are one and same. Toddlers are awfully suspicious that way, for being so young and cute looking...

Anyway, thanks for stopping by. Have a good night!