A bead giveaway--the fine print!

Okay, as the voting for Beads of Courage to win the Pepsi Refresh Everything grant giveaway is coming to a close (we have just over a week left!), I want to do something to help my facebook friends and blog followers get a little more involved with the entire process.

This is strictly MY giveaway, and is in no way linked to Beads of Courage or Pepsi or Facebook or Blogger or the price of tea in China...

Here's what you do. Go to www.refresheverything.com/beadsofcourage and cast your vote for the program. You have to sign in before your vote is counted, but the sign in takes seconds, and if you're already on facebook, just click the "log in with facebook" and you're there. Vote. Then share the link on your facebook profile by clicking the facebook button just below where you clicked to vote and follow the instructions. It's that simple. Add a little comment if you'd like before you click the "share" button so your friends can see what you're doing.

Now. Why should you do this? Well, as outlined in yesterdays blog post, there are many reasons, but those were mine. A little incentive for you...

From now until the end of the month, any day one of my facebook friends posts the link to their profile to encourage their friends to vote, I will enter them in a drawing for a focal bead of their choice from my stash. I will also make a stash of beads for Beads of Courage and include the names of all my facebook friends who voted on the tag that goes with them for donation. If you leave a comment on this post to tell me to look on your wall for the link, I will have a better idea of who to enter in the drawing. You can also send me a message on facebook, or comment on any of my links on facebook about the program.

Again, this giveaway is purely through me, and is not sponsored or supported by any of the programs that I am mentioning. I am not affiliated with the Beads of Courage program other than the fact that I support it and say "we" when referring to it because I feel I am a part of the glass community that supports and runs the program. They're my friends because of the glass community we are a part of.

Please help this amazing program get some funding so they can expand to include more hospitals and train more health care professionals. It's fast, it's easy, it's painless and the benefits for the program will be incredible! Remember, you can vote every day through July 31, so vote daily! Do your good deed for the day! =)

Help Beads of Courage--Spread the Word!

So, I usually reserve my blog posts for things that are happening in my studio and what is going on in my glassy little world. But today I've decided to appeal to anyone who might be reading this blog who hasn't seen my umpteen posts on facebook about it to support Beads of Courage in their fight to win a top 10 spot in Pepsi's Refresh Everything grant funding giveaway.

First, a little about Beads of Courage. It is a NATIONAL program that is available in some children's hospitals (the funding would help expand the program). Trained medical professionals help kids undergoing treatment tell their stories by allowing them to select beads of different colors for different treatments. Each color has a meaning, and the individual beads themselves speak to the child who chooses them to be part of their story. It's simple and yet means so much to the people who are involved. When the child completes their treatment, they receive a purple heart, like the US troops who are wounded in battle but survive. If the child passes away, the parents receive a butterfly, indicating a metamorphosis into something new.

Many beadmakers provide beads to the program by way of donation. They are lovingly handmade and shipped to Tucson so they can be sorted and distributed to the hospitals who participate in the program. So, it really has become a labor of love for the glass community to see this program be successful.

They intend to use the grant from Pepsi to train more health care professionals in the program and to launch the program in 10 more hospitals around the US.

My reasons for supporting this idea are many. First of all, my family has been impacted by cancer (although not childhood cancer), and I can see where a program of this sort would be a bright spot in a patient's life. It gives patients a way to tell their story. "Oh, I got this bead when..." It gives them a badge of courage to display so other people can visualize what they've gone through in the course of their treatment. It gives them a way to express themselves from the beads that they choose to the way they choose to display them. It gives them a little bit of control over what's going on in their lives.

Second, it's a national program. The funding would benefit people all across the US, not just those in Tucson where the program is headquartered. So many of the ideas in the running for funding are so local that only people in that particular community would be affected by them winning. This idea is SO much bigger than that.

Third, as a health care professional, I can see how a program like this would help a difficult job be a little brighter. We all enjoy helping patients and seeing them get better. That's what we do. But if we can do something that brings an extra smile to someone's face, wouldn't we? What child doesn't like a treat or a present after we've drawn their blood, given them a shot, administered a treatment that's going to make them ill. I see it as a way of "making peace" with the younger ones who might not understand that what we do is ultimately to help them, and as a reward for a job well done to those who understand, but don't like it anyway.

Fourth, as a beadmaker, I know the love that goes into making those beads and shipping them to the Beads of Courage program and am thrilled at the idea of helping brighten someone's day. As a glass community, we are very giving and supportive and we're thrilled at the idea of having this program expand, and with it, knowledge of our craft.

So, how can you help support this program? Go to www.refresheverything.com and do a search for "beads of courage." To vote, you must be logged in. If you haven't registered, don't worry, it's fast and painless, I promise! You simply need an email address, you provide a password, and then you can vote. Be sure the vote counts go down to 9 after you've voted to be sure your vote has counted. Then log out. It's that simple. Or if you're on facebook, just click the "log in with facebook" icon and it will take you directly to where you can vote.

You can vote daily through July 31. Please take the time to do it. I do every morning while I'm drinking my cup of tea and trying to wake up (see, doesn't even take any brain power, just click, type, click...)

Once you have voted, PLEASE share the link on facebook by clicking the facebook icon just below where you clicked to vote. It will show up as a link on your wall that any of your friends can follow and vote.

Please, help us get the word out about this program and vote! Only the top 10 receive funding, and we've been teetering at 15th and 14th for the past several days. We're SO close, please give us that final push we need to make it to the top 10!!

Silversmithing...let the ideas begin!

Well, I finally did it! I took my first silversmithing class last night in Ft. Collins, and I had a great time!

As I had detailed earlier, I have been trying to find a silversmithing class for quite some time. There were 2 people in Colorado that would come up when I did any search online. I emailed one, but he took forever to get back to me, so I had moved on to other options before I heard from him. The other is teaching in Estes Park, but I figured with the cost of a hotel, plus travel, plus the class (a total of 16 hours), I'd be spending close to $600, and I just couldn't justify that. I then looked at William Holland, but of course their classes were full. Then I got a friend from Florida to offer to teach me. So I booked a flight to Tampa and will be going next week!

Well, everything happened all at once after that. William Holland called me to let me know they had an opening. Of course it happens to be the week I will be in Florida.... And then the first guy emailed me back and said he had openings in the class. So I'm taking his class, and will be doing a make up session for the week I will miss when I am in Florida. So, by the end of the next month, I should have a pretty thorough knowledge of what I want--making rings, working with bezels. I have ideas and needed some nudging on how to make the mechanics of them work.

In other news, I am officially listed as a maker of doll eyes. That went live Sunday morning. Yikes! So, now it's become really apparent that I need to get my new computer to make adding photos of them a whole lot easier than what I'm doing now. The pictures I've posted to my blog are all uploaded from my cel phone, so sometimes the quality isn't what I want, and for the tiny little eyes (we're talking 4mm-ish) I definitely need a macro lens and some good lighting. Since my current computer takes days to upload images from the camera's card, it's just time to replace the computer. Hey, this one is 7 years old already. It's definitely time. I'm just procrastinating. As usual. ;)

That's life from my little corner of the world. Hey, I think it's exciting!

Here's looking at you!

Ok, so the dolls look just a little cross-eyed from this picture. But I finally decided to give a try to the tutorial for doll eyes that was posted on Lampwork Etc. The instructions for the blue eyes seemed the easiest to follow, so those are the ones I tried. And after 7 hours, I managed to come up with about 25 matched pairs. I will look at them again and see if I still think they are matched. I looked at them for so long to make sure they were the same size and everything, I think I was cross-eyed! No, I KNOW I was cross-eyed! So, here's my first attempt. I was going to try green eyes, but the recipe for the color is a tad bit more difficult than the ones for the blue. Apparently yellow and blue make brown. =) Of course, the color I ended up with is a neat color. Probably never to be repeated. But there are hues of lilac/cocoa/chocolate brown. It will make a nice iris outline for some lilac colored eyes.

That's all for going on. Family is visiting this weekend. Fun stuff.

Auctions, classes, schedules....

First thing to share is the benefit auction for the therapeutic horse riding program went well. I had donated 2 beads to the auction, one is the bead shown in this post. I had the two of them with a retail of $70, and they were bought for $45. Given where we are geographically, I don't think that is a horrible thing. In all honesty, I may have had them overpriced to begin with. I will definitely be looking at other artists and how they price their stuff and taking all of that into consideration with where I am currently situated. Caryl said I got some "wows" and some "oohs" and "aahs" so that makes me feel pretty good. She also said there was competition from another gal who uses semiprecious stones to make jewelry. I don't know what kind of jewelry she does (heck, I can use semiprecious stones, but where's the fun in that? Someone ELSE got to play with the fire to make those!) Anywho, I'm pleased with how things sounded like they went. I was hoping to stop by, but I got sidetracked by a bad experience with a mechanic and was in no mood to party.

I went to Harbor Freight yesterday and got my drill press. WOO! Now, to figure out where to put it in my studio and then get drilling! I stopped at Home Depot and got some drill bits. None of them are like Donna's (I couldn't find the size I wanted in the brand she showed me) but they should work for metal, so I'm hoping. If they don't, I can always shop at Lowe's.com and get them, and I'm told Snap-On sells a decent drill bit, too. We'll get it figured out. I just want holes in some horseshoe nails, dang it!

My bellflowers made their debut yesterday, as well as the horseshoe nail beads. In a real live person's hands even, not just in pictures! She was impressed with them. I like them, I just know that I have a little tweaking to do for the horseshoe nail ones before I'm completely satisfied with them. Back me up here, guys! You all know what I'm talking about!

Back to this mechanic thing. I was told yesterday I needed a new engine for my pickup, which completely took me by surprise. The price tag carried way more than it's fair share of sticker shock as well. $10,000. Or the cost of a new pickup, which the dealership had at $34,000. Eeep! So, that got me thinking.... I don't have a contract. I don't have a "job." I'm feeling really broke and life sucks! So, I made the decision to spend at least 40 hours in my studio this coming week. Hey, I dedicate at least that much time on a "real" job, if not more, so if I'm going to make this a go, I need to get serious and get my butt in gear. I have notebooks on notebooks on notebooks of ideas. I've got a Serger and silk and can dye some silk ribbons. I have clay so I can make some molds. I have mini-fusing projects I want to test out. I have tutorials I've never tried. I have a torch I've almost never lit. I have plenty of things to do out there to keep myself entertained, and while I'm still home, and still don't have any other things interrupting my schedule, it's time that I make time.

Happy torching, and have a great afternoon!

On horseshoe nails and bellflowers...

Ooh, yay! One little, two little, 15 little bellflowers! I think there are 16 in this picture, but one doesn't count.

I finally went to play with the bellflower presses yesterday! I am really excited about the way they turned out. I can tell you that opaque colors are more attractive to me than the transparents, which surprises me. But you can see more of the flower with the opaque. And the darker transparents are prettier than the lighter ones. Again, probably for the same reason, you can see the flower with the darker colors.

I tried my brass wire, black steel wire, stainless steel wire, and copper wire. The black steel wire is pretty forgiving. You can just mash that right into the heat and not worry about it. The brass...hehe. I think the coating that makes it "non tarnish" is a little on the flammable side (DOH!) because I could see a little line of fire running up the wire as it was heated. Kids, do NOT try this at home! I still need to clean the firescale off of them to see what wire I like the best. The black steel was easiest in that it was a larger gauge, so it didn't bend as I was putting on the glass. The stainless was the most difficult in that respect, but also the daintiest wire and probably the easiest for doing anything with the finished flowers to turn them into jewelry. I think the little pink (garnet colored) ones are my favorites. Then the little white ones (one of the Lauscha buckhorns...milky way?)

I tried horseshoe nails for the first time last night, too. That was an experience.... First, to drill the dang things took forever! I scoured the Dremel website (I LOVE that thing!) and found I had the proper bit to drill a hole in metal. So, I tried it. And kept trying. Kept trying..kept trying. . . . . . . . Well, after draining the battery on my little cordless Dremel, I successfully drilled ONE, yes, that's right, ONE nail. So I figured I'd bring out the big guns...my dad's corded Dremel! Well, that one is probably twice as fast, and heated the nail so much I had to keep quenching it to keep from setting the wood it was clamped to on fire! I did have success, but not without much smoldering, steaming, spitting, and annoyance. Definitely going to get a small drill press from Harbor Freight that will do the job much quicker. Probably safer, too, I'm just guessing. Sad, there is a perfectly good drill press in the shed that was my dad's, but SOMEONE who shall remain nameless has it covered with crap and won't take the time to show me how to use it, and considering the bit it has in it right now is bigger than my thumb, I don't really want to take my chances.

2 horseshoe nail pendants done. The first one is pretty hideous. Not balanced. Colors aren't right, dots too close together, not centered on the nail. You name it, there's not much I like about it. But it's the first one, and it survived, and that's important. The rest was a HUGE learning curve, but I think I did quite well. The second one was much better, though still not centered on the nail. So I know where I need to focus and what I need to work on for next time.

So, that's the story from the studio today. Horseshoe nails and bellflowers. Off to make more of the flowers!

Happy torching!

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My first attempt at beads on horseshoe nails.