Bead Table Wednesday - Palooza

Disc Palooza!!

I'm loving the discs I've been making so much I churned out quite a few in a number of different textures.

Urchin, Ammonite, Paisley and more.

And Ring Palooza too!

There are alot more of these but taking photos is challenging right now I have to do it on the floor next to the window and my girls try to help. None of the other pictures turned out lol.

With Valentines Day around the corner I thought I'd better get some Hearts ready.

Here are some pendants and I do have some earring pairs

 but again my lovely assistants made them almost impossible to get.

I typically take my photos outside but below is the reason I'm not able to do that at the moment.

What I'm sure will be called the big snow storm of 2012.

It's been snowing almost constantly for 2 days, today it's mostly been very fine wet snow.

That's little Shasta bounding her way through the snow,

 she's fairly close to the house so it's not quite so deep there.

Shasta is about 10 pounds.

Above is Ginger, this is her immitation of a snow plow!

I just love paw prints.

We're out of power at the moment for the second time today.

Thank goodness my lovely husband put a generator in when we moved in to this house!

So with a few exceptions it's almost normal.

I'm hoping to get the kiln going but I certainly don't want to start it while we're on generator.

And I hope once I do that the power stays on long enough for it to finish.

Kristi

I Heart Macro - Paw Prints

Not alot of snow but enough for my little girls to leave their little paw prints in it.

They had fun!!

Kristi

I Heart Macro - Hale

We had quite a hale storm over night on Saturday, the ground was clear by morning but my husbands trailer sititng outside hadn't thawed yet. Didn't have the time to get my macro lenses, wish I had because I think I could have gotten some good shots. I also wish I had measured some of these large ones, can't tell you how bit they were but they were good size.

Check out the other Macro lovers at StudioWaterstone!

Kristi

My Favorite New Component Designs

Dotty Flower

Double Textured Leaves

6 Sided Snowflake with 2 holes

Round Snowflake

Ammonite Coptic Cross

I hope you love them too!

Kristi

Printer Drawers vs Glass Beader

As some of you may remember some time ago I was lucky enough to purchase a cabinet with a bunch of printer drawers. Amazing storage for beads!!

Well some of the drawers were really dirty and pretty much unusable for putting beads in them and we've been trying to figure out how to clean them up ever since. I cut out bits of card stock to put in the bottom, didn't work all that well cause the sides are still dirty. Tried to take a damp cloth to each little space, not only did that take forever it really didn't clean them at all.

So...we finally broke down and are using my hubby's glass beader. For those who don't know what that is, it's sort of like a mini sand blaster. My husband does alot of auto and metal work so he cleans stuff in it. It uses air pressure to throw tiny glass beads to clean rust, scale and dirt etc off metal. We turned the air pressure way down so it wouldn't damage the wood. The drawers are almost too big to get in the glass beader, but they do squeeze in.

But my husband decided to give it a try, he was getting close to putting new glass bead in it so it's the perfect time to experiment. And it works so well I can't believe how beautiful and pristine they turn out.

Enough talk...I know you've been waiting for pictures, I know I would be. So here you go!

This is a glass beader, you put your hands in those holes which have gloves attached.

Here's a look inside, your hands are inside the protective gloves and the nozzle shoots out the glass bead.

Here's one of the drawers inside.

Here's looking through the plastic window on top as my husband cleans the drawer.

A before picture of one of the worse parts of one of the drawers. They actually have paper on the bottom which we didn't realize until we started cleaning them.

One of the squares cleaned out, much nicer than the other dirty ones around it! I have used the machine a few times and did a little bit of one drawer. But, you have to use a foot pedal to start and stop it and since I'm still wearing a boot, that made it pretty difficult. I couldn't tell what I was doing with my foot. Sometimes it was on when I didn't mean for it to be and sometimes the other way around lol.

That's for this portion of the blog. It's snowing outside so I took a couple of pitures of the snow. This moss covered rock was so pretty, it deserved to be snapped!!

Isn't it pretty!!

Here I am out in the snow all bundled up. Don't think it will amount to much!

Finally, as I was walking in and out to the garage I noticed this poor Geranium blooming. It's been out in my greenhouse completely neglected since before my foot surgery. So it's hasn't had any water or anything for nearly 2 months, I'm so happy I noticed it and got to appreciate it beauty!!!

Kristi

Snow and Inspiration

We've had our first snow of the season, and I had an inspiration. Completely unrelated they just happened to have occured on the same night.

I have a large abalone shell and I decided I needed to try to mold some clay on the inside and then attempt to get a patina that might replicate the beautiful colors and shine of the shell itself. Here is one I've left in the shell to dry and one I removed right after pressing it. If it works I'll either use it as is or make a mold of it.

I am hoping they will dry in time to put in the kiln, later today with all the other pieces I have ready to fire today, and I hope it will all fit in my little tiny kiln.

A perfect day to fire up the kiln don't you think!!

To be continued.....

Kristi

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