Beads of Courage's Stash Low- Beadmakers- HELP!

Beads of Courage has been helping a lot of kids recently and are REALLY LOW on inventory.  Here is a link for the form and address. Please help if you have a some spare lampwork beads- they need Acts of Courage beads, which means anything that has at least a 3/32 smooth hole.

I know the program, and especially the kids will appreciate your donation.  Thanks!

Folding Jewelry Display on Etsy

Craft show display maker "Wudls" on Etsy makes this wonderful folding angled jewelry box display.  I accidentally found his shop, and spent the next 20 minutes looking through all the different handmade displays.

If you need to pack up your displays like I do, it seems like this makes a lot of sense.  I love the idea of being able to box it up more easily, especially when it's traveling in my luggage on an airplane.

Have you run across some good displays for traveling sellers?  Post a link and share with the rest of us.  And let us know whether you have some other great ideas too.

CPSC Grants One Year Stay Great Valentine Gift to Glass Artists

U.S. crafters and small business owners have been given an early Valentines Day gift from the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) which is due to go into effect February 10th. Essentially, it would have shut down most small independent businesses who sell products for children 12 and under because they wouldn't be able to afford to pay for the necessary independent testing for lead. Glass artists and other crafters now have a one year stay of testing and certification requirements, while the committee reviews everything. There are certain industries that still have the law going into effect such as lead content of paint, and other higher risk areas .

This affects glass beadmakers who sell to younger people, but in a larger way, the wonderful program, Beads of Courage, (BOC). BOC uses lampwork beads donated by our beadmakers for hospitalized children who have cancer or other life threatening illnesses. Each procedure they go through has a special bead that represents it and at the end of their treatment, they have a very long "necklace" that tells the story of their medical journey. This program has been growing and is one way of lampworkers giving back to others.

To see the full press release on CPSC's web site, please go to:

http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml09/09115.html

Dinner & Chat with Fellow Beadmaker Sylvie Lansdowne

My friend and beadmaker, Sylvie Elise Lansdowne was making beads long before I even knew that lampwork existed. We live close-by and get together for dinner every so often to chat. Both of us love whimsical sculptural glass and have found lots of common threads in our ways of looking at it.

The top photo is of Sylvie's "Head Over Heels" bracelet that she has sold in a kit and has taught around the country. She has an Etsy shop that carries her different kits. You can find it here.

After over 2 hours of constant chatter last night, we decided to share some of our dinner conversations through each of our blogs. There are tips and tricks as well as just two beadmakers' way of looking at life.

Remember my blog post about what artists should wear? Of course that hit the table running. Sylvie believes that when selling, we should dress like our customers. Hers wear cute and funky bright clothes and great jewelry. I have only met a few of my customers, so I'm not sure what to wear. I know that I'll need to leave my sweatshirts and flip flops at home. I tend to dress in solid colors so my jewelry shows up more, but perhaps it's time to break free and find my inner artist. Sylvie suggested Quacker Factory on QVC. I'm going to check them out. The problem is, Sylvie is very tall and can wear patterns, while I'm just 5'3" and think solids will make me look taller. (and slimmer too, won't it?) If you have style advice, please let me know. Sylvie is also a shoe lover, and I'm a Teva flip flop or Chucks type fan, so I would be open to artist shoe selections too. This could be a new feature, "dress the beadmaker".

Sylvie is still hoping to get into Bead & Button and I would love to go too. It's an uncharted territory for me, while she has lots of experience. If you are going, please look for her. I promise, you will love everything she has. If anyone knows of a booth to share or has words of advice for me for B&B, please feel free to let me know about it.

We chatted about longer length camp type classes and Sylvie told me about her week at Haystack, in Deer Isle Maine. She chatted about how observing other areas of craft and art will lead you to different ways of learning, styles, etc. For example, a cermics class had people make all the parts to a teapot and then put them in the middle and each take someone else's pieces to put a new one together. They were asked to manipulate the parts and change them. People are more willing to change other people's pieces because they don't have the same "ownership" in that handmade art. That was how Sylvie's pass the bead exercise was started which is widely used by other teachers and groups today.

I'm headed to the Appalachian Center for Craft July 5-10 this summer for an extended glass class with Shane Fero and Fred Birkhill. I'm so excited. Other than it being glass, I'm not sure what we'll be learning. But I've always admired their work and know that it will stretch me as a beadmaker and all their years in glass means there will be a lot to learn.

We also discussed the value of taking from teachers who have opposite styles of what we typically do. I know I've mentioned that concept here before. It stretches your brain to think a little differently and for your hand and eye coordination to get a work out too. Yes it's hard, but it's also like people who only hang out with others who think the same way. How do you grow, if that's all you do?

Sylvie and I are going to be roommates at the Gathering. I know she'll be a good calming effect on me as I'm scheduled to teach my first class there. She's already taught at the Gathering, so I know that last minute pointers will be available.

And one more tip, there's a magazine available at Barnes & Noble and other book stores called Artful Blogging that is a must read. I'm heading out this morning to find it. It's not technically oriented, but more artistic.

There was so much more - life, kids, more and more glass, new stuff we're working on, etc. Two hours of chatter flew by and now I'm looking forward to the next time we share a meal and lots of our lives. To read her version of our dinner, click on her name in the top paragraph.

By the way, that's my bead in the bottom photo. It was a personal exercise, (and the only kind I do), to take a simple coloring book picture and turn it into a bead. But that's another post.

Tomorrow I'm writing about how I added lots of color to my System 96 glass and I'll show you how.

Key West Vacation and Inspiration

I had made this bead quite a while ago and named it, "Vacation Wishes". As I was going through my vacation photos, I realized that this bead must have been lucky, because mine had come true.

My friend's husband had won a house for a week in Key West with with a $25 raffle ticket and they generously invited us and another couple to join them in their bounty.

The weather was gorgeous, the tropical plants were plentiful and you couldn't beat all the fresh fish right from the day's catch. I can see why people go down there and return often. There were a lot of characters living down there and they seemed to pride themselves in it.


We stayed in Jimmy Buffet's previous home and the most recent guest had just been Hulk Hogan. That sure made us laugh.

It was a very nice, but definitely not over the top place with three bedrooms and two baths, but the best part, was that it was right on the canal, so a boat could motor right up to the back. I spent a lot of my time on that back dock near the water. A resident blue crab, lots of little brown and white jelly fish and other fish seemed to be the major inhabitants among the coral. I really enjoyed watching them, checking out how the current was and that red kayak that you see in the photo got plenty of use too. We'd kayak around the neighborhood and get a great view of what houses and boats were nearby.

For those of you familiar with Key West, it's not all lazy days. The nightlife is quite active too. We did our share, but tended to gravitate to the outdoor local hangouts in the harbors where people and sunset watching is at its best. There are plenty of characters down there for sure. We did a bit of the tourist stuff and I noticed they could use a few lampworkers down there. The cruise ships come in and the town is packed.

But for me, I'm okay returning home. Yes, my friends continued sending me photos of their fun filled days as they stayed for the entire week and I was sorry to miss the rest of the explorations. But I'm anxious now to incorporate some of my photos and sketches that I made down there into some tropical beads. Our International Society of Glass Beadmakers' annual Gathering will be in Miami this summer, so I'd like to have a small line of beads that are in tune with the locale. This short vacation was perfect for the inspiration and photos to get me started.