A Slow Starting and Lazy Saturday

Started off waking up a bit late, was a cloudy morning, I'm exhausted from last week, and the DH planned a movie (Ghost Town - lovely movie, funny and romantic) and pizza lunch, so it's 2:30 now and probably won't get much done creatively today.

I do have my Patti Stoll Starry Night Sunflower beads sitting out, the ones with the bright yellow sunflowers and swirly sky of blue and white above them. I cannot for the life of me decide what to do. I want to use the two small beads as earrings and the larger one as a pendant. Other than that I'm stumped.

Maybe Russ Troll will inspire me? Yes, my Russ Troll bead showed up the other day. Here he is examining my photo studio and being examined by the cats. Lying down and "playing possum" was probably the right thing to do with my fierce felines.

(Pudding at left, Jello at right)

I am got a bit of photography done today and listed this necklace that includes brown lava stone beads from Rings & Things that I've named Hale-a-ka-la is Dreaming. I've had this out at both shows this year, gotten lots of compliments, but no sale yet. Not sure why, but I'm going to put it out on the web, maybe it'll find a home.

Update, Saturday Night: Wow! The power of Twitter - this piece is now sold!

I'm also going to re-work this one, showed it at BayCon and got some positive reaction, but there's something about it that's just not doing it for me yet:

Do come back tomorrow for the weekly round up: Dawno's Wanderings Around the Beadosphere!

Update! Update! Update!
Russ Nobbs shares the Russ Troll Story!
(promoted from comments)

Russ Nobbs said...

Wonderful pictures of your cats with my ceramic likeness. Literally made me laugh out loud!
Those "russ troll" beads are one of the best and funniest things we've ever done. They've created laughter amongst beaders all around the globe.


Exactly why the the design came about is shrouded in mystery. *we can't remember* Some years ago, Michelle, who now heads our problem resolution and quality control sections, asked her dad to do a caricature of me. No one remembers exactly what for. Just for fun? to use in the catalog? To throw darts at? Whatever..... He did a cute one. I do remember using it in a catalog as a coloring contest. I still have some of the better entries. An airbrush artist even sent in a T shirt with the design airbrushed on it. It happened to arrive while I was in the hospital trying to survive an allergic reaction to sulfa drugs. The wonderful shirt went a long way towards restoring my health and sanity.

I think the hands are behind my back just because it's hard to sketch hands if they aren't doing anything. Maybe I should be fondling some beads?

A few years ago, Kim and a couple of the buyers got together with another strange bead icon, the guy who has the ceramic beads made down in Peru. They thought up what was supposed to be a surprise for me - a hand painted ceramic version of the Russ "troll."

As it happened, when the picture of the prototype bead came in most of the people who were in on the plot were out of town. So they asked me to "approve" the sample for production. After I stopped laughing, I said "Yeh! Sure! Why not?" It took a few months and now we finally have them "in stock" available for sale to anyone. Even our competitors are allowed to buy them for their dart boards or to hang from their cell phones.

There's talk of making a few more styles.... one with the worn out denim cap I like, one with my glasses propped tackily on top of my head, one with our logo on the shirt, one with a huge strand of chevrons, that sort of thing. Then we'll put it out there that it's cool to collect the whole set.

I hope this one inspires you!!!!