This One's Just Going to be Random...

It's the end of a fairly busy week for me and I'm a bit tired tonight. Didn't list anything for my 'list 1 item a night on Art Fire' goal, didn't work on any new jewelry. As soon as I get this finished, I'm curling up in bed with a book.

But - here are a couple things I thought were worth sharing with you:

I was one of the folk who left a product review at Rings & Things and got drawn for a gift certificate prize. I'm going to peruse my 'Wish List' and make some purchases this weekend. The appropriate sound effect is "squee!"

Speaking of Rings & Things, I took Russ Troll to work a while ago, and I didn't share those pictures here, so why not take the opportunity now? Can't think of a good reason - click to enlarge, please!

Russ Finds Some Minerals, Ponders the IP Phone, Between the Giant Eggs

Got this from Duchess at Artbeads in my email today:

The "Muse" is Revealed! At the "BIG REVEAL" you'll also see what design won the Grand Prize, 2nd Place, 3rd Place and each of the 10 Category Prizes. In fact, the entire gallery! See all the winners and entrants in Scarlett Lanson's exciting international jewelry design contest.

We at Artbeads want to thank everyone for supporting this wonderful, creative event and look forward to Use the Muse III!

Blanche from Sha-sha Handcrafted Jewelry Blog posted her lovely entry to The Muse II, so do be sure to take a look and leave her a comment, too.

Are you going to enter Muse III? You can enter right now! I'm very tempted because of all the copper I see in the picture and I love making jewelry with copper.

Update: Promoted from comments - Janeen's Muse II entry - lovely! Do also check hers out! If anyone else leaves a link to theirs in comments, I'll definitely add them here.

Remember my Sunflower Starry Night necklace with the cool vintage Lucite beads from The Beadin' Path? Well, Tish wanted one of her own, so I said I'd make it. And now, the bead is in! This weekend I'll get to work on the necklace. Along with the bead came the cutest gifts - I hope I can do them justice, they're just adorable. Thank you, Patti Stoll!

Speaking of Tish, I will soon be the proud owner of these earrings, featured in a spiffy tutorial.

Lastly, I needed to re-supply some of my Accessories Susan vintage style filigree, bead caps and chain because I have a convention coming up to prepare for and I think that Steampunk style will sell well. The order came in on Wednesday and I got a few new things as well, can't wait to share some of the ideas (assuming I can get them to work) I have. I really love her site, lots of great ideas and a huge variety of settings, findings and just cool stuff, to choose from.

Have a fun Friday, a great weekend and don't forget to visit Sunday to Wander Around the Beadosphere with me!

Monday Miscellany - Sunflower Starry Night, Meet Moonglow Sapphire Vintage Lucite!

I've been trying, and failing, for ages, to come up with a suitable design for my Patti Stoll Sunflower Starry Night beads. Just last week, I realized that The Beadin' Path's Vintage Lucite design partner beads had come to the rescue!

The Vintage Lucite Sapphire Moonglow Rice Ovals are just the right color and with their shimmery moonglow, the perfect complement to the pendant bead. I put some bright matte yellow Czech Druk glass beads in between each rice bead and around the pendant's head-pin loop at first, but I think I'm going to re-string without them.

Right now the necklace has 14 of the 15 piece strand and it's a bit too short to be finished. If I can't purchase another strand of these, I'll use Vintage Lucite Round Beads 9mm Sapphire Moonglow beads to add length.

I've been putting pictures of the necklaces I've posted on this blog recently up at TwitPic.com if you should want to browse through them. Also, if you ever want to share one of the pictures you see there, just email me and I'll happily give you permission - I'd appreciate it as well if you'd also share the link to the picture and mention this blog.

Come back tomorrow for Tuesday Tidbits - you never know what I'll be up to next...

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!!!!