So I mentioned yesterday that I went to the mall with my neighbor and purchased a Pandora bracelet and bead.  Well, last night I was busy at the torch making beads to fit!  Below are the beads I made.  The “Pandora” brand lampwork beads sell for $30 each (and higher, depending on whether they are retired or not), and mine are a steal, starting at only $9.  I will start making more complex beads, such as florals, that will sell for more.  My focus for the near future is to make these beads as small as I can, which is a little difficult because the mandrel is so large.  Check my store to see the beads I’ve listed so far today, and check back often for new updates! 

I’ve been busy with beads for a couple of orders this week, so I haven’t posted any new sets for a few days, but I’ll try to have something new up by Saturday. 

Today I went to lunch with my neighbor, and afterwards we stopped at the mall, just to get out of the house.  I had been making some beads with a large mandrel, so today I bought a Pandora bracelet to see if they’d fit.  I had to enlarge the holes a tad, but they look great, and I hope to have some available for you soon.  I hope to get bracelets in the other brands so I can make sure that my beads fit (Troll, Biagi).   Check back for updates. 

Hiya!  I got some photos taken and cropped this morning, and was able to get a few more sets listed over at my Etsy store today!  Check them out! 

This gorgeous bracelet was made using my beads by my friend Laura Pacino , who first taught me how to make wire jewelry when I lived in Ohio.  She does neat things with wire, including chain maille, and she teaches jewelry design.  You can find her awesome jewelry at her Etsy store. 

Today I listed 7 sets of my lampwork glass beads over at my Etsy store!  Hop on over and take a peek!

Today I took a break from the house and the beads and took the kiddos up to visit my parents up in the Chicago area.  We had lunch, played with beads (yes, I brought them up to show off!), and then went to see the movie Speed Racer. 

I never watched the old Speed Racer cartoon growing up, but I really enjoyed the movie.  I’m not sure why it’s doing poorly in the theaters, but I thought it was pretty funny - me and Mom laughed pretty hard (I was laughing at the movie, and she was laughing at *me* laughing at the movie).  The little brother in the movie - I think he’s a kid that appears on the Disney Channel - was crazy funny, and one of the characters, “Inspector Detector” reminded me of a good-looking version of an ex-boyfriend of mine. 

Anyways, it was a nice way to spend a Saturday away from the torch.  Hope all you moms out there have a nice Mother’s Day! 

I’m off to a better start today than I was yesterday.  I’ve cleaned last night’s beads and dipped mandrels, and should be down at the torch by 10:30!  I plan to have new beads listed on Etsy over the weekend.  I’m thinking I might even try to list on Ebay, as well, just to see how that works out.  I’ll let you know, so stay tuned.

As I was looking through some posts in Etsy’s forums, I noticed a couple of topics about “RME”.  Having no clue what that meant, I read the posts and discovered that it stands for Revolution Money Exchange, and it is an alternative way to send money for any reason, for no charge (as you might expect, there *are* reasonable exceptions to the “no fee” policy).  

Being innundated by fees - Etsy fees for listing and selling my beads, Paypal or credit card fees for any money I receive as payment, shipping fees (I cover postal insurance) - I thought I’d give Money Exchange a try, so I’ve signed up to see if it could possibly replace Paypal as form of payment for the things I sell.  Because I signed up by May 15th, I qualified for their $25 bonus (which I received as soon as I finished registering my RME account).  Additionally, I can earn $10 for each person I refer to RME (for me to receive this referral bonus, you need to sign up by clicking on my referral button below). 

If you have any questions about RME, let me know.  And if you wish to either sign up or just check out their website for more information, click the link below.  

I have so many ideas whirling around in my mind - really cool ideas, I might add - but it often seems I never seem to have enough time to implement them. 

For example, this morning I was hoping to get down to the torch before noon.  I got the kids off to school by 8:05, came home and made hard-boiled some eggs (after looking for Rachael Ray’s directions for the perfect hard-boiled egg), ate breakfast, fed the animals, checked CNN and TMZ for political and entertainment news (Go Barack!), cleaned yesterday’s beads, strung up some beads to reserve for my October jewelry show, and then checked some beady/crafty forums that I like to read.  I admit that I spent more time on the internet than I should have.

Now it is 11:21 a.m. and I’m still in my jammies.  I still need to run up and take a shower, get dressed and do my hair and makeup, then be back at school by 2:30 to pick up the kids (it is supposed to storm today, so I’m driving them).  Today wasn’t as much a matter of procrastination as it was simply not taking care of first things first.  I think if I had taken the shower right after breakfast, I would have been excited by all of the available torch time and not bothered to check CNN, TMZ or the forums. 

Now with summer approaching and having the kids home all day, I’m worried that I won’t get to make beads at all during the day.  If they go outside to play, I can’t be hiding in my basement studio because then I can’t hear them, much less monitor them.  I *am* a little over-protective, and justifiably so as last summer there have been a couple of “stranger danger” incidents nearby.   My major idea here is to move my torch from the basement up to the sunroom, which we don’t use.  The airvents aren’t connected properly so it will need some work - and probably a window a/c unit.

I think it is about time that I make specific plans for my day - as if I were working a traditional FT job - and stick to them.  I’ll work on it today, and we’ll see how that works!  It seems that today is almost a total waste, but we’ll see about getting on track for the rest of the week.  

I hope your day is more productive than mine!

I was busy this weekend, and have several sets almost ready to be listed in my Etsy store.   I’m not pleased with some of the photos, but I really don’t know how to make them better.   So if you can forgive the photos, I’ll get them listed before noon.