Christmas planning

I started making my shopping list for the seemingly million and one folks we need to give gifts to this year. I know, I make it sound like a terrible thing - but when that list is hitting 30 odd people, it gets more than a little scary financially! :-) Not that those wonderful folks don't deserve gifts - they do!!!

I then of course remembered that I have a good supply of soy wax in the basement from when I was making soap and candles before my health problems got in the way. Candles! Perfect gift for just about everyone. I just ordered some gorgeous glass apothecary jars from a local supplier, so I should have these by next week. I also picked up some of those new wooden wicks, and I think I'll hit the local thrift shops for some pretty teacups like these:

Source: etsy.com via Anne Marie on Pinterest

And looking at these, maybe I should have skipped the apothecary jars and just went with this idea:

Source: designsponge.com via Baylie on Pinterest

A perfect handmade Christmas!

I've become a morning person

Weird...and I'm not entirely sure I like it. The older I get, the harder it seems to be to stay awake at night. Late evening used to be my most creative time - I could do a huge multitude of things between the hours of 11pm and 3am. Now, I can't stay awake much past 11. If I am awake, at best I can get some reading in. Lately, 4:30 am comes along - a cup of coffee later, and I'm raring to go.

This morning I packed up half a large order of these beads. I just loved how they looked all together, and thought I should take at least a couple of shots of them before they go off to their new home.

 

I'm off to torch - a few more beads to go, and then I'm done!  The holiday sale is still active on my etsy site, probably until tomorrow sometime. I still have to edit all of the tags and descriptions to remove the sale notices, and I just won't have time til later tonight.  

Busy weekend ahead

My wonderful hubby has cleared his schedule so that I can spend the entire weekend in the studio. This happens ever so rarely, that I'm just brimming with excitement. Holiday shopping can wait one more week - and with luck, I'll get a few gifts made as well.

The holiday etsy sale continues as I post new items, plus a bunch of goodies that were sadly forgotten about. The kilns are full, and I'm enjoying my 3rd cup of coffee with a break to upload new goodies to etsy and here on the blog. Don't you just love these mornings when at 9am you've already manged to get 3 hours of work in? I feel so blissfully productive. :-)


These and more are in the shop, with heaps more to come!

Happy Thanksgiving

To my American friends. Of course, being Canadian, our Thanksgiving was in October, and I'm in full Christmas mode - planning my holiday baking, making ornaments with the kids.

Making a small ton of lampwork beads thanks to Christine!

And planning a little (and hopefully big) update for the Black Friday/Cyber Monday shopping weekend. I'll be updating the etsy site starting tomorrow evening - and to continue to update throughout the weekend. Save 15% off all weekend by entering the code 'facebook' upon checkout. As an added little bonus - if you spend more than $50 (after discounts) I'll even throw in free shipping to the US and Canada!

Be on the lookout for new lampwork beads, new metal clay components, some earrings, and other assorted goodies.  

Sniffle, wheeze, cough

Yup, I'm still alive....sorta. As you know both kids got sick, and I thought I was in the clear. Ahhh, nope.  I've doped myself up on cold drugs, and for the moment feeling just fine. ;-) My ability to actually do anything other than veg out on the couch, cuddled up in layers of blankets is questionable.

Of course the worst part of all of this, is that my creative juices are flowing very freely, but no abilty to execute any of them. Hopefully, my notes on things I want to experiment with will be sufficient to keep things going once I start to feel better.

Holiday Decorating

Being a Canadian with our Thanksgiving already long past - I have no guilt about heading full steam ahead into the Christmas season. I'm determined to decorate this year for a couple reasons. 1) My kids are still quite angry at me that they had the least decorated house for Halloween. The night before, my 8 year old dug out some decorations from the basement and proceeded out the front door to 'do it herself'. Man, the guilt. ;-)

Okay, that's the only reason - but it's certainly a big enough one for at least a couple points.   This week is perfect, as I really have no excuse not to work on at least a few ornaments. I can't get too much done in the way of actual work. You may remember from my last post that I was home all week with a sick kid. Well, kid number 2 has now come down with the exact same thing. My guess is that she'll be home all this week.

 I'll choose some easy projects that can be done in the family room while the little one cuddles on the couch.

I came across a listing of over 100 handmade ornament tutorials - More than a few are absolutely fabulous. I've already wasted about 2 hours today just looking through all of the links.

 

Have a good week, and hopefully I'll be back with some actual beady stuff next week.