Ok, so it's a little creepy, but it's very cool. My husband, Harry, has started on his yearlong quest for monsters. Yep, that's right, monsters. In his blog (365monsters.blogpot.com), he is striving to create a monster a day for 1 year. Very fittingly, he started his blog this past halloween and is now two weeks in. Check out his blog for fun, cute, and creepy monsters alike!

Cabochon Crazy

Harry and I took a Begining Cabochon class at the local Tuscarora Lapidary Society. It was a great class and there were 3 instructors for 7 students which meant we learned A LOT. They also gave us interesting stones to work with as you can see from the variety of colors and patterns in our cabs. If you live near Philadelphia and would like to learn some lapidary skills, you should check out their organization. The first pic shows the cabs I made and the second pic shows some of Harry's. As usual, Harry did not want to "color in the lines," so he made a lot of free-form shapes, where as I stuck with traditional setting sizes.

I also used my time in the class to work on some ideas I had for shaping glass beads. We'll have to see where this leads....

Large 1" Discs

I love custom requests! I usually spend most of my torch time making stocked items. This doesn't give me too much time to experiment and try making new bead patterns and styles. However, as soon as I get a custom request, it really motivates me to get down to the torch and experiment!

I've recently been getting requests for large 1" single color discs. I've been playing around with this concept and trying to infuse my own style in to it and I think I've finally gotten there (see pic). This set is up on Etsy now (here) and I hope to have a few more up in the very near future. I hope you like them!

Officiator #1 Sleeping on the Job

Officiator #1 was found sleeping on the job again today. As soon as she wakes up from her all day nap, we'll be picking the July drawing winners. Winners receive a FREE set of BEADS! Last month, large hole paradise beads were given away to two lucky winners. In order to participate, you must be a mailing list member (click here to join). Names are randomly picked from two hats (read box): hat 1 contains the names of new members and hat 2 contains the names of customers who purchased from me during that month. This month, I'll be giving away a set of matching hollows!

Watermelon

Here is a picture of my husband's prized watermelon baby. His first attempt at growing watermelon (last year) was fruitless (sorry for the bad pun). However, this year we already have one 6 inch watermelon and a few other smaller melons. It's very exciting and it has me thinking about some watermelon inspired beads!