Andrew Thornton's Spring Challenge

Yes, three posts in two days. Unusual for me, I know. I was starting to think I had bit off more than I could chew by signing up for two challenges and Shannon’s weekly 'Finally Fridays' challenges. On the other hand I need this kind of push to keep me at the bead table.


From Andrew's Blog

Andrew collaborated with Lima Beads and came up with a lovely spring inspired kit for this challenge. I just clicked ‘add to cart’, and soon the kit was traveling to my mail box. The kit includes the sweetest bunny toggle from Green Girls, a tiny pewter bunny charm from Tierra Cast, a darling ceramic bird charm from Earthenwood Studio, a little tagua nut large hole bead, a pair of Lucite leaf charms, a hammered chain, two tubes of seed beads, and a variety of Czech beads.

I like to get some mileage out of kits like this and spread the goodness around to several pieces. The first piece I made was this bracelet made with four of the faceted fire polished Czech beads from the kit, some vintage green beads, wasabi deep cut Czech beads, green Druk glass beads, a dyed howlite tube bead, Vintaj chain and components, and some sweet lampwork spacer beads.


'Lime-A-Rita'

The second piece, another bracelet (which I’ve been making a lot of lately) includes the apple green Czech beads, a large turquoise dyed howlite bead, lampwork beads from Twinstar and Lynda’s Bead Dreams, a polymer bead from Heather Powers, a Bali bead and sterling silver spacers and clasp.


'A Gentle Breeze'

These earrings include the Lucite leaves and a couple of the Czech beads from the kit, plus triangle wood beads and a variety of Vintaj chain.


'Jungle Fever'

The inspiration for this last piece came when I saw a little bird on our porch with a wad of fiber in her beak ready to use it to build her nest. This necklace is made with the sweet ceramic bird, a peach colored ‘sugared’ lampwork bead from Fire & Fibers, Vintaj components, and a silk dangle from a destash over at Objects and Elements. I’m thinking I need something more on the chain, so I might take it apart and redo just the chain part. Also, I don’t have a name for this one. Any ideas?



I didn’t get a chance to use the chain, the bunny charm, tagua nut bead, the tiny green glass beads, the seed beads or the bunny clasp. But I hope to make something with these soon. Thanks for stopping by. Please visit Andrew’s blog for the list of participants.

A Bit of Randomness

From Design Seeds

This lovely photo has nothing to do with anything, except that I thought it was beautiful and that you'll most likely need a mental vacation after reading all the way to the bottom. And just a warning, this is a long post so grab your favorite beverage and snack and settle in (unless you don't want to, which is fine--no pressure).

On household appliances: Aren’t they supposed to make less work for us?

A while back our washing machine gave out, so we purchased an L.G. high efficiency front loading set which I really like. But it wasn’t long until I noticed a foul odor in the washer and on the clothes. I took a look online and there were many ways to combat this, most of which require a bit of work. The odor is caused by mold getting under the rubber door seal (which is caused by the low water levels and cool water temperatures) . Some suggest regular wiping of the drum, rubber seal, and glass door with bleach. Others recommend running one or two hot water/extra water loads a week in order to clean out the seal. Other suggestions were to buy a special cleaner just for this purpose, or to buy some sort of air filter thingy to keep the air flowing. Seems like a lot of cleaning for an appliance that is supposed to do the cleaning for you. Now I just leave the door open after each load and it seems to work fairly well.



We’ve always had Hoover vacuums. When our trusty vacuum bit the dust (no pun intended) we purchased a Hoover bagless wind tunnel. I have no complaint about the quality of the suction, but it’s the high maintenance that frustrates me. Each time I vacuum, one or both of the filters get clogged after just doing a couple rooms. So I have to take the filters out and clean them. One is a foam filter which must be cleaned with water, which means it has to dry before you can use it again. The other filter is a HEPA filter which must be vacuumed clean. Also, the filter in the canister itself gets clogged with very fine dust, and has to be completely torn apart to be cleaned. Honestly, why do we need filters to filter dirt that is just going into a canister in the first place? And why do we need a HEPA filter for dirt that is already in our home?

On Blog Stuff

Have you noticed that when you click on a blog photo it comes up in a ‘Lightbox’ format? I don’t particularly like it and found a way to get around this. If you’d like to disable Lightbox on your blog, log in to Blogger and select “No” next to Lightbox in the Settings Posts and Comments section (new interface) or the Settings Formatting section (old interface).

Also, I’ve become addicted to the blog Design Seeds after participating in Erin’s recent color challenge. Check out her blog for some amazing inspiration. And she’s made a book too! I apologize in advance if you get hooked….and you will.

On Making Goals

I didn’t make any new year’s resolutions, or choose a word for the year (don’t even remember what word I chose last year), but I did set some goals for myself. You know the ones; eat healthier, be more active, be kinder, get organized, yada yada yada. And I put myself on a diet—a bead diet. I will do my best to use up my huge stash of beads before buying more. I know it will be difficult because so many of you keep tempting me with pretty photos of your own beads. Already I’ve had to restrain myself from hitting the ‘add to cart’ button, and it’s only January 10th!



Here’s my own bit of eye candy for you; sweet floral polymer beads I received in the mail today from Too Aquarius. Aren’t they darling? And I was the lucky winner of the recent ABS Studio Saturday giveaway and recieved these beautiful ceramic pendants from Melanie at Earthenwood Studios. Also I won these gorgeous bracelets from Shanti at Sunshine Bliss Studio! Lucky me!

So if you've stuck with me this far, give yourself a pat on the back. Have a wonderful Wednesday!