Have been tied in knots trying to get the materials together for the PEN Club catalog for the International meeting in Tokyo in September and am completely unable to bead! So today my latest beading project is the photo taken taken yesterday. The good thing was I had put up the professional backdrop to photograph beads and it worked out perfectly to put me in front of it also.

Last night I sat with my bead tray on my lap, along with the cat, and nothing happened! No ideas, no desires to make anything. Finally gave up and cleaned out drawers. Maybe today with the PEN stuff sent off the desire to bead will return. If not, there is always the studio to clean!

Went to the dentist yesterday and thought that I was maybe a bit tired but okay. I tried to work on the small needlecase with Delicas and 15s and simply could not get the bead to lay down right.

Discouraged, I slipped the wooden tube out of the circle of beads and simply began to expand it by changing the number of small beads added each time. Usually, to make this stitch one adds one hex-cut and two round beads, but I started adding more of the 15s every two layers.

By the time I got this far I was so tired I could not figure out what I had done or what good it could be. So I cut the thread, picked up my sock with a hole in it and darned that!

I am thinking of pieces of my beading with flowers that can go into the Point Arena "Flower Power" show in the middle of March. So I have done these needlecases with the spiral stitch that I love to make. These are done with hex cut 11s and Delicas. The wooden cases are 3.5 inches long, but the whole thing finishes out at 5 inches. I really, really enjoy the process of embellishing. It is such a joy to see a place in the design and then look to the tray and find the exact bead that fits in the spot. This process gives me unbelievable joy! It is like recognizing a need and at the same instant finding its fulfillment.

On my beading tray now are the shorter, 2 inch cases, which I am doing in Delica hex cuts and 15s. They are so small I can only work on them in the daylight so I need to find another project for the evening hours this week. Hmmmm.

Had a local jeweler/artist use fairly strong language with and about me because my prices are too low. I am thinking that $25 each is enough for me for these needlecases, but others in the show will probably want me to charge $35. It has been suggested to me, by the out-spoken artist, that I allow other persons to set my prices. How would I feel if the work did not sell at those prices?

Also, in the show she was complaining about how my prices ruined her sales, she sold one item for $35 and I sold over $800. Did my lower prices "ruin" her sales or were my prices just right because I sold so much of the work? Am really having a debate with myself over the price issue.

While talking to another person, who had just told me my prices were too low, I saw her face when she asked me the price of an item she wanted. Even though she said my prices were too low, when it came to quoting her a price for her item, she was delighted I was asking so little because suddenly it seemed she could afford the necklace. However! she did not buy it. She only had a look of wanting on her face.

Sunday, while my computer was down with a virus and waiting on the local computer guru I set up the camera in the studio and tried again to get better photos. By the time I got to these bracelets the sun was in and out of clouds and only this one (crooked) set up had enough light. I used the automatic correction in photoshop and got this funny blue which made a nice contrast to the pink stones. I am thinking I need one of those diffuser cubes for photographing small objects. I think Marianne has the set up. I tried to email her and the message came back, so I am still on my own.

Honestly I have tried to stop making these, but I love them so much that I find my mind devising new options so I can keep making them. Lacking big balls in colors other than the blue, green and aqua of recycled glass I raided my cache of polyclay beads and found this pair.

This is my other attempt with making a big bead for the top. I scrunched up copper wire, wound it on a drinking straw, scrunched it some more and used it as a bead. I think I explained all this previously (the computer virus seems to have wiped my brain cells clean also!) but I am hoping this is a better photo and these copper wire beads are better made than the other example.

After wearing one of the necklaces in this design, it was easy to let myself go back to making more. I really like these! I am a crowd of one, but I have enough confidence in the worth of this idea to stick with it! So I made a couple more, and even though I still have plenty of the big beads made in Ghana from recycled glass, I got bored with using them. Also I needed a pinkish warm bead. Not willing to wait for a new order of beads I got the idea of 'making a bead.'

At first I thought of wire wrapping a wooden bead but I could not find the big wooden beads. I know they are around here somewhere. . . Ah! just while typing this I remembered I had put them together for a beading kit for Jasper. I think I know where they are now.

Anyhow, lacking the wooden bead I tried various methods of weaving and crocheting the copper wire to make a bead and I all made such a mess of everything I just wadded up the failure. Voila! a bead.

I put some beads on the wire for the next one and I really like the feeling of seeing the beads 'floating' inside the wire bead. Am eager to do more of these.

Am still trying to get a good photo of these bracelets, but both scans and camera shots do not do them justice. They remind me of tennis bracelets on steroids. I should not make fun of them because I enjoy making them so much. I can get three bracelets from one strand of cathedral beads.

Another attempt to show these off.

And a family picture with the idea that if one bracelet does not illustrate the idea, maybe all fo them will! Here you are seeing the bracelet from the side and you can see how eager they are to curve around a wrist!

When I put away my big order from Fire Mountain - most seed beads - I realized my storage system needed overhauling. I had beads in tubes, in plastic boxes and bags. Each color was in a possible three different places. So I made 'trays' by cutting the 11 x 14 priority boxes in half. They are not pretty but now all the yellows are together and the 6s, 8s, delicas, and 15 each have their own tray instead of a deep basket. Now I need something with shallow drawers, like a cabinet for drawings. They run about $300 - 400 or a cardboard paper holder for $25. In the meantime I simply stack the trays and hope my biceps bulk up from the lifting. The system is certainly not ideal, but I am now better able to find the best blue beads for a project.

Got my second item up on Etsy. Am feeling a bit more comfortable with the process but after a long phone call with Rhoda (rotaroter.etsy.com) I see I have a lot more to do!

Made more of the crystal on right-hand weave links last night and tried to get a better photograph than the scan by displaying one on a wine glass, but it did not work either! The camera focused on the clasp instead of the crystals. So hard to photograph bling! Will try again this afternoon.

Rhoda also suggested I get one of these photo boxes for jewelry that gives diffused light. Will go look for that.