Welcome to my Work, Studio, Home, Garden!

First things first! Welcome to my Blog! Welcome to my Studio, my home and my garden!

I am super happy to be participating in the Beads-of-Clay Blog hop again!

 Don't forget to stop by all the "live" blogs from 1-4pm today for their "live" giveaway 1/2 hour windows! A few of us are participating in the hop, but are not doing the "live" posting.... in these giveaways, you have a longer comment window in order to be entered to win. My giveaway winners will be announced on Monday.  We all have specials going on in our online shops for a limited time.

Use coupon Code BOCOPENSTUDIO gets you 25% off your order and special Spring Cleaning HANDMADE BEAD SURPRISES IN YOUR ORDER

Here is a little sample of some of the beads that I make.  I use mostly stoneware clay, but sometimes work in porcelain or whatever suits my mood...    This week I have been working on a few new pieces inspired by my friend and jewelry designer Staci Louise Smith.

and this leads me to Giveaway #1.....  Hot out of the kiln...

A lovely spring flower.  Comment on this post for a chance to win the piece shown here.

The kiln shed is a mess from a winter of working to load and unload the kiln, but the cold and my schedule chasing me out while leaving tools lie.  Mice have made their winter shelters and yard tools and summer toys are piled high.   

My Daughter Sonya (6) is almost finished painting her Enormous Fairy Statue.  We often work together.  She tells me that one day she will have a shop and sell my work.  That would be a lot of fun. 

And also still warm...

My second giveaway!   Again leave a comment below... leave one comment leave six comments... I don't care.  Let me know you came :-)

I have been feeling the Spring coming and I feel the pace of life changing.  My messy home has been driving me crazy and stubborn as I am, I have tried to find a way for everyone to better clean up after themselves.  I totally understand that I make HUGE messes in all the crazy things I do..... and that's more reason for everyone else to clean up after themselves, right?  Picking up after myself alone is a full time job!  ha!  So here's the improved system... See the different cube bins?  Everyone has one, even the dog. (Our dog Samson's box is turned around so that he can't open it with the handle-- because he was quite obsessive about doing just that) This replaces the large containers to the right which used to house all the winter hats, gloves etc.. for the entire family.  Maybe we can handle keeping track of personal property better than rooting through communal property?  Maybe?  I hope so.

  The kids and I are still working on their room.  My goal is to get rid of the toy box.  We have a place for dress up clothes, a place for each girl's jewelry and make up, a place for Lego's and barbies and horses... and we're still working on it.  I have to wait for more shelves to arrive at the store in order to finish the job.

Spring means gardening to me.  I grew the beans and potatoes picture last year and I will replant with them again this year.  I'll be outside planting peas and sugar snaps and snow peas and lettuce and bok choi and potatoes and onions the weekend after St Patricks Day.  I might not be able to wait that long to start planting onions.  And there is starting seeds inside as well.  Very soon indeed!   I love planting veggies! I plant my yard to the max and my mom and I have 2 community garden plots.  This year I will also be planting a garden that is grown for a local pantry.  I don't know where I am going to find the time, but I always do in the end.

I did a little experiment this winter... I planted and relocated a few things as I was cleaning out the garden for the winter.  I put a sheet of glass over the bed and I peeked in every once and a while to see what happened.  Even in the snow and not shoveling the snow off the glass for a week or more sometimes-- things still grew.  It was great to have these little babies out under the snow.... but a little rodent found them and moved into my little salad bar during the snow storms and ate quite a bit of what had grown bigger.  It was a fun experiment and new sprouts keep popping up even now.  I took the pictures here yesterday.

If everything goes well with the family today, then I will be listing the extra flowers pictured above in my etsy shop while we do our normal Sunday night routine.... PBS-- Nature and Masterpiece Theatre... I don't even know what they will be airing this evening, but I hope to be relaxing on the couch and listing on etsy by then :-)

Thanks for stopping by!  Thanks for your comments!  I don't always get back to everyone who comments, but I do really appreciate when you let me know what you think!