Bead Love!

I am so excited! I just won a necklace made by MaryLou Holvenstot!MaryLou had an Easter egg hunt in her etsy shop yesterday. She announced it on Facebook and I checked my clicking finger tired until I found the Egg! I won a great little chain necklace from her Etsy shop.

The necklace I am wearing in the photos was made by MaryLou just for Me! MaryLou made it for me when we were working together on some collaborations for the Bead Fest Philly show last August. The necklace features a round Raku bead made by MAKU studio and a ridged disc bead from me. I can't wait to get my second piece of jewelry from MaryLou!

Check out her shop www.time2cre8.etsy.com :-)

New Floor! New space!

I was able to put the new floor in the attic yesterday! Yay! Now I can start moving things in and setting up yet another studio space--- Ha! My whole property is Studio space! Anyway, I will be trying to pull myself together and keep more tools up here, instead of everywhere-- cause there is a new era of extended family starting around here. The idea is to make this a Art Making storage area--

I will bring up waist high storage shelves today, which I hope to make into a counter workspace.

Happy Holidays!

Dead Man's Cave / Native Land

We took a family hike last Sunday... All the mosses were bright green and poking out from the leaves packed down from the winter's snow fall.

The moss and lichen were really beautiful and stood out a lot compared to other times of the year. Soon there will be leaves on the trees and more ferns on the ground and the lichens will fade a bit with warmer weather.

I love moss. Rich soft pillow-like moss, feathering up in mini fern leaves. Things have been really busy around my family, and we took the day to just be together in our native land :-) We all needed to leave the to-do list for a few hours, and go climb the mountain.

Some of you might remember me talking about needing to get away and to take in other landscapes..... It was a few months ago. Well, life presented a need. I am so happy about that!

I will be driving from Los Angeles to Philadelphia in a few weeks! I am so excited! I am going to drink in all the fabulous natural beauty I can find in this wide wide country! I love road trips!

Ok, back to Dead Man's Cave--- My husband is in this picture. He is the little guy (no so little really) on the right of the tree at center. This cave is at the top of Haycock Mountain. A friend from work says that people a long time ago used to call this area Dead man's Cave because a civil war deserter made it his home during the war. He was a Dead Man if he was caught. That is such a cool story that we psyched up the kids with a hike to "Dead Man's Cave" ...... and you know what, we could have lost our kids in some of the boulders, it was pretty dangerous for them, so we did the buddy thing and boosted them across the really tricky parts. Bringing a rope to tie around their waists would have been a good idea!

It turns out that dead man's cave is the home of a bunch of vultures. It was really creepy coming up to the cave and there being a creature inside. Then when it got out, a dozen vultures circled me and the kids while Josh checked for the best route for us to follow. It was a totally cool vulture hide out!

It was a really fun time!

This week I am putting in new flooring in the attic and moving a lot of my studio equipment back up there. There are 2 rooms in the attic and I used to use one of them for my studio when we first moved, but now things have taken over the entire house. I would like to get working in a "work space" again now that my home dynamic is changing and my Mother-in-Law is joining the household.

So... all this is why I have been a distant blogger lately. I still haven't blogged about my slip workshop last month! Yikes! Maybe I'll get to it in June ;-) Life keeps bringing me all kinds of excitement, I just can't keep up. :-)

-k


PS. I feel like having a sale. I will need to close my shop for my trip, so up until I close my shop (@ the 15th of April) I will give a free item for every item purchased in my shop. That will probably be a bead if you buy a bead, and that will probably be a jewelry item of some kind if you buy jewelry. The free item will be a good one, made by me, and completely decided by in the moment! :-)

Beads 2010 Cover

Beads 2010 is now available for pre-order....... Here
And that means that we get to see the cover! Woo Hooo!!! I see 4 of my beads on the Cover and I wrote a project inside! I see a lot of great ceramic beads on the cover. Go Clay! I can't wait to get my hands on a copy!

Happy Spring!

What a fun weekend! The weather has been gorgeous and we spent most of our time outdoors.

We met up with Janine and took a little hike up Haycock Mountain. We found a rock built for 5 and had a nice picnic. Then we decided that we needed to have a little fire and a little wine and MAKE SOME BEADS! Yep! We had a little smoke fire! Here's a shot of a bead that was inspired by another Artists photo of their work.

I love Dee Wilder's work! She goes by Malodora. She is one awesome polymer Artist!

This is the photo here-- http://www.flickr.com/photos/malodora/4255564142/

Today I fired my kiln for the third time since I fixed it. The first 2 firings were to test my fix job and harden the new parts. The firing today was the first firing with my work in it. I will open it up in the morning and I really hope everything is working fine!

I have been a blur of activity lately. Fixing the kiln, planting early veggies, working on clay, working at my new job, and making room in our home for my Mother-in-law to move in in a few weeks and all of a sudden my husband is back to work every day. It's crazy around here, but it is crazy in an awakening growing kind of way.

I hope you all had a great weekend! Happy Spring!

Beads of Clay Color Scheme Challenge

I got to announce the Winner of the Split Complimentary Section of our color challenge today! Jen Judd Velasquez won a nice pile of my beads with this Beautiful necklace! Check out the Blog post on the Beads-of-Clay blog here--http://beads-of-clay.blogspot.com/2010/03/and-winner-is_20.html

I also announced the opening of the Neutral Section of the Color Scheme Challenge Yesterday.

Here are a few of my examples-- The first uses black and white with a smoke fired square.

This piece uses a center bead of my hand dug local clay, and 4 cream colored stoneware beads. I used some great Rhyolite Rhondelles and Rounds and some funky black agate rectangles for the body of the necklace.

My last example is this earthy set of earrings. Wood and white stone beads create a drop for my tiny clay triangles.

If you have been too shy to enter our challenge, now is the time to jump in! Neutral Pieces are a lot easier than making many colors work together, and we will have prizes from 3 different beads-of-clay bead artists for this section.

And remember! You can always contact me with your photos if you are having troubles with the Flickr group, or have any questions. www.artisanclay.etsy.com

I blogged about the Neutral section of the color challenge on the Beads of Clay blog here--http://beads-of-clay.blogspot.com/2010/03/neutral-color-scheme-challenge-begins.html