PLEASE READ...July27, 2012

I'm on a summer work schedule which means that I'm home with three boys who occupy my work time:-). Please allow 1-2 weeks to receive any custom order jewelry or beads. I will give you a better idea after the order is placed or just email me before hand and I can let you know how the current work load is going.

There are loads of new beading supplies over at my other new Etsy shop called Tickle Me Beads All of the items listed over there are in stock and ready to ship right away. It is basically an off shoot of ticklemebeads.com and has all of the great beading tools, stamps, chain, findings etc. Keep your eye out for some new findings over the next few weeks. But... I digress.. what I meant to say is that this shop is being run by my darling father whom I lovingly call Dumplin and he ships prompto!

I know people find it frustrating to not be able to post comments here. It's because my blog is all HTML and not hosted by a blogging service but you are more than welcome to post comments on my GlassBeadle Facebook page. It is open to everyone and you can find the link at the top of this page on the left hand side (it's the big blue F photo). I would love to hear from ya!

July 21,2012

I laugh as I have sat down several times to get up to date and post here but I'm sure you can all agree how easy it is to get sucked in by the computer and I start surfing, do a few emails, check pinterest, go on FB, and whatever distrations come my way until my computer time is gone and I still haven't posted on my blog. It seems to be a reoccuring theme. Speaking of which, my Pinterst account is under my name Cassie Donlen if you have any desire to see my pins. I'm not super active as it is a big time sucker but I do love this site more than I care to admit. While we are speaking about different cool sites. I love Instragram. I take a lot of my bead and jewelry photos with this app so if you care to see any of my pics that I may or may not share here on the blog or FB, then you can find me here under "cassiedonlen" if you care to follow me.

So since I've posted, things have been the same normal busy. It is super hot and the drought has been reaching us too. It looks like this week is supposed to be in the 103-105 degree range again. The kids have finished up their summer swim team and had a great season. Now it is back to their regular year round swim team and they are in the 50 meter pool for long course and the practices are more of a 2 hour long hard challenge than the 45 min practice with many game days at the summer league. They have a meet on Monday and Tuesday night which means I have to work as a timer for 4 hours on the side of the pool. Which is fun as you are in the action but killer on your feet. Caiden and Connor are doing an Apple Camp at the Apple store next week where they teach the kids how to do iMovie and some other fun stuff for 3 days. It is a free camp and has great reviews.

I also drove up to Chicago last weekend to take a bronze metal clay class with Gail Crosman Moore that was a lot of fun. I'll post about that next time.

In the mean time, I said that I would post about what I mailed Jennifer Davies-Reazor for the Bead Soup Swap. The big reveal for us is I think next Saturday. So in all my spare time:-) I wanted to reveal how I prepared getting her beads ready to ship. I had a little helper for part of the job. You gotta watch the video below to see what I mean.

Click the 30 second video below to see me getting Jennifer's beads ready to ship to her.

Here are some photos of what I mailed her. I can't wait to see her creations. I have a confession that I was starting to covet the beads that I sent her and I had to make a duplicate set for me.

Anyhoo...come back on Saturday, July 28th to see what Jenny and I created with our Bead Soup. I think there are around 135 of us participants posting that day. I'll make sure to post the links so that you can visit all of the other people who have joined in on the swap fun.

July 8,2012

It's that time again. Lori Anderson's Bead Soup swap has started again. There were I think exactly 400 participants this round. Crazy amount of people for a swap. Lori has it set up so that the reveal is broken up into 3 separate dates a few weeks apart so that people will have time to visit everyone without feeling overwhelmed. It is a big undertaking but lots of fun to see what people have created with their loot.

I'm in the first reveal wave which is scheduled for July 28th. Wave 2 is August 11, and wave 3 is August 25. So the premise of the Bead Soup swap is to be paired with a partner. The teamed up pair then send each other a fun collection of beads for the other to design with and then they each reveal their creations on the offical reveal date. You can click here to vist Lori's page that has all of the partcipants and their blog links set up for each and every particpant.

My partner this round is Jennifer Davies-Reazor. She is a ceramic artist and also has an Etsy store you can see here. The idea of the swap is to be challenged. I have always admired all of the incredible ceramic beads out there but have never worked with them. It gives a totally different look than is my typical style so I'm really pretty excited to create some new jewelry that is so divergent from typical Cassie work.

Jenny was extremely generous with her Bead Soup and I have a fabulous collection of ceramic beads to work with. Lots of different jewelry pieces can be created and she really helped me figure out which way i would like to go with the fabulous accent beads that she also included. As per my normal working pattern with Bead Soups, I let them beads sit on my desk and I watch them simmer as I ponder over what to do with them. Time will tell and I guess you will have to come back on July 28th to see if I was able to pull it all off:-).

Here is a photo of the entire stash that Jenny mailed. I told you that I hit the payload!

Here are a few close ups of the ceramic beads and the toggle. The swap rule is to use the focal and clasp as the requirement. I can't decide which bead I like more. They are all so cool. Little works of art.

I will post in the next day or two what I sent Jennifer. In the mean time, keep an eye on my Etsy store. I've been trying to post new things.