The Sugar Coma

Yes, this was crazy. My sister invited the fam for birthday ice cream and cake. She had delectables.
I brought a birthday cake.

And the birthday girl got into the act by making two cakes herself. Yes, two.

Do you think we had enough kinds of ice cream?

Ah sugar, we love you so. Happy Birthday Mom!

Normal Girl

Silly Bands?

You have seen these right? Silly bands. These belong to niece 3. They are the latest thing. As you can see, kids collect them by the dozens.

Every time I see them, I laugh. A couple of years ago, my team made a presentation to the company I worked for at the time regarding silly bands. We had a source, they were cheap, looked like fun, why not? We were looking for dollar items to sell to Michaels. They seemed perfect to us. The marketing department, with a huge lack of vision, said they were useless and could not figure out why anybody would want them. HOOT! That company is now out of business.

Just goes to show you that useless is not always useless.

Normal Girl

All Buttoned Up

Finished up my button jewelry for my friends the button girls. I don't work much with wood, being a glass artist, but it was fun to do something with these wood buttons. I like the roughness of the distressed wood combined with the shiny beads.

I made four of these buttons, two in each color and stitched them to a jacket. They are only decorative, but I really like the 3D-ness of them. I think they would invite comments when worn.

Fun. Next!

Normal Girl

Buttons and Felt

I am working on some projects for Michaels, using some new buttons from Blumenthal Lansing. I am doing some jewelry, but made this purse this afternoon as an addition. This was made out of black felt. Super simple construction, but kind of cute. And really inexpensive.

Really like the big button, it is sort of distressed. I like getting to play with the new stuff before it goes into the stores, like a sneak preview!

On to Jewelry,

Normal Girl

The Fringe Element

This is my project for the night, bead fringe on curtains. So far, it has taken up three episodes of Star Trek TNG. Seems like I am easily entertained, I need only beads and Klingons.

Oh, and chocolate,

Normal Girl

Glorious

Yep. There it is. Bead overdose. I bought this all in my fav bead store yesterday. It is all for work, so I did not even look at the receipt. Still haven't. The bead store owner said, "I don't know what you are working on, but you have a pile of gorgeous." hahahaha It looked a little better separated into color stories than it does all mixed together.

This represents a lot of work for the weekend. But if you have to work, it might as well be on a pile of gorgeous, right?

I love a day when I chain myself to the table in the studio, watch movies, and bead.

Normal Girl

Summers of Old

I made myself a Mamas and Papas Pandora station and I have been listening to it this summer so far. It has made me think about summers as a teenager. Those were the days. We used to lay in the sun during the day, oiled up with baby oil and listening to WHNN play the 5th Dimension, Peter, Paul and Mary, Simon and Garfinkel..... Even on freeing Michigan days, we would put a space blanket under us in order to stay warm enough to do it. Crazy, and I have the age spots to prove it. And I would work at the City Dairy in the evenings...making all kinds of ice cream confections. It was a fun job....I think I made $2 an hour, but it was fun.

Not sure why my thoughts have wandered to the past. Does it happen why you start getting older? Or when your life is not quite where you want it to be? Or maybe when you just would live to have a weekend by a lake and a tree with nothing to do?

Happy July 4th weekend everyone, I wish you time to relax and I thank God that we all have the freedom to do it.

Normal Girl

And we went camping nearly every week end. This pic was taken at Otsego Lake State Park. We must have gone sight seeing, we are pretty dressed up for camping.