The Painting Has Started

This first photo shows the cooktop side of the kitchen with the backsplash that was missing. It will be interesting to see how the kitchen looks once we add the hardwood floors and paint the walls and eventually when we get around to adding the tile back splashes. I am looking forward to lots of cooking in this wonderful kitchen.

We have started in on the painting for the house. Starting with our master suite since we will want to be able to use the new bathroom once we move in. We probably won't move our stuff into the master bedroom until we add the hardwood floors which will probably happen in January. My color scheme is not going to be subtle anywhere in the house with lots of mid to dark value colors, no pastels for us. The master-suite is the only place that I am planning on painting the ceiling. The color palette is blues, purples and golds with white left at the doors and windows.
The bathroom is mostly finished being painted (one more coat on the trim needed) and is just waiting to be put back together, have the grout sealed and towel bars etc hung. To see more photos of the house as it progresses please check out our web gallery where you can see photos from the beginning of construction to where we are currently at with projects to make it uniquely ours.

Neither Wayne or I have painted walls for years and years so we are learning a lot and getting better at it as we get more practice.
The most used "option" or feature for that matter in out new home at this point is our washtub. You can see Wayne cleaning up his painting supplies at our now not quite so new looking washtub.

We have be looking at and buying/ordering bathroom hardware and started looking for ceiling fans to put in the main rooms we will be using. Thanks so much Renee for schlepping us around Philly to look at stuff and for all of your expertise.

Since we will be moving into the house to live just prior to Christmas and our Christmas decorations are in storage with the Navy, we bought a small Christmas tree that we can enjoy. I think it will be quite happy in our sunny breakfast nook although it may need a string of lights to be more festive.

New House

Well it is official the bank owns a new house. Ok really it is ours but the bank owns a lot more of it than we do.

As you can see from the photo we still don't have a yard. Although we have had a warmer than normal fall it has also been really rainy. We have not had more than one sunny day in a row and plenty of rain during the last few weeks or more. They haven't even been able to finish grading it since it is basically one big mud trap.

This photo is of our breakfast nook, of course it is a really big nook and really close to being a sun room with southern exposure. I think we will really enjoy this room especially on nice days in the winter when the sun will be most welcome. Right now the sliding glass doors lead out to a 15+ foot drop but we will eventually put a deck out there. The whole house is currently this boring combination of bone and white which I am looking forward to changing to lots of color.

This photo is the foyer and the stairs that lead up to my studio (the most important room in the house). Currently this is the only hardwood in the house but we will be putting in plenty more in the next months. We will end up with only the 3 upstairs bedrooms with carpet, tile in the full baths and vinyl in the laundry/mud room, the rest will be hardwoods.

The last photo is of the sink side of the kitchen. This photo doesn't have the four inch granite backsplash that it will have. We will be adding a backsplash later but it may take a bit since we have a pretty long list of projects and that can be done at any time. The more painting and flooring we can do before we have the Navy take our stuff out of storage and deliver it the better. The kitchen is nice and big which will be nice since we like to cook together. It will also be good for entertaining since several people could work in there and not get in each others way.

Crystal Jewelry

As I promised here are the projects that I made with the new crystals I got from Artbeads.com. The earrings above used the Topaz Leaf Crystal Pendant that I chose. I added 4 mm crystals and pearls from my collection using head pins to make the dangles and joined them all together with a few different sizes of jump rings and now they are fun pair of fall earrings.
The 3 and 4 mm bi-cones in Crystal Heliotrope and the rivoli button went into this matching set of bracelet and necklace. I combined them with some seed beads and black oxide beads and used them while teaching my Flat Double Spiral and Single Spiral Rope Classes at Bead Boutique. Combining the Crystal Heliotrope with silver and Black Oxide makes for a very elegant set.

The Amethyst and Crystal Vitrail Light rivolis both went into these oh so subtle earrings above. They are loosely based on my new rivoli earring class that I will be teaching at Bead Boutique. With the addition on 6 mm facetted imitation alexandrite stones, a snap fittings and some sterling silver wire these earrings go well with the many purples in my wardrobe and jewelry. This is my first attempt at multi-tier wire wrapping and I really like how it turned out. I think I may have to try doing some wire wrapping that joins multiple cabochons or rivolis of different sizes to make unusual pendants or centers for a necklace.
These earrings are more closely related to the Wire Wrapped Rivoli Earring class although once again they have the addition of 6 mm snap fittings; this time with imitation emeralds. Here I have combined gold-filled wire with the sterling silver wire for a pair of earrings that work with either gold or silver jewelry. the emerald and crystal copper go really well together and give these earrings a very earthy feel.
Once again last but not least are my fishy earrings. Adding 4 mm bi-cones and 6 mm top drilled bi-cones in shades of blues to the fish pendants and I have glistening water for the fish to swim in.

Remember that if you would like to check out Artbeads.com for yourself you can use the code SCF10P-ARTBEADS-0424 and get 10% off your order through the end of the year with no minimum purchase.

Disclosure...As a reviewer of products at Artbeads.com, I received the Swarovski crystal elements above free of charge. I have been asked to review these products and give my honest opinion of the products...positive or negative. I am not being compensated by Artbeads.com for my endorsement as it pertains to the products received and reviewed.

Adding Crystals to my life.

Recently I ordered some Swarovski crystals from Artbeads.com so that I could play with some new stuff and to try out some of the crystal that my LBS doesn't happen to carry. I made a small order and wanted to choose things that I could relatively quickly turn into finished pieces with the crystal and supplies I already have.

Artbeads.com has a pretty impressive collection of Swarovski Elements and keeping the order reasonable was pretty challenging since I wanted some of everything. One of the nice things is that they have free shipping on all orders in the USA or $1 to Canada. (More money to spend on crystals.)

The photo above is my order all wrapped up in purple tissue paper which I think I will have to use in a collage once my studio is up and running. The photo below is all of my goodies laid out. What did I order? 100 each of the 3 mm and 4 mm Crystal Heliotrope bi-cones, 12 mm rivolis in Crystal Copper and Crystal Vitrail Light, 14 mm rivolis in Amethyst, 10 mm rivoli buttons in Crystal Meridian Blue, 2 of the brand new Fish Pendants in Crystal Golden Shadow and 2 of the smaller 16 x 26 mm leaf pendants in Topaz.
So what do I think of all of my new pretties and what are they getting made into? The bi-cones were a no brainer for me since I had previously purchased that color. Crystal Heliotrope is a hard color to find so I was thrilled when I saw they had it. It looks sort of grey with flashes of purple and blue so it is perfect when you want something refined with a bit of fun. These and the buttons are going into some spiral rope jewelry. The buttons are a a neat blue with flashes of pink and orange and other colors depending on the light and make great clasps.

The rivolis are all going into wire wrapped rivoli earrings which is one of my newer classes that I am offering at Bead Boutique. All of the colors are gorgeous. I've worked with both Amethyst and Crystal Vitrail Light before, the crystal copper is a new color for me and I really impressed with how rich it looked. I have loved the leaf shaped pendant since they came out with it but only recently had purchased some in the clear crystal for some winter leaf earrings so I was really looking forward to the topaz ones since I knew they would make wonderful fall earrings. Last but far from least is the brand new fish pendant which is one of the new Fall/Winter shapes from Swarovski. They looked cool online but in person they are so much better. They have such depth and facets to really catch the light. I may have to try more of these in some of their other colors. Fish earrings here we come.
With my order I got a Share the Savings Card that I would like to share with anyone who would be interested in checking out Artbeads.com for themselves. Although I just purchased crystal this time they have lots of other goodies. With the code I am including you can get 10% off your order through the end of the year. The code is SCF10P-ARTBEADS-0424. Now to figure out what I want to get next? Maybe some seed beads for next years Bead Journal Project which starts in January? MMMM.........

Come back in a few days to see what I have done with all of these yummy crystals.

Disclosure...As a reviewer of products at Artbeads.com, I received the Swarovski crystal elements above free of charge. I have been asked to review these products and give my honest opinion of the products...positive or negative. I am not being compensated by Artbeads.com for my endorsement as it pertains to the products received and reviewed.

I Dream in Color

Actually the truth is I seldom dream in color or even in images but the title is meant to suggest the fact that the last couple of months I have been a bit obsessed with color as I contemplate all of the colors I want to use in the new home we are building. I am probably going completely overboard but since after years of living in houses where all of the walls were white or off white I want to be surrounded by color. The photos for this post are of the paint strips and some of the curtain fabric that we have chosen.
We have pretty much chosen the colors we are planning on using and have a mere 11 colors. I know I am sure people are going to wonder if I am insane. (3 of those are blues, 4 purples, a grey and the rest are gold to copper.) We have decided to go with Harmony paints by Sherwin Williams. It is a no VOC so hopefully it won't be hard on my head. Most of the walls will eventually be painted. Most of the trim and ceilings will be left white as a crisp contrast. We will be putting in our own hardwood floors in lots of the rooms. Doing it ourselves will allow us to use hardwood on more floors and use a couple of woods that the builder did not carry like Purple-heart and Bloodwood.
I have ordered most of the fabrics I want for the curtains for the main rooms in the house and our Master suite. In my first wave of curtain making I am doing 18 curtain panels (all lined, 2 interlined) and 6 Roman shades. It will take a while but I have a really good start on the 8 curtain panels for our bedroom. It is a gorgeous navy blue silk dupioni fabric. It is a lot nicer to work with than I thought it would be. I am including photos of the house from the lot until it is painted and decorated in my web gallery. It has been a lot of fun watching it come together and I think that our builders (Quality Built Homes) has been doing a good job so far.

Building a Home

Wayne and I have decided to take pictures as our new home develops so that anyone who wants to share in the journey can. We were having a hard time finding a house that had all of the things we needed and wanted so after looking and looking and trying to decide what we would be willing to compromise on we looked at some new construction and then looked at a couple of builders. Quality Built Homes had features that we liked and had a floor plan that with some modifications looked to be the closest to what we were looking for.
Some of the photos we are taking are going onto my web gallery. We try to get out to the house about once a week or so and it has been fun to see all the differences from one visit to the next. The first photo above is Wayne looking at one of the marker flags on the property. The next one is after they started digging for the basement.
Here the basement walls have been pored. The garage is closest to the camera. When I left for Iowa that was were we were in the construction. While I was gone Wayne took photos and put them on the gallery so that I could see them.
Here the first floor gets framed in. and while I was gone the second floor and roof went up and the windows started getting put in. The photo below is from my first visit once I got back. The shingles are on and most of the windows were in. When I visited on Monday all of the windows were in and a lot of the air handling systems were in although not all of them. We also had stairs to get between floors.
I am planning on keeping this going after we move into the house so we can document the hardwood floors that we are going to put in and all of the painting and other changes we are going to make to the house to make it our home. At this point a lot of my creative energy is going into making decisions for the house. Picking out colors (only 13 or so at last count), fabrics for curtains and Roman shades that I will make and other fun choices. I occasionally wake up from dreaming about house colors so it seems that I am definitely invested in this project. I hope that you will enjoy the ride with us.

The Passing of a Great Woman

On the 30th of August my Grandmother died and I have spent the last 2 weeks at home with my folks going to the funeral and helping as much as I could. Although she was 106 she didn't die of old age but complications of surgery for skin cancer on her face. In ways it is surprising to have her gone we all expected her to be around longer. She had told me she would see me when she was 110. The thing is I wouldn't have been a bit surprised if I had seen her when she was 110.

Grandma had a great love of reading non-fiction and loved her garden and birds. Born to a later generation I think she would have become a botanist or something else to utilize her love of learning and plants and knowledge.

She lived for her family which wasn't small and could never wait for the next grand, great grand or great-great grand baby to come along. Her room was always full of the photos and letters that we all sent her and she was always so excited when she could say that she had a grand daughter living in Japan, Hawaii or the less exciting places that we called home.

She was an amazing person and she will be missed by all of her family and friends.

Good-bye Grandma

Leola Throne

Leola Throne, age 106, of Battle Creek, Iowa, died Sunday, August 30, 2009, at Horn Memorial Hospital in Ida Grove, Iowa. Funeral services will be held 10:30 a.m. Thursday, September 3, 2009, at the First Presbyterian Church in Battle Creek, Iowa, under the direction of Christensen-Huffman Funeral Homes. The Reverend Kevin J. Freese will officiate, with burial to follow in Mount Hope Cemetery, Battle Creek, Iowa. Friends may call at Christensen-Huffman Funeral Home in Battle Creek on Wednesday from 4-8 p.m. Born August 7, 1903, in Lebanon, Missouri, Leola Throne was the daughter of Daniel and Lavicia (Mizer) Thomas. She spent her adult life in the Battle Creek area and married Henry Throne on April 4, 1921. They operated a farm north of Battle Creek, Iowa, where they raised their family of eight children. Henry died on January 30, 1949. Left with young children to raise, Leola bravely met the challenge. She was a loving and hard-working mother; her family always came first. Leola was a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Battle Creek and a charter member of the Neighborly Neighbors Club. Over the years, Leola has enjoyed traveling to visit family members and participating in several large family reunions through her 106th birthday. In addition to her family, Leola's interest was always in gardening, nature, and working outdoors. She is survived by five children, Donnabelle (William) Strudwick of Muskegon, MI, Nolan (Sandra) Throne of Muskegon, MI, Eugene (Linda) Throne of Stockton, MO, Judith (Marlen) Pellersels of Sac City, and Barbara (Roger) Welte of Aiken, SC; two daughters-in-law, Carlene Gehrts of Sioux City and Betty Throne of Colorado Springs, CO; 19 grandchildren; two step-grandchildren; 26 great-grandchildren; five step-great-grandchildren; and two great-great-grandsons. Other survivors include a sister, Alberta (Charles) Sherwood of Ehprata, WA; and many nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her husband; three sons, Norman Throne at age 20 months, Richard Throne at age 69, and Ernest Throne at age 77; her parents; two brothers, Wilbur and William Thomas; and five sisters, Florene Thomas, Marie Thomas, Dorothy Weis, Doris Iwen, and Lora Williamson.

Trip to Boston and Bead Fest.

As usual lately I am behind myself. I need to get back into the swing of things and get back to blogging more regularly. Wayne and I had a great trip to Boston in the last half of July. Attending the Change of Command for the USS Constitution was a really neat experience even if it was a bit on the rainy side. In the afternoon we had a great time with all of Tim and Mary Ellen's family and friends at the local brewpub.

Wayne and I also spent some time going to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum on Saturday. I had a really good time there and enjoyed seeing her eclectic collection of art.

We stayed at a nice hotel and had some good meals and spent some time just taking it easy. Over all it was a wonderful trip.

On Monday I got back from a wonderful long weekend up in Philly attending Bead Fest. I took 6 classes and over achiever that I am finished all of my projects before I came home. I had good teachers and enjoyed every class. I found it interesting the difference I felt in my energy between the wire classes and the stitching/seed bead classes. Stitching is much more zen like for me and I could just relax into doing it, I have to think more for the wire and so although still fun it isn't as calming for me.
On Thursday during the day I took this class with Stephanie Everett. We made a necklet that has the clasp in the front that you can hang different pendents on. I managed to get two pendents made although I made them with my style and techniques instead of hers since I already know how to make wire wrapped cabs. Stephanie is a good teacher, I had taken a chain maille class with her last year.
Thursday night I took the Herringbone Hoops class below with Cristina Amador I managed to get 2 pairs of earrings done in the 3 hour class and love how fun and easy these are to make. I picked up the herringbone wrap really quickly. This was Cristina's first class in English and she did really well. The room was a bit darker but we all managed.
Friday I got to start working on this stunning bracelet (below) It is called Davida's Dream and is by Amy Katz. The piece as you can see is gorgeous and her instructions were well written, always a plus. She was a lot of as a teacher. She ended up with 6 of us in her class that were teachers so she was impressed at how well we did. Even those who were slower were more what she was used to for average. I got my piece at least 3/4 finished in class and finished it up on Saturday night while I was waiting for Dave and Renee to come home from their anniversary trip. I stayed at their house and although we didn't get to spend a lot of time together Dave made a wonderful supper Sunday night and we talked and they got to see the color samples that I have so far for the house.
On Saturday during the day I took Three Wire Wrapped Earrings class with Debora Mauser. This was a fun class and I got to try several new things with wire. My favorite are the dangle earrings on the right. I really enjoyed playing with not quite matching earrings and trying and mixing different techniques and metals in one pair of earrings.
Saturday night I took a just for fun class. Crystal Elements with Leslee Frumin was that a fun class. I know have these 4 little pieces to play with. I think the beads would be ultra cool on a simple chain necklace or bracelet. They were really quick to work up and look wicked cool.
Sunday I took my last and most elaborate class. It was Wire Wrapped Copper Collar with Lamp work Bead with Sally Stevens. Her daughter Shannon does the lamp worked beads. I wanted my piece to be asymmetrical and really liked how it turned out. I like the combination of lamp work beads with the metal and how all of the different textures work together in this piece. I had sore thumbs once I was done with this one. I am enjoying watching the copper start to slowly patina before my eyes, each day it is a little different. Who needs liver of sulfur when nature will do it just fine.
I didn't have a lot of time for shopping on this trip which is just as well since I had no trouble spending my money in the time I did have. I only ended up with a couple of seed beads, but didn't need anything specific in seed beads so stuck to what I did need. What a great time.

Trip to Boston

July hasn't calmed down yet but we got through our appointment at the Design Center for the house so most of our choices with the builder should be done. Now we just get to watch them build our new home.

I am hoping things will start to settle down some. I got some work done this last weekend including a bit more work on my Sacred Tree BJP May block. I still have more work to do on it but it is no longer stalled which is nice.

The other project I worked on recently is the watercolor above. We are sailing off (OK really we are flying) to go to Boston to go to the Change of Command for the USS Constitution (Named after the Constitution of the United States of America by President George Washington, she is the oldest commissioned naval vessel afloat in the world.) We have a friend who will be taking over as the Commanding Officer for this beautiful vessel. I wanted to give him a piece of art work as a gift for this wonderful day. Wayne an I are both looking forward for the chance to take this trip and hope to just chill out a bit.

I am planning on taking my BJP pages so that I can work on them while we are traveling. Really just hoping that I don't forget anything important.

New Temporary Home

I must say that June and early July were entirely too hectic and that I have been unable to do any thing creative in far far too long. Things should start settling down a little bit now so maybe I will find some time to create and just be.

After looking at 60+ houses in the local area and none really speaking to us (some would have worked but none seemed just right) Wayne and I decided to have a house built. Hopefully they will get back to us with a projected date and get started on it soon. So many of the houses required more give than we wanted to the spaces we wanted. I must admit lack of a good studio space knocked quite a few out of the running. Wayne understands though so when we could find a good house we decided to build. The good news is that we have similar tastes and visions for the house. The builder (Quality Built Homes) is a semi-custom so there are some things we might have done that we won't be able to but we will be changing some things as soon as we close on the house.

I am so looking forward to being able to decorate however I want and not be worried about changing it all back to boring white or beige in a couple of years. I am thinking bold colors. Wayne suggested purpleheart hardwood floors for my studio which I think would be really cool. We will probably adding hardwood to most of the main spaces. Still deciding on what kind(s) we want.

June was spent looking at houses, talking to the builder and getting ready for a move. Wayne spent some time ripping the engine out of the older Integra and since the movers wouldn't take it without him draining all of the fluids we moved it with us. Good thing he got that handy engine hoist.

It was challenging trying to make sure I had what I needed for 6 months of being creative. We moved pretty much all of my beads and any other project I thought I would want to work on the next several months. I also brought my sewing machine so that I can get a head start on sewing curtains if I want to. I saw some beautiful dupioni silk that would look great so may order some if I can make up my mind on colors for the rooms. The only room I am pretty set on is the dining room. That is going to be two shades of blue with silver/grey accents. Nope I am so not going subtle. I can always repaint if I don't like it in a couple of years. I want to go spend some time at Sherwin Williams and Benjamin Moore and look at what they have in colors and types of paint.

Now that we have moved into our new temporary home things should settle down and I should be able to spend a bit of time creating. I still have a bit of organizing to do but after that I am planning on just going a bit crazy working on creating. I am still only part way through my May BJP page and would really like to spend some time on that and working on other projects that I have fallen behind on.

Wire Fest

I am really glad that I had the opportunity to go to Wire Fest in Philly this year. I came back from 2 1/2 weeks in Iowa and Wayne and I headed straight up to Philly from the airport. I am also lucky since Renee, Dave and the boys who are part of our chosen family live nearby so I could stay there and didn't have to get a hotel room for the stay.

I chose to take 3 classes from the same instructor since I wanted to focus on learning more about doing wire wrapped cabochon pendants with the hopes of being able to start teaching classes at Bead Boutique since no one was currently teaching that and there had been requests. All three of my classes were with Char Jorgensen. She was a great teacher and we had fun and learned a lot. The top photo are the 3 pendants that I made in her 3 classes. The turquoise one is not quite complete since I am planning on adding drops from a loop on the bottom and one in the middle of it.

I had a good time at the Bead-In on Saturday night as well and as I sat working on the background for my BJP project I got to talk and laugh and enjoy the company of other beaders/wire workers. I spent all of Saturday afternoon shopping and had no trouble spending plenty of money. I even managed to get more seed beads from Jane's Fibers and Beads. I also bought a wonderful book for anyone interested in wire wrapping. "Wire Wrapping: The Basics and Beyond" by Jim McIntosh is a great book and I believe that with it you could start from scratch and teach yourself wire wrapping of cabochons. There are step by step directions and photos.

The second photo with the purple background has my wire fest pendants and the first 2 wire wrapped pendants I had make taking classes at Turquoise String Beads in Fall River, Massachusetts from Isaac Silva. He was also a great teacher and I would have taken more classes with him if we had stayed in that area.

I spent some time after getting back re-reading all of my instructions for my classes and starting to read my new book and figure out what I wanted to start with teaching and how I wanted them to look. I am going to be starting with two basic wire wrapped cabochon classes that are a combination of the ideas I have seen or learned form my instructors and the book. Once things settle down and I have time I will work on designing some intermediate classes as well.

The first 2 photos on the black are my 2 basic class samples and the others are some that I was making to practice my skills and just for fun. I have plenty of cabochons to play with and am looking forward to finding time especially after our move to play with them and try different techniques and build on the skills I have at this point. I am sure that I will keep an eye out for more cabochons so that I can keep making more pendants and other cool stuff.

I almost forgot to mention that my wonderful, amazing and very supportive husband bought me a set of wire wrapping tools from Rio Grande that includes several very nice pliers, ring mandrels, and other goodies that will make my wire wrapping even that much more pleasurable. What would I do without him?

Life in Flux

These are the roses Wayne gave me for our anniversary with some Irises from our garden. I do like that the irises bloom around our anniversary each year.

In the 2 weeks+ since I have written a lot has changed in our life. Our original plan was to spend the summer looking at houses and try to move into a new home of our own in late fall. One of the casualties of the presidential helicopter going away was our landlords job so things had to change. We had a choice of planning on leaving by the end of the summer so anyone wanting to buy the house could move in before school started and they wouldn't have as likely a chance of the house being empty all winter until spring or signing a new lease until next summer. We understood completely and since our last move that the military will pay for ends in April of next year we chose this summer so that we would still have the navy moving us.

About a week after that after having done a walk thru with the real estate agent and later a stager. It was recommended that if they wanted to sell the house quickly that it would be better if it was empty and refurbished and staged. (I guess they must not have liked the rooms of boxes, craft supplies and the dreaded by designers home theater.) That led to us getting 30 days notice Memorial day weekend. Quite the whirlwind month. I can't blame our landlords, they can't afford the 2 mortgages without knowing we will be paying rent and without knowing whether they will have his job or a new job or what.

All of this means we will be moving out of this house the end of the month. We have already started looking at houses to buy and depending on if we find one that we want to buy, whether it is empty, occupied and if we decide to buy a new house or what will determine what we will end up doing after this. We are preparing for a potential long term storage so that everything will go into storage until we can move into a new place. If we can't just move straight from here to the new house (somewhat unlikely) then we will either get a short term rental (3-6 month) or we will rent an apartment or stay at an extended stay if we only need something for a month or so. The hardest part will be if we need to figure out what all we need to have with us for 6 months without access to any of the storage stuff. I guess luckily we have done something very similar before so we will manage just fine.

We were really glad that we already had an appointment scheduled with the same real estate agent we had worked with when we moved here. Susan Stachelczyk has been a great agent and has already gone out with us more than once and I am going to be spending the day on Thursday looking at houses all day. We have found some possibilities but nothing that is just right. It is challenging to find a house that works with all of our combined passions. When you combine wood working, car work, home theatre, target shooting, camping, and cooking with my need for a hopefully wonderful studio space it can become quite challenging. So far nothing has been perfect but some are still in the running.

I should be pretty busy this whole month. I am trying to add some new classes to my schedule in July so I need to work on samples (2 are done and delivered), supply lists and instructions. I will need to start with some of the pre-packing that needs to be done. The movers will pack up almost everything but we will have to do anything that we want with us, that is too important to want the movers pack up, and get things off the wall etc. The more organized I can have things on the front end of the move the easier it will be for me in the end. I am not sure how much of the move Wayne will be able to be here for, once again luckily I have done this alone before so if he can't be here the whole time I will be OK. I also need to work on cleaning as I go so there isn't much to do after the movers are done.

I have been a bit stressed but I am beginning to settle down now that we have started working in the right direction and I have started on to-do lists to help me prioritize. I even managed to fit in a little time in the last couple of days to work on my BJP page for May. I had gotten very little done so far on it. I am making a 3-D Iris for it and have gotten the main flower and stem done, I am just working on stiffening it so that it will hold it's form once on the block. I hope to also have the time to paint my blocks for the rest of the months and pick out beads for them so that if we do end up in a hotel, apartment or short term rental I will still be able to work on my piece.

I will have a post out in the next day or two for my wire fest trip. Since I am going to start teaching wire wrapped cabochons it is currently pertinent. I have been enjoying making them.