Happy New Year!!!

Hi everyone,

    Well, I hope everyone had a great holiday season and will have a great New Year!  I am making a lot of changes and will probably even change the changes!!!  I am thinking about doing a showcase of beads I will have for sale, three every Saturday, so those of you who have wanted to know where to get my work....here it will be. I am also working with a couple of seed bead designers on some kits for necklaces and bracelets featuring my centerpieces of silver and polymer. These will also be sold on this site. Please let me know if you would like to see anything in particular.  The last thing I am thinking of doing is writing up some step by step instructions for some beads and centerpieces. I am planning on taking some classes this year to move in some new directions. Some polymer with Dan Cormier, some bronze and copper clay with Gordon Uyehara(I hope I have spelled that right), and another bronze class with Barbara Becker Simon. I am also teaching a Surface Technique seminar with Barbara at the PMC Conference in Perdue this summer. and then there are all the seminars at Synergy and the PMC conferences and I may even go and take classes at Bead and Button instead of going as a vendor....lots of changes....

   At home, we are building a wall of cabinets 16 feet long and 8 feet tall, with all the bells and whistles.  I am going to paint it a beautiful teal and then over the top of that, a creamy ivory with a touch of mint (mostly cream) and then sand the highlights back to antique it all. We are even doing the pretty curved arches on the top of the upper bookcases and doors and 3" trim on the bottom. Yeah! Storage!!  

   We had a nice Christmas eve dinner and both the boys were there. Brandon and Alex even brought a bottle of wine for the hostess! Talk about all grown up!  I got some great books, like nobody guessed that would be what I would want(!), and even a book card to get some more....so I went and picked up a great book on caterpillars, one on butterflies, one on treasures of museums, one on weird bugs and then one on steampunk jewelry to round things out!  I also picked up "Inkheart" and "Inkspell", and for those of you who haven't seen the movie, you should!  Sherlock Holmes was really good, too!  So, between picking out paint, helping build cabinets and cutting wood, going to the movies and reading (and of course, eating good food) I haven't been at the journal....which I expect to remedy this coming week....I hope you have all had a great holiday season and will have fun playing in your studios, Kelly    

     Thought you might enjoy the bird, the butterfly and the bug (the caterpillar photo was taken by Tonya Davidsons husband while I was out there teaching a couple of years ago)...I still have no idea what kind it it...but it is cool looking! K