Day Sixty-Four -- Come Again Some Other Day...

Well, hmm, yesterday there was no blog. I was pretty much sick all day… nausea, headache, toothache, pretty much the whole ball of wax. And despite all that, I managed to make a very lovely bracelet that I had posted pictures on Instagram and Facebook. I’ve used pantone colors again, this time, African Violet, Linen and Tender Shoots on a bed of matte white. I fixed the coloring in GIMP so it looks much better here than it did on Instagram. 

Today, I did more bead organization.  I still need more room for everything. Just having a big table alone would be a BIG help. Actually, I might be able to finagle space for my smaller black table from my booth in the room by moving a couple things over a bit and just placing it over the bookshelf that’s at the other end of the wall where I have all my stuff. I just don’t know if that would make everything feel kinda crowded. Also, I can’t spare it from use in by booth right now. Even though the booth is only once a month (hopefully twice, as I am looking into another location that has a monthly craft fair) if I got too comfortable, it would be very cumbersome to get all the stuff off of it every time I need it for the booth. I’ll figure something out. But man, I would love to have a dedicated studio. One day…

While I feel like today was pretty productive, and I did feel MUCH better than I did yesterday. I still wish I could have done more; only because the night seemed to go by so fast. I got my nails done today. Hmm, strange way to put that considering I did them myself. I believe this is one of the colors I got from Stephanie. I almost didn’t wear it but I’m glad I did because the color puts me in a good mood. I need to redo two fingers though because I decided to get busy a lot sooner than I should’ve.

Tonight I started working on a bow necklace. I’m going to make a few for sale on Saturday… which reminds me: Saturday I’ll be in Silver Lake again selling my wares. It looks like it might rain this weekend, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it’s just very overcast. 

Day Sixty-Two -- We'll Go To Very Distant Lands

 I got to bed at 5am. Just goofing off on the computer and stuff. Though mainly, it was because the headaches and nausea, which had recently subsided has returned… with a toothache in tow. Ugh.

No bother though because today was bead shopping day! All beads were 20% off at San Gabriel Bead Co.! It was me, Kristine and Liz, plus Rob, which is extra awesome because it meant that I could get a bit more beads than I would’ve been able to. Still, I didn’t go crazy. Here are pics of my stash.

Got some twin beads,
though that one on the left looks a bit wonky

I decided that the Pantone challenges that I do can be a great way to increase my bead supply without going overboard or having such a hard time choosing that I just don’t choose anything. There’s a bead show at the end of April. I’m going to look for some of the Fall colors then.

The rest of the day was pretty nice too. We had lunch at SouPlantation. I haven’t been there in years. Then we went back to Kristine’s and watched some Adventure Time and then Surf’s Up while ogling each other’s purchases of the day. Before the movie was over, Rob and I needed to go home. He needed to get some medicine in him but mainly, the nausea was creeping back up on me and I have been feeling miserable with it all night. I’m going to go to bed WAY earlier than 5am tonight and hopefully I’ll have some nice pictures tomorrow of some things I have made.

Day Sixty-one -- It Might As Well Be Spring

Today was a really rough day. I had a bad tooth/headache for most of the day and that had me flat out on my butt. Rob didn’t fair to well either. He had to go to urgent care because he had a sinus infection or something due to bad allergies. In my case, staying up until 3:30 the night before didn’t help.

Yes, that’s how late I stayed up working on the bracelet I was talking about last night; the one that I didn’t tear apart in frustration, oddly enough. I really like how it came out. Rob says it looks very springy. I used 4 (kinda) of the Pantone forecast colors, Emerald, Linen, Dusk Blue and Monaco Blue (that one is where the “kinda” comes in…close enough, I say). Tomorrow, when we go to the bead store, I plan to get some 6’s and 8’s in more of the spring colors, and whatever else strikes my fancy. I’d like to try another one of these bracelets. I think the larger beads and how fast it sort of works up is why I was able to bear with the double-needle work. I haven’t put a clasp on it yet because I want to get a special clasp for it. I’m thinking something flowery. There’s no flowers on it but it does have a flowery feeling about it. 

Day Sixty -- Here We Go (All Night Long)

These earlier, boring entries are done so that later on, when I’m rich and famous, people can read these posts and think, “Hey, she’s really come a long way…” Yeah. That’s gonna happen.

So I’ve been telling myself that I’m going to stay away from bracelets for a while because I’ve done so many lately. Also, I really hate double-needle beading projects. I don’t think I’ve ever done one where I didn’t end up ripping the project apart in frustration and moving on to something new. All that being said, I am undoubtedly about to be up very late working on a double-needle bracelet project. I know. Crazy. But I guess that’s me. Ooh, on top of all that, I’m using colors that I doubt they will work together well but I want to see anyway. Apparently, wild hairs like to creep up my butt late at night. At least I tried to go with some Pantone challenge colors. Rob says he really likes the 2013 Spring forecast colors. I’m more like, “Eh.” [insert shrug] It’s okay though because what I make is going to be FABULOUS!

I’m thinking that maybe I’m going to be up late doing this to make up for the lack of productivity during today’s bead day at Kristine’s house. Maybe productivity isn’t the word and it should be “success”. I did a lot of work, but then I did a lot of undoing that work as well. Nothing was quite working out and in the end, all I came home with was a 1 ¼” by 3/8” strip of peyote beadwork of a questionable color combination. It was supposed to be one of those bead tubes, but I don’t know if I’m going to finish it or just take it apart.

So now I’m going to go work on this bracelet until I can’t go on and finish it tomorrow. Don’t quite know what tomorrow has in store, but I know that Sunday is going to include bead shopping so it’s gonna be a good weekend.  

Day Fifty Seven -- Despite All My Rage...

So pretty much all of my day today was wasted trying to figure out how to get my printer to print using refurbished ink cartridges. I searched all over the internet for solutions to my problem to find nothing. So, fuck you HP for giving people no choice but to use your over-priced ink. Yeah, I'm pretty upset about it and left a couple of comments on their site telling them so. I hope a real person gets it and gets back to me.

I think this is going to be a really short blog post tonight. Not much happened today unless you want to hear all about how Rob and I went to H. Salt Fish n’ Chips today. It was pretty good but not as good as I remembered or hoped. I think maybe it’s just that my taste has changed a bit and it is just as good as it always was.

I’ve decided that tomorrow is going to be Pantone day. I am going to forget the fiasco which is my printer and get some work done, all day. I’m going to try to get in all the Pantone colors into jewelry in one day. Most likely it’ll be mainly earrings. That’s the easiest way. Okay, change that. Earrings would be the easy way but I’ll probably go a different direction. We’ll see. I hope I’m feeling much better today because that whole printer thing really got me down. Tomorrow, I’ll be sure to have some coffee early. I haven’t had coffee in a few days so it should help a lot. I’m even going to bed early tonight in hopes of being up fresh and early tomorrow. 

Day Fifty-two -- Off To Never Never Land

So today was acupuncture day which is cool. I’m really feeling the improvements. I can’t remember the last time I’ve had a lower back spasm (and by lower back, I mean upper butt) and I have been able to bend my knee a bit further than I’ve been able to in a very long time. Although, I was afraid that it might have been re-injured last night when while trying to position the covers with my foot, Rob yanked at the covers, thereby yanking my foot back. I had to yelp from the knee pain that caused. Fortunately, by the morning, I was doing just fine. We worked on my shoulder which had been giving me a lot of trouble recently and that trouble was exacerbated by the fall I took a last month. She told me that shoulders were stubborn. Boy do I know it! Another issue is that my back muscles are pretty tense, as well as the ones in my legs. I don’t know why, but I do notice now and then that I really tense my muscles all over when I should be relaxing. Relaxing is hard.

Speaking of relaxing, I won’t be doing any of that tomorrow! LOL I am  trying to make tomorrow a SUPER-productive day. In fact, I’m going to force myself to go to bed early tonight. Granted, early for me is going to be like 12:30 maybe 1 am (I got to bed at 3:30 last night! I should be spanked!). But I do want to get a lot done tomorrow. Mainly stuff like cleaning and organizing but also making a few things. I’ll probably be finishing a bunch of necklaces that have been waiting to be completed. This will add to my goal to have a certain number of necklaces to add to my collection for the next Silver Lake market which is March 9^th.  I also just realized that I have exactly one month left to do my Pantone collection before Spring starts; that’s another goal of mine. It’s a goal that I have no doubt I’ll meet. Taking the time out to take great pictures of it all is another story. But I’m going to do it this year!

To end this post, I must say all of yesterday’s work to put my hair into twists was in vain because they are coming out tomorrow. I have a baby shower to go to tomorrow evening and I want to look presentable. I’m going to go now and work on a to-do list and a schedule... and try to be done with that before 1am without getting too caught up into watching Kinky Boots, which is coming on in a few.

Day Twenty-Three -- You set my soul alight

I didn't go out today. Not because I felt sick or anything though. By the time I would be ready to go, I wouldn't have had much time to stay where I went because I had to go to Kaiser later. Above all, I got kind of sucked into the Benghazi hearings on TV. I don’t know why I was surprised at how many of them are such big, inane jerks. Hilary Clinton rose above it all with such grace, clarity and authority.  

Yesterday I spoke about the Pantone Color Forecast for Spring 2013. I also wanted to remark that ever since Pantone has been brought to my attention, I have been noticing the colors being used in print ads and TV commercials. Just today, I saw a commercial for NutriSystem and I swear they were using at least 5 of the colors in the commercial. I believe I have beads in all the colors so this season’s challenge should be a breeze!

Lastly, (mainly because I’m sleepy and want to go to bed) I have to admit that I am quite crushed that I’m missing another Muse concert. It really sucks because I’m the biggest Muse fan. Seriously. I am an extra couple hundreds of spare dollars away from having a Muse tattoo. That’s how much I love them. The concert dates came earlier than I hoped and I wasn’t able to save up the money to get good seats. Who knew they would start their US tour in Los Angeles? I was banking on the thought that they’d probably start on the east coast. Don’t most bands do that? So now, I have to have pictures from tonight’s concert on my Facebook wall from friend’s that have gone to see them… friends who I didn't even know they were into them. I’m very happy for them but I can’t help but feel devastated that I am missing my most favorite band in the world again. 

I love them so much!

Day Twenty-two -- Purple Haze All In My Brain... Well, Close Enough.

So, I did it. I have purple hair. Unfortunately, I waited too late to take pictures, so I don’t have any nice pictures to share right now. I will describe it though. It’s a little dark (hell, it’s seriously dark!) for my taste but as the day went on and I played with it a bit, I decided that I like it. I wonder what it will look like when it fades a bit. I also wonder how it would look if I had lightened my hair more first. I might try that one day.

At this point, I would like Kanye West to interrupt my blog by saying, “I’m happy for you and your purple hair and I’mma let you finish, but I have to say that if I hear one more news story or comment about Beyoncé lip-syncing the National Anthem, well, I’m just gonna flip the fuck out!” And to him I would say, “Preach on brotha!” I mean, who cares and why is this news or a big deal to anyone (except maybe Ashlee Simpson lol)?

Okay, now that I’ve got that out of my system (kinda, sorta), I decided that I have to get out of here tomorrow. I think I’m going to take some work to Starbucks to do some work there, or maybe the library. I need to air out my brain a bit and the walk there should do that and I definitely need a change of scenery. I also have to get into Valentine’s Day mode and also work on those spring Pantone colors. I’m pretty excited about those. Though now I realize that I haven’t spoken about that on this particular blog. For those who don’t know, Pantone puts out a color forecast for Spring and Fall of the colors that are going to be prominent in fashion and such. Each season, I try to make jewelry using all of the colors of the forecast for that season. This time, I want to try to get them done before the season actually starts. I have just about 2 months before spring starts so that should give me plenty of time.