Luna's Baublebilities

Come join us on Friday night at the SLC Arts Council!   

We're throwing a beading party -  Hilary, Donna Schaab and I and a few other jewelry artists will be there to help people make beautiful jewelry projects from 6:00-9:00.

Bring your own beads and findings or you can buy from the supply that will be available there.  Misty Hollow will be loaning us some tools and will have a few supply items available for purchase.

I will be spending the next couple of days going through my Goblins' Market inventory and deciding what I will bring.  I have some pretty lucite flower beads and a few brass bead caps that aren't part of my regular inventory online that I will be bringing.   I probably will never carry these items in my regular inventory because I feel that the prices I get from my Etsy suppliers are so good that I wouldn't want to try to compete!  Bella Noelle sells the lucite flowers I buy and Artful Market has a large selection of lightweight brass findings.

I'll certainly bring a lot of czech glass beads and some of my very fancy filigree items.  Prices will be a little bit lower than online.

People who come can expect to be able to make earrings, pendants, simple strung beadwork necklaces and bracelets and maybe even some brooches if I can find my pin backs.   We probably won't do much with bead weaving because that leaning process is pretty intensive.   We'll have snacks and some music and lots of fun!

There is an entrance fee of $15.00 that goes directly to suport the Arts Council.  We keep experiencing budet cuts even as we are working towards opening a Multi-Arts center in Potsdam so if this evening is sucessful enough, we'll be offering more opportunities like this.

Hope to see you there!  If you can't make it but would like to make a donation to the Arts Council anyway, please visit www.slcartscouncil.org - there is a green button in the margin where you can make a secure online donation.







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Today's Wednesday Wish is for more time!  It actually snowed today and we are still dragging along with the Beorningstead.  There is good news on that front but I fear we won't be moving in before November. . . maybe in time for Christmas?

We are really going to ned some clocks over there so I took a quick look at Etsy and ArtFire for clocks.  I was disapointed to find that thefirst 5 pages of my Etsy search for "clock" turned up a bunck of faux steampunk re-mangled timepieces glued together in strange configurations.  Sheesh.




I did like kaileyhawthorn's painted recycled vinyl record clocks.  They are lovely and clever. 

The photo at the top of this post is one of PhilsWoodcrafts Arts and Crafts clocks over at ArtFire.  Of course I would want the $325.00 clock!   I hope someone buys his clocks - they really are beautiful and look quite well made.  He's got a shop over on Etsy, too.

As a follow up to my last post about nut allergies - Molly and I did take a field trip to the candy aisle in Walmart.  Here is a list of things we found that ARE NOT safe for people with tree nut allergies this Halloween.  I'm not providing a list of what IS safe because that could change at any moment - folks should always check the label.  Checking the labels in the candy aisle proved to be a difficult task as not all manufacturers put a bold allergy warning at the bottom of the ingredients list if there are actual nuts in the product - they are just thrown into the list of ingredients, there is no highlighting or any other means of alerting consumers to the danger of nuts.  Candies made on contaminated equipment (equipment that also processes nuts) generally do have a highlighted warning at the bottom of the ingredients list but they are not as large or as bold as the warning you'll see on ceral boxes and the like.


Candys containing Tree Nuts or produced on equipment that also processes Tree Nuts:
- All Walmart Great Value brand candied & chocolate covered fruits & nuts.
- All Walmart Great Value brand candies - hard, soft, chocolate or otehrwise.  It is All contaminated with nuts.
 - All Brach's Candy - every single last bag is contaminated
- Snickers
- Hershey's bar with Almonds
- Almond Joy & Mounds
- Nestle Crunch
- Nestle Milk Chocolate Bars
- Peanut Butter M&M's
- Almond M&M's
- Strawberry & Peanut M&M's
- Peanut M&M's
- small plastic wrapped Hershey's milk chocolate bars (not the minis - the size up from minis)
- Hershey Kisses with Almonds
- Hershey's Cookies & Cream Kisses
- All Sponge Bob brand Candy
- Hershey's double chocolate
- Hershey's Nuggets - all of these are made on contaminated equipment
- Farley's Kiddie Mix
- Necco non pareils

Halloween is approaching and I'm getting a little scared.  Not of ghosts and goblins but of candies made on equipment that processes tree nuts. 

My Maxx has severe nut allergies.  He can eat Peanuts but walnuts really set him off and we have been advised to avoid all tree nuts.  He has a painful, terrifying reaction that includes intense pain in his mouth and stomach and sudden swelling of his mucosa, lips, face and throat.  We suspect that last summer's almost deadly asthma attack may heve been exacerbated by his eating a bunch of chocolate animal crackers the day before that had been made in a facility that also processed tree nuts.  I didn't know that when I fed them to him - In the past I have just picked up food and made some assumptions about safety and ingredients but since the asthma attack, I've been a lot more careful. 

Maxx has also been very careful since eating a cookie at gramma's a few months ago that had some walnuts in them - reactions are so painful and terrifying for him that he now asks whether or not there are nuts in Apple Juice, for crying out loud!  Now that he is in Kindergarten and as Halloween approaches, I'm becoming more and more conerned about the safety of what he puts in his mouth.


(This incredibly yummy chocolate bar with pop rocks, sea salt and chipotle pepper is Not safe for Maxx to eat.)

Friday, Molly and I had to go to a doctor's appointment, we did some shopping in Malone before coming home and picked up a bag of Brach's Candy Corn as it is a favorite for Molly, Maxx and Old Beorn.   Maxx saw the bag when he got home and happily brought it to me asking "Are there any nuts in this?"  I said "Oh, I don't think so, you can probably eat some."  he said "You better read it."  So I read it and there it was - produced in a facility that also prcesses tree nuts.  What the heck?  Tree nuts in Candy Corn?? What is the world coming to?  Maxx wept bitterly and said "I hate those people who put nuts in all the good candy!"

I hate them too.

(Hershey's chocolate chips are Fine.)

We found a recipe for homemade candy corn Without Tree Nuts that we will probably make tonight for Family Home Evening so the candy corn problem is solved.   But what about all those people out there who don't have to worry about tree nuts and are gearing up for Halloween with candy and treats that they want to give to my kid and others who may have tree nut allergies?

Even Rice Krispie treats may not be safe!  Brand name Rice Krispies are fine.  The Walmart generic version are made in a facility that processes pecans. 

Is that really a big deal?  I mean how much of the nut is he going to get from a bunch of machinery that was probably washed before the ceareal was made on it? 

Maybe none - maybe enough to kill him.  Several months ago I made a lentil curry dish and used my mortar and pestle to grind up the coriander seeds.  The last time I had used it - about 8 months previous - I had ground up a few walnuts for a sauce for us non-nut allergic people to enjoy.  I thought I had washed it well but Maxx took one bite of curry and his mouth & stomach started to burn, he had diarreah and I thought I was going to have to use the epi-pen for the first time.  Needless to say - the equiment got washed again with Bleach and scrubbed several times before returning to the shelf.  Never again will I grind walnuts unless I can develop a nut safe grinding place and practice in order to keep those oils away from my kid!

I decided this morning that I need to take Molly on a field trip to the candy aisle and she and I need to pre-screen all of the varieties out there to see what is sae and what isn't.  A daunting task for sure but next time he comes to me with a candy, I want to know that I'm giving him a safe answer.  I'd also like to provide his teacher, school nurse and other parents ofkids in his class a list of what is safe and what isn't.  The last thing any of us want is for Maxx to have a scary ride to the hospital in the rescue squad vehicle after being epi-pened by the school nurse.  GAH!  I would never get him to go to school again.