Luna's Baublebilities

On Saturday, I taught two jewelry classes in Potsdam for the SLC Arts Council.

We had lots of fun - the best part is that one of my good friends from High School came up for the class.  We have talked over the phone a few times and have re-connected over Facebook but this is the first time in over 20 years that we've been in the same room.  It was great to see her and play sparklies with her!  There's something wonderful about spending time with someone who knew you waaaaaay back when you were young and starry eyed and more than a little stupid.  It is nice to see evidence of how age and experience causes us to evolve into our true selves - and to discover that real friends still recognize and enjoy each others' true selves in spite of the intervening years and different lives. 

I built a nice little bracelet in class and then came home and made a loooooong necklace to match it.  I love these watery blues and coppery browns. 

I also managed to get some photos of new bracelets and beads for my ArtFire Shops.

I've been enjoying working with right Angle weave to make these beautiful cuff bracelets. 



The top one is in a beautiful silver grey peacock bead and the bottom one is in a Jet Iris finish bugle bead.

And I think I've finally got the finishing touch for a special order project I've been working on for months.  I've got extra if you feel a need to splurge on an amazing bead!






Molly took lots of fun photos this weekend.  You can see them at the Beorningstead here and here.

Vacation is over.  Time to get back to work.

I taught a fun class to a great group of women this weekend.  Everyone responded so well to my hand drawn illustrations that I decided to put the PDF file of my tutorial up for sale in my ArtFire shop.  You can now get your own copy of Fringe Benefits here!

I'll be teaching a couple of classes the first weekend of May, too.  Earrings and Bracelets.  Sign up for one or both through the Arts Council.  Suzy made a beautiful poster for my class that's got all the info you need on it.

We had a great class last night - I had 4 wonderful students who caught on to the project quickly.  We had very few tangles and snags and everyone finished their bracelet before the end of class.  We did have to pound a pearl with an iron to get it to release a stuck needle, but it turned out O.K. in the end.

I spent most of the day yesterday creating an instruction booklet for class.  I'm getting better at those.  For this one, I actually took photos of the process and created a PDF file with PrimoPDF so that I could print the instructions quickly from home or the Arts Council or just about anywhere without having to mess around with slow copiers or software incompatibility. 

I'd like to work on an instruction manual for my Daisies and put kits for them in my shops.  I'm waiting on new colors of daggers to make kits but I could probably start on instructions now.  In the meantime - here is my PDF instruction book for Leather and Pearls Bracelet.  Let me know what you think - but not about my hands.  Yes, I know they are getting old and I really need a manicure before I attempt to photograph myself doing beadwork again.





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Isn't summer supposed to be peaceful? The days have been just packed here and we're enjoying it a lot. Maxx is having tons of fun with his cousins visiting from Wisconson and is doing very well with his asthma. He is down to just a couple of treatments a day and has been running and playing with all the vigor expected from a 5 year old. I'm so glad that we have medicines that allow him to be healthy and happy.

I'm busy preparing to teach a lot of jewelry classes at the Arts Council this summer - tonight's is on making vintage pearl necklaces (like Lauren's wedding necklace) and another one next week on making a sterling beaded cuff bracelet. Later in the month will be a Vintage brooch class and in August I'll be teaching a beaded bead class (teaching how to make the beads also featured in the post on Lauren's wedding jewelry). You can check out all the classes at the Arts Council on their website classes page - tons of fun stuff going on over there! I've also got a summer art camp coming up and the strawberries at the new house (which still isn't really ours yet but I think we are getting closer!) are coming on strong.

So yesterday, while Bry was helping the menfolk build Jonathan's house and Molly Bryn and Maxx were playing with cousins at Grandma's, I spent some time making samples for my upcoming classes so that we would have photos for publicity. Then I went to pick strawberries with the womenfolk. Mom Burnett, Molly and Nichelle were already out picking berries at Nichelle's when I arrived at 4:30. I helped them finish up there and then we went to the Beorningstead to pick that field. We got at least 30 quarts out of our patch and finished cleaning and bagging them for the freezer around 10:00 last night. I think that the Burnett clan is going to be one very busy (and very well fed) set of agriculturalists when we move into the Beorningstead and add some livestock and a bigger garden to the strawbery yields! It is nice work, though, especially when you have family around to share it with.

Today I'm off and running again - mailing packages, preparing to make jam with the next huge batch of strawberries and gathering up supplies for my class tonight. I hope to spend more time this week with all those cute kids at Gramma's house. It's so fun to see them out running around with each other and I wish they could stick around - maybe someday there will be a great job for their dad here so they can move back to the North Country.