Luna's Baublebilities

So.  I have determined 3 things that have a direct impact on my eczema.  It has nothing to do with lotions that I may or may not smear on my face.  It's all about Zinc and  B vitamins.

And stress.

When I feel like I want to tear my face off because it is itching sooooo much I could scream, that means it is time for Luna to sit down, take a few deep breaths, refrain from clawing at her ears and eyelids for a minute and just breathe.

Good Lord.  Is this what my life has come to?

Guess so.

Right now the blood pressure raising, tension headache causing, itch inducing factors in my life are; 

Maxx's CSE meeting at 1:45 this afternoon.  I'm almost sick to my stomach.  1st grade is coming.  THEY are going to expect my rambunctious FAS baby to SIT at a desk and do worksheets - a LOT.  It is going to be very hard for him.  I'm pretty sure that most of the staff are not on board with the realities of FAS.  I don't want my kid in an endless cycle of detention.  I don't want him relegated to a Special Ed classroom. 

Molly's Opening Night.  Friday - we're all gonna be toast by then. 

NYS sales tax.  I have to go through a years's worth of sales and figure out what items I shipped to adresses in  NYS, figure out what tax district that address is in and calculate to the penny the tax that I have to send to NYS.  BY MARCH 22.   I simply haven't kept good enough records of these transactions this year. I'll be able to re-construct it but it will take time and I'm too chicken to just fudge it.  Oh - and I have to go back through my purchases and determine which items that were shipped from OUTSIDE NYS are subject to NYS sales tax - basically anything that doesn't get re-sold or become part of something that I sell.  By March 22nd. 

IRS tax return.  I haven't even started.  Really.

The housework.   The budget.   Bryan's job or not-job next year.

The other house.  The Fort Jackson Bridge is going to close next Monday for repairs.  Our other house is about to get about 10- 15 miles further away.  We debated about trying desperately to get moved over there this week but we have no water yet and very few electrical fixtures installed and the living room isn't ready for the woodstove yet. And we have soooo many demands and obligations on our time right now.  Bry is trying to make up at work and at Church for being relatively out of commission for over three weeks in February as it is.

O.K.  I'm getting itchy again.

On a happier note - I've got a project I want to take a stab at in the midst of all this stress.  SLC Arts Council is planning a special gallery exhibit/sale to benefit our multi-arts center project.  The exhibit will be called Limited Space and all proceeds will go toward our fund for renovating Damon Hall to house classroom space, galleries, a performance space and several specialized studios for glass, ceramics & jewelry.   We're acepting works in all media that are no larger than 40 square inches for this benefit.

I've been pondering this project for several weeks and it finally appeared on paper last night.  I'll use techniques from Embroidered Flora and Fauna - I bought it with a coupon at Joanne Fabrics many months ago and have been 'itching' to try some of these techniques for a long time.

I think the image of eggs in a nest is appropriate on a lot of levels right now.  The Arts Council is growing rapidly.  We won't fit in our little egg much longer.

On a personal level, I feel like I really need to transform into a more productive creature.  I desperately need to learn how to fly.  Lately I feel like I just keep falling out of the nest.











 . . . . .

So - Etsy has got a terrible bug right now.  Apparently, for some sales where a buyer purchases items from multiple sellers at one time, only one seller will get paid but they will get paid for ALL the items the buyer purchases.  Not cool.

There's confusion about whether this is an Etsy or a PayPal bug.  I haven't purchased from multiple sellers in a long time so in order to refresh my memory on how the interface works, I went shopping for a few low ticket items from multiple sellers. 



I bought some wonderful seed beads from beadologistkelly who has great TOHOs in new colors and finishes at great prices.  I've purchased from her before and I'm always horribly jealous of the selection of colors, sizes and shapes of seed beads in her shop! 

Then I discovered this shop.

Oooooh how pretty!

I got Maxx a big beetle and I got Molly a Butterfly.  When I ordered it, I thought she might want it for her locker but while in town today, I bought her a stainless water bottle to take to school and maybe she'll want to put it on that instead.

















I'm going to have to have this Fairy Door for my studio when I move in.  And maybe a set of dragonflies.  And a Luna Moth for sure.  And maybe a Porthole or two for winter. . . . .

I hope that both Kelly Angeley and Wilson Graphics get paid in a timely manner and that my packages arrive very soon!

Saturday night I finally got a chance to get back to that wonderful pink daisy I had started back in January.  I was originally thinking of making a bracelet with it but a bracelet needs to be very sturdy as it moves around quite a bit and can snag on things.  This daisy certainly has LOTS of petals to snag on stuff so I decided I should try it as a pendant.  It seems a bit too  . . . something . . . to dangle very low, maybe it is just that it really is so much like a flower. 

Mary Harding and Dr. Beamer both have some beautiful chokers made of ceramic or fused glass pendants put on simple single or multi-strand choker pieces over at the Arts Council.  I've  been admiring those for a while and suddenly realized that the daisy would make an excellent choker style.  So I filled out the back of the flower a bit and created a seed bead bail and slipped the flower onto a simple 5 strand choker with a slim twist & lock magnetic clasp.  It works wonderfully - very lightweight but secure, colorful & sparkley and the petals don't run into much hanging so close to the neck.












I'm already envisioning some variations - more colors of daisies, of course, but also chokers like this with multiple daisies strung on it.  I need to source some more sizes and colors of these wonderful daggers.

I have also been playing with crazy quilting this weekend.  Maxx was home Friday with some belly issues - just as I began to decide that I had been duped and that he wasn't really sick, he started screaming about his ear and asked to go to bed.  He was fine Saturday but yesterday, halfway through Sacrament meeting, he started in on the ear again.  At first, I thought he was just trying to get some more mileage out of Friday's complaint but he had to be brought out of Primary before classes even got started and slept in my lap 'till about half way through Relief Society.  I worked on my latest Crazy Quilt patch while he snoozed. 






I've got a spiderweb, some Daisies, some Fuchsias and lovely Algerian Eye motifs on one side of the block now. 










I'm not as wild about the strange knots and netting I put in here.  That may come out and be replaced with something that actually looks nice. 





People keep asking what I will do with these blocks.  I have no idea.  Right now, they are just a fun way to play with fiber on Sundays.


. . . . .