New Studio and Store on Zibbet

I now have my newest online store up and running on Zibbet.  Zibbet is a another wonderful site that focuses on handmade creations.  It is currently smaller than Etsy and/or Artfire but it is growing.  The site is easy to search and it's easy to purchase although, looking is free.  You can add favorites like you can on Etsy.

Here are a few of my new listings:

Remember to check back often because I'm building the store.  Hopefully, I'll be adding new items every day.  If you hurry, you can be the first person to buy from my Zibbet store.  www.zibbet.com/jillsjewelry

The Perfect Bead Store

I've been searching for the perfect bead store for several years.  I have visited some that come very close but most of the time I'm completely disappointed.  First of all...to all owners of beading supply stores, you cannot stock only the most commonly used components.  For example, I was in a beading store the other day that only stocked 8 mm beads.  WTF?  Who even thinks that is a good idea?

If I were running a bead store, I would understand that each beader is different.  They like using different techniques.  They are attracted to different colors, sizes and materials.  Therefore, in order to run a "great" bead store, you have to stock all kinds of things.  You need sterling silver and gold wire.  You need memory wire.  You need craft wire in all colors.  You need wire gauges from 14 to 38 and you need hard, 1/2 hard and dead soft in each.  You need copper wire.  You need silver plated wire.  You need every crystal every made and all types and sizes and colors of seed beads.  You need high quality and special cuts of gem stones.  You need faceted gem stones.  You need silver findings, silver plated finding, gold findings, copper findings, brass findings.  You need Czech Fire Polished beads.  You need beading wire. You need thread, needles, and crochet hooks.  You need tools.  You need everything that can possibly be used to create a handmade masterpiece.

If you approach your beading store with this in mind, I promise you, we will all come.  We'll drive extra miles to get to you and spend more money that we have ever spent anywhere else.  I'm currently living in Baltimore and I have been looking for this type of bead store for almost one year.  It just doesn't exist around here.  This is a constant source of grief for me and is probably responsible for my grumpier days.

If you are lucky enough to have a great bead store near your home, please let me know where it is.  Brag on them.  I would like to visit it.  I've been known to drive great distances to visit good stores.

I'll share just one more WTF moment I had at a beading store in Baltimore.  The back wall was loaded with gemstone beads of all sizes and types.  However, it was behind a counter and they won't let you have access to it.  If you tell them which strand you are interested in, they will show it to you but you are not allowed to touch them.  How can you buy beads without touching them?  It is physically impossible for me to buy without touching.

Does Your Studio Space Impact Your Creativity?

EI have a studio space in my finished basement.  A couple of months ago, we had a water leak in our basement.  Unfortunately, after having plumbers spend several days in our house, and having holes cut into the walls and ceiling of the basement, we still couldn't figure out where the water was coming from.  The carpet was soaked in my studio.  Not only that, we found mold under the carpet.  We pulled back the carpet and got it dried out completely and treated it for mold.  We put the carpet back and had someone come and repair all of the holes made by the plumbers searching for the source of the water leak.

I few weeks later,  the carpet in my studio was completely soaked again.  We pulled back the  carpet again and began the process of trying to dry everything out.  Again, we had mold under the carpet.  I'm allergic to mold.  So, for me, having mold is worse than it is for normal people.  If I go into the basement, I immediately start feeling the effects of mold exposure.  I get completely stopped up, my eyes turn red and watery and I begin to feel like crap.  That coupled with the fact that I cannot go more than about 48 hours without creating jewelry led to an unbelievable increase in stress in my life.

My studio is well set up.  I have a desk that has many drawers on each side for storing beads and other miscellaneous beader's stuff.

Each one of the drawers above contains an insert that is full of small sections that are great for storing beads and components.  In addition, I have a full walk-in closet with floor to ceiling drawers and shelves that holds the rest of my jewelry making supplies.  This shelving unit comes from IKEA and is really wonderful.  I also have bookcases and various and sundry containers that hold supplies and finished projects.  In short, it is a lovely space for creating and I can no longer use it because of repeating bouts of flooding and mold.

What to do?  I moved to the kitchen table and began transferring my stuff there.  Over the last three months, I  have moved about 50% of my supplies up to the kitchen table.  Most recently there has been about 12 inches of "stuff" stacked on my kitchen table and we have been forced to begin eating dinner at the kitchen island.  You would not believe the "stuff" that I had stacked on my table.  I had about 7 of the drawer inserts on the table along with about 150 plastic bags of beads.  I had 25 or 30 different tools,  10 or 12 different rolls of beading wire,  15 or 20 plastic bags of various gauges and types of metal wire, 30 tubes of seed beads of various shapes, sizes and colors.  I had 4 different beading mats, a vise, and more sterling silver components than I could have easily counted.

In the beginning, I spent time at the end of each day organizing my supplies so that we could still eat dinner at the table.  However, as time went on, more and more supplies made it to the table and I was no longer organizing everything at the end of each day.  In fact, yesterday I realized that I hadn't organized the stuff on the table for at least six or eight weeks.  It was beginning to be embarrassing.  I found myself hoping that no one stopped by to visit.  Once a week, when the maid came, she just left everything on the table alone.  It was completely out of control.

Yesterday, I cleaned it up.  I still have a ton of supplies in the kitchen but they are now organized in containers that sit on the floor behind the table.  I spent the day putting everything into labeled containers.  Now, the table is clear and we can go back to eating dinner at the table.  However, I'm feeling reluctant to create at the kitchen table.  Now that it's all clean and organized, if I get stuff out, I afraid that it will slowly get out of control again.  In addition, I've been reluctant to do certain things in my kitchen.  For example, I don't really want to use liver of sulfer in the kitchen and stick up my house.  I don't want to solder anything because my kitchen table is a beautiful cherry table.  That said, I need to create.  Will the fact that I'm creating at the kitchen table have any impact on my creativity?

We are, of course, going to kill the mold in the basement and put the carpet back down so that I can move back there.  However, as long as we cannot figure out what is causing the water leaks, I suspect it will happen again and I'll be back in the kitchen before too long.  Should I just find another place for my studio that isn't in the basement?  There isn't really another appropriate place.  Or should I just give up on eating dinner at the kitchen table and being embarrassed by the mess?

What to do?

Road Trip Day 5

In a couple of hours we're getting back  into the car for the last day of our road trip.  This leg is from Ft. Thomas, KY to Reisterstown, MD.  We arrived in Ft. Thomas on Friday afternoon and have spent the last few days hanging out with my son and his wonderful family.  They have a 3 year old daughter, Sophie, and twin 11 1/2 month old boys, Owen and James.  I can't believe how fast everyone is growing up.  We delivered Sophie's new window treatments for her bedroom.  The are really cute.  My sister Fran made them for her to go with her newly painted green, pink and white striped beddroom.  Sophie's other grandma made her a wonderful comforter to go on her big girl bed.  She is all set for her first sleepovers.

We spent a couple of afternoons at Tower Park.  Sophie loves the big park which has a whole bunch of slides and things to climb on.  Yesterday we met one of Kara's good friends there with her two daughters.  We stopped for lunch on the way home.  What a nice day.  The weather is finally cooperating and it was a lovely 78 and sunny.

Both boys are just now starting to pull up on furniture and walk while holding on.  It won't be long now until they are really mobile.  They are trying to say words and they can clap and wave.  Very cute.  I hate to leave them even though I'm coming back next weekend for their first birthday party.

Eight and a half hours to go and I can put this road trip to bed.  Can't wait to get home and get busy making some new jewelry.

Happy Mother's Day to All

Happy Mother's Day everyone.  I am in Fort Thomas today spending Mother's Day with my son and his family.  I can't remember the last time we spent Mother's Day together.  Probably when he was still in college.  Now he has kids of his own.

Enjoy your moms if you still have the opportunity.  I'm missing my mother a lot these days.

Road Trip Day 4

What a lovely day today.  We met Fran's son Kevin for lunch on Acadia in Little Rock.  I had the most amazing Gouda Mac and Cheese with Portabello Mushrooms.  Yum!

We heard on the news when we got up this morning that interstate 40 was closed between Little Rock and Memphis because of flooding.  The detour was going to add more than 80 miles to our trip.  I was definitely not looking forward to that.  However, when we got to where the detour was, our side of the highway was open.  The other side of the road was completely under water and the water was almost on our side of the road but not quite.  We just got lucky enough to get by before the road was closed.  I must be living right!

Then, once we got to Nashville, we met my nephew, Scott, for dinner at our hotel.  It is always great to see him and we had a lovely dinner together.  He goes back home to Atlanta tomorrow and we are heading to Ft. Thomas, KY to spend a few days with my son, his wife and their lovely children.  I really can't wait to see them all.  I haven't seen the kids for a few weeks.  They change so quickly.

We'll be there through Mother's Day.  I can't remember the last time I got to spend Mother's Day with my son.  It has been at least 6 or 7 years, I'm sure.  It should be fun.

I'm heading off to bed now.  I have about 6 hours to drive tomorrow and then I'm staying put for a few days.  I'm definitely tired of driving.

Road Trip Day 3

Today was a short day.  We left Dallas at 9:30 a.m. and did a leisurely drive to Little Rock, Arkansas.  We had planned to meet my nephew (Fran's son) for lunch in Little Rock tomorrow so we didn't have any reason to hurry.  Fran's son, Kevin, is a travel writer and is working on a project for Lonely Planet.  He is traveling the southern US right now.  We are meeting for lunch tomorrow at Acadia  www.acadiahillcrest.com.  The menu looks pretty good.  


We had planned to visit 2 bead stores here in Little Rock.  However, once we arrived here this afternoon, I discovered that both of them closed at 5:00.  Unfortunately, neither of them opens again until 11:00 and 12:00 tomorrow.  We can't stay here long enough to visit them because we have to meet another nephew (my sister Susie's son Scott) for dinner tomorrow evening in Nashville.


We just hung out at the hotel this afternoon and then had dinner at Outback.  Not very exciting, I know, but Outback is always good.  Now we are back in the room reading and hanging out until we can go to bed.  We are so old.


Tomorrow after lunch we'll head to Nashville where we will be spending the night tomorrow.  I'll try to remember to take some pictures for you.


Hopefully, we'll be able to find and actually visit a cool bead store or two in Nashville before we head to Ft. Thomas.  Wish us luck.