A Grand Day Out

Mark and I love to go to San Francisco. It's such a different city than San Jose. San Jose has a vibrant downtown but it is so much more spread out than San Francisco. We got a gift of "Walking Cards" from my mom and we've decided to use one every month to explore and discover San Francisco. This time we went on a walk through Golden Gate Park. Oh my goodness, it was just wonderful. We took a stroll through the Japanese Tea Garden and took lots of photos. We walked all the way around the lake in GG park and ended up at the end of the park where we had hot chocolate and a scone at Starbucks. Just delightful!

New Murrini, new beads

Lots of new murrini is available at http://www.loriandkim.com and be sure to check out the *Fun Stuff* category and the brand new *Singles Bar* for all kinds of great new items...

Fire Divas Jewelry Challenge

The Fire Divas are hosting an Introductory Jewelry Challenge! This challenge will be for jewelry designers who use artisan lampwork in their pieces. The winner of the Challenge will receive a beautiful group of Fire Divas' work. This is a wonderful chance for jewelry designers to show off their talents and get exposure!
Please click on the link below to get all the details & to enter: We love to see how designers use our creations, though for this 1st challenge, ANY artisan lampwwork beads will do as long as they're handmade.
http://firedivas.blogspot.com/2009/11/calling-all-desingers-introductory.html

A few things...

Ok, first things first. I have to tell you that I am THRILLED that Miss Doxie is blogging again:

http://www.missdoxie.com/
She's back, she's happy, she's got a new beau and a new kitteh and a crew of dachshunds that I have grown to adore. If you haven't read her back catalog of blog entries DO. IT. NOW. Bring a snack and go to the bathroom first because you are going to be there a while, laughing your butt off.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I can get down to the bead related things. Hmmmm. I got nuthin. I made spacer beads to go with the sterling charms Kim and I made. Oh! And I made what I thought was the fugliest bead eveh but when I took it out of the kiln, eh, not so bad. I think I saved it in the 9th inning by plastering murrini all over it. Hey, that could be a new marketing angle...save your fugly beads by plastering murrini all over its hideosity! I wonder if I could figure out a way to encorporate a fun mascot into that... like a penguin!

What I've Been Up To...

I've been busy lately! Kim and I made some really, really cool bead caps and silver charms last weekend. This is the set of charms...

I've been making beads with the murrini...as usual...

Filling some winter orders...

And preparing for Turkey Day! YAY!

I have some big hole beads in the kiln in preparation for lining them with silver tubing.

Lots of fun stuff going on... www.loriandkim.com

Murrini into beads

I thought it might be fun to see the murrini and the beads in the same post so you could see what happens to these lovely little glass bits. I love using them. I've been really having a great time and it's hard to put down the murrini and make other kinds of beads!

New beads...

www.loribeads.etsy.com