Studio- progress!

In my last post I told the story of a room that was destined to become something other than a hot tub room. With this post, I'm going to provide photos!

Here is a photo of the room before. Don't mind the ceramics and boxes. There is a window that leads into another room in the basement, the door (where the photo is taken from) leads into my sewing/craft studio.
Here is the room, most of the hot tub has been removed at this point. It was built badly, we found out. Definitely not something that we wanted to use again!
No more hot tub! (From left to right) My father, a family friend and my boyfriend. There was a lot of unseen water damage, until we tore the hot tub down. I don't know how many times I heard, "Wow, it's a good thing that we're taking this out!"
We covered the tile walls with waynescoating and started to prime. Talk about a lot of painting!
Walls are painted! I also painted the window, door trims and baseboard that teal color, which I love.

Here are the final walls. The other two aren't painted anything fancy. To the left of the book shelf is where my lampworking bench will be.
The photo of the desk is where I will be doing jewelry design and the like.

Demolition

I have a story for you all. Many, many years ago this house had a working hot tub in the basement. Yes, built into the basement. Now, looking back I see how insane that was to build such a thing indoors. All of the saltwater and humidity and yuck! But ten years ago it was just pure fun to me.
Today was the start of demolition in that room. No longer do we have a 'broken' hot tub. No longer do we have a room with no use. It has been cleared away and soon my studio will move in there. Tomorrow we put in the new walls and I get to prime them. I'm still trying to figure out what color I want. Teal keeps sticking in my mind, but I think I want something a bit quieter. Sage green perhaps? It's hard to say. There's always the idea of painting one wall one color and the other three another.
You see, this room will become not just a studio; but my hot glass studio. After the walls go up we'll be installing industrial strength "tile" on the floor, to withstand the heat. Next will be finding a desk for my jewelry portion of the business. Last but not least we get a plumber to pipe the natural gas in, and I get to help build my bench/ventilation. Only when all of the processes are complete, can I begin my trek into melting glass. It seems like so much, but really it is a process that should be complete very quickly. I believe our target date is in the first week of January. It would be sooner but we have Christmas coming up, and I for one am not willing to try and find a plumber to work so close to the Holidays. I feel that Christmas is a time for family, not needy lampworkers. :)

If I don't post again before Christmas, I wish you and yours a wonderful Holiday Season. May all of your wishes and dreams come true.

Snowflakes....

I swear that I have not forgotten about you all!
I haven't created anything new these past few weeks. I did however, do a show in Byers, Colorado that went very well.
Yesterday, I also received my new torch. A gorgeous Nortel Minor. It's not put together in this photo- but there it is!Monday starts demolition on my soon to be "studio". I'm very excited about it but rather busy and absent minded. Forgive me? :)

Black Friday SALE!

Enjoy FREE SHIPPING for the entire day of November 23rd.
Stop by and take a gander, there aren't many days left until Christmas!!!

Back in the... saddle?

What I'm meaning to say is that I'm back in the swing of things. I officially have all of my current pieces photographed and re-sized (insert a giant YAY here!) and I'm working on the rest of the odds and ends today. The goal is to have the site fully updated for the 23rd. I can't wait!!!
On the creative front, I made a few pairs of earrings and a new cell phone charm the other day. Can I just tell you all, it felt so darn good! I missed all of that in my rut. I think that my muse took a trip to Venus or something. She just would not cooperate with me! Talk about stressful times!
I'm still destashing like crazy though. I have so many unloved beads that really need to find new homes! With the Holidays coming up I'm hoping that destashing and listing items in my site and etsy are going to be a really big help.

Speaking of Etsy, this Friday- the 23rd EtsyBEAD is having a Thanksgiving Sale! Over 50 shops are participating. Look here for a list of participants!

Been Busy

I admit, I've been slacking. Fall is just not a very good time for me I guess. I apologize for "abandoning" you all, my readers.
I bring wonderful news though! For many months I have been dreaming of kilns and torches and many many lampwork beads. This weekend the first stage will be done. I am getting a kiln. I know that it should go studio, torch, kiln. I have to tell you all though, this is a deal and I just can not pass it up. Hopefully with a kiln of my own I will quickly get my torch within the month. Then I turn to studio space. The plan is the garage. That means we have to clean it out and re-do everything. I'm a bit worried about that- as I want to start right away. I suppose I should practice patience more often. It's terribly hard though!
I have been uploading more supplies on etsy, to try and finance my new addiction. I've also added two new pieces to my main etsy shop. After that, I start on my website again. I just uploaded these earrings into the mix:
I hope you are all having amazing days. Enjoy the fall!

It's really....

It's really a wonderful thing when you realize what all of your photography woes have revolved around... Your light box wasn't white!
I could bash my head into the group for this simple mistake. To my eye foam core looks white, but upon closer inspection I have found that it isn't white at all, but a sickly, yellow off-white that drove me crazy when it came to photos. I have learned my lesson and I must say that my photography has gotten much easier to deal with, seeing as how I have figured out the root of my impending insanity.This photo needed small tweaking, only a resizing really. It has made like so much easier, to think- a white that's really WHITE! Hehehe. The focal of this piece is a leaf made by Melissa at Inner Realm Creations, I combined it with carnelian and Swarovski crystals then used Bali silver as the final touch.