Heading East

It's time to pack up the beads and head East to New Hampshire for the Summer Season. Tombstone has had it's first 90 degree temp and my Son tells me things are blooming back East. The To-Do list is getting whittled down; some things crossed off and others tabled to this winter's project list.


I finally got the last workshop done and up on CraftEdu, "Exploring the Flat Caterpillar" Now maybe the people who have voiced an interest in my classes, but couldn't get to one can have the opportunity to attend virtually.

Whew, still a steep learning curve, but so far I'm quite pleased with the results. I had to laugh as I've been feeling like a real fool - talking to myself and the computer screen. My Companion made a paper plate face, labeled it "Student" and stuck it to the wall so I could feel like I was not talking to myself! I'm not sure that helped all that much as I want to giggle at the silly paper face.

There are many other crafts being taught at CraftEdu, you might want to check it out. Visit and preview some classes and maybe take a free one or two. It's still building, only a week old, so more content is being added every day.

So, I'm packing the beads tomorrow and organizing for the trek across country. Monday the IBM Tech comes back for his third house call and will attempt to finally fix my main computer. It's his last chance to get it right before I pack it. Thank heavens for the laptop!

I'll be in New Hampshire by mid May and back blogging sometime in late May with a few photos and stories from the trip. This time it's to Las Cruces NM then an angle up to St. Louis, Illinois and across just under the Great Lakes.

Arizona Time Warp

Gleeson AZ is a ghost town now, but in it's heyday it was a thriving mining town. My sister, Tina had an opportunity to buy the old jail and has since restored it and turned it into a historical & educational facility.





(Tina on the right)


This Jail was the third one built and was officially put into service on April 30, 1910. Saturday, May 1, 2010 she held a 100th birthday party for it. If it hadn't been for the cars in the background I could have believed I was back in 1910.





The AZ Rangers raised the flag - note that it's a 1910 flag! A time capsule will be buried (encased in cement) on May 10th. This allows anyone with connections to Gleeson to add material to it.

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What year did you say this was?

Can you imagine wearing this many clothes today?

Characters showed up and "played" their parts effortlessly.



And oh, the food . . . . it was pot-luck and all of it home made from traditional burritos, green chile chile, pisole, berry pies and on down 5 very loaded tables. I sat there, ate too much, complained about the wind and listened to the live western guitar music. Close my eyes and it wasn't 2010 anymore.

It was a delightful Saturday outing and the best was getting to spend time with my Niece, Nephew and grand-nephews, whom I don't get to see often enough.

My Niece's comment was, "OK, so my Mom got to dress me one more time!"

CraftEdu is launched

Virtual workshops - what could be better than taking a class right from your computer? There is a great range of worldwide, well known, instructors in all aspects of crafting, including beadwork. I've already seen some that interest me. You might want to check out the offerings.

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This is a beta launch with more to come as things get settled in. I've got a couple of workshops up with more planned once I get back to NH and have the time to work them up. It's a lot of work and I've had to twist my mind with new technology. I've spent hours talking to myself, or rather to my computer with a microphone. Seems weird to just be talking into thin air.

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here's a link to CraftEdu

here's a link to My Gallery

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If there are any workshops that you would like me to do in this format, please let me know and I'll most certainly consider them.

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Makin' Lemonade

Isn't lemonade what you're supposed to do when life gives you too many lemons?


I should know better, I've done it before, and tell myself to check the total bead supply before charging ahead with a project. I keep thinking I've got more beads of a size/color than I really do. Somehow I forget that they've been used in other projects and just remember buying a whole bunch ...... in this case, 20 years ago!


I've been working on variations of a Sequin Shag bracelet. I did a fancy one in silver and steel blue as a workshop example. However, I bought these strands of vinyl record heshis at the gem show and wanted to use them in the same way to showcase versatility and have an example on the opposite end of the fancy, glitzy bracelet.


Partway through the bracelet base I realized I didn't have enough of the deep reddish brown beads and really, really didn't have any more of them. I looked through each one of my 64 Plano boxes of beads thinking an extra tube might have gotten misfiled somehow. Nope, didn't happen and finding another hank of the same Czech 8's wasn't going to happen either.

I hate to take out work already done. Don't have the patience to "rippit" and start over. So I dug out some old fashioned primary colored opaque yellow and red beads and added a pattern to the base. Those striped record beads will be layered over the top, standing up like the silver/blue bracelet. I think it will work. I just hope the underneath design doesn't prove to make the whole piece look too busy. The intent here is to see the shaggy effect of the over-layed sequins.

So, it's snowing here in Tombstone this 23rd of April and I'm making lemonade just like it was the height of the warm weather.