My Friend Andy

Andy is my hero. He had a great job in the tech industry, a condo and what appeared to be a very nice life. But he wasn't happy with this so he bought an old motorhome, sold everything (including the condo) and hit the road. He hasn't looked back since, unless you count geographically. :-)

Buying the motorhome was his first step and the RV he chose was a 22 foot 1985 Lazy Daze, class C. He vacationed in "Gertie" for a couple of years before going full-time. It's hard to believe that a person can be comfortable living in just 176 square feet of space but Andy was and from photos of Gertie she appeared to be very homey.

This is almost exactly what I want to do. I will - eventually - find my Lazy Daze (a 26.5 footer for me), vacation in it for a while and then pull up anchor and hit the road for as long as it feels good and I'm healthy enough to do it.

Andy's an interesting guy and Lazy Daze RVs are interesting rigs. I've addd a link to Andy's blog. If you're interested in RV-ing I recommend you check it out. As for LDs, they have an almost cult-like following. The Yahoo LD group is a good read.

All the best for Christmas and the New Year.

Ginger

Dang Me!

Have I blown an opportunity???

You may or may not remember (heck, you may have not read it at all) in my "About Me" write-up, I mentioned that I am interested in RVing. I fell in love with the Lazy Daze brand of RV and wanted one for weekends and vacations now and as a permanent residence when I retire and hit the road. Now there aren't a lot of Lazy Daze's around: the LD company is a small privately owned business in Montclair CA that sells direct from the factory only - no dealerships - maybe only a few hundred coaches per year.

They are not imported into Canada. In fact, LD has never bothered to acquire Canadian approval. How can you blame them? However, there is a loophole of sorts. Any RV over 15 years old can be imported. This would mean that next year, 2007, I could import a 1992 unit. So, back in January I started watching to see how many 1992's were listed for sale in the size and style I preferred. Guess how many there've been?

One. Two weeks ago.

It was in Tennessee... not so far as Arizona or California. Also, the friend of a friend was going to be in Memphis (where it was) that weekend and was willing to go and take a look at it for me... gratis. Wow! Was this Kismet or Karma or something?! I began assembling the forms and rules I would need to get this thing across the border. To my dismay, I found that to be legal, the unit must be 15 years old based not on model year but on year and MONTH of manufacture. Oh, nooo...... I contacted the seller and learned the unit was manufactured in July 1992. It wouldn't be "legal" until July 2007.

What to do. I could go ahead and buy it and pay to store it in the States for over six months or give it a pass and hope for another. (Or hope it doesn't sell in six months - fat chance.) Cheap-Ginger won and I gave it a pass. Now I compulsively check the ad every day to see if/when "my" RV sells.

I think I screwed up.

Take a rope and hang me.

Ginger

Easy Peasy Bracelet

I made a bunch of these very easy little bracelets at Christmastime as gifts for my clients this year. Each takes about 10 - 15 minutes to make and uses about $1.50 worth of beads. They were hugely popular and generated sales for extras and necklace versions. I expect there will be more orders in the coming year sparked by these inexpensive give-aways.

They can be worn singly or in combinations: multipule strands might work too. You will need about 45 size 8/o Delicas and 44 size 11/o seed beads. This will stretch about 6.5 inches. Add an inch for the crimps and clasp and you have a 7.5 inch bracelet. Make it 8.5 - 9 inches and
you have an anklet; 18 - 20 inches, a necklace. The necklace can be threaded through a medium sized bail for a pendant. Wow! A triple threat.


Let's use this simple pattern as an introduction to stringing on wire and attaching clasps.


Stringing materials include thread, ribbon, rubber, leather, string, wire and more. This time we will use Softflex fine wire which comes in 30 and 100 foot spools. There is a worthwhile saving if you purchase the 100' spools but that's a lot of wire... more than 100 bracelets, if
you're careful. If you never use it up, there goes your savings. A 30' spool should be good for up to 35 bracelets or about 15 necklaces.

To attach the wire to the clasp we will use Tornado (twisted) crimps. Wire attachments come as crimp beads, crimp tubes, screw tightened crimps, twisted crimps plus bead tips and more. Crimp beads or bead tips would be less expensive and I will demonstrate them in future discussions. (We're using Tornados since that is what I used in these bracelets.)


I used a plain silver plated lobster clasp and tab. I won't attempt to list all the different kinds of clasps but we'll get to them all... eventually. Lobster clasps are popular: they work equally well for necklaces or for blacelets. They are secure and, if you select the right kind, you can avoid jump rings. Yea!


Using Beading Wire


For stringing, I use beading wire way more often then thread, even
though it's more expensive. The fine weight wire "hangs" as nicely as
thread. In fact, for light beads, it adds more weight that in my
opinion makes them hang more nicely than thread does. It is stronger
than thread so I don't worry about a bracelet or necklace thread
letting go and the beads getting scattered all over the floor. I prefer
SoftFlex fine but most multi-strand, nylon coated brands are good
products. Tiger Tail does have more of a propensity to "kink" if bent
during assembly.


You can even knot fine beading wire although I don't. I don't trust the
knots to stay, um, knotted.


To begin, pull about 18 inches of wire out of the spool and replace the
"C" shaped keeper. This will lock the wire and prevent more wire from
unwinding. Leave the wire attached to the spool. This will prevent the
beads from falling off the end and it saves wire.


Beginning with an 8/o Delica and finishing with an 8/o Delica, string
alternating 8/o's and 11/o's to the desired length, (6.5 inches for a
7.5 inch bracelet). Make sure you can fit two thicknesses of wire
through the last 11/o.


There are two main reasons for the seed beads between the Delicas. One,
they look nice. Two, they allow the bracelet to bend. If you string
tube beads end to end (snugly enough so that there are no gaps), the
bracelet won't bend. This is true also for all beads that have flat
ends where the stringing material enters and exits. Try it and see. In
a way each seed bead, along with its neighbours, forms a ball joint.
String a Tornado crimp and the "tag" half of the clasp. After the tag,
thread the wire back through the crimp. Leaving an inch or a bit less
of wire exiting the crimp, pull the wire snug so that there is only a
small loop of wire going through the tag.


You should be holding both wires in your non-dominant hand now. - Make
sure the wires do not cross. - Flatten the crimp with your pliers.

NOTE: I have difficulty squeezing the crimps hard enough, especially the genuine band "Tornado" crimps which are heavier weight than the "no names", so I use the ends of my crimping pliers. This is a very small area thereby allowing me to exert much more pressure per square inch.

Now, push three beads along the wire towards the tag and thread the end
of the wire back through them and snip off the end. This is what the
"tag" end should look like.

You are now ready to attach the "lobster".
Slide all of the beads together against the tag you just attached and hold the wire up so the bracelet dangles. Give it a shake or two. This allows the beads to settle against each other. Snip the wire off the spool leaving 1.5 - 2 inches to work with. String a crimp, the lobster
and back through the crimp and the three beads closest to the end.


Pull the wire to snug up the beads so there is no gap and hold onto the end with your non-dominent hand. Flatten the crimp as you did before. For the lobster part of the clasp. You will need a slightly larger loop of wire else the clasp will not align straight with the bracelet: it will tilt off at an angle which although functional dosn't look very professional. To finish snip off the end of the wire.

Ginger

Klew Expressions

I've just added a link to the Klew Expressions site to my On Topic Links list. This lady, I think her name is Karen Lewis (but I'm not sure), does things with clay I never thought posible. I am in awe of her work. My favourites are her drum beads but it's all good. Here is a sample she has named "Faux Ivory". You can purchase beads, clay, findings, courses and jewellery incorporating her polymer clay beads. (I have no links with or financial relationship with her.)

The mainstay of her work is millifiori cut from canes built from colour blends (sometimes called "Skinner" blends named after the author of a technique to make them). But her work doesn't end there. She finishes her beads with stains and washes and transparent layers that raise the bead from something merely pretty to astonishing.

If you have a few moments to browse, pay them a visit.

Ginger

Santa and an Adventure With Grandma

.
I have a friend, Rosemary, who sends me stuff. I have no idea where she gets it... maybe she's on a bunch of lists, or she spends every spare moment surfing. Some of it is political, some inspirational, funny, shocking, but always thought-provoking. I will, from time to time as the spirit moves me, re-produce them here. I hope you enjoy. Here then with no further ado... "Santa and an Adventure With Grandma". Rosemary included no attribution but I know this is not a story from her personal experience.

Ginger

______________________

I remember my first Christmas adventure with Grandma. I was just a kid.

I remember tearing across town on my bike to visit her on the day my big sister dropped the bomb: "There is no Santa Claus," she jeered. "Even dummies know that!"

My Grandma was not the gushy kind, never had been. I fled to her that day because I knew she would be straight with me. I knew Grandma always told the truth, and I knew that the truth always went down a whole lot easier when swallowed with one of her world-famous cinnamon buns. I knew they were world-famous, because Grandma said so.

Grandma was home, and the buns were still warm. Between bites, I told her everything. She was ready for me. "No Santa Claus!" she snorted. "Ridiculous! Don't believe it. That rumor has been going around for years, and it makes me mad, plain mad. Now, put on your coat, and let's go."

"Go? Go where, Grandma?" I asked. I hadn't even finished my second world-famous cinnamon bun.

"Where" turned out to be Kerby's General Store, the one store in town that had a little bit of just about everything. As we walked through its doors, Grandma handed me ten dollars. That was a bundle in those days. "Take this money," she said, "and buy something for someone who needs it. I'll wait for you in the car." Then she turned and walked out of Kerby's.

I was only eight years old. I'd often gone shopping with my mother, but never had I shopped for anything all by myself. The store seemed big and crowded, full of people scrambling to finish their Christmas shopping. For a few moments I just stood there, confused, clutching that ten-dollar bill, wondering what to buy, and who on earth to buy it for.

I thought of everybody I knew: my family, my friends, my neighbors, the kids at school, the people who went to my church. I was just about thought out, when I suddenly thought of Bobby Decker.

He was a kid with bad breath and messy hair, and he sat right behind me in Mrs. Pollock's grade-two class. Bobby Decker didn't have a coat. I knew that because he never went out for recess during the winter. His mother always wrote a note, telling the teacher that he had a cough, but all the kids knew that Bobby Decker didn't have a cough, and he didn't have a coat.

I fingered the ten-dollar bill with growing excitement. I would buy Bobby Decker a coat! I settled on a red corduroy one that had a hood to it. It looked real warm, and he would like that.

"Is this a Christmas present for someone?" the lady behind the counter asked kindly, as I laid my ten dollars down.

"Yes," I replied shyly. "It's ... for Bobby."

The nice lady smiled at me. I didn't get any change, but she put the coat in a bag and wished me a Merry Christmas.

That evening, Grandma helped me wrap the coat in Christmas paper and ribbons (a little tag fell out of the coat, and Grandma tucked it in her Bible) and wrote, "To Bobby, From Santa Claus" on it - Grandma said that Santa always insisted on secrecy.

Then she drove me over to Bobby Decker's house, explaining as we went that I was now and forever officially one of Santa's helpers. Grandma parked down the street from Bobby's house, and she and I crept noiselessly and hid in the bushes by his front walk. Then Grandma gave me a nudge. "All right, Santa Claus," she whispered, "get going."

I took a deep breath, dashed for his front door, threw the present down on his step, pounded his door, and flew back to the safety of the bushes and Grandma. Together we waited breathlessly in the darkness for the front door to open. Finally it did, and there stood Bobby. Fifty years haven't dimmed the thrill of those moments spent shivering beside my Grandma, in Bobby Decker's bushes.

That night, I realized that those awful rumors about Santa Claus were just what Grandma said they were: "Ridiculous." Santa was alive and well, and we were on his team.

I still have the Bible, with the tag tucked inside: $19.95.

.... Anonymous

Toggle Technique 2

.
Not so much a technique but a cautionary tale. I used a toggle with a plain, unadorned bar on a necklace. Although plain, it was very fine and looked quite pretty. I will never use a toggle on a necklace if the bar does not have some kind of bump or lump or flatish bit at the ends. (Check the breast cancer awareness bracelet pictured in the very first post from yesterday.) This clasp is an instrument of torture with that bar poking me in the back of my neck like an overactive conscience. One of these days, I'll re-make the necklace with an "S" clasp - my favourite for necklaces. Till then, it's easier to deny myself the pleasure of wearing the necklace.

Toggle Technique 1

My first effort at beading was a bracelet with a "toggle" clasp. In case you aren't familiar with toggle clasps, I will describe them for you. (I still love them, mostly for bracelets.) A toggle clasp comprises a bar and an "O". The bar is attached to the bracelet (or whatever) at the middle.

To operate the toggle you fold the bar so that it is more or less parallel to the bracelet, poke it all the way through the "O" then straighten it so that the bar is perpendicular to the bracelet. The bars in a toggle set is usually a bit longer than the inside dimension of the "O". This prevents it from pulling out and opening the bracelet.
However, there is a crucial bit of information that isn't immediately obvious with mere observation. (A good life lesson there somewhere.) If the beads are close in diameter to the inside diameter of the toggle's "O" then the bar won't fold down enough for it to pass through the "O". In these cases you must attach the Bar to the bracelet with a short, maybe 3 links, piece of chain (or 3 small jump/split rings chained together) . This way the bar will fold down nice and flat and slide right through the "O".
I didn't allow for this. The bracelet is very pretty, (barring its other manufacturing 'amateurities' but totally unwearable. Sort of like some people, nice to look at but you just can't live with 'em.

So Where Are We Going Now

.
What I want to do with this blog is to write/ramble about beads and jewellery. Also, from time to time I may write about other stuff as the spirit moves me. Some of the topics that interest me include RVing & travel, the single life, women's issues, animal rights, photography, early retirement... and other stuff that passes into and out of my field of view.

As for beading, I spent years learning to make nice jewellery, (someday, I want to make great jewellery), I want to share the things I have learned and maybe save you a bit of trial and error frustration. I would also like to offer a question and answer (tutorial) section for folks who may want to ask questions or pose their problems. I will publish tips and techniques, patterns and reccommendations. I may add a "Donation" button, friends say I should, so folks can offer what they think my material is worth to them, if they want.

This is a concept which has worked with computer software. Someone develops a program and offers it to others as "shareware". You can use shareware and pay nothing to the author - nobody will know or do anything about it. But if you find the product useful, you can pay the author what the product is worth to you: only you know that. This honour system is working well enough for authors to continue to develop and release shareware.

I want to see if it works here.

Links

.
Do you ever surf and let the links take you where they will? I do, from time to time and always amaze myself at where I've ended up. The net is an amazing thing.

I was looking for some info on using a Blog as an e-commerce site and ended up at an entertaining "vegetable soup" blog posted by a fellow named Richard Soderberg. I've included it in my list of Off Topic links. It's called "floating atoll". Give it a peek if you're looking for some interesting, eclectic stuff with a bit of a techie bent.

I've also included a link to Tioga and George one of my favourite sites which I have followed for over a year. George, or rather Jorge at the moment since he is in Mexico now, lives full-time in his motorhome and 99% of the time he "boondocks". Boondocking in the RVing world is camping for free, usually with no services (water, electricity, sewers). He has a child-like writing style (not childish) which is charming, and a philosophy of life to be envied.

I recommend giving vagabonders supreme a looksee.

It's all Mom's Fault!

Yeah, that's right. Sure...

Mom is artsy: needlework, painting, sewing... you name it. Mom had also moved from a large three bedroom townhome to a small two bedroom apartment undergoing, in the process, the inevitable purge. Out went the paints, sewing machine, and other artsy stuff. Ruthless that woman is.

Mom is also difficult in the extreme to buy for. "Oh, I don't want anything, Dear. I have everything I need." You've got one of those too, eh? Well, there I was in one of the trendy areas of town and there was the bead shop. They had all these pretty baskets with cellophane shreds and nested there all these little tubes of pretty beads. There was everything you needed to make a jewellery box full of earrings, bracelets, necklaces - even a couple of key rings. It was all I could do not to buy two: one for Mom and one for me. Greedy me.

I have bought Mom clothing I've never seen since. Books that now reside in the building's lending library. Jewellery that's "too nice" for the places she goes.

She really loves the coffee at my place. I use only Colombian beans and use a Bodum coffee press which, in my opinion makes the best coffee anywhere. So, I bought her a bag of Colombian beans, a grinder and a Bodum pot with a matching set of coffee cups. I swear the only time it gets used is when I visit. She always has to get instructions on how much coffee, how to run the grinder etc etc. (She never has to ask how much Tasters Choice to put into the cup.)

One year I figured I'd really cracked the code and bought her a case of edible treats: black olive bread sticks, lobster bisque, a packet of saffron, smoked oysters, Paris toasts... You get the picture. A couple of years later I found them at the back of one of the top shelves in her kitchen. "They're too fancy for me." What should I give her a case of cream of tomato soup and a box of saltines?

Anyway, back to the beads. I was really happy to find the beading kit. I gave it to her with hopeful expectations. She seemed so excited about it but then she always seems excited about the presents I give her. Guess what! I never saw one article that came from that darn kit. Until one day, we were chatting about hobbies and stuff. I mentioned that beading seemed like an interesting hobby. "Just a minute, I have something for you." And off she went. I just knew what was coming back. And there it was, all pretty and shiny with cellophane shreds and lots of little tubes filled with every colour in the rainbow and some no rainbow has ever seen.

"I really haven't had the time to use this - maybe you would like to give it a try." I felt the greed rising in my throat. Oh, OK, I said non-chalantly, unwrapping the basket. Conversation stumbled to a halt while I rooted around in that stash.

That was the beginning of my addiction. And it really was all Mom's fault, right?


This is a set I made for Mom, at her request, to her specification. It is Carnelian and Fire Agate with gold filled findings. I will let you know if/when I ever see it actually on her person.

Getting Started

I confess. I am addicted.

I buy beads and make jewellery. The making isn't keeping up with the buying. (Let's not even mention the selling.) Yet I continue buying. How can anyone resist the gold spirals cat, the irridescent pink leaves, the new dusty rose Swarovski crystals...? How did it begin, you ask? Well, it's all Mom's fault. Isn't it always?

Stay tuned for all the dirty details.

The first bracelet I ever sold was just like this one. It's a cancer awareness bracelet using Swarovski crystals, AB glass drucks and sterling silver findings and spacer beads. I am still using the same silver toggle clasp on most of my silver bracelets.