It's Day 1 of Our First-Ever "Inventory Reduction Sale" - OY VEH! LOL

My desktop computer is being a bit cranky this morning - probably matching my mood. It's a Monday, I stayed up and watched football (GOOD games) and am resigned to once again seeing Patrick Mahomes in a Super Bowl. Although, seriously, I have to congratulate Kansas City. It's their fourth time at the Super Bowl in five years, and that's an outstanding achievement. Still, it's going to be Kansas City vs San Francisco again - shades of 2020! I was hoping Detroit could pull things out against San Francisco, but they just fell apart in the second half. 

It's Kansas City vs San Francisco in this year's Super 
Bowl. I'm not thrilled with it, but it should be a good 
game - entertaining to watch. They were last in this 
situation in 2020, so it's a repeat experience for both 
teams. 

Today is the first day of our first "Six Day 50% Off Clearance Sale" and we're concentrating specifically on Delica beads. Delica beads are a Japanese seed bead, made in several different sizes and two shapes - cylindrical and hexagonal cylinders. The most popular size is the size 11o, and we've got almost 50 of those included in the sale, but the majority of what we're offering for this are the other sizes - the 8o, 10o and 15o sizes. For those of you who aren't using this product, the 8o and 10o sizes are larger and the 15o size is smaller than the more commonly used 11o size. 

These are regular rounded seed beads, not Delica beads, 
but you can get an idea regarding the size differences 
and shapes. The most commonly used size is the Size 11, 
the next most commonly used sizes split pretty evenly 
between Size 8 and Size 10. 

People first entering beadwork get confused by the sizes. They're like anyone .. the larger the number, the larger the bead. Except, for beads, it goes back a century or more and the numerical designation roughly corresponds to how many beads would fit a predetermined measurement - like an inch, although that may not have been the size the factories started using initially. Still, the numbering system stuck, and although there might not be exactly 11 beads in an inch for an 11o bead, it's close enough. 

What I sell in my store are the two categories on the 
left - the standard 11o round seed beads (from several 
factories and two different countries) and the Miyuki 
Delica beads - a true cylinder bead with exceptionally 
standard sizing bead to bead. I fell in love with these 
when they were first introduced and they're still a 
favorite of mine. The second bead is the one we're 
putting on sale this week. 

Around 2:30 am, I awakened with a horrible thought. I have a specific style of 11o pulled for the sale. They were collected and organized and strung by Chickie into a sample strand, and she made a list of the Part Numbers for me - more than 100 beads. HOWEVER, I also need the Price Lookup Numbers so that we can actually pull those beads for people wanting any of them. OOPS. My early morning at the shop will be spent doing a quick look-up of those secondary numbers so that I can effectively sell the items. 

The Price Lookup Code (PLU) is what I need to plug into 
my computerized cash register to be able to sell the 
product. The Delica Bead part number is the color number 
and we organize our beads by those numbers. Our 
string of beads on sale are also organized by our 
part number, but we need to find the beads by the 
PLU. Oops. First thing I'll be doing, as soon as I 
get into the shop, is making a cross-reference list 
so that beads can be pulled easily. 

Also, it's a Monday. It's Chickie's "day off" and I'm working with DH (who tries to be helpful, and usually only gets in the way). By the end of the day, I'll be a wreck - LOL. If I can get today to run smoothly, tomorrow will be a breeze with Chickie, and hopefully I'll have all of the kinks worked out so that Chickie will be OK on Wednesday and Friday and I'll get my own days off. We'll see. In the meanwhile, since I don't have anything else earthshaking to share (not that any of the above is earthshaking either - LOL), I'm signing off. Have an excellent Monday and I'll be back tomorrow for a quick post before hitting the road to get to the swimming pool. Slava Ukraini and חיים למען ישראל.

Let's Embrace Color Today - National Crayon Day

I cherish my early morning quiet time, but today I sacrificed that time for the sake of an additional hour of sleep. After I was finally finished with my morning meditation (it's always a joy to have a non-gym day because I'm not on a time schedule), I went downstairs and took my shower, then made my two morning cups of tea. DH awakened an hour early because he fell asleep during "Inspector Morse" last night. The captioning was spotty at best, so he completely lost track of the plot lines fairly early on. 

I love the show, but I REALLY love the car. 
That vintage Jaguar is stunning. I'd love a ride 
in that one! 

Happy "National Crayon Day" to all of you. I've known and loved Crayons since I was a small child. I always have some handy - there's just nothing like them. They've been around for a very long time, having first been made in 1904. To celebrate such a wonderful day, look for color in your life today - a picture on a wall, a colorful street light, a car with a brilliant blue paint job. There is color all around, and we are all fortunate enough to see parts of it. 

I love crayons. I love the colors, the feel, even the 
smell (which brings back wonderful memories). 
One of the best gifts my parents could buy for me 
were the big 64-crayon boxes with the built-in 
sharpener. Best Gift EVER! 

I've discussed color perception in the past - the various ways in which we perceive, or don't perceive color around us. There are red/green perception issues, and blue/yellow ones. There are problems with depth perception in some instances, and shadow figures in others. Although we all perceive something (even those without sight, perceive things through sound, touch and other senses), we really don't see alike. 

Black is the traditional funeral wear in the USA 
and much of the West, but sometimes families will 
request other colors for people attending funerals 
for their loved ones. The Funeral Director should 
have that information if you're wondering about a 
specific instance you'll be attending. 

Color also plays a cultural role. In the USA, the basic color for funerals and death is black, but in Japan, it's white and in southern Africa, it's often red. Color is as different as culture, as different as one person is from another. Yet, my store and my living depends on color. My customers, generally, are working with color in their projects. They're coming in for specific colors or are trying to expand their color selections in their personal collections. Even those purchasing jewelry are often pulled to a piece because of their perception of color as much as pattern and shape. 

Working with beads is, in essence, painting with glass 
without having to actually use a kiln and glass cutting 
tools. Beads are friendly, portable pieces of color and 
can be used by children as well as adults. They're quite 
addictive, too - LOL. 

Let's all embrace color today, as well as the diversity between all of us. Not one of us perceives color the same as another, so embrace those differences, it's one more facet of what keeps us interesting to others. Slave Ukraini. 

Swimming, Customers and Dreams Of Etsy Dominion (On a Small Scale) - LOL

Back to the pool today, and I got my new skinsuit for the outside pool in yesterday's UPS shipment. So I should be set for next week with two skinsuits. I also bought a new paddle board - this one a different shape, made for more variety of work than the flat fairly large board I've been using up until now. It's been darned cold in the mornings, so running in and out of the outdoor pool will be miserable for a while, but that water will feel SO good. Nonetheless, I'm going to enjoy these last three days inside. 

Those of us who are 5:00 am people usually aren't seeing 
the outdoor pool with this much light - LOL, but the water 
will be gloriously warm after the outside temperatures. Right 
now our outdoor temps are in the 50's at that time of day. 

I suspect the YMCA will also be discarding their reservations system except for raquetball courts starting on Monday. I don't really see how they could enforce it in the outdoor pool, the entry slips will fly all over the place if they're not contained. We usually have some sort of a breeze going on - Mother Earth rarely is absolutely still and quiet. So it's going to be a whole new world. Also, we'll get a lot of swimmers we only see in the summer because they come to our area specifically for the outdoor pool. We'll be a lot more crowded in general. But not so much at 5:00 am. That's the blessing of being an early morning person. 

One of the things that my new customer does 
is mosaic over skulls. This is NOT one 
of her pieces, but it is similar to some she 
showed me photos of. She uses a variety 
of items for her mosaics, including beads. 
I was more than happy to supply her with 
lots of fun, assorted beads. LOL

I started the day out at the shop with a bang. A long-time customer brought a visiting friend over, and she got a lot of beads and supplies to use in her artwork. I forced DH to pull beads while I worked with the two of them, and she had both of us hopping for an hour or so. She was a lot of fun to meet. All told, I was busy throughout the day, but the main groups came in the morning so I was also able to get quite a lot of computer work done on my crystals. I'll continue that today. I only hope I'm setting everything to the correct sizes so that they'll all look great. I'm following Etsy's directions, but I've always got this small worry in the back of my head. 

I started with the cubes for several reasons. 
It's my smallest department for Swarovski 
bead shapes, and the cubes are the easiest 
to photograph. I'll have a much harder time 
photographing the round and the bicone 
shapes. They'll tend to move all over while 
I'm photographing them. Time to research 
ways to keep them stable. 

I'm noticing that a few photos didn't transfer from my phone, so I'll have to look those up individually and get them shifted; 99% of the photos did move, though, so I'm able to forge ahead and I'm certainly keeping busy. LOL Still lots to do before I can to a major transfer over to my Etsy account, though, and I will have to review all the photos and probably retake a few that just aren't clear enough on second (or third) look. Still - I'm pretty happy with where I'm at. I knew this would not be an easy job, and it's not, but I can make myself into a major player. I have enough stock to do that. 

I'm happy with the way I went on the 
current story challenge, although I should 
have proofread one more time. Still, with 
that exception of a slip-up in POV, it's 
a strong and entertaining little tale. 

So I'm wrapping this up and heading out to the pool. Voting is open for my Oscar the Grouch and OP the opossum story, and if you liked the story and are a "Registered Voter", I'd very much appreciate your vote. I always wonder if it's quite Kosher to vote for myself, but I haven't broken down to try that yet. It seems like that would be cheating. Have an excellent Tuesday and I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini. 

Holiday Cards and Thoughts About Closing the Store - I Need A Magic Wand

I'm getting into the final stages of this year's Holiday Card now, and am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. There's still more to do ... not least of which is making sure everything will fit properly into the envelopes. That's a rather important bit, I think - LOL. I'll bring one of the inserts to the shop with me today for a test-fit. I also have to go to the bank first thing this morning, and today is "pay bills" day at the shop, so I won't have much chance to "rest" until the afternoon. 

I'm always pretty busy, but this next year will 
be especially busy for us. Besides the regular 
day-to-day business, we're also trying to arrange 
to close sometime next year, and that might be 
a logistical nightmare. 

Of course, we got a large order delivered late last week, and another one delivered yesterday, so we're moving "full speed ahead" into the holiday season. We're low on some things - not as many low-end earrings available for sale this year, and our beadwork case could use a few sets of earrings, but we're not restocking anything but those things we must have - the more popular beads, and the materials with which to work with them. 

Looking from this view, you can see rolled leather 
on top of the leather area super structure, lots of beads and 
small baggies for beadwork and jewelry components, 
freshwater pearls hanging down from the main superstructure 
of this section of displays, and some of the jewelry 
cases. This is mainly Chickie's area. Her workstation 
is here. 

When I first started in business, I was much more trusting. We had cases and cabinets, certainly, but we also had a lot of items that weren't that protected. It only took a few people to get us to put things behind glass and use locks. It installed a basic mistrust into my soul. That only increased when I had my Mall of America store, although the only things we really had out that were able to be stolen were books and greeting cards. We still had our share of shoplifters, though. It was a relief to close that location and move everything over to the current building. 

This is much closer to my view. The cash wrap 
is to my right, ahead of me are the jewelry-making 
tools (hammers, etc for working with silver). Some 
cording and spools of chain are to the right of the white 
pole, stone hangs on the superstructure behind it. 
All of those little bits of color on the right are 
different beads - some of the thousands of beads 
that we sell. 

I brought over all of the display cases I had custom built for my MOA location, and we installed them into the current shop. We did a lot of re-arranging over the years, adding new product lines and dropping others. We shifted things and tried new layouts, we ordered additional display cases and built a couple of other displays for the leather and leatherworking area we added. A lot of that area proved to be a good gamble, but we still have some hides we purchase that are still awaiting their forever home. As we learned what our customers wanted, we focused on those areas and dropped others. Like most businesses, we evolved. 

Does anyone have an effective magic wand they could 
lend me for the next few months? I think I'll need some 
magic to get this place wrapped up without going 
overboard with stress. 

Now we're moving into our final holiday season and looking at the multitude of product that we still need to sell or find new homes for. Shutting this place down in less than a year won't be easy, but it has to be done. I both need and want to "retire". Basically, I need and want to be able to do my own thing for at least a few years of my life. So that's our goal over the next months. Wrap things up to the best of our ability. Find other outlets for any leftover product. Run a six-week "Business Closing" sale which will drive all of us totally up the wall, and finally rent a storage facility on a monthly basis until we can get the last of the items into new homes or out on consignment. Does anyone have a magic wand I can borrow? LOL 

Have an excellent final day of November and I'll be back on the 1st of December! Tempus fugit, and I'm doing the same. See you tomorrow. 

A Busy Bee and a Roast - Life Is Never Boring

We got a large shipment of beads into the shop yesterday, so I'm quite sure I've got my work for the day already set aside for me. There will be price tags to enter and inventory quantities to update - I'll be busy from start to finish. I'd better get everything I want done on my laptop finished before my day starts at 10:00 am. 

I suspect today and Monday will be extremely busy 
computer days for me. Probably Tuesday as well. 
My eyes and fingers will get a work out. 

Yesterday was a busy day, although I actually did have a little time in the afternoon to roast some nuts for my evening munchies. I didn't have the time to drive all the way to Mississippi Market, so my Friday shopping trip was a quick in-and-out at my local grocery store. I also had to do a quick run to my local pharmacy for a vitamin supplement I had forgotten I needed to get, but except for that, I was home for the day. 

I watched Jamie Oliver's video of cooking tuna 
steaks a couple of times, then cooked my own 
piece. It turned out absolutely lovely! 

Dinner was absolutely lovely. DH wanted McDonald's fish fillets for his final dinner of Lent, and I had a lovely piece of tuna I had purchased from Mississippi Market on Wednesday. I got his Mickey-D's and then began seasoning and frying up my tuna to a beautiful medium rare. I had watched some videos by Jamie Oliver earlier in the day, so had a good idea of what to do and what spices to use. It turned out magnificent and very tasty. All in all, I'd call last night's dinner a success. 

I'm hoping I cook the rib roast well. I'm 
usually pretty good with this cut of meat, 
but any time I'm cooking something this 
expensive, I get a bit nervous. 

I have tomorrow's rolled rib roast defrosting in the refrigerator and it will be ready for the oven tomorrow. I have fresh green beans that I'll make with minced fresh garlic and a few other things, and I have one other veggie for a side dish, so we won't starve on Easter Sunday. I hope all of you have a totally lovely weekend and I'll be back on Monday. Please don't forget to try and stay safe, be well, and please wear your mask. 

My Day Off and a Seed Bead Explanation

It's my :day off" and my first load of laundry is already washed and ready for the dryer. I looked ahead at the weather forecast (called a forecast because it's never actually accurate, just a best-guess scenario) and today would be the best day to head to the bank. I have some things that have to be handled for the business, and that requires an in-person trip over there, so I'll make sure to do that first thing in the morning as soon as they open. That will at least give me a sense of accomplishment for the day - LOL. 

Although there were a lot of pictures of people against beautiful
skies, I really loved this simple and textured trio as an image
for accomplishment. That jumping for joy feeling is so prevalent
when looking around after conquering a difficult task. 

I have a list of things I have to do, not least of which is pulling my 2019 paid invoices from the "current" file and putting them into order into a "past" file. I'm 2/3 through January and haven't been able to file any of my paid bills for the month yet. It's annoying and I want this completed. I also would love to give my computer desk a thorough clean. DH cleaned his the other day and suddenly I see the surface of his desk! It's really quite shocking. Unfortunately, my desk isn't magically following his good example, so if I have some time this afternoon, I'll dive into my own desk. 

I totally understand this sentiment. Right now, although I might
not be able to immediately put my hands on X, Y or Z, I actually
do know where I will find it. It might be buried down a bit, but
I can put my hands on it relatively quickly. That may not be the
case if I clean the desktop, but it really needs to be done. 

I also have the usual - grocery shopping and misc loads of laundry - and I would like to get a start on the culling of my 11o seed beads. For those who don't know, seed beads (small beads made from glass which are stitched together to make larger projects) come in several different sizes and shapes. The most commonly used size is what's called an 11o - an archaic term that might have been based on the number of beads per inch, but that really holds no relevance today. Other common sizes are 15o (smaller than the 11o) and 8o (larger than the 11o). I have all of these and more. 

I generally use 11o and 15o beads in my projects, but my customers
who do bead knitting will often use the larger 6/0 and even 5/0 sizes.
The 11o size is the most common size, however, and has the
greatest range of available colors. 

The storage system that DH built for me many years ago is extraordinary. It has space for 420 tubes of 11o beads. I probably own closer to 1000 tubes, so I need to lay everything out and decide which beads I want to keep and which ones I want to sell or store. I have minimal room for storage, and seeing the colors are important for my work, so putting the excess away isn't very functional. But decisions have to be made, so I might at least start the thought process on this. 

Not only are seed beads available in a variety of sizes, but they are
also available in a variety of shapes. I think it was a lot easier when
I was painting - I used more than 80 colors of acrylics, but it was a
much smaller playground. 

So my day continues - some cleaning, some cooking, some shopping and some errands. In the long run, everything I do today will have to be repeated again in a week - LOL. Be that as it may, I'm still looking forward to my "day off" and wish each of you a Wonderful Wednesday. I'll be back tomorrow. 

Some Glass Working Skills from Loren Stump

I finally gave up and emailed an acquaintance about the name of my mystery bead maker. Loren Stump! I knew it was an L and an S, but his name completely escaped me. It was my first "major" bead show, and early in the history of what would evolve into the Bead & Button Show. The arena was filled with vendors, most of which were art glass bead makers. I had only been introduced to the art form within the previous year, and I was fascinated. 

I love this Loren Stump Taxi Cab bead. From
the driver to the sign, it's a work of art in
miniature. 

This show is where I met artists whose beads became items I wore proudly for years (and still wear) as well as the start of a collection of beads by major names in the art. In 1994, the infamous OJ Simpson white Bronco "chase" happened, followed by his arrest and that crazy trial that made reputations and dashed others. Loren Stump was inspired to make a variety of vehicle beads from glass, among which was one, specific white vehicle - the OJ Simpson White Bronco. 

Here's Loren's photo of one of his White Bronco beads. OJ
Simpson is sitting in the back seat, Al Cowling at the wheel.
Loren actually did a full set of all of the vehicles involved
in the chase, but I own one of his White Bronco beads. 

The detail of the bead floored me. I actually bought a lot of his vehicle beads, but DH said "No, we can't afford a check that large, you'll have to return all but one." So, the next day I brought back the taxi, school bus, and others, but I kept the OJ Simpson White Bronco which said "Guilty" on the license plate. It was a marvel. 

Here's the rest of the OJ Simpson set - all of the chase vehicles. I loved
the little police car, but had to pass on the full set - just didn't have the
available funds. 

Doing a search under his name, I'm delighted to see that he's still in business and still creating amazing beads and miniature glass sculptures in his studio, as well as teaching the next generation(s) of lampworkers. I'm still delighted with my White Bronco bead and will add his name into the slot where I keep the bead so that I don't lose the identification a second time. 

Loren also did miniature statues in glass. He did
a series of Samuri Warriors, including this one.
He still teaches at his studio, Stumpchuck. If you
are a glass worker and want to hone your skills, you
could do worse than taking a class from Loren Stump. 

I'm meeting my security alarm technician early at the store today - this will be the third time this week! There better be a fix, because my patience has just about reached the end of my rope. Here's hoping you have a grand Friday and I'll be back tomorrow.