Five minutes of fame - Magazine profile coolness!

Well, I am hopeful that people all over Australia are running out to buy the latest issue (Vol 9 No 1)of Creative Beading Magazine and turn to page 24 to read my profile!!!!  What can I say, but... "Its Out"!!!!   Yahoooooo! 

I have never had something like this done before, so after I got over my intial surprise at being asked, I was excited and fearful in equal measure.  Excited, because lets face it, its not every day you see your own name in print let alone a whole profile on yourself.  Fearful, because what if the editors didn't realise that you weren't actually that important or accomplished or clever and when they write the article I sound like a knob!!!!   Well, thank goodness Sharon (or Shazza as I think of her) who wrote the article on me was absolutely lovely and extraordinarily clever at putting it all together.  She is a journalistic genius to make me sound so interesting and yet not resort to a single untruth!!!!  LOL

One part of my magazine article journey that really did not work out was the profile picture of myself... lets just say that my eldest daughter Grace and and I had about 500 digital photo disasters and then promptly gave up to let my beads speak for themselves

.... here were a couple of the rejects LOL (although I have used the one with my tongue out as a facebook avatar.... just to scare my mates mostly ;-) 

Along with making a huge effort to try and catch up with some orders and odds and ends, I have been manically working to get some stock into my etsy store.  A bit of a recent sideline has been making some tiny eyeball cabochons for use in jewellery design which has been fun.  I have decided to use them as a way of testing out some glass colour and frit, sort of like a sampler... some are human and realistic, but there are also some ring-in's and I have definitely had fun making a few zombie apocalypse style :-)

Here's a little handful of the eyes..... elicits many opportunities for Puns I reckon!!!

I am having a fabulous time with my glass lately...... I would spend all day and all night on my torch if I could... its a good feeling!!!!!    :-)


 

Beads... beads and more beads!

Its actually interesting the way my brain works (but scary no doubt LOL).  First I work hard to get beads made, then I flitter off and do some off mandrel work.... then I flitter off again and try out some strange "I had a dream in the middle of the night" sort of torch session.  I really do wish I could exercise some self control and settle down to doing just the one thing each day!!!!

Given my excitement at the fact that Creative Beading Mazagine has just done a profile on yours truly.... not just a wee little mention.... but a whopping three and a half whole pages!!!!  I thought I should actually put some stuff into my etsy store... specifically some beads... just in case anyone wants a Natalie Monkivitch special if you know what I mean!

Well, when I checked the pathetic stash, there was hardly a bead to be found, so off to the torch I have gone... with a mission.... to make a set.  Yep for those that know me well the word set usually sets my knees to knocking and causes a watery feeling the bowels.... Set allergy it might be called (but slack arse lack of self discipline it really is)!!

I am very pleased to say that I did manage not one set.... but two fairly big (for me) sets.  I also got right into the swing of bead making again, not that I had stopped or anything, but I had definitely been distracted.  I have had a real ball with it.  First off here is the first set I made using scrap twisties off my workbench, they are italian soft glass and using the bead press (another thing I am usually averse to).

Green Scrap bead set

After being so pleased at the success of the first set, and with the satisfied feeling that I had actually knuckled down and achieved something, I made some twisties for a second set in different colours.  I hope everyone notices that I EVEN made the spacers to match..... yahoo!!!

Pink, blue and turquoise twistie scrap bead set

Amazingly I have managed to photograph them and list them in my etsy, although I will admit to a fairly lengthy delay in removing them from the mandrels and cleaning them.... I seemed to keep walking past and thinking of something more interesting to do ..... as other glass bead makers will attest... cleaning beads is not the funnest part of the whole process!!!

Of course I went back for a second torch session and made some off mandrel cabochons for some more pocket watches.... I particularly like this dragons eye one.... I don't even know why, but it looked rather cool in real life.  It probably won't sell or anything, but that is part of the problem with making things only to your own tastes... I hardly ever make anything yellow or orange unless it is for a particular person, its time I branched out a bit I reckon!!!

Dragons eye cabochon on pocket watch