Thanks & Almost Time for Soup!

I've been so overwhelmed with all the nice comments that were left on my last post.  Thank you to everyone who posted, and everyone who visited!  I'm now up to 490 views of my blog!  If you here to check out my post for the Memories and Thanks blog hop, click here.

I have a couple of fun blog hops coming up.  My first one is the Lucite and Clay Hop on February 2nd!  I'll give you a little tease of the goodies I was sent to work with, but you'll have to come back next Saturday to see what I created.

The second hop I'm doing is the Holiday Bling Blog Hop 3 hosted by the wonderfully talented Marlene Cupo and Shelley Graham Turner. This hop is unique because you and your partner get to decide the holiday theme of the finished item you want to swap.  You can choose from any holiday that takes place in February or March.  Now, if you think that limits you to Valentine's and St. Patrick's, check out this site for all of the quirky ones: Days of the Year.  The link will take you to March, but you can easily see the rest of the year by clicking on the top of the page. In March, there's Pig Day, Earmuffs Day, and Quirky Country Music Song Titles Day, just to name a few.  If you'd like to sign up, go visit Swaps by Marlene and Shelley for all the details.  Signs up end on the 27th or when they get 30 participants, so please check it out now if you're interested.

The third hop I'm participating in is the 7th Bead Soup Blog Party hosted by the awesome Lori Anderson.  This hop is the reason I started a blog in the first place!  I'm super excited to finally get to participate.  I could  explain to you how it works, but Lori did that already much better than I could on her blog.  If you want to know the details, visit Lori here.  She also had a great post about what you should include in your soup that you might what to check out.  Sign ups start this Friday and end on Sunday.  Last time, there were over 400 participants!

On a sales note, I haven't had my first sale on etsy yet, but I know it will happen!  I'm working on a couple of custom pieces right now for my best client.  I'll share some pictures of those after my hop on the 2nd.

Memories and Thanks Blog Hop

I'm going out of town, so I'm posting this a couple of days early to make sure it shows up. :)

I've had so many different ideas about who I was going to thank or a memory I wanted to share, so I might make this a monthly blog post.

I'm so thankful for all of the wonderful beaders I've met on the internet.  It's so much fun to be able to get to know you all in different parts of the world.  When I first started this blog, one of my first followers was Tanya from Thailand.  I entered a contest on her blog called Free Beads for Blogging and won!  I was very excited to receive goodies from her.  If you'd like to read my original post, click here.  After that, Tanya and I became email buddies.  We exchanged bunny and cat stories, and vented about issues in each others life.  Then, how it sometimes happens, we both got busy and the emails stopped.  You know how you think that you really should contact someone, but it always seems to never happen?  Please, please contact them.  You never know when the time will come when you won't be able to do so.

As many of you reading this know, Tanya past away on the 2nd.

I've been holding aside the beads she sent me, because I wanted to make something really special with them. In our last email, Tanya called me 'angel girl.'  I don't know what else to say, this has been very difficult to write.  I made this for Tanya, and while it's not perfect, I think she would like it.

Angels for the True Angel

The green pearls, peach Swarovski, and the milk glass beads all came from what Tanya gave me.

I hope to remake this bracelet next week with some miyukis and get a better photo.

Thank you, Lori for hosting this hop!  Also, thank you Lena. :)