The Bead Spot

Time management and crafts (Image by Gratisography/Ryan McGuire/ FreeRangeStock.com )  Do bad time management practices negatively affect your crafts hobby? It does mine. For instance, this week, I took a few days off work to burn some use-it-or-lose-it paid time off I've accrued at work. My plan for those days was to finally cross off a whole lot of tasks that have long been on my to-do list before I begin another crafts project. Here is the list of what I didn't get done: Clear clothes that don't fit out of my daughter's closet. Get rid of toys she hasn't played with in a long time. Gather up the clothes that don't fit me. Take all of that in to a resale shop. Finally finish organizing my crafts supplies. I did manage to get some important things done, and some not-so-important things, during my few days off. But, everything above that didn't get done makes me feel like my house is cluttered, and that makes it hard for me to tackle so

My daughter had some spending money this past weekend, an early gift from her aunt and uncle. So the next time she and I went to our local Walmart Supercenter, I picked the groceries I needed, then she and I headed toward the toy section. But we didn't make it that far. As we came up on the crafts section, my daughter spotted an endcap full of these pottery wheels.  My daughter's new pottery wheel "Oh, Mommy! Can I get that?" she asked. I looked at the price, saw it was within the $20 she had, and told her that was fine. "But are you sure that's how you want to spend your money? Because that's going to take all of it," I told her. "Do you want to look at the toys first?" "I want this," she said. I must admit, I was pleased. I've had my eye on these pottery wheels for quite some time. Several years ago, I even toyed with taking a pottery class but decided against it because of the expense and the time it wo

1st snowman attempt using Beader's Canvas My daughter liked the jack-o-lantern necklace I made for her so much that I've wanted to create another glow-in-the-dark necklace for her for winter, and what better project, I thought, than a snowman? On Sunday, I tried to map out a snowman's head on Beader's Canvas , and after having done so, I no longer think that it will make a good necklace. I think a full snowman, using the glow-in-the-dark pony beads I have, would be too big, but if I create only a snowman head, I'm not sure people will get that it's a snowman instead of just some guy with a top had and a very red nose. I might still try it, but I think that ultimately, the project will just be a wall hanging.

A previous order from Fusion Beads Where I live, bead shops are few and far between, so most of the time when I buy beads, I'm buying them from a website. We do have some major crafts retailers — Hobby Lobby and Michaels — which don't carry the types of beads I'm looking for, as well as a few individual bead sellers, but the closest is an hour away, which means going there takes planning and taking a day off my day job. Therefore, most of my stash comes from websites. My top 3 go-to places: Fire Mountain Gems , Shipwreck Beads and Fusion Beads , but I'm always on the lookout for a new place. Here are the three sites I'd like to try: Harlequin Beads This site caught my eye mainly because it has Czech Charlotte beads, which I've used in projects such as the round earrings my grandmother was seeking . I love how Charlottes shimmer, and I can't find them just anywhere. It's been long enough since I've bought Charlottes that I don't know

Getting bead supplies organized I cannot tell you how many times lately that I've set aside, say, an hour to work on a project and then wound up spending the first 30 minutes or so trying to track down a tool, a particular bead or stringing material that I've misplaced. More often than not, I've given up and just made do without. I still don't know, for instance, where my best pair of flush cutters is. I've organized my entire stash of beading supplies before, but that was a long, long time ago, like before my 5-year-old daughter was born by a year or so. It's definitely time to go through it all again and separate the Delica beads from the Czechs, the big-eyed needles from the leather craft ones, separate all clasps from jump rings, gather all my books into a single location, and so on. I haven't been bead supply shopping in the last several years anywhere near as much as did a few years ago, and I've made several projects since my last order

Halloween is my favorite holiday. I love the colors of pumpkins, watching semi-scary movies, the coolness of autumn in Oklahoma, and just seeing what every trick-or-treater I know wears for the big night. Every year, I plan to get extra crafty for Halloween, telling myself I'm going to make a big pile of Halloween stuff for kids, then list it all on Etsy. Every year, I also get very surprised by how quickly my window to get anything done closes. This year, for instance, I managed to get one thing done. Just one: a glow-in-the-dark beaded pumpkin necklace I told my daughter she could have. I planned to also make a ghost and a witch, and I felt like I had plenty of time. But here we are just 19 days from Halloween, and I'm wondering whether it's worth the hassle to try to get anything done. I plan to try; maybe if I have three to five items ready to go this weekend, I'll go ahead and list them on Etsy this year. If not, at least I'll have a jump-start on Ha

Daisy chain bracelets in fall oranges and browns. (And a blue bracelet I made in 2015) Ah, fall. I love the colors, especially when you can look across several mountains and see varying shades of reds and oranges. That's the view I get when I drive to my parents' home or when my husband, daughter, and I go visit his family. In my own backyard, fall colors never last long. One day the leaves are gorgeous, the next they're the same color as the inside of cereal box. Looking for a simple project to do last week, I had my mind on this season and pumpkins. (Yes, I am a pumpkin spice fan.) I chose Czech seed beads in two shades of orange, chocolate brown, and off-white pearl, and then I cranked out a few daisy chain bracelets while I listened to the "Undisclosed " podcast. I might not get much fall color in my backyard, but at least I'll have it in my craft box. What seasons do you most like to create crafts for? Let me know in the comments section bel

Seed bead bracelet in progress Lately, I've had a lot of job stress that's made me wish more and more that I had the courage to throw caution to the wind, turn in my notice, and turn my crafts into a business. Here are the biggest reasons why I love making crafts: Reason 1: It's calming ... Eventually When I am in the "what am I going to make phase?" my stress level goes up as I struggle to think of something new to try or to create a new pattern for an old project. But once I know what I'm making and can settle in and work on it, I feel a calmness I don't normally feel during waking hours. It's a peaceful, relaxing way to spend an hour or two ... Eventually. Reason 2: Completing a project feels good Recently, my grandma asked me to make earrings for a woman at her doctor's office. The woman had requested some, knowing that my grandma knows a few people who make authentic Native American jewelry, but she wasn't specific beyo

I have to give my 5-year-old some credit on this. I could tell before I even started on the pumpkin that the pony beads would make it too big for a child her age to wear as a bracelet, so I thought of making it a necklace instead. However, once I got the first row complete, I thought it would be too big for a necklace too. But I moved forward anyway and figured I'd decide what it would be when I was completely done with it. It was my daughter who said she wanted it to be a necklace anyway, no matter how big it wound up being. So I told her I would put a string in it so she could wear it as a necklace. I was going to make the chain in all black beads, but she suggested three black then three orange. The end result, I think, looks pretty good. And it really doesn't look as huge as I thought it was going to, so hats off to my little girl for creative savvy. I plan to make more, but I need to buy more beads first. The package of glow-in-the-darks I bought

For the first time in a long while, I fired up my Beader's Canvas software to map out a pumpkin in peyote stitch.* In no time flat, I had the basic pattern, and then I printed it off. This is how it turned out. That is a regular-size, 8.5x11-inch sheet of paper, and that printout -- see my tiny little jack-o-lantern in the upper-right corner -- doesn't help much. My husband and I had a laugh over that, and then I remembered that to get it the size I want, I have to save it as a JPEG then print that file out. Hopefully I remember that next time, because I can't afford to have to print everything twice. *I decided to use brick stitch when I started the project .

Glow-in-the-dark pony beads* I've had my eye on glow in the dark beads for more than a year. After getting an Amazon gift card for my birthday in July, I finally got them. Yay! That's the good news. The bad news is that they're bigger than I expected. I knew what size they were -- pony -- when I bought them, but because I work mostly with size 10 and 11 beads, I didn't realize just how big pony beads are by comparison, which is too big to create the patterns I had in mind for a bracelet for a child my daughter's age. So, rather than make bracelets, I think I'll use the patterns for necklace charms and wall decor. Hopefully little girls will still like them. *I tried to have a little fun with my new glow-in-the-dark beads by getting photos of them, but alas, my smartphone camera is not good enough to truly capture them aglow.

Do you binge-watch while working on crafts? I do. I’ve watched whole seasons of Netflix shows “Orange is the New Black” and “Bloodline” as I plotted out a bracelet or stitched together a pair of earrings. But do you know what makes watching TV while working on a project tough? It's the back and forth between watching what you're doing and keeping your eye on the TV screen enough that you don't miss some key detail. Perhaps that's why most projects I work on seem to take far, far longer than I estimate. For instance, just one of the feather earrings I've done will take two hours. That's not one set of earrings, that's just one earring. So, I think I'm going to test whether the TV is too much of a distraction. A few months ago, I checked out an audio book from the public library so that I'd have something besides music to listen to while I painted the walls in our master bathroom. I loved it. It was fun to have a story play out in my imagina

A heart my daughter made for Father's Day. Yesterday, with less than five hours left until Father's Day, my 4-year-old whispered in my ear that she wanted to make a heart out of clay for her daddy and cover it with glitter. We had none of the supplies at home, but, because the idea was hers entirely, I wanted her to be able to make it. We headed off to Hobby Lobby for clay and glitter, making our way to the checkout just as the store closed. When we got home, I settled in to balance my checkbook, while she molded the heart. Every so often, she'd call out, "Mommy, come look!" to show me how it progressed. I'll be honest, it looked a little rough, but she's just 4, and she was proud and so was I. She made the bulk of the heart out of pink clay, adding three purple clay hearts on top. She used up the bulk of the pink clay for the project, I had a feeling that using that much clay would prevent the heart from drying in time, but she was so proud of

Round beaded earrings. My grandma called a few weeks ago to ask if I had any round earrings. She was asking on behalf of a woman who works in her doctor's office who likes Native American crafts. I told her I had some but no longer do. She told me her next appointment isn't for six months or so, so I've got plenty of time to make some for her to take to show the woman. I made round earrings once before, and they took a long, long time. On the day I started them, I invited a niece and nephew over to keep my daughter entertained. I foolishly thought I could knock out a pair or two over the two hours the kids played together. Instead, I got just one only half finished. I loved the way they turned out, though. So I plan to have some for my grandma to take the next time she goes to the doctor. My other project in the pipeline is an "N" for my daughter's bedroom door. On a recent trip through Target, my daughter got very excited when she saw wooden let