Cooper's Sale!

This is Cooper, My dear friend Nikki, of Bastille Bleu's 3 year old Golden retriever who recently came down with a severe case of rocky mountain spotted fever. He has been to the vet after showing signs of not feeling well and test confirmed that he did in fact have the above mentioned illness (too many words!!) They put him on what was the normal course of treatment and sent him home to get better. It seemed like he was doing better for a couple of days and then began to crash!

He was taken to an emergency vet hospital, which can also be called the bottomless pit of spending! It is wonderful that we have these places to take our beloved pets to, but the costs can rack up by the hour! The doctors were stumped as to what was causing Cooper to get worse. He had now started having seizures. As you can imagine, my poor friend was beside herself with worry. After running a myriad of costly tests and getting Cooper re-hydrated, they determined that he had been experiencing what amounted to the worst case scenario for an animal with rocky mountain spotted fever.  Most respond to the standard treatment which he had been given earlier in the week by their regular vet, but poor Cooper had to be special! 

He is finally back home now, having lost over 20lbs and still very weak. He'll be recovering for quite awhile as will his owners who now have an enormous vet bill! Nikki is running a one day sale in both of her shops, Bastille Bleu, for handmade artisan lampwork beads and Bastille Bleu Bijoux for jewelry made with her handmade lampwork beads. Some of the bead sets are up to 50% off, so I wouldn't wait!

Stop by Nikki's shops and take a look around, if you find something that appeals to you, your purchase will be supporting a much loved family member! It's kind of cool, since you'll get something and be giving at the same time! Thanks for your support!

What A Great Weekend!

We had absolutely gorgeous weather this weekend! We even had the doors and windows open today! I love the fresh air, my neighbors on one side who we love prefer their air conditioner and already have it going, our neighbors on the other side, that are less than appreciative of our existence, like having their doors and windows open. We are privileged to hear all of the very loud conversations they have, especially the mothers exchanges with her two young boys. Now, If only I could get them to enjoy their A/C and have our other neighbors open their doors and windows we'd have a really good time! I guess that is the nature of things! Unfortunately!

I was going to take some pictures of new pieces for my Etsy shop to get posted this week, but it was actually too sunny! I am not complaining, it's spring in Oregon, I am guaranteed more overcast and rainy days to come! In the mean time I still have plenty of items left in my spring clearance sale to pick from, so if you haven't already, go check it out!

My friend Nikki at Bastille bleu has been hard at work creating some great new spring lampwork bead set that are now listed on her Etsy shop, stop by and see what she has been up to! My Mom has also been working hard on her Etsy shop PG'sGemspiration. She has a bunch of new listings to check out, stop by and see her as well.

Easter is coming up quickly and I haven't done a thing for it yet! I'd better get out early this week and pick up something for the Easter Bunny. I didn't do any thing for Valentines Day, so if I miss two in a row there is bound to be trouble!

Shop Update...

This week I listed several new pieces in my Etsy shop over the weekend including the one shown here called "Sunnyside Up". This bracelet features beads from Desert Bug Designs. She is not an Etsy seller, but her work is so popular, highly sought after and distinctive, that I went a head and listed where the beads came from, even though it is basically my personal policy to only list by name the artist I buy from, if they are Etsy sellers. It is my goal to promote Etsy in general, so if they sell there I will list them. Doesn't matter to me if they sell other places as well, that is up to you to figure out, I'm just only going to list the Etsy connection.

This bracelet got quite a bit of attention this week! It was listed in TWO treasuries on Etsy! I was so excited when I got a message about the first one and completely shocked the next day when I got another message from someone else letting me know they also had used it in a treasury! It's amazing to me with all the volume of stuff on Etsy that someone would find and pick anything of mine! Both treasuries were about things either sunny or pink, both well represented in this piece I suppose! I'd put the links up here, but the treasuries run for such a brief period of time that they will have expired before anyone has a chance to read this.

I love these beads! They are sunny, bright and very detailed to say the least. The artist certainly puts as much as one possibly can into every millimeter of bead. This artists strands of beads routinely sell for well over $100.00. I was fortunate to not have paid anywhere near that much, but this is still the most expensive set of beads I have bought so far. I think they are worth the price, given all the workmanship involved. One only needs to have a basic understanding of lampworking to see how much work is involved in each bead.

I have learned a lot over the past few months of buying lampwork beads and am proud to say I buy only artisan made lampwork beads made by artist who live here in the USA. I have seen some very talented people on Etsy from Canada, Australia and Europe as well, but I am too impatient to order from them! It's not even the cost of shipping, most offer very competitive rates, it's knowing I'll have to wait a couple of weeks to get my beads. I'm not sure how this is any different than waiting for made to order beads, since they can take that long as well. I guess I may have some flawed logic, which may need some reconsideration.

I also posted some fantastic pieces in my shop featuring beads by my friend nikki, of Bastile Bleu on Etsy. Look for bracelets named "Day At The Zoo", "Reflections In Gray", and a piece yet to be listed called "Laughing Heart". She does a fantastic job with her beads and offers a wide variety of styles to chose from. You have to check out her new baby dragon hatchlings! These are adorable! I'm getting one for myself since I am a dragon by the Chinese zodiac, even though no one ever believes I could be a dragon...(she says sarcastically!)

I've got another cupcake bracelet finished and ready to list. This one even has matching earrings... I'm not going to show a picture of it here yet.. it's so cute! I'll unveil it later this week in my Etsy shop!