Summer Beading

Preparing an old house over the summer, between work, is a really tough thing to do! Between the painting, priming, sanding, chiseling, nailing, moving, weeding, and general disarray, the beads get pushed away. I even went to a bead show over my lunch break last week and haven't even had the time to look at them and marvel in their awesomeness!

However, before things got displaced and relocated to boxes, I was able to make several summer inspired items. The idea was to stick to bright colors seen in the summer months. Summer is pretty short in upstate New York, so I try to soak it in while it lasts!

These tanzanite earrings remind me of some beautiful perennials growing in my back yard. I'm not sure what they're called, but they are long stalks with graceful little bell-shaped purple flowers. The flower looks like a very delicate version of a lilac mixed with an inverted tulip. These earrings are made with Swarovski crystal teardrop pendants and bicones.

These sweet earrings are a combination of lucite flowers, czech glass leaves, and Swarovski crystal.

My addiction to seed beads prevails! While most of these beads are already part of my stash, the new purple iris size 8 seed beads are a delightful addition. They coordinate perfectly with my lilac colored size 11 seed beads. If you want to make your own pendants like this, I sell the tutorial in my Etsy shop here.

Although these are quite simple and delicate necklaces, they really pack a punch in the sparkle department! The top necklace makes use of a Bermuda blue faceted Swarovski teardrop. The color flashes in a variety of deep blue-green colors and is just beautiful. The bottom necklace features a cubic zirconia teardrop pendant with a small lucite flower. There are lots of lovely glass items to choose from to use as stunning focals.

Check back soon and I'll have a coupon code good for 10% off anything at Artbeads through July 31. They're also having a sale right now!

Please note that I have received the products free of charge from Artbeads.com and that I am honestly reviewing the products and have not been paid to do so.

Housewarming

I think housewatering sums it up better. We closed on the new house Wednesday morning and stopped by last night to get things started. We have the apartment until the end of July, so we're going to take our time, paint, and get everything prepped before we move.

We brought some small boxes along with painting supplies with us. I started taping off the living room (colors to be disclosed soon!) and Chris was getting the music set up. He wanted to wash his hands and discovered that no water was coming out of the faucets.

We went downstairs and saw a few ceiling tiles were on the floor, and for some reason the laundry tub was moved to a different wall. Things looked fishy. I called my real estate agent to see if someone had gone back to the house after the final walk through. She said there hadn't. We went back upstairs to see if anyone had gotten in somehow.

All of the doors and windows were locked. Except one, of course. Since the house is old, the wood by the lock was rotted and half of the lock was on the floor. We figured someone stood on our recycling bin, reached up and let themselves in.

When we went back downstairs to try and figure out why you would break into an empty house, we discovered that many copper pipe sections had been removed. We found pipe insulation laying around and cut off pipes everywhere. There was water dripping from a pipe that was at one point connected to the water heater. The main water line is nowhere to be found and all of the pipe leading to and from the first floor bathroom was removed.

We had a police report filed. That was fun. We had to wait almost 3 hours for them to come, and it was almost 11pm by the time we left. They offered to have a technician come by and try to take fingerprints, but Rochester had other ideas for us since there was another shooting that night so the technician wouldn't be ready to come until even later- maybe not until 1 or 2 am. I don't know about you, but both of us had to go to work today, we're leaving for Syracuse for a craft show, and we still hadn't packed so we really needed sleep (and food and water). They said it would be difficult to pull prints from wood anyway so we told them not to worry about it. They took some photos and then we went home.

According to the one quote we got (we'll get at least 2 more quotes), it's going to cost $2000 to repair because all of the pipes were twisted and ripped out.

The emergency dispatch lady told us we were pretty lucky. Usually burglars leave the water on. At least our basement just had patches of water- no more than half an inch in places.

But really? What kind of a house warming is that?! If I do well at the show this weekend I think I'll be okay- just as long as the bad things don't start piling up. I'm just glad we didn't move any valuables in yet.

iFixit: Welcome to Repair 2.0

I came across this video and thought I would share. It brings up a good point, and I think the project is a great idea! As it is, I've had my computer for 4 years and hope to keep it running as long as possible.



Here's a more fashionable way to handle the waste problem: