New listings in my shop

I don’t skip a beat.

check out the new listings in my shop today!

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42 hours of Uncomfortable

Never a dull moment, I tell ya! But, this was my first stay in a hospital and I can only describe it one word.

Uncomfortable.

My sister came to stay with me for 4 days while Joe went down to Connecticut to do some stuff for his Mom. I wanted Franny to keep me company while Joe was away. Little did she know that this would be what she woke up to Wednesday morning.
When I woke up Wednesday I felt the dreaded heart flutters, but totally worse that ever before. I have had these flutters maybe 2-3 other times in the past 8 months. Didn’t ever think anything of it before. Yes, it was scary but Wednesday felt different. I got down the stairs and immediately needed to sit down and rest in the living room before making it to the coffee machine in the kitchen. I thought to myself, “This can’t be a good sign” I felt light-headed, and got the hot sweats; felt like I was going to pass out, on top of the flutters. It felt like my heart wasn’t doing the normal Ba-bump, Ba-bump. But was doing more of a BibbityBobbityBumpdeBump. “That can’t be right”
After a call to the boss, and a call to Joe, I called Fran on her cell phone, as I was on the couch and she was in the bedroom upstairs.

She answers: “hullo?”
Me: Hi Sweetie. Mornin’!
Fran: “Morning!”
Me: I’m not at work, I’m downstairs.
Fran: “OH?
Me:” Yea um, gonna need you to do me a favor. Can you get dressed quick and come down to take me the emergency room?”
Fran: “WHAAAT!?!”

And off we jetted to the local St. Elizabeth’s hospital. After checking in and getting into a room, they determined my heart rate was all over place, and as high as 160. They immediately checked me in for the night. GAH. Hooked up to IVs in both arms, and I think they did labwork on me 5 times while I was there. Sleeping was impossible. I was not a happy patient. I just about jumped out of the bed and hugged the cariologist today when he finally sauntered in at 1 pm and told me I could go home. The night nurse had said ” Oh I doubt they’ll let you go home tomorrow, prolly keep you one more night for sure” Did I mention I was NOT HAPPY?

So after all that, it was determined that this might have been triggered by low Potassium in my system. I was prescribed a Beta Blocker called Zebeta, and told to eat more Potassium and I have to go back in to see the Cardiologist on Wednesday. I feel fine now that I’m home, just tired. The hardest 2 things about being in the hospital. Couldn’t drink coffee, so that resulted in a very sever caffeine headache for the past 2 days. Joe and I have decided to quit drinking java, SCARY THOUGHT… but just can’t do it anymore. So we’ll do that half caff thing for a while and wein ourselves off of it.
The other tough thing was pulling the goddamned tape and sticker things off before I left today. MY GOSH! Don’t think they could make that tape any stickier. It was close to impossible to remove and I think it took a top layer of skin off with it. GAH.

The picture above was requested by me.
Me: “Franny! take my picture, this is a blog worthy moment!”
Fran: ” You sure!?? HAHAH! ok! But send me a link so I can read it!”

🙂

Missing in Action

i just want to apologize for diappearing for a few days.

heart palpitations landed me in the hospital

for a two day stay.

i’m finally back at home.

a new med was prescribed.

i’ll catch you all up on some details

after i get some much needed sleep.

lorelei

Swarovski Elements from Artbeads.com

Artbeads.com has a whole assortment of different Swarovski Crystal elements that you can purchase for jewelry designs. I had the opportunity to try out a few of these this past couple of weeks. The first piece, in the picture above, I used the Swarovski Crystal pearls in a pale sage green color. These worked really well in this piece, and matched perfectly to some cream color glass pearls that I had on hand. The pearls are really nice, they have a good color, are weighty, and have a nice evenly smooth surface.

This second piece, I wire wrapped some of their Swarovski Crystal rounds in a beautifully and rich Caribbean Blue Opal color. These paired perfectly with the ceramic bezel piece I created this past weekend. I also used one of Sue’s lampwork beads in the same color tone.

Artbeads also carries cool crystal encrusted yarn and suede, which I am looking forward to trying out. The the pearls and crystals that I used above, I also ordered some pretty Faceted crystal rings, and some Deep orange crystal flowers. Look for these in designs coming soon!

Artbeads.com has sent me these products to review on my blog and I have not been paid for my endorsement of this product as it pertains to the products received.

Enchanted Adornments: Giveaway No. 1: Mermaids!

Cynthia Thornton, of Green Girl Studios, has written an amazing book called Enchanted Adornments: Creating Mixed-Media Jewelry with Metal, Clay, Wire, Resin & More, and it will be released on November 1, 2009! I am really excited about the release of this book because Cynthia and her family, are all amazingly talented and this book will totally rock the hizzouse. But not only that, I contributed a piece of jewelry for the Gallery section of the book, and am really super excited for all of you to see it!

The Green Girl Studios team, graciously donated 8 small packages of beads to be randomly given away, in honor of the big book release, to my little blog! How cool is that! This week will be the first of the 8 givaways. This first package of beads contains 6 pewter, and 1 Bronze metal clay pendants/beads, in the Mermaid theme! (Each giveaway will have a different theme!)

All you have to do to enter yourself to win, is leave a comment on this post!

I invite you to Please pass the word along on your blogs, Twitter, Facebook, or any other online venue of your choice, however, you will ONLY BE ENTERED ONCE by leaving a comment, on this post only. 1 comment per person will be counted. if you forget and leave 2 comments, one of your comments will be disqualified. (as long as I can keep up with that)

I will draw a random winner using the Random Integer Generator, on Monday August 3rd!

Good luck to everyone!!

Check out the sidebar for the Calendar of Enchanted Adornments giveaways!

Weekly Bead Links

A Bead A Day The new Swarovski Air Blue crystals are perfect for summertime jewelry making. Lisa has used them to represent a “happy day” in this ring and necklace set.

About.com Jewelry Making Rock clubs rock, literally, when you are looking for inexpensive, local jwelry making classes.

Art Bead Scene Tired of your liver of sulfur going bad? Check out this – Patina Gel!

Beading Arts The second part of Cyndi’s tutorial on using CopprClay to create a necklace.

Carmi’s Art/Life World Carmi introduces a vintage walnut to rhinestsones.

Cindy Gimbrone aka The Lampwork Diva Cindy takes on heavy metal in the studio. No, you won’t need to cover your ears – just your hands!

Earthenwood Studio Chronicles Melanie takes some time to show off a few new resin and brass collage pendants!

Jean Campbell Jean visited Chicago and discovered a new beading technique using pleather and Conso

Katie’s Beading Blog Take a sneak peek at Katie’s newest beading book!

Lorelei’s Blog: Inside the Studio Lorelei makes a fun Owl swap with a blog friend.

Snap out of it , Jean! There’s beading to be done! Jean is wowed by Denise Peck’s recent earring book, 101 Step by Step Wire Earrings! Get it and make some for YOURSELF!

Strands of Beads Melissa curls up with a few good books from Rings & Things

The Writing and Art of Andrew Thornton After cleaning the studio, Andrew finds (and finishes) a long-lost PMC Floral Link Bracelet.

Saturday Part Deux: 2nd of 2 posts!

Click the picture to see details!

What a fun time in the studio this weekend! Whew!! I had a blast playing around with mediums that I haven’t ever tried before. Are they perfect? Nope. Did they take a whole lot of time? Nope! Were they fun and creatively stimulating? You Betcha! Will they sell in my shop? Who the heck knows. I suppose it’s worth a shot. Sometimes it’s not about that, it’s more about the process, the artsy fartsy fun stuff. I ordered the different elements and wanted 1. not to spend a lot of cash. and 2. to work on something fun and different for a change. I accomplished just that!

I plan on making jewelry out of the ceramic bezels and the pendants, and will list the finished pieces for sale. The rings will get listed sometime today.

I ordered these wood rings from Fusion Beads, along with the copper bezel pendants, and the Susan Lenart Kazmer copper bezels. The ceramic cabochons were graciously and expertly made by my friend LeAnn over at Summers Studio Etc. I glued the cabs into the bezels, and voila! Instant and fun jewelry component!

I wanted to play around with some decoupage, and bought these wooden rings with that idea in mind. I think they worked out great. I especially like the asymmetrically placed button ring with no decoupage. I just glued that button to the ring, and there you have it. The other two rings, took much more time and patience, cutting and gluing with modge podge glue.

Oh and the images of birds- I purchased those from Piddix on Etsy! Please feel free to leave comments on what you think of my little crafty projects. I’d love to hear some feedback. (keep in mind, I know they’re not perfect)

I’ve got a big surprise coming Monday. The term Giveaway: is totally underestimated!! There will be 8 Giveaways. One posted Every two weeks. In honor of this.

Here is a hint.

Saturday Part I: The First of 2 Posts!

I’m getting ready to list this new necklace in my etsy shop. I made this last night, using one of my most favorite Jade Scott pendants of all time. The pendant is a bit larger than most of her other work, and I love that about it. It’s a very feminine piece with the floral design on top of script. I chose some ornamental bronze chain from AD Adornments and thread some Deep pink Fairy silk cord through the chain. The clasp is made from a ceramic button from Marsha Neal. And I added a small yellow flower charm by the clasp to pull some yellow from the pendant.

I will be doing another blog post later this afternoon. I am so excited to show you what I’m going to be doing with 1. copper bezels and Ceramic cabochons from Summers Studio Etc, 2. chunky wood rings from Fusionbeads, 3. Bezel pendants

So stay tuned!!

TGIF!

I just need to get through on more day and then I can have the weekend. I just need to endure 8 more hours of my office, my desk, my computer, the phonecalls, the emails, and then… I can do whatever I want for a very very short 48 hours.

I have several things to work on this weekend, custom orders. Nothing too difficult. I’d like to catch a movie or two this weekend. Catch up on So You Think You Can Dance, and Big Brother.

That’s pretty much it. Nothing else is really happening here. It’s pretty dull. Joe is headed to Connecticut for a week next week to halp his mother with a few things around her house. I have to work of course, so I will stay home. And probably eat a lot less. And do a lot of beading.

Well anyway, enough about that.

My friend Kiersten writes a really hilariously funny blog that I really enjoy reading a lot. She also creates beautiful and funky jewelry like this:

Keirsten asked to interview me recently and of course I obliged. She published the post today. You can read it here! And then check out Keirsten’s jewelry at her Etsy shop!

Congratulations to the Winner(S)!!??

That’s right! I decided to pick not ONE winner for the blog giveaway, BUT TWO! Winner number one will win the Creative Jewelry 2009 issue, and the Kiss Necklace. Winner number two will also win a copy of Creative Jewelry 2009, and a surprise piece of jewelry!!





According to the Random Integer Generator at Random.org, the numbers selected were:

Congratulations. Winner number one is:

JEAN HUTTER!!

Winner Number Two is:

ZU!

Congratulations to you both!! Send me an email with your mailing addresses and I will send out your prizes asap! ljeurto[at]gmail[dot]com

Thank you for everyone that left comments! I learned so much about what readers are looking for, and have been reading through them before I work on projects to see if I can create something that is requested – helps give me a little direction, which is so great!! Sometimes that is half the battle! I had 75 comments on this giveaway, that’s awesome!!