Fun Beading!

I've been doing a lot of beading the last few weeks and enjoying every minute. 

I've been staying up past midnight almost every night, sometimes until 1 or 2 am. 

I just finished a bracelet I will be teaching at Mie's Beads on October 3. 

Before I was done with this one I had picked out colors for another one. As I started the new one I had picked out colors for 3 more and thinking of new designs. 

The one I'm working on now is orange, lime, purple, dark brown and shades of gold. 

Sandy's Service

My best friend Sandy Spivey passed away and we just had the funeral service on Monday it was beautiful and I want to thank everyone for all of your wonderful support!  We let balloons go after the service and it was really beautiful to watch them float away.

Beading and Watching Lord of the Rings

I had a wonderful time with my granddaughter, she wanted to stay so in a few weeks she will be coming back to spend a few days.  That will make me happy!

Back to beading and watching Loard of the Rings, this makes me miss Lexi and Karen!

My piece is growing in length but will need more beads I only took enough for the bracelet and I'm doing the lariat.

I forget I can stay up as long as I want because I don't have a shop!

Unexpected Visitor My Zoe Bug!

Phone call today from my son saying that they are coming over for a visit yeah!
Went to dinner at Quarter Deck and home to have fun with Zoe, first a little drawing then petting dogs and now watching Scooby-Doo with her grandma.  She is my granddaughter she like Scooby-Doo.  Haha
Tomorrow Costco for books and drawing supplies, then the beach for sand castles and getting feet wet!

Zoe watching Scooby-Doo.

Zoe drawing.

Zoe drawing.

Zoe giving the babies love and them loving her back.

Zoe taking shoes off and getting comfortable.

6 Days with Sabine Lippert

July 8, 2015 I was off and driving to Creative Castle for 6 wonderful days of classes with
Sabine Lippert and to stay with Carole Tripp the owner of Creative Castle.  Staying at Carole's house is like a 6 star hotel, it is a wonderful experience.  Being a student at her store is also wonderful as you feel like you are at a retreat and I guess you are, they wait on you, get you beads, water and food.  I can't say enough about Carole's store and her help, they are courteous, helpful and wonderful people, such a joy!

I took a few pictures that I will now post and see if I can't write a caption by the pictures.
Have fun looking at the wonderful pictures I took and if you ever have a chance to take classes at Creative Castle it is a must!

To Sabine I will miss you and can't wait to see you next year, my heart is sad I wish you lived closer so we could see more of you!  Sabine is a wonderful artist and an incredible teacher so if you are going to Bead and Button next year sign up for a class with her you will not be sorry!

I will be back down at Carole's store August 1 and 2 for a class with Maggie Meister and then I need to get to work on my website because all of those beads won't get on my site unless I put them on!

Love, Kandra




Dinner after one of the classes and what wonderful classes they were!

This is Lily in the Pond, well a start of it.

Mary wearing her Beautiful Necklace, it is just stunning!

Miss Sabine starting the class for our last day.

This is my start of Pia.

This is part of Night and Day.

Another part of Night and Day.

One more component of Night and Day.



Sabine giving me the Eye!





Gerrie and Sabine singing to us!



 

 

Evening Walk

It was a wonderful walk this evening with a beautiful soft breeze blowing just when you get to hot. Here are a few pictures of some plants. 

My Evening Walk

I have started walking in the evening almost everyday, it clears my head and helps me put my thoughts into action.  It's also helping me get fit again after four years if not doing anything but working.
It's been overcast all day and while I was walking the sun was trying to peak out from under the clouds, it was just beautiful so I had to take a few pictures.
I am not a Gardner so I don't know the name of this plant but I think it's just beautiful so I had to take picture of that also.
My last picture is a neighbors front yard and in between the cracks she has purple flowers growing and I think it's just beautiful may we all have purple flowers growing.

My Store Has Sold!

Today has been a real roller coaster of emotions, I was not expecting all of the different feelings I have gone through today! 

I am so happy for Mie to have bought my store because she loves beads as much as I do and I know she will do a wonderful job with the store so I have no remorse in selling the store but as I drove away today I started crying and did this on and off all day.

I was driving away from my baby, it made me so sad.  But then I knew it was in good hands with Mie but I still felt a very deep emptiness inside me.

Who will I become now, what will I do with all of this time I have been wanting for years?  Do I remember how to design patterns, its been so long.  Fear and more fear came over me as I drove that 1 hour drive home. 

All I could do was think of NanC Meinhardt, I had talked with her yesterday and she said to just think about her and she would be thinking of me today, so Miss NanC that is what I did as I struggled with fear and sadness through the day and kept telling myself what does fear and sadness look like, now go bead that feeling!  I could hear you in my head and feel you in my heart, when it calms down I will put those feelings into beadwork!

I told myself to stop this kind of thinking that I will be fine, but I have had a bead store for so long or a website selling seedbeads that for most of the day I felt like I didn't know who I was going to be because I have been Kandra's Beads or Bead and More for so many years that I felt like I would be no one.  It is so funny how fear can make you unsure about yourself and everything around you.  This evening as I sit here and write this I know that I will be ok and not having a store will be fine it does not define who I am, and I am sure as the days go on I will fall back into that pit of fear wondering who I am and what will I be next, but I know that I will look fear in the eyes and lop off the heads of fear as I charge forward like Attila the Hun.

There are so many things I want to do with the time I have left on earth that I know I will never be bored! 

First on my list is to get my house squared away because I have boxes of beads every where!  I can't stand clutter so I will have to get organized!  Then start that long task of taking pictures of my personal bead stash, this will be an on going thing for years as there are so many beads I have collected over the last 25 years!

I think my best plan of attack will be to just pull open a drawer and take pictures of whatever is in it and start selling them, they will be in no particular order because I don't have them in any order.  I just know that I had to bring home at least one of every type of bead and sometimes all of them if I knew I wouldn't be able to get anymore.  So what I am trying to say is there will be no order to the posting of my personal stash.  It will be first come first gets to buy, I think I will try to post every Wednesday so people will know to watch my website and be sure to see everything as I post it.

I will also start sitting at my torch again and start making beads to sell.  My heart and soul sings when I am making beads! 

Then I want to start designing again and make up kits to sell.  Everything I want to do will take time but I have the time now!

I may not start getting things on my website until next week because I need to make a path to my camera first! ha-ha

Remember if you want all of the beautiful beads I use to sell just go to www.miesbeads.com and you will see all of them just like before.  We had problems of course with the computer but we hope to have her site up and running late tomorrow or Wednesday so in the mean time it still says
www.kandrasbeads.com but the beads will be coming from Mie's bead store now, we haven't been able to change the name because her computer was down but hopefully it will be working within the next few days!

Thanks for letting me vent now I can unpack a box of beads!

Love, Kandra

Here is a picture of the beautiful, wonderful Ocean that I love so much!

Sell of Store

The sale of the store is going great, Mie will take over June 1,2015. 

I just hope I survive the website change over. Anyone who knows me knows I have no idea what I'm doing with computers and I have computer karma!

It will be so nice not to have to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning and drive one hour to Solvang. I'm sure I will continue to get up early but I can be out making beads, setting at my torch instead of driving for an hour!

There will not be much on my website to start with because I have to make beads and get things all organized and I don't have time to do that right now until the sale of the store is over so be patient with me. 

I need everybody to send me good vibes about computers so everything goes smooth. 

One more week left!

Love, Kandra

Exciting News!        After many, many years of having a bead store and then selling a bead store (5 to be exact) I am really, really selling my bead store to Mie Hartmann my manager who will do an excellent job with the store and the on-line store.  Yes I am even selling the on-line store.  (Pronounced Me-ay)   I don't want anyone to panic, Mie will honor everyone's punches so no one needs to worry.  Mie will continue with great service, I'm not even worried and I'm always stressing about something!  I know Mie will do a wonderful job.    Mie will be calling her store "Mie's Beads" and her website will be www.miesbeads.com her site will not be working until June 1, 2015 when she takes over.  Please be patient with us in case there are any bugs, because it is a computer after all and I hate them! ha-ha   Mie and I will be working together on different events that I don't want to discuss right now because they are still in the talk about stage, but I know everyone will be excited about this when it happens!   I will still have www.kandrasbeads.com for a website because I will be selling my lamp work beads, patterns and kits, not right away because I will have to have time to make them.  But I am also going to have a section on my site selling my personal bead stash!  This will cover 25 years of me having to take one or more sometimes the whole kilo (ha-ha) of beads home as they came into the store.  Needless to say not having a store and having a small house I need to sell some on my beads!    For anyone who knows me well you know this will be very difficult for me as I truly love beads!  The problem is if I live for a 1000 years I still won't be able to use them all up and I have 3 boys who will just throw everything away when I die, so it is better to sell them now so other people will have fun with them instead of them just sitting as they have for 25 years!  My son Larry keeps calling me a hoarder because he had to move all of the beads out of my office when he put wood floors down! ha-ha   A lot of my beads are vintage and if they weren't are now (ha-ha) so this will be exciting for all of you out there who love old beads!   I can't thank all of you enough who have supported me over the years and have become my friends even though we haven't met, please continue to support Mie as you have me because she is just as sick a me when it comes to beads, her store will stay wonderful and stocked full of beads and she will continue to give everyone wonderful service.   I will be reinventing myself now and I want to have time to be with my honey Dennis and have time to do my glass and design new bead patterns.  I'm even thinking of doing some shows to sell my things, so please stay tuned with me on my new adventure!   I love all of you and thank you, Kandra

Exciting news stay tuned!

I will be telling everybody some exciting news in a week or so so stay tuned for my great news!

I love pictures of cobwebs with dew on them I took this a year ago.