I have the best customers

One of my customers, Nancy Cooper of The High Bead sent me photos of the work she did with my beads as focals, they are beautiful!
You can find her here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/TheHighBead

Flint Handmade Show 2016

I had such a fun time at the Flint Handmade Show on Saturday at the Flint Masonic Temple, lots of great vendors and I got to see some friends and make new ones. It was so great visiting with my friend Molly and seeing what new glassy things she is up to these days.
Here are a few photos of my booth.

2016 Show Schedule

Red Opal Designs show schedule 2016




Flint Handmade Spring Craft Market, Flint, MI   April 30, 2016 10am-4pm

Art on the Mall in Kalamazoo, MI  June 3-5th

Sounds and Sights Chelsea Art Market, Chelsea, MI  July 29-30th

Crafting with Grace Arts and Crafts Show, Ann Arbor, MI  October 8th, 2016 10:00 am – 4:00 pm

New Grace Apostolic Temple 

2898 Packard Road * Ann Arbor, MI * 48108 

http://www.craftingwithgrace.com 

Winter Wonders Holiday Glass Show,  November 5, 2016 10am-4pm

Birmingham Unitarian Church, 38651 Woodward Ave., Bloomfield Hills, MI  48304.  There is a map at http://www.bucmi.org/mapbuc.htm

Catch up time

Goodness, I am not really sure where to start playing catch up. Time seems to go by so quickly these days.
Since my last post we have lost one of our kitties, Bean. She was a beautiful and bitchy kitty who had a great life and lived to the ripe young age of 19. I think about her every day.

I wrote a tutorial that was published in the Soda Lime Times,  Hot Glass for Cool Kids 2 ebook for Beads of Courage. This is a tutorial book for making glass beads for the kids in the Beads of Courage program. Here is a link to the book and the BOC webpage for more info: http://www.beadsofcourage.org/

http://www.sodalimetimes.com/bocbook.html

Most of my days are spent entertaining these two:

And doing custom orders:

And teaching:

Right now I am getting my show schedule in order, stay tuned....

My last big show of this year

Almost another year gone by.

So this year is close to being over and it's time to come up with some new designs. I want to retire these necklace designs and come up with some new ones. This is gonna be difficult....
Here are the designs I will retire by the end of this year.

I am looking forward to exploring new designs and will continue to post them here.

Another of life's questions....

Trying too hard or not trying hard enough is the question that I have been asking myself a lot lately. 

My surroundings are still pretty new to me and not having many friends where I live has been hard. 

Life is weird, especially when you have an over developed sense of responsibility and are a people pleaser with a strong personality. I know that sounds really complicated, and it is. Then, shit gets real and you stop worrying about what others think about you and focus on yourself and your family. And when that feels really good, I feel guilty for it. How do you find a happy balance with that kind of thing? Or do you?

A few months ago one of my girlfriends lost her battle with cancer, she was the same age as me and one of the few people that I have met here that I can relate to. We had a lot of the same personality traits and would joke that we were sisters from another mister. I have survivors guilt about her passing, I think about her every day and I miss her tremendously.

One of the questions that is always in the front of my mind is am I trying too hard or not hard enough? I think that question can be asked about many aspects of life, friends, family, my job and my art. A few weeks ago I read an blog entry by another jewelry artist and they were talking about their artistic expression and how they got there. How they were able to look at their past work and decide that it was time to move on and try something different and what that looked like for them. I often think about how you reach the goals you set for yourself and look back to finally see that you have achieved them and you are who you wanted to be only to then decide that you now want to be someone else. I think it's fear. Fear prevents you from giving yourself permission. I can only imagine what I could accomplish without fear, which is really weird, since I have such a strong personality and appear to have my shit together. But that's only what other people see, a projection I suppose, but maybe that's also an incorrect observation on my part? I'll never know, and right now, that's alright. 

Tomorrow may be a different story though.