Design Journal

Today was my friend Pauette’s birthday. She is a Gemini too! For our special birthday treat we went on a behind the scenes tour of the new Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. We were suppose to be a part of a larger tour, but when we got there we were the only ones […]

Tustin gets certified! Held another 3 day certification workshop at The Beading Place in Tustin, CA. We all had a great time. I met some amazing artist! If you are near Tustin, Orange County area check out The Beading Place. There are lots of great beads and PMC supplies, plus great classes. Visit www.thebeadingplace.com  

Lovely San Diego! Held a 2 day workshop for the San Diego County PMC Guild. We learned about PPP’s and I showed everyone how to make their owe version of my Botanical Bracelet that won the 2007 Saul Bell Award. We explored PPP’s, clasp making, making tendrils and vines and even had an impromptu ring

I love these photos that I took from my hotel room. It’s a view from the very unglamorous Holiday Inn in Everett Washington 7th floor. I love it because it reminds me that sometimes in life we need to remember to focus on the right thing. A lot of times in life we get distracted

Back home for a couple weeks and Spring is here! A surprise in my garden. After 5 years of waiting for my peony bush to bloom it FINALLY produced 2 flowers! I got these from a vendor on Ebay who was from Lithawania!

My first certification class at Rio!  The students come from Texas, Arizona, and Missouri! Plus a bonus of the having some Rio associates in the class too! The students seems to learn a lot and it showed. We had an added treat of having Terry Kovalcik in the class. His experience added greatly and I

Spent the all day Thursday at Rio Grande with Virginia. I got a chance to tour the facility and see how things are done. I also had a chance to meet some people that I have only heard about. I got a chance to meet the people on the creative team who do the ads

Spent the morning flying from the Bay Area to New Mexico. It’s been over 12 years since I’ve been there so I thought I would take the opportunity to explore. Ended up in Old Town and wandered thru shops and galleries. Saw a TON of turquoise jewelry. Stopped by the Museum but didn’t go in.

Spent part of the doing experiments using Linda Kaye-Moses doming tool . I usually don’t use tools like this in my designs but I thought I would give it a try. I’m glad I did!!! At first I tried the usual cone shapes, then progressed to a bi-cone bead shape. The tool was really easy

I’m so very excited to announce that I’m now a  PMC Senior Instructor for Rio Grande’s Rio Rewards. I’ve been working with the team at Rio for a couple of months on this and it’s finally been made official. In one of my posts from Tucson I mentioned that I was helping Chris Darway with

Back teaching an BronzClay workshop at Art at the Ranch. It was a very talented group and everyone, including me learn a lot. We had a great time. I hope to see more great work from everyone there! Ronna also dropped by for a brief polymer clay demo. Thanks Ronna!

Today I spent the day with my new friend Ronna Sarvas Weltman. Ronna is a polymer clay artist, writer and now author! My experience with polymer clay has been extremely limited but Ronna’s work has opened my eyes to the possibilities. We spent the majority of the day playing in her studio and she showed

I met my friend Lynn at the PMC Conference in Purdue in 2005. We became fast friends and meet up often at conferences and workshops. One of Lynn’s passions is making glass beads! Today was the day I was going to take her up on her offer to show me how to make glass beads.

Nikole and I spent the afternoon seeing the Chahully exhibit at the Botanical Gardens. It was raining a bit but decided to chance it and check it out. I had seen the exhibit when it was at the De Young in SF and expected it to be the same thing, BUT on the contrary it

Took the day off and spent it with my close friend Nikole and her husband Alex. Alex is from Bulgaria and we that evening we had a fantastic Bulgarian meal, who knew Bulgarian food was so yummy!

Spent the day exploring the vendor booths at Rio. One great booth/demo was by Kate Wolf. She was giving a demo on wax carving. She also makes her own tools which Rio sells. Although I have done a small amount of wax carving, I was fascinated on how expertly she used her tools. What at

The talk was that the Holidome was the place to see great things and good deals. I spent the day with the girls from my local guild shopping at the tent city that made up the Holidome. There were so many tents it was confusing, but found some great deals of gem stones. Check out

Met up with some of my friends from my local PMC Chapter. I met Cindy and Adea at my Rio Rewards Certification Class 5 years ago. They were kind enough to show me around to some shows at the Gem Show. The Tucson Gem Show is the largest gem show in the world. It seemed

I spend the past few days working with Rio and Chris Darway. This is the first time I’ve been to Rio’s Education in Motion at the Tucson Gem Show. It’s very exciting. There were too many things to see and learn. Rio puts on an incredible event. Not only are there workshops on, soldering, engraving,

Finally got my act together to figure out how to transfer the episode of That’s Clever on to my computer and turn it into a Pod Cast! Click here to see it!