Funnel cakes and ghosts

My hubby wanted a snack tonight so I thought I would make funnel cakes! For some reason they always sound better to me when it's a bit cool out than they do when it is hot. Around here you can usually only get them at the fair. Anyway, I made these from pancake batter! Super easy; I just mix it a little thick and since I don't have a funnel, I used a plastic baggie with a corner cut off so very little clean-up either! Mmmm!! :)

I have been trying to work on Halloween beads and fall things for my Etsy shop, but I seem to have trouble staying on task. Tonight though I did get a trio of candy corn listed and a family of ghosts that are also my entry for the LEST team Halloween challenge. (Click on the LEST logo to the left to go to our page) I think they turned out rather cute! If I were a more creative writer, I could have come up with some little story to tell about why the gray one is laying down while the rest seem to be peering down at him, but my brain is gone on vacation....I wish it would come back!

Inspired by Mallory...

Ok, here are some pics of the disks that I have been talking about that I made from my "shorts" after being inspired to try it by a fellow beadmaker and LEST team member Mallory aka rosebud101.

And here is a picture of one of my first hollow beads! :)

Also, you may have noticed I changed my template. In doing so, I lost my blog list so for those of you who were on it, it isn't that I'm not still interested in what you have to say but that it will take me a bit to get it put back together. That is the one thing I hate about changing templates is loosing everything I put up! :(

Long Week..

Ok, so I know I haven't posted in several days, but as I expected it has been a long week! As I said in my previous post I only had one day off this week due to a class at work, but now my week is finally over! The class I was scheduled for Friday was canceled and moved to October...I'm not thrilled with that either because it happens to fall on my hubby's birthday but there isn't much I can do about it. Anyway, I have been able to get a few more disk beads done and if this rain ever quits maybe I can get some pics of them...

More classes and Differnt Beads

I just got home from another management class at work, and I think this was the worst one yet! The subject was motivation...hard to get me motivated by making me go to a class at 8am on my day off! Oh, and don't give me an extra day off to compensate for it either, I'll just work 11 days with only one day off, sure that's fine! :( (can you sense the sarcasm here?) I have one more class to go to on Friday and then I'm finished with these, but of course that just means more responsibility.

Some of you may have read in earlier posts about my time with the facility I'm at and how I had to leave when I finished school and then came back later but was put in another building; well it appears that a position may soon come available in the building I started out in. I work with MRDD (mentally retarded/developmentally disabled) people and there is quite a bit of difference between the two buildings, even though it is still the same facility. One building (I'll call it 'A' so it doesn't get to confusing) has more "medically fragile" and lower functioning individuals that require more care and the other ('B') has higher functioning individuals with more behavioral problems. As far as the individuals are concerned, I really like both buildings, there is still so much to learn and so much to teach them and I really like that aspect of the job. On the other hand, I don't feel like much of a nurse most of the time because I'm in building 'B'. The staff are a lot different as well, 'B' has more staff that are in my age group as a whole than the other does so there is more gossip and drama than 'A'. I did have some issues with a few people in 'A' while I was there, but I think I'm better prepared to deal with it now than I was a year ago; so I'm kind of hoping that I get to go back to 'A' and that things will get better. But I'm also trying not to get my hopes up too much in case it doesn't work out, I don't want to be disappointed!

Now, back to beads! I think I have posted before about the amazing "team" that I'm a part of on Etsy, the LEST Team (see our link in the upper right corner of my blog); anyway, they are an amazing group! Always willing to help out other team members with advise and promoting and encouragement..anyway one of the members "rosebud101" ( http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5181465 ) been making these beads for a while out of "shorts". They always turn out really cool, but they are usually disks which I don't normally make....well, I tried it last night and now I'm stuck on them! I must have made fifteen or twenty last night! She always says how fun they are and I though, yeah right, I can't make a disk to save me! But I've been practicing and she is right it is fun! I like that I don't have to think about it much, I just pile all my shorts on the table and start melting! Believe me, I got some strange looks from my hubby though when I told him I was making beads out of nothing but shorts! :)

Florals!

I am really excited about a couple of new floral beads I just finished! One even has cz's in it. Why am I so excited? Because these are some of the best ones I have made AND they didn't break! I know it is just part of the process of learning what works and what doesn't but it is so frustrating when you have a bead that you think is going to be amazing, and it is....until it splits right down the middle! :( I also managed to make my first hollow bead tonight....followed by several more once I figured the process out. I think it was hollow beads that first attracted me to lampwork years ago, no commercial bead can even come close to comparing to them (or any other artisan-made bead imo!). My husband even liked the hollow one, which is really saying something for a man who could really care less about beads! :) Anyway, the florals are up in my Etsy shop, here are the pictures.