Mitra Friant's Jewelry Blog

This is a test...

To mess with Christy...It's been over three years since I've posted on here.  She mocks me regularly about it. I took a little beadmaking sabbatical in order to tend to my rubber stamp business but I'm back at the bead thing a bit now. No promises, but I hope to update the blog more regularly too.

And now to wait to see how long it takes Christy to notice my post...

I'm fuming!

Wow, I can't believe it's been over a month since I posted. I'm not doing too well with the consistency thing but I'll keep trying.

I took a long-awaited class with Kate Fowle Meleney last Thursday and Friday. Those of you who know me know how much I dislike classes. I'm by nature a person who would much rather learn from a book or figure things out myself. I intensely dislike being in a classroom setting with a teacher hovering over me.

However, I love Kate's work and I have so many ideas of things I can do with the techniques we learned in this class. She's my kind of teacher!  A lovely person and so generous with her knowledge...she demo'ed things and then let us play without really stressing me out by trying to help me. As usual I made crap in class but came running home to play by myself.

These beads are a little sampler of things I am playing with for sets. Be on the lookout for eBay sets and new store sets using these effects. I'll be adding them in the next couple of days. (Well, assuming I get this new Zen Cart software configured and operational sometime THIS year!)

More pictures of FUMED beads in the bead album...

Travel Planning

Today I think I'll discuss the genius-level travel planning I am smack in the middle of executing. It's currently 5:11 am here in Atlanta. I'm sitting in Hartsfield Airport on my way home from a scrapbooking trade show in Las Vegas. I've spent a total of 24 hours solid attending my trade show booth alone in the past three days. I seriously don't think there is any more draining activity than sitting still in one place for that length of time each day.

My husband does not believe in red-eye flights. I, however, was alone this time and I believe in getting home so I can resume my "normal" life. So I booked a red-eye home. I flew out of Norfolk, VA on Sunday on a direct Southwest flight. I am flying home via Atlanta on AirTran. I did these two one-way trips because they were cheaper than any round-trip from the three airports around me to Las Vegas.

Anyway, I failed to really analyze the return trip. My show ended at 3 pm yesterday and my flight was at 10:10 pm. I spent a good 5 hours in the perfectly lovely McCarrin airport in Las Vegas. Good things about McCarrin: free wireless internet, good food, and lovely little spots where you can wait for hours and hours unnoticed and undisturbed. I read a Judy Blume book called Summer Sisters. I loved her as a kid and actually quite enjoyed this adult book of hers. Of course, I'm a sucker for chick-lit. Can't stand actual romance novels, but love a good fluffy chick-lit book, especially if it's based in England.

Back to the ridiculous trip...I just landed in Atlanta at 4:17 am. My Atlanta-Newport News flight doesn't leave until 8:00 am. Nothin' better than sitting in a deserted airport for nearly four hours on three hours of sleep.

I'm surprisingly awake. I owe this to whoever the genius at AirTran/XM Radio was who decided to put XM on all AirTran flights. I LOVE that! We have XM radio in our cargo van because I go to shows all over the place and it's SO nice to have consistent radio with a ton of choice for talk radio as well as music. So I settle into my seat and plug in my headphones. I tune in "The Blend" which is my favorite XM channel (70's on 7 is a close 2nd...). The only intelligent part of my travel routine this time involved remembering to bring the neck pillow thing.  Put it on, turned up the tunes, and grooved the whole way here. I slept on and off. Didn't open my eyes the whole flight and arrived pretty well rested despite the fact that this hideous woman sitting in the aisle seat literally contorted herself 92,000 different ways trying to sleep across her seat and the one between us. At first I thought some kid must be kicking the back of my seat, but no, it was this crazy person sticking her butt in my face, then her feet, her head, and on and on. It was truly insane. My XM-zone must have been effective, though, as I was geniunely surprised when the captain came on and said we were getting ready to land 30 minutes early in Atlanta. Whoopee! 30 more minutes to kill...

So I bring out the lapper (don't know why I started calling the laptop this...it reminds me of the clapper..."clap on, clap off...") and boot it in the hopes that Hartsfield has WiFi. It does, but it's the PAY type. I hate that. I'm desperate though and I pay. Anything to entertain myself for this grueling wait.

I'm considering putting in a movie. I brought "The Upside of Anger" which is easily my favorite movie of the past 5 years. Perhaps longer. I saw it at the theater. I saw it twice on pay-per-view on trips where I just had to share it with my traveling companions. I recommended it to my sister (who HATES pretty much 99% of the movies I love...this will prove to be no exception). I love it though and made Chris buy it for me for my trip. If I start it now, it'll just finish in time to board.

Before I go though...my recent pet peeve...hotels with not only no WiFi...no high speed access at all. I stayed at the freakin' Las Vegas HILTON and they don't have internet at all. Very wrong. But the convention center had free WiFi...very rare and very appreciated by me. I would have lost it without being able to surf my beady sites while sitting there.

I've babbled enough. In 4 hours I will be home and my much more prolific winter beading season will begin. I will be ALL ABOUT BEADMAKING for the next couple of months. I have a little jewelry show in Suffolk in November to prepare for. Come see me if you're local...

Photo updates...

I've still not quite gotten my body adjusted from my all-nighter last weekend, so no new beads just yet.  I have a stamp show in Las Vegas next week so I'll be getting ready for that.  Meanwhile, though, I am posting some pics of some of my new jewelry I sold at the show this past weekend. Most of it is my lampwork and my PMC fine silver components. I've got tons of new ideas that I'll be chomping at the bit to work on when I get back home next Thursday. Stay tuned...

First Show

Those of you who know me know that I do rubber stamp shows pretty much every other weekend for most of the year. I've done a couple of bead shows, but never a jewelry show.  I still sell beads mostly on eBay and at a local bead store so the art show I did this weekend was a bit of a leap.

I had a total blast!  I didn't have enough inventory and pretty much sold out halfway through the show but it was really a lot of fun.  It was local so I saw some friends and caught up with a few of my former students from my teaching days.  That was awesome...it's so cool to see kids you taught in 10th grade getting married and getting "real" jobs.  Weird, but cool.

Anyway, the show was a great starting point for me. It really motivated me to work on finished pieces and that was hard but a great growth opportunity.  Looks like I'll be working toward having my finished pieces in some local stores...what fun!

I am a 8 hours on-the-dot kind of sleeper yet last night I slept exactly 0 hours.  I'll be rectifying that situation in just a moment...

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New Work...and old requests

I've gotten several requests for things that people have liked in my gallery. Rest assured, dear readers, that I am not ignoring you. I have a finished jewelry show Oct. 2 and then I am ALL about making my normal beads again.

Here are a few new beads I've been working on for my jewelry.  More slices that my friend Krista said should have the word "groovy" in the name...good point. They ARE kind of retro aren't they?

Back in the comfort zone...

I always start back on eBay with squeezed beads and usually in raku frit-based beads. I love that stuff and get a real kick out of playing with the effects. Here's one of the current eBay sets:

I have a trade show this weekend for my other business so I'll be in Boston until Monday, but I'll have new stuff and some really cool additions to the coldworked disk series I've been working on.

More focals are in the works too!  Stay tuned...