I am just making a short but sweet post tonight. We are getting ready to clear out for Thanksgiving so I am not sure how great my connectivity will be.

Today we are one of the featured Jewelry artists in an online Christmas Shopping stroll that is there to promote not only our work, but also to encourage people to buy from small businesses and home grown artisans this year, rather than supporting the big box stores like Walmart who import most of their products from China!

To see the stroll go to: http://blog.designs-by-debi.com/2011/11/exploring-handmade-holiday-shopping_23.html?spref=fb

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving everyone and enjoy every minute that you have with your family. Life happens, and you never know how much time you have with anybody.

Secondly, please be safe out on the roads this year. I want to be wishing you happy Turkey day next year!!

A very beautiful tribute written about a dear friend that I and many others recently lost to Ovarian Cancer. http://karenrbrooks.com/blog/?p=375&cpage=1#comment-34702  This lady was her BEST friend. We all are sharing some of the grief, but Karen was our hero, and Sara's too. She was there for her and showed what true friends do for each other, even when family can't or won't.

Ok, it's official, we've all caught "it". Baby girl is really sick tonight and on antibiotics and fever meds. We think she is treading the fine line between cold and pneumonia because she sounds a lot like our older one did the three times she's had it. If she's not drastically improved shortly we are going back to the doctor.

We have had pouring rain all day so I have not been out photoing any work, but I have a bit of quiet time to work with some lovely Bastille Bleu beads tonight and make something special. (if the baby stays asleep).

What are you all working on? It's definitely scarf and hat weather.  I hope to be doing a chemo hat for a friend here shortly if she can find a pattern she likes!

Anyway, weekend is over. It's been extremely short, but interesting. We had a great turkey dinner last night, and today I spent a lot of time either laying around because I am sick, or to get the kid to sleep. My older daughter went to Lorgeland Music arts and did a bunch of fun thanksgiving projects. Hooray Mrs. Lorge!

Doing better

So, on to happier things! Oddly I should be moaning and groaning about catching my 1 year old's cold but I am in a good mood tonight and feeling better after sleeping for about 18 hours. I think sleeping killed the bug just by simply giving my body mega power to kill it by my lack of movement and allowance of fever to do it's thing.

Anyway, I feel better tonight and now husband is in bed starting to feel like he's catching "it".

We went tonight and had some turkey dinner with some family and things seem better than they did a few days ago which is good.

I am really excited because next week we are going up to Fresno (yeah I know Fresno is NOT an exciting place) to see my cousins and Aunt and Uncle so that my kids can get to know them more and appreciate having a great aunt and uncle, as well as the myriad cousins and second cousins that I have not seen since I was about 16. In fact, this is the first time I remember in my lifetime that anyone from the rest of my family has gone to Fresno for Thanksgiving, and the last time we had turkey day together was sometime in the late 80s in San Jose at another Uncle's house. So anyway, I'd say it's about time we had family time and turkey day there and it's exciting for all of us.

The other cool thing is that I get to make Baklava to bring to the dinner. This is an honor in my eyes since the family there is half Lebanese and have their own delicious version of this dish. Anyway, I will share my Baklava recipe here sometime this week after I dig it out.

As far as projects go I completed a couple of them in the last few days, Here are a couple of photos. One of them is not ready for primetime as I had a bead fall off during the shoot and have to redo the photos when the sun finally appears.

Nightsky plus Earrings.

This was the easiest one for me to make because I'd been thinking about how to use these cobalt beads for months. The focal bead is one I had custom made to match them, and it has silver dots melted into it all the way around to imply stars in a night sky. The beads are all mystical night beads, stardust beads, Lapis Lazuli, Rainbow Moonstone, and Opalite.

It's on etsy at: http://www.etsy.com/listing/86448919/necklace-and-earring-set-nightsky-cobalt

The second thing I made this week is a sweet little bracelet (Pearl Garden) can be worn year round but still manages to be sort of christmassy. The rosebuds drew my eye when I bought the bead set.

This is a great stocking stuffer because it is small. cute and not so expensive. It's on Etsy at: http://www.etsy.com/listing/86597695/bracelet-pearl-garden-freshwater-pearls

OK, this last one doesn't look very christmassy, I just liked it so I made it. I had not done chain dangles on earrings and felt it was about time so the earrings hang a bit low and brush the collar. Asyou can see, these are the ones I will have to re-photo because there was a missing bead and I did not notice that while I was keeping the 1 year old from getting her hand on them while I was taking pictures. Rowan is a VERY helpful little girl. LOL.

So one of the earrings is missing a bead, but this is what I have been up to at about 3 am. :) These won't be in my shop for a few days. I have also been working to revamp some of the styles on the pandora style big bead bracelets I had. I am trying to add more unique touches because I find that many of them look fresh off of a retail shelf which is definitely NOT the look we're going for!

So anyway, that's all that's new from me today! I hope you are all having a great weekend that will stretch into next week and turkey, turkey and more turkey!!!!!!

For my Aussie friends: Eat some turkey anyway. You'll just feel better.