Contest winners!

By Traci - 3:51 pm | 1 Comment

The voting is over, and the winners are…

1st place:  The 80′s (Sarah) with 122 votes
2nd place:  Gulf Coast Flowers (Susan) with 38 votes
3rd place:  Billboard top 100 (Brenda) with 30 votes

Thanks to all of you for the submissions, and for voting!  I got some really great name ideas from this, and I’ve already used a few.

Detailed submissions for naming contest

By Traci - 1:54 pm | 1 Comment

Ok, it’s time for the poll!

We’re finishing up the poll and it will be right above this blog entry when it’s finished, likely within the next couple of hours.

The poll will show the person’s name, and the theme name.  There are too many examples listed for each person to put specifics on the poll, so all of the specifics are listed below.

Voting will end on May 30th, and winners will be announced on May 31st.  You may vote once every 24 hours with a single IP address.

1st place: 2 free sterling cored beads from my store
2nd place: 1 free sterling cored bead from my store
3rd place: $10 credit towards your next purchase

In case you’re wondering what you’re voting for, the May 5th blog entry explains it all.  These are submitted ideas for themes for naming my beads

Update & new beads

By Traci - 8:03 pm | Leave a comment

Hi all

I’m now into my first week of self-employment.  I’ve managed to keep REALLY busy so far.  I had grand plans to clean the house and empty out some closets and whatnot, but I haven’t even come close to accomplishing anything house-related yet!

Here are some pictures of beads I just listed on etsy, and as of right now are still available:

Beads listing tonight

By Traci - 2:52 pm | Leave a comment

Happy Thursday (it is Thursday, right?)

I recently got my grubby little hands on some old OLD double helix glass… the first glass they ever released!  This stuff was made before I even knew what lampworking was.  Rumor has it only about a pound of each was released, and I got 1 single rod of each of the following colors:  Rhubarb, Passion Flower, and Dark Star.  I have enough of each glass to make about 8-10 beads of each color.

Passion Flower – meh.  It’s a very pretty raspberry color, but it didn’t really do much for me.  It did have some pretty cool reactions with Effetre dark ivory, though.
[img]http://ny-image0.etsy.com/il_430xN.138214952.jpg[/img]

Rhubarb – boy oh boy oh boy oh BOY I love this glass.  It is absolutely LOADED with silver.  I made 3 beads so far and I just adore the organics that naturally happen with just a little bit of work

Dark Star – No pics yet, they’re still in the kiln from yesterday.  Picture a photograph taken from the hubble telescope of a distant galaxy, and that’s what this glass looks like.  I’ll upload pics when I get the beads all cleaned up, cored, and photographed.

In the meantime, here’s a photo of a large custom order I just completed.  I love looking at a big pile of beads but I’m always kind of sad to see them go.

Wow… finally an update

By Traci - 11:49 pm | Leave a comment

Hello out there (if anyone ever reads this!),

I’ve been so busy with work, and torching, and facebook, and etsy, and flickr, and everything else in life that I’ve neglected my actual website in a bad way!  I’m still here and still making beads like crazy.

I put in my notice at work, and my last day will be April 28… then I’ll be torching full time!  I’ll miss my job and I’ll definitely miss everyone, but at the same time I’m totally excited and ready to play with fire all day, every day.

I have a few planned changes for the next month or so:

First, if you haven’t looked at my gallery in a while, it now links images directly from my Flickr account.  All of the beads uploaded on Flickr now are appropriately named, so if you see something you want me to re-create, all you have to do is send me a message with the bead name and I’ll see what I can do   Pretty soon I’ll have a search feature on the gallery page and you’ll be able to search by color, theme, materials, and whatever else I can think of!  I’ll even have search suggestions, such as “ocean” or “spring”, and of course I’ll have color searches on there as well.

Second, I will soon be making a lot more “sets” that I currently do, and I’ll be testing the eBay waters.  I will maintain my etsy and that will continue to be my main listing spot for big hole silver cored beads, though.

Anyway, that’s about it for now… I WILL be updating this on a regular basis starting in May!

Flickr!

By Traci - 10:16 pm | Leave a comment

I’m in the process of moving all of my pictures over to my Flickr gallery.  It’s too much of a pain to resize my pictures for etsy, then for my gallery here, and then for the thumbnails on here, hosting them on the server, then moving the pictures to the proper place.

I currently have almost 600 pics uploaded to Flickr.  It’s going to be a long process naming and tagging everything, but at least they’re up!

Here’s the link for now… [url]http://www.flickr.com/photos/beadsbytraci/sets/[/url]
hopefully it will be linked to my gallery page here soon.

In the meantime, here are some pictures of a large custom order I just finished.  Have a great weekend!

[img]http://ivisionhosting.com/users/traci/pics/beads/allcz2web.jpg[/img]

[img]http://ivisionhosting.com/users/traci/pics/beads/allcz1web.jpg[/img]

[img]http://ivisionhosting.com/users/traci/pics/beads/allcz5web.jpg[/img]

Raffle winners & new beads

By Traci - 10:14 am | Leave a comment

Hi all

I try so hard to maintain my etsy store that I always forget to update it here!

Raffle winners for August & September:

• 1st place: $25 credit to my etsy shop:  Tonja W. in Wyoming
• 2nd place: $20 credit to my etsy shop:  Amy H. in Connecticut
• 3rd place: $15 credit to my etsy shop:  Suzie H. in Ohio
• 4th place: $10 credit to my etsy shop:  Jolene W. in New Hampshire
• 5th place: $5 credit to my etsy shop:  Jaime in Canada

…and some new beads:
[img]http://ny-image3.etsy.com/il_430xN.90160127.jpg[/img]
[img]http://ny-image2.etsy.com/il_430xN.97096962.jpg[/img]
[img]http://ny-image1.etsy.com/il_430xN.96367665.jpg[/img]
[img]http://ny-image0.etsy.com/il_430xN.96364244.jpg[/img]
[img]http://ny-image0.etsy.com/il_430xN.95161860.jpg[/img]
[img]http://ny-image2.etsy.com/il_430xN.93522254.jpg[/img]
[img]http://ny-image3.etsy.com/il_430xN.93069031.jpg[/img]

Happy Labor Day!

By Traci - 3:46 pm | Leave a comment

Hi everyone!

Just a few quick updates before I head to the torch:

*  I’ve made a [url=http://www.facebook.com/pages/Beads-by-Traci/242201350544]Beads By Traci page on Facebook![/url]  Please stop by and check out my page… it’s definitely a work in progress.

* My mom has an etsy shop now!  She also is a glass artist, and she’s the reason I got into glass in the first place.  She does mainly fused glass art, and makes lots of dichroic jewelry, night lights, belt buckles, tiles, art pieces, etc.  I have her night lights all over my house!  Please stop by and check out her shop, [url=http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=7968140]Linda’s Glass Art.[/url]

* My August/September raffle is still going on!  Please see the blog entry previous to this one for specifics.  You could win up to a $25 credit for my etsy store!

Lastly, here are a few new beads I’ve been working on.  I’m still making lots of beads with fine silver mesh, lots of murrini work, lots of CZ work, and lots of dichroic work.

[img]http://ivisionhosting.com/users/traci/pics/beads/kathy.jpg[/img]

[img]http://ny-image1.etsy.com/il_430xN.88875389.jpg[/img]

[img]http://ny-image3.etsy.com/il_430xN.88873703.jpg[/img]

[img]http://ny-image1.etsy.com/il_430xN.88705801.jpg[/img]

[img]http://ny-image0.etsy.com/il_430xN.87113048.jpg[/img]

[img]http://ny-image2.etsy.com/il_430xN.87106442.jpg[/img]

[img]http://ny-image1.etsy.com/il_430xN.86938041.jpg[/img]

[img]http://ny-image3.etsy.com/il_430xN.86756211.jpg[/img]

[img]http://ny-image0.etsy.com/il_430xN.84153024.jpg[/img]

Have a great holiday!

July raffle results, and Aug/Sept raffle announcement

By Traci - 3:38 pm | Leave a comment

A month and a half since I last posted?  Oops!  Obviously I’m really bad about keeping this blog updated.  If you haven’t figured it out by now, most of my activity is done in my etsy shop  Be sure to click on “For Sale” up top to see what I’ve been up to lately.

I just sent out a mass email to everyone on my mailing list, which is basically everyone who has purchased from me in the past.  I hopefully will have a mail list set up on this website soon, but until then, if you want to be added to my mailing list just shoot me an email at beadsbytraci@gmail.com and I’ll add you.  Don’t worry about spam, I send out emails once a month, if even that much.  If you didn’t get the email, here is what it said:

************************

Happy Sunday all!

First, I’d like to announce the raffle for August & September.

Aug/Sept Raffle:  The raffle runs from Aug 1 (so if you’ve purchased from me already in August you already have entries) through Sept 30.

* For every $5 (I’ll round up) you spend in my etsy shop, I will enter your name 1 time in the drawing.  I’ll pick 5 (yes, 5!) winners, and award the 5 prizes as follows:
* 1st place:  $25 credit to my etsy shop
* 2nd place:  $20 credit to my etsy shop
* 3rd place:  $15 credit to my etsy shop
* 4th place:  $10 credit to my etsy shop
* 5th place:  $5 credit to my etsy shop

I’m trying my best to put new inventory in my store every day, so there should be plenty of beads for you to choose from.  If you have any custom requests, be sure to let me know because they will count towards your raffle entries!

***********************************************

And now for the July raffle results!

Here is the email I sent out last month regarding the July raffle:

Hey everyone

I’m running a promo for July for my etsy shop. For every $5 (I’ll round up) you spend in my etsy shop, I will enter your name 1 time in the drawing. I’ll pick 3 winners, and award 3 prizes as follows:
First place – Your choice of 1 free sterling silver capped and cored big hole bead in your choice of dichroic color (OR) 1 antique skeleton key with a lampwork bead made directly on the key with 2 matching spacer beads. The 4 attached images to this email are examples of what you can choose from, or you can create your own color scheme.

Second place – 1 free sterling silver pandora bead in my etsy shop of your choosing (up to a $15 bead, or you can apply the $15 to a more expensive item)

Third place – $10 credit to my etsy store

Well, I might be a little late (whoops!) but I finally DO have the list of winners!  It was a very technical process that involved a bowl and names on folded pieces of paper and my husband drawing out names   Here are the results!

First Place – Daphne M. from Canada

Second Place – Karen S. from Pennsylvania

Third Place – Sandra M. from Massachusetts

I’ll be emailing you ladies to let you know further details

************************************************

On another note, thank you all very much for purchasing from me   You are on this list because you have purchased my beads from my etsy store before.  Thank you all for enabling my glass addiction.  I love every second of it, and I wouldn’t be able to do it without you guys.  Please accept my heart-felt appreciation for supporting me.

If my emails annoy you, be sure to let me know and I’ll remove you from the list!  I hate spam myself, so I try to keep my emails to a minimum.

Thanks so much guys!

-Traci

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6447702

New beads and Devil Cats

By Traci - 11:46 am | Leave a comment

Yay for incoming 3 day weekends!

First off, here are some new beads.  All 3 of these are listed on my etsy:   [url]tracidawn78.etsy.com[/url]

[img]http://ny-image1.etsy.com/il_430xN.77989385.jpg[/img]

[img]http://ny-image1.etsy.com/il_430xN.77591053.jpg [/img]

[img]http://ny-image2.etsy.com/il_430xN.77362998.jpg[/img]

So let me tell you a little about my devil cat.  I had wanted a Ragdoll for the longest time.  I lost my fatty Patty tabby cat a few years ago when she was 18 years old, and she was the love of my life.  I have another cat, Val, but she doesn’t like anyone or anything.  I read a bunch about Ragdolls and how awesome they were.  They follow you around like dogs, they’re incredibly sweet, they don’t shed, they’re huge, they just flop over when you pick them up, and generally they are just about the best cat in the whole world.  So last year for my birthday, my husband finally agreed to let me get one.  She was itty bitty and the cutest thing you’ve ever seen in your life.  For about the first week she was pure love in a little white furry bundle, but that didn’t last long.

I have a defective Ragdoll.

Kiki is the Devil.  I firmly believe this.  She does not like to be picked up.  She sheds like no other animal I’ve ever seen.  She’s a menace to all the other animals in the house.  She’ll just randomly walk up to them and bite them on the leg.  She won’t snuggle.  She won’t get any closer than about a foot from you.  She steals my beads and hides them from me.  Her favorite past time is knocking over water bottles.  Yesterday she got under the covers when we were sleeping and attacked my husband with all 4 legs and teeth.  He said, and I quote “It was a whirlwind of teeth and claws.  It was a tornado of pain”.  Look at this picture and you can see for youself that she is, in fact, the Devil.

[img]http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/6121/kikidoor2.jpg[/img]

I still love her though