Hi, I am here.

Can’t say im alive, but im not quite dead either.

This is what happened : I work in a restaurant. We are entering the heavy season – with classes starting again and the high school nearby, there’s a first batch of specials. Then another batch in october. We are introducing some new sandwiches we have to learn. November will slow down slightly only for december to bring it’s own batches of specials and the pre-christmas madness.

That is bad enough, but survivable. I’ve done this for five years, after all. What’s the problem ?

The problem is that my boss has four restaurant total. One here, and three in Quebec City. Two of the Quebec ones are seriously understaffed, which means staff needs to be sent there, which means WE are understaffed. For now I only cover Quebec one day a week, but I often end up doing overtime, on top of having to learn new duties to cover for the missing people. I have been more or less permanently on the register for two months now, and it is a lot of things I had to learn and master VERY quickly.

And that kills me dead. Not just me – if I was simply tired, my creativity would take over. It always does. But it kills my creativity dead as well – I stare at beads and nothing come out. I simply just want to sleep or stare at a movie or something.

Add to that computer troubles and you make Audrey a sad panda who would rather play with pandas than be productive.

Im not looking for sympathy here, but I am hoping to apologize, especially to Lisa, for the lack of pieces and for bending the rules a little bit. I’ve brought nothing especially for this, but I’ve used things from my bead stash. I had so many pieces planned, so many lovely things I wanted to do with the amazing soup I was sent, but only one and an half of them wanted to come out in time. I might finish the second tonight, but it will probably be too dark to take pictures. I will try, however.

Again, I am sorry, Lisa. Had I known the situation at work would be so bad once I came back, I would either have not entered, or made sure to do the pieces in august. I will do more with the soup you sent me, and I will post the pieces gladly.

For now, I will show you guys what I have done. <3

My soup, which I was not smart enough to take proper pictures of before devouring some of it, it made up of blues and greens, of delicious lampwork beads, lucite, and other assorted materials. Yum ! As you might remember, the last time I entered one of Lisa’s challenges, I got a blue soup as well, and it is my favorite color. I think she is biased. ;P

What happened with it first was… surprising.

That… is not blue.

I KNOW !

The flower petal was originally blue, and is lucite. Most might have seen earrings in it, but I saw something completely different. I don’t claim to know how my brain work, and in a way I am happy to have worked with a color I’ve never worked with before. The petal and the spiral beads are from Lisa’s soup, and the lampwork beads made by the ever-lovely Donna Millard. The chips are amber – it’s a very fun material to work with ! I added purple seed beads just for the bit of pop the contrasting color would give. So in spite of having to force myself to sit my ass down and get things done. I managed to challenge myself completely.

Worked very lovely for an overworked and underinspired girl, I would say. I painted the petal with the metallic vintaj patinas, which I am in love with. While I have both Swellegant and Vintaj patinas (and Lisa Liddy’s Color Me This line, which I have sadly not experimented with yet), it’s the vintaj I go for time and time again unless I need a real patina to work with. It is worth it to own both lines, if you can afford it. If you can’t, I would say buy a little bit of both and see which one works for you best.

Please forgive the epic shadows on this – it was late when I got those pics taken. Hopefully you can all see what’s going on well enough.

The second piece will be more traditional (well, for me at least), and use more of the actual kit Lisa sent me. The focal is done, through, and I will show you and give you a mind’d eye of my plan.

Everything from this focal, save for the lampwork bead, was from Lisa’s kit. My brain is farting and I cannot remember for the life of me who made that amazing bead – if you know, PLEASE do remind me ! The top part was copper I believe, but repainted silver with vintaj patinas. I just can’t leave anything alone, can’t I ? I am very happy with the focal part because that is more complicated wire-wrapping that I am usually able to accomplish (usually I would have used jump rings, but everything is wired on the main piece. Cool, uh ?

I will probably darken the silver wire a bit to match the metallic paint. The other hole will have dangles off it, be it like the fan piece from my bead soup reveal or straight ones. The top part will also be multi-strand – I am planning for white silk ribbon, with a beading wire strand loaded with more of those delicious blue frosty beads (my very favorites from the kit, I have to admit) and other lovelies I wish to sneak in. I cannot give away everything, no ? 😉

So there it is. Hopefully you have all enjoyed what I had to show, and I would like to apologize once more, especially to Lisa, who is an amazing hostess <3

Your Host: Lisa Lodge