The Art of Self Discipline

Having spent a week and half of eight to twelve hour days playing with fire
(with one 16 hour day tossed in) 

wreaked enough havoc on my upper body 

that I had to take a torch break over the weekend...
which of course meant The LOTR trilogy + The Hobbit
as background while I chilled on the couch with the furkids

and worked on the first of what will be a series of crosses.

Today with a deadline looming I had to set aside the beading

and return to the torch, which means I now find myself

in that transitory position of switching creative gears mid-race

while my beading groove is set to Turbo.

Much to my amazement I've discovered that even with that 

bowl of end results resting atop them,

those rods are not going to morph themselves beads.
(I know, right!?)

Must do:

Would rather:

That being said,

I'll just be over here

melting glass

and

appreciating how blessed I am

to have such a first world problem.

~~

Special WIP

Sunday morning

Monday morning

I found these crosses years ago for such a stupidly cheap price that in spite of the fact 

that I had no idea why I was buying them, I simply had to bring them home.

Now I know.

~~

Focusing on Life ~ Monochromatic

I started this week's Focusing on Life assignment thinking 

I would manipulate a few photos of the many awesome vistas 

I was fortunate to capture in Oregon last year.

While sifting through folders I discovered these already 

monochromatic snapshots and was stopped dead in my tracks. 

Y'all will very likely find them boring and this post one of vanity, 

but they tell me a story about the last almost 7 years of my life

that my 35 year old self must have planned for when she decided 

to begin documenting with a self portrait at least once a year.

The first isn't a self portrait, but it represents the me that I am

and will always be more effectively than a photograph ever has.

Ironically it was taken by a complete stranger.

 35

~~

 36

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37

~~

38

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39

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40

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41

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Well played, 35 year old self.  Well played.

~~

Except two of me would be too many.

Y'all.

I worked 16 hours yesterday.  In torch time that means I'm typing this with a pencil held between my teeth because some time during the night little tiny angry birds hatched in my shoulders and arms and are currently shredding those muscles with lightning fast pecks of their tiny little beaks.   Bright side? My brain can't even acknowledge the tendinitis pain in my elbow.

First there were these~

Followed by these~

And the rest of this~

(custom orders)

(which means NO BEADS FOR YOU!)

(said in my best Soup Nazi voice)

(if you aren't a Seinfeld fan, we should totally hang out)

(so I can introduce you to funny)
(come on over!)

Parts of my body are feeling 41 this morning.

I should have had myself cloned at 35.

~~

You Can Still Win FREE BEADS!
Look HERE for details.

Twins

Identical ~

Coral Reef~

Dance with Me~

Midnight in the Desert~

Fraternal ~

Rain Dance, Sand & Sea

Newly listed at

Studiojuls.com

Be sure to check out the current

COUPON CODE SPECIALS

for a chance to win FREE BEADS!

~~

Focusing on Life ~ Beauty of Flowers

I could tell you that I'm sitting here holding a cheat sheet right now, but then you'd know I cheated this week.

I've been chained to my torch trying to figure out the color problem I've incurred on that custom order I told you about, and Saturday kind of snuck up on me.

So Focusing on the beauty of flowers?  Since I haven't been outside enough to notice any I exercised creative liberty and made my own.

Let's pretend those strings you see

are bumblebee and butterfly trails,

K?

~~

I should know by now to expect the unexpected.

Coupon Codes are only valid at www.studiojuls.com and will not work in my Etsy Shop.

T
10% off orders of $50+ ~ Coupon Code ~ COOL
20% off orders of $100+ ~ Coupon Code ~ SWEET
25% off orders of $250+ ~ Coupon Code ~ AWESOME

Please note that on occasion my website randomly adds a handling fee to orders.  I never told it to do so and in fact can't even find that option anywhere on the site. If your order is charged a handling/excessive shipping fee I will immediately refund the overage.

~~

I am, that's who.

Look at this box of treasures, y'all.

LOOK AT IT!

I'm a freak for Crosses and I'm a freak for Raku,

and right now I'm over here gettin'

my Super Freak on.

That image some of you now have of me

shaking my money maker

to some serious funk

is courtesy of the awesome

Duane Collins

of Elements Pottery.

(and maybe a little Rick James)

If you haven't seen Duane's work in person

or better yet held it in your

beady little paws,

then why are you still here reading

my nonsense?

Go forth and procure yourself the precious!

You won't find better quality
and his prices are so ridiculously low.

Tell him I sent you only after apologizing 

that there are no more ready made Crosses,

and that he might need to create a custom one

just for you.

Who's a big fat greedy piglet?

Huh?

Who is?

~~

When the heart and mind collide.

Leather & Lace

Beach Glam

Studiojuls.com

~~

Right now there is something very therapeutic about creating a bead from the inside out

in which the presence of sparkling transparency is 

suspended between the colorful base of a solid past

and the intricate promise of future possibilities.

~~

Wherein I've been considering the layers of existence.

As always

that seems to be reflected

in my work.

Studiojuls.com

~~

We are laying my Uncle to rest today,

saying our goodbyes

under dark stormy skies

and gently falling rain.

Another beautiful example

of balance in this 

temporary life.

~~

Glass Therapy

If you are looking for my Focusing on Life: Feel the Love post you will find it HERE.

I couldn't sleep last night.  Aside from our loss yesterday, I've got a few things on my plate at the mo...not the least of which is a glass situation that is a tad bit sitting in the back of my mind like a hand grenade with the pin pulled.  To make a long story short, glass colors are no longer as consistent as they once were.  China now owns the majority of the pigment mines which means that with this regulation or that regulation or the total lack of a regulatory presence at all combined with indiscriminate mixing protocol, expecting the next batch to be the same as the last batch has become a big fat joke with of course the exception of Creation is Messy glass which is...you guessed it...manufactured in China.  It's quite the colortastic monopoly.

Colortastic:  adj.  That which makes Juli get out of bed and light her torch at midnight to play with her favorite colors and then refer to herself in the third person the following day.

Here are a few results of that adventure that you'll find newly listed in my SHOP.~

My Dilemma?  The subtle difference in the shading of these 2 rods pulled from different pounds of the same color was just discovered halfway through a large wholesale order for which a consistent specific color is paramount to its successful completion.  The only solution I have is to order a couple of additional pounds from various suppliers and hope the right tonality shows up.  Meanwhile, I'm having to put the job on hold...which means I will fail to meet the end date I quoted.  It is a beyond my control situation, but the strive for perfectionist that is my inner child is stomping around my gray matter in a fit of hissy.

Un~Yay, y'all.

Unyay.

~~

Focusing on Life ~ Feel the Love

I had an entirely different post planned for this week's assignment, but something more relevant occurred to preempt that plan.

Driving to a friend's house yesterday evening the sky was lit up with the most brilliantly glowing double rainbow.  It stretched all the way across the sky, visible in its entirety.  I pulled over to gawk at it.  To take its picture.  To revel in the glory of the Original Artist.  To simply wonder.

I am an asker of the question why?, a trait that stems from wanting to understand;  People, events, phenomenon.  Y'all know by now that I am a believer that everything happens for a reason.   While I'll never expect to have my question answered often, the time I spend in raw reflection leads me to a truer version of myself.

I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something inordinately special about that double rainbow, beyond its visible beauty.  I drove to my friend's house, snatched open the door, and made her and the kids come outside to see it.

We oooh'ed and aaah'ed and then went on about our business.  

A short while later as I was just about to get back to some torch work, I received the phone call that my uncle had lost his battle with Cancer.  My heart broke for my cousins.  Having lost their mother in 2001 they became orphans last night...and having that happen, at any age, is beyond my comprehension.

I have a large southern family.  I grew up with traditions, with all of us coming together to celebrate whatever needed celebrating.  I grew up in a house of love so strong that as I type this I'm crying...not because I am sad but because I feel so overwhelmingly blessed that my heart is overflowing.

I could not ask for any better people to call family.  Better doesn't exist.

Yesterday we lost one of us to Heaven, and God sent a rainbow to carry him home.

That, my friends, is love.






 

If you are seeing a "Studiojuls Ebook2" in your feed, it is NOT my blog. I have contacted Blogger to remove it, as it is a shadow spammer.

Boo to that!

With some fava beans and a nice Chianti.

The glass for my current RCBD order finally arrived this week, so I'm spending a whole lot of time doing the same thing over and over again.  The designs are fun, but the occasional short play break helps keep the job interesting.

That means quickly grabbing a variety of colors to toss together, and yesterday I discovered that these colors/enamels  are so lickable that I stopped and wrote them down for future reference.

Same colors, different layering and manipulating.

As soon as I finish the RCBD order

I'm going to bead one of these, and then

I'm going to eat the other.

~~

Wherein the speaking of my mind is likely to offend at least some of you.

Soap Box.  Consider yourselves warned.


I opened and ran a bead forum for 5 years on MSN called the Art of Beads.  It started with a handful of people and grew to over 1200 members, 600 of which were in some way active on a daily basis.

That's community success, y'all.

It was successful for 2 reasons.  The first was an atmosphere cultivated for and based on encouragement from creative people from all over the world coming together to grow.  The second and most invaluable was the collective willingness to share.  As we grew individually as artisans the village was invited to come along.

And then...

Buying pewter spacer beads at Hobby Lobby and reselling them on Etsy for three times the price?  No.

Buying cheap poorly made lampwork/clay/enameled beads from China and reselling them at any price?  No.

Seeing an earring pair made of metal designed by someone else, stating publicly that you want to recreate it with seed beads then charging a tutorial fee as an original design?  No.

Doing the above while complaining that people copy your work?  Really?

Writing a tutorial on the Most Basic of stitches and charging someone newer than you to learn it when you could direct them to a website with free instructions?  No.

Buying a difficult stitch tutorial from someone more advanced, changing 1 thing and reselling it?  No.

Sacrificing YOUR CREATIVE SPIRIT purely as a means to make money other than through your creations?  No.

NO to the Nth degree.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

Now that I've exhausted that word, and quite possibly offended half of you, I have something to say to the rest of you.

Nothing, and I mean NOTHING is new.  None of us are the first, we haven't cornered any market or any skill or any talent that has not in some shape or form been cornered before.  It has all been done, y'all.

I discover things in my torching, my bead work, and my life every single day:  things that are new to me, things that make all of the above better, more genuine, more real.  I've never viewed any of these discoveries as a way to take advantage of people, because at the end of the day that is exactly what the selling of knowledge is in a community.

Aren't we a community?  A group focused on the same goal of discovering our abilities...our talents?  What happened to the sharing of awareness for the sake of just helping each other?  At what point did someone feel qualified to measure the value of that?

I get that the economy sucks.  I get that times are tough.  I get it.  It has still not stopped me from freely sharing what I've learned when asked.

Not once, in any moment of the last 2 years of dying a slow financial death which resulted in the loss of a home and temporarily, my self worth, did it ever occur to me to take advantage of anyone's ignorance while they struggle to excel.

Charging people...your peers...to help them? A big fat resounding NO.

We live in a commercialized society that dictates we need the newest best top of the line This or That.

But what we really need is each other.

If you want more...give more.

I never realized pride would be such a factor in my life, but I am so proud of that group.  I'm proud to still know the amazing creative souls who came together to grow, to learn, and to share.

You can't put a price tag on that.

I wish people would stop trying.

Yesterday's torch session was a magical carpet ride.

Mermaid Treasure

Spring Boheme

Magic Carpet Ride

(in violet) 

(in purple)

(in teal)

(in amber) 

Studiojuls.com

~~

Bling Bling, Baby.

Studiojuls.com

~~