Gobsmacked!

To quote a friend of mine, "I'm gobsmacked!"  There's a new love in my life:  laser etched Kite beads.  They come in different patterns (I sense more in my future) but I chose the ones with the leaf design.  They have a soft metallic finish and the colors are absolutely incredible - shades of blue and green with flashes of turquoise and even purple.  

I've been working on a new tutorial for this necklace design with a circular mandala pendant using the new Kite beads.  I started with an incredibly vibrant blue and thought I couldn't love any of them any more than these.  And then I met the laser etched guys.  They're sexy and they know it.

Just look at that detail!  It's hard to get a good photo of the depth of color on them (might help if I was a better and/or more patient photographer, but that's another story).  I seem to be picking up mostly the blue and a bit of light green in the pictures, but trust me, the other colors are there.

Anyway, stay tuned for a new tutorial.  I hope to have it available in a week or so.  I'd promise sooner, but I've got another project going on right now:

We are putting new carpet in about half of our house (1008 square feet to be exact) and painting as well.  I've got nine different colors on my wall so far with no clear winner, but I think we've agreed on the taupe carpet.  I wanted gray, he wanted tan so we met in the middle at taupe.  Seems fair, right?  I also wanted hardwood and he wanted carpet, so the bedrooms and the family room are getting carpet and living room, dining room, kitchen and den are getting hardwood.  The wood floors won't happen until we figure out exactly what we're going to do with the kitchen:  I want to tear out a wall to open up the space and move everything around.  He wants me to stop wanting things.  *grin*

I've been trying to balance the time I dreaming up stuff to do to my house and the time I spend doing macrame, while throwing a good bit of time spent playing Words With Friends.  It's tough being retired.

Until next time...