I celebrate
Night and Day
Sunshine and Rain
The sky and the ocean
Air
Peaceful times and Party times
Friends and strangers
Music
Vacations and daily routine
Time with my baby
My family and my animals
Our health
My garden
My work and finances
Good dinners with a glass of red wine
Time to bead
Remembering that not all of these things might be there forever
I celebrate nothing special
I just celebrate being here
(All jewelry will be available in my etsy store tomorrow:
Blue Silk copper cuff
Greek hammered spiral necklace
My bird smile necklace with handmade polymer bird pendant).
Thanks for leaving a comment.
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ABS Carnival Bloggers,
Celebrations
I never thought I would use a power point slide that I have prepared for work here on my blog.
The one that I will use for this ABS Carnival post shows the change curve. This model was developed in the 1960s and it explains how people go through a grieving process and how we manage change in our lives. You cannot jump over a phase, you have to go through all of them – there are no short cuts. You can get stuck in the phases, and they can take longer or shorter depending how you manage change.
The concept explains that people are comfortable with situations they know, and if a drastic change occurs we tend to react shocked, though shortlived, in the beginning. We face a loss of productivity, and individuals that are usually strong and decisive seek direction and reassurance. We are afraid of the unknown. After this we tend to deny the situation, we focus on staying in the past – “everything is fine and we will get through somehow” or “ this is not really happening” or “this won’t affect me that bad”.
Anger and (re-) design represent the next stage. In this phase the change starts to become reality and we often look for a scapegoat. Lowest morale, anxiety and frustration are followed by isolation and apathy. We tend to focus on small issues and just keep going to mentally and emotionally survive.
At the end of the valley of tears, we start to feel more positive and enthusiastic as we start to find our new place in the new world. The change has been survived and new opportunities lie ahead. Acceptance, hope and trust are common feelings.
It depends on our general stability and experience with past changes how long we stay in each of the phases of the change curve.
I had to think about change a lot in the past two years. Basically in the past 10 years I was a real jet set business woman, never staying in the same location for more than 10 days. I lived at least half my life in the US, and I was not even impacted by 6 hours time changes anymore. Flights in business class with champagne, good red wine, movies and excellent food became more common than the frozen pizza at home.
Then I got pregnant and was waiting for the arrival of my pretty baby. While I was planning to continue my life in the same job, the grey suited guys from my company decided differently. They believed they knew better what I needed (“why don’t you stay at home and be happy that you will have a baby?”). So I got demoted, reporting to a guy that was put into my former role, that has no experience in my former position whatsoever.
Having Amelia made me think about what life really is about. And that we work to afford a life. And that we should do things we enjoy. So besides of my part time job and my baby, I decided to put my long lasting beading hobby into some more solid frames, and decided to open my own etsy store. It took a long time, but I am pleased to announce the opening of my etsy jewelry shop today. Go visit me here –
www.etsy.com/shop/nickisreef - have a look at the few goodies I have in there (promise there will be more soon) and show me some love and treat yourself with a piece of handmade jewelry. I do not know where my etsy journey will take me, but for now I know it is part of my change process and it is definitely on the upturn side of things.
The change curve and the word renewal made me think about a caterpillar, preparing to make a cocoon. The caterpillar does not really know what will happen, not does he know he will be a butterfly at the end (or maybe a moth :) ). But he knows that change is happening. And if we believe in the fact that there are better days in front of us, we can have trust and be calm, because we know one day we will have wings to fly.
If you need wings to fly – go over to my etsy store and grab this "Silk caterpillar cocoon" necklace.
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ABS Carnival Bloggers,
Renewal
There are people that never want to be committed to anything. I am the total opposite. I am always committed to do beyond what people expect of me, even if it really goes against what I enjoy. I am committed to work (about 250%). I am committed to keep my house clean and actually continue to renovate some more parts of it. I am committed to keep my garden tidy. I am committed to show up to people’s parties even if I do not care a cent for it. And and and…..
I am committed to be the perfect mom for my baby (luckily this is a 500% commitment at least, and that’s the one I really enjoy, although it is a lot of work sometimes).
What is missing is the commitment to me. Having time to think, time to read or write a book, go swimming, or go shopping. My “me-time” was significantly reduced when baby girl arrived and changed into “us-time”. We are never separated, and I can’t imagine a day without her smile.
But, I do not want to turn into one of these moms that when their kid moves out after 18 (or hopefully more) years will realize that their entire life has disappeared. While some of my mommy-friends have totally skipped their hobbies, I made a commitment to myself to absolutely not give up beading. The “it’s too dangerous if the baby will swallow a bead” comments, I will ignore. Yes, I will pay attention but this is part of me and it needs to stay.
So my “me-and-the-beads-time” has changed in quality. I am spending a lot more time online, searching for sources, reading blogs, trying out new techniques than I have ever done before. While I was mainly buying “cheap” beads at the beginning of my “bead-career”, I am now spending all my money on art beads. I buy them and when they arrive, I safely pack them, store them, take them out the next day and look at them, and touch them. And never make anything with them, because they are too precious. But I don’t believe that this is what the art bead artists intended when they made their tiny treasures.
So for this post, I have decided to make a “non-imposed” commitment to the art beads and their artists. 
Bee charm – gift from Greg and Cynthia of Green Girl Studios 
Glass eggs from Kelley Wenzel
Clay and glass pendants from Artisan Clay 
These are the beads that I will turn into some precious jewelry that can be actually worn by somebody and not sit in my cabinet, let’s say in a month. I know three is not many, but given the fact the baby is here, that commitment is more important, so let’s start at three. If I can do more - great.
So please come back and check if I will stay committed to myself (=baby) and the art beads.
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ABS Carnival Bloggers,
Commitment
There will be no traditional ABS Carnival Blogger Post in June, due to a lot of us bloggers being busy with Bead and Button Show. The unfortunate ones that don't get to go have decided (under the lead of the talented Cindy Gimbrone) to fill the empty space by creating a tribute piece to Bead and Button show: a statement necklace. Now my statement contains neither a lot of beads nor a lot of buttons, but a lot of wire. For me, it is a true statement though. It is large. It is pink. It contains those wonderful etched lampwork beads from Mermaid Glass. 
I tried to get out of my comfort zone (everything I make is small and more delicate), thinking that I will probably never wear this. And guess what? I really love it. It hangs wonderfully around the neck and collarbone, plus it is a totally new shape for me.
Are you curious about more statements? Visit all the blogs below:
Cindy Dolezal Designs
Cindy Gimbrone
Intuitive Sparks by Christine Hansen
Island Girl's Insights
Janel Dudley
Jeannie's Blog
Jen Velasquez
Sharon's Jewelry Garden
Kate Clawson
Marcie Abney
Mary Harding
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ABS Carnival Bloggers,
Statement necklace
I am very much about planning these days. Actually I have always been. My purse has always been full of post-its with to-do lists. But now with the little lady by my side and back at work, there is really no un-planned minute in my days anymore. Zero. I am planning what I do when, how long I have to prepare for the event and when I need to start planning for my plans. That way I can anticipate that everything works out the way I want it. I sometimes wonder if I spend more time making plans than actually doing things. And that anticipation -may it be positive or negative - is actually taking control. And when I reach the event, it almost feels like time stands still. Are we living in the anticipation space and will never get to the final desired event? Who of you is similar to me?
When you google “Anticipation” you get 19.9 million hits. According to Wikipedia, anticipation can refer to:
- A Guinness advertising campaign
- A type of non-chord tone
- When the severity of genetic disorders increase with each generation
- The early pay-off of debts
- The concept of an agent making decisions in artificial intelligence
- A 1971 song and album by Carly Simon
- An emotion involving pleasure in considering some expected or longed-for good event, or irritation at having to wait.
My biggest take away from the Carly Simon song is that anticipation is a word you can NOT sing in a melodic way: AHHHAN-TICI-PAAAIIII-TIOOOON MAAA-HHAAA –KES ME WAIII-HIII-TING?!?! Seriously, what was she thinking? (sorry to you Carly Simon lovers out there – I am a 70s child, but I guess when I started seriously listening to music, we were already in the 80s).
The biggest beading anticipation I had in the last weeks (certainly a positive one) was waiting for the one and only fair in the area that is focused on crafting. Last week we finally went to the Creativa in Dortmund, Germany. It was huge. We spent the whole day there and saw only about half of the booths. This was me in paradise. Since it is over an hour of a drive to get there, we went only one day (which was also a good choice to make when it comes to my budget for beads and craft supplies and the space I have to store it – maybe we should buy the large empty house of our neighbors?).There was not that much “technique stuff” as I hoped, but more sellers offering their current lines. But I got something new. It is this:
A tiny “kiln” for enameling pendants and beads. 
Look at the tiny pan and the little metal pieces to cool off the elements. I felt like playing in a doll house. I know it is the cheap and simple kind and most of the bead people who have tried it out go to torch-fired enameling – it seems to be a hot trend (if you have not seen the enameled beads of Barbara Lewis of Painting with Fire, then please go here and buy some, they are so gorgeous). I don’t have a torch right now, and it is probably a good thing because if I would have one, with my luck I would probably set the house on fire. So I was wondering if this “kids” version would work as well. It says that the temperature will reach 160 degrees centigrade (320 F), so it might work for polymer beads as well (which can cause toxic fumes when putting them in your oven too long – that would be me as well).So after not having time to unpack it for a week due to a lot of overtime at my strategy work (talking about a lot of time to anticipate), I enameled my first pieces today. I only got a few colors, to try it out first. I was actually surprised how well the kiln worked and I think they turned out really nice (for my first attempts) – do you like them? I think I will become an addict pretty soon.
What is true about Carly’s song is the waiting piece. Getting prepared for something to happen. Assuming what can be. And time spent for waiting for that event. Can’t we skip this waiting period and jump right into the fun of it? Why we focus on this waiting time so much? On something that has not happened yet. On something that is not real.So here is my to-do list for today:
1. Enjoy.
2. The.
3. Moment.
Forget your anticipation and to do lists, and go bead.
Posted in
ABS Carnival Bloggers,
Anticipation
