Get the good stuff, it lists first!

This is your official advanced warning of new items that will be listing in my shop soon. They will be patiently waiting to be adopted in the Vault section of my LiciaBeads store.

Next month I hope to attend a local gemshow. I will consider your gemmy wishes while I am there if you let me know what you are interested in. I don't have a huge budget for it, but I would love to know what you are looking for and will try to accommodate.

In the meantime, gemstone purchases will mostly be going toward adding more gemstones for purchase. It seems to be working well, and I really do appreciate everyones support in my endeavors to bring you these little treasures.

I must say I am loving the creations that are being made from them! If you just want to hoard them, that is okay too. I understand completely!

Listing soon:


*Cape Amethyst micro faceted roundels, 7mm gems with great lilac color and just beautiful stones, very uniform too. These are the nicest, and biggest I have ever had.

*Smokey Quartz faceted roundels, 8mm very uniform in color, if chocolate were a gemstone... these are them.
*Rainbow Fluorite faceted roundels, 8mm with some great dark purples and wonderful aqua. I am considering selling them by matched color, let me know what you think.
*Rock Crystal faceted rounds, 10mm gemstones with out of this world faceting! 128 facets in these crisp clean white stones with great clarity.
*Amazonite faceted roundels, 6mm A grade stones. My first Amazonite. There are some minor irregularities just due to the character of the stone itself. I will be sorting out the best first. They have a great opaque aqua color.
*Cubic Zirconia Briolettes because they are just so perdy. I only bought a few of these. I have 6 pear faceted briolettes (6X9mm) in a sparkly peridot green color (cause it's my favorite). I also have 4 faceted long drops in crystal clear 7x18mm.


If you already know you want something, let me know so that I can reserve it for you! Sometimes these things go fast!

Beads with worlds inside...

Gotta love the ones that seem to give you a peek into a whole other world... These are Oregon Opal (Opal Butte Opals) from West Coast Mining. They are rare, and I am keeping that bead, so don't ask for it kay ;) I do sell a faceted strand in my shop and look forward to finding more great beads at the local gem shows starting up soon.

Recent goings on...

Just letting you all rest from all the reading. Yeah, that's it.

So, on the Licia front (that is why you read this, isn't it?) I have been selling a few things here and there, which is nice. I must say it was nothing like December, but sales still come along. I have been advertising using Project Wonderful. (You already know what it is, and how to use it since you follow this blog.) I have an ad up at the Handmade Movement site (which you know about cause it is all over this blog today). I have also been selling some of my personal stash... cause it's pretty and I cannot use it all fast enough, and I want more :)

On the non Etsy front, I am just doing a short blog because today is garden tending day. My parents are bored and want their haircuts (yeah, I am multi talented) so they are coming up and aparently want to play in the garden. I'm cool with that. So that is where I will be much of the day, cutting hair and digging in the dirt.

I kinda cleaned the house yesterday, but really it was a sad job and I need to get to it and only have an hour. So yeah, while I am gone, you can go buy my beads. Let me know if you want a custom assortment. I will give ya 10% off in my Vault today leave a note to seller referencing this blog post so I know it's you. I will either refund the difference, or adjust if you convo me first. Shh, we are putting this at the bottom. :) (Offer ends 02/20/2009 at midnight PST, aka Etsy time). Offer applies to custom assortments that are convo'd to me before the deadline (limited to stock on hand).

Have you been following this weavy goodness?

I am part of the Etsy Beadweavers team thanks to RegalBeads who first encouraged me to join. She makes really fun weavy goodies! see, it's so cute and valentiney!

Every month they have a beadweavers challenge among the members and thousands of tiny beads are promptly put into action to create outstanding wearable works of art.

Then, you get to vote for your favorite (till the 15th)! Vote here for the bestest one!

So, I didn't enter this month, but next month the theme is "Temptation" and so I have something in mind, and you all have to keep me on task!

Chiquita does it better

My parents have hens. I make it a regular habit to raid the nest boxes for a few eggs. Most of the girls lay a nice sized egg, but Chiquita has always layed a big giant blue one. She goes above and beyond. Initially she was the runt, a little different from the others, quicker to catch on and first to notice treats.

We hope to have our own chickens someday so that I will not have to steal from ma and pa. (Or maybe I still will). They are fun to watch and very helpful in the garden in many ways. I'll spare you the grand details.

The only problem, and not with the chicken herself, is that they don't make egg boxes big enough and all those recipes are set for little store eggs... thanks Chiquita for being so eggceptional.

I am still waiting for a call from my parents wondering where the eggs are. I dunno ma, but I baked some cookies for ya.

Whatcha plantin this year?

I ask myself this. What do I want to grow this year in the garden? Well, everything.

One of the reasons we moved to this particular house was for the garden and perfect south facing slope. We are slowly working toward the goal of installing our garden and landscape design. Each year a little more pieces of the puzzle fall into place. Actually, they get dug, compacted, set, concreted and stuccoed into place. It's not easy, but it will get there someday.

Most recently we are building a new fence that is along the actual property line using OZ posts. You can just make out the new fence behind the old grey one in the winter garden photo. It's coming along and we expect to put up some boards and take down the old fence soon.


We are also working on the raised planters. So far, there are a total of 3 raised planters and one water planter near the greenhouse. It is almost filled itself just from the winter rains. We were able to keep it from freezing fully by running the pond pump during our week of below freezing temperatures. It worked great and seems to be doing just great. The raccoons are waiting for us to stock it with fish as evidenced by the little footprints in the general area...

The plan is for a total of 6 stepped planters, five for seed planting and the water/bog one for soggy and wet soil plants.

The following photo is of the garden a couple years ago when it was fully planted. My hopes are to get the whole thing in full growth again and be able to grow most of our vegetables. I don't like going grocery shopping and the produce there is always rather bland. This is why my family has always loved growing tomatoes.


So what am I growing this year? Oh, we got seeds, yes we do.

Lettuce, (including Arugula, looseleaf Redfire, Romaine and a gourmet blend), cauliflower, Sugarpearl organic sweet corn, a variety of sugar snap peas, two versions of early tomato and a San Marzano Italian tomato (which makes a great sauce), beets, radishes, sugar and carving pumpkins, sweet and purple onions, 2 different varieties of carrots, potatos, zucchini, and red peppers.

Then there are the flowers... I must have flowers! I always grow sweet peas and collect the seeds (want some?). Along with several varieties of sunflowers which this year include: Velvet Queen, Tithonia, a polenless Chianti (red), and always a mammoth sunflower because I like 12 foot tall flowers and so do the squirrels. Some of my favorites are the poppies. Not the little california poppies, those drive me mad. I like the big poppies, Iceland, Hungarian breadseed poppies... the kind that have those great seedpods when they have bloomed out. In addition, I have some strawflowers, Nicotiana, a bee friendly mix, Scabiosa, Bunny Tails (cause they are cute), and mamas favorite, Snapdragons.

That outta fill it up.

The TP's are going to auction!

I have never done this before, but thanks to OrangeTheory (a local Etsian) I sent a special pair of TP earrings to auction.


This is a unique pair so far because they are on posts rather than my usual earwires.

The Valentines Day Benefit auction is to help raise money to help stop leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma and myeloma. It is being held in Seattle at the Washington Dance Club and everyone should go and participate!

Lots of Etsians have donated, thank you all for your generosity!

Heather's Handmade Creations

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