This weekend is off to a great start! We had a huge thunderstorm Friday night and I am now unable to print. So, no chart-making, no invoice-printing of any sort until Tuesday. I'm taking advantage of this work slow down by doing some fun stuff.

Yesterday Liz and I went antiquing and I found some wonderful treasures for making jewelry. Liz found some awesome stuff too which you can see on her blog: http://lizmathews.blogspot.com/

This morning after putting the window-unit air conditioners in some bedrooms, Art and I decided to go out for breakfast and we went, believe it or not, on his Harley. It's the first time I've ever ridden on his Harley. It's the first time I've been on a motorcycle since I was about 25!! And it was fun!

I spent the rest of today making jewelry. What FUN!! I'm getting ready to put some pieces on my Etsy shop which you can see here: www.etsy.com/shop/FrenchSentiments, but you can also see a few photos above!

Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend as well!

I've been adding books on samplers and folk art to my Etsy site like a crazy woman. Check it out!
www.etsy.com/shop/kathybarrick

I have a thing for strawberry emery pincushions. They're just too cool for words! Especially the ones with the silver caps. I look for them constantly and love to make necklaces with them. I just listed this piece in my Etsy shop.

Both of the emeries are made of silk and the red one has a silver plated cap.


Check it out! www.etsy.com/shop/FrenchSentiments

It's so much fun when the gem and jewelry shows come to town. Or a near-by town. Or a kind of near-by town. There was one in Chantilly, Virginia this weekend and Liz and I made the trip down. And I bought beads! Boy, did I buy beads!! I bought aquamarines and moss aquamarines and moss amethyst and kyanite and moonstone and garnets and solar quartz and watermelon tourmaline and lemon quartz and the list goes on and on.


New beads are very inspiring. I got home and couldn't wait to use them. There are going to be lots of new jewelry pieces full of beads in the coming weeks. What fun!

Yesterday was a sad day. I drove my best friend, Anne, to the airport. She went to live in Belgium. She'll be very happy and I'm very happy for her, but it sure won't be the same not having my best friend live two doors down from me.

Anne and I have always seemed to bring out the silliness in each other. We've done insane things over the past 15 years. Like the time we followed a car because a kid was in the backseat and a "suspicious looking" man was driving. After watching the man drop the kid off in a trailer park, we assumed he was ok and left. We later learned kids have to ride in the backseat. It's the law. Little did we know....

And the time Liz lent us her karaoke machine and we sang and interviewed each other in my living room. Then we made our husbands listen.

And the time we told the cop who drove through my driveway (we let him sit in our driveway to catch speeders) that the strobe light on the back porch was to illuminate ghosts.

And the countless trips we took with a mini tape recorder. We'd record ourselves talking and singing, then play it back really fast and die laughing.

And the day we discovered the thermometer in the pool made a perfect microphone. Oh, we were a joy that day!

The list goes on and on. I will truly miss my friend who appreciates the same insane-ness I do. It's a rare gift to find.

My new jewelry studio is done! And I love having it in the house! It's so easy to wander in and start making jewelry. It was such fun to decorate and use the kind of things I don't usually use in my old house.

The shock value is going to be kind of fun too....when people come to my house filled with early antiques, then make it into this room, it will definitely be shocking!

(not to mention boring!!)

In the past few days, several charts and models have been added to my Etsy site:
www.kathybarrick.etsy.com.

I hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day! Liz and I spent most of the day up in Adamstown, Pennsylvania searching for treasures. I can't think of a more fun (funner....that's for Liz!) thing to do!

Liz gave me my Mother's Day gift when I went to see her Wednesday night. It's so sweet! It's an antique brooch, hand carved from bone. It's perfect! I can't wait to make a necklace for myself with it.

Wishing you all a wonderful Mother's Day weekend!

Not really big changes, but changes that will make my life a little easier. I'm moving the jewelry part of my studio up to one of the guestrooms in the house. I'll take the bed from that guest room and add it to the super-big other guestroom. How many guestrooms does one girl need?

Then I'll take the jewelry part of my studio and move it up to that guestroom. It's not that much furniture, but tons of little stuff. I hope to get all of that boxed up today.

When January comes and I'm finished making charts, I think I'll be much happier working in the house than I will down in the barn....I'll have a bathroom nearby, I'll be able to keep the woodstoves going and keep the house warmer, and I'll be able to get more "house-work-y" stuff done during the day. Plus, I've been gathering up some vintage-type furniture for our new (yet to be found) house and I can store that in my studio in the barn. I still plan to replace all of my primitive antique furniture with more vintage furniture in our new house. We've decided to wait a year before we put our house on the market, otherwise I wouldn't be making a change at this point.

Once again, it's not very exciting news, but it's all I've got!!

I took an afternoon off this week and made some jewelry. Such fun!! I dug into my treasures found at the flea markets in Paris. To me, that just makes them extra special.

Have I told you I'm dying to go back?

Lots more charts and models have been uploaded onto my Etsy site: www.kathybarrick.etsy.com.

I wish I had more news for you, but since I'm now a chart-making machine, that's all the news I have!!

Wishing you all a happy weekend!