The Glass Slipper

How-To: Ten easy ways to get me to defriend you on Facebook

Sarah — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:33:00 GMT

Seriously, I have way too many friends.

Send me enough invites to your fan page to get me to remember you as "OMG, I can't believe this person actually sent me ANOTHER invite to their fan page". As I have a bad memory for names, this is actually more of a challenge than you'd think. But don't give up too soon! Just keep on trying - it is definitely doable once you get some practice, and once you've reached your goal, it will all be well-worth the effort!

Post a comment on my page or on any of my items advertising your own product or service. Go for it! It's a fantastic way to do your marketing! You are just brilliant. Bye-bye.

Include me in a mass-recipient "private message". Please do. Because I really want to get 37 email alerts so I can read what 37 people I don't know have to say about something I don't care about.

Use crapplications that post crap on my page without having to get my authorization. I love those so much. Doesn't everyone? I am really touched when I check up on my page and I see that someone I don't even know picked out this beautiful rose / gumball machine / clown face / sandwich / teddy bear / vaccum cleaner / pillow / Eminem video / ostrich / space shuttle just for me! Besides, I really like the challenge of trying to block the crapplications faster than they can multiply. It's like a video game.

Tag me in photos I'm not in. Because I like going to the effort of clicking on a link so I can see that cute picture of a teddy bear in a party hat that you just downloaded off the internet. I wouldn't want to miss that, nor would I want anyone else browsing my page to miss it. Thank you so much for thinking of me.

Use crapplications that tag me in photos I'm not in. Because I really want to be tagged in your Birthday Calendar. That's one brilliant application. It's not like Facebook automatically displays a list of all your friends' birthdays or anything.

Join Facebook for what seems to be the sole purpose of being my friend, and never get any other friends. That doesn't creep me out at all.

Constantly invite me to groups that make me question your intelligence. I feel wary of having friends that honestly believe that if they invite all their friends to join a group they will get a free upgrade to Facebook Platinum Pro++. NEWS FLASH: THERE IS NO FACEBOOK PLATINUM PRO++. Have no worries, I'm sure you can find lots of new friends in the group. You really should make me dump you and get more friends that invite YOU to more groups that are handing out obviously-non-existent free stuff.

Constantly send me invites to fan pages you're supposed to join to get stuff for Farmville. NEWS FLASH: NOT EVERYONE ON FACEBOOK PLAYS FARMVILLE.

#10

Add me as a friend and then immediately start posting weird comments with horrible spelling all over my stuff. Make sure those comments make me think you are 8 years old, you don't really get Facebook or you have some severe mental illness. Do it in all caps, to make sure I don't miss it. In case you're not sure what to post, here''s an example of one I got today, from someone I've never heard of: "HELLO DARLING WAT ABAUT MI". I don't know, wat abaut yu?

Helpful Tips:

- Don't give up too soon! Perfecting some of these techniques to get the desired results can take some practice. A little patience can go a long way!

- As you have many different options, take some time to find the right method for you. Don't worry if a technique that looks easy for someone else doesn't work for you; I am sure that in time you will find your own unique way.

- Stay focused, be goal-oriented and keep the target in mind. When things get rough, just remember that after it's all over, you won't have to be my friend anymore!

- Have fun experimenting! Play around with different combinations of methods to see what yields the quickest results.

- When I finally defriend you, reward yourself! Have a glass of wine, take a long bubble bath and give yourself a little pat on the back. You deserve it! Then, send me a few more friend requests, just for the hell of it. It'll make us both feel good!

If you are experiencing difficulties following the instructions above, then you can be my friend if you want.

I Made Three New Necklaces

Sarah — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 22:39:00 GMT

I hope you like them.

Music To My Ears

Sarah — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 21:46:00 GMT

Today's post was going to be a Silent Sunday, but it turned out to be quite vocal - and I think I'm going to publish it on Monday, because I should probably read it over when I'm less exhausted.

I don't remember if I've mentioned this before: everyone in my family is musically talented but me. I mean, literally, everyone. Every single person I can think of that I share a single gene with plays some sort of musical instrument (or eight) to some extent. My father is a self-taught jazz and blues pianist. My mother can play various instruments - these past couple of years she's been completely obsessed with the electric base; go figure. My two younger brothers both play electric guitar and they both have bands. Itamar, the youngest, also plays classical piano. When I ask which instrument he'd give up if he could only play one (just about my best attempt at asking an intelligent question about music), he stares at me, horrified, and says he could never choose between them.

A warm day in Tel Aviv

Don't get me wrong, I like music. I listen to music all the time. While I'm doing other things. There are many things I don't think I could do at all if I wasn't listening to music while I do them, such as making beads, cleaning spacers (a-ha, look how she managed to incorporate a little self-promotion into such a personal post), walking to the post office, washing dishes or sitting in airplanes. But I never just sit down and listen to music for the sake of listening to music. They all do, but I don't. I just don't. I need to be doing something else. In social situations, I don't like being told to be quiet and listen to the music - you MUST hear this! - if I must, I find myself sitting there, waiting for it to be over.

Seaweed

I love listening to music, but I really have no need to discuss it, before, during or afterwards. I guess I don't have that much to say. I like what I like, I don't like what I don't like, I detest what I hate and if you make me listen to it for more than two seconds my head will explode, and that's just about it.

Everyone in my family discusses music all the time.

"Did you hear how someone-or-other did the something-or-other with the other something-or-other?"

"Yeah, that was really something. Or other."

Itamar and Jonathan in Old Jaffa

Family get-togethers can be tedious at times.

"So, I just got back from Australia. I had a really good trip. Actually, I fell in love with this guy and I think I'll be moving there in a few months."

"Hey, did I tell you I got a new guitar?"

"No."

"You wanna see it?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Look at that! Can you believe it?"

"Uh, yeah, wow, it... looks like a guitar."

"It's the bessssst guitar I've ever had."

"Uh-huh. Hey, Australians don't say 'ketchup'. They call it tomato sauce. They say 'ketchup' is too American. Isn't that funny?"

"Yeah, wanna hear me play my new guitar?"

"Maybe later?"

"No, you have to just listen to this one thing."

"Yeah... sure."

At Jaffa Port

It's not just my immediate family. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, they've all got their instruments. Not me. I vaguely remember having piano lessons as a small child. I can't remember why they stopped. It might have been because someone realized I had no talent, realized I was not going to grow up to be the kind of person who sits around practicing things or realized I was much happier making glittery wrapping-paper dresses for my clan of handmade wooden-clothespin dolls, each of whom had a name and distinct personality.

When I was in high school I played electric bass for about a year. I loved my bass guitar. It was dark blue and sparkly, like the blue aventurine I would become acquainted with much later in life. I think I liked how cool I looked carrying it around more than I actually enjoyed playing it. Beyond never having the patience to practice my chords, I always felt like there was something I was missing. It was high school - everyone around me had a cool instrument and the next best rock band or something - and they all "got" something I just couldn't understand. Pretty soon, I gave up on trying to find it and moved on.

At Jaffa Port

My cousin Alisa, born to a pianist-violinist duo, started playing the cello when she was only three years old. She's been traveling the world and playing solo in concerts ever since. She's playing at Carnegie Hall in a few days, if you happen to be in the area (but if I were to guess, I'd say its probably sold out). Ali has been visiting Tel Aviv this week, and after a completely-different-kinds-of-crazy week for both of us, we finally had some time to get together on the weekend. Today was declared International Cousin Day. We went to Old Jaffa, along with my two brothers, ate much hummus and spent some time walking around the port and the beautiful little alleys of the old city.

Bright turquoise-blue doors are a tradition in Arab culture. The reason for the color is so that when the angel of deathcomes by the house, he'll think he's still in the sky and keep going down.

On a side note, turquoise is supposed to be the color of the year for 2010.

Sometimes I feel like such an outsider.

It's not that I don't feel like part of the group; I love them all and we have a lot of fun together. I'm used to the musical chit-chat - part of my life, I guess. Actually, whenever they're not discussing all the something-or-others of music, I find myself wondering if they're forcing themselves to talk about something else, just for my sake.

"Did you know that someone-or-other is something-or-other and it sounds like something-or-other?"

I watch from the side as they excitedly share YouTube videos of themselves. I'm the observer.

ThemTube

Sometimes I wish I could join in the conversation, but I have only a vague idea of what they're talking about and I don't really have anything intelligent to say. As we walk through the city, I am more than happy to fall behind, happily taking photos of things I wonder if anyone else can see. "I am good at other things", I keep consoling myself.

Can you see her?

We went to see Alisa in concert in the evening. She's been playing with the Israeli Philharmonic all week.

Being part of the family I am part of, it is difficult to admit that classical music just doesn't do it for me. I don't relate to it (no pun intended). I just don't. I want to "get" it; I want to hear what they can hear but I don't. I've tried.

"I want to understand it, but it's like a foreign language to me", I tried to explain to Ali last summer, as she was trying her best to find me the "right" piece of music; the one that would open my ears, draw me in and turn me into a classical-music-lover. It really is. It's like having someone talk to me in a language I don't understand. While I am sure they are saying something very interesting, all I can make out is the occasional basic expression - now it's happy, now it's sad, now it's uncontrollably excited about something-or-other.

Old Jaffa

The concert begins with a short something-or-other piece. I look at my family members seated around me and I wonder why I don't want to be here nearly as much as they do.

The music sounds pretty... kind of like a river running through a green meadow on a sunny day. Then again, most classical music sounds to me like rivers running through green meadows (even after someone explains that the piece is about adultery, torture, heartbreak and the composer's premature death). I can hear the occasional buzzing dragonfly, its wings sparkling in the light, or a dancing water nymph or two. It's always so pastoral.

Then I experience a mini-revelation: I can't relate to this because I am a wordy, color person, and this has no words and no color. A-ha! that's it. I'd probably enjoy it if it had words (but not if it were opera; I hate opera) or if there was something colorful about it. I wonder what the stage would look like if each member of the respectably-black-clad orchestra was wearing a different color - bright, wacky colors, with big colorful hats - and I think how much fun that would be to take pictures of.

Jaffa Port

My little brother Itamar, the punk and classical music lover, glances at me in exasperation. Silently, I mouth the word "what?" as I wonder if I am somehow doing something wrong by sitting quietly and thinking unrelated bizarre thoughts.

"Why are they talking?" he whispers.

I glance over to my left. Jonathan, my other brother, is chatting with a friend he brought to the concert. I make a Shh! sign at them. I contemplate how strange it is that I hadn't even noticed they were talking; normally this kind of thing would annoy the hell out of me. If my neighbors are talking in the hallway as I'm trying to write a blog post, I have to stop myself from stepping out there and murdering them in cold blood, but here, I had been completely oblivious to the fact that my brother was talking out loud in the middle of a classical music concert. How very strange.

Jonathan

I remind myself I should be listening to the music.

If I don't crane my neck I can see only a small part of the stage, because there's a tall guy sitting in front of me, so I stare at the ceiling. There's a couple of speakers hanging there. They look like a robot. He has a mouth, eyes and eyebrows and he's staring right back at me. I name him Bob. Bob the Robot.

Random guy in Jaffa (not Bob)

I remind myself I should be listening to the music. There's something that sounds like a ringing bell. It sounds pretty, but I can't see what kind of instrument it is.

Then the something-or-other part is over, and Ali walks onto the stage, looking like a modern fairytale princess in a beautiful flowing red gown and glittery crystal-encrusted Manolos. The bright red streak, gliding softly across the black-and-white orchestra, grabs my attention for about five seconds. Then, once again, I try to listen to the music.

At Jaffa Port

I contemplate how much better this experience would be for me, if only I had a pad of paper and my Prismacolors, or even just a pen or pencil I could doodle with. I could draw to the music. That would be fun. It would probably be frowned upon though. I find myself wondering if Ali and I could do a "jam session" collaboration thingie someday; she'd play the cello and I'd draw something. I would like that.

I close my eyes and try to imagine what the music would look like. I can see blotches of paint and delicate, precise curvy lines in muted sky blue, sunny yellow and passionate raspberry. (See, I'm good with color and words.)

Jaffa Port

And then I have to cough.

Before the concert started, a voice on a loudspeaker asked the audience to shut off their cellphones and try to refrain from coughing during the concert. My phone is off, of course, but now I have to cough. What could make you need to cough, at any given moment, more than the words "please refrain from coughing"? You are probably coughing right now, as you read this.

I try hard not to cough. I try hard not to think about not coughing. I try to listen to the music. I really have to cough.

Have you ever tried holding a cough in? I press my lips together and I feel like my face is going to explode. As I try to take deep breaths, my throat gets dry and itchy. My eyes begin to water and I feel like I'm going to suffocate. I think how embarrassing it would be if I suddenly began suffocating in the middle of the concert. I decide letting out one little cough would probably be less embarrassing. I cough.

Jonathan

Then I have to cough again. I try to hold it in this time, and now I am really freaking out. I glance up at Bob in despair. "How much longer do you think we've got here, Bob?"

Bob is of no use; he just keeps starting back at me in silence. I look around to see if there's some way I could escape the auditorium without creating a major disturbance, so I can burst into a coughing fit. There isn't. I decide to take the silent suffocation route this time.

At some point, the music stops for a few moments. I happily cough with relief, along with half the audience.

At Jaffa Port

When it starts again, I really try to listen.

Watching Ali play is very dramatic - she is completely inside the music (or the music is completely inside her - I'm not sure how these things work). You can see it in her movement and her facial expressions.

You're not supposed to comment on the facial expressions. I have a clear childhood memory of an overheard conversation between Ali and her mother, my aunt Vivian, after a little impromptu concert for some of my grandmother's friends. "That woman over there came up to me and told me she enjoyed my facial expressions. Can you believe it?"

"Oh my god". They both giggled, for some reason I wasn't sure I understood, and I made a mental note: never mention the facial expressions. That is one thing I know about classical music.

I remind myself I should be listening to the music.

I gaze at the members of the orchestra, moving in perfect sync, and I wonder how they feel about being orchestra members, as opposed to soloists like my cousin. Are they jealous? Do they get pissed off about not being soloists? Are they just content to be playing in the Philharmonic? Do they ever wish they didn't have to wear black? What do they do when they're not playing in the Philharmonic? What kind of people are they? How many hours a day do they have to practice? Do any of them write blogs or post on Twitter?

I feel so proud of Ali.

I remind myself I should be listening to Ali's music.

I think how strange the conductor looks, waving his stick around as if in a fit of frenzy. I imagine how funny he would look doing that in public, in any other situation. That would also be fun to take pictures of.

I check up on Bob. Bob never does anything interesting.

I feel happy I don't need to cough anymore.

I remind myself I should be listening to the music. It still sounds like green meadows. My brain just can't stay focused on it for more than a few moments at a time.

A Tel-Aviv Beach

I wonder if I'd enjoy classical music more if I didn't feel like I was under so much pressure to "get it". I don't think anyone else in the auditorium was feeling that way; it's weird. I think it's supposed to do the opposite, but classical music stresses me out. It has really high expectations and I don't always know what it wants from me. It's condescending. It makes me feel stupid for not being able to fully appreciate it.

At Jaffa Port

I'm glad I went to the concert. Ali means so much to me. She is so sweet, funny and down-to-earth and I wish we could see eachother more often. She's very supportive of my glass obsession and she doesn't mind listening to my endless rambling about beads. I was glad to be in the audience, even if I wasn't "there" to the same extent everybody else was.

It's good to step out of my comfort zone every once in a while and open up to something different. It's challenging, trying to understand what it is about it that draws everyone in my family in and leaves me on the outside. I wonder if it'll ever change, if I'll ever find myself sitting peacefully and listening to something-or-other by someone-or-other or even if I'll ever make beads to the sounds of the something-or-other on my iPod.

Who knows, right?

Things I Did this Week

Sarah — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:16:00 GMT

1. I went to Jerusalem, but I believe we talked about that already. It had been a while.

2. I ate gold.

No, really. After the Old City, we went to the luxurious King David hotel for coffee. I couldn't resist ordering the lemon cream-caramel-pistachio cake. How could anyone resist anything that has lemon cream, caramel and pistachios in it?

So, when the cake arrived, I noticed it had gold flakes on top.

"Uh, waitress?"

"Yes?"

"My cake has gold on it."

"Yes, you can eat that."

"Oh. Okay."

Yes, I did spend a couple of moments contemplating scraping the gold off the cake into a napkin, discreetly shoving it into my pocketbook and using it in a bead, but I thought that might look tacky. The King David is a fancy place. For general knowledge, in case you happen to be in the area, the terrace is quite lovely. It is so peaceful and the air there is so nice and un-humid, it actually made me miss living in Jerusalem for a minute or two. I got over it though. Tel Aviv is really the best - noise, filth, humidity and all.

In case you were wondering, gold tastes like salt and eating it makes you feel very important.

3. I took Melanie Moertel's class. It was a lot of fun. It was actually the first time in a while that I felt I could just sit at a torch and enjoy making beads, without wondering if anyone is going to want to buy them or not. I should do that more often.

Melanie is such a sweet and fun person - getting to know her and hang out with her was a real treat.

4. I made an alien bead. (No, she's not a doll, she's not a fairy and she's not Pippi Longstocking. She's an alien. AN ALIEN. Seriously, people. She is green and she has antennae. How could she be Pippi Longstocking?)

I think I might make some more aliens, but I have a different idea for how to make them. We'll see.

I made some other beads in class too. Melanie's typical color schemes are different from mine, so it was fun to play around with that.

5. I made nine spacers on one mandrel.

Actually, today I made TEN spacers on one mandrel, but those are still in the kiln.

So, in the meantime, check this out:

6. Aside from those, I made 14,659 more spacers. Please bid on them. K?

I think tomorrow I might actually make beads that are not spacers, but I'm not sure yet. I'm kind of in the zone.

7. I made two sets of disk beads, called Zing and Spring Fling. They're on Etsy.

8. Oh, speaking of Etsy - I finally fulfilled my life-long dream of making it to the front page! These beads were there on Sunday, while I was in class! Yeah!

9. I met some really weird people, but let's not go into that. (*winks at Melanie*)

10. I taught two classes of my own - one beginners', one Glass, Glitter and Gravity. I am so exhausted. It's been a long week.

11. I managed to do something to upset the computer gods, apparently. A few weeks ago my desktop monitor went completely berserk, and now it's my laptop monitor. There's a few rows of pixels at the bottom of the screen that keep flickering and it's incredibly annoying. I keep trying to ignore it but I can't. All I want is a normal computer I can work on. Is that too much to ask? Argh. Argh. Argh.

12. I've been keeping TheColorista up-to-date with lots of interesting and inspiring colorful links (and the occasional shameless self-promotion). If you're not following, you should!

I think now it is time to go watch some TV and relax.

See you soon!

(Buy my spacers!)

Wordless Wednesday

Sarah — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:01:00 GMT

I might get wordier later on, but in the meantime, here are some photos I took in The Old City in Jerusalem. We took Melanie there on Saturday.

See you later.

SpacersbySarah.com

Sarah — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:00:00 GMT

Some of you may remember how I feel about spacers. But I had a feeling this day would come, and now it's here. I'm making spacers.

Surprisingly enough, I am finding it strangely addictive.

You know how it is - everything I do always has to be completely over the top. So if I'm going to be making spacers, I'm going to make more freaking spacers than anyone has ever made in their life. Hell, I'm going to make more freaking spacers than EVERYONE has ever made in their life. Hey, I am nothing if not fiercely competitive.

I seriously cannot believe I made so many spacers.

Spacers aren't all bad, really. I guess they can be quite useful if you make jewelry and stuff.

Making them is kind of challenging. I keep trying to fit more and more on each mandrel. I started out, a few days ago, being able to make just two or three, and now I'm up to six or seven. Yay me.

Besides, there is something rather satisfying about seeing my kiln full of mandrels and telling myself, hey, I made 200 beads today. I mean, when I make interesting focals and stuff, I end up with 5 or 6 mandrels peeking out of the kiln, at the most.

Having to clean the 200 beads the next day totally sucks, but c'est la vie. I'm getting used to spending a lot of time over the sink with my dremel.

Making spacers is a good way to use pretty colors that I don't have much of a use for in my real beads, like all those weird Vetrofond odd lots that seemed like a good idea to buy tons of at the time. Or Reichenbach 'Mystic' colors that look really gorgeous as spacers but seem to lose their pearly sparkle if you work them too long. And anyway, I have way too much glass lying around as it is, and when I go back to making interesting beads, I plan on focusing on Bullseye.

Spacers are cool. They're colorful. They're round. They're cheap. They have holes in them.

See, I'm thinking positive. Now please bid on my spacers. Thank you.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Totally Cracked Me Up

From Sarah Moran's blog:

So, right after I read Kate’s journal, I checked Sarah Hornik’s blog, The Glass Slipper,

for the first time in a couple of weeks. I really should read it more often, because

whenever I read Sarah’s blog, I always feel perfectly okay to be me – my cynical, negative,

unapproachable self.

I found myself laughing out loud, and I knew she meant it in a good way, before I even read the rest of the paragraph.

I'm so glad I bring out the cynical side in people. Haha.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BLUE SALE on Etsy!

Sarah — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 14:40:00 GMT

I'm having a BLUE SALE!

This weekend only, all beads and jewelry that have BLUE in them are 20% OFF!

To make things easier, I've tagged all sale items with the word BLUE, so you can find them by searching for "blue" in my shop, or by clicking this link:
http://www.etsy.com/search_results_shop.php?search_type=user_shop_ttt_id_85969&search_query=blue

To get the discount, add any items that have BLUE in them to your cart, checkout as usual, and put the words BLUE SALE in the Message to Seller box. I will send you a refund through Paypal once payment is received (please allow up to 12 hours for the refund, although it will probably be much sooner).

- To qualify for the discount, items MUST be paid for through Paypal before the end of the sale.

- Sale ends Sunday, February 28 at midnight, Israel time.

- E-books are not included in this sale.

Enjoy!

Inspired by Fashion (or lack thereof)

Sarah — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

These past few days, I've been keeping my eyes open for inspiring and colorful links and things to post on my TheColorista page. And I figured, if I'm going to be looking for potential inspiration for my followers, why not use some of it myself? We could all use some inspiration from time to time, right?

Here is Loud, a set that was inspired by this fantastic photo I stumbled across on Flickr. Purple, fuchsia, olive, magenta... yum. I've been playing around with some Bullseye odd lots lately, so I happened to have just the right colors sitting there on my table.

Okay, fine, I happen to have just about every color in the world sitting there on my table. I know. I need to clean and organize my workspace. I KNOW. I just really don't want to.

Anyway, I love how these particular colors look together.

This next set is called Project Runaway, because it was inspired by one of the outfits on the last episode of Project Runway - the one the judges absolutely hated. Okay, the style is kind of horrendous, but it kind of pissed me off when they were going on and on about how terrible the color combination was, because I thought it was kind of awesome. Besides, the fact that one of them said "I don't think blue and orange are complementary colors" made me lose a lot of faith in the show.

Anyway, on the most part, they seem to be allergic to color over there. It's like the winning designs are almost always black, grey or some other drab and boring color. I don't get it. They walk into the fabric store and everything looks so beautiful and colorful in there, and then all anyone can come up with is grey. Maybe this is how the fashion world is in general? Don't ask me; my fashion sense is limited to my jeans, hoodies, sneakers and crocs and I am perfectly happy with that.

And now I look down and realize that the hoodie I am wearing at the moment is actually grey. It is cool though. Sigh.

This final set, Spring Accents, was inspired by nothing in particular, besides some of those pretty colors sitting on my table.
(And the fact that spacers seem to be the only really popular thing on eBay these days?)

Mmmmmmmulticolor!

Sarah — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:15:00 GMT

Why have I never tried Reichenbach "Multicolor" before? This color is awesome. It keeps pleasantly surprising me when it comes out of the kiln.

Octopus's Garden, now on eBay:

Romance (Multicolor with Double Helix 'Ekho'), now on Etsy:

And Glyphs (with more Ekho), now on Etsy too:

Have you been following TheColorista?

You should, because I'm having a lot of fun with it, and besides, I'm kind of experimenting with the marketing potential of Twitter - you know, the one everyone keeps raving about. So I've decided to have weekly "retweet" giveaways on there, and the first one is on its way! Come on, you know you want to.

TheColorista

Sarah — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 00:41:00 GMT

You know how I keep saying I want to start a new blog about color and it never actually happens?

Let's face it, I don't really have time to write another blog. Not right now, anyway. It might still happen someday.

In the meantime, I've decided to start small. I've started a new Twitter account called TheColorista, and it's going to be all about color. I think it should be fun... and probably not too time-consuming (although knowing myself, I will probably figure out some way to make the 140 characters eat up all my time anyway).

TheColorista needs followers! Any takers?

Code for Technorati, please ignore F2NAM2JZUY26

OMG, Look! No Mandrel!

Sarah — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 23:14:00 GMT

Yeah, after 4,657,125 tries, I finally made some pendants I can show to the world!

These and more are now on Etsy:

I have posted some new eBay auctions as well - click here to check them out.

Have a great weekend!

Hi. I have not seen Avatar.

Sarah — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:33:00 GMT

This is a post where I rant about meaningless crap to take my mind off all the real crap. This week sucks. I'm recovering from a bad cold. My computer screen went all yellow and blurry and I need to get a new one, which I can't afford. The tax authorities are systematically torturing me. The elevator in my building stopped working yet again. And just when I thought nothing else could possibly go wrong, today I slipped on the stairs, fell on my ass and sprained my shoulder and it hurts. I need for something good to happen. Seriously.

I have not seen Avatar.

I have no intention of seeing Avatar.
I do not want to see Avatar.
No.
I don't.
I won't.
Leave me alone.

I've heard it all. This is the best movie ever made. There's like, 3-D animation and aliens and stuff - you wouldn't want to miss out on the 3-D animation and the aliens and stuff, would you? People have gone so far as to say that their life is now divided into two - life before Avatar and life after Avatar. Are you freaking kidding me?! Give me a break.

As a principle, I don't watch movies that become social phenomena. Why? Because they always suck. Yes. Always. I have fallen for the you-must-see-it-and-you-are-going-to-like-it way too many times, and I'm not falling for it again. The more people talk about Avatar, the less I want to see it. I have absolutely no interest in this movie

Many years ago, when I was a web designer working for Walla, we used to get free tickets to press screenings for all the really-cool-next-best-thing-hype movies. It seemed cool at the time; you get to watch the movie before everyone else, in a small theater with a bunch of local B-list celebrities. As a young designer, this makes you feel very important, even though you know that after the screening your job is going to be taking files off a CD provided by the distributor (hopefully) and replacing the English website text with Hebrew text provided by somebody else. But yeah, you really do need to see the movie in order to do that.

I fell asleep during The Matrix. I'm sorry if this offends you, but I did - not once, mind you, but three times. The first time was during the much-anticipated press screening. The last thing I remember is Keanu Reeves dancing around, doing Kung-Fu moves, dressed in a black raincoat and sunglasses. Seriously, how can a movie that has Keanu Reeves doing Kung-Fu in a black raincoat and sunglasses in it possibly be a good movie? Uh, is it over? Oops, I must have nodded off for a minute there. I'm sorry. It's been a really long day.

"How was the movie?!" everyone wanted to know, the next day.

"I don't know. There was Kung-Fu. And sunglasses. It was okay, I guess."

I got severely scolded by everyone around me for my lack of appreciation for The Matrix, the "best movie ever!" life-changing experience of the time. So I went to see it again, paying for my own ticket this time. I meant to give it a serious chance. Really.

I fell asleep again.

A couple of years later, it was on TV, so I thought I'd give it one more try, figuring that if everyone thinks this is such a brilliant movie, I must be missing something.

Yep. Nighty-night, Keanu Reeves. Please go away now.

I think at some point in time I may have fallen asleep during one of the sequels as well, but I don't really remember. Seriously, if there is anything worse than the current best movie ever, it's the best movie ever's sequel, especially when they play around with the title and add words like "reloaded" to make it sound super-uber-cool, not like a money-extracting machine or anything.

Lord of the Rings? I would have gladly fallen asleep during that, because the screening was at some surreal hour, like 9am or something. I couldn't sleep because the movie was making too much noise. It was really irritating. The fantasy genre SO does not do it for me. I'm sorry. It just doesn't. No, I haven't read the books.

Lost in Translation? Blech, bore, blech, bore, way too slow, bore, snore.

Harry Potter?

No. I have not seen Harry Potter.

Nope, none of them.
No, not even that one!

No, I haven't read the books.

No, I don't want to read the books.

I really don't care if you love the movie.

I don't care if you think the movie is fantastic and the books are even better.

Yeah, I get it, you think I should read the books.

No.

I'm not going to.

Ever.

No.

I don't want to.

No.

When I was a kid, I used to love the books of Diana Wynne Jones. I would read them over and over and I remember them as being endlessly fascinating and entertaining. As you've probably figured out by now, I have not read any of the Harry Potter books, but the concept always sounded strikingly similar to the wonderful Chrestomanci series. One of the many reasons why the crazy hype never made much sense to me.

There's Something About Mary? No, there really isn't. I can't believe I got talked into sitting through that one. Everyone thinks it's hilarious! Blech. I can't watch movies that have Cameron Diaz or Meg Ryan in them.

Kill Bill?

Ugh. While I loved Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs (besides the ear scene, I still have nightmares about that sometimes), Kill Bill has got to be the stupidest you-are-supposed-to-love-this movie ever. Actually, I think I feel the same way about every martial arts movie I've ever seen. I don't want to watch people dancing around with swords and gallons of blood being spattered purely for shock value. Ugh. Boring. BORING. I can't believe I had to sit through two of those. Ugh. Ugh.

Pirates of the Caribbean?

I'm pretty sure I saw one of them but I can't remember anything about it at all. Did it have martial arts in it?

Borat? Or the other one, what was his name?

No. Not funny. Not. No. Not going to watch it. No.

Twilight. Ugh, I am so sick of vampires.
I watched this movie out of pure boredom, on some flight from somewhere to somewhere else, and once again, found myself wondering what the hell all the hype was about. It might have been the watered-down airplane version, or the fact that they shut the screens off 10 minutes before the end because the plane was landing, or maybe this actually is a painfully boring movie, or maybe it's just me. WTF?

This could probably go on for a while, but I'll stop now because my shoulder hurts and staring at a fuzzy yellow computer screen is probably not good for my eyes. So, no, I'm not going to see Avatar and I don't care how much you like it. Next time you have a life-altering experience at a movie theater and you want to tell someone all about it, you should know that I'm probably not your best person for the job.

However, I haven't really enjoyed a movie in a really long time. If there's anything that is not Avatar that you think I should watch, I'm open to suggestions. I have no need for the special effects, the martial arts, the lowest-common-denominator humor, the pirates, the vampires or the Oscars. Give me characters that intrigue me or ones I can relate to. Give me witty and intelligent dialog. Give me a plot I can believe - because if I don't believe the plot I'm not going to enjoy the movie. Make me think. Surprise me. Give me one of those you-never-saw-that-coming endings, but not a dumb one. Don't make me read subtitles (sorry, I hate translations). Make it interesting. Don't put me to sleep. Make me actually care what happens next. Is that too much to ask?

Or just give me a good TV series - like the brilliant Breaking Bad, the thought-provoking Mad Men or the fantastic Big Love, because I seem to be enjoying those much more these past few years. Hey, I'll happily take even Project Runway or Survivor over whatever movie it is that I'm supposed to like because everyone else does.

Argh. My shoulder hurts. I hate this week.

G'night.

February is Short Attention Span Month

Sarah — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 18:12:00 GMT

Apparently.

All on Etsy!

Things I've been up to

Sarah — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:34:00 GMT

I scored 668,700 points on Bejeweled Blitz this week.

Well yes, I do think this achievement is important enough to be mentioned in bold on my blog. It's freaking 668,700 points. That's like, impossible. I rock.

I have a few more things to say about computer games - but first, let's talk about some other important stuff.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Upcoming Classes in Australia and New Zealand

I am excited to be traveling back to the southern hemisphere this April. This time I'll be teaching both in Australia and New Zealand!

I am scheduled to teach two sessions of classes at Carole Griffiths' studio in Canberra, between April 22-25 and April 28 - May 1. For more information and registration, please contact Carole at carole@handmadeglassbeads.com.au.

After that I'll be heading to New Zealand, where I'll be teaching a session at Born To Bead in Auckland between May 13-16, then at Annie Rose in Whangarei between May 20-23. Please contact the studios through their websites for more information.

Hope to see you there!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BEADS: Production Mode

After finishing the work on Making Mandala Beads, I needed a couple of days off to recharge myself (and score many points on Bejeweled Blitz).

Then, it was time to get back to work. I tried making some off-mandrel pendants. At first I was excited that I could actually make things without a mandrel - and, potentially, without having to clean out bead release, one of my most hated tasks. There's something about off-mandrel work that makes me feel like a "real" flameworker.

Sadly, the pendants came out of the kiln looking unbelievably crappy - not even photo-worthy. I did go through an interesting thought process though.

I have recently taken a marble making class and a Lucio class. They were both fun. I learned a lot. But I was - and still am, I guess - having some trouble figuring out what I am supposed to do with what I learned. It's that creative block thing, the stressful kind, the preachy inner voice that keeps nagging and asking you what's the point in taking classes if you're just going to keep on making the same things. Many ideas went through my mind... I could make little abstract sculptures, or I could try making marbles with soft glass, or I could practice sculpting the human figure, or something. Whatever.

But even if I could accomplish any of that successfully, what would I do with all that stuff? Who needs a bunch of useless glass knickknacks lying around?

Yes, I know, this sounds like a very weird way of looking at things.

I think I realized something important about myself and my work. It's not that I've been making beads all this time because I didn't know how to make anything else. Anything "more advanced", or whatever. It's not that I can "only make beads" because of my dependency on mandrels. I mean, yeah, I pretty much depend on mandrels at this point, but does this have to be a bad thing? I realized that I make beads because I like beads. I like making stuff that can be used for something. I like making stuff that people can wear. I am more attracted to making functional things than things that just sit on a shelf. Not that I don't appreciate the stuff that sits on shelves - I do, trust me - but I don't think it's what I want to make. Not at this point in time, in any case. When it's time for me to make other stuff, then I will.

So, anyway, after these profound realizations, I decided to put myself in "production mode" and just sit at the torch for a few days and make a big bunch of beads. Beads, just beads. So I did. I made LOTS of beads.

It was fun. And delightfully non-stressful. These are kind of all over the place as far as style is concerned, but I'm hoping there will be something for everyone. Or at least something for someone. Or anything for anyone? Check them out on my Etsy.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Now, back to those computer games.

My incredible talent for swapping colored exploding jewels aside (uh, just so we're clear, this refers to the Bejeweled Blitz thing, not my latest mini-sets - they don't explode), I've been obsessing over a different kind of computer game lately. I think you may have heard of it. It's called Etsy.

A couple of months ago, in an effort to boost my sales, I decided to play the Etsy game. That is, do all the stuff you're supposed to do to boost your sales on Etsy. Improve your photos. Renew your items every day. Make treasuries. Get people to click on the treasuries. Join a team. Participate on the Etsy forums.

I did all this stuff. I changed all my photos to make them fit nicely into the annoying-not-quite-square Etsy shop format. I joined a team. I've been posting messages - most of them just pointless "here I am" messages - on the forums. Some of the discussions there are quite interesting, actually - yay, more time spent in front of the computer reading stuff - but I can't really get too involved; I have too many other forums and social networks to be overly involved with at this point. And I've been renewing stuff. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the game, "renewing" is when you pay $0.20 to relist an item, usually long before its expiration date. This pushes your item to the top of the search results for about a millisecond, thus supposedly boosting your sales. It seems unfair, doesn't it? Like, why should you have to keep paying and paying to relist the same items? I mean, if you do it once a day, you pay $6 a month - not a big deal. But I have learned that some people renew things 15-20 times a day. I've been doing it in moderation - 2 or 3 times a day, or so. I can confidently say that this does absolutely nothing for my sales and I am just pointlessly donating money to Etsy. I should really stop that. But don't take my word for it - some people say that renewing works wonders for them.

And then, there's the treasuries. Treasuries work in a weird way. You can open a new one when the number of treasuries drops below 333. Then, there is a 5-second time slot to "grab" it, and if you can do that, you get this sense of achievement. Yay, I GOT it! Once you become obsessed with making treasuries (who, me?), you can follow the Treasure Clock to check when they're scheduled to open up and the Treasure Hunt to see if anyone put any of your items in their treasuries. Then, at some point, you find your daily schedule revolving around the treasury. Uh, no, I can't sit at the torch right now, because the treasury is opening up in 3 hours and I don't want to miss it. Then you're supposed to promote the treasuries, because the more people click and comment on them, the more popular they get, and if they get really popular, there's a small chance they might appear on Etsy's front page, which is supposed to be really cool and stuff.

Seriously, Etsy somehow has its sellers donating time and money to them, working really hard for free and rarely complaining about it. It's kind of amazing. Someone should research this psychological phenomenon and figure out why the hell this is working for them.

Why am I doing all this stuff? It's not boosting my sales. The things that do boost my sales are my blog, my newsletter and occasionally Facebook. The Etsy games aren't really working for me. But they are fun to play. Making treasuries and/or appearing in them doesn't really do much for promotion. I kind of knew this already, long before this obsession started. I've always said that the only people browsing the treasuries are other sellers, not buyers, and I'm pretty sure this is true.

And yet, I am obsessed with the idea of making it to Etsy's front page. So my life must revolve around treasuries. It's like playing the same computer game over and over and over again. If you don't win, you just start over. Even if the prize isn't worth as much as you think it might be.

Hey, you probably have a better chance at scoring 668,700 points in Bejeweled Blitz.

Drawing Winners

Sarah — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:36:00 GMT

The three winners of the Making Mandala Beads pre-sale drawing are:

Elaine H.

Anne-Marij V.

Mari W.

Congratulations!

The winners will be notified by e-mail.

Many thanks to everyone who purchased the E-book so far.
Your support is much appreciated!

It's Ready!

Sarah — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:11:00 GMT

Yay! I made it in time!

http://www.glassbysarah.com/ebooks/mandala

All the pre-ordered copies have been sent out, and I will be announcing the winners of the drawing tomorrow!

If you have ordered a copy and you haven't received it yet, please check your junk mail folder - if it's not in there, e-mail me at sarah.hornik@gmail.com.

Progress Report

Sarah — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 20:37:00 GMT

Ugh. I'm becoming one of those people who uses their blog for nothing but shameless self-promotion. I hope I'm not losing your interest here. It's just that the constant obnoxious marketing has been necessary lately (bead, anyone?). Making ends meet has become a struggle, so I can't put as much time into thinking about humorous, infuriating or even remotely interesting non-marketing-related things to blog about - and I am pretty sure no one wants to read about my dark and twisted thoughts on the current economy again (bead? anyone?). I know we're all in the same boat here, so please forgive me? I promise to be interesting again, or at least make you laugh at my troubles, once I get my new E-book out on the virtual shelves.

Anyway, I wanted to tell you some more about Making Mandala Beads. I've been working like crazy all week, stressing myself out about possibly not meeting the deadline and stuff. But now, I'm feeling pretty good about the whole thing, and confident that I am going to have it finished in time. I still need to re-shoot a couple of the tutorials (thanks to Indi for being so patient with me and, as always, doing such a fantastic job on the tutorial photography), but aside from that, almost everything is ready. I'm up to 60 pages already, not including those two tutorials, so imagine how huge this one is going to be!

I am including tons of information, alongside the tutorial section. If you've never worked with Bullseye glass before, or if you've tried it once or twice and put it away, all frustrated and vowing never to use it again - like me at first - you're going to love this E-book. We've got pros and cons, tips and tricks galore, lots of 'ideas and inspiration' and 11 pages of suggested color combinations.

$18 is a great price for this E-book, if I do say so myself!
If you haven't ordered your copy yet, you should!
Don't forget: the price goes up to $24 on February 1st.

Okay, it's back to work now for me. See you soon!

A New E-book is Coming! SPECIAL PRE-ORDER SALE!

Sarah — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 18:41:00 GMT

I've been working like crazy all week, and my new E-book is almost ready!
This one is called Making Mandala Beads, and the ETA is February 1st, 2010!

In the meantime, I've decided to have a little pre-order sale:

Order your copy now, and receive a 25% discount!

If you buy your copy before February 1st, here's what you get:

Buy the E-book for a price of only $18.00, instead of $24.00!

Be the one of the first to receive a copy as soon as the E-book is ready - before everybody else!

And wait, there's more...

I will enter your name in a raffle for a free Mandala bead - there will be three lucky winners!

The winners will be announced on February 2nd.

But first, you would probably like some more information about the E-book. Right?

This E-book focuses on one of my latest favorite bead styles - Mandalas!

My Mandala beads incorporate different types of complex cane, and they are great for improving your heat control, dot placement, gravity control and other technical abilities, providing you with lots of new and exciting possibilities!

The E-book will include six full step-by-step tutorials - three different types of cane and three different Mandala-style focal disk beads:

1. Making wig-wag cane
2. Making spiral murrini
3. Making ribbon cane

4. Making a wig-wag mandala
5. Making a ribbon cane mandala
6. Making a spiral murrini mandala

These are examples of the beads we'll be making:
(The beads in the tutorials will be slightly different, but the techniques used are the same.)

I will be demonstrating the beads in this E-book using Bullseye glass. You can definitely accomplish the same techniques in COE-104 glass, but I find that working in Bullseye makes life a bit easier - and besides, the colors rock (as I may have mentioned once or twice).

Since Bullseye may be unfamiliar to some readers, the E-book will include lots of tips and tricks for working with this glass, ideas to spark your imagination and a collection of at least a dozen (possibly more, because the list keeps growing) of my favorite Bullseye color combinations, code numbers and all!

As usual, the E-book will be in PDF format. It is going to be at least 60 pages long (probably more!) and will contain lots and lots of high-quality photos!

If I have you convinced that this one is worth waiting for... I hope I have... you can pre-order your copy today, for only $18.00!
A download link will be sent to your e-mail address as soon as the E-book is ready, by February 1st.
(I will send it to your Paypal e-mail address by default - if you'd like it sent to a different e-mail, please specify so in the "instructions to seller" on Paypal).

And, as previously mentioned, you'll be entered in the drawing to win one of three free mandala beads!

This pre-order sale will run till February 1st! Once the sale is over, the price of the E-book will be $24.00.

(Once more, just so we're clear: as this is a pre-order sale, you will not be receiving your copy of the file immediately - it will be sent to you by February 1st, 2010.)

UPDATE: The sale has ended.
Thanks everyone!

You can now buy Making Mandala Beads at http://www.glassbysarah.com/ebooks/mandala.

Studies in Black and White

Sarah — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 16:50:00 GMT

And other colors...

Now on Etsy!

Check my eBay for a couple of square sets, ending today... and some revisiting butterflies!

And in other news...

Due to popular (I hope) demand, I'm working on a new E-book! Details to come soon.

If you're in Israel: The fabulous Melanie Moertel will be teaching a 2-day class at GilRaphal here in Tel Aviv this March. I can't wait to meet her! The dates of the class are Sun.-Mon., March 7-8, 10:00-18:00.
The class will include basic stringer work in different diameters and application of tiny lines. Besides that, Melanie will teach striped murrini and a few of her signature styles: Indian Elephant beads, penguins and fairies. This should be fun!
There is a limited number of spots left. For more info and registration, please contact GilRaphal at 03-5603113.

More New Stuff on Etsy

Sarah — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 00:13:00 GMT

I don't do black and white very often, but these past few days I've been kind of intrigued with how they contrast with other colors.

The focals in my 'Mystical' series are pretty cool - and in attempt to make more affordable stuff, they are just $22 a piece.

And, a new retro-ish mini-set called 'Wallflowers':