weekend happenings

Last night was the annual med school Frolics at Iowa. I got a picture of the sign this year.
Basically Frolics consists of 30-40 students from each class putting on a "skit" (which can include music, videos, etc.) about what their year of med school is like. It's one of the best events all year. Out of the 3 years that we've been, this show was the best yet. Good times.

In other non-jewelry related matters, Jake's desk chair broke this week. Target had a wonderful model on clearance so we ended up getting two new chairs. I took my old one to work (because believe it or not, the old one is much better than any chair I've ever had there). Yay for another upgrade to our living room! It would be nice if we enough room for a separate office space, but for now, this works well.

Our washing machine has been on its last legs for a couple months. I was hoping that it would make it until the summer, but it started smoking twice during a load on Friday. Thankfully I managed to get it to finish the current load (pictured below), but I'm not risking that again.
We bought a new one from Best Buy yesterday. They had a front load model in open stock that we got for a great price. It's small, but very efficient. We're having it delivered on Saturday so I won't have to take off work.

I spent most of this afternoon cleaning and getting stuff done around the condo, but I took a little time to work on some more button earring studs and button tacks. I also took pictures of a couple finished button studs and reshot a couple older pieces. I like spacing out my picture taking. I get burned out and my pictures get boring if I take too many at once.

I will be listing a coordinating button charm bracelet and earrings tomorrow. Stay tuned!

purple pearl earrings, another new book, and some rearranging

I listed my purple purple earrings tonight that I blogged about in my purple or brown? post.


I still think that these opaque pearl espresso bean delicas are awesome! I haven't gotten enough of them yet. Also, my March deal still stands: Purchase anything in my shop and take 50% off any pendant or pair of earrings. If you don't see a pendant or pair of earrings in a color combination or size that you like, I'm happy to create a custom listing for you.

I found another great beading book at the library this week. This time it's The Beaded Garden: Creating Flowers with Bead and Thread by Diane Fitzgerald. I think I'd seen it there before but was honestly too intimidated to check it out. Not anymore! It has amazing projects with great directions (much better directions than either of the books that I blogged about earlier this week). I'm certainly not up to attempting all of them (yet), but there are several that I am dying to try. The book has also inspired me to attempt herringbone stitch sometime because there are a lot of great herringbone projects in it.

As I mentioned earlier this week, we got a few new pieces of furniture from IKEA last month. We also got a new couch (a real couch) earlier this year when my college futon bit the dust. I can't believe how much our living room has come together.

Here's the couch. I can't believe I hadn't taken any pictures of it before. The pillows (there are 6 altogether) came with it. And yes, that's Kermit hanging out on the end. I love how the dark wood frame matches our coffee table.

I got a couple of smaller bookcases to replace my old wire CD racks. I had more CDs than fit in those two racks and was ready for a system that was easier to rearrange. (And yes, that is one of several Christmas light strands that is hanging up inside. They've become a year round fixture.)

Finally, we got another computer desk. What is now my computer (the older of the two, which used to be Jake's until we got the new one almost a year ago) used to be on one of those little adjustable plastic tables that you can get at Menard's. It actually worked a lot better than you would think it would. I'm certainly glad for the upgrade, though. Yes, there are two of us and two computers. You can probably understand why from looking at this picture.

I'm also sure that you can tell from looking at these pictures how much our hobby stuff takes over our living room. We have enough storage space for it in our second bedroom, but things end up migrating to the living room because that's where we do most of our work. :)