This is the boy who woke up early on Thanksgiving morning and began VOLUNTARILY cleaning his room! He said he just felt like it. We thought maybe he needed to see a doctor. Since when do 13 year old boys, who are all about messes, want to clean their rooms? On a holiday? When lots of food is involved? It certainly looks nice in there though. we just sort of shook our bemused heads and went with the flow.






These beautifully arranged shelves are on one side of Jacob's room. He is so pleased with himself!





This is a bookcase that I vanquished from the yarn shop in favor of another spin rack so Jacob inherited it ( at his request ) for his room. See how nice his shelves look? Phil teased him by asking if the DVD's were alphabetized.

These are four sterling cuff bracelets I made while hanging out in Andrea's studio. She has an amazing place to work and we had such fun working together. We both agreed we like having company once in a while when working. Anyhow, my silver cuffs are stamped inside with words and phrases. One says peace, another life is a journey, another love and joy and the last bracelet just has peace signs stamped the length of the bracelet. I have some other ideas to explore with these cuffs but I like where this journey is leading!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I have been thinking of thanks giving all week. Not the consuming of vast quantities of food, but the very act of thanksgiving. I am blessed in my life at this moment as deer walk through my darkened back yard and blessed at every moment that I have been granted another day.I am truly grateful, thankful and blessed to have so much and so many in my life. Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Dear Mr. President,
Instead of giving billions of dollars to companies that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan. You can call it the "Patriotic Retirement Plan"

There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force. Pay them $1 million apiece severance for early retirement with the following stipulations:

1) They MUST retire. Forty million job openings - Unemployment fixed.

2) They MUST buy a new American CAR. Forty million cars ordered - Auto Industry fixed.

3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage - Housing Crisis fixed.

If more money is needed, have all members in Congress pay their taxes.

Mr. President, while you're at it, make Congress retire on Social Security and Medicare. I'll bet both programs would be fixed pronto!
You know this idea almost sounds like it would work! HAHAHA!

I promise I will never be unimpressed by the beauty around me!

While gathering a stack of newly finished drawings and paintings to stash in my portfolio; I looked and realized that the pile itself was an art creation, a painting in action!


My birthday has come and gone and along with it, a great evening at the local Italian restaurant with wonderful friends. It was such an enjoyable evening that I think it was mutually decided by all that we should do this more often. I get so wrapped up in accomplishing things for the shop or working at the shops; that I forget to nurture myself as a person! I think it shall become my new goal to remember me. To take care of me as I would a friend or family member. We will see how that journey goes....

The wind is fiercely howling tonight, shaking the house, making strange creaking noises and causing me unnamed anxieties. I do not know what it is about wind and blinking electricity but it puts me on the edge of a near panic state. It must date from the many years I lived on the beach here when I was always worried that the water would come over the bulkhead and try to wash the cabin away ( wait - that did happen - more than once ) or that trees would fall everywhere and block the road and start electrical fires ( wait - that also happened ) or that the wind would blow in a window or push the walls in ( wait - that happened too ).. no wonder the wind causes me anxiety! I have lived it!

I could not resist this handsome fellow who is so politely waiting for lunch or dinner. Anyone who knows me knows of my fascination with bears. Not cute cuddly bear stories or those of the stuffed teddy kind but real life tales of great beardom and behavior. Oh, and although I have never done it; I am equally fascinated with mountain climbing!

What does this have to do with beads? Nothing. It is just another insightful look into Lois' wild, wacky world!

It starts tomorrow at 10 am sharp, the bead shop's annual 30% off everything except books sale! Be there or be bead-less!

Thank you now and forever more to veterans past and present.

Here he is the birthday boy in his crown of golden paper; a gift from Gina. Isn't he lovely?



I look at this picture and want to weep at the sheer beauty of a cleared, absolutely clean office desk! It is the first time, since the last time, no, seriously, the first time in months that I am caught up on my paperwork! The desk is cleared, dusted and ready for the next set of chores. It may not be this clear again for months! See a rainy day coupled with no desire to be in the studio makes me find something to do in the office. Desperate times, desperate measures!

The guys are safely home from Portland where they had a terrific show and did a great job. They were even still relaxed and glad to see me when they got home. Jacob was thrilled because he was able to eat at Jack in the Box multiple times in Portland! Yum! It is one of his favorites and forbidden at home. Of course, we do not even have one of " those " places nearby and that is FINE with me! I am glad to have them home.



The boy/man child of the hour - Jacob sitting behind the display. Phil said he worked really hard and handled sales by himself. He also is a whiz at measuring and calculating chain costs.




Phil at the tables in Portland. I really love this building, the Montgomery Plaza. It's the old Montgomery Wards corporate building and it is all restored and just beautiful, even if it leaked like a sieve over the weekend. I like the glass encased elevators surrounded by plants, artwork and cozy sofas and chairs.



Here is a shot of part of the table display at the show in Portland. I am particularly fond of Phil's display of the cardboard box sitting on the tabletop with a sale sign in it. Now that is pure class!!

A new sign! I had this one made on metal to hang above my shop on the bannisters that separate my shop from the fly shop on the mezzanine level. The burgundy color is rich and when I look up and see the date; established 1992, I feel content and rewarded.








THis sign which I think has the perfect grouping of inspirational words is also now hanging in my shop. It has a great vibrating shadow like effect with the words silkscreened onto wood and then onto a screen layered over the wood. It makes the sign look " buzzy ".

I wanted to post on my blog tonight but realized that I had let the day slip away and not taken a single picture. Nada. Zip. Nothing! I do have this photo I have been saving of a Luna moth. For years when I was growing up in Pennsylvania, I collected and studied butterflies and moths. Always on the lookout for the elusive Luna, I finished growing up, married and left home and moved west where I do not think Lunas even live. I gave up hope of ever seeing one in the wild. Once early in the 1980's or late 70's; I went home for one of my last visits ( while everyone was still alive back there in PA ) and there on a wall in broad daylight in Peddler's Village in Lahaska, PA was my white whale ... the Luna Moth. Glorious in the most subtle shade of barely hinted at mint green. Sleepy in the daylight hours, this beauty I had searched years for, did not even move, not so much as a twitch of feathered antennae. Years later I still remember that moth and my victory in seeing him, a gift from the heavens when I least expected it. What is your Luna story?

I am still smiling to myself tonight because when I showed Michelle ( she owns the children's handcrafted clothing store in my building ) the table I just finished she said, " you could sell those! " I said I used to paint and sell furniture! I am still smiling.....

If I had turkeys I would have painted them for my November display window but alas, I only had my favorite bird, the CROW! These are all shiny and jet black and ready to go.I also zinged them up with a deep melon felt on their bases so no scratches from them. I still have two more to paint but these babies get heavy. They are concrete!






A mess of drawings! All my most recent drawings and paintings stacked together before being slid into the portfolio to await eventual picture framing. I love the way all the colors and patterns look layered up and facing in different directions. It's a painting unto itself!



The new table that I have finished painting for the shop with Jacob smiling through its middle. I had wooden letters that spelled out " BEADS " so I painted them and added them down the side. A three dimensional effect plus if a customer should forget they are in the bead shop; it is a subtle reminder! HAHA!

The Halloween Photo Collection

Halloween has come and gone and I think it was the first time in decades that I had even a smidge of interest in the day. It makes me miss my Grandpop, my mother's dad. He used to gather and collect things all year long to decorate his enormous front porch. There were lights, pumpkins, life sized scary figures, corn stalks, headless horseman, ghosts and much more. He was very creative and became a big kid again. He served, dressed in a costume, hotdogs and sauerkraut along with candy treats and to the adults, hot coffee and donuts. Halloween in Doylestown was not Halloween with out a stop at " Jim's ". After you passed the ancient cemetery in front of the old Presbyterian church you came upon Grandpop's house. You entered the property by the stone pump house, pass the castle block wall, around the semicircular driveway, under the giant pine and horse chestnut trees ringing the drive. What an extravaganza and only now do I realize just how much work he put into it and what it meant for my community.My face is smiling at the memory but my heart aches mightily for missing him.


Phil's pumpkin. Jacob was too sick to carve and had lost all interest in Halloween so Phil created this work of art. He was quite proud because he asked me to take a picture several times. He ( the pumpkin, surely not Phil ) is a right jolly guy!


The very fabulous Gina in her shrunken skeleton and skull necklace made by yours truly. She looks Mahvelous! Just malevolently mahvelous!

The jolly green, eyes on top of my head, can I get this camera to work Kathy. She was an excellent shade of ghoulie green!

The Crecca Family who came into the building calling very eerily, " Looois...Loooo-is Looooois ". Zombie Joe!