Getting Closer

We are getting closer to being opened for business again with customers allowed to enter the store with masks and keeping social distance. We are still formulating all our plans to be ready for you while safeguarding your safety and health as well as our own. Stay tuned! We are excited!

I have added new things to the website, wynwoods.com and I think it is a good direction we are heading in. I have added the Guadalupe panels for embellishing and new gemstones. I have been working on a new Guadalupe panel, I refer to them as prayer flags, to join the one already hanging in our lobby. We want to inspire you to do your own panel and sitting in the shade with an iced tea on a hot summer day, adding beads and sparkly things by hand to fabric sounds like a slice of a heavenly afternoon to me!

These panels are 100% cotton and are $ 4.50 each. I usually stitch them onto a piece of felt or flannel or other fabric to make them a bit stiffer for adding beads to.


The colors are really lovely and you can use up a lot of odds and ends craft supplies in embellishing them.

There are four images of Guadalupe to choose from and I like them all. Eventually, I will have all four finished.

With all the time we have had during the governor's wise stay at home orders during the pandemic; I have immensely enjoyed all things craft again. There was time to linger on a project, time to bring out unfinished work and time to just relax in the simple arts of handwork and beading. 


I even found myself baking again! Yesterday I used an old family recipe from Pennsylvania and made fresh blueberry pudding. To this day I do not know why it is called pudding when it is actually a 9"x13" cake. I suspect someone along the way added pudding to the name because my grandpop added cream to it to eat. I am certain other generations did too. I especially like the recipe because you can add almost any fruit to it. Ask my kids and they will tell you I add raisins to everything!
Ask for the recipe and I will send it to you. It is so simple and easy!

I have also been using this earring finding I cast, ( J-03, $ 8.75 pair, sterling silver ) to make new earrings for the shop and my long neglected etsy page. I made a boo boo and cast too many. My bad is your good and if you want to make your own earrings, I will include free- the six sterling silver, 24 gauge headpins for the dangles if you mention this blog in the comment section on your order.

Of course, you can always have me make up earrings for you. Just send me an email with your color preferences. $ 28 a pair.  lois@wynwoods.com or loiswynwoods@gmail.com

There are rumblings in the house now and I think that means Phil and the dog are awake. I need a helper to transplant tomato plants today while it remains cool and wet. I have volunteered Phil. I bet he will be surprised. HAHA ! See, stay home even has me gardening, sort of, again!

Xo BE WELL!

It is a gorgeous day here in the Pacific Northwest with temperatures in the low to mid 80's. A bit too warm for my liking but around here, pandemic or not, people love heat. It is a pretty rare commodity. I am secretly sitting here and very jealous because stepson Eric has three inches of snow at his farm in Vermont. Snow! In May?! I love snow but after all this time home in pandemic quarantine, I might be ready for no snow days this coming winter.

I have loved most of being home during the pandemic. I have had an explosion of creativity and have done every thing in my studios that I could think of for fun. I actually did work and projects just for me, just because I wanted to. I will have to post pictures the next time of all the things I did do. Hint: Some of the crafts I did have not been worked on by me in over 27 years! I am new and old again!

The least fun part of the pandemic is missing being in my shop and my customers, employees and fellow business buddies. I miss all that camaraderie and social life! Almost starved for It. Soon. Soon. Soon.

My beautiful white lilac bush. A gift a bunch of years ago from Phil & Jacob.

Today I ventured out into the side yard as I wandered a path around the house to do some serious weeding. I may have late life allergies but gardening needs to be done, at least around here in fits and starts.

I am in the process of learning to schedule and make films in my shop and studio. Live action videos you can watch at a certain time to see what surprises and cool things I have in inventory. Like these beads.

Handsome blue rutilated quartz found in Tucson, A new stone!  $ 19. each

I am also making new jewelry pieces with beads in my stash. Like visiting old friends to find beads I forgot I had purchased over these many decades. I mix them with my metal work and cast charms and have an adventure in design! Nothing like spreading out a bunch of beads and findings and tools and just going for it!

Handmade white bronze, sterling and glass. $34.

Locally made furnace glass beads and sterling silver. $ 15.

Signing out from my blog now. Stay safe and healthy. Practice kindness. Be creative. Love yourself and your family and friends. So long for now.

On my phone baby!

Hello and happy stay at home day! Hope you are busily creating fabulous jewelry or enjoying the meditative aspects of bead stitch work. I am missing everything about my shop in particular all the interactions with my customers. So much a part of my life! I think we will get it all back with new perspectives on what is truly important, what matters to you and that you will continue to find time to feed your creative muse. Here are a few things I have been doing.

These are two turquoise pieces I recently set in sterling silver. $10.50 each

My classic sterling Port Townsend charm. $19.

These are pieces I forgot that I had made until a customer reminded me.
These are sterling Ascension crucifixes showing the risen Christ. Easter yesterday
Celebrating his rise!  

Trying This Again

Like I said in the little testing message above, I am going to try another post. I wrote such a nice long post the other day and it seems to have totally disappeared! How frustrating. I am home and can have time to write a bit, besides all the studio work and cleaning I am doing, and then - poof- gone. Sad.

Anyhow, like you, I am at home. I have been here awhile and in week two of the STAY HOME TIME. Lots of homebound activities have been going on even a couple of long evenings knitting or crocheting in front of the TV and my companion, Netflix. I have learned though that I can not watch an action-adventure movie and still do any kind of craft in front of the television. I have already tossed one wee messed up project in an alpaca yarn! Fortunately it was just the swatch!

I am going to try and leave you with a couple of pictures taken now so you can just feel the peace radiating from them. Local pictures. Until later... happy CrAfTiNg!!

North Beach

Ferry arriving.

testing....

Argh. I made a most excellent post and it seems to have disappeared!

Summer's Wrapping Up

This was maybe a 15 pound turtle at the fair. I loved him!

Like the turtle at the Jefferson County Fair this month, as he slowly moved around in his outdoor pen with his much bigger buddy turtles, I feel the slower days of August are moving on and I am thinking of settling down to work on my winter projects. You know, the dark early evenings that make me want to turn on television and knit or needlepoint or draw or whatever, as the sound keeps me company. This might be the winter I finish the big needlepoint project I have started or finish that afghan before climate change makes wool afghans obsolete. I could accomplish a lot and really stretch those wings of creativity so we, and you, will just have to wait to see what I come up with. Stay tuned!


I am not having any luck right now with posting more pictures here so I am going to quickly list our upcoming classes for the early fall with more to be added as we hear about what you would like to learn. As always, private instruction is available at $ 30 an hour. Just call or email.

September 24th - Basic Bead Stringing.

October 8th - Rosary Making Workshop

October 15th - Beaded Leather Bracelet Cuff

All details are on our home page at our website - www.wynwoods.com

Samples are made and in the shop so come on in and talk class, as in take a class this fall!

Gazooks and Yegads Doodads!!

How did it happen that today is already the 11th of August?  Summer has taken a leap forward and is just plain old rushing by. The business part of me wants it to continue forever because visitors are in town and the shop is hopping. The other part of me longs for fall and cooler days, late afternoon sun and cozy evenings to do craft work, whether it be beading, drawing or knitting.

This week my new metal room should be getting finished up inside. Karston is coming to finish framing out the windows and doing a little touch up painting. I will have it set up to be able to cut, polish, fire, solder and do just about anything else I want with metal. Pictures will just have to come later.

I will say that the brief few hours of rain yesterday felt good and I think everything is recharged. No more dog days of August for at least a couple of afternoons! I swear, within minutes of the rain really coming down; my yarn perked up and began to turn green! I see mowing in my future.

A friend sent this to me and I love it! Collect Shiny Things! That's me!!

My honey bunny and me. Still smiling after nearly 25 years of selling beads, yarn & jewelry! 

So as summer draws to an end and September is just around the corner, I leave you with one of my favorite recent adventures. Watching, studying and photographing the small and giant tortoises at the Jefferson County Fair. They were incredibly smarter than I ever gave them credit for and moved pretty quickly. This was a little guy. The biggest one weighed 215 pounds!

Fell in adoration with the big turtles at the local country fair. I could have watched them for hours!

On that happy turtle note, I will say have a great rest of summer and see you all soon in the shop. Bead on, collect shiny things, make stuff and be creative most of all!