Here is my first try at a butterfly for the Beads of Courage project. I think that I like the concept of the butterfly, but I’m just not sure that it is right yet. My husband says that it is awful.

It sort of reminds me of when I was a kid and I wanted to wear a brown flowered shirt with purple striped shorts. My mom would not be pleased at those clothing choices.

Help me out here! What is wrong with this? Or maybe it’s not bad?

These butterfly beads are for families of children who have passed away. I would not want to make anything but the absolute best for them.

Rosemarie Hanus melts butterfly beads in her home studio and sells glass on Etsy and her website.

I wrote a couple of days ago about the great flowers along the Daffodil Trail. I though that I would just include a few of the pictures so that you can get an idea of what it looks like.

There is a trail in Richfield, Ohio that is part of the Metro Parks, Serving Summit County (yes, that is the name…) called the Daffodil Trail. As you might imagine by the name of the trail, thousands of daffodils bloom along its path in the springtime. They are at the peak of their bloom right now. I guess that it is a little later than normal, but I’m ok with that, since the weather is so cooperative right now!

We walked its length yesterday along with our dog. I am a bit nostalgic about that - Spike (the dog) just turned 11 years old last week, and this was the very first trail that we brought her to back then. She was a tiny, tiny abandoned pup that we adopted those many years ago, so small that she could barely walk. It is hard to believe that so many years have gone by already!

Back to the flowers. They were amazing; I have seen lots of daffodils, but there were several kinds that I had never seen before - like these spiky ones.

I ran across this today: Revolution Money Exchange (RME). It is similar to Paypal; you can transfer money to friends but there are no fees. They are positioning themselves for use on social networks, but I have noticed that some Etsy sellers are using it.

Here is the institution which holds the accounts: Account issued by First Bank & Trust, Brookings, SD, Member FDIC and part of the Fishback Financial Corporation.

Maybe this is old news, but I had not heard of it until now. Being one to follow the herd (ha!), I signed up

Here is their direct link: http://www.revolutionmoneyexchange.com

What do you think?  Will they give Paypal a run for their money?

This chipmunk was hanging around the bird feeder. He was nestled in a little hole in the snow. I wonder if he was waiting for some seed to fall.

Here is the recipe for the bird feeder. It makes a great kid’s project.

Ingredients:

• Pine Cone
• Peanut Butter
• Birdseed

Directions:

• Coat the pine cone with peanut butter.
• Roll it in birdseed,
• Hang it from a tree branch

It snowed more!  There are about 8 inches of snow on the ground now, and it is still coming down.

The branches of this tree are getting pretty laden with the snow. I’m going to have to go out with a broom and knock the snow off, or those poor branches will break.

Mr. Hankey is almost on the ground now.  Should I worry?

I still have no Mr. Hankey beads at my shop at Etsy.

Poor Mr. Hankey. It snowed all over him, and now he has a snow cap.

Will the birds be able to find the feeder?  I think that the answer would be yes.  I have only seen one bird looking it over - a bright red Cardinal, but that was before the snow.

I have Mr. Hankey hanging outside my bedroom window.

My daughter made a wonderful bird feeder and put it outside my bedroom window. When I looked, what did I see? Mr. Hankey.

Fortunately, my daughter also had a good sense of humor so she thought that it was funny too.

If you don’t know who Mr. Hankey is, well, he is a character from the South Park cartoon. He’s Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo. I probably don’t need to explain more.

As an aside, do you recognize the tree? It looks a lot different now, and not just because of Mr. Hankey.

Take a moment to look at some of my beads at my shop at Etsy hopefully, they do not resemble Mr. Hankey.

When the call for entries for the next Bead Review was announced, I decided that I would submit three of my beads for consideration. I had submitted some of my work for the first one, and one of my lampwork beads was selected. I slacked off and did not send anything for the second one.

Well, today is the very last day to get entries in and I am having a hard time deciding which beads to choose. I am pretty sure that I have finally decided. I can’t show the ones that I am sending, but here is one that did not make the cut.

It is a great bead, but it is one that looks so much better in person that I had a hard time submitting it.  That, and the background was too sharp in the original photo (before the gaussian blur on this one!) - we are not supposed to edit the photos.  Hey, whatever selection method works, right?