Happy Holidays!!!!!

Happy Holidays from Larissa Spafford Designs!!!! Enter the coupon code HappyHolidays15 during checkout in my Etsy shop to receive a 15% discount.

Every year around the holidays, for pretty much both of my son's lives, I have been busy with craft fairs. This usually results in doing almost nothing to get ready for Christmas at our house until after the last craft fair. The last craft fair usually happens the Saturday before Christmas. There is always last minute Christmas tree shopping & decorating, and last minute gift shopping too. This year I was feeling pretty on top of it because we went and got our tree BEFORE we left town for the last craft fair. We put it in our garage and it was waiting for us when we returned home on Wednesday. We also began picking up a few things for the boys stocking stuffers way back at the beginning of Dec. when we were at the One of a Kind Show in Chicago. That is record breaking early for us.

For me Christmas is about being together & celebrating, not just about giving gifts. I love, love, love to give gifts, but I really want the boys to grow up knowing that Christmas is about more than gifts. But they are kids, and presents really are what they seem to care about most. Kai was about to hyperventilate a few minutes ago because he can't wait until tonight when we told him he can open one present.

Last night we had planned to have a few friends & family members over for dinner and then decorate our tree. Our plans changed when our friends car broke down on the way over and Robbie went to pick them up and take them back home. By the time Robbie got them home to Eugene he was tired and decided to stay the night. I wanted us to all decorate the tree together, so I told the boys that we would have to wait one more day to decorate. They didn't really go for the wait one more day idea, and one was crying and they were both saying how Christmas was ruined and how it did not feel like Christmas time at all. Great. I explained that traditionally people did decorate their trees on Christmas Eve. They did not care....one bit. When I asked them what we could do to make it feel more Christmas like they didn't have any ideas. Even greater.

We ended up having our own little party, just the three of us. I turned on some Christmas music, Kai made popcorn, and they drank eggnog. We got the tree out of the garage and into the living room and temporarily decorated it with some candy canes. Then we got out the art supplies and made wrapping paper for my nieces presents. After a while they were both SO happy and said it did feel like Christmas. I was one relieved & happy mommy, and I feel like Christmas to them IS about more than just receiving gifts :)

Indie Craft Loft!

This weekend I will be participating in the Indie Craft Loft at Gossamer here in Bend!

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind for sure. Seattle, Port Townsend, Thanksgiving & snowboarding, then Chicago. We just got home from Chicago yesterday and I'm already switching gears, and getting ready for the Indie Craft Loft this weekend.

The Calm Before the Storm

I am getting excited for one of my busiest craft fair seasons to begin. Right now is kind of like a calm before the storm and I'm just enjoying it. Mostly. I felt a tiny twinge of anxiety last night when I was typing up an e mail to send out to my mailing list. It was the first time I really put the pieces of my schedule for the next 6 weeks together. Seeing it all in black and white was a little intimidating. I'm going to do shows in Seattle, Chicago, Bend, and Port Townsend. And somewhere in there is Thanksgiving. And hopefully some snowboarding. AND actually making the things I will be selling. And being a mommy & wife. Yes I am.

This weekend I will be at the Bend Indoor Market again, one last time before the holidays. The market has been pretty slow for me. People keep saying it will pick up for me around the holidays, but guess what, I won't be there. I keep telling people that so hopefully this weekend will make up for it. I'll just have to wait patiently and see.

November 12,13 &14th I am going to be participating in The Best of the Northwest in Seattle. I really love Seattle and am happy to be going there and participating in this show again. I will be and staying with friends, which always makes doing a show WAY better. After Seattle I'm going to Port Townsend for a day or two to visit my family and friends. I really want to spend some time with my grandpa Norman who just had his 90th birthday!

The last 10 days have been pretty intense for me. My husband has been out of town, so I've been doing double duty. Triple if you count being mommie, daddy, AND the work he does for my business. I feel like I've been holding everything together pretty well, but am SO relieved, happy and excited that he's coming home today! The boys have been so sweet. They have been extra nice and helpful and have been really good about spending the weekends with me at the Indoor Market.

Most mornings between getting the kids to school, and bead making, I've been walking up to the top of Pilot Butte, a tiny state park right in Bend. The panoramic view from the top is amazing. You can see SO far. Rolling hills and buttes, and all the surrounding mountains. There is my personal favorite Mt. Bachelor, Broken Top, The 3 Sisters, 3 Fingered Jack, Mt. Washington, Mt. Jefferson, Black Butte and Mt. Hood way off in the distance. You can also see Smith Rock just outside of Redmond. Every day it's been so clear and beautiful. Of course today, the one day I remember my camera, it's hazier and you can't see as far and clearly, but you get the idea. It's gorgeous! Walking up to the top and back really helps ground me and get my head out of it's early morning sleepiness, and prepare me for the creative and busy day ahead.

One day, ok maybe more than one, when I got home from walking and took a warm shower, all I wanted to do was curl up in bed and go back to sleep. I had to remind myself that my beads aren't going to make themselves. Despite being really tired I AM still really excited about some new jewelry designs I'm working on. So I dragged myself out to the garage/studio, turned on the music and fired up the torch. Instantly I felt refreshed and remembered how much I love this medium, how lucky I am to get to do what I love every day and live in such a beautiful place. It's good to know that after 12 years of bead making I still love it just as much, probably even more because my skills are better.

An exciting thing that happened this week is that I taught my first private lesson since moving to Oregon! It was really fun. I STILL don't have my own place set up for teaching. If you have been patiently waiting, THANK YOU. I have some ideas of how to winterize the garage, and once that is finished I will be back to private lessons at my house. It should be soon. I think the frosty mornings are going to be the biggest motivator for me to make it more comfortable in there!

Tomorrow we are celebrating our youngest son's 8th birthday with a party at our house!!!!!!! I'm baking him a cake and decorating it with the theme of his favorite book, Richard Scarys Cars and Trucks and Things that Go. Better start baking now!

Bend Indoor Market

This weekend, the 25th and 26th I will be participating in a new market here in Bend. The Bend Indoor Market will be a mix of vendors selling local foods,produce, antiques, art and more. Hours are 10-4 both days. It is located at 50 Scott St. S.E. near the Sparrow Bakery. I'm really excited to have an INDOOR market so close to home where I can leave my booth set up from week to week.

This is a new color combination for fall I am calling Autumn. I used rich terracotta pink, golden yellow, topaz, clear and a touch of plum.

fresh from the kiln!

Last night we had a crazy thunder, lightning and rain storm! At one point it seemed like it was right over our house. There was an amazing double rainbow arching all the way across the sky. I opened the window for a second to take a picture and right when I opened it lightning struck. It seemed like it was REALLY close, like in our neighbors yard close. The thunder was right after it. I screamed, closed the window an gave up on that picture. After the storm had moved farther away we went outside and I took this picture over our neighbors house. The rainbow wasn't as dramatic as it had been earlier, but it was better to wait than get struck by lightning for a picture! We all stood in the rain and watched the storm pass. I love being in the rain.






















One really fun thing about being a bead maker is the surprises. The beads are made in the flame of a torch and go directly into the kiln. You can't look at them for too long in between because if they cool off too much they may crack. This is what came out of the kiln this morning. Next the beads will be removed from their mandrels and the holes will be gently cleaned with a dremel to remove the residue from the bead release. A silver bail will be added to the flowers and circle bead to make pendants. The polkadot beads will be etched and some of them will be made into earrings to match the Colorful Circle Necklace in Eggplant.

Beautiful Day

Today, like most days, is a beautiful day here in Bend. The sun is shining and you can feel the crispness of fall creeping in. The kids are at school and it is eerily quiet around here! My husband Robbie is studying for his ski/board patrol class and I am waiting for my mandrels to dry so I can go melt some glass.

Yesterday we spent the day emptying almost the entire contents of our garage into our driveway so we could finally finish (after almost a year and a half!) moving in and organizing the garage. People kept driving by and asking if we were having a garage sale, which I think we just might do if we can find the time. My studio is in our garage along with way too many bikes, snowboards, skis, the gear that comes with, and all my craft fair booth things. Now it is a much nicer place to be. Robbie even hooked up our sound system. Yay! I'm really excited to go turn up the music and make beads today.

Here are my newest creations:

Colorful Circle Necklace in Eggplant, named by a very nice girl who visited my booth at the market this Saturday. Thank you!!!

Orbit Earrings in Turquoise, these are really different than anything I've made before. They can be ordered in many colors.
Matching Orbit Pendant in Turquoise, can also be ordered in many colors.

And a sweet and sparkly bead with little violets and cz's

Beautiful Bride

My good friend Kerri was married this June in one of the most beautiful and fun weddings I have ever attended. The story of her wedding is featured at OffbeatBride.com. She is wearing my Serenity Necklace.

It is such an honor when a bride chooses to wear a piece of my jewelry on her most special day!

Central Oregon Saturday Market

Just like that summer is over and the little ones, or I guess big ones now, are back in school. I can't believe they are in 7th and 2nd grade now. And I am only 30! Being young parents used to be something that my husband and I were reminded of pretty constantly by the surprise of others. People don't really bring it up as much anymore, which is fine with me.

So now that they are back at school I am enjoying a more regular bead making schedule. Yay! I'm planning on working on some new designs and adding things to my Etsy shop.

The next two Saturdays (Sept. 11 & 18) I will be at the Central Oregon Saturday Market here in Bend, as long as the weather cooperates. The forecast is looking good for this Saturday.

We had a wonderful time in San Francisco! The show was great and we had a lot of fun. Both my husband and I thought my booth looked better than ever.

I was happy to meet a customer who I've only spoke to briefly on the phone and through e mails. She was kind enough to bring necklaces that she has made with my beads and her pmc silver work. I always love to see what people do with my babies!
I took the last week off to relax before summer is over and the kids go back to school. Today I was planning on getting back to bead making. That didn't exactly work out!

This morning my husband asked our 7 year old to help with some chores. He was grumpily walking downstairs when he fell down them and hurt his arm. I guess that's one way to get out of chores! Luckily he's ok and back to his normal wrestling with his brother self.

From his wailing we were sure his arm must be broken and were ready to rush him to the ER. Lucky for me my husband is a lot calmer than I am in emergency situations. He's training for the ski patrol and used some of his new skills to assess him. Of course I went upstairs and burst into tears. I don't know if it was because I was worried for our son, or because we don't have health insurance. Probably a combination of both.

So instead of bead making today, I filled out the application for our kids to have health coverage. It's been sitting on my desk for way too long now. Ok, it's been at least 9 months. I needed to do months of accounting before I could finish it, so of course I've been putting it off. But I did it and it feels so good to be done with it. It's in the mail and I'm so relieved!

I managed to squeeze in a play day after we returned from the Puget Sound Bead Festival. It was really fun and satisfying to try some new ideas that have been bugging me to try them. It's funny though. My favorite idea that I was so excited about did not work at all. The idea that I was not as excited about, and almost didn't try, lead to a new earring and pendant design that I'm really happy with. I made the first set as a birthday present for myself and have been wearing them ever since. I'm planning to make a few more sets to bring with me to my next two shows.

The first show is this weekend, August 7th and 8th. It is close to home which is soooooo very nice. It is the 7th annual Bead Stampede in Sisters, OR. It is being held at Barkley Park. Artists will be selling handmade one-of-a-kind beads and jewelry from beads and buttons. The hours are 10-4 both days.

The second show is The American Craft Show in San Francisco. This one is August 13-15th at Fort Mason. The whole family is road tripping to this one. They are going to help me set up, take down and do lots of fun stuff while I'm working the show. I've been doing so many shows on my own lately. It will be really nice to have some company and a little help. I'm really excited to eat some yummy San Francisco food too.

I also made my new Aloha Earrings in every color. I'm still pondering which ones I will keep for myself. I just can't decide on the color. I like them all.

I listed them all on Etsy, except for these ones in Red Orange. For some reason the pictures wouldn't upload. So if you would like this color let me know

Puget Sound Bead Festival

The Puget Sound Bead Festival is just around the corner. It kinda snuck up on me, being so soon after Santa Monica. I haven't unpacked from the last show, the suitcases are still sitting in my living room, so I guess I'm all ready to go. I did get a wonderful vacation in after Santa Monica and then celebrated my 12 year wedding anniversary! My sister, my nieces and I took a road trip to Whistler, Canada to attend a dear friends wedding that I was a bridesmaid in. It was such a great wedding in the most beautiful place right on a lake. Wonder why my husband and kids weren't there? It is because they were at a dear friends wedding, where Robbie was a groomsman, in Port Townsend WA! Yes, two weddings, one day, in two countries, even at the same exact time. What are the chances of that happening? Once we were home I got right to work on this custom order. I'm really happy with the way it turned out and it was fun to work with gray, a color I don't usually use.

I'll be in booth #424 at the Puget Sound Bead Festival, hope to see you there!

Contemporary Craft Market in Santa Monica!!!!

Thursday I'm heading to Santa Monica for this show. You can print this postcard from here or their website for free admission. I will be inside at booth #501. Hope to see you there!

Robbie has an Etsy shop!

I'm so excited, last week I set up an Etsy shop, SpaffordGlassWorks, for my husband Robbie's borosillicate glass pendants. As of this morning, he's already had his first sale!

Robbie and I started lampworking at the same time, but since he had a full time job to support our family, I was the one who had more time to devote to learning, making and building my business. Now that I am doing glass full time and he no longer works he has time to work on his art! I'm really happy about this because it has been our dream since we started to both do glass full time.

People often ask how I first started making glass beads. It really all started with a bathrobe. Our first Christmas on our own together Robbie came home with a package for me and put it under the tree. He was so cute and excited that he had been able to afford to get me a present. He put it under the tree and said honey, I got you a present, guess what it is. I didn't really want to guess because I wanted to save the surprise for Christmas so I said, "well as long as it's not a bathrobe, I'm sure I'll love it" At the time a bathrobe seemed like the most unexciting and boring present. Well....his face dropped and he was sad because it WAS a bathrobe. He had thought I would be really happy about it. Ooops! So he went out, returned it, and got me my first torch.

He knew I wanted to make my own glass beads and he did too. The year after I graduated from highschool they started teaching lampworking and jewelry making. I was pretty jealous, but knew I could just do it on my own. At the same time many of our friends were trying lampworking in little sheds and garages throughout town. There was even someone who had a lampworking set up in his van.

Our first torch was one of those little torches that they sell at hardware stores with tiny disposable tanks. We set it up outside in the entry way of our apartment, and our first beads were born! The tiny tanks didn't last very long, we could only make a few beads before they ran out, but we were hooked.

Very soon after we borrowed a welding torch from a friend that came with much bigger tanks. My step dad, Gary helped us set it up and even cleaned up his garage for our first studio. We took over his garage for several years until we had our own home (thanks to Habitat for Humanity!) and built our own studio. THANKS GARY!!!!!

At first we learned from a book, Making Glass Beads, by Cindy Jenkins. At the time there weren't very many books available about lampwork bead making. It was over a year before I took my first lampworking class from Andrea Guarino in her shop in downtown Port Townsend, where I lived. I was pretty lucky to live in the same town as Andrea and Michael Barley, who I also took workshops from later.

It's pretty amazing thinking about how much lampworking has grown since we started. Now their are many many books, tutorials, classes, tools, and glasses. I'm SO VERY grateful for everything and everyone that have helped us get where we are today!

Saratoga Rotary Art Show

Come see me and my work at this show. I'll be in booth 464!

A new earring design!

I'm in love with this new earring design and can't wait to make a pair for myself as soon as I decide on a color! This is one of the ideas that was seriously bugging me to try it before I left for Baltimore. I'm really happy I didn't let it get away. The green and blue stripes in these beads turned out exceptionally well. Something I will attempt to recreate. Attempt is the key word here! To make the stripes I make something we bead makers call a stringer. This stringer has a white core. It is covered in a thin layer of transparent glass. Green at one end and blue at the other. They mix together in the center, which is where the magic happened for this pair of beads. I wrap the stringer onto a white core bead and then add the spots. Definitely a labor of love. Of course now I want to make a pair in each of the colors from the Aloha collection. What's new about these is the little hammered circles at the bottom of the pins and on the ear wires. It's such a simple idea, I don't know why I didn't think of it before! I really like the way the hammered circles compliment the spots on the beads. This tiny little change has given me other ideas I can hardly wait to try. That's how it goes. One idea leads to another and another and.......

New Lovely Bloom Pendants

Well it turns out that I only had time to pull off one of my ideas before I left for Baltimore, and it was just barely. I spent two days right before I left finishing my new flower pendants. I was hammering away, riveting TINY balled pins into the centers of my flowers, wondering if anyone had ever gone insane from hammering too many tiny things for too long. This is because in the excitement of creating a new design I often forget that if it takes me 20 minutes to complete one step of a piece, that it will take me 10 hours if I want to do 30.

I'm really happy that I did finish these. The idea has been bugging me for a long time and I just needed to finally do it. AND people really liked them and purchased them which is super gratifying. Some ladies even bought two. (Thank you!!!) There was one fleeting moment when I was hammering that I thought 'what if no one even buys one'. Luckily that's not how it went :)

And the countdown begins!!!!

January has whizzed by and it's already February. The countdown to my next show, the Baltimore American Craft Council Show has begun. The few short weeks leading up to me leaving for a show is a time my husband and I affectionately call 'crunch time'. It's filled with a flurry of glass melting, jewelry making, ordering supplies, price tagging, packing, and shipping. This time it's also going to include finishing my wholesale catalog. If all goes well there are no meltdowns that involve me crying.

I always attempt to be focused, make a list of things I would like to make and go about making them. Sounds simple, right? Well for some reason, maybe being so focused and having to ignore my urges to go off in a new direction, I always end up wanting to go off in a new direction. I've learned from experience that right before a show is not the best time to be doing this. It's right after the show, when the pressures off, that is the best time. But I always find myself getting the best ideas right before the show!

At this point I've got at least one new idea I feel confident I can successfully pull off before the show, and now that I've decided to go for it there are two more ideas seriously bugging me to try. Sometimes when this happens I give into the reality of how little time I have to do too many things in. Sometimes I just can't. I wonder which it will be this time?????

Turquoise is the color of the year!!!!

I am not one to follow trends, at all really, but I have to say I am very happy to hear that Pantone has announced it's color of the year to be Turquoise! Turquoise is a color I use all the time in my glass and jewelry work and I just love it. And it goes so well with one of my other favorite colors, lime green!

My prediction was for hot pink, I'm kind of happy I was wrong about that!

By the way, Happy New Year!!!!! After my Port Townsend show, and wonderful visit in PT with friends and family, we headed home to celebrate the rest of the Holidays for the first time in our new home. I enjoyed a much needed vacation full of friends, family, good food and snowboarding. Life is good!!!!!!

I have to say that I am really relieved for 2009 to be over. It was a whirlwind of a year that brought so much wonderful, yet intense change for us. Basically our whole life has changed this year. Very much for the better.

Now I'm feeling very refreshed and ready for a new year!