My Favorite Birthday Present

This month's Etsy Bloggers assignment is to write about a favorite birthday memory or gift. This one is very easy for me, but it needs to be preceded by a short story.

When I was very young I was scared by a dog. Although I don't remember the incident, I do remember being terrified of dogs. All dogs - any shape and size. Another fact from when I was young is that I adored my grandfather and when I was about 4 he got a dog. A black dachshund named Fred. He gently assured me that Fred wouldn't hurt me and he was right. I fell in love with Fred. I soon found myself feeling more and more confident around dogs and decided that I wanted one of my own, but it had to be a dachshund like Fred, only a different color.

About a week before my fifth birthday my father came home and when I ran to greet him what did I find down by his feet, but the cutest little dachshund which I promptly named Peanut. I had Peanut for 16 wonderful years and can remember the day that I got him (40 years later) like it was yesterday.



I would love to hear some of your favorite birthday memories. Please leave a comment.

Wonderful Wednesday

These eggs, made by Ukrainian Eggs, are truly remarkable. Some of you may be familiar with Pysanky, but these eggs are made with a twist. The colors are from hundreds of tiny seed beads.





Here is the arttist's explanation of Pysanky and Her Pysanky:

"Pysanky are made to be given to family members and friends. To give a pysanka is to give a symbolic gift of life. Each of the designs and colors on the pysanka has symbolic meaning--the colors and designs are typically chosen to match the character of the person to whom the pysanka is to be given.

About My Pysanky:

I use beads instead of the typical beeswax designs because I prefer the focus to be primarily on the egg's colors. The beads are very small and each egg can take anywhere from one week to several months. I started making these eggs as gifts for family members and began my "store" as requests came in for specific colors for specific people.”

This one is made from an Ostrich egg. I can't even begin to imagine the time and the amount of beads that went into this work of art.

Lucite or Plastic?

I bought some necklaces at a flea market a few years ago. They came with a tag on them that said "Original Lucite by Dupont". I recently took them apart and started to make some jewelry pieces with them. Shown below is a bracelet I made using some dark teal marbled beads and copper oxidized wire.



I decided that before I listed them for sale I wanted to do a little research to make sure what I had was genuine Lucitie even though the tag said it was. Almost everything I found indicated that Lucite is heavier then plastic and doesn't have seams. Well, the beads I have are light and do have seams. I did find one source that said that newer Lucite beads were lighter and could have seams. Since I only found that piece of information in one place I don't feel comfortable listing these for sale as Lucite.So, I guess I will be wearing the pieces I made myself. If I can find a definitive answer in the future I have plenty more beads to make many more pieces.

If anyone has any information about Lucite beads that they can share, I would love to hear your comments.