Michaels Bead Corner Design Academy

In July, I applied and was accepted for a position with Michaels Bead Corner Design Academy. I teach the jewelry classes at the Michaels store in Hurst, TX. Over the past three or so months, I've been struggling to get a grip on what, exactly, to do! I've had some good experiences and some learning experiences. And I figure that some other brand new instructors are going through the same confusion that I've had, so I put together a few tips and helpful hints to help guide new instructors:

1. Your CEM is priceless! She's the main person who will help you get what you need, including supplies, students, information, and paychecks! She is there to help her, so call on her when you need her!

 2. Starting out, you have to do A LOT of work! Be prepared to dedicate some time to getting yourself organized and ready. Each class is a new learning experience for not only the students but also for the instructor!

 3. Customers are going to expect you to know where everything in the store is located. Some BCDA instructors are regular Michaels employees, but some are not. I fall in the latter group. I only teach jewelry classes at Michaels. While I am a regular Michaels customer, I am not incredibly familiar with the inventory. But, I still have a responsibility to help the customer. Here's and example of what I've found to be best:

  Customer: Do you know where the gold leaf is?
  Me: I am the jewelry instructor, and I'm not here full time, so I'm not sure, but let me help you find someone who can help you!
  Customer: Ok. Thanks!
  I go find an associate or direct the customer to an associate (hopefully with a headset) so they can find the answer they need! Typically, the customer is satisfied with this answer. Sometimes, they get annoyed and walk away, but I try my best to find them the help they need.

4. This goes back to #2 and the work you'll be doing. The website for BCDA says that instructors should use demo time to create the completed projects for each class. However, I have found that I need more time than that to practice and make a presentation piece. Here's what I do:

  Calendar-By the 10th of the current month, I have my calendar ready for the next month. So, for example, today, I completed my November calendar. My CEM appreciates receiving my dates early so she can make the store calendar in a timely manner, and it helps me to be prepared. I typically schedule 2-3 classes per week, and I try to do at least one series of classes each month. For example, this month, every Wednesday, I'm offering a different wire wrapping class at the same time.

  Instructor's Guide-I think there's supposed to be a binder at the store full of all the pre-printed instructions for each class. My store does not have one of these, so I've had to print everything myself at home. Note that each class has approximately 20 full-color pages. So, I recommend trying to find somewhere you can print for free. Try to print on both sides, in black and white if possible. If you can't print for free, flip through the file and print just the pages you need. I've noticed that a lot of the pages are repeated in throughout different courses. At the beginning of the week, I print all the information I'll need for all the classes that coming week.

  Projects-I like to take 1-2 completed projects to class so the students can see what they'll be making. As I mentioned before, I have done quite a bit of practicing on my own time. However, I have discovered, that as I offer more and more classes, I do not have to practice as often because I've already completed the projects and practiced the techniques. Typically, the day before the class, I will set aside at least one hour, if not two, to read through the instructions for the class and practice the techniques from the instructions. I also use this time to make an example project for the class.

 WOW! I have a lot more tips than I thought when I started writing today's piece. I think that's enough for today. I will post some more soon!

Audiobooks

Today, I am thankful for audiobooks! I have more books than music on my iPod right now. I am lucky to have a job where I can listen to them as I do some of my tasks. I also listen to them in the car or while doing chores around the house. They let me do two things at once, and since one of those things is (basically) reading, it makes me happier to be doing the other thing! The best part of all is that they're free! My local library has books on cd you can physically check out. I usually check out two or three at a time and upload them to my computer to transfer to my iPod. They also offer electronic downloads of audiobooks through OneClick. There are also public domain places online like openculture, librivox, and booksshouldbefree! Of course, you can also buy them, but i like the free ones the best!

Gifting

I'll do my thankful post later today, but I now have a fun and helpful tip for you! Instead of giving gifts wrapped in wrapping paper or gift bags, I now (thanks to my sister) always try to use a reusable tote as my wrapping material! They're easy, quick, and reusable. They are available in a wide variety of sizes. They don't clog up landfills. And best of all, they are usually cheaper than their throw-away counterparts! Because they've become so popular over the past few years, you kind find them almost anywhere in all sorts of styles. The dollar store near me just got in a new shipment so I stocked up on some super cute ones today!

Hidden gems

I love it when you pick a movie just because but you go in with really low expectations (especially because the last two movies you picked--Emma and Tim & Eric's billion dollar movie--were really disappointing), but the movie turns out to be totally awesome!!! We watched Goon on Sunday, and it turned out to be a great movie! We also watched The Iron Lady this weekend, and it was also quite incredible!! Hooray for great movies you didn't originally think you'd like!

Two-for-one!

I forgot to post yesterday :/ I even had something I wanted to post; I just got busy. Anyway... Today, I will say two things I am thankful for!
1. Sale days at big lots! Yesterday I got a small vacuum, a slow cooker, a new measuring cup, several books, a few around the house small things, and a handful of new beads at big lots for under $45!! Go sale days!
2. Today I am thankful for our kitchen table. It is a place to eat, play games, or just sit and have a nice chat!

Reflex

Today's thing that makes me thankful is this adorable reflex that ash has. When she's asleep, she pets anything that lands under her hand. A cat might snuggle up next to her, and her hand just automatically goes into that scritch-scratch mode. I love it! I have also had my head scratched more than once. It's too cute, and it makes me thankful!

Cat toys

Today I am thankful for cat toys on long sticks. These are often the saviors of the skin on my feet, arms, legs, hands, and face. They keep the cats distracted while we eat, and they are easy to use! Also, petco has the long stick toys with interchangeable dangly things on sale for $2!

Better late than never!

I know it's not officially Thursday in my time zone, but it is somewhere! So, on this Thursday, I am thankful for karaoke on the iPad! It's so fun! Had a great night with some fun kids from the fruit stand!

Argyle

Today, I am thankful for argyle--the pattern, not the place! It's so lovely! You can get it in so many different colors, and it is unisex. Don't know what to get your co-worker for the holiday gift exchange? Look to argyle! Notepads, sweaters, bags, sheets...it's so versatile! I have at least seven argyle sweaters, and they are all very different. So, thanks, argyle, for being so timeless and universal! You never let me down!

As Seen on TV

Today, I'm thankful for As Seen on TV items. Well, maybe not thankful for the items themselves but more thankful for the amusement they provide to me. As I was boiling pasta for lunch today, I pulled out a piece and tasted it. I made a face, and Ash asked what the face was for. (If you have a problem with the previous sentence, please see yesterday's blog post.) I told her the pasta was definitely not done. Kind of like that time... then we both tried to remember why she made pasta that was so not done. Then, it hit us: the Pasta Express! We got this for free because someone else had gotten two, and she decided she only needed one. There have been many As Seen on TV incarnations of this device: Pasta Boat, Pasta n'More, and my favorite... Fasta Pasta! The sales pitch is always the same: Who has time to spend slaving over a pot of boiling water on the stove? You have to wait for the water to boil, then you have to put the pasta in it and wait for it to cook! Wouldn't it be great if you could just do all those steps at once? And what about when you want long spaghetti? You can't cook full sticks of spaghetti in a regular pot! There's not enough room! So, you have to break the pasta, and it goes everywhere, or you have to just cook half of it at a time. Then to top it all off, you have to figure out when the pasta is finally cooked! I haven't even mentioned the hassle of draining the pasta...You have to be superman to cook pasta! So, Ash and I acquired this Pasta Express, and we decided to give it a try. You put the pasta into the tube. (It's this foot tall clear plastic tube with a solid bottom and two lids: one is holey and the other is solid.) Next, you have to pour hot (Pasta Express recommends boiling) water into the tube. Cap it off with the solid lid. Then, let the pasta and the water sit for ten minutes. Finally switch to the holey lid, pour out the water, and BAM! perfect pasta! Or, pasta that is still crunchy in the middle and is beyond salvaging because you've already put sauce and cheese on it... So, even though I've never had an As Seen on TV product that truly worked, I have had plenty of them that have given me some good stories! And for that, I am thankful!

Thankful

In an effort to post more often, I am challenging myself to post every day for one month. If it goes well, I will choose a different topic next month and post about that! July's topic is... Quirky things I am thankful for!
Today, I am thankful that, despite what some old English teachers may claim, you are, in fact, allowed to end a sentence with a preposition! As Winston Churchill was purported to have said, "This is the sort of English up with which I will not put."

Etsy Shop

I just opened my Etsy shop! http://www.etsy.com/shop/JewelryEtcByAmy Look for more items to come soon!

Valentine's Day!

Ash and I had a lovely Valentine's Day! She received a new coffee maker, some candy, and she's getting an ipod nano with watch attachment! I received an ipod touch, lucky bamboo shaped like hearts, a panda, a beautiful card that Ash drew herself, two wooden owls, and an owl that she made!!! She is so awesome!
We went to an apartment party, where we ate a little chocolate, and Ash won a Cheddar's gift card! And I made a special dinner. Bowtie pasta (Ash's favorite) with pink sauce (it's just regular smooth tomato sauce--I used Ragu--and Alfredo sauce--I used Walmart's brand--mixed together), grilled chicken, and fresh grated parmesan cheese. The key to really making it tasty is the fresh grated parmesan! With a side of garlic bread.

(As a side note, I love bread! I usually have a regular loaf on hand, but I also like to have fancy breads like sourdough, sandwich rolls, garlic bread, croissants, etc. While these can be a little expensive, I always shop the bargain rack. Lots of times, the store bakery will overbake, or they'll have extras that are about to expire, so they'll slash the price by half or more!)

Finally, I made an...interesting...dessert. It was based on this recipe for Red Velvet Cookie Balls from Kraft. They're ok. Ash likes them a lot, but I think they're just o.k. And, they definitely don't deserve to be called Red Velvet. I call them oreo candy balls. Here's how I made them:
ingredients:
-one package of cream cheese
-one package each of golden oreos and regular oreos *I used regular stuffed, but I would recommend using double stuff oreos. Really, you can use any kind of oreos you want!
-one package of baker's chocolate

1. put about ten to twelve golden oreos in a plastic bag, use a canned food and crush up the cookies in the bag. I used a combination of smashing, rolling, and banging. The more crushed up the cookies are, the better. Do the same thing with a bag of regular oreos and a mixed bag with five or six regular oreos and five or six golden oreos.

2. split the cream cheese up into thirds. Mix together one bag of oreos with one third of the cream cheese. Mix, mix, mix. You'll probably also wind up crushing the oreos a little more as you mix, and that's ok.

3. once it's all mixed up, make little balls out of the mixtures. My balls were between the size of a bouncy ball and a ping pong ball. The recipe said it'd make about 48 balls. I wound up with about 20.

4. put the balls in the freezer for a little while so they can firm up.

5. Open up all the chocolate. Chop it up into small bits. Put it in a bowl, and warm it up in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time, stirring between each heating session until it's smooth and creamy. Don't burn it!

6. Drop the balls into the chocolate, swirl them around to get them covered, take them out and put them back on the cold plate that you just got out of the freezer. Quickly add some sprinkles, and you're done! A few helpful tips for this part: I put three balls in the chocolate at a time. If you wait too long to add sprinkles, it won't work because they won't stick to the chocolate. Also, we stored our extras in the freezer for a nice cool treat on this 75-degree February day!

Earrings of the day

Today's earrings were inspired by the sun! It's been a beautiful 70-degree week, and I have commemorated it by making a pair of earrings with rays of happiness! I got these beads at Walmart last night, and I used some wire that I already had to connect it all together!

Email or message me if you're interested in learning how to make or purchasing any of the jewelry I've posted so far!

Paper flower

I was fumbling around on Pinterest today, and I looked through my "crafty" board. I thought, "Hm, I bet these paper flowers are easy to make!" So, I followed the links to the how-tos at Seven Thirty Three and Ellinee. They are beautiful! But, they require things like brads and grommets, special punches, bamboo skewers, and patience. Right now, I have none of those things. So, I made the cheap, quick and easy version. Here's what I ended up with:

I think it's beautiful! Here's how I did it:

1. You may remember from previous posts that I have a lot of magazine subscriptions (They were all free!) I had these images of me going through and reading all these articles and becoming a pop culture trivia knowledge database. Yeah, right. But, I do love to look at the pretty pictures! Some of the pages are so beautiful and colorful! So, I selected three pages that were really pretty. I tried to pick pages that were pretty on both sides because both sides will show a little. The great thing is that they don't have to be perfect. (Nothing in this project does!)
I chose this one and a pink-ish one and a blue-ish one.

2. Next, cut the paper into manageable squares. I cut the whole stack of papers at the same time, and I cut the stack into fourths, so I would up with twelve small rectangles of paper. Like this:

3. Next you cut out the flower-ish shape. I did not use a pattern, a stencil, or a special punch. I did not really even follow a circle shape. It's more of a blob. But, it's a beautiful blob. I picked up four pieces of paper and cut a blob, then another four sheeted-blob, and the last four-sheeted blob. Obviously, each of the three blobs were not shaped the same. In fact, while I was cutting, some of the papers shifted, so each of the four pages did come out in the same blob shape. The main thing to remember when cutting the blobs is to aim for a round-ish overall shape, with scalloped-ish edges.

4. Stack all the blobs on top of each other. You'll have a handful of pretty colorful blobs! At this point (this is something I didn't do but I highly recommend) you should probably twist the papers a little bit so that the blobs are not perfectly stacked on top of one another, but they are a little bit whompy-jawed.

5. Turn the blobs over and staple them in the middle-ish. The flat end of the staple will be on the bottom/back of the flower, and the prongs will eventually be hidden on the inside of the flower.

6. Fold the staple in half. When you do that, the flower will also kind of fold up. That's a good thing. As you can see, I used a pink staple! (Not that it matters, but I like it anyway!)

7. Then, just squish! Starting with the top paper, squish up one page at a time until you end up with a little rose bud kind of thing.

8. After the squishing, you go back through and do a little bit of flattening. You're not going to iron out the pages or anything, but you want to be able to see the layers.

TADA! Now, you have a super fast, super easy, super beautiful flower! You can make millions of them and put them in your yard, then you wouldn't have to water your flowers. Or, you can sit your kids in the middle of a stack of magazines and tell them they have to turn all the magazines into flowers before they can leave. Or, it could just be a fun quick project.
Next, I think I will try it with cloth and modpodge. I think that might work...

Jewelry continued

I've been making and repairing more jewelry!

I made all these-

Purple butterfly earrings

Purple rose with clear/silver-lined diamond shaped earrings

Green/gold-lined diamond shaped earrings

Wooden bead earrings and necklace

Ring made of chain (front side)

Ring made of chain (back side)

This necklace matches the bracelet I posted last time

These are things I found and repaired-

Green ombre bracelet

Purple metal butterfly earrings

Making Jewelry

This weekend, one of my best friends ever came to visit! We went to the Zoo, made crafts, and had lots of fun! (Zoo pictures and more craft pictures will come later this week!)

Today, I got a package from Fire Mountain Gems and Beads! Wooo!!! I made a pair of earrings and a bracelet. The bracelet was simple--I just used jump rings to connect some gem connectors and added a clasp. Here's a picture of it:

Here's how I made the earrings:

1. Gather materials:
-pliers-just a simple pair from the toolbox to help open the jump rings
-jewelry wire-pliable enough to bend to the shape you want it, but strong enough to hold
-leaf and flower dangly beads-The brand is "Cool Chaser." These look fancy, but they're actually kids' plastic beads. You can't really tell the difference from fancy beads, and they're lightweight and cheap!
-ear wires-I like the shorter ones because the longer ones make the area behind my ear on my head itchy.

2. Lay out beads in sequence to see how the earrings will go together.

3. Cut about 4 or 5 inches of jewelry wire--enough to double up, hold all the beads, and put twisty space between each bead (Keep reading. This will become more clear!)

4. Put the bead that will be on the bottom of the earring in the center of the wire and twist the wire around twice. This creates a little home for the bottom bead. I left a little wiggle room so it can sort of sway around, but it's still secure, and it is a little bit separated from the next bead.

5. Pull the wires a little bit apart from each other, string one bead on the left, twist the wires twice, then string one bead on the right and twist the wires twice. Repeat for the remaining beads.

6. Add the ear wire. I just slipped it down one of the wires, twisted the wires together, then folded the twisted part back down and retwisted it around itself, leaving no pokey wires anywhere!

7. Finally, you can admire your finished product!!

The earrings only took about ten minutes to make, and I would estimate my cost to make them was about $1 for the pair. Plus, it was super fun!

Yard Sale Saturday

On Friday night, I pulled up some yard sales on Craig's List, I made a route map, and I got some cash from the ATM. On Saturday morning, I got Ashley up, and we went to some yard sales. There's good news and bad news here:
The good news is that I found a great yard sale with tons of funky, weird, unique, vintage, and cool jewelry. The bad news is that we found only ONE yard sale. The other seven or so were non-existent. This made me very angry. Oh, well. At least I found these cool necklaces:

This one is fishy! It's vintage-y, with green enamel accents on gold

Here's a detail of the main fish

This one is kind of 80s but also kind of 50s, and I think it's totally awesome!

This one's a short freshwater pearl strand cluster that will be pretty with sweaters or a simple black shirt

Here's a detail of the pearls

This one, unfortunately broke the first time I wore it because I got it caught under my desk, but I am crafty, so I fixed it! Go me!

These are the elements I liked the best about the previous piece

I love that this one has so much going on. Lots of dangly things!

Look at those tiny Queen Elizabeth II coins! I love the detail!

This one is a Hawaiian woven necklace with shells and seeds. I probably won't wear it, but it looks cook hanging on my door handle right now.

Here, you can see the seeds and shells close up.

I hope you enjoyed looking at these! I'd love to see any you've found!

Glitterizing

Hoo boy, I am becoming absolutely obsessed with glitter. I mean, I've always loved its sparkling, mesmerizing powers. But today, I combined it with Mod Podge, and I have become one dangerous person. I was just going to try one hair bow, but I made a little too much glittery mix, so I made a second hair bow, then I glittered the front of my weekly planner and a binder clip. Now, I kind of want to paint it into my hair. But, I have stopped myself (mostly because I ran out of glitter mix). So, here are some pictures of what I did and some notes about how I did it:

1. Gather supplies. These include:
-mod podge (I only had the kind for paper, but it seems to have worked just fine!)
-paint brush (I hope this wasn't one of Ashley's good ones)
-empty butter tub (I keep a couple of these around because they come in handy for little projects like this!)
-package of hair bows from dollar store (Three for a dollar!)
-used ziplock baggie (This is a nice recycled surface for drying the glitterized items.)
-reused paper towel (I washed my hands earlier and dried them on this paper towel, but it wasn't really dirty, so I just reused it for a paintbrush bed.)
-plastic fork (left over from Chinese takeout)
-glitter! (I got this on sale at Michael's for $1! You can also find glitter at the dollar store all the time.)

2. Glitter mix time! I just dumped some glitter in the butter tub--probably about a teaspoon worth.

Then, I added some Mod Podge--about two forkfuls.

Since the fork doesn't really scoop, this probably equalled about a quarter of a teaspoon full. Then, I mixed it up with the fork! The glitter mix has about the consistency of wet sand.

3. Glitterize! I scooped a couple of forkfuls of glitter mix onto the bow, then I used the paintbrush to spread it around. I had originally planned to just do one layer of glitter then let that dry then do more layers later.

But when I started glooping the glitter onto the bow, it made more sense to just kind of pat it out with the paint brush. I also made sure I patted it out around the edges. I went for a textured look, not worrying about making it flat and smooth, and I think it turned out quite nice.

4. This was the worst part. I had to wait for everything to dry.

Ugh! Waiting! Thank goodness I have a cute kitty to keep me entertained!

Total money spent: $2
Total time spent: approximately half of a commercial-free episode of Dog the Bounty Hunter (not including the waiting time)
Total happiness level: SUPER DUPER!!!

Special thank yous to Charlie, my entertaining cat and Ashley, my beautiful hair model!