Sunday, December 26, 2010

My husband and I are back from Sudan!  It was pretty fantastic, and you can read about some parts and see some pictures at http://brachtadventures.blogspot.com

We're not fully settled yet, so I'm not back into full swing with my shop, the blog, etc, but hopefully by mid-January!

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Light as a Breeze

The Etsy Beadweaver's challenge theme for April 2010 is "Light as a Breeze" and the instructions refer to the "delicate and gentle first warm breezes of spring." Well, here in Indiana spring breezes are not so much delicate, gentle, and warm. Spring is a fickle season, jumping from winter to almost-summer, then down to cold rain. There are a lot of gray skies, though you do get a few glimmers of warmth and hope mixed in. My ideal world is one where it's always summer. I'm fine with rainy and dry seasons, and while I like fall well enough, I wouldn't miss it. (Hmm.. I think I sound like someone who grew up on the equator!!)
So this bracelet is my interpretation of "Light as a Breeze." The wisps of blue and yellow represent the few delicate, gentle, and warm spring days in the midwest, glimmers of hope in the midst of the overwhelming gray, rainy, dreary spring days. But they do remind us that there will be summer once again!


Head on over to the EBW blog to vote for your favorite through the 14th!   

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Buy Handmade - send Ginny & Stephen to Sudan

We're full swing into fundraising mode to get to Sudan for 6 months this year! While we've had a lot of generous donations, we've still got a little ways to go before we can leave. We need to raise enough to cover our airfare, living expenses, etc. From here on out, I will be funneling ALL proceeds (not profits.. EVERYTHING that comes in from a sale, excluding shipping) into our "going to Sudan" account. If I do a custom order and have to buy supplies, the cost of new supplies will be subtracted from the proceeds, but that is the only exception.

I also spent a good part of today uploading greeting cards to my Etsy store, so head on over and check those out!

Monday, March 29, 2010

In Which My Blog Has Been Sadly Neglected

First off, I just got a treasury yesterday for the first time since, well, the last one I posted on here. Check out these great finds! The treasury expires Wednesday at 2:31 pm.
A lot of life has happened since my last blog post... At the time I posted, I was in Florida with my family helping to take care of my grandfather in his last week of life. That was, of course, a full time with family, followed by Christmas break for time with more family. I was at a conference between Christmas and New Years, and then spent most of the month of January in Guatemala. I was there for a service learning trip with a group from my school, working with local groups on water and sanitation projects. Also, two days before we left, we got to climb a volcano and roast marshmallows over a river of lava. As a holder of a BS in Geology, this was awesome.
Now, my husband and I are working on raising money to head to southern Sudan for 6 months later this year. We'll be working with an ongoing water development project there, and have set up a blog to chronicle the trip - http://brachtadventures.blogspot.com/.

In the meantime, I've finally completed a few beadweaving projects and hope to photograph them while I'm on spring break this week!