Vintage Page 1

Dots & Spirals $2 each

Note: you need to know that doing repetitive production work like this drives me nuts, so I always make em while listening to Unabridged Audio Books... mostly soul-sucking-demons-from-Hell stuff (ya know - King, Koontz, Preston & Child?)   Mostly this ambience doesn't attach to the beads, although the orange and black ones move around in the drawers on Halloween.  Just sayin.

2 x 1.25" (average)

I had a Really Happy Beadmaking Day in Sept. 1996, when a round patterned bead wasn't cooperating and I got pissy and tried to kill it with the Giant Mashers.  The mooshed-up result looked vaguely fish-like, so I stuck on eyes & mouth & fins & tail and the classic OhShit! Flatfish was born.  From that moment, whenever I'd notice I was 'Oh Shitting' while working a bead, out came the Mashers and the Finned Brigade added a new recruit. Some of the early fish had strange innards - flowers, trees, and faces.  Then I started making them deliberately, with patterns & spots, bulgy eyes, multicolored transparent fins/tails, and big red kissy lips.  Sometimes they go radioactive, and grow three eyes... I call these Nuclear Fission, and they look pretty cool strung (as they *should* be), with Uranium Glass hollow bubble beads.  Check the 'How Beads Are Made' page for a step-by-step on how these guys are made!

2.25 x 1.5" (average)

I was invited into a bead & jewelry exhibition at the Bullseye Gallery in Portland, and thought a Fish Necklace might look good.  "Flounder!" I thought... "Both eyes on the same side!  I'll make goofed up flounders, and they can look back at the customers!"  And this is the result...  crossed eyes, fat cheeks, stupid grins and not nearly as scary as the face a grouper is born with.  I made a couple like the flatfish, too, with eyes on both sides and fat poochy cheeks.  Don't have any individual pics of those, they sold way too fast, but I do have a good image of the necklace that went into the exhibit - you can find it in the Jewelry pages., and it has both Front-Goofs and Side-Goofs.  It's disgustingly cheerful.

1.25 x 1"    (more or less)

I'm not making the small catheads for individual sale any more - now they're getting hats, or bodies, or going into earrings and necklaces (they're on the site somewhere... go look!)   BUT........

I'm still making the larger heads!  They make nifty pendants, and are flattened on the back so they won't rotate.  The big ones are available in lots of colors, and stripes or spots can be done, too.   Eyes look up, down, left, right, and (my favorite) crossed.  Ears up, flattened, or half n' half.   Note: the more recent cats have larger muzzles and pointy ears - I'll plug in a new picture as soon as I make some more!

1.75 x.75"

Everyone calls this Cat In The Hat,  but it isn't - please note, Seuss lawyers!   The design evolved when I was making the 'Artists and Politicians Cats' series.  There's  Monet's Cat (blue with water lilies painted on the body); Mondrian's Cat (bright plaid body); Van Gogh's Cat (swirly stars on body, and one ear).  Then I made Lincoln's Cat, in a black stovepipe hat, and everybody started raising a ruckus because the hat didn't have bright decorations.   So now the hats come with stripes (shown), swirls, polka dots, spirals, and flowers, all in bright primary colors. Still trying to perfect checkerboards. And the cat heads come in black, gray, & gold, ivory, blue, whatever!  with green/blue/turquoise/lavender/gold eyes.   They make pretty cute pendants, eh?

1.75 x 1.5"

When I'm making a bead and it doesn't cooperate, I squash it and make a Flatfish (some of them have been pretty strange, flowers and trees inside!)   Then a black base bead went wonky and I tried a Flat Cat, and it turned out so well that I made the bead on the left.  The design has improved a bit since then.. the head is higher up, the tail curls up the back from a little white butt spot and the design flows better. Flat Cat can be made in any color you want -  the Black/white (shown), Gray/white, and Amber/white are nifty, and once I did 'Monet's Cat' in blue with water lilies.  And there are the optional decorations - spots, stripes, tongue, two little dots to make it male (you can just see one peeking around the back..)

2 x 2"     (size variable)

Disgustingly cheerful, eh? I had to come up with a design for a desert-themed exhibit, and Desert led to Heat led to Sun led to This, grinning yellow suns with orangey red rays. Teachers and nurses buy these at lot, wear them as Anti-Crankiness Amulets (it's hard to gripe at someone when they're wearing something that's looking back and grinning!)  The suns come with lots of different expressions, eye & mouth positions, and some are sticking out their tongues (just like the Actual Sun does - we can't see it cause it's too bright, but I watch Nova and they said that it's so!)   Nice new picture - pretty, dontchathink?

1.5 x 2"     (size variable)

So I was making a sun bead, humming the song, and my automated pun-generator spit out the name, and on impulse I slapped a snout on the bead, and history was made!   These have a pig face on the front and are flat on the back - but guaranteed, they'll rotate around and stick their noses in your Boobal Structure - they always do.  They're pigs, after all.  As usual, eye colors &  tongues are optional, and I could put a little curly tail on the back...   and if you want it Anatomically Correct, we could talk. 

2 x .75"

After I'd gotten enough practice with Beadmaking Basics and started figuring out sculptural techniques back in 1996, the cats (below) and these Beanies were the first designs I came up with that were MINE!  I'd been making beads for almost a year, trying to find my style, and I cleaned out a closet and found all the old sketches and doodles that I'd done when I was a kid, and there was a BeanieBoy head lookin' out at me!  The first ones were pretty bad (I've still got them), but they got better quick.  They're all 3-piece compound beads, with the body, head, and propeller separate - if I put them together with a little slack, the propeller twirls.  BeanieBoys come in lots of different color combinations, and they can hold most anything.... cats, teddy bears, bagels with lox/cream cheese (BoogieWoogie Bagel Boys!), bowling balls (Wholly Bowlers), lizards, frogs, cats, dogs, aliens, octopi, train engines, snakes, bugs, dolls, whatever!  In the 'BeanieBoy in Peril' series, there's one being chomped by a crocodile (Tourist Season).  And then there's my favorite - Beanie with beret, whiteface,  black & white striped shirt and a nice fat tire tread across his stomach......  because A Mime Is A Terrible Thing To Waste.     (insert snicker here)

2 x .75"

There are two types of BeanieGirls - the type that ends at the waist (like the BeanieBoys, $85) and then there's this kind, with a full body and little feet. This babe is barefoot, but can also be made with color coordinated shoes (don't expect straps and heels, I usually just shape a nice blob... check out the dressed up cows further on, to see the effect).   All the BeanieGirls can be made holding pretty much anything the boys do, and I make a mean rag-doll.   Literally.  Unlike the Cabbage Patch folks, I don't name 'em and give 'em a family history, cause I might get carried away & get bizarre, and we don't want THAT.....

2.5 x 1.75"

Thru the marvels of Genetic Engineering, I've managed to splice genes from a rare breed of South American tree frog (seen here artistically clasped to the chest) with those of the Beanie Boy Classic, thus allowing him to finally grow a set of pudgy little legs, just like a polliwog.  Actually, I was down in the Luxurious Studio making a bunch of the Frogs Formerly Known As Prince (further on in the catalog), all sitting on their fat little rumps with their legs sticking out, and I had what around here we call a 'DUHHH Moment'.  Like I could make legs for frogs, but not for Beanie Boys?  So I gave it a shot, and now the little boogers are nagging&whining for $400 light-up athletic shoes...    The frog this one is holding is lime with darker dots, and since I found that reallyyyyyy small dental tool, I'm able to give the critters a nice smile (which, after all, is what dental tools are for...)   Works good for little webbed feet, too!

9 x 1.75"        $325

I did this one way back in 1997, when I was just starting out with sculptural beads.  I was making lots of BeanieBoys and everything was so cutesy and sweetness & light that I got this nasty hankering to kill off a few.  And that's how the Roadkill Series started, but that wasn't enough, so I made these.  Yup, after a hard day ridin' the computers at work, there was nothing like coming home, firing up the torch, and building cute little BeanieBoys that looked just like Roger the Boss, and then killing the little suckers off!   Back then the alligator body wasn't as good as this one;  just recently I got into another homicidal mood and upgraded all the bits below the head, and it's just nifty now, all sleek and hydro-dynamic! And when you flip him over, he has a yellow-dotted ridged belly and you can see the bottoms of his feet.  If you ever want to see it, I'll email you a picture!   

3 x 1.25"

This is a compound bead - multiple beads strung together to complete the design.   The elephant and platform are separate, and have been connected loosely enough that the elephant can rotate.  This is part of my 'In the Third Ring' circus necklace, which sold for so much that I'm embarrassed to write down the price here.  HOWEVER, there have been enough requests for the elephants that I'm now willing to make them separately.  There are two versions, the one pictured, and another with the elephant sitting on his butt on the platform with all four feet in the air.  It's just as cute as this one;  I'll get a picture the next time I make one.  The price is based on the necklace - I divided the cost by the number of primary beads, and got $185.  Can't lower it, or the lady who bought the necklace will lynch me.

2.5 x .75"

2.5 x 1.25"

Modeled after my cat, Nicky "The Meatball" Corleone,  these beads are doing what he does best...  Liberating munchies.  The fish are murrini chips, with yellow stripes and black eyes, and the one in the stomach looks worried (it should - stomach acid isn't much fun!)  These are compound beads, with separate heads, bodies, & rhinestone collars.  And they're anatomically correct, with white tips on the tails in back and little white butt spots firmly in place.  Everybody's female, cause this is a Classy Website.

2 x 1.5"

This isn't commonly known, but late at night when everybody's gone to sleep, the household cats unzip their fur suits, toss em on the white sofa, and romp around as they really are... Cats Out Of Hell.  This one was caught in the act and immortalized in glass, complete with crossed eyes, little horns, bellybutton, bushy black tail, and the traditional butt-spot. The bead hole runs vertically, so she can be worn as a pendant - but perhaps not to Church, unless your clergy have odd senses of humor?

(AW, QUITCHER BELLY ACHIN!)

7 x 1.75"

NAG, NAG, NAG... all I'm getting is grips from the Teeming Multitudes about discontinuing cootie bugs, and I have no clue why, because in my entire beadmaking life I've only sold *five* of the damfool things.  But The Public is apparently pissed,  so okay,  I'll make em again and bring them to shows, but they'd better find new homes!   So here's the Luxury Upgraded 2001 model, the new Deja Coot Sportster.  It comes standard with 6 arms nicely arrayed around a central chassis, with a new indented black-throat mouth, pink Corinthian Leather tongue optional (we're negotiating with Ricardo Montalban to do TV adverts);  the tail has been refitted for a sleeker aerodynamic look, and we've put the center set of hands to work, clutching a barfably cutesy little bouquet of lunch (cooties are the scourge of flower gardens, even putting the make on local snails...  imagine the offspring...)

1.5 x 1.5"

includes cow spot filler beads

And this is the sideways cow, with the bead hole running horizontally thru the chest and out the other end,  in the appropriate anatomically correct place.  She's been balanced to hang feet down, as all cows are, and has all the necessary cow parts.  Combined with round cow-spot filler beads and cylindrical udder beads and a couple green cuds, and you've got yourself an instant necklace! 

This is a copy of one of the beads in 'Bad To The Bone', a doggy-themed necklace that was shown in an exhibit of Contemporary Glass Beadmakers at the Rockwell Museum in Corning, NY in May, 1998 (there's a picture on the Jewelry page).  A number of fellow beadmakers advised me it would be tacky to send a dog watering a fire hydrant to a class act like the Rockwell, but it was all I had,  so I added some little brown poop filler beads and sent it off. The folks at the museum thought the filler beads were kibble, and the necklace made the local papers!   (insert 'neener, neener' here....)

2.5" x 2"

Can't you tell by the leer?  And you can also tell by the characteristic call that echoes across the swamp on nights of the full moon - "Needit!  Needit!"  These are tricky to make, the legs flop around when they're hot (don't they all?)  It's strung vertically, with the hole going from the top of the head, out the butt, and down thru the feet.  Your challenge is to string him without the bit below the belly looking... hmmm... how shall I say this?  masculine?  (snicker!)  He's lime with darker green transparent dots, and has the Standard Bellybutton (yeah, I know frogs don't have bellybuttons... he's a mutant.) 

1.5 x 1.25" 

With tea-stain tooth decay..

I watch the X Files, and my dentist lives three houses down.  Oh, the possibilities!  He comes over sometimes to check out the beads I've made, so one day I built this alien tooth and slid it in with the rest. And when he found it, he wanted it, but I was still remembering the time the nitrous ran out... so I made him wait... and wait... and wait... and the next time I went in, he doubled the gas.  There's more designs in this series - wait till you see Fangs For The Mammaries' and 'A Bridge Too Far', and 'Tooth Or Consequences', and 'Stephen King's Tooth Fairy' -  THAT one's a real piece of work!

Different lengths:   mostly 1.5 to 2.5" long,  by maybe 1" wide.

I didn't invent lizards coiled around a core bead, they've been done by some pretty  impressive glass beadmakers before me.   BUT... none of em have gone for the goofy look!  These lizards have the trademark bulgy blue eyes, great big cheerful white grins (they go to the same orthodontist as the dragons), and cute little squishy toes. It doesn't show well in the picture, but they all have two arms and two legs wrapped around the base bead (see the lizard on the cactus below to check out the suction cups). The lizards come in different prices ranges, starting at $85.  The Deluxe Luxury Costlier Models are fancier - they might incorporate silver foil or dichroic glass or have lots of extra body parts like wings, or might be wrapped around intricately patterned base beads (note:  the Perp on the Left is a deluxe because of size... the base bead just kept growing and growing, and it's a BIG BEAD...)

2 x 2"

Every year the Society of Glass Beadmakers has a Lollapalooza of a convention. In 1999 it was in Scottsdale Arizona, and the associated exhibits and the All Member Show all had desert themes.  So of course our beads had to fit in somehow, and after totally messing up about twenty cows skulls (they just don't look right with big bulgy blue eyes), I came up with the TwistyLiz's on a Cactus.  It's a nice flat bead, and looks nifty when given the pendant treatment.  And the little turquoise bumps all over the cactus feel good (well, maybe not to the lizard, if you get my point?)   I carried one around in my pocket like a worry bead for awhile.  No thorns, but there was some residual lizard poop.

3.5 x 1.5"

I grew up on a Marine base in North Carolina with only three TV channels and not much sci-fi, so I lived for The Outer Limits on Saturday night. And one year the local channel cancelled The Outer Limits to televise a Debutante Ball in Atlanta.  I have never been so seriously pissed in my life.  I was 12 and had been doing a lot of fashion-design drawings, and from that day every design was an Atlanta Debutante with a pig face.  Apologies to the Debs, but don't they make cute beads?  Of course I finally had to change the name because the Debutante Lobby lodged a vigorous protest at my first Tucson show (really! a spiffy blonde babe wearing a leather jacket with a rhinestone map of Texas on the back took Major Exception to the bead name... ).  Anyway, the heads & bodies are separate, with rhinestone necklaces, and the dresses come in lots of colors and patterns.  It takes a long time to paint a dress on a pig body in hot glass, but it's worth it!  And they all have little pink curly tails in the back.

3 x 1.5"

So one day cows on the Islands discovered Hula (they herd it thru the grapevine), and this is the result.  Maui Cowie is wearing a tasteful and stylish seashell bra (size 73DDDDDD), a flower headdress, matching lei, and a pretty darn nifty grass skirt made of thin stringers of green filigrana glass. There are several layers in the skirt, and every strand is separate, so you can see down thru to the cow below. Due to this semi-nudity, and because during the hula the strands part to reveal the Utterly Naked Udder, the Beefcake Advisory Board has rated this bead PG-13.  Could be worse....  holding a bagel, she'd be Aloha Oy, and in fishnet stockings, Easy Lei...

$112 each

1.75 x 2"

2 x 2.25"

I listen to a lot of country radio, and for the last four years, every time that song came on I'd leap up, grab a piece of paper, and do a drawing of a seal on a suitcase.   So this week I finally organized all the scattered notes/drawings/bead ideas, listed em on the computer, and came up with a grand total of 483 really rancid puns, all of which will someday become amazingly bizarre beads.  And mixed in with the mess I found nine (count em, nine!) drawings of seals on suitcases... at  least I'm consistent!  So I finally made the darned thing, and it turned out cute...  the suitcase has clasps, handle, and wheels, and the Seal is balancing on his tummy on top, with an arched tail.    Then I made another one, stuck it on a decorated Easter egg, and voila! Easter Seals!.  This one lays sideways, so you see one fin and most of his back - on the other side, his other fin is on the top, and his potbelly with bellybutton is down toward the bottom. It's a nice effect.   He's balanced on a bright lumpy decorated egg (I was practicing tie-dye effects with this one, also make them with stripes, dots, raked designs - but don't expect Faberge eggs till I learn how to electroplate silver on glass).          Note from 2004 - probably could now!

2.25 x 1.5"

WARNING... there's a Politically Incorrect joke below - blame my father, it's his!  When Jim Kervin wrote his book about me (see the BOOKS page and get one - it's cool!) he changed the name of this bead because he didn't want to crank the folks in the Bible Belt.   Here's the real story:  my father did 30 years in the Marine Corps, and when I was little he'd tell me the story of how, when he served in the Philippines during the war, he'd climb to the top of Mt. Mindanao, the home of the Kee Rice Bird.  He said it would fly down, lay a big square egg, scream Kee Rice! and fly away.   I was twelve before I figured out the rancid pun...  I made the first one for his birthday, and he said it was pretty close!

So it was getting close to February, the season when everybody's thoughts turn to little fat naked guys with wings, and I realized that my design portfolio was seriously Little-Fat-Naked-Guys-With-Wings deficient. So I whipped out four of these, three with... how shall I say this? Dickage? Three Dot Masculinity Thingies?  Anatomically Correct Details?  They certainly give the design a Focal Point!  The three that were Packing sold INSTANTLY at my next show, and the one without is still sitting here in the drawer (anyone want to give it a home? Anyone? Anyone?)  Just goes to show what the Mature Sophisticated Bead Show Shopper really wants.   Personally, I'd rather get chocolate...

1 x 1.25"

I occasionally teach this bead in my intermediate sculptural classes, and the students do pretty darned well with it!  It's in the style of antique Japanese ojime beads, with ivory glass.  This one isn't tea-stained yet...  but when it is, there'll be brown in the creases, and it'll look like old ivory.  Check out the Goblin heads and Gollums  on the 'Current Stuff' pages to see the effect - it's pretty cool!  

2.25 x 1.25"

OH the luxury of too many names!  This design was born while I was teaching my First Ever class in Phoenix.  My hostess, a wonderful woman who will remain nameless (she greeted me at the airport wearing a big rubber nose so I'd recognize her - there was a 5 foot space all around her because the other folks were afraid to get too close.  This kind of person SHOULD remain nameless.... Jean.)  Anyway, during the class we covered Inspiration and Morphing Designs, and this nutso modified her cat assignment by planting it in a poop box.  Stinkin' Brilliant!  I came up with a couple names, and we share them and the design - hers are Process of Elimination, and mine are Cat Ass Trophy (snicker) and Do Doo That Poo Doo That You Doo So Well.   Brilliant minds... dangerous!  The dirt box is full of glass frit (nubbly gravel bits - realistic!) and lots of (glass) poop - if you're gonna do it, do it right! 

See? Cats aren't the only critters with removable fur suits.  Teddy Bares come in lots of different colors, can be standing or sitting, and can be made holding things (fish & honey & hunters are good), but every one of em has a problem with the Bear-Suit-Butt-Flap.  Just can't get good tailoring anymore....  but have you ever wondered just *how* the little yellow buttons attach, down below? 

3.75 x .25"

I've gotta make another one of these, too - this picture is 4 years old!  This is another Spontaneous TV Design (damn, I love communications technology!)  Blame it on Victor/Victoria  - the movie came on when I was in the middle of a Brogue Elephant, going nuts trying to get a nice even pattern on the kilt.  I looked up just as Lesley Ann Warren was starting her biggest Fabulous Over-the-Top Showgirl Bimbo scene, and I stuck the work-in-progress in the kiln unfinished (it's still unfinished) and started making Bimbo Boobs.  Someday when I'm good enough, I'm gonna re-watch that movie and see if I can do the Definitive Lesley Ann, in costume - THAT would be a bead!   This version comes with a color coordinated rhinestone choker, a handbag (she *is* a Baggins, after all) and one of those lovely fluffy Fatter-Thinner-Fatter-Thinner pipe cleaners, just great for a feather boa...

3 x 2" 

A little kid down the street started me doing nursery rhymes, and I eventually got to the Three Blind Mice and did two of them on chunks o' cheese, like the one on the left (that's Imported Swiss).    I called these guys 'It Ain't Easy Bein' Cheesy'.  The third mouse was planted on top of a big black & white cat head with an evil grin - that one was called 'Oh, Shitttttttt!!!'  It sold so fast I made a half dozen more...  should have taken a picture, darnitall!    Then came the Glorious Premiere of Men In Black - the second movie to make me snort soda up my nose - and suddenly these mice weren't blind anymore, they'd become Earth's Last Line Of  Defense, scourge of  Alien Bugs! And the cheese  morphed into a moon... the technical term for this is Reality Shift.  (fyi A Fish Called Wanda was 1st)

4.5 x 1.5"

Now THIS is a concept.... makes me proud.   

Melding wildlife, the circus, gymnastics, a rancid techno pun and politically incorrect, inappropriate nose placement in one Artistic Design is the sign of True Genius.  If I ever make another one, you won't be seeing the seal's head... (snicker)

*discontinued*

4 x 1.5"

Actually, this was a pretty good idea and I'm gonna give it another try sometime - just as soon as I lick the problem of the unnatural-looking drips!  

This is a 5-piece extravaganza, everything nicely textured and flavored, with optional chocolate chips.  The sugar cone has the appropriate grooves, and if you ever want one all you have to do is specify how many scoops, what flavors, and I'll get to work on it Lickity Split...  

1.75 x 1.5"

Haven't you dreamed of owning your very own Important Small Glass Sculpture of a rabid little pooch hanging on to a bone?  No?  Well snap out of it, here's your chance!   These were only available as part of a glorious dog-themed necklace that you would have had to mortgage your house and rent out your kids to sweatshops and win several lotto jackpots to afford - but now, because the Coordinator of the 2004 Lampwork Festival at the Kyohei Fujita Museum of Glass in Matsushima, Japan (a nice guy!) asked me to include a couple of these when I sent my other work, I had to $%#$#@#$!!! figure out how to make the stinkin' things again!  It looks simple, but ya know how many times I blew off the legs?

1.25 x 2"

Here they are, my very own Rhesus Pieces!  Actually, these are all the heads I made to put on the big Toilet Extravaganza:  Monkey Pee, Monkey Doo.   Then I never got around to making the bodies (poor things were discommoded!)  So I stuck hats on the heads, and they were pretty darned cute.  Three of the four Chapeau Styles are shown here - the other is a wide brim floral hat, kinda like the cows & pigs in dresses wear.  Monkeys are Social Climbers, and will copy anybody. 

*Discontinued* 

1.5 x 1.5"

I've used this name before - it's such a shame to let a really nice pun fall into disuse!  It was a huge necklace - it had two big hamsters at the top leering, drooling, and batting their eyes across at each other (just exactly like the two on the right, in fact!) and I planned to string 50 babies below, alternating with cute little red hearts (valentine, not auricle/ventricle -but wouldn't THAT have been a sight?)  The babies were in all shades of white, ivory, gold, brown, rust and black, and I'm a Primary Babe - the brighter the colors, the happier I am - and I wasn't enjoying the prospect of a week working earth tones.  One day I made one too many hamster-ettes I went nuts, tore the almost-done necklace apart, and started selling off the pieces.  But I'll still make the parents - and if you ask nicely, I'll make em Red, and Blue, and Green, and Orange, and Yellow!

$85 

2.5 x 1"

This is the only ring-tail Lemur did - back in 2000, maybe? The next one's gonna have a MUCH FATTER tail! The sitting position looks cool with all kinds of rodents - Think I'll do one immortalizing the Marmot From Hell who took out a tendon in my knee in the middle of a 60 mile hike on the John Muir trail!  The miserable sucker (ohh... but cute!  A huge apricot Teddy Bear Hamster!) popped up out of a hole right next to me, just like a Whack-a-Mole game, and I jumped in surprise and went right down the embankment to the lower loop of the trail, leaving the above-mentioned tendon behind.  My knee blew up like a basketball, and Lucky Me... everybody else had gone ahead, and it took me 3 hours to drag into camp.  That's when they put me on the Half Clydesdale packhorse who leaned over canyons and I got a serious levi-seam chafe in areas we don't talk about in polite company, which led to the Marx Brothers smartass visit to what was to become my ex-Gynecologist.  As me for the whole story at a Gathering, but buy me a drink first.... the punch line is pretty damn funny.  Now.  It took 25 years, but it's funny.  Now.

No WAY I'm making more of these...    

3 x 15"

Every year the Society of Glass Beadmakers has a convention, and every convention has a Silly Bead contest organized by Donna Milliron, an internationally recognized glass artist who is one seriously nutso, warped babe (reading this, Donna?)  So in 1998 she picked Cootie Bugs, and we had to make the damthings, and this was one of my two entries.  The rest of the beadmakers entered  work so good that the Judge (Donna, the creep) sneered at this.  But I gave it The Old College Tie....   heheeeeeeee

2 x 1.25"

How could I do something this tacky?  You don't actually think I'd get requests for owl beads and pass up a rancid pun like this???   The perspective on this scan stinks, so you can't see just how much cleavage this bird's actually got, but trust me, it's a double-D.   The ones who aren't quite as well- endowed actually have better survival skills - when they're hunting they can stuff their bras with moles, voles, and field mice (much like cheerleaders did back in my high school days), and fly home to ply their Little Hooters with huge dinners.    I've heard the Sierra Club is doing a study on this....

My absolute favorite in the roadkill series!   Notice the nicely crossed eyes,  the beautifully defined Firestone All-Terrain tire tread with sparkly dirt in the grooves - this porker was flattened in the California gold country!  Notice the perky ears and tail (rigor has set in) and the nicely splayed legs. Truly a World Class dead hog.   And his right arm is folded underneath, holding a ..  are you ready for this?   It's a .....   FAVA BEAN!!!      I sure hope Mr. Harris's lawyers think this is funny.....  

2 x 2"             

See the Amazing Indented Golden Tire Treads!   See another fine, fine pun!  See silly commentary as soon as I get around to writing it!  See my second favorite roadkill design!  

Another marvelous *SPLAT!* with the graphite tire tread stamp, and Viola! we achieved Dead Cow!  

 I *had* to make this because I woke up one night after a really strange dream, and the only part I managed to remember was the roadkill cow.  And one detail of the cow.  

Are you ready for the Stress, The Trauma, The Soul-Numbing terror of..... THE TOTALLY FLAT UDDER?   We're laying wagers on how far the milk squirted.  Anyone on? 

3 x 1.75"

Yep, poop in the toilet.  Flushing.  And she buys her toilet paper bulk, in 30-roll packages so she won't run out.  You thought those big round bales piled up under the rain shelter on the far side of the field was hay?  Nope, it's the herd's weekly supply of  Charmin Super Soft, so essential for the cow who doesn't want to chafe Delicate Bovine Underpinnings.  Unlike Monkey Pee Monkey Doo, this babe always flushes.  And when you take a look down past the udder into the clear part of the toilet bowl, you'll see the tastefully applied brown spirals deep down at the bottom. When I make toilets I have a choice - blobs or spirals - and I always decide which one to use thru The Process Of Elimination.   Boy, I think I'll stop writing text for awhile... I'm pooped.     (snicker)

1.5 x 1.5"

There's a breed of sheep common in Scotland that are born black, and as they get older their color shifts thru gray to ivory, and they're shorn at different times to produce different shades of natural wool.  The tour bus driver was firm on this, and also pointed out the sluices on the hills used by porridge factories, and gave us the complete rundown on the Jackalope.  So these are the newest breed, cloned on the range.. genetically engineered sheep bred specially to produce fine colored wool for sweaters.  The one on the bottom is the rare Dotted Swiss, a dying breed - when did you last see a polka dot sweater?