Laurie Donnette
Glass Art

So much to talk about, I have been so excited to share all this news with you, I keep sitting down to blog about it, then thinking to myself, I don't have the time to really give it the attention it deserves,

Well, it is Sunday morning, the birds are chirping.. (what bird makes this sound? wwwwwweeeeee wooooooooo?) I remember hearing this bird since childhood, and whistling the tune back and getting replies.

So get yourself a cup of coffee, and read on! I have some awesome adventures to share!

Thursday morning I got a call from the West Michigan glass society at 9:10 am notifying me I

had a class for beadmaking 101 at 10:00 am! doh!! Kim, said I will be there at 9:30 to pick you up!

lol!!! so Thursday I taught a class with bed head. But I have to say it turned out awesome, the ladies

were the best I have had so far! Pat and Denise, were so fun to chat with all day!

Denise had come up from Indiana just to take the class, and is more than excited to set up her

own work area and get to melting glass!!! Pat came from a little closer than that, but just as much fun,

She makes HUGE BEADS, and is really excited about working at the society during open torch hours!

Both ladies were easy to teach, and caught on so fast. We spent a lot of the day just playing!

Friday we had a child's birthday party, the theme was its a zoo, something like that, 8 little girls trying to make sculpted lampwork animals, that was a challenge, we started out by trying to make horses which was probably a little too advanced for some of them, but we wound up stretching our imaginations, and making,

giraffes, bears, ducks, pendants, elephants, unicorns, ha! It was a learning experience for all of us!

I have been assisting with the off mandrel boro lampworking classes a lot, I have two more this week as a matter of fact. I love doing this, its a medium of glass I haven't worked with a lot, so each time I learn something new.

So, that's that for classes, lol now wanna hear the crazy stuff???

Have you ever heard of Geo Caching? If not I suggest you check this out!

http://www.geocaching.com/ without becoming a member you can punch in your zip code, etc and see how many hidden treasures are around you!! I just bet no matter what country you are checking out there are lots!

In my small town there are over 500 hidden caches, a cache is a little box, jar etc, tucked away in some place revealed to you on that site. inside the box is a log book, a pen to sign it with, and some small trinkets.

When you locate a cache, you sign the log book, take a trinket if you wish, and leave a trinket if taking one.

I have been leaving sculpted little bird beads with a scroll with my name and website on it.

The site gives you the coordinates, google maps etc to find the stash, The first day we went out we didn't have a handheld GPS to use the coordinates to find it, but we found the first one! it was near a lake, and we walked around for a few minutes, dislodged a couple traps someone had left behind, (grrrr) and thought like pirates! ta da we found it! it was hidden really good too, amongst some trees etc, I cant tell you specifics,

but I can tell you I did the happy dance on finding it! lol inside was tucked the notepad, and the a couple trinkets, we didn't take anything, but I did leave a bird, then you place it back in its hiding spot. when you get home you can log on the site that you found it. you can also keep track of it, and see when someone takes the trinket you left behind.

The next one that day we found was at an old tiny cemetary, actually a very pretty stop. only took about ten minutes to find it, then left the bird , signed the book,

The next day we found a GPS on craigslist, and headed back out in the rain, you knowwwwwww this has to be fun If I am out in the rain doing it. Much easier with the GPS found two more!! one in a park, one in the woods!

Funny thing about this adventure is..I'm not so excited to take treasures out, but Im sooooo excited to leave a treasure in each one! I have left four treasures in the world so far! (aside from my children)so six! lol

We are going to hit a couple today! I even bought a special Geo Caching cap to wear, that I made a couple beads to decorate it with, lol that's another story..

I posted this on a couple of the lampworking forums, about the geo caching, and thought how cool it would be if all us beaders that could could go drop some of our art off in these hiding places,

it takes you to places you would miss seeing I think in life, it also makes you see the world so differently!

After Geo caching for two days we took he dogs to the park for a walk, its a nice wooded park with trails, and so as we walked we kept looking in the hollows of trees etc, thinking hey that's a great spot to hide a cache! lol

(Did You just hear that goose that flew by?)

A couple spots after we found the cache we took pictures of the veiw from the cache, you can post these too with your find to help others, but its considered a spoiler.lol

I do think we will have a lot of fun adventures with this before winter I will want to share with you, so I will make another blog page just for Geo caching?