Yes, I'm back

I'm back, have been for over a week, and we did visit with our daughter for a few days (finally publicly admitting that we went further than Kona this time :)), but I can't really say I'm caught up yet. Getting back sick and having to do some extra work at work doesn't help :) I'm working on it ... I am planning to order more seed beads, really this time as I'm running out of some colors, slowly getting caught up on drilling mgambo seeds, but no new tiare seeds or clove tree seeds yet. And no pictures this time, but I hope to post some vacation pictures sooner or later.

I thought I'd post at least an Etsy Treasury

That's about as much energy as I have left tonight (there's a mgambo sead necklace of mine in there):

'A Taste of the Islands' by kitfletcherhill

Aloha "from the land where palm trees sway"We have some talented wahine (ladies) hereAnd of course kane (men)Fashioning gorgeous itemsHere's a sampling

Hawaiian Kahelelani... KauaiShellsand... $135.00	Hand Painted Silk S... SilkCouturebyT... $48.50
Handmade Purse with... kimonomegumi $45.00	11 - Fish Hook Des... Manaiaolangi $50.00
Custom Puka Shell B... MishaHawaii $35.00	Mgambo seed and tur... hilobeads $35.00
Organic Coconut Mil... KohanaBathandB... $9.95	Handmade Hawaiian F... HotLavaClothin... $52.00
Custom Silk Sarongs... kauaiartist $75.00	Aloha Custom Name M... AlohaPhotos $10.00
Double Tahitian Pea... ariijewelry $90.00	Hawaiian Lauhala Br... hawaiiandog808 $45.00
Opihi shell dangle ... OneGallery $18.00	Gardenia Candle Haw... doublebrush $4.80
Hawaiian Coconut Li... ShakaSoap $3.00	Sterling Silver - H... Kaceycrafts $40.00

Treasury tool by Red Row Studio.

Storing botanical beads, revisited

Botanical beads are made from natural organic (as in plants, not necessarily "certified organic" or even "unsprayed") materials and as such are biodegradable. This will happen in most climates unless you prevent it.

That said, from my own experience, the worst experience I have had was that Job's tears stored in our storage locker were smelling a bit musty after a year. They were OK after I aired them out, and I never stored them there again.

This morning I got a phone call, a lady right here on on the Big Island made a necklace from mgambo/weleweka/velvet seeds and noticed some sand like substance. I told her to stick it in the freezer (as the freezing temperatures will kill any critters inside the beads) and my husband commented after I told him what the phone call was about "termites". Storing the beads in the freezer for a while will kill termites too. (I did not get whether she bought the beads from me or not)

Another thing I am aware of because a co-worker showed them to me (I actually have them here) is mold on weleweka seeds. I don't know how wet her earrings got, but she aired them out, here in Hilo, and that didn't prevent the mold. If you live in a humid/wet (and warm, even if only at the time, think even northern states/provinces/countries in the summer and in the southern hemisphere in what is winter here) climate and your botanical beads get wet you may want to dry them in the fridge or freezer.

Botanical beads may look like beach jewelry and if you only want to wear them while you're here/there that's fine, but they are not made to get wet. They may germinate if you get them wet enough for long enough if they're made from seeds. After all,l that's what they are.

It's lilikoi season ...

Once again, it's lilikoi season. I finally found the end of my main lilikoi picking site on one side. 300 feet from the road, with a hill involved. And of course, as it's wild lilikoi, it's overgrown. This year the season didn't start slowly but pretty much with a bang. The second week into it my legs don't hurt anymore - this is the first time I got sore legs picking lilikoi. If it starts out with 2-3 bags a week for a month it's easy to get used to. If you get 6 bags in the second week it's different, especially as I also got 17 years older since I started picking. It isn't a real big lot yet, not like in this post (that was 13 bags in 3 days), but I also finally got my pruners back into the truck to cut through some of the weed vines (pilau maile), and relearned why it is a good idea to take more than one bag even if you don't have a bag carrier. You really don't want to carry lilikoi down the hill and then carry them back up. Really. You also don't want to lug a heavy bag through underbrush if you can help it.

Of course, yesterday it would have seriously backfired if I had done that on my last trip down the hill. I was way back in the brush when it sounded like rain coming, slowly getting louder, and it was rain coming. I got myself and the lilikoi back up the hill and into the truck and by the time I was inside the truck it was a downpour. If I had had more than one bag I would still have been down there when it was pouring. I got most of the lilikoi out for the time being - but that's as of yesterday, and tomorrow I'm of course going back to work. It's a good thing that the first big drop (and the bigger one of the two, if there is a second one) happens while the days are still relatively long here. I still have an hour or two of daylight after work now, and hour if I get out late. And if I'm lucky, on a grocery shopping day I get home before 8 and it isn't raining when I get there.

Today I did some catching up on yard work, little as it was, counted enough Swarovski crystals to restock my trays, finally finished putting the next batch of mgambo seeds into clothes pins for drilling (I drill them by 100s), finished washing one batch of gardenia taitensis seeds (tiare, or Tahitian Gardenia) and got some new ones (the latter one is a good thing as most of the current batch is sold - wholesale).

Is there time for lampworking? No, not really. I'm glad I'm caught up on batch annealing so that if I have some time and energy left over I can make some beads, stick them into the fiber blanket and anneal them later. I hate small batch batch annealing with my current setup because the mandrel that I use as a mandrel rest is sloped in the kiln when I batch anneal (I've been lucky with that this far though and not gotten beads stuck together or even gotten marks). Of course, the weather that causes the lilikoi to get ripe and drop also implies more wind than I can deal with for lampworking. So, while I miss lighting the torch, the weather wasn't really good for it anyway.

But also, if anybody in or around Hilo reads this far: if you know of any place where I can pick lilikoi, and you are the owner or know the owner of the land and allow me to pick the lilikoi there (it keeps both the pigs and the rats down or out), please let me know. The closer to Hilo town you are the more likely I'm going to pick you up on it. I used to pick lilikoi from Kalapana to Ookala, but these days I rarely leave town to pick. Gas got too expensive, and as I'm by myself these days I can't pick as much as even with a 5 year old as a helper (the former 5 year old is about to turn 22 and lives in Oregon, and the last time she was home in the summer she helped pick lilikoi :) ).

And now I'm going to count some more Swarovski crystals.

Oahu and Big Island mgambo seeds (picture)

Admitting I took this picture several months ago, and finally illustrating the difference. The seeds I got from Oahu (on the left side of the picture) are darker and smaller. The ones from the Big Island (right side) are bigger and lighter in color.

These are also known as weleweka, Hawaiian pussy willow, Maui Mink (and of course mgambo).

I could do with a weekend ...

Never mind I just had one, but the past week had more stuff in it than I could recover from in a 2 day weekend, especially after just missing about a week and a half, including 2 weekends but also time before and after work, to try to get the yard back under control and deal with everything else, and last week was just plain awful (see e.g. Tom's blog).


In spite of that I still didn't make any new beads, at least I got some pictures taken, one included here: finally a comparison picture between the Oahu mgambo/weleweka seeds and the ones from the Big Island. I just grabbed one of each, more for size and color comparison than for quality. The smaller darker one is from Oahu, the bigger lighter color one from the Big Island. Being that they are tree seeds, they may have dimples (you can see one on the Big Island seed on the left at the bottom), and they are not all the same size and color, but generally the ones from Oahu are smaller and darker. I normally keep the ones from the Big Island in stock drilled but if you prefer the Oahu seeds/beads I'll drill those too, it just may take some extra time.

A few things happened

Since the end of last week a few things happened.

- Norman got into and out of the hospital.
- I found out that my job isn't being cut (just jet?)
- 2 batches of mixed color Jobs Tears seeds sold where I donated the proceeds to the AGLF, and there's more available in my Etsy shop.
- there are more weleweka/mgambo beads available in my Etsy shop or locally
- I have not so far found time to make more lampwork beads

for the meantime, I'm pooped. However, I'll be at work in the morning and I'll be available locally to deliver beads and stuff,and to ship orders from mo online stores.

A custom jewelry order and my first mid-week torch session later

and with more beads in the kiln.


The necklace and bracelet arrived in California by now. It hadn't occurred to me to combine weleweka/mgambo/whatever else these go by (they have a lot of different names) with Swarovski crystals in black diamond color, but I think it turned out nice.

Tuesday I got home from work relatively early (for me at least) and as it wasn't windy for a change I decided to light my torch.

I'll admit that that was the reason why I was determined to get home early. I experimented with sand again, and made a few more attempts at encasing it. Some of it turned out nice enough.
When I took the pictures the beads were still wet and in a plastic container (that's what has the recycling mark).

Some of these are now at Susi's Creations in downtown Hilo (on Kamehameha Avenue, between the Farmer's Market and Pescatore).

Storing botanical beads and jewelry

As somebody asked me by email whether she should store her mgambo seed and freshwater pearl necklace refrigerated, here are some tips on storing botanical jewelry:

- Botanical jewelry (i.e. jewelry that contains any kind of seeds or plant parts) should be dried
thoroughly and preferably rather soon if it gets wet. Best is to not let it get really wet in the
first place. It may look like beach jewelry, but if you want to keep it it isn't. Try to keep it dry. Plant seeds don't mind getting wet, but they are not meant to last, they are meant to germinate.

- Job's Tears will chip if gotten wet and dry too often.

- Should you develop a bug problem (I have seen that with Job's Tears once but never with mgambo/weleweka/Hawaiian pussy willow seeds or Royal Poindicana seeds, I'd dry the jewelry in the refrigerator for at least a few days and then put in the freezer for a week.

I do not have to refrigerate botanical jewelry here in Hilo where the daytime temperature is usually above 80F (26.7 C) and the relative humidity normally above 70%. I do not see problems with bugs or mold.

You can normally find these in different package sizes on my website (HiloBeads) and in my Etsy shop.