Happy New Year!

I wish you all a very Happy, Healthy and Creative New Year!!!

Happy Holidays!

I wish you all Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Frohe Weihnachten!!!

New Addition!

Hello!
We have a new addition to our "crazy" household. We adopted Niki's brother.
His name is Javi and we got him from our friends who had 4 chihuahuas (now they have 3 left) and a baby.


He is a beautiful and very sweet and funny chihuahua. We got him right before Thanksgiving and for the first couple of days we all had to get used to each other...
We now have 3 dogs and a cat and I have to say that is IT . You should see me walk the 3 dogs. It is hilarious!
Have a great day, Sabine

Holiday Buy Night!

Hi!
I wanted to invite you to come to the Oakland's Holiday Buy Night.

Oakland's Holiday Shopping Mall-Ternative
Over 100 Artists & Vendors

Dec 10th and 11th, 2009
5:00-10:00pm
Inside Jack London Market
55 Harrison @ Water St.

Hope to see you!!! Sabine

Holiday Shows!

Hello!
I haven't been posting anything in a while.

The Holiday shows are keeping me pretty busy. (These are my new cat sculptures...)
Our annual Holiday Sale at the Berkeley Potters Guild started last weekend and it has been a little slow. I hope that it will pick up in the next couple of weekends.


48 of the Bay Area's finest ceramic artists (including me) will gather to show their work this coming Friday December 4, from 5 -10 pm. Pleases join us for the first ever CAB+ (Ceramic Arts of Berkeley) Holiday Event. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Martin Luther King Jr. ceramics program.

CAB+ Holiday Event
Dec 4
5-10 pm
Leslie Ceramics
1212 San Pablo
Berkeley, CA

I hope to see you at some of the events!!! Sabine

Photos from BABE!

Hello,
I am back from BABE! in Oakland.

It was a good show and I had fun showing my beads and pendants. I learned a lot and will be even better prepared for my next bead show. I signed up for the Tuscon Bead Show February 6-8, 2010. http://www.thetucsonbeadshow.com

I still need to unpack now...
Have a great day. Sabine

BABE

Hello!
I am doing my first Bead show this coming weekend. If you are in the area, please come by and say Hello. I will post some photos next week of my table setup.


BABE - Bay Area Bead Extravaganza
Over 160 artists and exhibitors will be at BABE! this Saturday & Sunday, November 14-15, 2009 at the Oakland Marriott/Convention Center.

I hope to see you there!
Sabine

New Items in Etsy

I added some new beads and pendants into my Etsy Store.



Come and check it out! - Etsy

Happy Halloween!

We wish you all lots of fun on Halloween!!! Sabine & Niki

Saturday in the Studio!

Hi!
I wanted to show you how a Saturday in my studio looks like....


I am working and they are just hanging around...

First Colors!

Hello,
I took some photos of my new pendants and beads.

I am still experimenting with different color combination.

I am not completely happy with these and will work on some new colors in the next couple of days. I just wanted to show these to you.
There is more to come soon...

Ads in Magazines

Hello!
I published an ad in the Stringing Magazine (Fall 2009) and in the Bead Style Magazine.


It is time to get my beads and pendants out there!!!

New Beads and Pendants

Hello!
I got back into my studio and started working on some new ideas. I also started making new beads and pendants. They are not fired and glazed yet, but I will show you a photo when they are completely done.

Have a great day! Sabine

Swarovski

Hello,
I am back from my trip and I have to say it is great to be home! I wanted to share the last trip we did while we were still in Germany. We stayed close to the Austrian border and decided on Tuesday last week to go to Swarovski in Austria. They have an exhibit called Kristallwelten - Crystal Fiction.

The entrance is very beautiful and looks great but I was a little disapointed from the inside.
The inside is created by Andre Heller a very famous Austrian multi-media artist. It has artworks from very famous artists inside. But still I was a little disappointed!


At the end you exit into the showroom and store and I was very surprised to see that the prices were really high, even for beads and other jewelry supplies which they also carried. But the showroom is beautiful and great to look around.

Now it is good to be home! Sabine

Bavaria

Hello!
We have been in Bavaria for a week now staying with my husbands brother and his family. It is beautiful down here and the weather is nice and sunny.

My husband even bought a Lederhose and is wearing nothing else... he is wearing it California style with flip flops...

We are going home tomorrow and we are looking forward being home again. It has been too long and we miss our house, friends and our other dog Aiko and Kevin our cat.

Arrivederci Italy

Arrivederci Via San Gallo!!!
We are leaving Florence - Italy tomorrow morning and are going to Germany to visit my husbands family. We had a great time here and will be back to check out more of Tuscany...

This is the entrance to our house where our apartment is/was...

The entry hall.... The house was once a palace but I have to say that the apartments are very basic...

I will tell you more from Germany... CIAO, Sabine

Italian Tubular Wire Mesh Ribbon

You must have thought that my blog became all about traveling and being in Italy. It has not! I have been looking around for new ideas here in Italy. Unfortunately lots of stores are closed in August and I couldn't see as much as I liked. I finally found a store here in Florence which opened again Beaded Lily.

I bought some Menoni Italian Tubular Wire Mesh Ribbon there and I am looking forward exploring some new ideas at home.

Anniversary!

Hello!
We had our 13th Wedding Anniversary yesterday.

Since we are still in Italy (Florence) we rented a scooter for the day and drove through the countryside all the way to San Gimignano which is approximately 60 km from Florence.
We had a blast!!! The Tuscan countryside is beautiful and riding a scooter is soooo much fun...

Rome

Hello!
We just came back to Florence from Rome, Italy. Wow! what an incredible city. I have never been to Rome and it is breathtaking, amazing..... We only stayed for 2 nights but this is better than nothing at all. I know that we will be back.

The Colosseum of Rome… I couldn't take a closer picture because there were tons of people.

The Pantheon in Rome
The Pantheon is a magnificent ancient temple that was later converted into the church of Santa Maria ad Martyres. Dating from 125 AD, this is the most complete ancient building in Rome.

This picture shows me and Niki in front of the St. Peter's Basilica.

I have to say that I am not a very religious person (I was brought up Catholic and that is about it) but this was a very spiritual experience being inside the St. Peter's Basilica. I was very touched and it is the biggest and most amazing church I have ever seen.

Believe it or not - even Niki went inside St. Peter's Basilica and she was very sweet while being carried around.

Trevi Fountain at night.

I am tired now and will try to go to sleep soon. It is brutally hot here and there are lots of mosquito's. This is something not so great about being in Florence in August...But I am not complaining...

Ciao, Sabine

Piaggio Museum

Today I went to the Piaggio Museum in Pontedera. It is located between Florence and Pisa.

I took the train from Florence. I have been a fan of Piaggio for a long time. I owned a Gilera once and later I had red Vespa 125 Px. Unfortunately I had to sell it before moving to California. Now since I am here in Italy, I am falling in love again with Vespa or the Piaggio Ape 50. It would be great to own one of them...

Venice

We just came back to Florence from a 3 day trip to Venice. I love Venice, it is such a beautiful and breathtaking city. I have been to Venice a couple a of times already but it always feels new and exciting.


This time I also went to Murano. I have never been to Murano it was nice to check it out.

We stayed at the Lido Island in Venice and it felt really relaxing. The beach was right around the corner from our hotel. We had to take the boat to cross over to Venice, which is one of my favorite things to do.


Did I already mention that Niki is a big star here in Italy... Especially with all the kids....

Paper Mill - Cartiera Magnani

We went to a paper mill - Cartiera Magnani in Pescia/Calamari. The mill is from 1404.
We were invited to visit the factory and had a beautiful day there. They treated us so well with a delicious lunch and a visit to the production area. It was a very nice and relaxing day.

This is the mill today...

We all needed a little SIESTA after a delicious lunch!!!