I WON THIS! Wowee Zowee!!

A HUGE Thank You to Kathy at Art Projects for Kids!
Back in July, Kathy sponsored a giveaway. I don't typically participate in giveaways, mostly because I expect to retire in June and usually the giveaways are for books that I believe would be better used/won by a younger teacher, just starting out, or for classroom products that I think should go to a teacher who doesn't have a budget for art room supplies and buys everything herself.

BUT I made an exception this time, because this giveaway was for an OttLite. I do a lot of bead jewelery making, and quite honestly, my eyes aren't as good as they used to be. Here's a sampling of what I made this summer:
Plus I do much of the work in the comfort of my living room, while watching trashy reality shows on TV. And the lighting in my living room is terrible, no matter what I try. So I said, what the heck, I'll enter this one. I think there were about 4 million other people who had entered (exaggeration, I know...) so I was flabbergasted when Kathy emailed me to say I'd won the giveaway. Anyhow, today the lamp arrived, and while nobody has asked me to do a sales pitch, I've got to tell you, this lamp is AWESOME. The light is bright, natural color light, and the arm is adjustable. The lamp is part of a caddy (you can see in the photo at the top of the blog that I've put some tools in the caddy). The compartments are removable, too, so if I spill some beads in one I can take it out of the lamp to dump them. The light itself folds up into the caddy, and there's a carrying arm that folds out. Couldn't be any cooler. I don't know how much these go for in the stores, but whatever they cost, I'd say it's worth it. I can't wait to sit and play with my beads tonight while I watch Project Runway!

By the way, I made a purchase for my beads this summer that has been a real success. I have all these boxes of beads, and spools of wire, and vials of seed beads, and Scrabble tiles to turn into beads, etc, and I'd stack them all over the place every time I sat on the couch to bead. Invariably, one box of beads would fall over and spill, and I'd be vacuuming them up after picking through the carpet. So I searched on line and ended up purchasing this:
Great investment! My boxes of beads fit in the drawers, as do my spools of wire and my vials of seed beads and any other materials I'm using. I have a couple of drawers designated for work-in-progress, so that I don't have to go through a huge ritual of hiding an unfinished necklace from my sweet kitty hunting for new toys to play with or things to chew on. The whole thing is on casters, so I roll it up to wherever I'm working, and roll it out of sight when I'm done. I hardly ever spill beads on the rug any more.

Anyhow, one more time, THANK YOU to Kathy for sponsoring the giveaway, and to the company that provided the product and sent it to me. I couldn't be more thrilled.