Monday, July 2, 2012

The adventures of "Cornella LaBoosh"...


"Cornella LaBoosh"

100's of USPS shipping invoices.


  A very sweet customer of mine requested a "sister" to my original "Carlotta" and "Carmella LaBoosh" pendants. I had forgotten what challenging pieces these pendants are to create on demand. The hollow cone bead, turned into a character, takes at least an hour in the flame in order to apply the detail while keeping all parts of the bead hot enough so that it doesn't crack. The cone is a long bead, (about 1-1/2 inches), and funnel shaped. So that means the skinny end will cool at a much faster rate than the fat end. And of course the fat end has the most detail with all the curly hair and expressive eyes. The first two Cornella cone bead attempts failed. Two mornings in a row I pulled the cone bead from the kiln to find it cracked. Grrrrrr! The third attempt was finally successful and the pendant was completed and shipped to my customer using USPS with, as always, insurance,(thank goodness!). Well Cornella got lost and never made it to my customer.....
Now, in defense of USPS, in all the years I have made and shipped beads all over the world, this is the FIRST time I have ever had a problem with THE UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE! That's right. You can see the photo of a stack of literally
hundreds of USPS shipping invoices and only ONE problem in over 8 years of shipping! Yay for them!!! NOT, yay for my customer.....

:-(
I have though, made a clone of "Cornella", and she is on her way to my anxious customer along with a nice consolation gift.



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