Find of the Month

I've decided to change my Product of the Month posts to Find of the Month. It's more appropriate for some of the things that I have in mind. And this month have I got a find for you! There is a fabulous lampwork bead maker named Lauren who does some of the most adorable beads! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand she does custom orders!!
I don't entirely remember how I found Lauren's blog, Maybeads, but I did and I was enamored with the beads that she was creating. I started checking out her Etsy store and I saw some of the most adorable dog beads. Naturally, one of the first thoughts to pop into my head was "I want Heffner and Bess beads like these!" I contacted her about doing a couple of custom beads and there you have it!
Aside from the fabulous quality of the beads themselves and the fact that they're actually MY dogs, I received the best customer service that I have EVER had. Ever. I do a lot of special ordering for a variety of products, given the size and shape of my dogs. No one has ever been as great as Lauren was. One of the bead colors was slow to come in, so she sent me an email apologizing for it and letting me know what was going on. This was just a couple of days after I had placed my order with an intended deadline of the end of April. From there she had me send her pictures of the dogs so that she could get an idea of their markings. She went above and beyond to give me a bead that most closely resembled my dogs. She was meticulous about the colors, the markings, the size of the beads in general and relation to each other, and the shape of every last detail on the beads. I was amazed at how hard she was working on these beads. And her hard work shows. I freaking love these beads!!

My plan is to use them as pendants on a necklace. I just have to find the right materials and put it all together. I'm really looking forward to being able to have my dogs with me where ever I am.:) The cuteness of these beads seriously can't be adequately shown in pictures. They're just so perfect!

I snapped a few pictures of the dogs with their beads (the previous shots were taken by Lauren). I didn't get on top of the picture taking before the daylight went, so things are a little dark, even with the auto correct.



Over the next few weeks my posts during the week are probably going to be sporadic and fewer. Physical therapy is going really well and the PT was really excited about the changes that she's seen already and wasn't expecting. Which is great and helps to fuel my commitment to doing the exercise routine that she has prescribed. The down side of that is that it takes me roughly an hour and twenty minutes to get through it all. That combined with exercising and working the dogs doesn't leave me a whole lot of "free time" in the evenings. My week nights are now very structured to fit everything in and it can get a little draining. Just wanted to let ya'll know I'm still alive and things are going well, I just won't be posting quite as much for a few weeks.

Oh yeah, and Heffner has an appointment with his chiropractor tomorrow so we get to see how his body is holding up! He's still moving really well and hasn't shown any signs of soreness. My friend Shana came over yesterday to do some TTouch work on the dogs. It's yet another tool to have in my basket for keeping both dogs as happy and healthy as I can. I'll talk more on that in a later post. But keep your fingers crossed that everything still checks out well for Heffner tomorrow!