The Red Haiku ...

Okay I admit, I snagged this photo from my friend, Andrew Thornton's blog. Andrew always has his camera handy and was able to capture the beautiful Jamie Hogsett wearing a RED Haiku bead I gave her last year before she left Interweave. I keep telling myself to run away from Andrew when he has his camera because he has a knack at capturing me without makeup, talking or eating, or worse yet in an unattractive pose. Where's my glamor shot now? I need proper lighting and a makeup artist to doll me up. Oh well, I'm just a simple girl and at least you know I can look pretty if I have to. Give me a nice T-shirt and a pair of jeans anytime.

It was because of Jamie that my River's Edge necklace made it to the cover of Spring 2006 issue of Stringing Magazine. When I found out Jamie was leaving May last year, I took Jamie down memory lane, and sent her away with a box of my beads - one from each of the projects I wrote for Interweave - during her tenure. She deserved every bead and more. I love spoiling my friends. I challenged Jamie to use any of her beads to make a finished project for Tucson 2008 and wear it at the Interweave party. Jamie did NOT disappoint and was the ONLY one out of the two others editors that completed her challenge with flying colors. I will protect the innocent and not mention the other editors' names but they have another year to complete their challenges. (WINK! hint: I will see them next month at Bead Expo Portland) I will have to say that Jamie's sophisticated clean design really features the red Haiku and make it SHINE. Red, was selected for Jamie because it symbolizes passion and love. It also symbolizes good luck, fortune and prosperity. Hugs to you Jamie!

The beautiful Melinda Barta, Managing Editor of Beadwork and Stringing Magazine, sparkles with a lovely style is smiling to Jamie's left. She gave me a heartwarming hug after our dinner on Wednesday night. I love hanging out with my friends from Interweave! I get the chance to work with so many talented Interweave editors and am one LUCKY girl! (click the photo to get a closeup of the lovely black and red Haiku necklace gracing Jamie's neck!)

Website Having Problems...

Debugging over at www.LisaKan.com, my website

Hi all,

Good thing I have this blog up and running because I found out late last night that Yahoo, my website host, recently decided to update their hosting software while I was in Tucson. Whoopee for them but now I can't update the site with new info. So I'm using the blog to keep you informed of the latest news.

As with any software updates, there are bound to be issues in the beginning. Never fear, we'll still stay in touch via this blog! Yeah! For the most part the site is still operational but it just does not look too pretty, due to a partial upload gone wrong. Thanks to the Frontpage extensions that got all jumbled because Yahoo fouled up while they transferred my site to their new web hosting platform. I won't bore you with the gory technical details but I've been up to the wee hours Activating, Deactivating, Re-assigning, and Re-calculating the root web, subwebs and authorship galore, I can't tell you more or I'll have your head spinning too. I used to do this when I was an engineering school, debugging software and programs. That was when I had NO choice since it was part of my engineering curriculum but this didn't have to happen. Oh well.. I must keep my energies up to get the website fixed. I'm determined. VERY determined.

So, be assured that I am working on this in the background with them and hope to have the site back to it's pretty self soon. For instance all my header logos are GONE, the footer copyright and contact links GONE, and then the fonts throughout the site are small and large - simply put, not pretty. At least offline, the site looks like it's old self. Thank goodness I am somewhat proficient in troubleshooting and know enough about programming to tackle fixing this issue. But with such a busy and hectic schedule getting ready for Portland, this is the last thing I want or need to worry about. What can you do? I'll just roll with the punches and tackle each issue as they come.

The next few days will be devoted to paperwork, taxes, booking travel to beadshows, making contacts for new projects, writing proposals, writing articles, beading projects and maybe somewhere in between I'll actually sleep. And you thought a beadmaker just makes beads all day. The paperwork is the least desirable part of operating my shop and the second, cleaning beads! All this happening at once and together, can make a girl spin crazily. But I'm on top of things here, knocking each task down at a time, based on priority.

Chinese New Year Sweets

Chinese New Year Lanterns
(the red color is very predominant in the Chinese and Asian cultures.
It symbolizes a wish for prosperity, fortune and good luck)

I'll be back in the studio this weekend maybe Sunday (as I still have to celebrate Chinese New Year with my family, since I was in Tucson!) and will have some pretties to share with everyone shortly. I hope. There is a growing number of people on the waiting list for Haiku, Luft, Strata and Sandstorm series. If you are interested just send me an email and I'll email out photos of actual beads that will be available soon. How's that for customer service. Thank you for your patience. Your continual support means a world to me.

I'll be adding a vacation bounce back email to let everyone know about the website being semi-functional and to link to the blog. I am however NOT on vacation. This girl does not take much time off, even on Valentine's day!

Email me questions anytime at lisakandesigns@yahoo.com. We'll get over this website hurdle together. Thanks for sticking by me. I won't give up if you don't.