Squirrelly Ducks

Welcome News

2012-05-27T21:18:00.003-05:00

I haven't had much time to post, but wanted to share the happy news.
We welcomed our Grand Daughter in to the world on Saturday!

Emily Bell ******
7 lbs 12 oz
20 1/2 inches long
born on 5-26-2012
at 1:51pm

The kids are not wanting to post photos of Emily on the internet at this time for privacy reasons, so I am sorry I am not able to share photos.

We are unbelievably thrilled that she has arrived, a healthy and very adorable little girl :)
Mom and Dad are doing well, I am so proud of both of them and how great they are doing as new parents.

Playing with Clay

2012-04-26T23:39:00.004-05:00

Isn't he a cute little critter?!

I had the most wonderful time at the COPCG Twister retreat last weekend. Christi Friesen taught some great classes along with a make and take stained glass technique as well as a demo on how to make the little glow in the dark ghoulie shown above.

It was the first time I've gone to any type of retreat, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I've been told retreats are addictive and now I can see why!

It really was a gigantic boost to my creativity and a newly found sense of camaraderie I didn't expect. Every one there, and I mean every single one, had some thing to share with others whether it was interesting stories about themselves or knowledge/experience with clay.
There were so many tips, tricks, cane techniques, demos, vendors, and great conversations I wish I had had a chance to write everything down. It seemed like every time I turned around there were impromptu demo's of a style or technique usually started with "how do you do that?" then knowledge shared freely as which ever person walked you step by step through it.

It was three days of playing with clay, no worrying about having to put it up in time for dinner or worrying about leaving it out for a dog or cat to accidentally get in to it.... that alone was a treat :)
Everyone took turns monitoring the clay ovens, guild members helping out in the kitchen to provide really tasty breakfasts and lunches, sitting with new friends Tom and Myra from guild and getting to know them better. Just all in all a really, really great time.

I also spent time taking photos for the guild, so go look at the Facebook album to get a feel for how fun it was with all of these creative people.

The last day of the retreat I spent some time messing around with some canes and a mold...

I loved how the tiki masks were turning out with the canes so much that I bought the mold to play with at home some more!

Now I'm back to my normal, every day life... but that creative fire is rejuvenated and raring to go!

Beader's Choice Round Robin Finished

2012-04-02T16:22:00.003-05:00

Persphy is the last doll in the Beader's Choice round robin for me to have beaded on. She was sent on her way home this morning.

I should have taken before I beaded her photos... oh well. I beaded in the peachy stripe on the top of her rainbow and the blue sky traveling over her shoulder. I also embellished her face just a tiny bit with permission, adding a little bit of dark blue with gold shading around her eyes and mouth then sealing.

On her back I continued the gradient blue sky around the sun with a row each of dark green and purple under it, then filled in the dark green grass around the flowers.

Persphy was supposed to be representing the rainbow of the grape harvest in autumn. This is the first stuffed felt doll I've beaded on and except for the fuzzies she was a dream to bead on. Like a needle going through butter, a very quick fun doll to bead on!

Just waiting for my Enchanted Spirit Tree and of course my mermaid Coralia to return home at some point and all of my beaded round robins will be complete.

Last of the UFO Beaded Projects

2012-03-25T20:50:00.006-05:00

I had two more UFO beaded forms to finish up, one a doll and one was a fish form that
Aryd'ell had sent me last summer.

The doll form was from waaay back in this post.

The thought with this doll was to go along the lines of a Warrior Goddess... Hecate or Morrigan. I decided I didn't like how the hair was going, so I removed it and started with some size 8 flat matte gunmetal beads....then she just evolved from there. My only complaint is that the form wasn't stuffed firmly enough, but that was entirely my fault. It was some hand dyed muslin I had done, but the seams pulled apart too easily if it was stuffed as firmly as I like for beading.

Front

The form height is 5 1/2 inches tall by 3 inches wide before being beaded. I also figured out a way to make the bottom edge beads work perfectly so she could stand on her own. The "girdle" of her armor and the bottom decorative edge above mystical/multicolored looking standing beads are both decorated with round hematite beads and metal rose beads.

Back

Oddly enough, I did not notice the Owl that appeared(front and back) with the intuitive beading until one of the ladies pointed it out to me from the Beaded Art Dolls group. How's that for synchronicity, an owl with hematite bead eyes watching forwards and back?!

Then there was the little fish form Aryd'ell had sent me when we did the swap dolls last summer. I beaded a little on the face last October but it had gotten set aside with all my other projects.

It has been one of those beading things the last few weeks that has been a soothing quiet past time, no rushing... just beading a little here and a little there with bead colors I love. A happy little fish.

He has a "lucky fin" as one of the abalone shells I used for the fins was a little bit smaller than the other. It reminded me of watching "Finding Nemo", it's one of my favorite cartoon movies LOL! The fish form before beading measured approximately 3 1/2 inch by 2 1/2 inch at his tail height.

I've gone ahead and removed the word verification since the new blogger two word thing is such a pain, but have made the comments moderated to keep the spam off.
I hope you all have been having a great weekend!

Beading for a Cure - That Time of Year Again

2012-03-22T14:36:00.003-05:00

It's that time of year again... the BFAC auctions will be starting this Saturday, March 24th!

To look at all the gorgeous beadwork for this year look in the Gallery.

To see when the auction for your favorite piece will be listing go Here.

Here is the post I did on the piece I made.

No matter what strange politics go on behind the scenes, the project is still for a good cause and that is the reason I keep doing it. Although I won't be able to share the colors/kit for a while, I'm eagerly watching for the mail man now that we've been notified that the kits have mailed out!

Finally got Etsy set up

2012-03-13T21:50:00.004-05:00

Too many times I've said I was going to or I was thinking of... but never managed it. After all this time I finally got it started.
There isn't much there yet, but today was one heck of a learning lesson!

Go check out Whytefeather Designs on Etsy.

Eventually I will have faces, stuffed forms for beading, and hopefully some beaded art dolls or beaded art for sale there. I may even convince the hubby to make some of his chainmail for sale.

Some things I've learned today...

I am definitely going to have to invest in some good lights so I can take better photos indoors.

I need to figure out some better organization for storing things and keeping them straight for the whole store thing. It's not bad yet, but the more things I create to put in the store the crazier it's going to get.

Every thing is presentation... along those lines I need to decide on some business cards and packaging.

So... here we go!

A Gift from the Hubby

2012-03-06T13:20:00.012-06:00

I have a wind chime that belonged to my parents, so it has some sentimental value to me. It was just something they had in the backyard that I remember hearing chiming from time to time as a teenager growing up in Nebraska. I love wind chimes anyway, but this one is of course a favorite.

The hubby has been heard to mutter occasionally over this wind chime and how he should update it and do some thing about the plain ol' rusty looking links it had.
Recently he has gotten back in to working chainmail, but has been a little aimless with it as the galvanized aluminum he has to work with really isn't suitable to use for jewelry. So I gave him a project to do... honey, why don't you do something for/with my windchime(s)?

So...

He brought in my windchime, cleaned it up, removed chains and plotted... then spent an evening or two sitting across from me at the table while I beaded working on his chainmail.

The top loop was a bracelet he had done, but really... you shouldn't wear any type of aluminum, so he recycled it to be the hanging chain with a loop. The tubes are now attached with a simple 2-in-2 chain pattern.

The clapper in the middle has been off for years, it was attached with a section of fishingline at some point that had snapped. It's a wonder I still had it tucked away so that DH could put it back on the chimes. The chain mail rope matches the pattern in the loop section and is a Half-Byzantine +2 weave.

Then while he was being creative he decided since it had a loop on the bottom of the clapper he would make a dangle, just a little something extra. The dangle weave pattern is called Shaggy-loops.

So now I have my lovely wind chimes back with a little extra special work from my DH.
He has always been so encouraging of my interests, so it tickles me that I can share and encourage his interests too. Right now he is very impatiently waiting on a shipment of 50 feet spools of one each copper, brass, and bronze so he can start chain mailing some rings for jewelry. I can't wait to see what he creates!

UFO finished - Colors of Life

2012-02-26T18:34:00.008-06:00

The last time I worked on this beaded art doll was in June 2010. There's been a finish your UFO challenge at the Beaded Art Dolls group, so I picked this one to finish.

Here is where she got left

I finally finished her this past Friday evening and managed to get some decent photos. It's the largest form I've beaded so far at approximately 8 inches tall by 6 inches across the arms. My goal with her was to see how well I could mesh my current style of beading and experience with the original beading I first put on her as a new beader. No ripping out the things I didn't like, no redoing not even the face... just continuing ahead with what was there.

There has been so much learning along the way, new techniques and favorite stitches discovered.

Who would have ever thought way back when I started this beaded art doll I'd come so far or find that beading has become such a passion that it's as natural as breathing now. That I would find almost as much passion for working with clay and making faces, my oh my her face alone shows how far I've come just with that!

It's an interesting display of progress, learning, experience. Since she encompasses several little found treasures and memories she's become a journal of sorts for life during the last few years... so her name became Colors of Life.

Just Been Beading

2012-02-20T10:55:00.005-06:00

Been working on little bits of beading here and there. The last round robin doll I mailed off was this one named Luna. It is a small form and not much room left to bead on with two more people to follow after me. I decided to bead the left arm front and back.

Front

Ended up beading up under the hair on the neck in the back and down to the lovely polymer clay crescent moon cabochon. Since she/he already had so much going on with the other elements I decided to just keep it pretty simple.

Back

Then there is Leaf that showed up just last week and I've already finished beading on. She won't mail out until March 15th though. The next and last person to bead on her after me is having some hand issues so I tried to get all the fiddley spots that were left to leave a wide open spot for her to bead on.

Front

I ended up adding the leaf on the back right "hand" and simple lines around it, the green beads that continued around the front to wrap around the center focal area. Then going with the fall theme and color request I bocci stitched the bottom both sides with gold and red-orange then wrapped that around to the back to get those fussy bits.

Back

It still didn't seem quite ready to be called done for my part, so I added the yellow AB zipper stitch borders against the bocci and some little gold drops filled in the bottom. I also ended up needing to go back through several of the drops used for her lovely hair as they started coming loose.

I really don't want to send this one on, I'd love to keep her! LOL!
Oh well, I'll just have to make up my own leaf shape form.

Other than that I've been working on an UFO project for one of the beading challenges. I am hoping to get that finished up in the next week or so before sharing the photos. There's been dentist visits and eye doctor appointments and a small wreck involving the youngest with the truck that we've been sorting through. Every one involved with that is just fine, but it's the headache of dealing with the insurances and getting it in to the body shop to be fixed.

Hopefully I'll have more to share with you all soon and get back to more frequent posting!

Cars and Clay

2012-01-29T12:40:00.009-06:00

The last week has been a bit of a whirl wind with various appointments and meet-ups scattered all through the week. Busy, busy!

The biggest and best news is that the hubby got me a car so I am no longer stuck at the house borrowing vehicles or rides in to town! It won't win any drag races, but it's a great little get around town car and I can pick up the 500 lbs of horse feed in the bed. Love it!
2003 Subaru Baja

The clay guild meeting yesterday was a fun time. We learned how to make wood grain canes. Oh, the ideas I'm having now to use the slices from the canes. It's a really easy technique, two layers of color rolled up in a log. The direction you slice the cane from makes the difference. I had a bit of a hard time keeping the cutting line straight on a thinner cane going from top to bottom long-wise as you can see.

We covered pens with the cane slices

Not all pens will stand up to the oven temperatures though, several melted during the class and you can see the stick pen in the photo bowed a little.

I had a tiny little jelly jar and covered the metal lid with slices

I love learning different techniques for patterning in clay and will be using them in several projects I'm planning... I am seeing some amazing faces coming out of this eventually! Here is a great video on how to do Mokume Gane technique.

Beads , Buttons, and Knitting

2012-01-17T12:52:00.011-06:00

Finished beading my section on this bright little gal and sent her off in the mail to the next beader this morning.

And the back view...

The theme for her is Beads and Buttons, so you were to pick out buttons to use as sort of focals and bead around them. She arrived with her hair and a section on the front done. I love the bright fabric and found a great butterfly and pink flower buttons to use. It was hard transitioning the front to the back, but I think the pewter flower charms worked well.
A little closer view of the beading.

A friend had mentioned she was trying to destash some of her yarn, so was knitting it up in to baby blankets or scarves, whatever was in the bins she was going to put it use one way or another. Then we found out the Grandbaby is a girl and because she will be another Grandma for the baby, decided a shopping trip was in order to find pink camo as a funny for my son. For the past week and half I've been a little fixated on knitting as she also found yarn that she got for me(it's so you she says) to knit a blanket. I haven't knitted in years because it really bothers my neck, it still does. I got some wild hair though and have been a knitting fiend.
It started with this luscious yarn for a baby blanket...

Years ago when after this same friend taught me to crochet, the boys were still little and I found some fun yarn that I crocheted corner to corner in to "happy blankets" for them. This yarn that grabbed my friend's attention reminded her of those blankets only in girl colors, so even though I hadn't knitted in so long of course I had to go ahead and make a happy blanket for the grandbaby :)

Then I had some time to sit in the hospital last week while this same friend had a hip surgery to repair a tear in the joint and spent most of my days at her house as well to help out and keep company. So I dug around and found some yarn that has been sitting in twists for several years, rolled it in to balls and took it along for something to do.
Lap sized throw

Then in the spirit of destashing I dug out another two twists and rolled those in to a huge ball... had to use a bucket to keep it from rolling around while I knitted LOL! That turned in to this small possibly a baby blanket or maybe a doll blanket for later on.

I am purposely avoiding the yarn bins as I know there a few more twists in there I could ball and knit up, but man my neck really needs a break. I really like that I am giving it some type of purpose rather than just sitting in a bin although I have to wonder what I was thinking all those years ago when I got these on Ebay and only ever got two skeins of hand dyed yarn. I found as long as I am doing a simple garter stitch(knit both directions) it's a lot like mowing in the summer for me. Simple, mindless, busy task that keeps you occupied but let's your mind wander. I guess my mind needed that break so the muse could recharge.

Wrapping Up

2011-12-30T23:23:00.007-06:00

Here's the beaded doll I was working on for the Beader's Choice RR.
April traveled with a lovely purple, teal, blue, gold, glittery Sun, Moon, Stars card to be her inspiration. She arrived with her hair done and a chain of flowers on her forehead.

So the crescent moon settled on her hip one night while she was dancing in the garden. Moonbeams and starlight twined around her leg as she kicked up flowers in her wake.

Andine spent his time with me speaking of warm Caribbean water, tropical fish with "false eyes" on their fins, and instructing me on the ways the males of the species are supposed to be the more flamboyant.

Paua shell eyes and of a course a bit of bling on the edges of his tail.

I've been doing well to keep up with some projects, but have utterly failed to keep up with some others. The Bead Journal Project got sat on a back burner some where, I never did get back in to the groove with it. That is one of those projects you need to really stick to working on every single month, because once you get a little behind it seems to get shuffled off.

This coming year I have new things I want to learn... weaving, mosaic tiling, sculpting human figures, creating things that can stand the test of time out in the weather, more fabric/textile work including maybe a mixed media art journal. Less round robin projects that side track me and more time/space for figuring out what "my own thing" is. The next month or two will be full of upheaval and mayhem, we'll have to see where every thing stands when the dust finally settles some time in February or March.

Come on, 2012... let's see what you've got in store! (keeping fingers crossed it's all GOOD... Haha!)

Coming up to a New Year

2011-12-28T15:46:00.002-06:00

Well, it's been a crazy bit of a week around here.

Wonderful times with all of the kids showing up, the two that don't live here stayed a night or two over the Christmas weekend so we had plenty of company and family time!
Whew, all the company and fun wore me out!

Yesterday morning the husband and I got to go with my youngest son and gf to the ultrasound. We got to see our first grandbaby and find out the sex right along with little squirts Mom and Dad :)
It's a ......GIRL!
Mwahahahahahaha! We're are going to have so much fun with her and now I can start making blankets and such for her :) Since I've only ever raised boys this is going to be one heck of an adventure and now I can shop for girly stuff!

I haven't touched one creative thing since last week and forgot to take photos of every thing I meant to. Today has been spent enjoying some peace and quiet, finally had the house to myself for a bit of the afternoon, and cleaning and putting away the few decorations. Still not sure where I'm going to put the tree, but I'll figure it out... I'm sure there is room in a closet some where.

On the list of things to do is finish up beading the merman, do a little bit of crazy quilting, and playing with some clay.
Here's a fantastic video on sculpting a face I took some time to watch today.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are looking forward to a Happy New Year!

Winter Solstice

2011-12-22T00:15:00.003-06:00

Spent a lovely afternoon with the sun finally shining after way too many days of gray. A friend and I went out to lunch and wandered through a few stores, it's always interesting to see the seasonal decorations. It was just what I needed to bounce my mood back up, there has been a bit of strangeness going on around the area lately and it's making people edgy.

There have been some projects in the works for gifts that have been taking up my time, so no photos to share just yet.
I haven't spent more than a few minutes decorating the tree, but like it quite well with just the lights and the jingle bells I hung scattered on it, a lovely little red tatted heart with gold beads from dear Suz, and three small glass bulbs I had net beaded a few years ago that I found tucked in a drawer. I think I might manage to make a ton of bows to grace the branches and turn some tiny round mirrors in to ornaments for a glimmering wonder land.

My Yule evening has been spent with wonderful smelling citrus-sage candles burning, tree lights gleaming, drinking hot cups of tea, wrapping gifts, and contemplating the return of sun bringing back a little more day light as we continue on toward the coldest part of the winter.
I hope you all have had a lovely day with a little bit of the joy of the sun in it!

Just Been

2011-12-05T11:31:00.010-06:00

...Blah.

Every one goes through the blahs and I seem to be having one of those spots that is hard to shake. I've been aimless and restless, stressing and worrying... now it's December with it's own set of worries moving in.

Even so, I have been puttering a bit here and there.
I took a hint from Suztats and tried some her painting prompts. I have no idea what I am doing with this but it was fun and I did learn quite a bit about effects possible with gesso. I used card stock paper and not shown one with water color type paper. They all rippled and curled with the gesso layer. Next time I'll try Suz's suggestion of taping or clamping them down on a solid backing first.
Here is the dried gesso layers before painting

Now I don't have watercolors and while I love seeing how people paint with them, I have no clue to actually use them. Working on paper or canvas is completely different than working on ceramic bisque or polymer clay. I added water to some of my acrylic paints to make washes and tried with that, they don't blend or layer as well as I suspect watercolors would. I did not stick exactly to the prompt as I chose to use some of my favorite colors instead then used the red as the "pop" color. I really liked the idea she had of using words, so picked the first three that came mind while playing with the gesso part. The purple and peach one was some paint I had just used and figured I'd see if I could manage to get some sort of sunset look. I will probably play with that one some more later on adding more colors.

I tried layering paint washes and rubbing off color, it gave me plenty of ideas to try out next time and with different things to create depth and texture.

Events before Thanksgiving that kept me busy were a meet up with the COPCG and a lovely baby shower for one of the ladies. The last Wednesday of the month I met up with my little Crazy Quilt group, OKC M'bellishers, and made one of these for each of them. The eye colors are each of the ladies favorite color, two with differing shades of aqua and one lavender/purple.

Unfortunately I'm having problems doing things with my hands again, so I was not completely happy with how the faces turned out. I think they could have been much better, but am having to face facts that I will have to figure out different ways to achieve what I want to do now. That also means accepting that I won't be able to get the level or preciseness of detail I used to be able to do.

I have been beading on one of the round robin "Beader's Choice" dolls and just this past Saturday had this fine guy, named Andine, show up in my mail for the Mermaid RR.

I'll do the last little bit left on him by beading his tail then send him home to his original owner.

Last year I wasn't able to decorate for Yule/Christmas. I put up all the stuff from storage and when the hubby got home from work he walked in the front door and had a massive allergy attack. Down came the tree and every last stitch of decoration except for a few ceramic pieces that get stored in the house. It was all ruined because of mice, we suspect, and possibly some mildew getting in to it all. We were gifted a new artificial tree yesterday, a six foot tall thin one that already has the lights strung on it. This week I need to figure out how to decorate it since I have no ornaments or garland. New tree, new look this year I guess!
I am hoping that mustering up some enthusiasm for seasonal decorating will shove me out of the blah funk!

Give Away Goodies

2011-11-07T00:58:00.004-06:00

I try not to post a lot of the give away stuff or enter very many usually, but some of it is just too good not to share!

Lynn over at Trash to Treasure Art is having a fantastic give away so go check her out and enter the give away! Her little art pieces are just beautiful and she does a lot of wonderful stuff with stamps, so inspiring!

You can also run over to visit Marie at Lost Bird Studio for her give away!
She does gorgeous mixed media pieces that are wonderfully inspiring as well!

Loose Ends

2011-11-04T18:09:00.007-05:00

A current round robin I am in with the Beaded Art Doll group is a Beader's Choice RR. Each person in the round robin chooses their own theme and form for their doll, sending it out for the others to bead and return back fully beaded. There are two groups this time, the group I am in has seven people so six people will bead on each doll.

The first doll sent to me is Wyld Child celebrating Autumn Spectacular. Interestingly enough, it is one of the forms I sent out months ago in a form swap now back for a short visit! Her hair and the purple medallion on front were already beaded. I added the lavender colored pearl in the center of the medallion.

Taking the color cues from her hair I added transparent orange and AB transparent yellow merging in to two dark greens in bocci stitch. A delicate late fall flower found it's way in to her hand.

Striped carnelian oval beads surrounded in a sort of tribal looking pattern travel across her back.

Now I find myself in a strange spot, there is not one group project sitting waiting for me to work on. All of them have been done, sent out in the mail to the next person. I find myself looking around wondering what to do now that I don't have a project I "have" to be working on. It is interesting to think on what I "want" to work on next now that I have the time to do it. I think I will play around this weekend and maybe do some outside clean up to enjoy the lovely fall weather before the storm moves in on Sunday evening. Who knows what will show up in the mail next week for me to start beading on?!

The Wandering Dolls has been a dismal bust, a great project that has turned in to a fiasco. Dolls are unaccounted for... one of which is Ahzure... the moderator flaked out and at least one participant that I am truly worried about as no one can reach her at all although I have had a friend that is local to her try. This is one of those situations that puts me off doing swaps or round robins, but on the positive side I had fun while it lasted.

Edited:
I got to thinking about this and I don't mean it to sound as if any of the projects I am doing or have done haven't been "wanted" projects. They have all been wonderful to do and I have so much fun both in the doing and chatting with the other participants. It's more that I am feeling a bit aimless without the list of things to do that I have gotten myself used to over the last several months. Isn't that funny, I have been doing what I wanted to do... just to other peoples expectations or ideas. Now I need to see what I will do with out any guidelines so to speak.

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T11:54:00.003-05:00

Two of my favorite Halloween decorations, both ceramics I painted. The Witch sitting on her Jack O' Lantern I did many many years ago. The black cat with Jack O' Lantern I painted this year toward the beginning of the month.

I hope all of you have a fun, treat filled Halloween!!

Suz's CQ Block

2011-10-29T11:43:00.003-05:00

Way back in May, Suztats and I decided to do a sort of crazy quilt round robin with each other. It seemed at the time like I had all the time in world to do sitting things after the neck surgery. Originally we were going to do half and send it back for the other to do half. Plans changed though and we ended up stitching the whole block for the other. We left our sending back date open, so we could stitch as we wanted without worry and could get other projects completed as needed.

Here is the starting point of the block she sent.

The theme was picked by random, I don't remember which of us picked color and which of us picked theme this far out, but one of us drew the color blue and the other drew the theme Creepy Crawly. I wish I would have thought to take photos along the way as there were many times I ended up frogging it and restarting.

I finally realized, very far in to it, that I was "painting a picture" with thread and beads rather than following the typical way of CQ'ing. Should I frog it all again or just move forward? I opted to quit fighting with myself on it and plowed ahead.

I enjoyed working on this project with Suz, but honestly... I think the block she did is so fantastic that mine just doesn't quite measure up! It's interesting to see how drastically different our styles were on this project.
Go see the post Suz did on the block she stitched for me. She says she's a newbie at the CQ stuff, but oh my look at the gorgeous work she did on the block! She's a natural!!
Thank you so much, Suz, for the wonderful block you stitched AND for tackling a summer long project with me!

Beading Starfish

2011-10-29T11:27:00.006-05:00

Wow, I can't believe it's been a whole month and I haven't posted once!
The days just seem to have flown by, I don't feel like it is just a few more days to November.

One of the mermaids in the beaded Mermaid round robin is pretty small, so a star fish form got tucked in with it so every one could have plenty of room to bead.
Here is the beading I did on the starfish. Lots of bocci stitch. Carnelian, glass pearls, and coral caught up in her hair as she is dreaming as well as three little carnelian fish to keep her company.

I thought it would be fun for you to see the other side of the starfish too. This is the work Jamie did on it and she did such a lovely job. That butterfly is just wonderful!

The little mermaid had a mishap and lost her face, so I was asked if I could put one on. Well, Of Course :)
I also bezeled around the face so she wouldn't loose it again. I'm not sure if I like the gloss sealer I used though, but it does give her face a wet look.

Mermaid RR for Jamie

2011-09-29T22:32:00.005-05:00

The mermaid I received to start off the Mermaid Round Robin was faceless, nameless, and nekid hoping for help to find herself... so her journal said. Lol!

I helped her with the faceless part (of course!) and a little bit of abalone shell corset, "scales", and water flowing down her arms.

The back shows the different beading effects... bocci, straight, and single with a little bit of bead weaving thrown in.

The doll form measures approximately 9 1/2 inches tall by 1 3/4 inches wide at the hip, the tail is approximately 4 1/2 inches wide. Unfortunately the photos are not the greatest as I took them at night with the house lighting. Sigh. One of these days I will figure out a light box to use and the colors will show up correct!

What a fun doll this was to bead on... it's hard to let her go, I'm absolutely loving how she is progressing! I wonder what name she will find in her journey?!

Beaded Art Dolls

2011-09-27T09:53:00.010-05:00

Remember way back in May when Aryd'ell and I swapped dolls to bead for each other?

Well they are finally finished and will be finding their way back to each other over the next week.

Here is Fiona that I beaded for Aryd'ell:
Front

Back

Both sides

Here are the photos she sent me of the wonderful doll Aryd'ell beaded, named Babs (short for Babushka):
Front

Back

I also had my 5 month check up at the neurosurgeon's last week. The hardware in my neck is good and solid, I'll go back in a year for a CATscan to check on the fusing. They lifted all restrictions (with in reason they said) .... Mwahahahahahaha... but I'm supposed to ease back in to things. All in all, good checkup!

AND...
in other big life altering news... we found out last week that we're going to be
GRANDPARENTS.
Oh __________.... insert your choice word here.
Yep. Still in shock.

But... I did already buy a little stuffed Giraffe for baby's first toy from the Grandparents :) the hubby says I should bead it LOL!

A Little Bird...

2011-09-19T18:39:00.002-05:00

A little Bird... sent me a surprise that showed up in my drive way today.

The UPS guy always backs in to our drive, it's easier than backing out of it.
So I'm standing there this afternoon finishing up a few dishes at the sink when surprise surprise the UPS guy backs in to the drive. What the heck I'm thinking... I didn't order any thing.

No one else had either as the package was addressed to me. A lovely lovely box full of Fimo clay to play with the new molds!!! Carol... I know you already told me welcome... but THANK YOU :D. Silly lady... you surprised me and oh yes, I'm smiling for the day indeed. Big, big hugs to you :)

Getting Busy

2011-09-13T10:59:00.003-05:00

Now that a few deadlines are cleared off of my list, I've been busy beading on two beaded art dolls and doing some stitching on Crazy Quilt blocks.

I ordered a couple of new clay molds, faces of course, from Bestflexiblemolds and discovered they are right down south of Oklahoma City in Moore. How cool is that?! I got invited to a polymer clay guild meeting as a result when they noticed where they were shipping the molds to. I had no idea there is a Central Oklahoma Polymer Clay Guild that meets once a month. Last Saturday I went to the monthly meeting and had such a fantastic time, I even joined the guild.

The ladies were so welcoming and man, what a wealth of knowledge! It really opened up a world of possibilities that I am looking forward to exploring. I'm not a big group joiner, but I can't tell you how thrilled I am that I met up with this one.

That makes two days a month I'll be getting to meet up with other like minded people, one with the polymer clay guild and one with the Crazy Quilt ladies in OKC.
I met up with several ladies last month that have a get together that is all about Crazy Quilting... I think I forgot to mention that LOL :)
I'm having such fun meeting new people and getting a little time away from being stuck in the house all the time.

Things are going pretty well everything considered . The hot weather finally broke for a week and we had gorgeous days in the low 80's F., what a relief. It's popped back up this week, but we're in the end days of summer and it'll cool back off again shortly.

Life is good :)

Beading for a Cure 2012 Project complete

2011-08-30T13:51:00.008-05:00

This is the lovely kit that showed up... absolutely LOVE the colors. It reminds me of the earth, ocean, and sky. Colors to ground, uplift, and allow you to just breathe.

I decided on a Celtic/Tribal type of design with improvisational beading to make a beaded art wall hanging. Finding a simple base fabric that wouldn't compete with the bead colors was a little challenging, but finally I settled on the light blue. The design base is only a template, a sort of visual idea to guide rather than to work from exactly.

When all of those tiny stitches were done, this is what the back looked like before putting the fabric backing on.

I even remembered to label this years project with my design studio name and my name, which I completely forgot to do last year with Mardi Gras Queen.

Unlike last years mad rush to get done, take photos, and get it in the mail finishing up right at the wire... this year I finished a few days before deadline with plenty of time to tweak or add if I felt the need.

When a project just comes together and every thing falls in to place, it makes doing what I do a joy.

I always have family on my mind, but this particular project while being donated for auction at Beading for a Cure flowed together while I had one particular person frequently in my thoughts.

This years beaded art is dedicated to my brother, Carl, who was diagnosed with esophageal cancer and been going through the unimaginable rough with radiation, chemo, and surgery. Even though there is remission at this time, it will take a long time to get energy and strength back after such a wearing ordeal on the body.

Ground. Center. Breathe.
Life flows like waves with twists, turns, eddy, and spirals.
Breathe and grab life, big brother, and.... Be Well.