Squirrelly Ducks

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.

Zombie's and poodles

2011-08-19T11:19:00.005-05:00

The art doll for Wandering Dolls this time is Zombie Betty.
She is supposed to be a Rockabilly singer turned in to a zombie by one of her fans.

Zombie Betty was lonely, so I made her a dog. A poodle named Fifi, but oh my Betty got a hold of her and now she's Killer Fifi the zombie poodle! Like most things it wasn't the picture I had in my head, but for a zombie I think she makes a good friend.

Killer Fifi is polymer clay over armature, painted and embellished with crocheted fun fur yarn for the poodle poofs. I beaded a peyote stitch collar with a detachable bead spiral rope leash that can slide off Betty's wrist or be left as is.

Mermaid Coralia

2011-08-17T17:05:00.006-05:00

Toward the end of the month I'll be joining in with four other ladies to work on a beaded art doll round robin. The art doll theme is Mermaid.

Here is the starting point for Coralia.

It was up to us whether we wanted to send out a bare form or if we wanted to add any special beads etc. I choose to paint one of the blank faces I received in the face swap a while back as it reminded me of the lady figureheads that used to be on ships and worked the bezel around it since it was an odd shape. I also found some lovely glass flat rounds that I just had to have a few months ago and once the face was on the mermaid I knew they just had to be the bikini top on her. She measures 8 3/4 inches tall by 1 1/2 inches at her hips. The widest part of her tail is 3 inches and she has a tiny waist at 3/4 inch wide.

I had a chance to go with our neighbors last week down to the Gulf Coast and spend two wonderful days playing in the ocean and on the beach. It was fantastic and I've been dreaming of the beach/ocean ever since.... there are a few seashells from that trip that will eventually end up on Coralia.

Under the Sea Crazy Quilt part 2

2011-08-16T00:50:00.005-05:00

I have so much to catch up on, so we'll start with this one!

I worked on this block for Nicki Lee at RavioLee Dreams.

I added on the lower left bottom... maidenhair and feather stitches; beads, shells, and quartz chips cluster; lace motifs; and beaded the ear rings and bracelet on the mermaid.

I am hoping that I'll manage to get a few more posts in over the next week to show you what else I have been working on! I promise it's not all been crazy quilting LOL!

Gypsy Treasure CQ RR block

2011-07-29T14:32:00.004-05:00

I have been beading like a mad woman the past few weeks thinking I had an August 1st deadline for my BFAC project. I went to check the paperwork last night and discovered that the mailing date isn't until August 29th!!
It's nice to know I am WAY ahead of schedule on at least one thing!

I finished up a few last little touches on Alice's Gypsy Treasure crazy quilt block and will be getting that in the mail later this afternoon or tomorrow morning latest.

Here's the whole block

A little closer look at the details

I worked on the areas just left and above the center Gypsy Lady.
Gold silk thread and beads for notes on the burgundy, green stitching on the gold section, blue stitching on the red with a ribbon seam and lollipop flowers stitching, and the orange seam and beaded mirror on the green.
What a fun block to work on!

Under the Sea Crazy Quilt

2011-07-18T14:14:00.004-05:00

Here's the stitching I was working on the crazy quilt block for our Under the Sea Traditional block round robin. The beaded area and clear quartz flower did not show up as well as I would have liked in the photo.

A little closer look at the detail.

Hopefully in this week I'll get the photos for the Gypsy Treasure RR block I am almost finished with and some photos of the beading I've been working on too!
Hope everyone is doing well!

Good news

2011-07-11T16:27:00.004-05:00

Sorry I haven't been posting much lately!

I need to get some photos taken of projects in the works, but some things will have to wait until they are finished and received before I share as they are to be surprises :) I have been busy beading on art dolls, stitching on crazy quilt blocks, and pondering what to whip up for a Zombie girl. I need to get finishing up with my BFAC project as it needs to mail by August 1st, finish getting a mermaid put to rights for a beaded art doll RR to mail out then too, get caught up on my BJP which has been sadly neglected for a bit, and get my rear moving on some painted faces to get that Etsy store going!

The Good News today that I just had to share...

I had my reevaluation at physical therapy this afternoon and I have been "graduated" out!! They are super pleased with my progress and set me loose! *Happy Dancing*

Now I will be staying on top of the exercises at home and still have lifting restrictions for weight, but I am feeling great all things considered.

Off to work on more beading!!

Dax of the Wandering Dolls

2011-06-14T22:43:00.004-05:00

I put a more detailed post over on Wandering Dolls about Dax.
The journal indicated a gal on the move who liked to invent and work on machines, a vision of a sort of Sci-Fi Amelia Earhart in a steam punk theme.

She looked like this when she arrived here

And will be heading off to Christine later this week looking like this

I enjoyed working toward a steam punk theme and will have to look in to doing more with it. My additions to Dax were hair, then styled it and added a wire-wrap bead hair accessory to match a crystal beaded necklace, doe-skin pants and made the petticoat a draped bustle, and a pair of sculpted boots with beaded tassles. I could have just kept going... adding a trench coat, an old fashioned aviator's cap, goggles, a steam punk gun... so many ideas!

Now to catch up on some beading and stitching on some CQ blocks!

CQ Purse

2011-05-31T22:07:00.006-05:00

I entered a Crazy Quilt Purse contest/challenge at the Crazy Quilt International group.

The entries were kept nameless so people could vote for their favorite purse rather than by the person who made it.

We weren't to blog or show photos of our entry to keep the voting impartial until after the contest was done.

There were some glitches with the photos for two of the purses where the photos would not show up larger than thumbnail sized. Mine was one of those, so the people who viewed the photos and then went to vote had to imagine the impressions of what they could manage to see in these small photos for two out of five finished purses in the contest.

I spent most of my day today taking a friend for some medical tests in which she needed a driver.
Imagine my surprise this afternoon after getting home when checking my email to find out that my purse... my very first effort at a purse, with no pattern just an idea in my head for a usable tote purse... took 3rd place in the contest!!!!

I didn't think it would even have a remote chance, especially with the photo glitch, against the other lovely entries from obviously more experienced crazy quilters. I can not even tell you how beyond thrilled I am that it even placed, let alone how tickled I was with myself when I finished it up and it looked exactly like what I was thinking. I did it... I made a purse... from start to finish with just an idea.
My husband must have thought I was a complete goofball when I brought it to him grinning when I finished sewing the pieces together, just because I was so very thrilled to have done it.

What things have you created or done that you never thought you would be able to? What has just made you absurdly thrilled that YOU did it?!

A big congratulations to Cathy K. for first place and Lauri B. for second place. Marilyn N. and Colleen A. also submitted gorgeous purses and congratulations are in order to them at the very least for completing theirs in time for the contest. There were 15 people registered for it, but only five managed to enter in time. Of course, I need to say a big Thank You to those who voted for mine... I hope the larger photos live up to what you were hoping to see in those tiny photos.

Uhm... Zombies? and CQ?

2011-05-18T22:10:00.006-05:00

Some times life just keeps slapping you up along side the head. We seem to be having one of those months.

I am healing fine so far... I've been surprisingly good and not pushing my restrictions too much. I've thought about mowing the yard... and vacuuming... but as I pointed out to the hubby since the yard isn't mowed and the house isn't vacuumed I obviously thought better of that :)

Last week the youngest son broke his arm up by the elbow after coming off a hopping horse and landing on his arm. He has surgery this Friday to put a plate and pins in it because the broken bone separated complete with over night stay at the hospital. This Friday also happens to be his 19th birthday.

Two days after that happened... the husband put out his lower back. That has been a week of alternating ice packs and heating pad, resting as much as possible, and several chiropractic visits to get straightened out. Today is the first day he's actually came home after work and adjustment and is walking normally.

Everybody knock on wood with me now... that should make the triple right? Everything should go back to semi-normal.

Ok... now that I have the back story out of the way, we can all use a little humor here right?!
We are celebrating the son's birthday tomorrow... I gave him the option of before surgery or the day he comes home after surgery(Saturday) and he picked tomorrow.
I've said for a while now in jest that I was going to make him a doll....

So I made him a Zombie.

I wonder if he'll give it a name?

Now I don't get in to gore dolls or super macabre things although I can come up with Goth theme and broody/dark things ... I don't think I even managed gore very much with this little guy cause I think he actually turned out kinda cute. For a Zombie. He's quite the solid little guy measuring at 4 3/4 inches tall, made with polymer clay over armature and painted.

When I haven't been sneaking around my house trying to whip up a Zombie before the kid wandered out I've been working on beading and the latest crazy quilt round robin, Gypsy Treasure.
This is the first block I received and the journal encouraged thoughts of fortune tellers, crystal balls, etc. so I decorated the "tent awning" over the Gypsy girl and added the hand dyed lace with rickrack and beads in the centers of the flowers.

I hope all of you out there are looking forward to good weekend and have been having a relatively uneventful life happening lately :) OH.. and watch out for the Zombies.

Odds and Ends

2011-05-13T16:32:00.003-05:00

I've been taking a bit of a break the past few days, I think I got too ambitious there and did a little too much.

I have been working on some CQ stitching for a contest and hope to post photos of that in a week or so when I am able. Still working on the beading on the doll in little chunks of time.

Today the mail brought a great surprise...

Dax from the Wandering Dolls showed up today!! I am excited to work on her and explore ideas for steam punk themes.

Mini Round Robin with Aryd'ell

2011-05-10T10:23:00.003-05:00

Some of the ladies in the Beaded Art Dolls group were starting up a beaded art doll round robin. Since I wasn't sure how things would be going after the neck surgery or if I would be able to keep up with the time schedule, Aryd'ell at Gypsy's Ramblings suggested we have a mini RR between the two of us.
What a fantastic opportunity, of course I said YES!

We had emailed back and forth and ended up using two doll forms I had made from the same pattern. I had sent one to Aryd'ell as a thank you figuring she could always use extra forms with all the faces from the swap when I sent the form I was using and she decided we'd bead sisters :), so put a face on it and sent it back to me to start.

During our email conversations it came up about trying to get them so they would stand up by themselves and she mentioned going to work with an idea she was having with large rounds. I had been thinking along the lines of beading some type of flat platform on the bottom, but while digging around in my beads I found some faceted 8mm(?) crystal glass beads that seemed like just the perfect thing to try.

I didn't get them quite even on the bottom so while it will stand it's not straight up, I'm working on a fix for that. Hopefully the idea I am having will turn out exactly what I am thinking in this case.
The arches over the faceted beads are size 11's with drops nestled in the spaces between. I had completed the small bocci stitch tree on the back and needed to take a break for a while and let the cabochons on the front set. That is when I saw that Gypsy's Ramblings had a new post. I think her suggestion in the email nudged me in the same direction. Similar, but different... I think that works very well for sister dolls!

This is the first beaded project I've attempted since fighting to finish the tree doll.
The difference is amazing! I'm getting my hands back!!
I was so thrilled yesterday I didn't want to stop and had to keep making myself take breaks to rest my neck. Then last night I couldn't leave it alone and spent a little more time beading in the evening. There is still some fumbling and a little bit of occasional clumsiness, but I am so optimistic for getting more dexterity back as time goes on.
Words just can't express how thankful I am that the surgery has been such a success so far. Now I just need to keep myself in check to go slow and take it easy so things can continue in a good way over the next several months.

BAD Face swap

2011-05-10T09:57:00.004-05:00

Remember the faces I was making a while ago for a face swap in the Beaded Art Dolls group?
Well, a package showed up in the mail last week with the faces I received in return.
Joetta was a fantastic hostess in the swap and included extra's in the package, so there are lots of faces to use for future doll forms!
Love them all!

I shared some with my friend Barbara at Pinelands Treasures and tucked in a few more that I had made as well for her. I was so excited to share I missed getting a photo of all of the ones that had been sent. Hopefully she'll be able to get a photo of them for me or post it on her blog when she gets a chance.

Enchanted Forest comes Home

2011-04-30T23:11:00.003-05:00

Here is what the block looked like when I sent it out

And here is the lovely embellished block that returned home to me today

Big thank you goes out to the ladies who added their wonderful stitching to this block. A treasure for me as a "first" and for the friendships made along the way.

Home again and catching up

2011-04-27T22:46:00.006-05:00

I am home again, the surgery went well. It was a good thing it was bumped up as one of the disks was bulging worse and putting more pressure on the spinal cord/brain stem than was originally thought. We'll see how the recovery process goes over the next few weeks, but so far I think it is going pretty much as expected.

It occurred to me that I have been remiss in keeping a few things up to date. I had wanted to get a few posts set up scheduled to show up this week, but in the last minute of things to do over last weekend I didn't manage to get there.

I had finished Seeker up and made sure he was boxed up and ready to mail, which the hubby did yesterday before coming to get me from the hospital.

The crazy quilt round robin I was in is finishing up and the finished blocks are finding their way home. I am looking forward to seeing my finished block some time later this week and will post a finished block photo of it.
Here is the last one I worked on:
Anna's

I added the SRE stem flowers in the center with the loop grass under them, the grass tufts on the white hill, the vine with sort of bird or paradise looking flowers, vine and french knot buds and wandering chain stitch in the not quite upper right corner. There are some french knots tossed in a few other places as well. I really enjoyed working on this round robin. Here are the other three pieces I worked on:

Lois'

Joyce's

Berta's

The next crazy quilt round robin I am signed up for starts May 1st!
Here's the block I pieced together around the beginning of the month for it. The theme is Gypsy Treasure.

I'm sleeping a lot and pretty loopy on the pain meds so not doing much creating just yet. I'll get there though! Take care everyone!

Seeker travels to Texas

2011-04-27T22:30:00.003-05:00

Well Seeker should be arriving at Christine's in Texas over the next day or so.

What a happy soul Seeker is, I had so much fun working on him and the altered book journal.

I put a post out at Wandering Dolls about his time spent here with me.

Just letting you know

2011-04-23T00:02:00.005-05:00

Just a quick note to let you all know I'm headed to surgery this coming Monday morning.
I wrote a small post on it over at Bit O' Red Dirt if you want the details of it. I'll be working on getting some things finished up over the weekend, but really I expect I'll be doing ok next week and able to work on things in small chunks of time just fine.

It's a positive thing and while I'm the type that tends to work off of worse case scenarios I really think it will have good results... knock on wood :)

I've let a lot of people know by emails, but I know there are those of you out there that don't necessarily email or comment that might want to know.

I'll keep ya'll updated, might be a pain-med hopped up strange rambling though, but I'll be back creating in no time!

Music, Rust and the Dreaming Tree

2011-04-17T14:32:00.010-05:00

I spend a lot of my time in quiet solitude on any given day, some times by choice some times not so much. Today is a day I want to point some thing out to some one and have them get the thought behind it... get me and the sights in my head. So, I'll share some of the bits of flotsam and jetsam that ping around in my head with you guys.

I forget how much I love music then some thing grabs my attention. I click on a link to a video or a certain song grabs me on the drive in to town for an appointment so I look up the artist when I get back home. Once I've watched a video I get distracted and click on the links to the side... some times it's an interesting band name or song name that catches me, some times it's some thing about the thumbnail picture, some times I just love a particular singer or band that much for how they sing/harmonize.

Lately I've been loving watching and listening to Adam Lambert. He delights me much the same way Lady Gaga does with the dramatic, the visual story, the costumes, the amazing dancers, and a truly amazing vocal range/use depending on the song. I watched some of the videos of his live performances like Fever and Sleepwalker. I think I would love to see him in concert... it would be a very interesting experience.

I heard a song on the radio last week and the voice caught me, but I couldn't remember the name of the of the song or singer. I found it today... Adele - Rolling in the Deep. If you go watch the video pay attention to the solitary dancer in the powder... I would truly love to have been able to watch that figure dance for the whole song, to have seen the costume closer because the silhouette draws me in. The whole video set up draws me in, the water glasses reflecting the beat..the old house...the paper city... but it always come back to the movement of that solitary dancer for me. Oh I would so love to have that house with the mosaic, the wood banister, the ceiling plasters. She has such a wonderful, rich voice.

Then, just for fun , because it was a song I used to like way back when and the odd header intrigued me... the video has so much reference to what was happening in the 80's and it just made me laugh. How many movies did you recognize?!

Does music contribute to your creative thoughts or process? What do YOU like to listen to, what catches your attention about a song or singer?

Here's some things I've been up to in the past few weeks.
I am in a fabric mood lately and got caught up in finding rusty bits to make rust dyed fabric. It's exciting to pull something out to see what happened and what patterns were made... a science experiment with fabric I can set up in a container outside and come back to in a few days.

I made this piece with an artist board, stone clay, beading wire and beads for a friend's birthday. Framed and titled The Dreaming Tree. She loves it :) I wish the photo had turned out better though, but I wasn't thinking and the glass was in.

Seeker wanders in

2011-04-10T14:44:00.002-05:00

Seeker finally arrived in Oklahoma yesterday.
The wall Gecko climbed down to inspect the new arrival...

Now to spend some time with Seeker and find out where we will start. The journal and passport are so well done. I am loving getting to see other artists work. It adds a whole other dimension to learning and exploring getting to see their work in person and be able to see what they've done. Part of the process and fun!

Mask up for auction

2011-04-04T14:06:00.003-05:00

Just in case any one is interested in bidding on Mardi Gras Queen, a decorative beaded mask, it is up for auction on behalf of raising funds for Beading for a Cure. All profits from this auction will go to the NCCRA.

Go HERE for the auction!

Making Faces

2011-03-31T23:55:00.006-05:00

These are some of the faces I was working on for the BAD face swap I am participating in. There are some others I've been playing with trying out making them in to magnets, but I'll show those later on at some point.
I've been playing with some new clays so some are polymer clay, some are air dry stone clay, and some are air dry modeling clay. I believe there is even one face made out of paper clay in there. So far the only one I am not very fond of working with is the air dry modeling clay, but it has it's own way of working up that is kind of neat too with some of the different painting effects I was trying out.

The lighting wasn't great as I took them last night with the house lights, so you miss some of the detail on them and they look a little darker than they actually are.
They were sent off in the mail this morning to be spread out in the swap group and I hope those that receive them love them. Great fun making them and painting in the details.

Hope everyone has a great weekend. I'm going to take it easy for a couple of days now that I've gotten all of major commitments met for the time being!

Ahzure set to travel

2011-03-26T18:52:00.007-05:00

Ahzure, a Tribal Bellydancer, left her troupe behind to explore the world. Bidding farewell to her favorite tree, she grabs her journal and heads to Christine in Texas to start her adventures!

I had bought a Woman pattern quite a while ago and hadn't gotten around to setting myself the challenge of actually trying to do it. I am pattern challenged sad to say, but for this Art Doll Round Robin I dug it out and and was determined I would at least manage a partial form. Ahzure ended up at 15 1/2 inches tall.
Once I got going on it though I managed to complete the doll form... you have no idea how much it thrilled me that I did it! I wasn't feeling confidant enough to tackle the individual fingers so I cheated a little and rounded the fingers instead. The arms should have been attached with buttons/joints so they would move, but again some how I wasn't doing something right with it and ended up sewing the arms on similar to the method used for the legs so they are not movable like the original pattern.

Now... I know she doesn't look very close to that lovely picture of the pattern. I learned a ton while working on the form though. Among those are not to use ballpoint pen to trace the pattern on to the fabric, don't let the sewing on your darts round out, I'll definitely use a much tighter weave of fabric next time, and I am already planning on making several heads to practice needle sculpting the face.

The journal looks absolutely nothing like what I was planning in my head. I had pictured some grand fabric composite similar to the gorgeous fabric creations of Lovey at Fabric Photo Memories. Didn't happen. I had a particular fabric in mind I wanted to use for the base and it seems to have hidden some where I couldn't locate, so I figured I would just sit down with my Neocolors to draw a scene. I took a stiffer paintbrush and water to turn the crayon look to watercolor. I liked it so well I didn't want to cover it up. So much for layering fabrics etc, so I did some simple stitching to accent the trees and grassy hills before ironing it to the double sided pellon and attaching decorative scrapbooking cardstock to the inside covers. Managing to stitch the already bound together signatures in there was a whole other issue and I added recycled sari silk yarn for the bookmark and closing ties. Isn't that little bird on a branch charm cute?! It is much more plain book-like rather than a textural feast for the hands... but it's done, it's packed up with Ahzure and ready to go in the mail Monday.

Now to finish up some faces I've been working on, perhaps try some needle sculpting practice, and figure out the layering effect I want with fabric for future use!

BFAC and a little Crazy Quilt stitching

2011-03-16T13:10:00.003-05:00

Remember my Mardi Gras Queen?

The Beading For A Cure gallery for 2011 is available for viewing now. There are so many wonderful beaded items, it's always interesting to see what every one has done with the same kit. The bead kits for the 2012 BFAC will go on sale April 8th. There is a limited number of kits, so if you are interested in joining in this year make sure you mark that date!!
Start checking for the auctions on March 21st to bid on your favorite items.

I did manage to get some stitching done on Joyce's Delightful Diversions block in our CQ round robin. I ended up picking a lot of stitches out on this as I just wasn't happy with how they were going. Sigh. It wasn't too frustrating as long as I didn't try to make the stitches too tiny and stuck with the ones I have done for years so the hand memory is already there. Lots of fern stitch and french knots.

Here's the whole block

Detail of the work I added

The Silk Ribbon Embroidery roses and the spider/spider web are both firsts for me.
I thought the web would be harder to get the hang of than it was, very much a relief to discover it was easier than I thought.

Winter Challenge BAD

2011-03-08T18:26:00.008-06:00

There is a Winter Challenge going at the Beaded Art Dolls group that I wanted to participate in.

It's no secret that I've been having "trees on the brain", as the hubby likes to say.
Here is the Winter Tree I finally finished beading last night, it really took a long time for me to get her completed. She measures right about 5 1/2 inches tall by 3 1/2 inches wide.

(click twice to embiggen)

Unfortunately this will be last completely beaded doll I will do for a while due to the issues I am having. I was determined that I would at least get this one done though. Out of all the art dolls I have made and given away in swaps... this is the first one I am keeping just for me and that I've manage to finish out completely beaded.

Catching up

2011-03-03T22:35:00.006-06:00

First thing on the list, check out Barbara's new blog Pinelands Treasures that she had to start after losing her original blog "Pinelands Patches, Beadscapes and Spirit Dolls".
I had no idea you would loose your blog if you removed the gmail account.

Also, there have been several people I have been emailing directly lately from the CQI and BAD groups that I am not sure they are getting my emails. So if we were having a conversation and it seems like I suddenly disappeared on you because you haven't gotten a reply.... I have been emailing, but I am not sure why they aren't getting to you!

I haven't been getting a lot of creating done here lately due to multiple car problems, house problems, and me problems.

We have been in a bit of a holding pattern here at our house waiting for a Neurosurgeon appointment that was looking like it was going to send me to surgery fairly quickly for my neck due to some neck, shoulder, arm, and hand problems suddenly getting worse over a short period of time. After the last several days running to get MRI, Xrays, and Dr. appointments on the other side of the big city... all while having my truck break down and needing to beg and borrow rides... there is actually some good news. I have to say I think I've got the best Neurosurgeon ever, he is the Doctor that handled the surgery I had done my lower back, and he will be handling the whole neck issue as well. I do have two moderate to severe bulging disks pushing in to the brain stem that may require surgery to remove and fuse three levels in my neck at some point, but he doesn't feel the symptoms are pointing at that being the major issue. The Dr. wants to see if we can avoid the surgery and rule out some other possible issues by starting physical therapy on my neck, carpal tunnel splints while sleeping for the next few weeks to see if that rules out at least some of the hand problems I am having AND getting tested for Diabetes to see if it is causing nueropathy. I am all for a doctor trying to avoid unnecessary procedures, rule out other possibilities, and see if there is any way some simple life style changes including exercise can help first. I think I'm going to start looking for a beginner Yoga dvd I can do at home to help start stretching out muscles and loosening stiffening joints. If any one has some suggestions with Yoga, Pilates, or other things you can do at home that worked well for them I'd love to hear about them! Check out the fun video link for dancing that Bea at Dog In the Hole Studio posted. Now that looks fun!

In other news, it appears I will be doing a little "independent contractor" type of work cleaning ceramic greenware in exchange for learning and fired pieces. Not sure how that is all going to work out as I don't have a huge desire to get back in to the larger ceramic statuary (too expensive to ship properly to make selling online work very well), but there are other avenues there to check in to including small faces for art dolls and ceramic masks. We'll see how it goes, but I am excited to be learning new things and being able to spend some time with similar minded artistic people instead of being stuck at my house all the time. The owner's only live about 5 miles away and work out of a small studio at their house when they aren't traveling to shows.

I have also been invited to join in an art doll collaboration with seven other artistic ladies call The Wandering Dolls. I am so thrilled as I have wanted to join in a round robin for art dolls. Now I just need to figure out what I want to send out for a blank form and pick a theme for the doll out of the bunches that are floating around in my head!

I have use of the husband's car on the weekends and next week while he's away on a business trip, so at least I'll have some type of transportation for a little while to get to PT and out to start helping clean the greenware. No clue how long it will take to get the truck straightened out now, sigh, imports have expensive parts.

Now if I can just get a little more feeling back in my hands and stop dropping things frequently... then I can get back to the little tiny details I love doing on my art projects!

Heart Swap and CQ

2011-02-13T23:15:00.012-06:00

My heart from the Heart swap at Mosaic Magpie showed up Friday.
Debbie included a little heart she made as well as sending the heart some one else made.
What a special heart this is, with it's wonderful little bird charm and the touching word stitched on to the back.
Front

Back

I found out my swap partner was Michele at Nook and Cranny! Look at this gorgeous heart she sent...

What a vintage inspired treasure this heart is, it even has a little lace pocket with vintage style tags included. What a talented lady Michele is! Go check out her blog for more wonderful treasures.
I completely forgot to take a photo of the heart I sent in for the swap and the beaded heart I made as a thank you for Debbie. Here's the photo Michele took of the heart I made.

I love the lace I used on this heart and just couldn't bear to cover it up, so I did some light embellishing with thread weaving in to some of the pattern and seed beads added as well as a peyote stitched loop at the top.
I feel honored to have been included in the Heart Swap and couldn't be more thrilled with both the gorgeous hearts I received.

I have been busy stitching and beading. I am working on completely beading the little tree doll I made and my BJP for both January and February, but you'll have to wait until they are done before I'll post a photo.
I had mentioned receiving the next block in the crazy quilt round robin I am in. Lois' had asked for Flowers and Birds, so since I've been dreaming of spring and had found the perfect vintage robin motif... it all came together beautifully!

I love the Robin pair on the tree branch, it looks like he is calling out announcing "Spring is HERE!". I used stem and straight stitch to make the tree and branches, lazy daisy stitch for the tiny leaves, and started working on learning silk ribbon embroidery with the cherry blossoms(loop stitch) and buds(french knots). The ribbon is definitely more fiddly to work with than floss, but once I got the hang of handling it to prevent twist the stitching just flowed. Now I need to learn some of the more complicated looking ones!

Fun in the mail

2011-02-07T21:54:00.008-06:00

While we were having problems with our water, unusually low temperatures with blizzard, etc ... there were brights spots in the days following once the mailman could get through again.

Cathy at Crazy by Design has been a wonderful and encouraging friend from the start and has been helping me learn the neat world of Crazy Quilting. Last week she sent a small package of silk ribbon and books to help me learn and get started on Silk Ribbon Embroidery. She snuck in a couple of the gorgeous hand dyed lace motifs she makes too!

Thank you so much, Cathy! This has been something I've wanted to learn for years, so I am super excited!

The same day that arrived, so did the next block in my Crazy Quilt Round Robin. I haven't taken a photo yet as I am still deciding what to stitch on this one, but the theme for the pink and blue block is Birds and Flowers.

The two swap doll forms from the Beaded Art Dolls group showed up the next day. How exciting to see what the forms were!

Barbara included some complimenting color beads with this wonderfully shaped form
The photo is a bit dark to be true to color though.

Joan sent this great little heart doll and sent along bits of fabrics and laces, beads and wonderful little odds and ends after seeing this blog and finding out I'm all about fabric too.

I love each of these little dolls for their different qualities... what fun fabrics to inspire beading and those sweet little faces each have such character to them. Can't wait to see what they become :)
I'm going to have to get busy busy stitching and beading both!!

Oh, and we did finally get the well unfroze after two and half days. So far we've ended up replacing the kitchen faucet and the shut off valves under the kitchen sink due to leaks. We will need to replace the pressure gauge on the tank outside as well. Keeping my fingers crossed those were the only casualties!
Thank all of you for thinking of me and sending warm thoughts my way while things were so crazy last week!

Everybody's talking about...

2011-02-02T23:46:00.002-06:00

Snow.

Yep, we got some. The news is saying we got at least a foot, but we have drifts all over much taller than just a foot.
The negative temperatures and winds have been brutal. We woke up yesterday morning to find we had no water. We are on a well and have been working to find where we're froze up the last two days with no luck.

The problem here is that nothing is built to support extra snow weight or sunk in to the ground deep enough to withstand these kind of temps or this kind of weather.
We are hoping that we'll get above freezing so what ever is froze can thaw and we'll get water back. At this point I'm just very thankful that our neighbors two or three acres behind us are also really good friends. They have graciously offered for us to come get water there to keep us and the pets in drinking water and for us to get showers.

I am so wore out from going out in the storm yesterday every hour or two to check on chickens and horses, toting extra feed, breaking through drifts that kept reforming, shoveling out areas today and getting my truck out of the drive to creep the 15 miles in to town to get a space heater to try that in the well house, etc etc etc. My shoulders, neck, and wrists are shot and I feel like I could just sleep a week.
Needless to say, we're going to be doing some rebuilding and insulating this spring and summer to make future Oklahoma blizzards easier to manage.
Here's hoping every one in the path of this crazy storm system is safe and warm.
Keep all our friends in Australia in your thoughts too, they really have gotten hit the past few years and the Yasi cyclone has done a number on them too.

Quiet here, but not there

2011-01-22T00:08:00.011-06:00

Wow, the month is just flying by!
While it has been quiet here on the blog, it's not been quiet in the house!!
Get a cup of coffee or hot tea, it's a long one :)

Here's some things I've been busy with...

Got my first blank block in the CQ RR and stitched my 1/4th section and mailed it on to Anna for her to play with. After getting over the initial OMG it's some one else's blank block what-am-I-gonna-do?!...I really had fun stitching. I added all the embroidery stitching and "silkie" on the lower left corner/bottom. I can't wait to see what the other three ladies add to it!

A little closer look

I also was working on teaching myself a new stitch, the bullion stitch, and tried to make bullion roses on a project I was working on. This was a challenge to myself... to work with colors I don't normally use, to put a little frou frou in it, and learning the new stitch.

I took one day and did nothing but come up with outlines and sitting down at the sewing machine to sew forms. After that there were a few days of stuffing and hand sewing the seam closed. Unfortunately I had some back tracking in there as I discovered some the things I was working on were a bit too big, so I had to go back to the drawing board and start over.

Then I made faces... one day for the molding and baking, then several days to paint and seal.

What a hodge podge group I have going there!

Last but not least, I finally settled on a size and format for my Bead Journal Project 2011. I really like the one piece in sections Tracey at A Beadiful Mess is working on for the BJP 2010. So I came up with a single format with 12 individual sections, one for each month. The finished size will be 9" X 12" framed, each monthly section is 3" X 3". I wanted a more do-able size this year and a lot more flexible journaling process for the months. I am looking forward to seeing what develops with intuitive beading on this piece!

The orange-yellow spots really aren't quite that vivid, but I wanted something fun to look at while beading. Kinda scary isn't it?? Oh well... it's bright and it makes me laugh when I look at it. Happy beading to you all!!

Enchanted Forest

2011-01-01T16:49:00.004-06:00

Happy New Year!

First thing Monday morning this will be in the mail to the first person in my rotation on my first CQ round robin block. A bunch of firsts to start off the first of the New Year!

The theme I finally decided on for this block is Enchanted Forest.

I included some of the images that inspire me in the journal that is to travel with the block. Moss covered trees, a faerie by a pool of water, stylized birds and tree shapes, a wonderful decorated hand drawing (I forgot to record the artist), and a tiny little night owl.
The cover is printed on cardstock then the insert pages are printer paper. I did a signature type binding on it using embroidery floss and leaving long tails that I will probably add beads etc on to when it all returns to me after the other ladies in the RR are done. The making of the journal it's self is something I've been meaning to look in to making, so it was enjoyable to sit down and make the time to plan it out and put it together.

I am looking forward to a great year filled with lots of creating. I wish you all health, happiness, and prosperity in this brand new year that is brimming with possibilities!

November and December BJP2010

2010-12-29T11:43:00.004-06:00

I haven't even started on these, but I did draw the cards on the first of each month. I want to go ahead and list those here with their definitions. I do plan on creating a beaded page for each of these, hopefully with in the next month, and will post photos after they are done.

November
The Celtic Dragon Tarot by DJ Conway and Lisa Hunt
The Chariot - Maintaining balanced control

Balanced control of a situation allows you to benefit. Success comes through confidence and being centered. You must pull two opposing forces together to accomplish a goal.

December
The Celtic Dragon Tarot by DJ Conway and Lisa Hunt
The Hanged Man - Suspended activity

A challenge to the way you think and live is coming. A period of inaction signals a need for introspection and rethinking of goals. Keep your feet on the ground and do not be taken in by illusions. Everything is in suspension and not moving, perhaps because of your inability to make a decision.

I hope you have all enjoyed learning a little about the definitions of the cards that were drawn and seeing the beaded projects based on them. Maybe each one of you came away with a little moment that resonated with you, an idea or food for thought.
What an interesting year it has been!!

October BJP2010 Finished

2010-12-29T11:23:00.003-06:00

The Celtic Dragon Tarot by DJ Conway and Lisa Hunt
The Sun - Positive Events

Positive happenings leave you with a sense of freedom and joy. You may be blessed with material gain or recognition for your work. Good news is coming.

I started a new endeavor during the month of October with the CQI group and received tons of encouragement and help from Cathy and Nicki Lee with stash building packages of fancy CQ fabrics showing up from them. That could be considered "material gain"... get it?? Ha! Fabric = material. Sigh. That sounds like something the hubby would say to me and I would roll my eyes. Also during the month I was busy working on two different swap dolls, one for Halloween and one was a Tree doll. Both of those brought many wonderful comments for design and execution of the designs from family and friends.

I bezeled a clear glass cab and used size 6 and 11 beads to create both the bezel and the rays of the sun. I wanted to play up the background batik fabric so kept the beading fairly simple and straightforward on this one.

September BJP2010 Finished

2010-12-29T11:02:00.005-06:00

The Celtic Dragon Tarot by DJ Conway and Lisa Hunt
The Empress - Unexpected blessings, Goddess Influence

Unexpected gifts and blessings come to you. A possible marriage or commitment to a relationship is close. You may experience a possible pregnancy or period of creativity. Travel, pleasant recreation, or social gathering will benefit you at this time. Financial security and good fortune can be yours with planning and commitment. Goddess influences are at work in your life.

This long after the fact I don't recall anything standing out as in particular for this card. I did have spates of creativity where I actually sat down and either wrote down ideas or started working toward physically creating things.

This was not the original beaded project for this card, but I ended up not even remotely liking how the first card was turning out. I had an idea of a dancing Goddess, but the project ended up spending more time sitting off to the side than any work being done on it. After trying several different things to kick-start myself on it, I gave it up as a bad job and started a new slate to work on. I hadn't planned on using a sea theme or shells, just started with the simple Goddess shape and grabbed what ever caught my fancy at the time. The beads for the hair, outline, and seaweed are size 11 seed beads; the crown is made with daggers held on with overlapping size 11's, then the shells, semi-precious stone chips and a small light green abalone shell bead added for the sea floor. This attempt wasn't what I had planned, but it is what happened to develop after I quit fighting with my dislike of the first effort. I have to say I really like how the beading turned out and so The Empress... turned in to a Sea Queen. As always, click to embiggen the photos!

Mice and Crackers

2010-12-28T20:53:00.010-06:00

Here are the photos of the other two mice I painted for Rhi

Remember the post that I showed the two Christmas crackers I sent out? Well here is what I received in the Cracker that showed up here. The outside "wrapper" is the CQ block you can see in the upper left side. Ruby was so wonderful to make it in my favorite colors and to include bits of fabric, yarns, and lace in those colors too and encouraged me to add my own touches to the block. How special is that?!!

I couldn't be more thrilled with the little bits of all kinds of treasures and you have no idea how happy it made me that she included the first of Mother of Pearl buttons that I hope to collect...

and I absolutely LOVE the two silkies she included.

There should be one more cracker to show up, but I think it's been held up in the mail. I'm just thrilled that the two ladies who received the ones I sent were happy with their CQ treasures. Now that I have an idea of what people can tuck in these, I have all year to collect little things for next Cracker swap :)

Edited to add this photo of the wonderful Cracker from Lorrie that showed up in the mail today!

Another little treasure trove of fabric pieces, buttons, threads, lace, rickrack, etc. I have never seen the transparent holiday fabrics before, aren't they great?! Love the teal fan and butterfly motifs... and notice up there in the upper left the great tribal beads she included laying on the pieced Cracker wrapper!!

Been doing some painting for the Holidays

2010-12-27T14:46:00.008-06:00

My friend S. that lives behind me had gotten a bunch of ceramic greenware for me from an old friend of her's the last time we went to Indiana. I cleaned it all, stripping the seam edges off, smoothing nicks out, etc and we found a place to kiln fire it for a small fee the first week of December. Then I started the work of getting it all painted before Christmas. After firing it is called bisque ceramic. I haven't painted figures in many years and learned by teaching myself as I went along trial-n-error. I use acrylic to paint, usually a base coat, several layer of color for depth, some type of black-wash to bring out detail, then a final going over of dry brushing colors...also some times multi-layers with that. After all that I spray seal it with a satin or matte varnish spray.

Christmas mice for Rhi (there are two more I still need to get photos of)

White wolves for my hubby

Red Hydra dragon for my oldest son

And not an Xmas gift, but the Tree Doll swap from October in the Decidedly Different Dolls... the last tree showed up shortly before Christmas. The original one was apparently lost in the mail, so another needed to be made. I think Therese did a lovely job on her. I especially love the mesh ribbon and how she used it to frame the face. Beautiful!

I am participating in the BJP 2011 and will need to settle on a size/shape for my beading this week. I'm also joining in on the Heart Swap that Mosaic Magpie is putting together.

I have several posts I want to write and include photos with, so hopefully I'll be getting those posted in the next few days. There is much to do and try to get finished up before the end of the year!!

A little update

2010-12-01T14:57:00.004-06:00

Things have started quieting down here a little. A bit of a head/chest cold made it's way around the family, I've sent out tons of resumes and had several interviews that haven't panned out, the oldest son moved out last weekend in with his younger brother... the roommate bailed out so there was an open room, we had to put another old pet to sleep due to kidney failure so we are one cat less now and I am still catching myself looking for her. There have been cars breaking down and parts bought to keep them running, Thanksgiving spent at a dear friend's house this year, and I managed a little bit of stitching and got my Christmas crackers done and sent out to their new homes.
I'm feeling out this quiet empty space and seeing what to keep and what to toss, what new routines are starting to develop and the difference in things here.

Here's the two CQ crackers I made... some how I forgot to get a flat photo of the green/gold/red one.

The button tree is filled in with beads... green tubes with red seed bead ends.

Surprise in the mail yesterday

2010-11-22T00:06:00.004-06:00

I had all but forgotten that I had won a little give-away Judy had for an adorable little elf doll pin. It was a wonderful surprise to find in the mail yesterday.
She tucked in all kinds of little Christmas themed goodies along with the little elf and left me with a smile for the rest of the evening. Thank you so much, Judy!!! Both for the chance to win your giveaway and for the thoughtful little extras you tucked in too!!

Another day...

2010-11-16T08:15:00.005-06:00

I waited to post this photo until I knew Jill had received it in the mail.

Fabric postcard sent to Jill

That hair is not easy to work with, not sure I'll do any more fabric type postcards this style but we'll see what happens in the future.

Here's something I'm currently working on...
Crazy Quilt Christmas Cracker
in progress

Lots of little odds and ends in progress, camera battery died yesterday so will have to wait for photos.

I will remember

2010-11-11T00:12:00.003-06:00

In remembrance of my Dad, for my husband and Father-in-law... For all of those who have served, those serving now, and those that will be called to serve in the future. Thank you to all of you... I will remember.

Home again

2010-11-08T21:39:00.004-06:00

Got back home yesterday evening from a four day trip up to my friend's place in Indiana.
We chatted bunches, but I did manage a little bit of time getting some embroidery stitching in on one of those "sampler" prints that were my Mom's. One of these days I'll have to get photos of those.

I thought I was doing good... had all three bags I took with me when I got dropped of at the pickup exit.. suitcase, laptop bag, purse. Sigh. You notice I didn't mention stitching tote bag? Purse was not counted as one of the bags I needed to remember to grab... it should have been suitcase, laptop, stitching tote! My dear friend, J., is being so nice to mail me my stitchery tote, so depending on the mail it should be here later this week some time. All of my threads, needles, stitching book... and of course the printed samplers... are in that bag so no stitching for me until then.

Here are two swap dolls I finished and mailed last week, the theme was Tree doll.

This one reminds me of an Oak tree just slipping in to her fall colors:
Front

Back

And this one is sort of a tribal looking Birch tree I think:

Off to finish catching up the laundry!

Rings and Things Wish List

2010-10-29T00:14:00.005-05:00

I had gotten a fall catalog in the mail from Rings & Things and thumbed through it a few times making a mental note of things I might look in to getting.

I thought I'd share some of those items here, who knows maybe some of you will enjoy going to the Rings & Things website for a look around yourselves!!
You'll have to let me know if you grab up any of their gorgeous finds and share what you might use them for!

I'd love to get any of the gemstone beads, some larger ovals matched with smaller ones to make some necklaces. Or maybe to work up some cuff bracelets...which I've been meaning to do for ages now!

The Dumortierite is a new stone to me and oh my I love these, the color to them is just beautiful!

Or how about some charms from the Tim Holz collection to work up some steampunk looks?! I'm seeing these every where from scrapbooking to charm bracelets to bead embroidery!

I'd toss some metal African trade beads in there to expand my bead stash.

Aren't these Ashanti copy brass pendants neat looking?!

I can see these on an African style shaman art doll!

No matter what medium you create in... isn't it neat to go out and find things you'd love to get?

(I have not receive any payment or items from Rings and Things for this blog post , was just sharing a little dreaming and wishing with you all :)

Halloween Swap dolls and Crazy Quilting

2010-10-28T15:29:00.009-05:00

Now that the swap dolls have been received I can post photos!!

The sculpted head in the previous post is still a work in progress... my original idea of putting it together didn't work as planned so I'm getting that figured out.

Here's the little guy I whipped up and sent instead.

Crunching through the leaves on his way to Trick or Treat at my swap partner's house

Enjoying a quick view of the blooming Morning Glories

Saying goodbye to the front step neighbors

He is made out of polymer clay over armature, his "hat" is wire beading and the little Trick or Treat bag is hand sewn from a small scrap of fabric. He was a fun little guy to make and measured in at right about five inches tall. Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of his back which is a shame... he is wearing a little hoodie so there is a realistic looking hood bunched up like they do sitting down his shoulders.

The little doll I received in the swap this time is an adorable little pin doll witch. Under her little Halloween-y dress is a complete tiny tiny stuffed basic body. I can't imagine managing to make and stuff one this tiny! LOL!

On to my new adventure!!
I've wanted to "learn" how to crazy quilt for ages. I know the basic components of it... making a quilt block, stitchery embroidery, bead embroidery, embellishment methods. But how do you put all that together and work out the design elements to make these gorgeous blocks like they do at the following blogs OlderRose, Crazy By Design, Nicki Lee's RavioLee Dreams?

Cathy pointed me to Crazy Quilting International, which is a yahoo group, so I've joined up there. There is so much information and while I've not even scratched the surface of things in that group, just reading through some of the most recent posts... everyone is so encouraging and more than willing to help out newbies. It always amazes me and warms my heart when I find groups like this or people like Cathy and Nicki that are so helpful and encouraging. I suspect though that there is a method to their brand of madness egging CQ newbies on... taking over the world one Crazy Quilter at a time :)

It probably won't come as any surprise that with their encouragement I jumped over that particular intimidating** cliff feet first... if your are going to learn it, you might as well immerse yourself in it and get going hands on you know!

Here's my first effort at trying to make some type of block using fancy fabrics. I was thinking a wallhanging...

Good grief, you think something should be easy enough to accomplish because you know some basics. Uh, no. The first two days I fought with this... and yes, I mean fought with... I was close to tossing in the towel from pure frustration. It did not flow and come together the way I've gotten spoiled with the bead embroidery and art dolls just flowing together for me.

People... it's a sad sad day when your husband, who has no clue about crazy quilting and can't fathom any rhyme or reason to it, can come home from work on the second day of your irritation with a project and explain things in a way that suddenly makes sense(mostly) to you. You see, apparently I don't think in "pieces" and specifically I am finding that I have a hard time "seeing" it backwards in such a way that you attach a piece of fabric on one side flip it over and it fills in a certain spot. Almost every single time I thought I had piece of fabric to fill a spot and that it would fill it correctly... it didn't! Then I would try to fix that spot that didn't cover the way I thought it would... and that piece didn't. You can see how this is going, right? A continuous series of "not right" = frustrated and irriated me.

Yesterday morning I sat down armed with his explanation of how it was sort of geometry/mathematical in how the pieces went together, threw it all out the window because I really completely suck at higher math, and proceeded to loose the next two or three hours some where just sewing pieces of fabric on. I stopped focusing on the empty spots I needed to fill and relied on something I seem to be good at... the flow of a piece and the balancing of effect and colors. We'll see if this approach works or not as I manage to piece together more blocks. There are "problems" with this piece, fabric not tucked under all the way to other pieces... pieces that are only ironed under not stitched down yet.... bubbling in the fabric. I am hoping that that all can be resolved (or hidden in some cases) when I do the embellishing part.

That said... this is a pretty large piece to start with, so I am thinking of maybe taking a couple of steps back and trying to start the actual embellishment on a smaller piece. I'll have to see about piecing up some small projects.. little friendship pillows or hanging hearts or something like.

** The intimidation factor is this:
You are supposed to whack up these gorgeous, decadent, luxurious fabrics in to small pieces and put them together in such a way that they are pleasing and can be embellished in magical ways. AND do this in such a way that it doesn't look like your sewing machine threw up fabric every where on to the groundcloth.

A little bit of everything

2010-10-15T14:34:00.012-05:00

I've been slowly recovering from over doing it out with the horses last week, so as the sore muscles and painful hands calm down, I thought I'd toss a few photos out here of things I am working on that are still in progress.

First up though, I want to share what my wonderful friend Jill at Bois-fleuire sent me.
A beautiful fabric postcard with an adorable little lady on it. She included a wonderful piece of tambour beading and some trims for me also, but I forgot to get photos of them. You just can't imagine how excited I was when the husband said I had something from France in the mail!!

Close up:

And where she sits with my other little treasures so I can see her all time until I decide where to hang the frame at:

I worried about dust getting on it so I found a little shadowbox to put her in. Now I just need to decide how I want to finish out the shadowbox to compliment the colors in the card. Should I use a wood stain and sealant and goodness what color? Or should I paint it instead? Decisions, decisions!

Here are two doll forms I had made up not too long ago, but I haven't quite decided how I want to finish them out. The fabrics are batik, both have a sprig of sage in the stuffing and the light blue/lilac one has a glass piece in the bottom to weight her for standing.

I love the face on this one and as you can see she is still in the process of getting her hair beaded on. The fabric I used for her is one of those that I had hand dyed a while back.

I was trying to experiment with copper wire for making a tree, I was trying to heat color the copper before using polymer clay to build the tree around it.

Unfortunately I found out it is only copper colored, not actually real copper wire. Did you know that some colored beading wire will actually catch fire?!! The things you learn, right?!! Ha! That pretty much put paid to the experimenting for that particular time! I will be experimenting more along those lines in the future... you know, when I actually manage to get some copper wire.

I have been working on my face drawing, trying to get the hang of shading techniques and using color to shade with.

Each one seems to get a little better, so I must be learning something!

I've also been playing with my polymer clay trying to figure out making parts for art dolls, in particular heads and hands. This one is a work in progress for a swap doll I'm working on, so am hoping to get it completed over this weekend. It hasn't been baked yet, so I can work a little here and there refining it.

I think it's turning out pretty good for a first head sculpture... so glad it's for a Halloween theme! As we were falling asleep last night I suddenly knew what had been "not-quite-right" about the head and told the husband to make sure to remind me to put her ears on so I didn't forget!!

So what have all you lovely people been up to? I hope you all have had a chance to do something you love. Have a great weekend!

Colored face and tangled weaves

2010-09-30T23:23:00.005-05:00

Since watching the betweed video the other day, me being me... I decided to see if I could do "real zentangles" and work on the shading as well. I still like my other page from my art journal, but I still think it is more of a doodle than "zentangle".
To-may-toe, Toe-mah-tah. Whatever, right?!

I took a page of white cardstock and with a ruler I sectioned it off in to 3 1/2 inch by 3 1/2 inch squares. Being the normal size of printer paper there were left over spaces, no biggie... I'll probably use those for some thing later on.
I must admit I seem to have gotten Really Fond of the "betweed" pattern... and what ever they call that circle/pebbles look. Each one turned out really different even with using the same pen stroke. I may even look in to one of the zentangle books that is out there at some point when I have a little splurging money, I enjoyed the exercise more than I thought I would.

While I like every one of them I did, these are my top three favorites:
Beach Lady

Goblin/Troll patch

Pebbles and plants along a stream

I also tried shading and color drawing with the fabric faces I had made for practice.
The photo this evening didn't turn out that great, I think I'm starting to have some camera issues.
Here's the before and after:

Sigh. This making doll faces... lots of trial and error for me with this media I guess.

Bits and pieces

2010-09-29T07:56:00.008-05:00

I finally finally finished a page with zentangles on it in my art journal and sent photos to Judy.
I don't think they are true zentangles, a lot of the basic elements are there I guess, but really I think it's more like a sectioned doodle :) Here's a video Judy posted out showing a "zentangle betweed" and it really gave me a better perspective on the how's and why's of zentangles.

Here's the art doll I mentioned a post or two ago that I had made for a swap. The theme was to make a Goddess doll for Thinning of the Veil as it relates to Samhain/Halloween. For me there is a big difference between "Samhain" and the broader version of "Halloween".

I was trying for a prim stump doll type and used paper clay over armature, painted it with acrylics, drew the face using Prisma color pencils, and hand crafted my first doll "wig" with a blend of wool, ribbon, and recycled sari silk yarns. To get the mottled effect I used a piece of sponge to "paint" the blue on the dress then the silver metallic over the top of all trying to get a misty effect. The necklace is a hematite with faceted glass crystal bicones on each side. It was a fun doll to make and while I am pretty sure the person received it they never posted whether they had or whether they even liked it or not. Oh well... can't please every one all the time I guess?

A friend of mine requested photos yesterday and made the comment "OMG you chaneled Cher and didn't even know it!" Too funny!!

I have a two swap dolls I need to decide what I'm making them out of (clay media, fabric, combination?, beaded or not) and get completed to send out later in October. They are the small 4 to 5 inch dolls for the Decidedly Different Dolls group. One is a Tree doll.... OH the ideas with this one, I may end up with a little forest of assorted Tree-Ents!

The other doll is for a Halloween swap... I haven't decided what I want to make with that one. There are just so many things you can do for Halloween... a little witch but cute or scarey with a boiling cauldron or black cat? Frankenstein or maybe a skeleton hmmm or a skeleton witch? What about a jack-o-lantern headed scarecrow? Or the headless horseman?! Decisions decisions! I love Halloween, we've always had so much fun decorating and costuming. I kinda miss taking the kids trick or treating and all the fuss that led up to picking the costumes and or face paints etc.

There is an art doll challenge going on that I haven't decided if I want to do yet, but I've been thinking on it. It's theme is "World Goddess", pick any Goddess out of any pantheon/mythos and create a figure representing her. I was thinking of maybe trying to go with Lakshmi and using a mixed media/polymer clay sculpted idea.
I don't know much about Hindu Goddess', but from the description and the meanings attributed to her I think every one could use a little more of Lakshmi's energy roaming around!

Do you Quilt AND a give away chance

2010-09-24T15:03:00.003-05:00

Along with the beading I've been so heavily sucked in to this past year and more recently making art dolls, I also quilt. There are so many things I see and think to myself "I could do that!" or "Oh I want to learn how to do that!". And then I do.

Quilting was one of those and while I never turned in to a major quilter being only a dabbler with it, I still enjoy working on blocks. I love doing blocks and making tops... not so much with the adding backs and bindings. Maybe I'll change that this year, this winter though... and just start working a little at a time to finish up some projects.

Now I don't know much about GO! fabric cutter, but the little bit I've read so far and a few of the quilter's blogs I follow that have mentioned it... I think it would be fantastic to have one to use! It would make getting to the actual making blocks and even doing applique work so much quicker!! If you'd like a chance to win one go to Millie's Quilting and enter her giveaway! I know I would love to win one!

On the other end of things... I used to knit as well as crochet. I can still crochet, but last winter I noticed that knitting and the way I knit was causing more problems with my neck. I decided to give up knitting... while I enjoy it, I don't enjoy it enough to put up with the pain doing it has and can cause me. I have tons of yarn stashed up in my yarn bins that I will probably never get around to using. That said, I wanted to get some ideas and opinions from all of you out there.

Should I make up bundles and sell them on E-bay or maybe just make a selling blog off of this one and sell them there? There are some yarns I only have a skein or two of or maybe partials... should I make up grab bags of these to sell? And if so, how much... a pound or maybe two pounds for a set rate plus shipping? Would any one be interested in a trade for trade swap... fabric or beads for yarn?
I have some lovely hand-painted yarns that were too good to pass up or I loved the colors... and while I know I won't get out of them what I paid for them, it would be a shame for them to just sit in my stash rather then getting used by some one.
I think I'm going to make that one of projects this weekend... a sort of getting things in order for fall... and go through all the bins to sort and start de-stashing.

Making faces

2010-09-21T23:18:00.003-05:00

Just wanted to pop a photo out here to show the learning progress on drawing faces.

I can't even begin to tell you how thrilled I am with this face. It's nice to be able to see improvement and it's fantastic to be proud of something just because I finally managed to get it to click.

You can see my "starting face" here.

Not much

2010-09-19T22:10:00.002-05:00

No photos today, but I thought I should at least put up a catching up post.
Not much to report right now though, been in a bit of a funk.

Went to the eye doctor week before last, supposedly my script hasn't changed but since my glasses were around 6 to 8 years old I splurged and got a new pair for when I'm not wearing my contacts. The glasses are taking some adjustment though due to the thinner rectangle shape of the frames.

I have been trying out a few ideas here and there, some not turning out so well but good learning mistakes anyway.

I've made some earrings and a set of stemware jewelry for a friend as a welcome home surprise from an almost two week trip they took, she loves them.

I've worked up a few doll forms... sewed and stuffed, added dried sage sprigs to the mix. Adding the sage is an inspiration from Barbara at Pinelands Patchse and Beadscapes. Those forms are ready to be decorated when inspiration hits me.

I've worked on my September BJP. I'm not thrilled with it, there are several things I would do differently in hind-sight. I'm plodding along on it though rather than starting over... it's all a learning experience, so if I decide to do do something like it again I'll know what to do differently then.

I have tried making a swap doll, but so far have not created the "right" one to be sent yet. Sigh. It's a tough one, on more levels than can be imagined, but hopefully the current form I'm working on will turn out fine.

I've been working on the drawing faces with Judy's Drawing Project. Got a little sidetracked with the whole zentangle thing and have a few of those in progress that I work on for short periods of time here and there. I've noticed the more pattern I start getting in to it the more it's messing with my eyes or perception. Something anyway causing mild headaches and or nausea. I'm also suspecting I need to go to the chiropractor and get my neck adjusted again... too much looking down I think.

I'll try to get photos of the things I'm working on and get those posted... some like the swap doll will have to wait until they are sent and received though.
Hopefully I'll have some new exciting news to share later in the week... I don't want to say much about it yet as there have been too many times that something looked like it would happen and didn't this year. We'll see how that goes too.

Someday Happened

2010-08-30T14:03:00.013-05:00

Over the course of the past week I've decided something. All those little things I say to myself.... someday I want to try that or someday I want to do something like that... I'm just going to start making "someday" happen instead of putting it off until later. Because I'm noticing later never seems to show up with a lot of things I want to do.

So, in that spirit of creating I made "someday" happen this past weekend and I learned a bunch!

First I wanted to try flour resist dying ala Bea at Dog in the Hole Studio.

I should have done this project inside, but since I do my artsy/craftsy stuff on my kitchen table and this was going to need time to dry I did it outside. It was windy so I weighted the fabric with big stones and didn't spread the flour paste over the entire piece to avoid the stones. Big ol' goopy mess slathering it on by hand, pancake batter consistency, wind blowing dry grass around... there's probably a little bit of Oklahoma red dirt in there too. I used the fork I had used to mix up the flour past to draw the squiggles and spirals in the wet paste.

This is what it looked like the next day when it was completely dry after I took the stones off, took it over to the hood of my truck, rolled it up crunching the dried paste. Unrolled it and rerolled it two more directions making sure to press a bit while rolling it up to create the crackle effect.

I had decided to do the rest of the project inside and had gotten an earlier start on it Sunday than I had the day before. Way too windy and very hot outside. I put down freezer paper then a layer of newspaper to protect the table. The newspaper was to see if I could get colored newsprint from the color washes seeping through... not so much but a little. That was a two for one experiment there.

This is the effect right after I got done glopping the acrylic paint color wash on with paint brushes and it's still wet.

Then it sat for the rest of the day until late afternoon to dry.
Front:

Back:

Then I got a bucket of hot water and took it all outside to sit on the front steps to rinse out the flour paste. I didn't let it soak in the hot water, but instead scrubbed it together in the hot water and the flour paste crackled off pretty easily. I draped it over the back of chair to let it dry and this is what it looks like dry.

And a bit closer of a look at the detail:

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out as a first effort with flour resist.

I had a ton of fun Saturday with all the gooping and I figured since I was making a big ol' mess between the front yard and the kitchen that I'd also try my hand at dying fabric using various twist, string tie, shibori-sort-of folding methods. I don't how long I've had this dye sitting waiting for me to get around to it... a year or two at least. I had one packet of Dylon Indigo colored powder and two bottles of liquid RIT dye, one was scarlett the other black.

I rummaged through a fabric bin and came up with an old white flat sheet that had a few small chunks missing out of it and two shirts with small stains that had gotten tossed in there to either be chopped up for the fabric or used for dye experiements someday. Tossed that all on the table, whacked up the old sheet in to smaller sections, dug in the cupboard to dig up the recycled spaghetti sauce and wide mouth pickle jars I had saved and tucked away ages ago, dug through another container to come up with some old white cotton string I had saved.... THEN I made a bigger mess.

I didn't follow the directions on the packet or the bottle, I was short of salt so I filled the kitchen sink maybe a third full and tossed about a half cup of salt in there and stirred to dissolve. Then fabric piece by piece got soaked in the salt water and wrung out to undergo various folding, twisting, tying up, etc. stuffed in to jars or the spare plastic coffee can I had to switch one to and different dyes poured in or sprinkled on. After the dye I used a measuring cup to scoop salt water out of the sink and pour over the fabric and dye in the jars.

Here are the various results of that experiment!

I LOVE how this shirt turned out with the Indigo powder:

See all the critter help I get around here?? My oldest son was nice enough to hold the shirt up for me to photo last night after it came out of the laundry.

The the red and red/black pieces:

And the ones I consider needing do-over dyes:

I didn't scrunch this one enough and with the wash out of the red dye it is just blah to me, so I am planning to redo with a bit of the indigo powder.

What a disappointment this on was, but that's ok... it'll get redyed too with more indigo powder as well!

Not so happy with the Rit dyes, there was tons of wash out on these. Part of that may have been the whole "didn't follow directions exactly" thing. LOVE the Dylon powder and will definitely have to look in to more of those in different colors some time in the next few months. There was no fading even after washing and hardly any color wash out after dumping the dye out of the container and rinsing with cold water.

Wheew! Just when you thought this post couldn't get any longer!!! I got to emailing back and forth with Judy from Judy's Fabrications over the course of the weekend discussing doll faces and her technique and what she uses to paint them etc. AND she decided to offer a free tutorial on how to draw faces! The whole thing evolved a bit so now I and several other ladies are "taking a class" on how to become better at drawing faces. Come follow along at Judy McCarthy's Drawings!

Last night I finally got a chance to sit down and try making my first face before watching the video:

Not great yet, but not bad since I haven't drawn in many many years! I think it will be neat to see how this progresses!

During all of the spurts of craftsy mess making the husband occasionally followed me around and even lent a hand a few times with a bemused look on his face. He's never really been around for the whole tear apart bins and look in there and dig in this container make a big ol' mess since when I get these wild hairs it's during the day while he's at work. LOL. I definitely need to see about figuring out a table area maybe tucked in beside the shed where I can take messy projects to work on. Maybe I'll see about clearing a spot and making up a table inside even. It was still lots of fun though and I'm very pleased with myself that I quit worrying about whether I was doing it right and just dug right in and DID IT instead of waiting for someday.

August BJP2010 Finished

2010-08-27T11:48:00.007-05:00

The Celtic Dragon Tarot by DJ Conway and Lisa Hunt
The Tower - Discord; Catastrophe

You witness or experience a shocking event that leaves you changed. Potential catastrophe is near, be prepared. Your life is complicated by discord in a relationship or the family. Unforeseen setbacks bring despondency and a period of frustration. Your dreams may disintegrate into ashes.

Most people dread this card, I know I used to, when it comes up in any spread. Oh No, there's going to be a huge catastrophe in my life!! What you don't think about is the fact that catastrophe can also equal change... and it doesn't necessarily have to be some huge dramatic event.

This card can also point toward imbalances in physical life and spiritual growth; experiencing upheaval, routines shaken, emotional outbursts, letting everything go, bursts of insight, and seeing through illusions.

I have been giving my interpretations a wide range of visuals that aren't as obvious to the title of the card, except this one. The minute I drew it I knew exactly what I wanted to do and exactly which fabric to use as the base. I didn't have any little mementos or found objects that would work in to visual or that spoke in any significant way of chaos.

The gunmetal beads in the tower are peyote stitch and the brown scorched earth beads that are back stitched are size 8's, the smoke plumes are size 11's in zipper stitch, and the "cracks" in the earth are double bubbles single stitched in with 11's. The orange and yellow batik lent itself well to portray the August heat and the cracks in the ground for the dry weather, the tower back lit with fire which is chaos/change event in and of it's self. The tower has breaks and ruptures, but is still standing solid and even though the ground is scorched and cracked it is still firm. At some point, just like a phoenix from the flame... the scene will change and grass will grow on that hill and the tower can be mended with new pieces.

I have worked tubular peyote before but haven't worked with it flat or trying to stitch it on while working it or trying to leave sections open. After it was done I thought that it would have probably been easier to try brick stitch, especially trying to leave out chunks to show crumbling, making the tower separate then attaching it to the base when it was done. Definitely a learning experience there.

Because it is harder, for me anyway, to try to fit size 8's in the small area at the bottom I had left open I had to let myself accept the fact that fabric was going to show through. I have noticed I have a tendency to make sure all the beads are tightly together so that what is underneath doesn't show through. That just doesn't work with larger beads and if I had tried to bead like I normally would have with 11's or 15's they would have jumbled and cramped up on each other. Yet another lesson for me, that the beads do not have to be packed close together to make a pleasing effect.

As far as pertaining to my life... the card was spot on and didn't surprise me that it came up for the month. I mentioned on the July card that the youngest suddenly moved out. I should have known better than to be skeptical that he'd actually do it or that it would turn out to happen so fast. When that kid decides he's doing something... he does. As a Mom I really wasn't ready for him to move out and really felt he should stay here for a while yet, then we turned around and helped him instead of doing the one thing that would have kept him here. That one thing caused us mayhem in our own life... for the entire month.
We loaned him and his roommate the money for first months rent.
We also sent the pots and pans (I do love my new unscratched set though!) and food and the futon from the living room with him.
Ka-boom there went the month.
There were lots of other small and not so small things that went "wrong" through the coarse of the month... most notable was the extreme heat in the 100's up to several days from 105 to 108 F and the air conditioner all but completely failing. Lots of making do and going with out above and beyond what we've been doing. Then there's all the Mom worrying I do with every little incident the boy calls or shows up telling me about.

Click to embiggen.

The main point here is that not everything is a catastrophic event.
The Tower card points to chaos and that can manifest in a million little ways; traffic jams on the way to work, car accidents, mechanical failure of any sort, spilling your coffee on the computer, the cat/dog horking up on the couch/favorite shirt/bed...I'm sure you can think of a million little things that throw a wrench in to your day. Not fun, huge PITA, but all chaos and change are manageable.

August always seems to be about change, especially when you are a parent. Kids go back to school, routines get changed, schedules suddenly have to be rearranged and managed. After they get out of school, they still find ways to throw you for a loop and cause you worry and upheaval.

Taking a look at things happening around the world there a lot of events that can and are termed catastrophic; earthquakes, extreme flooding, mines collapsing, gang issues, the economy tanking even worse, etc. The weather is changing and the season is getting ready to shift.

Years ago I finally realized we live in chaos, we live in change... and when you draw this card there's no point to dreading it. It's just a little heads up that things are going to be changing, that changes will have to be made whether you want them to or not.

All the right...

2010-08-25T15:06:00.004-05:00

OMGeezers!

I really need to get the One Republic CD.... Love this band.
Go watch this video for All the Right Moves.

Oh the Masks! The graceful dancers! Sigh. One video, a million ideas suddenly crashing around in my head... possibilities for wearable beaded masks but maybe mixed media instead... the dolls... oh my... little masks and sumptuous flowing dresses on a graceful form.

The fantasy portrayed... wouldn't it be lovely to BE one of those dancers?! What grabs your attention during your every day ol' life and inspires you to dream art in to being?!

And just for sheer fun of it... try listening to this one. That'll get ya moving!

July BJP2010 Finished

2010-08-19T20:52:00.004-05:00

The Celtic Dragon Tarot by DJ Conway and Lisa Hunt
The Lovers - An Emotional Decision

A romantic encounter may come into your life. You may be faced with an attraction or a temptation that may not be good for you. There will be an attraction of opposites that will be difficult to reconcile in the long run. A difficult choice will arise; make your decision on the facts, not the emotions.

The first thought most people have about this card is ooooo lovers, got to be a romantic card etc etc. That isn't always the case.
It also speaks of emotions, relating to others, establishing bonds, all relationships, and acknowledging kinship.

The neat thing about drawing this card is it wasn't drawn at the beginning of the month like all of the others, it was drawn mid month after we had gotten back from our trip. Interesting how things work out like that isn't it?!

The last week of June we had decided the hell with it we'd skip a few things and put the money to take a trip to see friends and family. The deciding point on this was husband's paternal grandmother, who is showing early signs of Alzheimer's, and the fact that the family was putting on a birthday party for her 80th. Something along the lines of ... it would be really nice if you guys could make it out here for the party. So... we did!

Faced with a choice of trying to drive straight through to North Carolina or taking a little longer of trip and making a couple day stop in Indiana, well that was a given. Since we don't get to travel often we thought if we were going to take the time to make the trip, we might as well make it one heck of a ride. We had a great time visiting with my friend and her family in Indiana and we had a wonderful time visiting with the family. You can see the post I wrote a bit about it here.

This trip was a huge marker... first vacation or long road trip the husband and I have ever taken where it was just the two of us. We discovered each other and our relationship all over again... go ahead awwwwww. It was great to find out that we're still interested in each other and each other's interests and have tons to talk about or enjoy sharing in this life. It's amazing how much every day life can just suck out the romance or flirting or just plain ol' paying attention to each other.

We connected/reconnected with friends and family, have some great memories of times spent with special to us people and little snapshots of gorgeous country side that we got to experience together. That's a whole lot of time stuck together in a car and yes there were disagreements and snarls, but the rest of the trip over weighed the crabby parts.

The rest of the month went on in a like manner even if not all parts were as rosey. We lost a beloved old dog to cancer while we were gone, she was a daddy's girl and one of the best parts of her day was when the husband would get home and she'd roo roo roo at him and trip him up trying to rub her head on his legs while he walked across the room. The last week of July the youngest son, only 18 for two months at this point, decided he was moving out in to his own apartment with a buddy of his as a roommate. Then he did it with in the week and was moved that next weekend.

All of these deal with relationships and emotions, it was a pretty packed month.
Here's a larger view, click to embiggen.

The technical details:
The white geode on the left is from my friend J's in Indiana, she's a piece of my life's puzzle and I am so glad we reconnected this year. It's attached with two strands of silver lined crystal to hold it in place, you can't really see it in the photos but the geode it self sparkles.

The Tatted flowers at the top are among the first few I personally made, my SIL started teaching me to do Needle Tatting while in NC and those particular two were made while I was showing my best friend, Rhi, how "simple" it was to do needle tatting after we got back.

The two river/streambed stones on the bottom right are from our stop on the way home in the Smokey Mountains in Tennessee... one for him and one for me.

I mentioned in my June post about how I had been in a rut and I had gotten stuck in things being flat. That was mostly my own hang up, keeping the thought in the back of my head that I wanted to mount these in simple photo frame under glass. Some how in my mind I kept worrying that I couldn't put much texture in my pieces because they needed to be able to fit under the glass. Well.... this piece is me practicing Not Flat.

The water/stream parts are done in bocce stitch and a zipper/spiral stitch. How neat is that... I finally figured out the bocce stitch and had so much fun with it I did the stream banks too! Then there's the pathway which I think turned out ok, but I need to play with that more too... it didn't go the directions I was trying to make it go. The stones are held in with stacks instead of my old familiar bezeling... boy that was so much quicker! The grass around the white geode is picot stitch in three's to make a grassy vale. Most of the beads are size 11's, the tubes are paired with size 15 seed beads, and the centers of the tatted flowers are drops single stitch in. I LOVE this piece... I love the fact that I broke out of that tiny box I squeezed my creativity in with these over the past few months, I love the texture, I love that it really related back to how my month went as well as a nod to the card drawn. I love that I had FUN stitching this piece.

June BJP 2010 Finished

2010-08-19T13:35:00.004-05:00

The Celtic Dragon Tarot by DJ Conway and Lisa Hunt
High Priestess - Unknown Future

Hidden influences are at work; the future is in the process of being formed and is not jelled enough yet to fully predict. Ancient mystical knowledge or practical information comes your way. This phase of your life is an appropriate time to practice developing intuition and psychic abilities, to be more introspective. This is an excellent time to make new goals or refine the old ones.

An unknown future is like looking in to a crystal ball. Maybe you will see what will or might be.... or maybe you'll see what you want to see. Some people won't get the difference in that statement and that's ok. Every one has their own path to walk down, their own lessons in this lifetime to learn.

And a larger close up, click to embiggen.

Technical details: all back stitched with size 11 seed beads in the hands, the finger nails are cateye oval cabochons, size 8 clear beads for the edge of the crystal ball and 11's again in silver lined crystal for the dots of possibility inside, the fabric is one of my favorite blue batiks I had in my quilting stash.

June for me was definitely a month up in the air, full of indecision and uncertainty. There was no way of knowing which way the future was going to go as there were tons of possibilities and options. Several things that looked like a good thing fell through, job opportunities that I put in for that didn't pan out, and toward the end of the month there were spur of the moment decisions made with a "what the hell why not".

I am not terribly happy with this one... it's too flat, just blah. This is where I started to see I was in a rut. I like the concept I had.. hands holding a crystal ball... I just don't like the execution of it. On the positive side, I'm happy with the beading in the hands just wish I would have had several similar colors to do the detailing with rather than the two for each I used.

Sharing some links and giveaways

2010-08-18T20:02:00.008-05:00

Later on this week I'll have some photos to share and the BJP pieces for June, July, and maybe August.

For now though check out some of the links below, some are Give aways and some are just neat things to look at.

Give Aways!

Scrap With Stacy is having a Tim Holtz Blog Candy giveaway.
Ends at midnight August 23rd, 2010.

Life and Times of a 12 x 12 Addict is having a giveaway full of all kinds of great scrappy stuff and will draw for the winner on August 22.

Check out Purple Pumpkin for her scrappy giveaway, those owls are just too cute ... it ends August 31st!

Here's a ramble through just a tiny bit of the many places I have bookmarked. One of these days I'll manage to get them sorted through and added to my links section.
Neat blogs to visit!

Magpie's Nest

Mosaic Magpie

El Milagro Studio

Pieceful Musings

Maken Art

Lady Bug Circus

A Little Bit of Everything

dancing red moon

The Woven Pathway

Beaded Moon Dolls Swap

2010-08-09T23:43:00.005-05:00

Today I received a wonderful surprise in the mail. Bobbi Ann at The Bead Goes On... has been having some medical issues going on and had recently been in the hospital. I didn't think it would arrive quite this soon, so I hadn't been looking for it just yet.

The July swap theme was Moon doll. Look what she sent!

I think this one is Moon Beam and her little sister Moon

Here's a little closer look at the small one too...

I have to say that lately it just seems like "one of those days" almost on a daily basis, so it was nice to get excited over the mail. They just made me laugh and smile... what lovely little dolls! Thank you Bobbi, I love them :)

Don't forget to check out Bobbi's blog and send her some healing thoughts!

I haven't heard if the little doll I sent was received by the person it was intended for, but the delivery confirmation came back that it was indeed delivered. I hope my swap partner is doing ok and is just busy with life. I was in the middle of working on the mask, so I wanted something quick but cute to work up.

Sleepy Crescent Moon

I think it turned out cute even if it is a more simple little doll. I really enjoyed doing the embroidery for the eyes and mouth. I think I should have gone with my first thought of white and silver dreadlocks for the hair instead of a mohawk though!

Giveaway! Go enter!

2010-08-09T12:42:00.003-05:00

Oh my, go look at this beautiful necklace at Beading from the Heart and enter her Giveaway to win it!

If you go back through her recent post you will see some gorgeous items. I LOVE the Braenock and Marbrae bracelets. I'm thinking I need to squirrel away a little and order some of her patterns!

What's in the details?

2010-08-03T12:13:00.004-05:00

Some details on Mardi Gras Queen. I think the photos turned out well, but they really don't do any justice to the sparkly, opulent, glitz of the mask.

The mask measures approximately 8 1/4" X 6 1/2" and has batik fabric shaped around the eyes as well as the BFAC bead kit, my one added bead, and the ribbon yarn I used for edging and trim. I had originally planned to completely encrust it give it lots of danglies and some type of hair, but I wasn't sure I would have enough beads to do that. So I started improv beading on it and when I would finish a section on one side I would then try to duplicate it on the other side to make it even. It's not perfectly even or duplicated, the best I seemed to manage was to make it fairly similar. The farther along in the beading I got the more it was looking like a mask on a mask, so I went with that idea. The colors reminded me of Mardi Gras and the farther on in the beading I got the more it had me thinking of the fabulous costumes and masks I remember seeing in years past of carnival parades in New Orleans. I also still had/have wonderful visions dancing in my head of the Lady Gaga concert I went to last month (that is a whole 'nother slew of ideas and fun beaded projects for the future) so that had some influence on the mask as well.

Unfortunately for me, I had waited too long and let too many other life things get in my way to actually get started on the mask and had ended up shorting myself for time. I definitely underestimated the amount of time it would take to bead, especially doing it improvisational, and not taking in to account the fact that both life and my "muse of creativity" are fickle things given to odd twists of upheaval (life) and absence (muse). Lesson here... don't ever think "oh I have plenty of time to get to that".

I ended up using E6000 to epoxy the felt to the mask which worked out well. I need more practice making felt though. It was lovely to stitch on, but there were some sections that were thinner or other sections that didn't felt in as well causing some stretch or slipping and that took some extra creativeness to manage. Several times during the beading I had wished I had more felt so that I could have experimented more before making this particular mask, but I worked with what I had and did the best I could. Some thing I wish I would have thought of at the start that I didn't until I was in the touch up and finishing stage, felting needles. Talk about a "well duh" moment when I remembered I had felting needles some where and could use those to make the felt tighter and smoother. I did manage to dig them out and was happily shaping around the nose and mouth areas and getting ready to move on to the lower jaw and chin when I managed to break the last two felting needles I had. Of course this was on the weekend and the ONE place I knew of locally to get the needles... was closed until Monday morning. Fill in your own version of "choice words" here.

Isn't hind-sight an amazing thing?! The amount of "if only..." I had running through my head at this point would have filled up an ocean, pick any ocean, I think.

Anyway, the ribbon edging didn't turn out the way I was thinking. Once I started attaching it to the felt edging I had to modify my original plan and scrunch sew it, which gave it a nice feathery look that went well with the whole Mardi Gras feel. I hadn't wanted to use feathers because they degrade over time even though it would have added to look of the piece.

I mostly used a curved beading needle through out, a few small areas I switched to a long straight beading needle but that curved needle was a life saver on this. I ended up breaking 5 curved needles (and the felting needles) which is a record for me, as I think I may have broken that many over the whole time I've been beading up until working on this piece. The bead stitches used were back stitch for most of the areas, there is single bead stitched (seed stitch?)areas on each side of the forehead(size 11's) and the mouth(size 11's and 15's). The cluster in the middle of the forehead are freshwater pearls and Swaroskvi with some gold tiny size 15's looped in and circled with the silver lined teal 3mm magatama's I had added as my one bead. I was trying for a clustered flower look, but of course it turned out nothing like what I was seeing in my head. This is where some play time with some of those fancy neat jewelry beading books/mags would have come in handy... and beading classes, those would have been lovely to have had to draw upon the experience/learning from them too. For all of my grand plans of dangling sparklies, there is exactly one just about in the third eye chakra position with some of the Swarovski elements.

There were other bead stitches I had thought of using and along those lines I also kept fretting about whether putting dangling beads here or there and how it would look... because of all odd things to be worrying about, I didn't want it to have some crazy look of having growths or boils on it's face. Go ahead... laugh, just get it out of your system now, because really.... how absurd is it to be worrying about something like THAT? I think I've been around the boys in my life a little too much when I start worrying growths, boils, and boogers... and how the attaching of beads might be misconstrued. That right there should give you an idea of the joking and comments the guys may make around here at or about any given project or idea I'm working on.

Things of note:
I wish I would have just gone hog-wild with the beads, there were plenty for me to use and I have leftovers I wish I would have used instead of being conservative fearing to run out.

I'll definitely make more beaded masks. I enjoyed watching the personality develop, much like they do with dolls. I have an idea for a felted mask form that doesn't involve epoxy-ing to a hard form... it does involve shaping with felting needles. We'll see when I manage to get to that one.
I loved using the batik fabric around the eyes... I'd like to do do an entire mask on a batik covered form.

I think I need to spend more time looking in to tribal things... masks, symbols, icons, etc. All cultures... it's a draw for me, even more so lately.

I can't wait to see what the beads are for next years BFAC... cause the beads and the colors will be the cue for what form I'll work them in to then.

So, in a nutshell, I'm relieved it's done... but I think I could have done better. Then again, I almost always think that of my work... I guess it's what keeps me striving to become better at things and keep learning.

Finished - Mardi Gras Queen for BFAC 2011

2010-08-02T10:11:00.004-05:00

Finished in the nick of time and mailed this morning to
Beading For A Cure 2011 challenge and competition.

An OOAK (original one of a kind) decorative mask made by me, Stacie Bebber (Whytefeather). I purchased the kit from Beading for a Cure, used improvisational bead embroidery for the design, added my one bead type and ribbon fringe on to the hand felted merino wool covered mask form. Below are the 5 images I sent in to the competition for judging. All of the competition pieces will be auctioned off in March/April 2011 on eBay for the BFAC charity with the money going to Colo-Rectal Cancer research.

Mardi Gras Queen:

A little catching up to do

2010-07-29T11:31:00.007-05:00

I haven't disappeared, just been busy trying to catch up with everything. Besides getting behind due to the trip, I lost my muse and motivation some where.

Here's some of the projects I had worked on that I said I would get photos up of:

June DDD swap doll that I sent to Mary Anne

The wonderful icicle doll she sent to me in the swap:

July DDD swap doll that I sent to Robyn:

July DDD swap pin doll I received from MA:
LOVE the garden theme.. all those little charms are perfect!

I think Mary Anne might be getting tired of sending her little dolls to me since we seem to have been paired up for the last several swaps! LOL!

Here are the photos of my first ATC's that I had traded a few months ago with MA.

Right now I'm finishing up the mask for the BFAC and a few finishing touches on a little moon doll for another doll swap. I think I'm going to take a short break on the doll swaps, give myself time to recharge and rethink how I want proceed.

I still need to catch up on my BJP pieces, June was almost done but got sidetracked in the flurry of getting ready to go on the trip. The July tarot card didn't get pulled until we got back and I haven't even started on the beading for that one. It's almost August and I need to get caught back up!

Home again jiggety jig!

2010-07-14T23:03:00.002-05:00

It's been very quiet in this part of my little world.
I've been on a wonderful trip to visit friends and family, so now I need to play catch up on the blogs I read as well as all my various projects! It was an interesting nine days filled with lots of driving and seeing a lot of beautiful country side around the USA.

Hopefully I'll have some time in the next few days to get photos posted of the trip, if not here then at the Bit O' Red Dirt blog, and of course get some photos up of my current beading projects that are in the works!

Huge Bead Giveaway!

2010-06-23T11:28:00.002-05:00

Go check out this give away!!

Denise is doing a huge bead give away on her blog, so click HERE to go check it out and enter!!

Looking at all the beads she's put in to it is making me drool.... and while I would love love love to win this as it would add some much needed variation to my bead stash on a limited budget, I'll be almost as thrilled to see one of my followers win it!

What are your favorite decorations?

2010-06-14T20:41:00.006-05:00

I’ll be doing a product review shortly for an item and since I’ve been wanting to get more decorative things for the walls I’m looking through neat things like adding soft lighting with wall sconces or corner shelves for decorative knick-knacks, or maybe I should get some glass vases to show off flowers in instead?! You'll have to wait to see what I've decided on until the review, but there are tons of great things to go look at in any of the CSN stores which I'll be doing the review and eventually a give away for in the future.

I have plans to have some of my framed beadwork in shadow boxes or possibly photo frames so the glass protects them from dust, but this is a perfect opportunity to add some other touches as well. Sadly, most of my walls are bare with just a few things hanging here and there.

What do you have decorating your house? What’s the ultimate wall decoration that you can’t imagine your favorite room with out?

And most importantly here in our house... what can you put up for decoration that the cats won't use as a climbing area or runway?!!

Mummysam's Little Bird Giveaway

2010-06-09T00:33:00.004-05:00

Oh wouldn't this book be a wonder to win!

Go check out Mummysam and get in for her giveaway! Make sure to visit Stash too!

I'm having a wonderful time working back through her posts, so glad I found her blog while I was out link wandering.

Felting Experiment Cont., Beaded Doll Update

2010-06-04T08:40:00.006-05:00

Here's the progress on one of the masks that I started back here.

You can see the wire mesh of the form showing through while I was still patiently sewing pieces of grey felt to it.

A little Frankenstein-ish looking with all the seams, but finally I finished carefully covering the mesh mask form I had made.

That mask then sat off to the side for quite a while along with the green merino felt I had made while I over thought the mask projects, completed the May BJP card, and finished up a May swap doll for the Decidedly Different Dolls group. I'll post the photo of that one plus my first two fabric mixed media ATC's once MA receives them, I don't want to spoil the surprise.

Yesterday I finally decided I had sat on it long enough and the absolute worst I could do was end up tossing out the felt/masks or ripping out beads. One of those moments where I was fed up with my own indecision on the how-to and will-it-works, I would never find out if I didn't just dig in and start working on it.

I reworked the green merino felt in the sink on some left over wire mesh, adding a few small bits I had found left of the green merino and a thin layer of white merino roving to the back, also found tucked in the bottom of the bin. The white didn't felt in as well as I would have liked, but it worked well enough to help give it a little more thickness and a firmer feel. I think it will be completely dried out today for me to work on epoxying it to the gold full mask shape. There is a separate small piece of the green that I had made in the felting experiment that went too small and I will be using that to cover a gold half mask as a just-in-case back up as well as cutting up to use for filler spots on the full sized mask.
Trying to cover all my bases and in the event I royally screw up the full felt mask I can always try on the smaller half mask.

After playing in the sink with the felt, I sat down with the grey mask and started beading on it. The husband had poked at me the night before last "shouldn't you be working on the masks, you don't have a lot of time left" he says.
I had to admit he had a point even though I was quite happy finally working on the original doll I had started way back when that keeps getting put to the side while I work on other projects.

Off to the WIP bin went the doll and on to the masks while I'm trying to work out what I want to bead for the June tarot card for the BJP.

So... when he was prodding me to bead on the masks, the husband says "you know, it would be really cool if you started with the eyes, gave it eyes and worked out from there with a pattern". Since the grey mask is my "playing around" form I decided to start on it while waiting for the felt to dry out.

It's all his fault, just so you know. I'm slowly getting used to it staring at me, but it's still a little unsettling.

I had a little bit of, oh I don't know... artist fit?, yesterday just before the hubby got home from work then proceeded to work myself up while explaining it to him and that I thought I should maybe just rip it up because it was so weird looking and good lord if THAT is what is going on in my head I must be going nutter and I had better not have freaky dreams because of this because it would be "all his fault".
Anyway, I stomped out the back door with the dogs in hot pursuit to stand soaking in the heat while in the shade of the tree I stare at while thinking... predictably staring at the tree brooding over this crazy looking mask.

I came back inside to find he had been sneaky and left a surprise on my computer desk in front of the monitor... the Alice in Wonderland DVD... which made me smile which made him happy. Then I chuckled a little after looking at the Mad Hatter on the front as I gave him a big ol' hug and remarked "good grief OF COURSE it looks weird". Bless his heart, he knows me better than I know myself some times.

*all your fault is a long standing joke around our house referring to blaming the person who may have given you the idea or encouragement being at fault for what you did. Very tongue in cheek, roll your eyes kind of thing.

May BJP2010 Finished

2010-05-21T12:30:00.006-05:00

The Celtic Dragon Tarot by DJ Conway and Lisa Hunt
The Emperor - Power; God Influence

Your life will be smoother if you cultivate leadership and stability in order to progress. You may be influenced by a charismatic personality. You may move into a position of power in your job. This is a good time for real estate transactions. God influences come in to your life.
If in a negative position, this card indicates either a desire to control others or that you are being controlled.(Using a one card draw does not allow for a negative or positive designation of the card.)

The minute I drew this card I knew exactly which fabric I wanted to use, the royal purple batik. I think if I had had any indigo batik I might have used that instead. Beads used are 11's for the base of the bezel around the shisha mirror and the stars in the cosmos, 15's for the net in the bezel and the outline figure, and 3 size eights with a raku finish in the palm of one hand.

I'm not drawing any parallels with my day to day life this month and am a little perplexed. What I AM getting out of this card is a sense to be my own leader, provide my own stability to work towards or for things, reflect your heart/self/soul.

As was pointed out in a previous post, if I don't ask for help or ideas... I may not get any.

So... what do you get off this card? Do you get a sense of what I was working to portray? Are you looking in the mirror and seeing the leader/heart/soul of you? Tell me your thoughts and ideas, please!

Trying to Felt

2010-05-08T14:53:00.007-05:00

I joined up for the Beading For A Cure challenge this year.

The bead kit every one has to use to make some thing has subtle shades of purple/amethyst and bronze gold colors, I'm not sure what color of bead I want to add to it yet... or if I will even. I have some ideas I think could turn out stunning if done right. One of those was to make a beaded mask. Full face rather than half mask.

I've always loved masks and used to have a very small collection of ceramic/glass types that hung on the wall. The problem here is how do I make a bead embroidered mask that can be hung on the wall as a display piece?! I found a full sized wearable mask, gold colored, that I have been trying to figure out how to use as either a form or to attach fabric to so that I can bead straight on to the form.

I've experimented off and on over the past few months trying to figure out a way to make a felt shape or cover. Gray store bought felt, soaked in hot water and molded over a wire mesh form that was modeled on the gold mask. I will have to cut out sections to form and stitch back together to make a smooth surface.

Not sure how the shaping is going to work out and after this morning am thinking I may just end up trying some type of glue to attach the felt to the gold mask and hopefully it will have enough give to it that I can take shallow stitches in to the felt.
Hunter green merino roving felted and molded over mask to air dry this morning

Here's the shape the green felt has so far with out the gold mask form under it

I'm still experimenting, but my idea here is a free form beaded mask that would be wearable or able to hang as a display piece on the wall.

The problems are:
I only just managed to produce a usable piece of hand felt this morning by carefully hand felting on the wire mesh in a shallow basin of hot soapy water.. don't know why I didn't think of it sooner but I've wasted my small stash of loose roving on trying to manage this... they've turned out lumpy and/or stringy, definitely felted though and sent the dogs crazy through the house trying to find the smelly wet sheep they were SURE was hidden some where.

Now that I've manage to figure out how to produce a not too bad piece of hand-felt, how do I manage to stiffen it to hold the mask shape while I bead on it? I was trying to get the felt to attach to the wire mesh as I felted it thinking that I could simply mold the resulting "felted mesh wire" to the mask form and it would work.

As you can see from the photos... it didn't attach to the wire mesh but HEY... I figured out the trick to using the mesh to create the felt!
So... now what?! I dunno ... Yet. Still thinking and experimenting so far... it's a good thing I have until August to complete this.

Definitely Different

2010-05-08T14:27:00.010-05:00

I've been remiss in posting some of the items I've been working on over the past month or two.

There are two separate dolls I worked on and mailed for the Decidedly Different Dolls group.
Spring Fling for March

I had started off thinking to make some type of a kite doll, but it turned more in to a sort of spring garden sprite instead. Good practice on the loop fringe hair and picot edging though. Thanks to JeanneM for the photo, to whom I sent the doll for the swap and completely forgot to get photos of it until after I had already mailed it to her!

and
Birds of a Feather for April

My first effort working with paper clay instead of polymer clay. The tiny pixie face didn't turn out so I ended up making a sort of bird head. For what ever reason, once I started painting the paper clay form with acrylic paints I started hearing "Her name was LoLA... she was a SHOWgirl" by Barry Manilow. Sigh. The entire time I worked on this little bird doll that was stuck in my head. Apparently "Lola Birdie" is an aspiring showgirl with her feathered boa, feathered fan, and beaded feather fringe skirt. Who knew?!

April BJP2010 Finished

2010-05-06T21:28:00.003-05:00

The Celtic Dragon Tarot by DJ Conway and Lisa Hunt
The Wheel - Change of Fortune

Luck and fate are turning in your favor. Your life has entered a change of cycles that will allow you to move forward or slide backward, depending on your preparation and determination. It is time to make changes. Break with incompatible lovers, friends, relationships, or careers.

I'm not quite sure what to think of this card. The basic design I had in mind was a photo of a celtic knotwork "wheel", but when it came down to beading ... well it ended up having a mind of it's own as seems to be typical for beads. The entire time I was beading this I kept thinking what are you doing, does that really work there, man I don't know about that. Every time I had a thought like that I gave it a small consideration then continued on with what I was doing trusting that it would turn out how ever it was meant to in the end.

The previous two cards ended up being fairly simple looking with the background cloth telling as much of the story as the actual beading. I wanted something... more... with this one. I was going to encrust the entire piece, but when I finished the last section today it was done to me. I have no idea what I was thinking when I picked out the fabric, just seemed like a good idea at the time I guess. I would have never thought the blue leaves would support the colors I ended up using and several times I wondered if the piece was too busy, again I just went with it and picked beads and colors seemingly at whim while working in a circle. The green stones are moss agate or possibly a type of jasper, I can't remember exactly as I had tucked them in my stash a while ago with out the card they came on.

I tried to get good photos, but I'm afraid they aren't as crisp as I would have liked. It was a bright, sunny and windy day today, I tried in sun, shade, and in the house so there are several different looks to the colors.

As for the meaning of the card, I'm a bit at a loss or maybe I should say at a bit of a wonder on it.

I've had job interviews that nothing has come out of even though they went very well, the business I was laid off from recently hired a person in to help out in the office so their word of "the minute we need some one we'll call you back in" has ended up showing their true lack of credibility (which has left me bemused for the fact I had a feeling all along about this), so career-wise I am not sure what I'm supposed to be doing.

What exactly am I supposed to be prepared and determined about?!! I'm slowly but surely trying to get a few pieces made up to start selling in my Etsy shop or maybe trying to find some place local that would sell them, we'll see how that goes. Wow, I said it out loud about selling and trying to get an Etsy store going... I think I just scared myself! Lol.

One fantastic thing that happened in April was a wonderful trip to Indiana to see a very dear friend that I hadn't seen for 25 years. It was like we'd never been apart and there have been some discussions here about working toward and figuring out a possible move up to that area.

Another Give Away chance

2010-05-05T00:03:00.002-05:00

Wow, Nicki Lee at RavioLee Dreams is having a 100th blog post give away. Go check out her blog and enter to win. Make sure you tell her Whytefeather sent you, then tell your friends to mention YOU when they enter... it gains you another chance to win.

Have fun and Good Luck!

Hey, Crafty People!! Check out this GiveAway!

2010-05-04T00:09:00.004-05:00

Yvonne over at Ink Spillers Attic is getting ready to celebrate her 1 year blogoversary with a give away. She is putting together some neat and varied items she's going to send to some lucky person!

Make sure you hurry, she draws tomorrow on May 5th!
Go get lined up for your chance to win and remember to look back through her blog posts! There are so many neat things Yvonne does and she's great about sharing and explaining.

Still here

2010-04-22T10:54:00.003-05:00

I've been away from creating for over two weeks, so I have a lot of catching up to do! There's been a wonderful trip out of state to visit a friend, catching up on cleaning around the house, spring is here so cleaning and mowing the yard has been added back to the list of things that needed to be done, and I had an interview yesterday for an administrative assistant job at a smaller office I think I would be very happy to be working at (hopefully I'll get the job).

Today I should have the house to myself until some time after 6pm, so I'm going to take over the table and create to my heart's desire.

I don't know about any one else, but the background was just too busy for me. I much prefer the clean look of the neutral background, it puts the focus back on the photos I post instead.

There are more current posts and lots of photos over at my other blog from my trip to Indiana.

Pretty, pretty!

2010-03-24T23:22:00.002-05:00

Opening the mail today was such a thrill! I won a CQ Giveaway that Nicki Lee's RavioLee Dreams had. There was so much more than I expected tucked in to the package she sent me I was just stunned and oooh'd and aaaahh'd at each. Wow!

There were gorgeous hand-dyed lace and embellishments

9 different silk pieces that will be perfect to use while making Crazy Quilting blocks, my absolute favorite is the teal one...

and not least a great book on Crazy Quilting, which I have already started looking through... so many great photos and ideas in here! AND a package of mixed beads and focals, and a package of silk threads!

I can't thank Nicki Lee enough for the opportunity to win her giveaway. I'm still a bit amazed that I actually won it!

The really neat thing is that several of the pieces were ones I had looked at similar in her etsy shop and thought about getting, but limited myself to only two things so it was like Christmas morning to find all these neat little guys in there too!

So to Nicki Lee, thank you thank you thank you.... I can't wait to get to work on some CQ blocks and play with all the pretties you sent me!

Make sure to go check out Raviolee Dreams, there are so many wonderful things... you will have a hard time deciding, I know I sure did!

March BJP2010 Finished

2010-03-20T17:42:00.007-05:00

The Celtic Dragon Tarot by DJ Conway and Lisa Hunt
Strength - Courage; Inner Strength

Let your intuition guide you in taking a stand. If you are right in a disagreement, do not give in, but use calm persuasion to carry you to victory. Use courage, and inner strength to overcome difficulties.

This has been a defining card for the month of March. I've had multiple reasons to remind myself of the wisdom this card speaks toward. Thankfully it hasn't been due to disagreements, but rather in coming to decisions and remembering that choosing what might seem to be a more difficult path isn't necessarily the wrong choice. A matter of sticking to what you want to do in and with your life, remembering that you can be determined to make something work even when it means things will be a little tougher for a while while you do it.

Here's a closer look at the beading:

The background is unbleached muslin I had drawn/painted a spiral on then beaded a stone gateway around a focal "fire opal" glass cabochon using size 11 and 15 beads. There are 9 runes worked in to the gateway stones from the Elder Futhark runes. They are, in the order I applied them: Uruz, Fehu, Kenaz, Eihwaz, Perthro, Algiz, Dagaz, Sowilo, and Berkano.

The first three months of the Bead Journal Project so far:

January - Judgement
February - Justice
March - Strength

CQ Lace Giveaway AND Kona FQ Giveaway

2010-03-12T00:03:00.004-06:00

Go check out Nicki Lee's RavioLee Dreams CQ Lace Giveaway! She's also just opened her own Etsy store, I spent quite a bit of time there dreaming over all the beautiful dyed lace and embellishments.

I've only done a tiny bit of CQ, one without any embellishment on the seams at all and a couple that are still in progress as UFO's because I haven't gotten anything to embellish with aside from traditional stitches. I keep meaning to hunt up some lace at thrift stores etc just haven't found time lately to manage it though.

Also check out Terri's Kona Fat Quarter Giveaway at Sew Fantastic. Now that would be a great selection of colors to play with on any sewing project!! The quilt blocks and Crazy Quilt blocks you could rev up with all that color!

This week has been a bit of a bust as far as creating much, lots of ideas but not a lot of action and way too much driving all over. I did manage a few minutes to play with my Neocolors II trying to come up with a background for my BJP piece for March. That still needs to be heat set with an iron though and I'm not one hundred percent it's what I will end up using. I dragged out some roving to try a felting idea I had wanted to work on this afternoon, but my day did not go as planned and I ended up gone from the house most of the day at the vet's office. I am hoping to actually have some time to sit and create tomorrow in between stuffing pills down multiple dogs multiple times a day. That will depend on what craziness happens tomorrow though and what the diagnostic on my truck says since the check engine came on while I was running all over hell and half of Oklahoma today.

Adorable Pin Doll!!

2010-03-06T14:11:00.006-06:00

My Decidedly Different Dolls swap doll from Mary Anne arrived in the mail today!

What an adorable little doll she is! I crochet, but I've only made blankets and such. What beautiful crocheting and she is backed with a pin so I can wear her too! I couldn't be more thrilled to receive this little gal. Thank you so much Mary Anne for the lovely pin doll and the St. Patrick's day card. I love the little "Kiss Me I'm Irish" bead... very apt since my Dad was a first generation Irish American!

Close up

St. Patrick's Day Doll Swap

2010-03-04T13:07:00.006-06:00

I joined a yahoo group a little bit ago in an effort to find some advice about making dolls, beaded dolls and doll forms specifically. Although this group,Decidedly Different Dolls, isn't so much about beading it is very much about making dolls of all kinds.

Here's the five inch tall doll I made for Yvonne as part of our St. Patrick's Day doll swap.

A tiny sleeping Leprechaun with a shamrock still caught in his hair.

The beads range from size 8's to 15's and were stitched in peyote, straight, and one-bead-at-a-time. The swap rules are the doll has to be between 4 & 5 inches tall and include something that reminds you of St. Patrick's Day. The firey orange hair is some dyed roving I had tried my hand at spinning in to yarn with a drop spindle. It had turned out in to a thick-n-thin novelty type of yarn and I remembered it as I was stitching all those little beads individually on the back section. What great hair that would make for a Leprechaun I thought! Needless to say, the finished doll looks nothing like I had originally been thinking but a cute little guy anyway.

Sneak peak

2010-02-28T21:41:00.003-06:00

Just a little sneak peak until my swap doll reaches it's new home. Bet you all thought I hadn't been beading!! I was... just not on the first doll :)

Ink Spillers Attic Giveaway

2010-02-23T09:19:00.002-06:00

Yvonne over at Ink Spillers Attic is having an appreciation giveaway! Go over and register in her comments for it, lot of neat goodies in the bundle.

Make sure to read back through her blog, she does LOTS of wonderful crafty stuff!

Beaded Doll in Progress- Part 2

2010-02-16T00:00:00.010-06:00

There has been some progress and some changes to the art doll/figure I've been working on.

I have a glass candle bowl with small stones in it and candles sitting on top of them. As I was looking at the stones pondering how I could maybe manage to drill holes in them to use for beading projects I found a little heart shaped stone. It fit in perfectly, found and beaded on to the figure on Valentines day.

I decided the face just wasn't working for me, between the eyes and very pink lips right down to the white wash I gave it for accent... it was too "cute". That just isn't me. On top of that I was never really happy with the green veil over the forehead. After removing the bezel I had to lightly scrape to remove the pink on the lips since I had already sealed it, which changed the lips slightly to a hint of a smile. Couldn't do much about the white wash, so I did a black-wash and wipe on it with a little bit of dry brushing to complete the accenting. I am much happier with the face now, but I think I need to work on my rusty painting skills.

As I went to reattach the face and redo the bezel I discovered I liked it better on what used to be the back instead of reattaching it where it originally started off. I am finding it interesting how I/she/we are redefining her look.

This is where I started beading, trying to figure out how to stitch on the form. It's a little more detailed of a photo to be able to see the detail better. It sort of looks like a rose to me in a way.

I love that the rain drop around the flower just sort of showed up, I wasn't intentionally going for that look or shape. It just happened.

I haven't found anything in my stash that will fit in the purple spiral, I have a feeling there's supposed to be "something"... I just haven't found it yet.

There is one plastic bead that my husband placed in a spiral while I was away from the table one night... "Honey I added to your doll" which I thought was sweet... so I stitched it in and worked beads around it.

A generous and helpful online friend sent me a few curved beading needles (with a couple little goodies thrown in that will show up later) and I've been using it quite a bit lately especially up closer to the face where it is getting tight to bead in. It definitely takes a little getting used to and a whole lot of practice!
There are all kinds of colors and types of beads used on this, czech and miyuki seed and delicas with all kinds of sizes 6's 8's 10's 11's... and what ever size delica is considered. I really like the process, I love how she's developing in to something I never expected.

February BJP2010 Finished

2010-02-07T18:42:00.006-06:00

The Celtic Dragon Tarot by DJ Conway and Lisa Hunt
Justice - Legal matters.

There is a possibility of encounters with lawyers, judges, or the police. Only logical thinking and facts will enable you to move forward. There can be a satisfactory conclusion to a legal matter if you take care. This card may herald the signing of contracts or legal papers.

As far as applying to my life I have no comment on this one other than to say that in some ways it applies, but not in a surprising or unexpected way. The month is early yet though so you never know and I'll be keeping an eye out on things.

I spent the last week dwelling on this card, didn't have a clue as to how I wanted to portray it. I did a lot of web searching on Justice and what it means or how it applies to different cultures and time periods. Then I started going through images that came up on the searches. The one that caught me was the Sword of Justice, so I sketched my version on the brick background I had "graffitied" with my Neocolors wax pastels.

Being completely honest here, I thought about throwing in the towel on the BJP on this one... or rather at the very least tossing the format of using the tarot cards to bead from. I drew the card on the first of the month and thought you have GOT to be kidding me, drawing Justice right after drawing Judgement. After a little hissy and some thinking I decided I would stick the course. I get a feeling that maybe these cards don't apply only (or maybe at all depending) to me, that there's a bigger message being put out there and who ever needs it will eventually see it. Another reason to stick to it is that it's not fair to hamstring the deck by only using one section of it then decide you want to get pissy over two "dark" cards in a row.
I can always bead the art dolls when a card doesn't necessarily fit my mood.

Beaded Doll in Progress

2010-01-31T13:59:00.007-06:00

I'm not sure if I like where I'm going with this, but it's a good learning experience if nothing else.

I didn't have any idea of how I wanted the doll to look. Hmmm... so pick some beads you love and wanted to do something with but haven't yet. They are Czech matte glass beads size 6.

I made a big ol mess trying to figure out how exactly to stitch them on the form.

Then I thought well pick a shape, any shape and start with that then fill in.

Then I wondered how smaller beads would look against the large beads, in this case the closest color I had was size 11 to go against the size 6.

So here is where it is today. I like the curves with the curly ends, I'm still not sure about the drastic bead size changes. All of the size 6 are this wonderful matte frosted glass in colors I absolutely love. The green iridescent at the base of the face bezel are size 8 then gold and green iridescent size 11's. I have been wanting to experiment with several things; large beads mixed with small, matte mixed with glitter, using a face cabochon, trying to bead a doll.

There are questions though:
How do you get the beads attached since you can't stab stitch?! I got the hang of the the backstitch as it's just like doing it in embroidery. But attaching beads one at a time is tricky and I found myself going all which way. Is there an easier stitch to use to bead with on a form?

When you use peyote stitch how on earth do you stitch it to the fabric or is it just a matter of doing a peyote tube type stitch around the form with only occasionally taking an extra stitch to the fabric?

Should I be sticking the needle all the way through the doll instead thus beading opposite sides at the same time? That could give an interesting symmetry to it I suppose.

Should I have not stuffed it as much and made it flatter? I haven't reached a conclusion to this one. I can definitely see where flat beading a "doll" has an appeal instead of a rounded form.

Should I have beaded the cutout doll before sewing the front and back together and stuffed it last? That seems like it would be harder to sew the doll together to me.

I'm sure there are a ton of other questions I'm not remembering at the moment. I'm trying not to make any judgments of the look or the process, but I am discovering it's hard to bead in to the smaller areas up against the large beads and have already broken a needle when it jammed up unexpectedly.

What's next

2010-01-24T21:26:00.007-06:00

I've been a little bored lately. Can't start February's BJP yet, have to draw the card on the first of the month.

Life has been a little hectic around the house lately, lots of cleaning and rearranging going on, getting ready for the oldest to move back in. We thought that was going to be yesterday, but he only came for a visit saying he had the dates mixed up and it will be next Saturday.

I've been itching to bead, but what to do?!

I was admiring Carol's crocheting and since all of my stash bins are now spread out between the living room and kitchen it was simple to find some yarn. I'm not sure if it's going to be a scarf or just a neck cowl type of thing as I only have two skeins of it doing a corner to corner crochet. I couldn't find a link for it, but it's a Yarn Bee Icelandic Jewels in Garnet. It looks like an amazing rich Fuchsia or Magenta to me. Very drawn to the color though, probably because everything is gray and brown here lately. So I've started that earlier today and just kind of puttered at it so far.

The husband drew me a template this afternoon to use for trying my hand at a beaded doll, so I dug out an old pair of ripped up jeans and repurposed part of a leg. Next time I'm going to just hand stitch the front and back together instead of using the sewing machine. Not great on the corners and I misjudged the seam allowance on it so it's a little bit smaller and not exactly the same shape as the template. It'll do for a trial run and if it turns out really well... well I'm not sure what I'll do with it yet. I had played with my polymer clay finally last week and made a few faces from a mold, so I picked one that looked like it might go with this size and will use that. Yes, there is a hole in her forehead... could be anything from a third eye to a setting for a headdress. Haven't quite decided if I want to color the eyes and lips on the face or just leave it plain.

Two for one photos... the stuffed doll shape and face cabochon are laying on the crochet scarf/cowl I'm working on.

The scarf/cowl is about 7 1/2 inches wide, still working on the length.

The doll measures 8 inches tall by 5 1/2 wide across the arms.

Should be interesting figuring out how to bead on a form instead of flat and I'm sure I'll find out whether using denim was a good or bad idea for a fabric choice. I have no idea where I'm going with this; haven't picked out a theme or colors. Don't even have a rough idea to go off this time. Guess it'll just be a surprise how ever it turns out.

January BJP2010 Finished

2010-01-18T22:49:00.004-06:00

The Celtic Dragon Tarot by DJ Conway and Lisa Hunt
Judgement - Renewal; Karmic Issues
Something or someone out of the past comes back into your life with influences you may or may not like. Handle karmic relationships or issues correctly or pay the price. This card may point to a change of home or job. You are attracted to a new line of spiritual or magickal study. You will face an unpleasant but necessary decision.

Strangely enough, I had two acquaintances from my past contact me last week. One I had simply lost touch with and it was a pleasant surprise to hear from. She may at some point have a lead to a job for me. The other person was one I had cut ties from and have no desire to renew any ties with again. Since the first of the year there have been many unpleasant but necessary decisions. I'm still wondering about the karmic relationships/issues and how I should or should not be handling them.

Thrilled

2010-01-13T23:19:00.004-06:00

Matted, framed, completed.

Rhi picked out the matting and shadow box, the hubby cut out the matting for me since I knew I'd mess up either the measurements or the straight lines, put it together and was so excited I had to take it out to Rhi's tonight to give it to her.

She's thrilled, I'm thrilled, I'm pretty sure even the husband is thrilled with how very nice it turned out. I did have to remove the glass to get a good photo without glare. It was an absolutely amazing moment to see something I created framed, a first. Just. Wow.

Things I've learned lately:

Beading on felt is lovely, just not when I try to put fabric on top of it. The double sided web fuse I used did not stick well and I had to make sure to smooth the fabric down for most of the stitching. Won't be using that brand again.

Instead of sewing fabric pieces together quilt style, it would probably be smoother to use a main fabric in the background and cut out shapes to web fuse to that instead.

Mark the size you are beading instead of guessing the edges. It makes a difference in the finished look if you are matting it. I hadn't planned on matting and ended up changing plans so the beading could be under glass to prevent dust.

Fabric attached to pellon is a lot easier to bead on than I thought. I like the stiffness it has just as much as I like the melt-like-butter feel of beading on to felt. I can definitely see where I will use each, just for different types of projects i.e. one for display pieces and one for possible jewelry or more physical handling type of beading.

Loosely braided ribbon on a piece can be a challenge. Not sure if I am fond of the effect yet, but reserving judgment until it's completed.

Working on large sized pieces lets me express more. The first two projects I've beaded were 6 1/2 X 8 and not quite 7 X 7. I'm finding my BJP size of 3 1/2 X 5 confining. I'm figuring out how to shrink the thought so to speak.

There are a lot of projects I want to try, different mediums, beaded stitches I want to learn. Need to get in a better habit of writing my ideas down to try later, because the current project takes as long as it takes and I may not remember what I wanted to try next by the time I get done.

I need a wider variety of beads to play with. I love working in size 11 glass seed beads, but I'd like to see how other sizes would work. I have a limited color range that needs to change. I'm very drawn to creating a piece around a main element(s) so it'd be nice to actually have a selection of cabochons, charms, etc.

Along those lines, I need to make time to sit down and play with my polymer clay to see if that can be another element I can add to my beading. I have discovered I really enjoy and love making mixed media elements, it really broadens the depth and expression of creating.

Odds and Ends

2010-01-13T12:13:00.002-06:00

Copied from my other blog, thought I would share it here too:

Your fairy is called Feather Snowfilter

She is a cleansing force and a peace-bringer.

She lives in high places where the clouds meet the earth.

She is only seen on midsummer's eve.

She wears pale blue like the sky. She has delicate pale blue wings like a cicada.

Get your free fairy name here!

Love it. I think I'll try to bead this imagery some time.

I finished the beading on the sun piece I was working on. Yet another example of if I would stop over thinking and trying to force it, the beading just happens and turns out better than I expect. I'll have to get a photo later when I've got the backing on it.

I played around yesterday with my January BJP, a bunch of "what if I try this or what if I tacked that there or what if I do that". I put it away last night not knowing if I liked it or not, it is absolutely nothing like what I wrote down about the card I drew. Sigh. There was quite the stare off between it and I while I debated whether I was going to chuck it and start over or not. Reminding myself to let it evolve I decided I will continue on with it and if I decide in the end that I want a redo for January then I'll do a different one with a structured sketch or something.