Artistic Kreations and Passions

Gardening in the Summer

2011-09-03T14:29:00.056-04:00

Wild flowers I seeded in the fall when I added the bulbs out front.

Wayne and I have spent an awful lot of weekend mornings this summer planting more and more plants in our yard. We are turning more of it into gardens and not grass.

Lambs ear and lily right after they were planted (before the deer got to the lily).

Almost all of the trees from Maryland DNR that we planted in the spring are still alive and some are thriving and over 6 ft tall already. They were definitely a good buy and we are planning on ordering more for next spring.

Another import from Iowa.

We have focused our gardening efforts mostly on the front and side yards where they are more visible to the neighbors and in case of the long ditch on the west side of the house where it is a pain to mow.

One of the hostas I planted last year.

Some of our newer additions, all clearance plants from Lowes.

We have been working to take areas in the ditch and join them together so that now more than half of the side ditch has been started with plants. We have also dug up areas in between where we planted some of the baby trees making them into larger garden area. The plan is to continue joining areas between the trees so that it is easier to mow and less to mow.

Ditch along the side largely planted.

Red Sedum, we'd almost given up on them.

Side yard by ditch, more and more plants slowly filling it in.

I didn't originally plan to plant as much as we have or to plant all through the summer but as we discovered if you visit on a regular basis and are patient Lowes has wonderful clearances on plants as they get past their prime or are done blooming. Buying plants at 50-75% off sure lets us plant more than we could have otherwise and has also let us try different plants to see which ones do well for us. We have lost a few but we also have some that are thriving for us.

Many of the plants have been clearance plants from Lowes.

Gardenia for only $5. What a deal!

Front ditch with periwinkle getting going.

Another view of the side ditch, it keeps changing.

I also ordered a bunch of plants in the late spring that were very small and slow to get started but seem to finally be getting established.

Some of our 50+ baby trees.

One of our very happy black locust trees.

Another new area, this one with a ground rose, and daylilies.

Another picture of the side dich.

Beside the driveway, a challenging area that gets wet and hot.

With a lot of the plants I have been buying at $1-$3 we have been able to get much further than I expected to this year. I have bought almost exclusively perennials so as they get more established they will get bigger and fill in the areas more. We have slowly been adding plants here and there so we have a nice biodiversity. We haven't gone with much of a plan other than we want a lot less grass but this has allowed us to make really good use of the clearance plants as we can get whatever looks good that is on sale.

It has almost become like a sickness for me and I even bought clearance plant the day before Hurricane Irene came barreling in. I am getting ready to order Iris, daylilies and more bulbs to plant this fall and we will continue to add Lowes clearance plants.

Out of the Dirt Grow Iris

2011-09-01T13:32:00.044-04:00

Those Iris need some dirt to grow in.

With as much time as I have been working on other projects including planting lots of real plants in our garden the mosaic has been taking a while to finish but that was expected. I need to quit adding new thing to my to-do list, but as I write this I am getting ready to order Iris and bulbs to plant in the yard this fall. A day before Hurricane Irene visited I was at Lowes getting a few things and ended up buying more clearance plants for the garden (they still need to be planted).

A bit of a closer look at the dirt.

Beading the dirt took 9 1/2 hours. I was pretty impressed as it seemed to go fairly quickly. When I was at Wire Fest in the spring I found some copper beads that are a bit bigger than 6/0 seed beads but they were wonderfully copper and copper seed beads were hard to find when I was ordering. They are very irregular in shape and size which I like especially in the dirt since it gives the dirt more visual texture.

The other side of the dirt, shades of browns and blacks to coppers.

I like how the green leaves pop against the browns, blacks and coppers of the dirt. The little copper leaves that are sprinkled amongst the dirt are not very tall so I will have to be careful when removing the excess grout to make sure that they show up.

Blues and purple beads for the Iris.

In the photo above you can see the piles of the different blues and purples that I chose to make the Iris with. With the greens and the browns I was able to get all of the colors onto one tray but not so with the Iris colors.

My first Iris completed

When doing the Iris I started all of them by doing the yellow throats first and then did a few of the lighter colors that surround that. After that I did each petal of each Iris one at a time. I tried to use edges and values to separate the petals visually and think some worked out slightly better than others but think that I got the general look I was after.

Another Iris complete and a butterfly comes for a visit.

Here you can see a closer look at the second Iris I beaded and a butterfly pendant I cut the loop of so that he could join the Iris in the garden.

Here you can see I started all of my Iris with the yellow of the stamens.

Here you can see the first two Iris beaded together. It has been really interesting for me to see this piece slowly emerge from sketches to a piece that will one day adorn our kitchen. I know that adding grout will further change how the piece looks and I can't wait to see how this continues to evolve.

Three leftmost Iris beaded.

It is interesting that as I work on the piece how I approach the different sections slightly differently in how I add the different values and colors. I have just been going with what feels right for each area hoping that my approach will get the feel I am after.

All 5 Iris beaded.

The Iris took 36 hours of work to get them completely beaded. Most of the time I can only work on them an hour or two since my hand gets tired with the tweezers but I have had a few sessions that were longer when I was in the groove. As shown above the piece is at 64 1/2 hours of seed bead work.

Next time more leaves and some background.

What a Week It Has Been

2011-08-31T13:14:00.001-04:00

Pile of tree trunk usable for firewood

After the east coast all shook from the strongest earthquake to hit the area in over 100 years, life felt a bit shaky. In ways I was glad that I had lived in multiple places that had earthquakes so that I was not nearly as shaken as many people seemed to be. It was still one of the stronger quakes I had experienced but we were lucky that we didn't have any damage, not even any photos knocked off the walls. It is nice to say it would have been better to have Wayne home rather than off in Florida for work but he would have been at work anyway so it wouldn't have made much difference.

When I went out to check on the outside of the house the neighbors had a tree guy at their house giving them an estimate on how much it would cost to take down their 3 dead trees. I went across and talked to the man and since they were going to be in the area they could take our dead Tulip popular the same day. Seemed like a good idea especially with a hurricane predicted to come up the east coast.

Light colored chips from our Tulip Popular as well as the neighbors.

They came on Thursday and took down our tree and the neighbors' three. It was really cool to watch since I had never seen anything like it. We ended up with a bunch of logs that can be used for firewood and a large pile of chips that we will use for mulch since with all of the gardening we have done we need lots and lots of mulch.

One of the 5 trees our next door neighbors lost, this is one way to get a pond in your back yard.

As if an earthquake and getting a tree taken down wouldn't have made an interesting enough week we got 2 1/2 inches of rain on Thursday night and had hurricane Irene headed our way. I spent time trying to get ready for the storm. We started getting rain very early on Saturday and by early afternoon had 2 1/2 inches and the brunt of the storm had yet to hit. At 6:30 pm I lost power so I spent the evening listening to the storm. Candles came in handy but even better were the LED lamps that I had that were battery operated and worked good for reading by. Watching the wind come down and the wind whipping the trees around was amazing. I was so glad we were not getting the worse of it and even more glad that I was in my nice snug house.

Here you can see 2 of the big oaks our neighbors lost (photo from our back yard.)

The rain ended by morning (the rain gauge was completely full with another 7 inches) and then it was time to see what damage had been done and then to help people get trees off of driveways and make sure everyone was OK. Our next door neighbors lost 5 trees and have at least a couple more that are seriously listing. Luckily they did not fall on anyones house but it did take a crew of us to get all of the branches etc that had fallen onto the driveways of the neighbors behind them.

One of our baby trees that need to be propped back up.

I was really lucky that we did not loose any trees although several of the baby trees we planted in the spring will need to be propped back up and probably staked until they can get their footing back. Some of them are damaged with some splitting and damaged bark but hopefully we won't lose any of them.

Just some of the wood our neighbor Scott is adding to his wood pile. He is going to have plenty.

With all of the damage, it is amazing we came out as well as we did. Some of the immediate neighbors had damaged fences, decks and even roofs and water damage. Even then we didn't get hit near as hard as other areas of Southern Maryland.

More of the fallen trees.

I had to do without power until Monday afternoon but I could still text Wayne to keep him updated by how I was. We had water the whole time which was good even though had to be careful not to overflow the septic catchment since the pump to get rid of it is electric.

Still have trunks that will eventually need to be cut up and moved.

I still have friends both locally and in New England that don't have power yet. The bead store I teach at just got it today. I think Trish is open partially because she doesn't have power at home yet.

Now the driveways will be passable.

I can't believe Wayne has missed the most exciting week we have had here in Southern Maryland in a long time. I think if we would have had lots of damage I would have been more unhappy about him being gone but as a Nay Wife I learned that if something is going to go wrong or happen it will probably be when he is gone.

After the tree was removed from the edge of the deck.

Overall I feel amazingly blessed that we came out of all of this in such good shape. My thoughts and prayers go out to all of those who were not near so lucky. My thanks go to all of those who checked in on me and offered their assistance if I needed it.

Another view of the cleared driveways and trunks of the fallen trees.

What do you do when you have no electricity for almost 2 days. When it was really dark I mostly read but during the day besides helping out lugging branches off of driveways and into the woods, I organized my studio some and worked on my backsplash mosaic. So my time wasn't a total loss.

Fallen branches and trees took out and damaged sections of their new fence.

The good news is that behind the storm came some glorious weather with highs in the low 80's and lows in the low 60's so the house didn't become a sweat box. A couple of the neighbors had generators before the storm hit and by the time we got electricity back quite a few more got them as Lowes got a shipment in at some point.

Hard to see but the tree leaning against the right side of the roof damaged the roof and caused water damage inside.

I am hoping that September will be a much quieter month, Wayne will come home on Friday night (for Labor Day weekend and then be home for a week or so before he makes another trip and in the middle of the month I will have a trip to get together with several other wives that we were stationed with in Hawaii. Still sounds much quieter than the last week.

Victorian Suite: Poem

2011-07-05T15:02:00.004-04:00

For this suite of jewelry I decided to write a poem following the technique that Robin Atkins, an amazingly talented beader and friend teaches in her One Bead at a Time book (which you can download for free from her website).

You write a list of words and phrases that pop into your mind as you look at your beading and workspace. You pick the words that are most compelling to you and then start with the phrase "I am __________," filling in your chosen word or phrase. This is the first line of your poem, you continue using as many of the words or phrases as you wish.

It can be really interesting to see what comes from this especially if you don't try to over think it. Here is my poem for my Victorian Suite set of jewelry.

I am Victorian Suite.
I am all things feminine,
Peaches and Cream, Laces and Hearts,
And yet I have a backbone of metal;
Covering hardness with softness.

With thread, memories are stitched into me;
linking the old with the new.
The fabric of my past links
Grandmother, Mother, Sister and Friend.

Flowers and spirals,
Pearls and opals,
The pieces I am made of,
Bring together all that I am.

With the cameo of a woman:
I mirror the woman who layered my parts;
So that I am so much more than I would seem.
How can wire and beads, doilies and filigree,
Make me into that which has infinite possibilities?

If you would like to read about the making of the pieces that make up Victorian Suite go here.

Victorian Suite

2011-06-29T17:58:00.001-04:00

The last month and a half have been interesting. I have been sick most of the time getting back to back colds. Finally I am feeling healthier and trying to catch up on all of the things that I have fallen behind on. One of those was blogging and I have several things I need to blog about to catch everyone up on what I have been up to including traveling, gardening and some new creative projects.

Some of the pieces that were considered for the Victorian Suite

This blog is very overdue, Artbeads.com once again contacted me to review more of their huge selection of beads and other products. This time they wanted us to combine something new and something old. This was perfect, when my Grandmother died at a mere 106 years of age a year and a half ago one of the things I got was any of her costume jewelry that no one else wanted. Many of the pieces were broken or tarnished and I felt that I should include them in a new piece. I also had pieces that I had gotten from other friends and family so I went through my collection of pieces to see if I could come with a cohesive idea for something that combined these reclaimed treasures with some new additions.

And then it happened, I had a dream, I don't often dream about my jewelry or a new art piece but when I do I know that it is meant to be and many things get figured out in this dream world. The most interesting thing that came out of the dream is that this would not be just your typical piece of jewelry it would be a series of pieces that would fit together and would allow the wearer to choose which pieces to combine together.

Cameos, filigrees, pearls and beads from Artbeads.com

I always find the biggest challenge figuring out what cool stuff I should try each time. What will work with my idea best? What sizes of beads, findings or other goodies will help flesh out my vision? What colors and how many do I need? With this piece I had a starting place of using the old jewelry pieces and except for the new items I got from Artbeads.com I wanted to use stuff that I already had as much as possible. The cameo earrings I already had helped set the color scheme. I was thrilled when I saw that I could get additional cameos that although newer looking were somewhat similar to the ones in the earrings. I also wanted to go with some filigree pieces since they would help with the more victorian lacy look I was after.

Pieces that can be used for the front of a chocker or as bracelets.

The first pieces I started working on for this Suite of jewelry was the cuff bracelets. I made 3 of them which could be worn as a bracelet or combine together (2 of them) to be worn as a chocker. I eventually made another one with no focal or beads for the back piece so that my hair didn't get caught when wearing the chocker. I have had the piece of fabric, laces, and ribbons that I used for these for lots and lots of years so it was nice to finally use some of them.

The top bracelet uses a filigree and cameo look face that I have had almost as long as the other pieces. I used colored permanent markers to add a bit more age to them. The small doily in the middle is one that I made years ago and then had never done anything with.

The middle cuff uses one of the filigrees and cameos that I got from Artbeads.com. From the moment that I saw that filigree I knew that I HAD to have it for this suite of jewelry. I glued the cameo onto it and also glued a opal heart earring that had lost it's mate that I got for being a bride's maid at a wedding. I attached it using some of the beads that I had ordered. I also added a beaded picot border with beautiful Silver-lined Rosaline beads.

The bottom cuff has more layers of ribbon and a picot border with another doily that I had in my stash (not one I had made however.) The center piece is a pin that my Grandmother had and I kept it as a pin in case I ever want to take it off and wear it alone. One of the things I did end up having to buy was snaps, for the life of me I couldn't find my snaps for these cuffs.

Single Spiral Rope piece to use as a bracelet or an accent in the necklace.

I found a strand of pearls that were perfect for suite of jewelry I was making. These pearls are gorgeous and have a wonderful creamy peach color. I used them with the 11/0 and 15/0 seed beads to make a single spiral rope piece that could be worn as either a bracelet or used with other pieces of the suite in the necklace.

3 pieces of the jewelry suite combined.

Above you can see 3 of the pieces combine to make a necklace. I used lengths of the necklace from my grandmother that had a strand of links of fake pearls and a strand of gold colored chain for both of the top and the bottom pieces. On the top piece I added a strand made with 3 lengths of ribbon. The bottom piece I made links of 2 colors of imitation pearls from my stash as well as some tear drop shaped pearl links and added them to the chain strand. The middle piece is the piece from above with the pearls.

Cuff chocker and necklace length put together.

Here the bottom necklace length is worn with the cuff chocker for a simple yet feminine look.

First of 2 wrapped wire focal pieces.

One of the things that was strongly in my dream for this piece were 2 focal pieces made with wire. The two cameos here were also glued to their filigree back grounds before being wired to the wire shape. The heart on the right was the necklace focal that goes with the opal earring used with the filigree on the cuff bracelet above. I used both brass wire and silver craft wire for this since I was working with mixed metals and wanted to keep with that feel. I used 11/0 Transparent Rosaline TOHO seed beads as well as 3 mm Rosaline Luster Fire Polished beads in the wire wrapping.

The other focal piece.

As you can probably already tell there are many ways to combine this suite of jewelry. This one shows the other wrapped wire focal piece. The center piece is a pin I had made many years ago and it seemed to be a good way to repurpose it since I no longer wear it. In this piece I used all three colors/sizes of seed beads as well as the 3 mm fire polished beads and some more of the imitation pearls from my stash.

Earring.

Here you can see one of the earrings that were an important inspiration for the suite of jewelry. The earrings had nothing wrong with them except they were missing their backs so I quickly fixed that but wanted to make them a bit more interesting and in line with the other pieces so I made more pearl links and added them.

Which pieces should I wear?

More pieces make a more complex necklace.

One of my favorite combinations.

The three photos above show some of the more complex combinations that the suite can be used for. I have always like jewelry that has versatility in how it can be worn so in a way this Victorian Suite of jewelry is an ultimate expression of that. From pieces that can be worn together to wearing all of the pieces together the options are too numerous to count. I am thinking I may have to make more suites in the future using more pieces from my collection of broken and forlorn jewelry and more of my seemingly endless stash of fabrics, ribbons, trims, jewelry goodies etc.

Disclosure...As a reviewer of products at Artbeads.com, I receive the Pearls, Cameos, Filigrees and Seed Beads above free of charge. I have been asked to review these products and give my honest opinion of the products...positive or negative. I am not being compensated by Artbeads.com for my endorsement as it pertains to the products received and reviewed.

Iris Backsplash: In the Beginning

2011-05-19T16:13:00.016-04:00

When I left you in the last post you knew that Iris were my inspiration for the backsplash that I was going to make for behind the cooktop in our kitchen. One of the first jobs after we decided this project was a go was to make up the substrate for the piece, the picture above has it cut to size. Our first purchase was trim to go around the edge so that the piece could be attached (and removed) from the wall and the trim will cover the screws. I wanted to use some tiles around the edges to help frame up the piece so they were the next decision and purchase. You can see the metal tiles sitting in the middle of the background. I marked up approximately where the trim and tiles would go so that I could figure out where the Iris would go.

In this photo I have roughed in where the flowers would be going (you can click on the photo and it should show it larger). I used the original scale drawing as a general guideline but since the tile is different than the original vague ideas I made adjustments. You can also see the grid that I sketched on to make placement easier and which I used to help figure out how many square inches of bead I was going to need to order.

I used mastic (tile glue) to glue down all of the metal and glass tiles. If you look closely at the top center you can see where I ran 2 short of the blue tile. Something else will be added there later.

In this picture you can see where I have taken my rough sketch and firmed and cleaned up the idea and then used markers to outline the areas. Wayne suggested adding more leaves so there would be less background so instead of 2 leaves the flowers now have 3-4 leaves each. I used this to try to figure out approximately how many seed beads to buy (more guess than not).

Wow, I ended up with a 7 pound box that was mostly seed beads for my mosaic and the big question was; would this be enough? Enough or not it sure was fun opening the box. I had a couple of colors that were backordered so would have to start on something that didn't require them.

And then it was time to start I put all of the values and shapes of green beads out on a tray and it was time to start playing. As you see these photos realize that each bead is added by tweezers one bead at a time. I tried using my fingers but even using the larger 6/0 seed beads my fingers just got in the way. Even doing this with tweezers it has gone faster than I expected it to.

I started the greens by doing each of the stems first and then added leaves here and there working back and forth across the piece. Doing this way had two goals; the first was that since I had pulled some beads from my collection that were the correct size but that I didn't have a lot of I didn't want them to end up in all in one flower and that as I worked at different times how I approached the values varied and I didn't want that to show up.

I generally approached the leaves by doing the outside edges first, this gave them fairly smooth lines along the outside, I also chose the leaves that were in front to do first, hoping to use value and such to separate the front and back leaves.

Here you can see a bit more of the value changes and the different shapes, values, and finishes on the beads.

Here is where the leaves stand at this point, the disadvantage to guesstimating the amount of beads that I needed was that I ran out of some of my values of green beads and will need to order more, not sure how I got it so wrong (wonder if I figured out how many before I added the extra leaves). I am waiting to order more beads until I figure out if I just went wrong on the green or not. The hour count on the leaves at this point is 19. I have been tending to work using quarter hour segments so that I can keep track of the beaded part of the project. The little dots on the bottom are copper leaf beads that you will see better when we add the dirt next time.

Iris as Inspiration

2011-05-17T15:19:00.001-04:00

As I got ready to start blogging about my newest really big project I realized that I wanted to show some of the background of how Iris have inspired some of my previous pieces of art.

The purple Iris shown here are happily growing in my garden, my Mother sent them to me from her garden in Iowa and before that they were in her Mother's garden. I think Iris are incredibly beautiful flowers and there are so many varieties out there that no matter what color you like you could probably find some to please you.

Since I started beading Iris have shown up in several of my pieces and I am sure that like other flowers will continue to show up.

The first beaded piece I made that used the Iris is my necklace below. I made it for a contest at Turquoise String Beads in Fall River, Massachusetts where I got my beading start. They were having a summer themed contest and I designed this piece for it.

After I started doing bead embroidery I knew that I absolutely had to make an Iris piece. Even with size 15/0 beads (which are quite small); I knew that the piece would have to be fairly large to get the details that I wanted. I had this purse that gotten at a charity sale and realized that it would be the perfect canvas. With lots of photos of Iris in hand I played with ideas until I came up with what I wanted.

I used 50 colors of seed beads for the purse to allow me as much freedom with values as possible. The Iris has some ruffled edges to the petal which helps give dimension to the flower. This purse is still one of my favorite pieces that I have made.

My pond piece was inspired by some Iris we saw in a little pond when we were hiking in New England. I mad this piece to enter into the Bead Dreams contest for their crystal category. The Iris in this piece is entirely 3-dimensional and was added after it was made.

At Bead Fest in Philly last year I took a Mini Mosaics class from Joan Babcock. In class we learned how to make mosaic pendants using seed beads instead of tiles. I loved the idea, how cool and "what if...."

Oh how I love the "what if"s, when my creative brain slams in to high gear and takes me for a ride. What could you do with this technique only bigger? A mirror frame? A piece of wall art? Or how about a backsplash for behind our cooktop in our kitchen? Mmmmmm...... I like that idea. We didn't have our builder put in a backsplash because we didn't like any of their options, we wanted something more interesting. I had been trying to think of a really cool idea for over the cooktop and then we were going to use that to pick the rest of the backsplash for the kitchen.

Since we weren't in a huge hurry I could take on this project which I knew would be a big undertaking. The project started with measurements and a to scale drawing so I would have an idea of what I wanted to do. Hmmmm.... what did I want to do? At this point we had already painted the kitchen blue and copper. Nature has always been my go to inspiration and the idea of using Iris just jumped out as an image that we would enjoy year round and could pick up on the blues and coppers in the room.

The scale drawing was a rough idea and gave me an idea if I could make it work and what I wanted to use and to see what Wayne thought since as always he was funding the project (luckily he doesn't have to pay me by the hour).

The photo above has the drawing that is sitting on top of the substrate that I am using for the mosaic. I will leave you with this and continue with the project in my next post. If you can't wait you can check out the photo album of this on my facebook page.

Spring Gardening

2011-05-10T00:02:00.000-04:00

Wayne digging holes for trees from Maryland DNR

Some of our first bulbs to come up from fall planting.

Although I had realized I had been very lax in writing my blog I hadn't realized that I hadn't written anything about gardening this spring. Kind of funny when I think about the amount of time and work we have been putting into changing our yard and the amount of fun we have had watching all of our plants come up and come to life.

We ordered 50 trees from Maryland Department of Natural Resources and they sent us a few extra so we ended up planting 55 trees and giving 3 to our neighbor. We ordered half redbuds and half black locust. These trees were in better shape and bigger than the ones we had gotten from the National Arbor Society in the fall. I had dug over half of the holes before the trees arrived and in 2 days we dug the rest of the holes and planted all 55 trees. So far they are doing pretty well although I am going to have to spray for bugs since they think the trees taste yummy.

As winter was ending and spring neared we got our first colorful visitors with the crocus starting off the show. I was so excited I had to text Wayne to let him know we had our first flower open.

Baby Iris and Crocus, so cute and very welcome color.

More baby Iris, less than 6 inches tall.

More bulbs coming up and blooming.

A real treat for me was when the baby Iris started showing up with the crocus, These tiny wonders were a real treat so early in the year.

We planted over 1000 bulbs in the fall and it was really exciting to see them starting to come up and we were out many days looking to see what had changed and who was blooming.

Daffodils in bloom.

Our first lilacs in bloom.
I was really excited when my two Korean Lilacs bloomed this spring, I have always loved lilacs since we used to visit my Grandmother Throne and she had huge lilac bushes in bloom, the smell was heavenly. Some of my other bushes planted in the fall were lilacs but they did not bloom this spring.

Pretty Double Daffodil.

Seeds from Grandma's Hollyhocks a few generations later.

As we have spent all of this time planning and planting our garden I have thought a lot about the females in my family who were gardeners and how proud they would be of me. I have especially thought of my Mom and my Grandma Throne. My Mom sent me 3 boxes of plants from Iowa including tulips, iris, seeds from my Grandma's hollyhocks and cuttings from her peonies. I like that these plants will be in my garden where they can remind me of her. The lilacs and redbuds that we planted will also remind me of my Grandmother since she loved them as well.

Wayne's Anniversary Present to me, Roses and Daylilies.

Not too bad for $5 rose bushes, cheaper than cut roses and last longer, too.

First Iowa Iris to bloom (the day after our anniversary)

Second Iowa Iris to bloom.

Some of the newest additions to our yard are these roses and daylilies that I bought on or wedding anniversary at Lowe's, this grouping of plants cost $15. I LOVE clearance and sale plants at Lowes. I told Wayne he was very smart to buy me roses that would come back year after year, much better than ones that will die in a week or so.

I will leave you with these beautiful Iris in bloom, they bloomed the 2 days after our anniversary, I really like that Iris (one of my favorite flowers) bloom around our anniversary here in Maryland. And these came all of the way from Iowa to grace us with their beauty. If you like Iris come back for my next post which will have Iris coming into our home decor.

Winter Enchantment

2011-03-17T22:19:00.001-04:00

It is St Patrick's Day and although my crocus are very happy and it is really nice outside I am blogging about Winter. My winter piece for Artbeads.com has taken a bit more time than I had anticipated. Part of the reason is that as always I underestimated how long it would take to do all of the fringing which always takes more time than I expect; and that I have been keeping busy with house projects and doing research to get ready for our spring gardening.

This last year the Artbeads.com has been going with a seasonal theme and this is our last season, can't wait to see what comes next. I love themes and challenges because they often make me think in a different way. I was really glad this time that it was a winter theme because it allowed me to make a piece that had been in my sketch book since not too long after I had started beading.

I had always planned for it to use necklace sized memory wire so I got some of that. I have used the ring size to make wineglass markers but had never worked with the necklace size. It looks to small to go around your neck but it worked really well. The nice thing is that the package has enough to make several necklaces so I may have to try some other ideas with what I have left.

My inspiration was icicles or hoarfrost which I saw plenty of a couple years ago when I visited Iowa. When the plants are all covered in the frost and the sun comes out it is an amazing sight.

To capture that look I needed seed beads in whites and silvers so I got several packages of TOHO seed beads. I ended up choosing their Crystal/Silver and Grays mixes ( really love the mixes you get different sizes and colors), 3 mm magatamas in Transparent Crystal AB (haven't played with these much, less pronounced than the drop beads, very nice), and 11/0s in Frosted Transparent Crystal AB and Silver Lined Crystal (both nice additions to the mix of whites).

The other really important part to make it look icy was some Swarovski Crystals in Crystal AB. I took this opportunity to try out some crystals that I had never tried before.

For this piece I chose 6 mm Helix beads, 4 mm Xilion Bicones, 11 mm Tear drop Pendants, and 13 mm Polygon Drop Pendants. Wow! OK I admit that I love Swarovski crystals of pretty much any kind, but I was really happy with the 2 pendants and helix beads which all had great reflectiveness.

I also got Crimp memory wire ends that had loops on the end so that I could hang items from the ends. These worked really well, I put glue in them before crimping them on and they seem nice and secure.

The first step was to mix all of the seed beads together, I added in more seed beads that I already had because I realized I was going to need a lot more seed beads to get the look I was after, luckily I had done a couple other winter projects in the past and had plenty of beads to choose from.

All of the dangles for the piece are made with fringing, lots and lots of fringing. It takes a while to do but for projects that you want to look like vines, plants or in this case icicles they are wonderful. I put crystals near the ends of quite a few of the fringes. Here you can see the fringes. I made them separately from the necklace to make it easier to make adjustments as I put the necklace together.

Here are the earrings, they are a bit heavy and I may need to make them into ear cuffs or something so that I can wear them for longer periods of time.

Here is the finished necklace, against darker colors it looks really nice and when the sun hits it glistens like ice. The memory wire worked out really well for the piece and I was quite pleased that the piece came together much like I had sketched. The last photo is a close up of the largest fringe section. Hope you enjoy.

Disclosure...As a reviewer of products at Artbeads.com, I receive the Swarovski Pendants & Beads and Seed Beads above free of charge. I have been asked to review these products and give my honest opinion of the products...positive or negative. I am not being compensated by Artbeads.com for my endorsement as it pertains to the products received and reviewed.

A Color Bomb Goes Off

2011-03-07T11:07:00.077-05:00

It seems that I can't be happy without lots of color in our life, in this case I am using up some of the color we already had. I had planned for the hallways on the first floor to be purple but which purple ended up changing. the original idea was for the paler purple that we used in our bedroom but Wayne thought that was too light so when it finally came down to time to paint these spaces instead of choosing to use one color and needing to buy more paint I decided to go with multiple values that we already had, much more fun. 3 values of purple are used between the hallway and the one story parts of the foyer. Color me a very happy girl!

Here You can see the Wood Violet the lightest of the three value which I used in the hallway between the dining room and kitchen and from the pantry to the foyer. Lots of doorways and walls, this part alone took me a weekend to paint, not including taping and untaping.

The next project took even longer to do but for entirely different reasons. The darkest purple wall I had decided to do with a brush stroke texture, I had liked the effect so had decided to go with that under the stairs in the Honorable Blue. At some point between Wayne and I things took a bit of a turn and more than brush stroke started to happen. With the blue we ended up liking the way waves of strokes looked and then things just started rolling for there, sometimes Wayne probably wants to run when I say "I have/had and idea" but since this one was partly his fault, (he is too good at feeding that creative part of my brain sometimes) and I was doing all of the work he can't be too dismayed.

These first two photos show the first coat of the many value waves going onto the wall. They are all done with a glaze mixed with the paint so I never knew exactly how things where going to turn out. That turned out to be both a challenge and sort of freeing, of course Wayne also reminded me that the worse that could happen is that we would repaint it.

The second coat goes on here, just a tad darker and filling in more, occasionally thought the process Wayne would say something about how he thought I was going to do this or that, not so much. I seldom went with a plan, I just kind of freed myself to play. I didn't know how many coats it would take I just knew that I would know when I had it the way I wanted it.

Another coat goes on. I had decided to do a coat a day because that would allow the paint to dry completely, since I wasn't measuring the amount of glaze or any of the paints I never knew exactly how the layers would come out. I also wanted to have a bit of time to absorb one layer before deciding on the next.

This is a slightly different angle of the same coat. I found that it was slightly hard to photograph this wall, I couldn't take the photos straight on and it is really hard to truly capture what it looks like in real life. I took different angles in the hope that I would at least get an idea of what it looked like.

These last three photos are of the finished wall. Again it was really hard to photograph, it is wonderfully complex and variegated. With all of the layers that went into it that probably isn't too big a surprise.

I really can't wait to get the pieces of artwork that are going to go on the wall ready to hang, one needs it's glass replaced and another needs to be properly framed. I have chosen a few pieces that are all water related to possibly go on the wall, I still need to figure out whether they will all fit or not but in a quick audition they all look striking against the wave wall.

The last picture (below) is a close up so you can better see some of the values included, the colors aren't quite right but it gives you a better idea. I really think once the art is up on the wall I will love it even more.

In a World of Color

2011-03-03T23:06:00.001-05:00

Although as usual this last year or two this post is vastly overdue I am finally adding a new post. These photos and info on the on-going projects to make our house a home come from January. It ended up being a very productive month for us and we got several projects finished. The major projects are pictured here. I am assuming you can guess what Wayne is doing crawling around on top of the counters in this photo, I made him paint all of the difficult areas.

This is a photo of one of our two copper walls, it is a decorative painting technique using copper paint and glaze. It is amazingly difficult to photograph but it looks different no matter which direction you look at it and how the light hits it. I am beyond pleased with how it turned out, even if I ended up with some copper highlights for a couple of days.

Another project checked off the never ending To-do list that we seem to have is the curtains for the living room. I started by cutting the fabric to length well over a year ago. It has been slow going but the red metallic looks great with all of the other red accents in the room.

With the pull backs you can choose a couple of different ways to pull the curtains back, in the middle of winter any sun is a good thing so they don't get closed except when it is nasty or really cold out.

Here you can see the 2 walls of copper and my myriad collection of house plants, I have been doing remarkably well with them considering I have a brown thumb most of the time with plants. Our poinsettias from last year are even blooming this year without having put them in special lighting. Got 3 new ones this year as well.

Here you can see the Hyper blue against the copper, quite a striking combination. As usual if you have been watching the decor come together you know our colors are not too subtle but they make me happy, how did I get so lucky as to have found a spouse who doesn't think all walls should be white??????

Although we still haven't gotten to the back splashes or even put knobs on the cabinets, adding the color has really added personality to the kitchen. So many projects yet to do, knobs, back splashes, floor, plant tables.... And that is just the kitchen.

Colors of Fall

2010-12-13T10:00:00.005-05:00

If you have been following my blog you know that a little over a year ago Artbeads.com chose me to be one of their Design Partners that review their products and make pieces using them. If you have not had the chance you should check out their facebook page and their online galleries. They have some very talented designers who cover a range of styles and techniques.
This calender year they have been going with a seasonal theme for each of the projects and this one is the fall theme. I finished my piece a few weeks ago but hadn't gotten around to blogging about it. I got a bit overwhelmed trying to get ready for Christmas since I had decided to spend from the 30th of November until the 21st of December at Iowa with my folks. I will be home just over a week and then off to Wayne's folks for New Year's and his Dad's Birthday. Trying to get handmade cards made and ready to go out, planting and Christmas shopping took up all of my available time and head space.

So here it is a bit late but it is done and turned out very much like I planned. The photo above is the beads I requested. One of the challenges of doing this is trying to figure out what beads will work best for the project and how many you need, but WOW is it fun looking through their website and trying to figure it out. I love being able to try new types and colors of glass beads and working with different pendants. They have soooooo many beautiful products. When they said that it was a fall theme I immediately remembered seeing their selection of copper leaf pendents. I have really been enjoying working with copper lately and couldn't resist this beautiful leaf.

But how to showcase the pendant and really show the richness of the "Colors

of Fall"? Finally I decided on going with an embellished spiral rope. This gave me a lot of leeway on how to make the piece with all of the wonderful intensity of fall.

The first photo show the selection I chose although the copper wire is not in the photo. The second photo shows the spiral rope. The sides of the rope include the 4mm Jet Picasso Matte fire-polished beads as the accent bead. I didn't include them in the center section because they would later be hidden. I have really fallen in love with the different finishes on the Czech beads and must admit that Jet Picasso is a favorite (in different sizes and shapes it is always yummy).

Here you can see the spiral rope after it has been embellished. I used Toho 8/0 Hybrid seed beads in Apollo to embellish along the sides. They looked really neat on the website (kind of coppery) but in really life I love them even more. They have a transparent glass with a metallic copper finish that from some angles almost make them look like copper beads but they are so much more exciting than that. In the center section of the necklace I used various fringing techniques to embellish the spiral rope.

In this close up you can see some of the beads better. With a mix of seed beads, the Red, Black, and White Porohyr, 3x2mm Orange mix Picasso Roundelles, and 5x4mm Autumn Mix Roundelles. I took the copper wire and spiraled that around the center section of the necklace blending the copper of the leaf into the copper of the wire and up toward the coppery Apollo beads. The copper pendant is hanging from the copper wire spiral and can be removed so that the necklace is more versatile. I also used the copper wire to make clasps for the necklace and one of the bracelets as well as for the main part of the earrings.

I used some of my left over beads with more supplements from my collection to make a pair of earrings as well as two bracelets that I could wear with the necklace. Making my own ear wires was a first for me as was using wire to make toggle clasps and I love how they turned out. None of them take much wire and are very cost effective and they can be customized to go with the jewelry.

In these last 2 closeups you can see the copper spiral better as well as the beads and the copper pendent. The over all piece is a bit darker than I had originally planned up I love how it turned out and how rich it looks.

Disclosure...As a reviewer of products at Artbeads.com, I receive the Copper pendant and Glass Beads above free of charge. I have been asked to review these products and give my honest opinion of the products...positive or negative. I am not being compensated by Artbeads.com for my endorsement as it pertains to the products received and reviewed.

Grow where you are planted: part 2

2010-12-12T15:39:00.002-05:00

Here you can see as you come up the drive way (did I ever mention that we got a nice paved driveway early this summer?). This is photo is another partially before photo although you can see where I have been doing some digging to the left of the photo.

Although I think that you are supposed to have a plan for your garden before you start we haven't really been doing that too much, it has been more of a what next and hope that it all works out OK in the end. Here you can see the driveway better and the nice bank down to the ditch that is very boring here.

Wow somebody has been digging lots of wholes in the yard, I am thinking some seriously big moles. Trees bushes and 100 or so bulbs are going here (the bulbs are in we are still waiting for the National Arbor Society to deliver the baby trees and bushes.
You can also see the grasses that we moved from where the builder had put them in the front yard to the side of the driveway.

Here is a picture of my favorite garden gnome (isn't he cute). I started the gardening project but he started helping and with the 2 of us we got a lot more done more quickly.

You can also see another section that we dug up and planted. This area has more bulbs, asters, and a variety of plants that Mom sent us.

More asters, bulbs, iris, lilies and a Korean lilac (I love sales at Lowe's).

I will leave you with this final photo of a fall mum that was blooming as I left for Iowa shortly after Thanksgiving. We planted close to 1000 bulbs, 8 or so bushes, iris, lilies, pansies, mums, peonies and several other flowers this fall. We are still waiting for the arrival of 11 trees and 14 bushes that we have the wholes dug for. I am hoping that I will be able to update you in the spring with lots of photos of flowers blooming and plants happily taking off.

Grow where you are planted

2010-12-08T15:00:00.001-05:00

As I write this I am in Iowa and enjoying spending time with my folks and looking forward to this upcoming weekend when we will be celebrating Christmas and the 40th Anniversary of Mom adopting the 3 of us kids. I can't imagine 2 weeks before Christmas suddenly have a 1,2, and 3 year old. Tomorrow Betsy and David, my husband Wayne and Chris should all arrive. Will be the first time in a while that we have all been here together (usually Wayne is missing because of deployments or such).

I thought I would try to spend a little of my time here trying to catch up a little bit on my blogging which is so far behind as to be ridiculous. I apologise to those who like to keep up with what is going on in my life.

This fall Wayne and I have been putting some time into trying to get a start on the landscaping for the house. The builders put in some plants and we got to keep some of the trees in front and back but we want to give the place personality and as we should be living in the house for quite a while we finally have a chance to put in flowers I have wanted to add for years. The photo above is one of the 3 boxes of flowers and bulbs that my Mom sent to us. Some of the plants are cuttings from plants that were my Grandma's and the rest are from Mom's garden which means there will be flowers from 3 generations of the women in our family.

A serious challenge to our yard is that the soil is clay and in the spring they had heavy machinery on it grading, add the drought we had this summer and the soil is seriously compacted and hard to work so anywhere we wanted plants we had to dig it up and loosen it up before adding some real dirt to it. This second photo shows one of the sections I had been working on. The original plan wasn't near this ambitious but we just kept adding and adding......

This was the first area I dug up and planted. It is in front of our trees in the front yard. I planted mums, nandina (heavenly bamboo), pansies and violas as well as close to 300 bulbs. We are hoping that everything will take off and we will have a nice area in the front .

We kept going back to Lowe's (we should buy stock we shop there so much) to get more dirt and plants etc for our growing fall project. One advantage to this is that we manage to get plants that they were getting rid of and paying 25-75% less was very helpful and allowed us to buy more plants than we otherwise would of. The 3 bushes above will hopefully grow into a sort of hedge between the neighbors side yard and ours. It is a big empty space that the grass didn't really take well on so it can use something interesting.

This photo is partially here as a before photo since the builders put this area in, I added the Asiatic lilies and pansies to it but later you will see what we added.

Here is the area you saw in the 2nd photo once it has been worked more and plants and bulbs put in. The only this you can see here above ground is the 2 bushes (more sale prices at Lowe's) but there are also many more bulbs under the ground just waiting for spring to come (at least we hope).

In part 2 I will include more photos and more of what we planted.

Summertime: Part 2

2010-06-25T14:59:00.000-04:00

As I promised here you get to see how my "Summertime" piece for my review for Artbeads.com came out. Above you can see it after I used wire to attach the sections together and added beads to the outside edges of the pieces (this also covered up the wrapping that joined the sections).

The neck section is made up one length of chain and one of links of the 9 x 6 mm roundelles and some of the smaller beads. I had enough of these to also make a bracelet and earrings that coordinate with the necklace.

A close up of the necklace on the white allows you to see some of the details like the wraps around the edges better. All of the colors of the Glass Beads that I chose really ended up working well and there are some I am going to have to get more of, I am thinking that maybe I will have to combine some of them with sea glass. (If you would like to see the necklace I made with sea glass please visit my Face book page.)

The bracelet really allows you to see how truly interesting the Roundelles are, very cool. I ended up with 2 strands of links and 1 of chain for the bracelet.

I used some chandelier findings that I had and used some of the last of the Czech beads that I had left to make the earrings.

Here you can see all of all three pieces as they are laying flat, you can see the back of the necklace this way. I am really happy with how this piece turned out and Wayne says that he really likes the pieces that I have been working on lately with this technique of wire and beads together. And to think it all started with a class to learn the technique and the inspiration of the Swarovski Seashell Pendent.

Disclosure...As a reviewer of products at Artbeads.com, I receive the Swarovski crystal pendant and Glass Beads above free of charge. I have been asked to review these products and give my honest opinion of the products...positive or negative. I am not being compensated by Artbeads.com for my endorsement as it pertains to the products received and reviewed.

Summertime

2010-06-24T12:07:00.001-04:00

It is that time again. Another opportunity to review products for Artbeads.com. I have really been enjoying this as it has allowed me to try things that are new to me but also it has challenged me to come up with jewelry using different products. This time our theme was "summertime" and we had the choice of products in the Glass beads, Pendents and Charms categories. You could give me glass beads any time since it s a broad category and there are sooooo many wonderful choices in there.

I got my e-mail shortly after having returned from Wire Fest in Philly and having taken a class from Dallas Lovett that includes both wire and beads that I just adored. I came away from that class inspired to play more with the idea of combining beads and wire; that inspiration is coming into fruition in two pieces, this happens to be the first one I have finished.

After spending hours looking at Artbead.com's website and trying to figure out how I wanted to interpret "Summertime" I narrowed it down to using the Swarovski Shell pendent as my focal and working from there. Beach, ocean, and shells; they all feel summery to me. I decided to go with blues and beiges to bring out the colors of the water and sand. The photo above is my original sketch.

One of the most exciting moments for me is when the beads arrive. It is a combination of looking at all of the new gorgeous beads and know that it is time to make my ideas come to life. What will it look like when I finish it? Will it have the look, the feel the energy that I am striving for?

Here you can see all the beads laid out. Mmmm, yummy makes me want to head to the beach. The Swarovski Seashell pendent in Crystal AB was everything I could hope for. It picks up the blues and the beiges depending on the angle of the light reflecting off of it. I chose TOHO seed beads in 11/0s, 8/0s and 6/0s. In colors like Matte Apollo, Stone Blue, and Matte Natural Picasso all of my colors were everything I could have wanted and more. I also chose 3 mm and 4 mm Czech Fire-polished crystals, choosing only 2 of each size was really challenging even knowing I was going for blues and beiges. The Blue Tiger's Eye and the Crystal Picasso ended up being my favorites. And last but not least were the 9 x 6 mm Roundelles in Yellow and Cobalt blue both with a Full Picasso finish, both were to die for.

Besides a drawing as a guide and piles of beads this project also needed another really important item. Wire. I chose to go with Sterling Silver in 20 and 26 gauges. One of the things I really like with pieces like this is the challenge of figuring out how to execute them. How to turn a sketch and piles of beads into the vision I have for the piece. The photo above is the first step in making it happen, this will become the center of the piece.

Here you can see the center section finished. You can see how the seashell is looking more yellow than in the earlier photo of it. I think I may have to make another necklace with just this center section as the focal, you could use any pendent you want in it and have a really nice piece.

The first of the two side shells starts here, figuring out what beads to use and in what order is part of the fun here, Using the largest beads along the outside edge of the curve allows the beads to follow the curve without needing partial rows or gaps between rows.

This gives you an idea of where the piece is headed. I made each of the sections separately because this would make it easier to work on. The biggest challenge of working on this type of project is to keep from tangling the wire on things or poking yourself with it.

Here we have the first of the side shells. It was an unexpected benefit that you can see both a shell and an ocean wave cresting in it. And this is where I will leave you for the day. What will the piece look like when all of the part are finished and put together? Will it seem like "Summertime"?

Catching Up With Life

2010-06-22T16:29:00.000-04:00

I swear it feels like all I do is try to catch up with my life, I am so far behind on so many things that my To-Do lists have to-do lists. I can't seem to get really focused on anything so am doing a lot of bouncing around on projects for the house and creatively. At this point all of our stuff is out of storage although plenty of it is still in boxes. The photo above is my studio in mid April after the move but before some of the new additions to the room.

Memorial Day weekend we rented a cargo van and headed up to College Park and hit the Ikea. I had been wanting to go for a while but timing had never worked out. For our 20th Anniversary at the beginning of the month that is what I told Wayne I wanted (to go to Ikea before he headed off fishing with some of the men in his family). We spent the weekend building furniture (about 1500 lbs worth). This photo does not include everything we got.

These are my new blue bookcases, they go well with the blue wall across the room from them as well as the blue ceiling fan. They are no longer near this empty. We got 2 of these for the Office although those aren't built yet.

This is the new Expedit desk and shelves. I got another unit like the one on the left for the other side of this wall as well as 2 of them for our master bedroom. They are pretty cost effective and have lots of space for books, art supplies and bears.

Yes the couch is still in my studio, will figure out what kind of nesting chair I want to put in my studio once we finally get the great room finished and the couch where it belongs. You can see my new desk for creating behind it. Now I have 2 big work tables to create on. The top is a beech countertop that I still need to oil or otherwise finish. You can also see that some of the stuffed animals were quick to find homes on the new shelves.

While Wayne was gone for 10 days you would think that I spent most of my time getting my studio organized and I did a bit but I spent more time on a couple of other projects that I knew needed getting done. I managed to finish painting the last of the base moulding and almost all of the crown moulding for the great room while he was gone. The photo is of some of the crown moulding which is red with a copper paint accent. 3 coats of each color on 8 pieces meant it took a bit of time, but I can't wait to see how it looks like up. The only thing we need to paint yet is the corner pieces but Wayne needs to do something to them before I can paint them.

The other big project I tackled while he was gone was the Master Suite. I was getting tired of the clutter everywhere and boxes and........ So the new Expedit shelves went in and I completely rearranged it, including moving the bed on angle to the room. There are still project to be done but it feels much calmer since it is less jumbled. I like the bed on the angle since when you walk into the room you can see so much of the hardwood floors showing.

I also got my Sacred Space up in our bedroom. The table contains a lot of my treasures that I collect here and there. Some are pieces of the world around me that I have picked up, some are pieces of my art and a few are pieces of art and odd bits that I like. The piece on the wall is one of my newer finished pieces. It is my Zentangle Dragonfly, if you want to read a bit about it I included some of that in my BJP blog. I will try to write a post later about how I finished it. At this point I am planning on adding my 2010 BJP piece to this wall as well once it is finished. I have added candles to the table and I want to make it more stair step so that things are easier to see.

Since Wayne has been home he has put up the ceiling fan in the great room and we spent all day on Sunday trying to get the basement organized. Before Wayne can do most of what needs doing in the great room he needed his table saw up and running and to be able to work down there. The basement is the general storage area and looked like a cardboard factory had blown up down there. It isn't completely organized yet but like things are together and most of the boxes are unpacked.

I was hoping that we would be able to work on the great room this upcoming weekend but think the time may end up going to Wayne's car since it has been acting up, may need some transmission work. If so sounds like I even get to help some (I am sooooo excited).

The projects around the house are coming along but it will be a work in progress for a while. With unlimited budget, energy and time we would be further along but I love how it is coming along and it is showing our personalities. It will be a one of a kind, no doubts. If you would like to see more photos remember we have the Web Gallery that has more photos.

Also if you are interested I am on Facebook now. I play games too much but I do put short updates on some of the things I am up to there.

The Beauty of Spring: Part 2

2010-04-25T16:50:00.063-04:00

As I promised here is my finished lariat made from my Glass Beads from Artbeads.com. I reviewed them in my last post here. I started out by making the bees and the flowers and then it was time to make all of the vines full of the many shades and colors of green that show up in the spring.

I worked on this piece as I found time an energy from late February when I received the beads until the 8th of April when I finished it just in time to where it while I was attending Wire Fest in Philly. I got a lot of comments on the piece and figured out that I needed to do a tiny bit of tweaking since the way the piece sat when flat was different than when it was being worn and my bees need further anchoring.

I really enjoyed working with all of the beads that I received and think that the bead mixes are indeed a great way to get the different sizes you need for a freeform peyote piece. I may have to play some more with free form peyote, maybe developing a class to teach how to make a bracelet or something.

I felt very springy wearing my new piece and and it works well with my general style for my work which tends to be fairly organic and inspired for nature.

Once again my dress form gets put to use with my jewelry. It works great to photograph my larger/longer pieces as well as giving me a place to work on the larger pieces that I want to conform to the bodies shape.

I had to include this last photo which show the fact that I ended up with some beads left but not lots. I was unsure how many packages of the mixes to get and although I could have added more to my lariat to use up even more than I did I stopped when the piece felt finished. I am really impressed that I didn't end up with that much left over. I think those 2 extra wings might have to go onto an angel for my studio.

Disclosure...As a reviewer of products at Artbeads.com, I receive the Glass Bead elements above free of charge. I have been asked to review these products and give my honest opinion of the products...positive or negative. I am not being compensated by Artbeads.com for my endorsement as it pertains to the products received and reviewed.

The Beauty of Spring

2010-04-23T15:18:00.171-04:00

In February Artbeads.com contacted me for the next installment of Blogging for Beads. They had decided to go for the theme "The Beauty of Spring" We could choose any types of beads to review with the object of making a piece or pieces with spring as our theme. I tossed around lots of ideas and although I knew that I was going to have a super busy next month or two I decide to go for a more time consuming project.

While I was sketching out some ideas to figure out what I wanted to do Wayne thought since I had been putting butterflies and especially dragonflies in my work that I should include some bees in this piece. I also wanted to use only the stuff that I got from Artbeads.com except for the thread which I always have plenty of.

From the beads that I got with my previous shipment my review mentioned that I thought that the bead mixes from Toho would be so cool to do a freeform peyote necklace out of so I decided to do a vine necklace with flowers and some bees made out of glass beads. Then came the challenge figuring out what beads would make my "vision" come to life. How many packages of mixes, what kind of beads to use for the flowers and how to make the bees and what glass beads would work best to combine to make a bee. I must admit surfing through all of the glass beads going back and forth and looking at all of the cool beads was fun.

I ended up using a little wire to make the bees since this allowed me to give them shape but also to give them antenna. The first bee (on the left) is made from a 9 x 6 mm Opaque Jet Black w/ Half Picasso Roundelle for the head, 4- 15 x 6 mm Jet/Picasso Daggers for the wings and a 11 x 9 mm Wasabi w/ Picasso Spots Oval for the body. This is my favorite of the bees and I love all of the beads that he uses although I really think the wings are just way too cool. I also got these to use on my 2010 BJP pieces with my last selection and they show up in my January BJP block.

The second bee has a 10 mm Wasabi with Picasso Spots Lentil, 4- 18 x 8 mm Topaz Duckbill beads and a Czech Glass Brown Mix w/ Blue Picasso Oval. This one looks most like a bumble bee and is probably the most bee like. I love the stripes on the body bead. The shape of the duckbill beads is interesting and I think they could be fun to experiment with.

The last of the 3 bees uses a Czech Glass 8 mm Coin Green Stone, Czech Glass Amber with Gold Luster Small Spades for the wings and an 11 x 9 mm Matte Crystal w Picasso Oval. I had gotten 4 beads of the wings of each of the bees but for this small guy I couldn't figure out how to make the four wings fit so he only got two wings. I think the small spades would make great angel wings.

These are the beads that I got for the flowers. I got Blue Silk/ Picasso and Blue/ Jet Silk flowers to use as well as 10 mm lentils in Blue Silk w/ Picasso and Red w/ Light Picasso to be the center of 5 more flowers that I was going to use a combination of brick stitch and netting to make the "petals" of. For the petals of the flowers I got Toho bead mixes in Reds/Ambers and Blue Water. I have some of the flower beads and lentils to use in my BJP pieces although some of the colors are different. Both shapes would work well with lots of different types of projects and are available in lots of interesting colors.

And here you can see what that pile of lentils and mixes turned into with some stitching. There weren't that many seed beads left and those got thrown into the mixes for the vines. The great things was that these were fun and quick to make. I think that some of them would make neat earrings.

Here is a photo of the Spring Apples mix of beads, it was my favorite of the vine mixes and pouring out the 10 packages made just a yummy springy mix that was inspiring all on it's own.

To make my life a bit simpler while doing the free form peyote stitch I separated the Toho mixes in the Spring Apples, Mint/Forest and Forest Green into the different sizes of beads. (Yes I am a bit obsessive at times.) You can see the piles of 8/0, 11/0, 15/0 and bugles in their tray and the very beginning of the lariat that I would be making.

These last 2 photos show the beginning stages of the lariat. This was my first attempt at free-form peyote and although like any peyote project it took a fair amount of hours to do the piece I found it amazingly relaxing. I think that part of that was that it was my only creative project for the month and because it was for me a fun project that I just made decisions as I went going "where to now" and knowing that there were no wrong answers. I will post the finish project in a couple of days.

Catching Up

2010-04-21T15:17:00.000-04:00

I must apologize it has been way too long since I have written. Things have been crazy busy and we have gotten so much done in the last 2 months. March was our craziest month by far with constant things to keep us busy but the to-do lists just seem to grow faster than we can check things off it seems.

I am just going to include some of the highlights of what we have been up to and will try to find time to hit some of the projects in more detail as I have time. The first photos is of Wayne mudding the walls of the great room. We added another layer of dry wall to 3 of the walls in there. Why in the world you might add (really good question). We added a product called Green Glue between the layers of drywall. Green Glue is a product that helps with sound dampening so that the acoustic properties in the room will be better. We also added an additional layer of sub-floor in both my studio and the great room with Green Glue between the layers. In both cases the hardwood flooring went in on top of the new subfloor. We ended up putting Brazilian Koa (also known as Tiger wood) in both of those rooms.

So far we have put in hardwood flooring ourselves in the master suite, my studio and the upstairs hallway and the great room. This is it for a few months at least for flooring since we need to catch up a bit but we will also be adding hardwood in the kitchen and the dining room when we have a chance.

The second photo is of Wayne painting, we have also done a lot of painting since we closed of the house but still have plenty to do. The great room is where he is painting in the photo and the walls are now Honorable Blue and Hyper Blue( If you want to see these colors you will have to open the color visualizer and then explore colors). Once more we are not going for subtle colors anywhere but so far we both love how things look with all of the color. The third photo is a part of my studio as it was a couple of weeks ago. The studio keeps changing and will continue to as things come in and out of it and I try to get it organized. I still need a trip to Ikea to buy some furniture for it so I can really start getting it organized but we need to rent a cargo van for the trip since neither car is big enough for all of things I want/need.

This photo is of the sewing room with some of it's boxes. The end of March we took possession of our stuff that has been in storage for the last 9 months. Of course all of these boxes mean all kinds of more work to be done. We have unpacked quite a few boxes but have plenty more to do. Normally at this point I would have more unpacked than this but since we still have to figure out where some things will be going and still have spaces that need painting and furniture it is going to take longer before all of the boxes are put away.

Less than a week after the movers we had visitors for a few days of spring break. Ryan, Renee and Trevor came down. We had managed to get the guest beds usable and although their rooms were decorated with boxes still they had a good time and it gave us a couple of days to just chill a bit.

This photo shows the great room painted but not finished. We still need to buy some additional trim and paint it. Along with the 2 colors of blue there will be some white trim and some red trim. Although with red white and blue you would think it might look patriotic but so far it doesn't. The Hyper blue helps since it is sort of a cyan blue that doesn't look like a patriotic blue. The television in the great room was acting up before we moved and is pretty much nonfunctional at this point and parts have been ordered for it. When we get it working the couch will go into the great room and we will see about getting that room more finished.

The last photo I am going to leave you with is the fireplace in the great room. I painted it red and added some copper to it (it looks more gold in the photo than copper). If you would like to see more photos please visit my web gallery and visit the Decorating our house. There are around 240 photos in there at the moment.

Glass Beads

2010-02-17T14:47:00.002-05:00

This fall Artbeads.com contacted me about their blogging for beads program. Every few months they send me products to sample and ask that I review them on my blog. Last time it was Swarovski Crystals this time it was Silver and/or Glass beads. Since I am at heart a seed bead lover and I had been spending the last month or two working on ideas for my 2010 BJP I thought I would combine two different things and get beads that I could use on my BJP project.

Since I went with glass beads and seed beads I got a fair number of different goodies to play with but even then I couldn’t just stick with what they were sending me so I had to add an order of my own to get more. I am sure that the artists and beaders out there will understand you can never have enough. The joy for me is that I had two orders to open up and play with.

Since I got so many goodies I will mention the ones in this review that I loved the most and review more of them as I use them on my Zentangle BJP. All the beads were wonderful and my only complaint would be that the packages of seed beads were not big enough ( I don't think they could be ; >). They do have the advantage of if you don’t need a lot you don’t have to order a big tube and use only a hundred or so and have tons left over and you can always order more packages if you want more. Most of the non seed bead glass beads were available individually so you could order as many as you needed and ordering more means more discounts.

I admit I was really struck with some of the finishes on the Czech beads. I ended up ordering more than one size/shape in Picasso, Picasso Brick, and Blue silk. I really like the variety you get in the beads so although they are the same size and color the finish makes them just enough different to lend them some wonderful uniqueness. I ended up with squares, daggers and lentils in Jet with Picasso and even some matte lentils and I love them all. The matte ones have a really old earthy feel to them like they could have been around for a long time. I may have to order some more of some of these beads since I can see them as really cool bracelets and other jewelry.

Since I wanted to use the beads I got for my BJP project I chose seed beads that I thought that would go well with the zentangles that I am doing for my 2010 BJP. I thought some 3 mm and 9 mm Toho bugle beads might be “just the ticket” since there are quite a few zentangles with straight lines. The Metallic Blue/Purple Iris are my favorites with the Dark Rainbow Iris coming in closely behind. I must admit I do love metallic beads and choosing from the many colors was really hard for me.

I realized that the easiest way to give myself more of a selection without getting a lot more beads was to buy a couple of Toho Seed Bead Mixes. I tend to love mixes anyway and when I don’t buy them will often make my own mixes for certain projects. I ordered 4 different mixes and was quite pleased with them. They included bugles, cubes and a range of different sizes of round seed beads. Each mix was in a theme ( I chose Amber Blues, Blue Water, Grays and Blacks/Crystals). I could really see some of these mixes as really cool freeform peyote bracelets or something. These will definitely come in to play a fair amount on my different blocks for 2010.

My other favorite beads (from both orders) were:

The Toho 8/0 round hybrid Jet Picasso; like the larger Czech bead these had the same finish in a smaller size and were really cool, need more of these beauties.

The Toho 1.5 mm cube Metallic Amethyst Gunmetal; it’s like they mixed gunmetal and purple and wow if you love purple these are a “must have.” These baby cubes also make really cool bead embroidery to fill in an area. The other colors are almost as cool.

The Toho 11/0 round Matte Nickel-Plated Plum/Teal Iris and the 8/0 Matte Raku Nickel-Plated Plum/Teal Iris; not sure what the difference is with the raku on the 8/0’s is but this is a color bomb that has lots of Wow to it. It is a mix of fuchsia, teals, purples, and copper like colors in it. Will have to make sure to pepper these around here and there for some fun sassy color.

I am including more photos of the beads in my Zentangle BJP album on my web gallery. If you are interested in knowing more leave a comment here I will get you the item number. I will also have more photos of all the beads in use every month in my Zentangle BJP.

Disclosure...As a reviewer of products at Artbeads.com, I received the glass beads above free of charge. I have been asked to review these products and give my honest opinion of the products...positive or negative. I am not being compensated by Artbeads.com for my endorsement as it pertains to the products received and reviewed.

Guest Bath and Laundry Room

2010-02-03T15:30:00.017-05:00

I thought I would start this post with a picture of my favorite painting stud. He is standing on the work platform which works great upstairs where we have 8 foot ceilings. This is just a quick post to show the painting in the Guest Bathroom and the Laundry room. We painted both the same color of blue that we had used in our Master bath. It is a nice middle blue so it isn't so deep that it makes the room dark but it gives it a nice energy. with the white tub and tile it is a nice crisp look.

Here you can see the sink cabinet and the white tile. So far we are going with the theme we have had in the guest bathroom for a while which is fish. Not sure if that will be the theme in the long run or not.

Before we moved our stuff into the house we painted the laundry room. Wayne didn't think the room need paint, but he doesn't do the laundry either, I wanted some color so that it would be a bit happier.

Since we have been so busy with the house and decorating and I am behind with my posts so if you wish to see more photos of what we are up to or what I am doing on my 2010 BJP you can go to my Web Gallery. If you want to read about my BJP project you can visit my bjp blog.

Studio in Progress

2010-01-31T14:56:00.057-05:00

The studio is coming along nicely and we recently ordered the hardwood for the floors. We had to change the plan since they didn't have purple-heart available. I will be having Brazilian Koa (also known as Tiger wood) for my studio and the upstairs hallway outside of my studio. When we picked out the ceiling fan for my studio and found out that our flooring plan might change I decided to change my color scheme a bit so that it would work better with those choices. The new ceiling fan is a beautiful cobalt blue so I went with the focal wall in the Honorable Blue that we had used for the tray in our Master suite, I loved the color so thought it would be a nice contrast. That wall will have my Ikea bookshelves in white (they are open back) and the TV/stereo. The other 3 walls have Wood Violet around the bottom and Tassel on the top. I need to pick some trim to go at chair rail height.

From this view you can see my 3 windows which face south. When the sun is out their is a lot of nice sunshine. I have four overhead lights and a ceiling fan with lights so even without task lighting I should be good. We switched out the regular bulbs the builder had put in with daylight fluorescent bulbs. Eight bulbs later the difference is huge. We still need to see about better bulbs for the ceiling fan.

This view lets you see the sink, at this point it is just a stand for the little stereo so we have something to listen to while working in there.

Here you can see the first step in my first decorative painting project. Since this is my studio and a creative space I wanted something to make it feel happy and something I would enjoy and make it more mine. After going through quite a few different ideas I decided that I wanted to paint vines around the top on the 3 sides that were gold near the top. The first step was to free hand the vines with a watercolor pencil (if I made any mistakes I could erase them with a sponge). I will probably be adding flowers to the vine later but I didn't draw them in.

This is the second go around this time with paint. I was going to do the shading the first time and realized that the paint wasn't going to cover enough so I switched to just the main color and plan on a second go around with more colors to add the shading. This will take some time do but should be worth it in the end.

Since we have been so busy with the house and decorating and I am behind with my posts so if you wish to see more photos of what we are up to or what I am doing on my 2010 BJP you can go to my Web Gallery. If you want to read about my BJP project you can visit my bjp blog.

Hardwood Floors

2010-01-27T14:56:00.001-05:00

We have continued to be busy with projects for the house. The most recent BIG project that we tackled was putting in our first hardwood floor. We started with the Master suite for the same reason we painted their first because we wanted to have the room usable as much as possible. We will also be putting in hardwood floors in the upstairs hallway, my studio, the great room, the kitchen/breakfast room and the dining room. That's a lot of wood and a lot of work but once we are all done it will be really nice.

We learned a lot this time around and hopefully it will go slightly more quickly and smoothly. There is a lot of prep work needed to get the floor ready. The photo above shows the floor with the underlayment laid down.

This photo shows the room with some of the wood laid on the floor. We chose Brazilian Cherry for our master bedroom and had lots of very heavy boxes of wood to use. Laying a hard wood floor is sort of like putting a puzzle together. You don't want all of the short pieces together, all the light pieces in one area or any thing like that and you need to make sure that your joints from one row aren't too close to the next row or that your joints from the previous row are the same as your upcoming row.

The photo above show the next rows ready to be laid down. My job was to lay down the up coming rows and to cut the end pieces. Wayne put it all together and used the big pneumatic nail gun that we had rented. Between Saturday and Sunday we got most of the flooring down and everything that required the big nail gun. The last few rows of the bedroom and the closets got done later. It is funny that the last few rows took longer than the whole rest of the floor.

Besides the beginning and ending rows the closets had some challenges as well. I guess the good news is that we learned a lot with this floor. This last weekend Wayne put in the shoe moulding so that we have the floor finished except for adding some quarter round in the closets, possibly getting new air vent covers and putting in some threshold pieces which Wayne needs the rest of his tools for.

We have the bed and some of the furniture back in the bedroom and I have ordered curtain rods. There will still be project to do in here the biggest being turning the walk in closets to much more efficient spaces. I also need to sew the roman shades for the room and we will have some furniture decisions to make once we get the rest of our stuff out of storage but we shouldn't have to take everything out again.

Since we have been so busy with the house and decorating and I am behind with my posts so if you wish to see more photos of what we are up to or what I am doing on my 2010 BJP you can go to my Web Gallery. If you want to read about my BJP project you can visit my bjp blog.

Master Suite Painted

2010-01-04T14:39:00.000-05:00

I am way behind on posting to my blogs which seems to be more of the norm than I would like lately. It seems to be way more challenging to paint a new house, move into said house and do all of the normal Christmas stuff than just do the regular holiday stuff (go figure). It doesn't help that we have been without internet since the line to our house was no good and they need to put in a new line before we can get internet to the house. Hard to write blogs without a home internet service. These photos are a bit behind where we currently are in decorating but since I know that some people don't go to the web gallery to see the newest photos, I thought I might include some here. All of these photos are of the master suite. There are 2 colors of purple, 2 of blue, 2 of gold and the whites that we left. I really love how it has turned out and the colors make me feel very happy. I lucked out and had curtains that would work from our house in Rhode Island that work perfectly for our bathroom, one less space that I will need new curtains for.

The 2 pictures below show the master bedroom. The first one is before we painted the crown moulding the darker gold. Makes a huge difference. The colors in the second photo are more accurate. I like the first one cause it has my "painting stud" in it, doesn't he look proud? We are trying to get some photos here and there that include us in them. Not our forte I am afraid.

The last photo is of me in front of my Concord grape wall. It is a beautiful dark purple and I was acting silly. My favorite pain outfit is slowly getting more paint on it especially the pants which I wipe my fingers on. I will try to get more posts up about the house but it will depend on how much time I can get to the internet. I want to thank all of of our Family and Friends for all of the good wishes and Christmas notes. Wayne and I would also like to wish all of you a wondrous New Year.

The Painting Has Started

2009-12-06T12:12:00.001-05:00

This first photo shows the cooktop side of the kitchen with the backsplash that was missing. It will be interesting to see how the kitchen looks once we add the hardwood floors and paint the walls and eventually when we get around to adding the tile back splashes. I am looking forward to lots of cooking in this wonderful kitchen.

We have started in on the painting for the house. Starting with our master suite since we will want to be able to use the new bathroom once we move in. We probably won't move our stuff into the master bedroom until we add the hardwood floors which will probably happen in January. My color scheme is not going to be subtle anywhere in the house with lots of mid to dark value colors, no pastels for us. The master-suite is the only place that I am planning on painting the ceiling. The color palette is blues, purples and golds with white left at the doors and windows.
The bathroom is mostly finished being painted (one more coat on the trim needed) and is just waiting to be put back together, have the grout sealed and towel bars etc hung. To see more photos of the house as it progresses please check out our web gallery where you can see photos from the beginning of construction to where we are currently at with projects to make it uniquely ours.

Neither Wayne or I have painted walls for years and years so we are learning a lot and getting better at it as we get more practice.
The most used "option" or feature for that matter in out new home at this point is our washtub. You can see Wayne cleaning up his painting supplies at our now not quite so new looking washtub.

We have be looking at and buying/ordering bathroom hardware and started looking for ceiling fans to put in the main rooms we will be using. Thanks so much Renee for schlepping us around Philly to look at stuff and for all of your expertise.

Since we will be moving into the house to live just prior to Christmas and our Christmas decorations are in storage with the Navy, we bought a small Christmas tree that we can enjoy. I think it will be quite happy in our sunny breakfast nook although it may need a string of lights to be more festive.

New House

2009-12-02T16:39:00.003-05:00

Well it is official the bank owns a new house. Ok really it is ours but the bank owns a lot more of it than we do.

As you can see from the photo we still don't have a yard. Although we have had a warmer than normal fall it has also been really rainy. We have not had more than one sunny day in a row and plenty of rain during the last few weeks or more. They haven't even been able to finish grading it since it is basically one big mud trap.

This photo is of our breakfast nook, of course it is a really big nook and really close to being a sun room with southern exposure. I think we will really enjoy this room especially on nice days in the winter when the sun will be most welcome. Right now the sliding glass doors lead out to a 15+ foot drop but we will eventually put a deck out there. The whole house is currently this boring combination of bone and white which I am looking forward to changing to lots of color.

This photo is the foyer and the stairs that lead up to my studio (the most important room in the house). Currently this is the only hardwood in the house but we will be putting in plenty more in the next months. We will end up with only the 3 upstairs bedrooms with carpet, tile in the full baths and vinyl in the laundry/mud room, the rest will be hardwoods.

The last photo is of the sink side of the kitchen. This photo doesn't have the four inch granite backsplash that it will have. We will be adding a backsplash later but it may take a bit since we have a pretty long list of projects and that can be done at any time. The more painting and flooring we can do before we have the Navy take our stuff out of storage and deliver it the better. The kitchen is nice and big which will be nice since we like to cook together. It will also be good for entertaining since several people could work in there and not get in each others way.

Crystal Jewelry

2009-11-15T12:34:00.006-05:00

As I promised here are the projects that I made with the new crystals I got from Artbeads.com. The earrings above used the Topaz Leaf Crystal Pendant that I chose. I added 4 mm crystals and pearls from my collection using head pins to make the dangles and joined them all together with a few different sizes of jump rings and now they are fun pair of fall earrings.
The 3 and 4 mm bi-cones in Crystal Heliotrope and the rivoli button went into this matching set of bracelet and necklace. I combined them with some seed beads and black oxide beads and used them while teaching my Flat Double Spiral and Single Spiral Rope Classes at Bead Boutique. Combining the Crystal Heliotrope with silver and Black Oxide makes for a very elegant set.

The Amethyst and Crystal Vitrail Light rivolis both went into these oh so subtle earrings above. They are loosely based on my new rivoli earring class that I will be teaching at Bead Boutique. With the addition on 6 mm facetted imitation alexandrite stones, a snap fittings and some sterling silver wire these earrings go well with the many purples in my wardrobe and jewelry. This is my first attempt at multi-tier wire wrapping and I really like how it turned out. I think I may have to try doing some wire wrapping that joins multiple cabochons or rivolis of different sizes to make unusual pendants or centers for a necklace.
These earrings are more closely related to the Wire Wrapped Rivoli Earring class although once again they have the addition of 6 mm snap fittings; this time with imitation emeralds. Here I have combined gold-filled wire with the sterling silver wire for a pair of earrings that work with either gold or silver jewelry. the emerald and crystal copper go really well together and give these earrings a very earthy feel.
Once again last but not least are my fishy earrings. Adding 4 mm bi-cones and 6 mm top drilled bi-cones in shades of blues to the fish pendants and I have glistening water for the fish to swim in.

Remember that if you would like to check out Artbeads.com for yourself you can use the code SCF10P-ARTBEADS-0424 and get 10% off your order through the end of the year with no minimum purchase.

Disclosure...As a reviewer of products at Artbeads.com, I received the Swarovski crystal elements above free of charge. I have been asked to review these products and give my honest opinion of the products...positive or negative. I am not being compensated by Artbeads.com for my endorsement as it pertains to the products received and reviewed.

Adding Crystals to my life.

2009-11-11T16:06:00.009-05:00

Recently I ordered some Swarovski crystals from Artbeads.com so that I could play with some new stuff and to try out some of the crystal that my LBS doesn't happen to carry. I made a small order and wanted to choose things that I could relatively quickly turn into finished pieces with the crystal and supplies I already have.

Artbeads.com has a pretty impressive collection of Swarovski Elements and keeping the order reasonable was pretty challenging since I wanted some of everything. One of the nice things is that they have free shipping on all orders in the USA or $1 to Canada. (More money to spend on crystals.)

The photo above is my order all wrapped up in purple tissue paper which I think I will have to use in a collage once my studio is up and running. The photo below is all of my goodies laid out. What did I order? 100 each of the 3 mm and 4 mm Crystal Heliotrope bi-cones, 12 mm rivolis in Crystal Copper and Crystal Vitrail Light, 14 mm rivolis in Amethyst, 10 mm rivoli buttons in Crystal Meridian Blue, 2 of the brand new Fish Pendants in Crystal Golden Shadow and 2 of the smaller 16 x 26 mm leaf pendants in Topaz.
So what do I think of all of my new pretties and what are they getting made into? The bi-cones were a no brainer for me since I had previously purchased that color. Crystal Heliotrope is a hard color to find so I was thrilled when I saw they had it. It looks sort of grey with flashes of purple and blue so it is perfect when you want something refined with a bit of fun. These and the buttons are going into some spiral rope jewelry. The buttons are a a neat blue with flashes of pink and orange and other colors depending on the light and make great clasps.

The rivolis are all going into wire wrapped rivoli earrings which is one of my newer classes that I am offering at Bead Boutique. All of the colors are gorgeous. I've worked with both Amethyst and Crystal Vitrail Light before, the crystal copper is a new color for me and I really impressed with how rich it looked. I have loved the leaf shaped pendant since they came out with it but only recently had purchased some in the clear crystal for some winter leaf earrings so I was really looking forward to the topaz ones since I knew they would make wonderful fall earrings. Last but far from least is the brand new fish pendant which is one of the new Fall/Winter shapes from Swarovski. They looked cool online but in person they are so much better. They have such depth and facets to really catch the light. I may have to try more of these in some of their other colors. Fish earrings here we come.
With my order I got a Share the Savings Card that I would like to share with anyone who would be interested in checking out Artbeads.com for themselves. Although I just purchased crystal this time they have lots of other goodies. With the code I am including you can get 10% off your order through the end of the year. The code is SCF10P-ARTBEADS-0424. Now to figure out what I want to get next? Maybe some seed beads for next years Bead Journal Project which starts in January? MMMM.........

Come back in a few days to see what I have done with all of these yummy crystals.

I Dream in Color

2009-11-04T15:06:00.003-05:00

Actually the truth is I seldom dream in color or even in images but the title is meant to suggest the fact that the last couple of months I have been a bit obsessed with color as I contemplate all of the colors I want to use in the new home we are building. I am probably going completely overboard but since after years of living in houses where all of the walls were white or off white I want to be surrounded by color. The photos for this post are of the paint strips and some of the curtain fabric that we have chosen.
We have pretty much chosen the colors we are planning on using and have a mere 11 colors. I know I am sure people are going to wonder if I am insane. (3 of those are blues, 4 purples, a grey and the rest are gold to copper.) We have decided to go with Harmony paints by Sherwin Williams. It is a no VOC so hopefully it won't be hard on my head. Most of the walls will eventually be painted. Most of the trim and ceilings will be left white as a crisp contrast. We will be putting in our own hardwood floors in lots of the rooms. Doing it ourselves will allow us to use hardwood on more floors and use a couple of woods that the builder did not carry like Purple-heart and Bloodwood.
I have ordered most of the fabrics I want for the curtains for the main rooms in the house and our Master suite. In my first wave of curtain making I am doing 18 curtain panels (all lined, 2 interlined) and 6 Roman shades. It will take a while but I have a really good start on the 8 curtain panels for our bedroom. It is a gorgeous navy blue silk dupioni fabric. It is a lot nicer to work with than I thought it would be. I am including photos of the house from the lot until it is painted and decorated in my web gallery. It has been a lot of fun watching it come together and I think that our builders (Quality Built Homes) has been doing a good job so far.

Building a Home

2009-09-24T14:36:00.004-04:00

Wayne and I have decided to take pictures as our new home develops so that anyone who wants to share in the journey can. We were having a hard time finding a house that had all of the things we needed and wanted so after looking and looking and trying to decide what we would be willing to compromise on we looked at some new construction and then looked at a couple of builders. Quality Built Homes had features that we liked and had a floor plan that with some modifications looked to be the closest to what we were looking for.
Some of the photos we are taking are going onto my web gallery. We try to get out to the house about once a week or so and it has been fun to see all the differences from one visit to the next. The first photo above is Wayne looking at one of the marker flags on the property. The next one is after they started digging for the basement.
Here the basement walls have been pored. The garage is closest to the camera. When I left for Iowa that was were we were in the construction. While I was gone Wayne took photos and put them on the gallery so that I could see them.
Here the first floor gets framed in. and while I was gone the second floor and roof went up and the windows started getting put in. The photo below is from my first visit once I got back. The shingles are on and most of the windows were in. When I visited on Monday all of the windows were in and a lot of the air handling systems were in although not all of them. We also had stairs to get between floors.
I am planning on keeping this going after we move into the house so we can document the hardwood floors that we are going to put in and all of the painting and other changes we are going to make to the house to make it our home. At this point a lot of my creative energy is going into making decisions for the house. Picking out colors (only 13 or so at last count), fabrics for curtains and Roman shades that I will make and other fun choices. I occasionally wake up from dreaming about house colors so it seems that I am definitely invested in this project. I hope that you will enjoy the ride with us.

The Passing of a Great Woman

2009-09-18T16:58:00.003-04:00

On the 30th of August my Grandmother died and I have spent the last 2 weeks at home with my folks going to the funeral and helping as much as I could. Although she was 106 she didn't die of old age but complications of surgery for skin cancer on her face. In ways it is surprising to have her gone we all expected her to be around longer. She had told me she would see me when she was 110. The thing is I wouldn't have been a bit surprised if I had seen her when she was 110.

Grandma had a great love of reading non-fiction and loved her garden and birds. Born to a later generation I think she would have become a botanist or something else to utilize her love of learning and plants and knowledge.

She lived for her family which wasn't small and could never wait for the next grand, great grand or great-great grand baby to come along. Her room was always full of the photos and letters that we all sent her and she was always so excited when she could say that she had a grand daughter living in Japan, Hawaii or the less exciting places that we called home.

She was an amazing person and she will be missed by all of her family and friends.

Good-bye Grandma

Leola Throne

Leola Throne, age 106, of Battle Creek, Iowa, died Sunday, August 30, 2009, at Horn Memorial Hospital in Ida Grove, Iowa.

Funeral services will be held 10:30 a.m. Thursday, September 3, 2009, at the First Presbyterian Church in Battle Creek, Iowa, under the direction of Christensen-Huffman Funeral Homes. The Reverend Kevin J. Freese will officiate, with burial to follow in Mount Hope Cemetery, Battle Creek, Iowa. Friends may call at Christensen-Huffman Funeral Home in Battle Creek on Wednesday from 4-8 p.m.

Born August 7, 1903, in Lebanon, Missouri, Leola Throne was the daughter of Daniel and Lavicia (Mizer) Thomas. She spent her adult life in the Battle Creek area and married Henry Throne on April 4, 1921. They operated a farm north of Battle Creek, Iowa, where they raised their family of eight children. Henry died on January 30, 1949. Left with young children to raise, Leola bravely met the challenge. She was a loving and hard-working mother; her family always came first.

Leola was a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Battle Creek and a charter member of the Neighborly Neighbors Club.

Over the years, Leola has enjoyed traveling to visit family members and participating in several large family reunions through her 106^th birthday. In addition to her family, Leola's interest was always in gardening, nature, and working outdoors.

She is survived by five children, Donnabelle (William) Strudwick of Muskegon, MI, Nolan (Sandra) Throne of Muskegon, MI, Eugene (Linda) Throne of Stockton, MO, Judith (Marlen) Pellersels of Sac City, and Barbara (Roger) Welte of Aiken, SC; two daughters-in-law, Carlene Gehrts of Sioux City and Betty Throne of Colorado Springs, CO; 19 grandchildren; two step-grandchildren; 26 great-grandchildren; five step-great-grandchildren; and two great-great-grandsons. Other survivors include a sister, Alberta (Charles) Sherwood of Ehprata, WA; and many nieces and nephews.

She was preceded in death by her husband; three sons, Norman Throne at age 20 months, Richard Throne at age 69, and Ernest Throne at age 77; her parents; two brothers, Wilbur and William Thomas; and five sisters, Florene Thomas, Marie Thomas, Dorothy Weis, Doris Iwen, and Lora Williamson.

Trip to Boston and Bead Fest.

2009-08-28T13:12:00.005-04:00

As usual lately I am behind myself. I need to get back into the swing of things and get back to blogging more regularly. Wayne and I had a great trip to Boston in the last half of July. Attending the Change of Command for the USS Constitution was a really neat experience even if it was a bit on the rainy side. In the afternoon we had a great time with all of Tim and Mary Ellen's family and friends at the local brewpub.

Wayne and I also spent some time going to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum on Saturday. I had a really good time there and enjoyed seeing her eclectic collection of art.

We stayed at a nice hotel and had some good meals and spent some time just taking it easy. Over all it was a wonderful trip.

On Monday I got back from a wonderful long weekend up in Philly attending Bead Fest. I took 6 classes and over achiever that I am finished all of my projects before I came home. I had good teachers and enjoyed every class. I found it interesting the difference I felt in my energy between the wire classes and the stitching/seed bead classes. Stitching is much more zen like for me and I could just relax into doing it, I have to think more for the wire and so although still fun it isn't as calming for me.
On Thursday during the day I took this class with Stephanie Everett. We made a necklet that has the clasp in the front that you can hang different pendents on. I managed to get two pendents made although I made them with my style and techniques instead of hers since I already know how to make wire wrapped cabs. Stephanie is a good teacher, I had taken a chain maille class with her last year.
Thursday night I took the Herringbone Hoops class below with Cristina Amador I managed to get 2 pairs of earrings done in the 3 hour class and love how fun and easy these are to make. I picked up the herringbone wrap really quickly. This was Cristina's first class in English and she did really well. The room was a bit darker but we all managed.
Friday I got to start working on this stunning bracelet (below) It is called Davida's Dream and is by Amy Katz. The piece as you can see is gorgeous and her instructions were well written, always a plus. She was a lot of as a teacher. She ended up with 6 of us in her class that were teachers so she was impressed at how well we did. Even those who were slower were more what she was used to for average. I got my piece at least 3/4 finished in class and finished it up on Saturday night while I was waiting for Dave and Renee to come home from their anniversary trip. I stayed at their house and although we didn't get to spend a lot of time together Dave made a wonderful supper Sunday night and we talked and they got to see the color samples that I have so far for the house.
On Saturday during the day I took Three Wire Wrapped Earrings class with Debora Mauser. This was a fun class and I got to try several new things with wire. My favorite are the dangle earrings on the right. I really enjoyed playing with not quite matching earrings and trying and mixing different techniques and metals in one pair of earrings.
Saturday night I took a just for fun class. Crystal Elements with Leslee Frumin was that a fun class. I know have these 4 little pieces to play with. I think the beads would be ultra cool on a simple chain necklace or bracelet. They were really quick to work up and look wicked cool.
Sunday I took my last and most elaborate class. It was Wire Wrapped Copper Collar with Lamp work Bead with Sally Stevens. Her daughter Shannon does the lamp worked beads. I wanted my piece to be asymmetrical and really liked how it turned out. I like the combination of lamp work beads with the metal and how all of the different textures work together in this piece. I had sore thumbs once I was done with this one. I am enjoying watching the copper start to slowly patina before my eyes, each day it is a little different. Who needs liver of sulfur when nature will do it just fine.
I didn't have a lot of time for shopping on this trip which is just as well since I had no trouble spending my money in the time I did have. I only ended up with a couple of seed beads, but didn't need anything specific in seed beads so stuck to what I did need. What a great time.

Trip to Boston

2009-07-21T23:19:00.003-04:00

July hasn't calmed down yet but we got through our appointment at the Design Center for the house so most of our choices with the builder should be done. Now we just get to watch them build our new home.

I am hoping things will start to settle down some. I got some work done this last weekend including a bit more work on my Sacred Tree BJP May block. I still have more work to do on it but it is no longer stalled which is nice.

The other project I worked on recently is the watercolor above. We are sailing off (OK really we are flying) to go to Boston to go to the Change of Command for the USS Constitution (Named after the Constitution of the United States of America by President George Washington, she is the oldest commissioned naval vessel afloat in the world.) We have a friend who will be taking over as the Commanding Officer for this beautiful vessel. I wanted to give him a piece of art work as a gift for this wonderful day. Wayne an I are both looking forward for the chance to take this trip and hope to just chill out a bit.

I am planning on taking my BJP pages so that I can work on them while we are traveling. Really just hoping that I don't forget anything important.

New Temporary Home

2009-07-08T15:11:00.004-04:00

I must say that June and early July were entirely too hectic and that I have been unable to do any thing creative in far far too long. Things should start settling down a little bit now so maybe I will find some time to create and just be.

After looking at 60+ houses in the local area and none really speaking to us (some would have worked but none seemed just right) Wayne and I decided to have a house built. Hopefully they will get back to us with a projected date and get started on it soon. So many of the houses required more give than we wanted to the spaces we wanted. I must admit lack of a good studio space knocked quite a few out of the running. Wayne understands though so when we could find a good house we decided to build. The good news is that we have similar tastes and visions for the house. The builder (Quality Built Homes) is a semi-custom so there are some things we might have done that we won't be able to but we will be changing some things as soon as we close on the house.

I am so looking forward to being able to decorate however I want and not be worried about changing it all back to boring white or beige in a couple of years. I am thinking bold colors. Wayne suggested purpleheart hardwood floors for my studio which I think would be really cool. We will probably adding hardwood to most of the main spaces. Still deciding on what kind(s) we want.

June was spent looking at houses, talking to the builder and getting ready for a move. Wayne spent some time ripping the engine out of the older Integra and since the movers wouldn't take it without him draining all of the fluids we moved it with us. Good thing he got that handy engine hoist.

It was challenging trying to make sure I had what I needed for 6 months of being creative. We moved pretty much all of my beads and any other project I thought I would want to work on the next several months. I also brought my sewing machine so that I can get a head start on sewing curtains if I want to. I saw some beautiful dupioni silk that would look great so may order some if I can make up my mind on colors for the rooms. The only room I am pretty set on is the dining room. That is going to be two shades of blue with silver/grey accents. Nope I am so not going subtle. I can always repaint if I don't like it in a couple of years. I want to go spend some time at Sherwin Williams and Benjamin Moore and look at what they have in colors and types of paint.

Now that we have moved into our new temporary home things should settle down and I should be able to spend a bit of time creating. I still have a bit of organizing to do but after that I am planning on just going a bit crazy working on creating. I am still only part way through my May BJP page and would really like to spend some time on that and working on other projects that I have fallen behind on.

Wire Fest

2009-06-04T14:45:00.006-04:00

I am really glad that I had the opportunity to go to Wire Fest in Philly this year. I came back from 2 1/2 weeks in Iowa and Wayne and I headed straight up to Philly from the airport. I am also lucky since Renee, Dave and the boys who are part of our chosen family live nearby so I could stay there and didn't have to get a hotel room for the stay.

I chose to take 3 classes from the same instructor since I wanted to focus on learning more about doing wire wrapped cabochon pendants with the hopes of being able to start teaching classes at Bead Boutique since no one was currently teaching that and there had been requests. All three of my classes were with Char Jorgensen. She was a great teacher and we had fun and learned a lot. The top photo are the 3 pendants that I made in her 3 classes. The turquoise one is not quite complete since I am planning on adding drops from a loop on the bottom and one in the middle of it.

I had a good time at the Bead-In on Saturday night as well and as I sat working on the background for my BJP project I got to talk and laugh and enjoy the company of other beaders/wire workers. I spent all of Saturday afternoon shopping and had no trouble spending plenty of money. I even managed to get more seed beads from Jane's Fibers and Beads. I also bought a wonderful book for anyone interested in wire wrapping. "Wire Wrapping: The Basics and Beyond" by Jim McIntosh is a great book and I believe that with it you could start from scratch and teach yourself wire wrapping of cabochons. There are step by step directions and photos.

The second photo with the purple background has my wire fest pendants and the first 2 wire wrapped pendants I had make taking classes at Turquoise String Beads in Fall River, Massachusetts from Isaac Silva. He was also a great teacher and I would have taken more classes with him if we had stayed in that area.

I spent some time after getting back re-reading all of my instructions for my classes and starting to read my new book and figure out what I wanted to start with teaching and how I wanted them to look. I am going to be starting with two basic wire wrapped cabochon classes that are a combination of the ideas I have seen or learned form my instructors and the book. Once things settle down and I have time I will work on designing some intermediate classes as well.

The first 2 photos on the black are my 2 basic class samples and the others are some that I was making to practice my skills and just for fun. I have plenty of cabochons to play with and am looking forward to finding time especially after our move to play with them and try different techniques and build on the skills I have at this point. I am sure that I will keep an eye out for more cabochons so that I can keep making more pendants and other cool stuff.

I almost forgot to mention that my wonderful, amazing and very supportive husband bought me a set of wire wrapping tools from Rio Grande that includes several very nice pliers, ring mandrels, and other goodies that will make my wire wrapping even that much more pleasurable. What would I do without him?

Life in Flux

2009-06-02T13:57:00.004-04:00

These are the roses Wayne gave me for our anniversary with some Irises from our garden. I do like that the irises bloom around our anniversary each year.

In the 2 weeks+ since I have written a lot has changed in our life. Our original plan was to spend the summer looking at houses and try to move into a new home of our own in late fall. One of the casualties of the presidential helicopter going away was our landlords job so things had to change. We had a choice of planning on leaving by the end of the summer so anyone wanting to buy the house could move in before school started and they wouldn't have as likely a chance of the house being empty all winter until spring or signing a new lease until next summer. We understood completely and since our last move that the military will pay for ends in April of next year we chose this summer so that we would still have the navy moving us.

About a week after that after having done a walk thru with the real estate agent and later a stager. It was recommended that if they wanted to sell the house quickly that it would be better if it was empty and refurbished and staged. (I guess they must not have liked the rooms of boxes, craft supplies and the dreaded by designers home theater.) That led to us getting 30 days notice Memorial day weekend. Quite the whirlwind month. I can't blame our landlords, they can't afford the 2 mortgages without knowing we will be paying rent and without knowing whether they will have his job or a new job or what.

All of this means we will be moving out of this house the end of the month. We have already started looking at houses to buy and depending on if we find one that we want to buy, whether it is empty, occupied and if we decide to buy a new house or what will determine what we will end up doing after this. We are preparing for a potential long term storage so that everything will go into storage until we can move into a new place. If we can't just move straight from here to the new house (somewhat unlikely) then we will either get a short term rental (3-6 month) or we will rent an apartment or stay at an extended stay if we only need something for a month or so. The hardest part will be if we need to figure out what all we need to have with us for 6 months without access to any of the storage stuff. I guess luckily we have done something very similar before so we will manage just fine.

We were really glad that we already had an appointment scheduled with the same real estate agent we had worked with when we moved here. Susan Stachelczyk has been a great agent and has already gone out with us more than once and I am going to be spending the day on Thursday looking at houses all day. We have found some possibilities but nothing that is just right. It is challenging to find a house that works with all of our combined passions. When you combine wood working, car work, home theatre, target shooting, camping, and cooking with my need for a hopefully wonderful studio space it can become quite challenging. So far nothing has been perfect but some are still in the running.

I should be pretty busy this whole month. I am trying to add some new classes to my schedule in July so I need to work on samples (2 are done and delivered), supply lists and instructions. I will need to start with some of the pre-packing that needs to be done. The movers will pack up almost everything but we will have to do anything that we want with us, that is too important to want the movers pack up, and get things off the wall etc. The more organized I can have things on the front end of the move the easier it will be for me in the end. I am not sure how much of the move Wayne will be able to be here for, once again luckily I have done this alone before so if he can't be here the whole time I will be OK. I also need to work on cleaning as I go so there isn't much to do after the movers are done.

I have been a bit stressed but I am beginning to settle down now that we have started working in the right direction and I have started on to-do lists to help me prioritize. I even managed to fit in a little time in the last couple of days to work on my BJP page for May. I had gotten very little done so far on it. I am making a 3-D Iris for it and have gotten the main flower and stem done, I am just working on stiffening it so that it will hold it's form once on the block. I hope to also have the time to paint my blocks for the rest of the months and pick out beads for them so that if we do end up in a hotel, apartment or short term rental I will still be able to work on my piece.

I will have a post out in the next day or two for my wire fest trip. Since I am going to start teaching wire wrapped cabochons it is currently pertinent. I have been enjoying making them.

Trip to Iowa

2009-05-12T15:11:00.003-04:00

I spent the second half of April in Iowa so that I could spend some quality time with my folks and visit my brother, sister, godparents, grandmothers and a couple of other friends of the family.

My Dad was in the hospital when I arrived home with pneumonia and needing more blood transfusions. We found out that we were going to spend part of my first weekend home up in Rochester at the Mayo Clinic. We spent Saturday afternoon and night at the Wild Rose Casino in northern Iowa and then drove up to Rochester on Sunday for what ended up being appointments and tests for 3 days.

I got a lot of work done on my April bead journal piece while sitting around in the clinic and hospital. Our hotel was within walking distance of some stores so I went shopping in the afternoons two days so that Dad could take a nap in quiet. I found some perfectly dark purple sheets as well as some other goodies including a knitting loom that I started making a red and purple throw on.

Unfortunately they could not find where he was bleeding and it looks like it is somewhere in the small intestines that they can't get to. Good news is that now that he has been off of Plavix longer that the bleeding is slowing down so that he can make blood almost as fast as he looses it. When I left he had gone almost 3 weeks without a transfusion which is much better than he has done for months.

The picture above is of (left-right) me, Mom, my sister Betsy, and my brother Chris. We are standing on the golf course that my brother is in charge of landscaping for. In the background you can see some of the flooding that happened due to some very heavy thunderstorms the day before. We didn't get to see Chris very long but it was good to see him. He keeps pretty busy this time of year. Betsy and David came home with Mom and I for a couple of days.
This picture is (l-r) Betsy, my maternal Grandma, me and David. I got two chances to visit my Grandma while I was home. She is 105 and will be 106 in the beginning of August. She has definitely slowed down but is doing better than a couple of her kids at this point.
This is me with my new much shorter haircut. I haven't had it this short since I was in second grade. Wayne thinks it is funny that I had to fly all the way to Iowa to get my hair cut. It took me awhile to get used to how it looked since it was so different but it is really growing on me. I don't have to put it back to keep the hair out of my eyes when I work and it doesn't blow in my eyes when I walk and is cooler. The magnolias behind me are from the tree that her kids planted outside of Grandma's window at the nursing home.

I also got to see my godparents who aren't really my godparents, they are technically Betsy and Chris' godparents, mine were from the other side of the family. Luckily they treated me like there godchild too since I saw my Godparents at my baptism and confirmation and that was it. Larry had a heart transplant 15-16 years ago and is now on dialysis. He was there when we saw him and Mary. Although I see them more often than Betsy or Chris it has been a while and I was glad to get the chance to see them.

As expected the trip was full of emotions for me. Seeing people I love in failing health isn't easy but it was good to be able to spend time with them. Mom, Dad and I spent time most days playing at least one game of Farkle (a dice game). It was fun. Mom and I also spent plenty of time driving to visit people, some time walking together and time shopping. I sent one box of clothes to Iowa so that I wouldn't need to check a bag and shipped 2 boxes back. Too many treasures.

When I flew back to Baltimore Wayne picked me up and we headed straight up to Philly so that I could go to Wire Fest. I will tell more about that in my next post including pictures of the 3 wire wrapped pendants that I made in my classes.

Anniversary Wishes

2009-05-05T16:31:00.008-04:00

Sometimes it is hard to believe but today Wayne and I have been married 19 years. I decided to show two more photos of the box I made for Wayne which is his anniversary present. I really enjoyed all of the time I spent working on it and I thought of him and all of the things I love about him while I worked on it.

I am very lucky that I found my soul mate and best friend all of those years ago when we met. We both knew we were in love within a day and our love has only grown with time.

Wayne encourages me as a person and as an artist and understands me like no one else could. We have very different personalities but we complement each other nicely and have the same goals and priorities for our life together.

He is my hero, my strength, my comfort and the music that runs through my life. Even when we have been separated by deployments he is always with me. I wouldn't be the person I have become if he hadn't come into my life.

This is dedicated to the love of my life and since he loves music and lyrics so much I chose a song that says it all.

Jim Brickman “Your Love”

it's not the flowers, wrapped in fancy paper

it's not the ring, I wear around my finger

There's nothing in all the world I need

when I have you here beside me,

here beside me

Chorus

so you could give me wings to fly

and catch me if I fall

or pull the stars down from the sky

so I could wish on them all

but I couldn’t ask for more

cuz your love is the greatest gift of all

in your arms, I found a strength inside me

and in your eyes there's a light to guide me

I would be lost with out you

and all that my heart could ever want

has come true

so you could give me wings to fly

and catch me if I fall

or pull the stars down from the sky

so I could wish on them all

but I couldnt as for more

cuz your love is the greatest gift of all

you could offer me the sun, the moon

and I would still believe

you gave me everything

when you gave your heart to me

so you could give me wings to fly

and catch me if I fall

or pull the stars down from the sky

so I could wish on them all

but I couldn’t ask for more

cuz your love is the greatest gift of all

Two Feet to Stand On

2009-04-02T15:53:00.003-04:00

It's all in the details, something you hear and most times it seems to be very true. In this box that I have been working on for Wayne I know that it is very much a true statement. So much of who he is and how I see him and feel about him are here in the details of this piece.

It all started with the piece of wood that was a scrap that he had given me from one of his woodworking projects (his stereo cabinet.) I knew that I couldn't do anything that represented Wayne without including his love of flying so I drew the center of a propellor on the wood before I started the piece. The first photo also shows one of the swimming medals that he got that Renee gave me to include on his box. Wayne swam competitively from the time he was a little kid through high school and it is still his favorite form of exercise. The "Always" and "Forever" are ribbon charms I found for scrap booking they describe how I feel about our relationship. I will always love him with all of my heart he is my best friend forever.

The red ribbon pieces are from a swimming ribbon that I cut up (also from Renee). The piece has a fair amount of circles which symbolically represent wholeness and unity. There are also several long meandering spirals which represent growth and change. I am sure I could write pages of all of the growth and change that we have both been going through as I worked on this piece and yet together we are whole.

It is interesting that there are no overt signs of his love of music and yet I feel it when I look at the box. The texture and movement are like notes dancing through the air.

The last two photos show what the feet look like. My first thought was to use door knobs but when I started looking at hardware I realized that it could be more interesting to use two drawer pulls instead of 4 little knobs. I really liked these because they add a very architectural feel and since they add a fair amount to the weight the box will not fall over easily.

For more pictures check out my Web Gallery.

Boxing It Out

2009-03-31T15:35:00.003-04:00

I have finished Wayne's box but need to catch up on posts about it. This one will show getting the main box sides finished. The last post I had finished up the bottom edges and just had areas around the top that needed to be finished to get the sides finished.

I brought the really cool metallic hex beads up from the bottom edge and added their glow to the top edge. I brought some red hex beads up to the top so that the red would carry even more through the piece. A bit of blue and then just because I love purple a dark blue purple in 1.5 mm cub beads which were really great for doing the lazy stitch in, worked up great and they look like a section of the night sky in front of the planes flying across the top of the box.

The last picture is just to show what the inside looks like with all of that thread. I must admit my spool of Silamide thread is much thinner than it used to be. With all of the work going into this piece the EZ Felt has gotten less stiff. I really do enjoy working with it as a support, especially for things that I want to have a bit more body for or are going to be a bit heavy.

My next post will include some of the details of the piece as well as a look at what I chose for the feet to support it. If you just can't wait all of the photos of the piece are on my Web Gallery.

Thinking Outside The Box

2009-03-25T14:47:00.002-04:00

Time for another update on how Wayne's box is going. I am having such fun working on this project and it is coming along great. Sometimes I have not added on to it for a while but as I have more time now with our schedule falling into place I have worked on the piece recently. I wasn't sure when I started how much of the outside of the box would be beaded; it appears on at least the sides, that they will be completely beaded. Wayne loves how it is looking although he thinks it is almost too much. I am a 'more is better' girl sometimes. He did ask why use the great fabric if you weren't going to see it. (I did point out that you could see it here and there in spots around some of the beading.) I told him the fabric was for inspiration. It will also show when I make the bottom, lining and at least the inside of the top.

Since the last time I posted I have added a ton to the bottom of the box edge. I added more to my circles area and a couple of other goodies. Then I started doing some fill. The lazy stitch that I tried for the first time in my class with Robin Atkins works great for filling in larger areas and works up pretty quickly. I am really liking the look of areas filled with solid beads, such wonderful texture. I liked how it looked when I added the blue beads to the bottom but really loved it when I added the metallic hex beads after that. They make me think of the rays of the sun and something like an ancient shield that is somewhat tarnished but still is strong and is more beautiful for it's age and having weathered life.

The first 4 photos show how the box looks showing 2 sides at a time all of the way around. The beading wraps around the box so showing just one side at a time you would lose so much of the feel and the flow of the piece. The last two photos show some of the detail of the piece. One of his planes flying by is dropping a heart charm that says Made With Love.

The next step is to work on the top edge of the box and to start looking for some of the stuff I need to finish the box up. I am going to look at drawer pulls to see if I can find some that I like, since Wayne does woodworking I thought they would be appropriate. I will probably try to find one for the top as well. I am going to make a removable lid for the box. I was thinking of hinging one but like the idea of a removable one better. Oh goodie, another surface to bead on.

Glowing Pathways

2009-03-19T14:34:00.000-04:00

This past weekend Wayne and I headed up to Philly again. This time we had the pleasure of helping hang the quilt Renee commissioned from Wayne's Mom. The photos show the quilt once it was up. Wayne and Dave used a laser level so we know it it is level but when I was taking some of the pictures I realized that I was holding the camera just off level and it made it look like the quilt wasn't quite hung straight, I liked the idea and so took a photo that was intentionally crooked. Since I was making fun of their hanging job Renee and Wayne thought this was funny.
The quilt was a huge success and everyone really liked it. With the photos it is hard to appreciate how much the quilting adds to the piece and that the buildings have screen printed texture on them. We saw the original photo, the to scale drawings and fabric choices along the way so it was neat being able to see the finished piece. If you would like to see more of Wayne's Mom's quilts check out her website. ( Marti Plager )

Speaking of websites I spent some time and have totally revamped my website. There are still some things I need to do to it but the new and improved version is up and running. I have added my class lists and will be adding to that as I develop new classes and get photos of some of my other classes. All of the classes that I teach at Bead Boutique currently are up with their descriptions.

Another thing we did during our trip to Philly was to visit the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Cezanne and Beyond exhibit. It was very much worth the money and a trip to see. I really want to go back and spend more time there since of the main exhibits we barely scratched the surface. I always felt I could take or leave most of Cezanne's work before but seeing his watercolors and some of his landscapes I found a new appreciation for his work. I even saw a Matisse I actually liked (a geranium not a person). It was really fascinating to see how other artists were inspired by Cezanne and yet many of them took that inspiration and made pieces that were very much their own. I found pieces by quite a few of the 18 other artists that I really liked. I really liked pretty much all of the pieces by Charles Demuth whom I had never seen before. He has some wonderful watercolors. Over all although the show was full of more modern and abstract art which I don't always appreciate as much. I could have taken quite a few pieces home quite happily. I was tempted to buy the show catalog but was trying to be prudent since it was $50 and unless I used it a fair amount wasn't sure I would get my moneys worth out of it. One of Cezanne's pieces that could probably most readily inspire me was "The Forest". The way it was painted with his distinct brush marks and the feel of the piece I could easily envision something along those lines done with thread embroidery or other fibers. All of the watercolors make me want to take some time to play with watercolor since I haven't done much with watercolors for a while. Very much an inspirational show.

Wayne's Box

2009-03-06T12:00:00.000-05:00

Hard to believe I started this project in October and I am still not finished but life has been crazy and it is getting squeezed in between my BJP and other projects. Each photo show 2 sides of the box so that you can see how the sides relate and the pattern move across the sides of the box.

I have added a fair amount since the last time I blogged about the box. I added snowy hills for the penguins. Using the lazy stitch to fill in those spaces worked really well and filled a fair amount of space fairly quickly. I added more patriotic and plane buttons and also recycled some foil from a scotch bottle and wine bottle.

Wayne's friend Renee gave me a couple of things to include on his box. I took one of his swimming ribbons and cut it up so that I could include it. She also had one of his old swim medals. I put the ribbon part of that above the wood rectangle and the medal part below the wood where it worked really well next to the circles that I already had near there.

I am really enjoying how the box is coming out and I think about Wayne a lot while I am working on it so it has lots of my love for him in it, every stitch contains my love for him. I think he is looking forward to it actually getting done so he can use it. I think it will end up being mostly covered when I finish it with bits of fabric peaking out here and there.

Fit for a Queen

2009-03-01T14:16:00.001-05:00

For Christmas Wayne commissioned me to make a necklace and bracelet for a friend of his who he had recently gotten reconnected with. We have visited Renee and her family several times since his return from Iraq.

Blue is Renee's favorite color so it had to be blue. It took a bit of back and forth to figure out what to make but Wayne had all of my other jewelry to look at to get ideas on what he wanted. Swarovski had just come out with a new color "Indigo Blue" which is a nice deep blue and we both decided would be perfect.
Wayne liked the single spiral ropes that I had made using 3mm crystals so we decided on that and to make the front the spiral rope and the back with stones and other beads. After auditioning several stones we both picked lapis. That led to gold filled beads for the spiral ropes and accents with the stones.

Wayne inspired me to try something a bit new and I used crystals in the core of the spiral rope as well as for the accent beads. The bracelet in a flat double spiral rope with Dk Sapphire crystals for the core and the Indigo Blue for the edges. Once the set was finished I picked the name for it. Being made with gold and lapis it was really easy to choose a name since in the past only royalty could afford them.
Renee wore her set for the first time at their Christmas party that we went to and got lots of compliments on it and has gotten several since then. She really likes both pieces. Wayne was also very happy with his commission.

The picture to the left shows some of the other flat double spiral bracelets that I made for Christmas gifts or for myself. The flat double spiral is one of my most popular classes.

New job, colds and other excitement

2009-02-24T16:26:00.003-05:00

Once again way to long between posts. It seems like time keeps getting away from me, just as things were starting to settle back into a somewhat more normal routine with Wayne starting his new civilian job I caught a wicked cold that took me out for the count. At 3+ weeks I am still fighting off the last of the congestion and coughing fits. I am sure Wayne and I will both be glad when I can manage to get through more than one night without a coughing fit.

Life hasn't been boring since my last post. Wayne went to more interviews and had to figure out what kind of job he was interested in most since he had more than one offer. February 2nd was his first day on the new job at ASEC a small local contractor. Having both P-3 and UAV experience was definitely a plus for him. One of the founders of the company was one of his pilot's from his first deployment in P-3's, it really is a small world sometimes where the Navy is concerned.

While Wayne was busy in January job hunting I decided to work on one of my goals for the new year and spent a fair amount of time reorganizing my bead collection. I put off working on my BJP January block so that I could do something I had been wanting to do and knew would leaving me feeling I had really gotten something accomplished. I am quite happy with how the organizing went. I still have a goal of organizing the rest of the house before we end up moving but for now the bits I have done make me feel a bit less behind.

January was a good month for me class wise since I taught 2 regular classes as well as a couple of private classes at Bead Boutique. I didn't schedule any for February since I don't have my own car yet (Wayne is looking), that worked out for the best since I was sick for a lot of the month. I do have a Meet the Teachers reception on the 28th so hopefully it will get more students interested in classes.

The last weekend in January Wayne and I headed up to Washington DC to have a romantic weekend. We didn't go anywhere when Wayne came home from Iraq so when we knew he had a job we took a trip to celebrate and just be together. We took it easier than we normally do and still managed to go to the Udvar Hazy Center of the Air and Space Museum and some of the newly reopened American History Museum and an exhibit at the Art Museum. We stayed at the Palomar Hotel. They were having a special on their suites so we got a Spa King Suite which was really nice. Each evening from 5-6pm they had a wine reception in the lobby. We had some really nice suppers including a romantic meal near the fireplace at the Iron Gate Resturant and a really nice meal at the bar at Mourayo a Greek resturant. We also enjoyed a couple of the brew pubs we had visited on previous trips. I got a quick stop at Beadazzled the bead store that was near our hotel. we also found a really great liquor store right near the Hotel that had an amazing selection of wines, champaignes and everything else (including to Wayne's delight some of Kentucky's finest bourbons).

Although sick I did manage to get my January BJP block done in the first couple of weeks in February. I have now gotten a good start on my February block and will try to get my BJP blog updated soon. The photo at the top is of the background with the first 5 blocks pinned onto it. If you want to see more photos go to my Web Gallery which has all of my most up to date photos on it.

Life keeps going

2009-01-08T13:46:00.003-05:00

I am amazed that I have managed to not blog for more than 2 months, I feel so bad but life just got really busy and with Wayne working from home most afternoons and evenings spent catching up with each other after 18 of 24 months apart I really have fallen behind on all computer things and many other things.

I worked at Bead Boutique a couple of days a week for November and December and was working for beads I almost ended up paying to work there but managed (just) not to. I also taught a few classes and sold a couple of my class samples. It had been years since I had worked retail so it took a bit of getting used to but it is much different than working for a big fabric or craft store. Lots of great people.

Wayne and I are on our 3rd trip to Philly since Thanksgiving. Wayne has been doing some consulting for a UAV company here and he has been able to combine trips here to do business and reconnect with an old high school friend that he got back in touch with over deployment. We have been staying with them and we are all getting along really well. Since everyone else is working I get the house to myself while they are at work until the boys get home from school. It has been a good opportunity for me to do some catching up on things I haven't found time for at home. Last trip I worked on my November and December BJP blocks and this time I thought I would try to do a bit of catching up on e-mail and blogging and some creative work as well.

Besides the consulting that Wayne is doing he has had a couple of interview, more coming and his first job offer. It looks very likely that we will stay in southern Maryland although we could move if we wanted. Wayne is officially retired although he will still be on active duty until April 1st. He is hoping to start his new job in February once he goes on terminal leave. I think the hardest part for him will be figuring out what he wants to do sine I expect more job offers to come in the next week or so.

We had an unexpected health crisis with Wayne and a few days in the hospital but he is all better now and back to his old self. In November he got in a car accident with his Integra and since it is a 12 year old car it wasn't really cost effective to fix it. Wayne was fine and it could have been much worse but we are currently working with 1 car which made it kind of challenging to juggle both jobs for 2 months but once he knows he has a new job he will probably buy another car. Still have the Integra in the garage so he needs to decide if it is going to become a project car or if he will part it out.

With everything going on I have been a bit stressed which hasn't been good for my headaches but I know that we are really very fortunate and that it could be so much worse.

The photo is where I stand on my BJP project. The first quarters blocks are pinned on for the photo, I won't sew them on until I am done stitching the background. I just wanted to see where I stand. I still really love it and how it is going. I really haven't had much time to work on my art the last couple of months but I am sure that I will do better as I figure out a new schedule that works with Wayne being home. I think that all of the time we have spent together and talking has been much more what we have both needed lately. I will try to write more soon and not go near as long between posts.

I have added new photos to my website and to my web gallery (including all kinds of new photos of my BJP progress) feel free to check them out. I will also be working on getting new posts to my BJP blog in the next day or two.

A Beading Muse and New Techniques

2008-11-04T14:09:00.002-05:00

The first weekend in October I got a wonderful opportunity to go up to Baltimore and meet Robin Atkins in person. I had one of her bead embroidery books before I first heard of the Bead Journal Project. In May of 2007 Robin had the wonderful idea for this project and I was lucky enough to have heard of it in time to join the first year.

The Bead Journal project was were Robin and I first met through each other's blogs and then through e-mails. We liked each other's work and although our work is very different in many ways we are very much alike. (From the picture you can see we both love purple.)

When I found out that robin was coming to Baltimore to teach for the Embroidery Guild I was so excited and wanted to go so that we could meet, I could take her classes and anything else I could do.

I went up on Thursday so that we could meet and bead together. I met her and her hostess Carolyn Everly at Carolyn's house where we played show and tell, talked and beaded. This was the first time I had met someone that I had met online and it was an amazing experience for me. Robin is even more wonderful in person than online.

On Friday we started her 2 day class on Improvisational Bead Embroidery. I got to help set meaning I got to be one of the people to see everything first. Being able to touch and look at all of her pieces in person was just so neat. They look so much better in person. Photos just don't do them justice.

Since I have been doing bead embroidery for about 4 years now I had a good start and having all of her books I had read about the rest of the techniques she was teaching so I had a bit of a head start. There were several techniques or variations that I hadn't tried yet and was excited to try.

Having read Robin's books before I left I was inspired to make a piece while thinking of someone I loved. Sort of a portrait of that person. Since My husband was coming home from deployment in a couple of weeks and I had been thinking of him a lot anyway he was the obvious choice. I picked out a fabric that I loved and that sort of reminded me of him. I decided that I wanted to make something useful that he could use so I chose a box that he could put things into. I made the sides of the box out of EZ-Felt and attached them to the fabric and connected it all together so that I could "work in the round."

I went through my beads, buttons and trinkets to pick out things that felt like possibilities for the piece. The most unusual thing that appealed to me was a slice of wood that Wayne had given to me when he was doing one of his furniture projects. I added a pen drawing of the center of a propeller to it and used acrylic medium to seal it.

On Friday afternoon in the class we got to start our improvisational pieces. Since most of my bead embroidery pieces are representational I usually have to do a fair amount of planning things out at least to start. Working completely improvisationally was new for me and in many ways very freeing. I started with the wood slice and just went from there.

Using some of the techniques and variations of techniques that I was trying for the first time in the class my box looks different than any of my other work but I still have never gotten stuck, when I finish one bit I look through my goodies and something will say "me next" and off we go. I found that I really liked the bugle bead pathways and the short stacks with 8/0s or 6/0s as the bottom beads. On Sunday when we went to Beadazzled I just had to get more 8/0 and bugle beads as well as some other seed beads for this and future projects.

I worked on this piece on Friday and Saturday during class and both evenings with Robin after class as well as Sunday during the day. As you can see from the photos the piece really came along well in just those first few days. Working this way was very freeing.

I didn't exactly plan for the piece to have quite as much of a patriotic feel as it has turned out but I guess 20 years in the military does color your world. I hadn't worked on the piece for the last couple of weeks but worked on it again some yesterday so it is further along than the pictures show.

While in Baltimore I also met Susan Elliot who is also a BJP member as well as all of the other students there. It was a wonderful weekend and so fun and fulfilling and getting to meet and talk to Robin was the best part.

Welcome Home

2008-11-03T13:31:00.003-05:00

First a welcome home to VC-6's Echo Platoon. I realize that none of them will probably ever see this it is good to have them all home safe and sound. All of these guys either extended or went back to do an important mission and I am proud of them all.

I am sorry I have been so long in writing it has been an interesting month. I spent 5 days up in Baltimore at it's beginning getting to meet Robin Atkins and the Baltimore Embroidery guild. I took Robin's classes and ran her store for her. We also had time to sit and bead together which was great. I will write more about that in a post tomorrow.

The next week saw me spending 27 hours over 3 days in vehicles. I went up to New England with some friends for another friend's wedding. The wedding was nice and I wish Wayne could have been there for it. I spent a lot of my time in the car working on my October BJP piece.

I spent the first half of the month running errands, going out of town, teaching a couple of classes and when I was actually home trying to get ready for Wayne to come home. On the 15th of October we all went up to Baltimore's airport for the Welcome Home. The second half of the month has mostly been spent being together and then getting ready for a party at our house to welcome everyone home. Wayne has spent a good part of his workday working from home meaning on the computer writing up awards, evaluations and all of the other paper work that needs doing.

Anytime he comes home it takes me a bit to get used to having someone else around. I spend months alone only seeing other people when I go out and then I have him home and it takes a bit to readjust to that. I am very glad but I have found it hard to keep up with my blogs, e-mails and my art. I have not done much in the way of creating, I did get my October BJP done and spent time yesterday working on a piece that I am making for Wayne which you can read about in tomorrow's post about meeting Robin.

Getting Close

2008-09-30T14:52:00.004-04:00

The headaches and sore neck and shoulders have left me a bit out of sorts lately and I have been pretty bad about keeping up on anything except creating, most of my energy has been going there. That being the case I have fallen behind in everything else. The good news is the headache seems to be getting much better and so I am feeling more like myself which is really nice.

The great news is that in about 2 weeks or so I will have Wayne home. With about 18 of the last 24 months apart I am ready to have him around for a bit. The next few months will be busy but that is to be expected with several small trips planned and job hunting and trying to get ready for a potential move come spring or so.

My trip to the DC Bead Museum was a bit of a mixed blessing. I was disappointed in that they didn't have enough space to display all of the pieces that got into the show and neither of mine were on display. This meant that my pieces couldn't be voted on for people's choice nor did anyone get to see them. I am glad that I went because I got to see a couple of people I had met in Philly at the Bead Fest and got to meet some of the members of the Baltimore Bead Society which I may want to join especially if we end up staying in the area. I got a lot of really positive comments on my butterfly necklace and my Dragonfly purse.

The next couple of weeks will be busy for me and I won't have too much time to get wired about homecoming coming up. I am spending a long weekend this weekend in Baltimore. Robin Atkins who started the Bead Journal Project is coming to Baltimore to teach a couple of classes and give a presentation about the BJP. I get to be her teachers assistant. I am so excited since it will be my first time to meet her and I have been looking forward to seeing her. Should be a good time.

Next weekend I am heading up to New England with a friend for another friends wedding. Had hoped that Wayne would make it home for it but it wasn't to be. Should be fun since I will get to see some friends I haven't seen since we moved down here.

Add to those 2 trips my 4 classes that are scheduled (if they hold) and more physical therapy and I shouldn't be bored. Might actually have to do a bit of cleaning and straightening before he gets home as well.

My BJP collage is coming along. I spent time stitching the waterfalls on the mountain and am currently working on my tree trunk. I am spending a lot of time on all of the stitching on the collage but am still excited about it and loving the way it is turning out. Have not gotten bored with it. I started October's block a bit early as I wanted to take it with me this weekend so I could start on it. I spent time on the painting so that I am ready to start adding beads and stitching. If you want to see how it is going check it out on my BJP blog.

My Web Gallery- Includes photos of both of my BJP pages and Susan Plager's Graduation.
Artistic Kreations and Passions- my website
BJP Website (my 2007-8 pieces)

Doctor, PT and catching up

2008-09-17T20:54:00.004-04:00

The last week has been pretty busy, I have taught a couple of classes and have another one tomorrow. Very few of my classes held during the summer but then a lot of the classes at the store didn't hold during the summer. I did teach one class with only one student and will do another tomorrow, part of my reason for doing it is that I have been spending a lot of time alone and think it is good for me to get out and I think that it will help me get a following in case we end up staying in the area.

I had a doctor's appointment on Monday. She has prescribed Migraine meds but that won't help with my perpetual headache but the physical therapy seems to be helping some and I have four or so more weeks to go before reevaluation. I asked about testing but my blood work this spring covered some of the questions already and since they aren't sinus headaches and I don't have stiffly, snuffly, allergy symptoms allergy testing won't help. I did ask and had confirmed that yes and allergen could be a trigger even if you weren't allergic to it. Thus my headaches from cut grass, smells, etc. I think that besides the muscular/skeletal issues I am having that I am probably also reacting to something seasonal (my guess mold). Hopefully with the PT and fall coming it will go away. The PT has been helping and although still have a constant headache at least they aren't as bad as they were.

I haven't gotten as much done in the last week as I might of liked but have gotten somethings done that I needed to and ran some errands. Not as much creating as I would like but can't have everything all of the time, need more hours in the day or at least a few days of no headaches.

I finally packed most of my stuff for my trip to DC for Saturday night. I decided that I would wear my purple long dress for the event, the hard part was figuring out what piece of jewelry to go with it. I designed a piece to go with it but it is the piece that got into Bead International and I won't see it for a couple of years while it travels with the show. The second best choice would have been the piece that is in the show for DC. Go figure. I knew that I was going to use my Dragonfly Purse. I am taking a couple of necklaces along although I am leaning toward wearing the piece that I made using one of Susan's beads. I am staying in a hotel overnight so I don't have to worry about driving back late that night.

It looks like I still have plenty to keep me busy until Wayne comes home. Robin Atkins is coming to Baltimore to teach and make a presentation about the BJP and I am going up to see her and maybe be her assistant. I am so looking forward to meeting her and Wayne thought it was a great idea since he knows that being around other creative people is good for me.

I also have wedding to go to in Connecticut the weekend before Wayne comes home. I am riding up with a friend and then staying with him and his wife at their place in Rhode Island. It is too bad that Wayne is just going to miss it.

I may end up with classes the 2 days before Wayne comes home. If they hold (and I have had some people express interest) I will not have to worry about having too much time to get all wound up with home coming. With around a month or so left I am glad that I have things to keep my mind occupied.

The photo for this post is my September BJP block for this year. Wayne said it was one of his favorites. The painting was based on one of the photos he took while we lived in Hawaii.

For those who want to know what I have been up to I am including links below to my BJP posts in the order they were written and my web gallery and website.

July 1- A Seed Germinates
July 4- Goals For A New Year
July 7- A Sapling Takes Root In Purple Dirt
July 10- Trying New Techniques/Collaging my World
July 13- How Do I Do It/ It's A Secret
July 16- Like Leaves On A Tree: Plenty Of Ideas
July 19-Painting My World/A Tree Takes Form
July 21- Ever Tree Needs Leaves
July 24-Leafing Out
July 27- The Tree Is Planted And Gets More Leaves
July 30- A Secret Takes Shape
August 2- A Door Takes Form
August 6- Stitching Up A Fern
August 10- Ocean Waves
August 14- Getting To The Roots Of The Matter
August 18- Moss at the Roots of My Tree
August 22- Stitching Grass
September 7- A Mountain Of Strength
September 12- Honu Swimming
September 14- Honu in Beads

My Web Gallery- Includes photos of both of my BJP pages and Susan Plager's Graduation.
Artistic Kreations and Passions- my website

BJP Website (my 2007-8 pieces)

Love and Good News

2008-09-08T21:29:00.000-04:00

OK I couldn't resist, Wayne sent me this photo of himself that his Chief took of him after they took some group photos. I seldom get pictures of him while he is on deployment so it was kind of nice. He has been such a sweety since I have been sick and not feeling well he has been calling more often to check up on me. It will be so good to have him home again. We have spent a fair amount of time apart in the last 2 years so I am looking forward to having him around. We are in the home stretch, still over a month but it really isn't that long before he will be home and we will be busy with his job hunting and getting ready to join civilian life.

I got really good news on Saturday. 2 of the 3 pieces that I entered in the DC Bead Museum's first Bead contest got accepted. My Crystal Pond: Reflections and my March BJP 2007-8 (On the Beach there are Treasures to be Found) are heading off to DC tomorrow. The Gala Event for this is on the 20th and since they are close by I am going to go up and spend the night and go to the event. That night they are going to announce all of the winners including the pieces that are going to be on display in the museum until sometime in December. Maybe if one of my piece gets chosen for the museum show Wayne will go to the Bead Museum with me. He is very proud of me and said of course I had to go. Guess it is a good thing I didn't let my frustration get the better of me and I didn't take my Pond Necklace apart.

I finished my September BJP block and will get it on my BJP blog in the next day or two. I love how it turned out and it worked together really quickly. I will need all of my extra time not working on my blocks any month I finish early working on all of the hand stitching on the collage and eventually the quilt background as well.

I updated my website (Artistic Kreations and Passions) with more photos of my Sacred Tree BJP and also added the new photos to my Web Gallery (this has all of the photos that I have of my BJP projects).

Beads, Travel and Getting Sick.

2008-09-01T20:30:00.000-04:00

The last couple of weeks have been eventful and not always in the best ways.

I went to Philly to Bead Fest and had a blast. It started on a funny note as I stopped for lunch at a brew pub and got carded, at 2 months before my 41st birthday I thanked the waitress. I stayed with Roma and her husband Tony and we had a good time. It was so good to see them and spend the time catching up. I took two classes. Both went very well and had great teachers. I learned how to do the Viking Knit and how to do variations on the Byzantine Chain Maille. I just need to add a bit more embellishing and my viking knit will be done and I will include a photo here to share. As usual I decided to go my own way a bit and instead of a bracelet I am going to end up with a front part of a necklace that will hang from 2 hooks to a chain (for the back of the necklace). Never did like to do things the way others do. The other class I have several sample pieces and will have to decide on what I want to make with any of the variations.

Two new things this year were Meeting the Teachers Night and the Bead In. I wore my Pond necklace to the teachers night and got a lot of really positive comments on it, so not subtle but I do love my bling. I worked on the background for my 2008-9 BJP at the Bead In and took my 2007-8 pages along. Wow, did not expect the attention I got. Very positive. I should have printed up a sheet with all of the pertinent info about the BJP since I explained about it many times. I also gave out lots of business cards so we will see if anything comes of that. A couple of the people had heard of the BJP project which was kind of nice. It was a lot of fun.

The pictures show my treasures from this year. My main goal was to get beads to go toward this years BJP so I filled in some colors that I didn't have much range in and would need in 15/0 seed beads (especially browns and greens). I also got more Silamide thread colors (it is my favorite thread for bead embroidery.) I was on the look out for flower and leaf beads to use on my blocks for the piece and ended up finding a nice selection to get. I also got a Chain Maille book and a Chain Maille kit (that is being mailed). I spent less money than last year and am thrilled with the additions to my horde of beads. I am still working on getting them worked into my collection.

It appears that my steroids didn't get rid of my headaches since I continued to have them even after the treatment was done. I ran myself a bit hard during Bead Fest with not enough sleep, not a great diet and such. I came home on Monday and was worn out. Tuesday I had a sick headache all day, Wednesday was a full blown knock-em out Migraine and then Thursday I was hit hard with a head cold. The last week I have felt like I got hit head-on by a truck. I have gotten next to nothing done but rest. I am slowly showing signs of improving so hopefully will be back up and running soon. I am now at over 2 months of constant headache but hopefully my appointment tomorrow for Physical Therapy will help some and get me started on at least loosening up all the muscles tightened from the headaches. I also set up my next doctor's appt.

Wayne has been calling regularly to check in on me and he is doing fine. Less than 2 months to go which is great. He is busy working on his resume and other stuff to get ready so that he can hit the road running when he gets home. Will not be a boring fall/winter that is for sure. I am to be his assistant. At least I don't have to be his secretary I like the job of personal assistant better.

Bugs, Headaches and a Trip

2008-08-19T14:49:00.000-04:00

The good thin about having a weed/flower garden is that the bugs are happy. I have seen more than one praying mantis out there ( I like bugs that eat other bugs). Today when I went out to grab the paper this one was happily munching on a caterpillar on the side walk. It was too good an opportunity to pass up so I want and grabbed the camera, so much easier to see on the sidewalk than on the green plants.

I have had several dragonflies again this summer and say a really cool moth this morning as well, took a photo of it too.
I went to the Doctor yesterday and so we are now going to try to do something about them. The first order of business is to break the current cycle of pain since we can't do much about my other headaches when I am like this. I think I surprised her when I said that I had a headache for 5 1/2 weeks and yes a headache as in 24/7. So not normal. We are starting with a decongestant and a couple of days of oral steroids and no over the counter pain killers. I am also going to Physical therapy starting Sept 2nd. The headaches have caused neck and shoulder stress which can be making the headache worse or feeding into the cycle. She thinks rebounds are part of the problem as well (thus the no pain killers).

Over all she thinks that I probably have a combination of Migraines and Tension headaches and we are going to work on trying to add to my list of known triggers. She will probably try me on other drugs to help once we get this one licked. Most headache meds don't work when you are this far into them. Hopefully all this will help and then we will be able to try other things to help with the other headaches. Heck I would be happy if I never had the week + headaches any more.

The much more upbeat news is that tomorrow I head north to King of Prussia (Philly) for the Bead Fest. I will get to spend time with Tony and Roma, take 2 classes and go bead shopping, yeah!!!!! It should be lots of fun, just have to not spend all of Wayne's hard earned money especially since he is getting close to retirement.

Speaking of the light of my life, he got the extension papers so he will be Retired on Active duty form Jan 1- March 31st. Once he gets home from Iraq sometime in October he will go into job hunting mode. For work he will have post-deployment stuff as well as all of the retirement stuff to do. He thinks he will be able to go on terminal leave as early as December 1 since he isn't planning on taking time off when he gets home since he wants to get right on the job search. Having been on deployment so much in the last year+ has had the advantage that he has more leave (vacation days) on the books that he won't lose. Add in house-hunting, job-hunting and other days and it looks like around 4 months, not bad. He is doing good and keeping busy as always, he calls when he has time and e-mails me almost everyday. His arm is getting better and with some light weights he is getting more of the strength back in it.

Contests and Life

2008-08-11T15:20:00.000-04:00

Where to start? I finally got my act together and entered the beading contest at the DC Bead Museum. I entered my Crystal Pond: Reflections piece and 2 of my BJP pieces (August and March). I should hear back by the 3rd of September if any of them got into the show.

I also finally got my act together and got my photos and stuff and sent them into the BJP website angel Brenda. She got it all done and so now you can see all of my pieces for the 2007-8 BJP project on the BJP website.

On Saturday I went to Bead Boutique for the contest voting and for supper out with the girls. There were 8 pieces. My macrame piece was in a 3 way tie for 2nd place. They are now on display at the store and they are planning on getting photos of the pieces on their website. I need to get a list of all my classes that I teach there and photos to their website person so that they will all be available on their website.

It has cooled down a bit and isn't as humid so I turned off the AC and am trying that. I think I will be able to go without AC most if not all of this week. So far it doesn't seem to be making my headache any better or worse. Last week I managed to get in 5 walks which put me at 20 miles. I would have walked last evening at dusk as well but that is when the thunderstorm rolled in. I should have some nice evenings to walk this week.

Only a week left until my doctor's appointment. I doubt she will be able to do anything much except set me up for other appointments, tests or something but it will be good to at least have some forward movement and be doing something.

Wayne called yesterday, it is always so good to hear his voice. I feel fairly spoiled since I get to talk to him every week at least once it seems and I have been getting an e-mail pretty much every day. He is doing well and his arm is healing up and he is regaining some of his strength there. He has been having some trouble with the squadron since they had their decommissioning this last week and aren't giving him as much help as he would like. It looks pretty sure that he will get his 90 day extension to his retirement so he should be in Iraq until sometime in October. I think he will miss my birthday again and he will definitely be gone for his.

All told life is going on OK. I could do without the constant headaches since that really eats into what I feel like doing on any day. I am not getting as much done as I would like but I know that it could always be much worse.

For those who want to know what I have been up to I am including links below to my BJP posts in the order they were written and my web gallery and website.

July 1- A Seed Germinates
July 4- Goals For A New Year
July 7- A Sapling Takes Root In Purple Dirt
July 10- Trying New Techniques/Collaging my World
July 13- How Do I Do It/ It's A Secret
July 16- Like Leaves On A Tree: Plenty Of Ideas
July 19-Painting My World/A Tree Takes Form
July 21- Ever Tree Needs Leaves
July 24-Leafing Out
July 27- The Tree Is Planted And Gets More Leaves
July 30- A Secret Takes Shape
August 2- A Door Takes Form
August 6- Stitching Up A Fern
August 10- Ocean Waves

My Web Gallery- Includes photos of both of my BJP pages and Susan Plager's Graduation.
Artistic Kreations and Passions- my website

BJP Website (my 2007-8 pieces)

Macrame and Headaches

2008-08-07T15:13:00.000-04:00

Here are the photos of the finished Macramé African Glass Beads Lariat. I am quite pleased with how it turned out. I took both of the necklaces to Bead Boutique and on Saturday the customers will get to vote on which piece they like best. There will be no names on the pieces. I just enjoyed the challenge of the project and that I ended up making 2 pieces that I am quite pleased with using beads that I wouldn't have chosen for myself.

I am still living with constant headaches, these seem worse than I remember but I haven't figured out how to get rid of them. They are eating into my productivity. I have a hard time getting much during daylight hours. I am becoming even more of a vampire than Wayne always teases me about being. I was staying up until 2or 3 most mornings but now it is more like 4 or 5 am. I have started doing my walks at dusk since I am not up to getting up early for them. I have done pretty good so far this week with 3 walks. I am trying to pick days when it isn't too humid out at that time. No walks in 80%+ humidity which is more common than I would like. If I walk when it is that hot and humid my head really starts throbbing.

On Tuesday I had lunch with Colleen and then went to Bead Boutique and spent time with them. I also went to Momma Mia with Tricia. It was a fun movie so enjoyed that.

I haven't been getting as much done as I would like but it can't be helped. I am slowly getting more stitching done on my BJP collage. My posts on my BJP blog are now going be covering the stitching and some of the symbolism. The posts will not be coming quite as often now that they are about the stitching which would be slower even without the headaches.

For those who want to know what I have been up to I am including links below to my BJP posts in the order they were written and my web gallery and website.

July 1- A Seed Germinates
July 4- Goals For A New Year
July 7- A Sapling Takes Root In Purple Dirt
July 10- Trying New Techniques/Collaging my World
July 13- How Do I Do It/ It's A Secret
July 16- Like Leaves On A Tree: Plenty Of Ideas
July 19-Painting My World/A Tree Takes Form
July 21- Ever Tree Needs Leaves
July 24-Leafing Out
July 27- The Tree Is Planted And Gets More Leaves
July 30- A Secret Takes Shape
August 2- A Door Takes Form
August 6- Stitching Up A Fern
August 10- Ocean Waves

My Web Gallery- Includes photos of both of my BJP pages and Susan Plager's Graduation.
Artistic Kreations and Passions- my website

African Glass Beads

2008-07-29T00:50:00.001-04:00

It hasn’t been the best week in that I am still having headaches 24/7 but although it slows me down a bit life still goes on. I haven’t been overly motivated to walk because it has been hot and humid and the headaches but still am managing to get in at least 3 walks a week.

Wayne is doing well, keeping busy and getting exercise. He may decide to look into PT to help get his arm back into shape. I am sure it still has lots of healing to do. The Squadron that he is attached to gets decommissioned in a couple of weeks so he is trying to get as much paperwork done before then as he can. He thinks that within a couple of weeks we should hear about his extension, last he heard it was going through channels.

I have been staying home and working on beading and stitching. I got African glass beads from Bead Boutique for their in house contest (employees and teachers) and had created a necklace with beaded beads with one of the 2 sets of beads that I had gotten. The other set I worked on and decided to play with wire work with copper. I haven’t done a lot with wirework so this was a bit outside my normal comfort zone. When I saw the beads copper was one of the things that immediately came to mind so that is where I started. I purchased copper wire, beads and a clasp. I ended up making my own jump rings and head pins. I looked at the color of the african beads and how they felt somewhat primitive and yet the copper seemed to add some elegance to them so thought why not do something unexpected and I pulled out my Jet 2XAB crystals and added them to the piece. As you can see the results were pretty good.
I was never very happy with the first necklace I had made so I took it apart. I think I am going to use the beaded beads in a bracelet and started thinking what else I could try. Since I already had one completed piece I didn’t need to do a second but liked the challenge of beads that I wouldn’t have chosen for myself. I decided to try them with macrame so I have started making a lariat using 4 colors of C-Lon Beading cord, 2 colors of seed beads for accents, my 20 African glass beads and 5 clay beads I bought because the colors went together so well. I am alternating working on it and my BJP stitching to change what my hands are doing. I have gotten the first 5 of the 25 large beads that will be included done.

I have also been putting in time stitching on my BJP Sacred Tree collage. I have been working on different areas as the mood strikes me. It is coming a long well although as expected it will take a lot of hours to do all of the stitching that I want to do. The ocean waves are about done although I am thinking if I want to add anything for the foam at waters edge or not.

For those who want to know what I have been up to I am including links below to my BJP posts in the order they were written and my web gallery and website.

July 1- A Seed Germinates
July 4- Goals For A New Year
July 7- A Sapling Takes Root In Purple Dirt
July 10- Trying New Techniques/Collaging my World
July 13- How Do I Do It/ It's A Secret
July 16- Like Leaves On A Tree: Plenty Of Ideas
July 19-Painting My World/A Tree Takes Form
July 21- Ever Tree Needs Leaves
July 24-Leafing Out
July 27th- The Tree Is Planted And Gets More Leaves

My Web Gallery- Includes photos of both of my BJP pages and Susan Plager's Graduation.
Artistic Kreations and Passions- my website

What a Week

2008-07-19T19:18:00.001-04:00

I can't believe that it has been almost 2 weeks since I have written here. I am keeping pretty busy.

I am trying to average at least 3-4 walks a week right now. I do not enjoying being hot and sweaty. I would love to have summer highs in the low 80's and no higher. Unfortunately summer in southern Maryland is not that cool. Looks like more of the low 90's for a bit again.

Wayne didn't get his stitches out when he had hoped but they did remove them the other day so he is happy about that.

Last week went pretty smoothly and I spent most of my time working on my BJP project for 2008-9, my BJP blog, my website and web gallery.

This week started out pretty good. I met Colleen for lunch on Monday so that was fun. On Tuesday I went to Bead Boutique and visited with Tricia and Kim. I picked up beads and other supplies to participate in an in-house beading contest they are having for employees and teachers. No prize for it but for the voting there will be no names on the pieces so it will be less of a popularity contest than the others have been. I got 2 sets of the contest beads because I had more than one idea. The contest beads are 20 African glass beads that are around 10mm. They are not something I would normally choose so that is a challenge for me. I have been working on the 2 ideas. The first one I did I am not sure I like it and may take it apart and try something else with it. I like how the other one looks although I think I may need to tweak it a bit.

Wednesday I just didn't feel very good, not really sick just kind of icky. It became a very trying day. Wayne had noticed a couple of charges on the Discover when he was looking at our account online. Neither of us had done them so it was time to call Discover. In the process of getting that figured out and phone calls made I checked our other credit card and found fraudulent charges on it as well. Hard to believe they both happened within a week of each other. I am guessing by different people or ways since one was 2 large purchases and the other was quite a few smaller purchases and at least 2 things were shipped to the house with the correct name and address. It was not a pleasant day, lots of phone calls. Everyone was pretty helpful and Discover got a new card to us in 24 hours. Things are settling down with that although I need to make a couple of more calls I think. (oh Joy!)

Creatively this week I have mainly been working on my contest pieces although yesterday I spent some time on my BJP project. It looks like I will have enough to continue posts every 3 days for that blog at least into the first week into August. As the stitching on the collage goes I will have less to blog about.

Marti called and told me she got into a show in Missouri. 265 or so entries and like 45 accepted. Pretty great. She has pieces in 3 shows all opening on the same weekend. I also got good news. My Flower Trellis Necklace (see photos) was chosen to travel with the Bead International exhibit.

For those who want to know what I have been up to I am including links below to my BJP posts in the order they were written and my web gallery and website.

July 1- A Seed Germinates
July 4- Goals For A New Year
July 7- A Sapling Takes Root In Purple Dirt
July 10- Trying New Techniques/Collaging my World
July 13- How Do I Do It/ It's A Secret
July 16- Like Leaves On A Tree: Plenty Of Ideas
July 19-Painting My World/A Tree Takes Form

My Web Gallery- Includes photos of both of my BJP pages and Susan Plager's Graduation.
Artistic Kreations and Passions- my website

Keeping Busy

2008-07-08T19:57:00.000-04:00

I have done pretty good so far with Wayne gone. I have spent lots of time working on my 2008-9 Bead journal project and having a blast on it. I have tried all kinds of new techniques and I have gone through lots of ideas and some have been set aside for future projects and others are making their way onto the piece. I have 3 posts so far and will have one coming out every 3rd day for the next month or so. If you want to read more about it go to my AKP Bead Journal Project Blog. The photo above is a full sized sketch of the piece in progress. I still need to work more on the sketch but I can do plenty of work before I need to finalize the ideas for the monthly blocks. I have photos of the project on My Web Gallery and my Artistic Kreations and Passions website.

Besides working on my BJP project I have been writing posts for my BJP blog, updating my website and web gallery, and taking photos of everything. I have not been bored.

Last week I only walked 2 times but this week I have already walked 3 times. I am trying to watch what I eat as well. I am trying to get better about exercising and eating healthfully. I think I am starting to get back into the grove of being on my own again.

I have gotten a couple of calls from Wayne, he is doing well and hopes to get his stitches out near the end of the week. He has started exercising again being careful not to overdue it, no rowing machine or weight lifting that is for sure. Although it is plenty warm in this location he says the nights are cooler.

I am going to go to Bead Fest in Philly in August again and have signed up for 2 classes. One is wire work (viking knit) and the other is chain maille. Should be fun and I will get to see Roma and her husband Tony again. I will also be looking for beads for my BJP so that will be great.

That is about it, as busy as I am keeping it still only takes a few paragraphs to write about it.

An Overdue Update

2008-07-01T17:39:00.000-04:00

I am so sorry that this has been so long in coming. I must admit the last couple of months and all of the coming and going has gotten the better of me, I feel like I have lost track of something, quite possibly my mind.

What was supposed to be a 10 day trip for Wayne ended up being 2 weeks due to a broken plane. He ended up home only 5 days before he was off to Iraq again. We don't know if it will be 2 or 3 months or as screwed up as everything had been who knows maybe longer. It will only be 2 months unless they approve an extension he has requested. His official retirement date is Jan 1, 2009 and with all of his terminal leave (vacation etc.) that means he could be done as early as Sept 10th. Since they may need him to run things there or to run support back here they will probably approve it.

During the 5 days home he had surgery to remove skin cancer on his arm. It was more involved than he expected and the first time I saw it, it looked like a small shark had attacked him. Loads of stitches that he will have for 2 more weeks (surgery was a week ago). The rest of the time was spent on post and pre-deployment doctors appointments, getting gun qualifications, paperwork, and packing. We had the weekend for just us but that was about it. He left for Iraq yesterday, it was a bit anti-climatic for me since they left here on Thursday for some training and to pick up gear.

Now it is time to figure out my life for this summer. The one area that hasn't suffered is my creativity. I swear without it sometimes I would go nuts. I have been putting in lots of time working on my Sacred Tree for my BJP project for 2008-2009. Officially it doesn't start until September but since mine is going to include so much more than the monthly blocks I need a head start. The whole thing is going to be a quilt/mixed media collage with painted and beaded blocks. The entire piece is going to be a sort of self-portrait or things that are sacred, important, or symbolic of who I am. If you are interested I am going to start blogging about it today. I will include a lot of information on my creative process, different techniques I am trying, my goals, and all of the symbology of the piece. I already have put enough time into the project that I have enough info for several posts so I will try to write about 2 times a week on it until I catch up at least. It will be on my BJP Blog. I have also started a new album in My Web Gallery for the piece and if you don't want to wait for my blog to catch up you can see my photos of the progress of the piece there, I will update it as I get new photos.

Although I have felt very self-indulgent since Wayne left I have gotten an amazing amount of creating done in that time. I didn't walk the first 4 days he was gone but have gone out the last couple of mornings so am trying to get back on track there.