Trip to Boston and Bead Fest.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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