The Beauty of Spring: Part 2

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

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.

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.

Catching Up

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

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

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

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

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.