Beaded 2 Bless

In my last post,  I shared with you how my need to clean. I did do alot of cleaning but now I am back to myself again and all I want to do is create! Typical! Well I didn't, and never will, get it all cleaned up but I did make one heck of a dent in things. I also discovered something about my habits that allow me to work even when things are in some form of disarray. I made this discovery when I decided  NOT to spit shine my house before a brand new visitor came for tutoring in the creative process. Let's say that you crave an organized space  in order to "work" but you are not disciplined to maintain that order. Anyone here like that? I know I am!  Here is my suggestion: Use a place mat or in my case a cutting mat to block off a bit of "working" space and make everything on it as organized as you need to function at maximum productivity. Narrow your focus to this area. The world will tell you that everything else is still a mess, but  ...

New Design ideas are flying in my head. They are all fighting for attention. In the book (Art and Fe ar ) I am reading, I have learned that we tend to lean (or should lean)  towards practices that make us more productive. My productivity has come at a great cost to my environment. I am in a dire need to CLEAN. I know you hear it all the time that artists are naturally messy and live in certain state of chaos. This is largely true for me though I can only take so much chaos before my production is shot in the foot by irritation. I get into this "super mode" where everything I see and touch must be cleaned and reorganized. It is only then that I can rest and create. The only other time this mode surfaces is when I am in a rage....it calms me down. I am on the downside of this mode and am taking a little break to share the last thing I created before I went into this  frenzy. I introduce to you Mr. Praze , my newest beaded "doll". He prefers to be called a necklace....

I do miss my old camera, especially since I don't have the hang of this one yet.  I purchased an inexpensive Kodac C190 12 megapixel- 5X digital zoom. It is too soon to tell if I will love it just as much. I am hoping I will love it more! Here are photos of the necklace I tried to photograph with me webcam. Tell me, do you think the pictures are clear? Be honest! Do you think it is a keeper? These are honestly the first photos I have tried to take with it.

I finished the afore mentioned necklace and went to get my camera and now I have spent an hour cleaning out my car and ransacking my house in order to lay my hands on it. Bad thing is-- I haven't found it. I fear that it may have disappeared from my car. It doesn't make complete sense as my Tom Tom was in the same spot and it is on my table in clear view. I have tried to capture an image with our webcam- not the same but here it is. I call this necklace Painterly because the end tubes look like paint brushes and the rest of the tubes look like oil paints on an artists tray. They are horrible photos  but it just goes to show how nice my little camera is- even if it was obsolete.

I am ready to finish the Deneen's necklace tomorrow- well actually today. It has taken up far too much head space and I will have a nice new necklace that will match everything denim and then some. I have fringe to do on the ends and then I will post pics for all to see that it is very different than the "Deneen's Necklace" class that I took from NanC last month. I am sure no one will mind that I -yet again- chunked the directions and just did my own thing. In my defense- not like I need to defend a deep seated tendency to be different- I did follow the instructions and came out with the desired results, according to the directions given, however, it simply did not appeal to me as it was. It  didn't feel right for me. It lacked a bit of fluidity to appeal to my senses.  Oh well you will see it soon...

I would like to thank my editorial staff for checking out my blog and helping me reword things when they seem a little more critical than I would like. Thanks for the FRESH EYES- you rock!

Here are two of my "students" at Bead Heaven. The one on the left took the class on the 11th and was not relishing the project at all. You may have guessed that from her expression. Perhaps she will view it with fresh eyes at a later date and enjoy it more then. The lady on the right took the class two weeks before and showed me her own color-way she had put together. She loved making the cogs and allowed me to take photos of them. I have learned loads about people in general from teaching this class and it has been an invaluable experience. I have taught children for a very long time but teaching adults is a whole new ball game and can be quite intimidating. Learning different ways to cope with different types of students is going to be one fast learning curve. I have seen other ladies do wonderful things with this kit and its instructions. I could kick myself for not getting pictures of  one lady's cogs. She vowed to use every bead in the kit and every ring. She did i...

I am teaching again tomorrow and today- yup - today I have more fish to put away. All four of these guys (well the good parts of them) are in my fridge waiting to be put away. There was so much meat from these guys they had to be stuffed into a kitchen garbage bag because I didn't have a bowl big enough for them. The big one is the one I posted about before. The water is warming up and they have stopped biting like they were, so this may be it for a while. I am thankful that my DH got to fish and actually caught something this year.

I have this project that was birthed from a dream. I would say it must have been a dream of definate direction. I created this color wheel using doll torsos. Every torso had a different style of face and hair. It was a teaching wheel, but in color gradiation. Here is the realized workings of this dream- well what I have done with it so far. The colors may not be precise but they do work- and the best thing about it is that I had all the fabrics and I didn't have to go and buy a thing! I think I am going to leave the ring open and bead a strip of peyote to cover the pellon in the center. Leaving it open makes it much easier to handle. This one demonstrates a button face with a slit cut in the fabric to  accommodate the shank and loop fringe hair with drop accents. This one is just a face so far. I haven't done a thing except glue it on when I glued the button on. It was refreshing to pick up a project in progress and just work on it. Sewing the fabric was so theraputic. I real...

See all that great green grass? Yeah, I do too.   So why does this cow think it needs to graze on my 10ft X 60ft concrete porches and devour all three of the pompoms on top of my Dracanea. The very house plants that I sheltered all winter in my lil livingroom so that I might enjoy them for another year on the porch? Oh and the little white oak trees that my husband picked the acorns up from a place in Georgia when he was there for the first time in his whole life. Some people pic up souvenirs my husband picks up rocks and seeds. We have been taking good care of those little oaks  in our house all winter! It looked more like a green house in our kitchen and livingroom than anything else! Well it is little mishaps like these that allow you to eat the cute little guys when all their cuteness wears off and they weigh over a ton! If this makes you giggle then good- I will catch  up to you after I sweep all the potting soil off  the porch and get evrything repotted and ...

You ever seen a fish on your hook this big? Me either, I leave the fishing to this great man of mine! I know I should be showing beading pictures or something but really- this is more interesting than that mess on my table right now! Thanks for visiting- there will be beads and things soon I promise... but in the meantime I hope you enjoy this.