BEADS!!!

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 it and it was beautiful. She told this weeks students that the hard part of her necklace was the strap and that she had redone it several times, not the cogs.

I too have had some difficulty with a project. When I took the Deneen's Necklace from NanC Meinhardt last month, I was a bit cranky about how my project was going. At first my connectors were not strung well and didn't lay right at all. I fiddled with it multiple times- not really being attracted to the design kept me from really having fun with it. I finally figured out what my hang up with it was. It was as simple as changing the color  of the connectors and making it darker so that the connector was not as prominent as the beaded tubes. Here is what I finally agreed was as good as it gets.

I like it but not enough to make a whole necklace this way. I have been browsing thru old projects in past magazines to keep my interest while going through a rather uninspired time.  In doing so, I found something that uses the peyote tubes I had made in a different way that really spoke to my fondness of the odd. I will share it when it is finished.

I have some orders that I  finished by looking thru these same older magazines for beaded bead inspirations.

Both of them are for the same lady who will give them to each of her daughters for Christmas. The first was a African coloration of Black, brown/ tan, and red.

The second was a Tropical blend of Turquiose (the color not the stone), melon, and brown/ biege.

And thru it all I have had the most loving foot wrap known to woman- this is Ash. He is usually much more aloof than this but I managed to catch him at his snuggliest. He is such a big boy now!