This is as close as I've come in a long time to getting to add to my blog. Usually I exercise more restraint, but tonight, even though I need to be somewhere by 9:00 AM, I'm still determined to get something down...I'm working with a real handicap...I accidently download "The Crawler" onto my computer, and it has pretty much tried to take over everything. It now commands my "home page" with it's own "Inbox", and since I've done everything to try to uninstall it, it's punishing me by not allowing about every tenth letter to print. ARGH!
Perserverance needed here...
Now...back to my "Dear Diary".
I have been totally blessed by having a dear friend (Sandy) volunteer to remove the beads from the mandrels, clean the beads and mandrels, redip the mandrels and process the packaging of the beads. She also accompanies me to take inventory of the beads I have out on consignment and helps me keep track of myself...(one very taxing job!) Am I fortunate or what!?!
I have designed a "running series" with 20 different but like beads. When you look at the edge of the bead, you can see a path going around with dots, offset on either side, which give it the rhythm of running. The base bead is where the difference comes in ie: "runs in snow" is a white bad, where as "runs on ice" is a clear bead..."runs in rain" is a blue base bead, and "runs at night" has a black base, etc. There's even a "runs for fun". I had this bead, but didn't know what to call it, so asked my friend Joan (JoAn) to name it for me.
Then a lot of series came to my head..."night rider" all have a base bead of "moss agate", which is dark brown/black/tan in color, and I put different designs on them, such as "fireflies in the night", "clear night", "foggy night", etc.
"painted dasies" are all on a base bead of transparent gold, with green running around the middle with dot of color in a line...a different color for each bead.
My last series was my "feather series", but I haven't completed it yet....but they are very beautiful..so far I have "white dove", "blue jay", "raven" and "parrot". I have ideas for others, such as "turtle dove", "cardinal", "goldfinch", and will be searching the bird books for other ideas. All of the above mentioned beads are somewhere between round and donut shaped beads.
So now...what I've been waiting to do ever since I walked into Kate Drew-Wilkinson's store, Uptown Tribal, in Bisbee, AZ. I have finally started making "tree beads"! Each one is taking me between 45 minutes to an hour, but definitely worth the time. Each bead has a background of a river, a valley, mountains and clouds. In fact, one of the back grounds was so beautiful, I couldn't bare to cover it up with a tree, so I merely put a stump of a tree on that side. : )
OK...enough about my beads...tonight, Sandy and I went down to The Jewelry Box, and took a lesson on wire wrapping. We used natural stones with some crystal beads for highlight. What fun!...and I might add, also...How Pretty! (honk honk...(honking my own horn again))
What's next? Glass Fusing...hope I spelled it right. I have the stained glass to do it with, and the kiln to do it in...all I need is a lesson and I'll be "Off!" And I know exactly where to take the lessons. Tamyra, at Creations Unique is my next stop for a new creative experience.
OK...I've stayed at the computer longer than I had planned to...especially considering having to retype every 10th letter...talk about an albatross around your neck!
More to come after my Fusing lessons...(fuseing? fuzing? fuzeing?)
Is there an end to this madness? I certainly hope not!
