One thing leads to another

I had so much fun working on the little beaded fetishes that I sort of got on a roll with beading this week. This is good because a lot of little annoyances came up in other areas of my life, and the repetitive stitching and the sparkly little beads were very soothing. I finished the two pink ones.

I plan to add a strand of beads between the "hands" to use as a hanger. I think they will look nice hanging on the bulletin board by my desk at work.

If you want to try one yourself, the templates can be found here, as well as a gallery of other beaders interpretations of the designs. I have just one tip -- don't stuff the shapes too full. Not too floppy either, but just full enough to hold a shape. Mine are a little fat, especially the one with the butterfly bead.

I started beading the little orange one, but while rummaging for more bead colors I picked up an old project that will eventually become the centerpiece of a new collar. I finished the bead embroidery this morning with my first cup of coffee. Now I just need to decide which color I want to do the edging with. It's going to be a pretty dramatic piece.

One thing I have noticed is how much faster I have become at this. That second fetish just flew off my fingers! Practice, practice, practice... if only everything were so much fun!

Just one last thing -- I finished my Dark Fairy doll and submitted photos to be judged. Now I just have to wait for the results. I will post photos as soon as I am allowed. Wish me luck!

Waiting on Drying Time

I truly believed I had finished my Dark Fairy Challenge doll last night, but then I thought of one more thing I wanted to do, so I guess it's fair to say that the obsession continues. An obsession it has become! I worked straight through the weekend on it (OK, I did manage to get a little laundry done, but we went out for pizza again, LOL) and it has consumed every leisure moment so far this week as well. I am loving every minute of it.

I'll be able to share pictures soon -- the deadline for entries is next week -- but in the meantime I want to put up what I've been working on to pass the time while the the layers dry.

This first photo is of the canvas I posted a while ago with the decopodged gingko leaves. My intention is to create an image styled after the work of Laurel Birch, specifically the "Swan Goddess" from her Legends book. The leaves are adding such a cool textural element under the paint, really adding to the piece as a whole. I want to wait to work more on this one though until I can concentrate on the painting and do it real justice.

So far, so good!

These little guys I found on my beading desk. I have no idea when or why I began them, but I knew right away that they would make a fun pick-it-up-and-put-it-down project for me to play with that wouldn't suffer too badly if I got distracted. I can't believe I've almost finished the big one already!



Hey, I just discovered that this is my 180-something-th post on this blog. (Oh my!) I believe I will offer one of these beaded beings as a drawing prize for my 200th post. Sounds like fun to me!

Undercover creativity

It has been a busy and exciting week, and I am deep into the creation of a new doll, one quite different from any I have made before. Unfortunately, I can't share pictures here yet because it is destined for a challenge on Doll Street. It is coming along better than I could have hoped for though. I am experimenting with many new processes, and while none of them have turned out *exactly* as I had planned, each one has worked well in ways I couldn't have anticipated. Very exciting!

I do have a few things I CAN share -- both of the girls have Occasions this week, so I made them each a piece of jewelry to wear. We went to an absolutely wonderful bead shop in Poulsbo, WA last month. They had a delicious assortment of incredible sterling silver findings, and I HAD to have some, so I let each of the girls choose a pendant and a clasp for a necklace. I was amazed and amused at how the girls' choices reflect their personalities.

This one is Alice's, which she plans to wear to her first prom tonight. The pendant is a large pearl wrapped in silver, and the dangles are kyanite and pearls. They are strung together with seed beads, more pearls, and Swarovski crystals. That clasp is so beautiful that it should be featured in a necklace of its own, but I stuck to my word and let her put it on her necklace.

My Lydia is crazy about dinosaurs, so she was excited to find a pendant of fossilized ammonite. Her necklace is make of jade, dyed quartz chips, and "Vitriol" Swarovski crystals which are the coolest color, a green that flashes purple in the light.

We chose the colors to go with the dress I made for her originally, but she ended up wearing something else for the banquet. She still loves the necklace though.

I'll share one last picture before I close for today (and go check and see if my doll is dry enough to work on some more, LOL.) This is Lydia at her coronation as Marion County's Dairy Princess-Ambassador for 2008. She has been working toward winning the title since she was a little girl when her aunt was the princess. Congratulations Lydia!

Time to play

I confess to being disappointed that I won't be able to take the credit for Lydia's dress tomorrow night. No lack of ego here, LOL! But it was such a headache and took up so much time... and I just got a call from my oldest son -- he and his wife are going to be able to come down from Washington to attend the banquet with us. NOW I'm excited and relieved that she has a lovely dress to wear and I don't have to sew any more.

Time to play!

I truly believed that I was finished with my contribution to this month's Altered Clothing round robin project. I got to work on this fabulous vest -- isn't it amazing? I found some wild and lovely orange/fuschia irridescent silk to use as binding for the armhole edges. The colors work perfectly with what has already been done, and there was enough left on the bolt to buy some extra to make something for myself as well. (I don't know what yet, but it was too fabulous to leave behind.)

I intended to mail it on last week, but my contact person was in no hurry to receive it, so I kept it long enough to do a little more to it. I cut a few more bias strips to use as ribbon and sewed them to her headdress with beads. NOW I feel I have done enough and will put it in tomorrow's mail. Whew! Another one done.

Next Saturday is Alice's first prom. Their theme this year is a masquerade, so I volunteered to make her mask. I haven't had this much fun playing with glue and scissors in a long time!

I began with a plain black plastic form from the craft store (like the one on the left in the photo) which I cut into a more pleasing shape and sanded down. Then I added paint (layers and layers of paint!) feathers, paperclay, microbeads, glitter, rhinestones, and varnish. I see by looking at the photo that I want to add a little more shading around the paperclay shapes.



Unfortunately, she is getting dressed at a friend's house so I won't be able to see the whole costume in person. However, she is going to take my camera along and get pictures. I have threatened her with dire things if she forgets!

Lost It

It's been over a year now since my Mom died, and I thought I would go back to work on the portrait of her as a young girl that I started before I knew she was so sick. I am happy with the skin tones, and the way the background is taking shape, but I have lost the likeness. It's still a cute picture of a girl and a kitten, but it isn't Mom anymore.

Thank goodness for digital cameras! These instant pictures really help me see where I go wrong. Anyway, since this photo was taken, I have painted out the eyes, which have somehow grown apart (!) and will wait for the paint to dry a bit before I try again.



Have I mentioned how much I adore the smell of oil paint, LOL?

I have been frantically sewing on a dress for Lydia, but I bit off WAY more than I can chew. The pattern is much more complicated than I anticipated. The technical aspects I can handle -- it only takes a little patience -- but the fitting is driving me insane. I do believe we may go dress shopping this weekend after all. The very idea fills me with so much relief... I don't remember dressmaking EVER being this stressful before.

In the meantime, I finally thought of an idea to use the beautiful gingko leaves my wonderful sister-in-law sent me. This is just the beginning...



They are such gorgeous things!

Spring Break?

Oh, my poor neglected blog. I have been so busy this past month that I haven't gotten the chance to sit at the computer much. I have been sewing, but not much worth photographing. I WILL have stuff to share soon though.

In the meantime, I'll put up some of my other recent photos. I've been reading a lot working hard to learn Photoshop Elements, as well as the concepts of good photography. I have a decent camera and it really is about time I learned how to use it to its full capacity -- I hope to work up to deserving a DSLR soon.

We took the girls to the Coast for Spring Break last week. Now, when you go to the beach in the springtime, do you think it is unreasonable to expect a little fun in the sun? Well OK, this IS Oregon and they don't call us webfoots for nothing, but we had SNOW. It was too weird and amusing to get worked up over, but I still wish it had been just a *little* warmer.

This is the only sunset we had all 3 nights we were there. That black cloud on the right was on its way in to dump yet more snow on us.

We enjoyed our room very much, and got quite familiar with the cable channels on the TV. We don't have cable at home, so that in itself was a little treat. I'm not much for TV though, so I played with my camera instead. Look at me -- I *finally* understand F-stops!


















So maybe sharing portraits of my family's feet is a little weird, but understanding focal length has been a challenge to me for so long that I HAD to play with some alternative points of view just to prove to myself that I could finally do it.

And hey, does this family know how to kick back, or what, LOL!













I don't want this blog to become a forum for sharing too many family pictures, but I have to put up one more. I am so proud of this photo! This is Jake holding his granddaughter for this first time. Annika is not a tiny newborn, but doesn't her little hand look almost lost in his? (Jake's hands really ARE that big.)

The original was in color, but the image worked so much better when I rendered it in black and white instead. I think I want to crop it just a little more and maybe up the contrast a smidge...

My Granddaughter has arrived!