Bead Soup Blog Party # 8

Meet Flora Dora, off on yet another shopping expedition.  With hair quaffed and shoes polished, she's wearing a new hat and dress and sports the latest style in classy handbags.  Her hands and legs are moveable and she thinks she looks pretty hot.  I'm going to hate to tell her she's just a brooch :)

I loved the 'Iris' coloring on the 10mm black beads Tania including in my parcel.  They were my inspiration for the rest of the components I used in this pendant and beaded 'chain'.  Porcelain flowers and lots of Czech beads.  Wish I could capture of the AB finishes better for you, mostly Jet AB and Vitrail.

So both fun pieces to make and wear, thank you so much Lori and Tania for the opportunity

These are the beads I sent to Tania and the pieces she made with them

And it's that time of year again where the blog is dragged out again, (huffing and puffing) from the back cupboard under the stairs.  I have no idea why it hides in such an inaccessible place most of the  year, it's really very friendly once I dust the cobwebs off and talk to it a little.

And off course it's that time of the year again when Lori Anderson is hosting her annual Bead Soup Blog Party - this year it's the 8th to be run and my 2nd participating.  Last year I partnered Adlinah from Singapore, this year it's much closer to home with Tania Hagen from Pelima Designs in Gisborne, New Zealand.

Here is the soup I received from Tania :)

Looking forward to designing with these.  

Now how did Tania know my two favourite colours are red and black?

On Being a Productive Little Bunny - 3rd Reveal BeadSoupBlogParty

WHAT A JOURNEY - at times joyful, at times frustrating, but most of the time very satisfying.

A reminder of the wonderful array of beads and components and the three beautiful focals from my BeadSoupBlogParty partner Adlinah. 

I had so many ideas rushing round my head but a couple of must do’s stood out straight away.

The first necklace literally ‘fell into place’ as I was pushing a variety of the beads round the beading mat.  I loved the colours of the swirly lampwork beads so made a ‘Frosted Peacock’ colour brick stitch base and stitched the beads and components onto that.  The stringing is Blue Agate, Red Coral and Silver.  It can be worn both horizontally and asymmetrically.

My daughter fell in love with this necklace at first sight so I guess it already has a new home J

Adlinah sent me the most beautiful clasp - a vintage Pearl Box from Japan, circa 1960’s. 

I’ve always wanted to create a vintage, nostalgic type of lace bead embroidery, flowery, feminine, and very frou frou, and this clasp was the perfect catalyst to get me started. 

This is the result …

 

So onto a focal …

I simply love the colours and shape of the handmade glass focal disk by mandrel2 (Etsy) - Scarlet Red and Montana Deep Blue, edged with Metallic Silver – yum.  I so wanted to do this lovely focal justice and played with many combinations of what Adlinah had sent and what I had in my stash. 

But everything seems wrong until I realized all it needed was something relatively simple, where the focal itself would be the star. 

I’ve attached two clips on the back so it can be either a brooch or a hairpiece.  Ultra Suede front and back with an insert of Lacy’s Stiff Stiff to keep it perky.

Earrings …

I luuuuv making earrings and was spoilt for choice.  Here’s three pair I've made so far.

  












The second focal Adlinah sent was a porcelain clay pendant by Mary Hubbard of White Clover Kiln.  
I love the mint colours in the little birdie pendant and the Swarovski Mint Alabaster beads that were in my pack.  He’s so cute, I had fun creating this necklace (and poem).  Hope you enjoy them both …

Billy Bird has built a bower

With love and leaf and twig and flower

A room with a view in a minted tree

Cos a Sensitive New Age Guy is he

Happy and proud as he sits on his branch

And watches the butterflies play and dance

Now all he needs to complete his life

Is a Sensitive New Age Bird called ‘wife’

And some more fun – still a work in progress – Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

I’ve glued little resin bears to the red foam shapes Adlinah sent me and will string them into a necklace.    

I've yet to use the rubber tubing, the third focal and four beads but they ARE earmarked - good things take time ...

Thanks so much for looking and please take the time to visit my beadpartner in Singapore - Adlinah and also check out the other artists who've all taken time out of their busy schedules to create pieces of art for us all to drool over.

Lastly none of this would have happened without the love, patience and support of Lori Anderson whom I can't thank sufficiently with just words.

BeadSoupBlogParty #7 third reveal is today

Yes today is the day -

Watch this space !!!

UFO's and other unfinished business

If you're a creative person, you never seem to have enough hours in the day - which invariably leads to lots of unfinished projects as your brain leaps forward to yet another great idea.

Today I actually finished a necklace that's been sitting waiting for a clasp - yes JUST a clasp, for over a year.  Well to be really honest it also needed rethreading as I'd cut the beading wire a smidgen to short (don't ya hate it when that happens?).

Anyway, for no particular reason today seemed to be the day to do it ...

TA DA!

PAPER ROCK SCISSORS
Paper wrapped beads with Marble, Agate, Jasper and Chalcedony

Then I played with a few pieces of Paua - hairclips and a tie tac

Plus I've been playing with my Bead Blog beads, lots of ideas forming but I can't say a word till the 13th April (ssshhhhhhh)

And a DRUM ROLL from me

My gorgeous GORGEOUS beads have arrived safely from my partner Adlinah Kamsir in Singapore.  Adlinah posted a really tantalizing distorted photo of them on her blog and I nearly went insane trying to figure out what was there.  I even thought at one point she might have changed the colours in the photo as well just to tease me further ...

but no, the colours are the same and so beautiful ...  And so beautifully packaged too along with some sweet munchies to chew on as I bead.  What a lovely thoughtful thing to do.

I will cringe as she opens her beads from me ... beautifully packed in ... boring bubble wrap.

So here is my BeadSoupBlogParty beads and I can't wait to get started with all these lovely goodies - no less than 3 lovely focals and the clasp is a vintage pearl box clasp.  Heaven!

Will keep you posted as the saying goes :)

Ooo, ooo, ooo

Arrived home tonight to find a card in the letterbox saying a parcel was being held for me at the main Post Office cos it needed a signature for delivery ...

JUST GOT TO BE MY BEADS from the lovely Ally at www.dreamstruckdesigns.blogspot.com. 

Power on again now but to be off for another 2 hours tomorrow.  Off to bed now, will post more tomorrow when brain has caught up with tired eyes lol

Ahhh, the best laid plans of mice and men .....

Due to kitchen renovations our power supply has been on and off in the past two weeks more times than I care to remember - and it's about to go off again for another three hours - THEN ***hopefully*** it will stay on and I can start posting again :)

So till then ...

Have been asked to re-post this - a poem I wrote a few years ago.

Yesterday's gone – diminishing shapes gauzy and greyed

Tomorrow exists - composed, but not yet played.

Wake with me  

a purple dawn whispering

softly across the silver sea

Golden fingers stretching sensuously

across the sky as an expectant sun

pokes one eye lazily over the horizon

(as if to re-assure herself)
before, in a burst of glory she expels us

from the womb of night.

Fly with me,

I will please you with

diamonds dancing on spider webs

as sunbeams play with the dewdrops

The sweet smell of earth refreshed

after a midnight shower 

Untamed beaches where gulls and spirits soar

and the surf sings to the sand

See new born foals on new found feet

rainbows and flowers

a mountain peak

Cry with me,

I will shame you with

factory ships wallowing in bloody bays

as smiles are slashed from cetaceans' faces 

Death traded for dollars

Political puppets growing fat

on corruption and cocktail parties

Slums, breeding grounds for

race hatred, rats, and kids

fixing in doorways - apathetic stares

no one caring who knows or knowing

who cares.

Lie with me,

I will cover you with a mantle 

of twilight studded with diamonds and destiny  

Tranquility; late summer barbecues

stepping stones and skipping stones across a river  

 Children’s laughter bubbling out of wet togs

and into warm pj’s

Sit on a beach and stare at a sunset

red as the firelight that flickers

on your face my friend

No need for words

The ART of Cooking in a BEING RENOVATED KITCHEN

When I said, “Let’s do it” a couple of months ago – was I having a mental block? OBVIOUSLY !!!
Why had I forgotten the last time I tried to cook and barely coped without a working kitchen for 6 days? Right, it WAS 17 years ago, but you’d think something so challenging would stay in your mind … NO!!!
Perhaps akin to not remembering the pain of childbirth LOL.

To anyone who ‘knows’ about shifting house they’ll understand how general stuff can fit into about 33 large boxes. Linen, (bulky) – about 15 boxes. Kitchen stuff – pots, pans, bowls, utensils, cutlery, food etc – easy peasy, about 9 boxes …

That is unless you’re foodie! - 9 boxes – HAHAHAHA!!! Double that at least, triple it even with all the extra “essential stuff” and all the “extra essential TOYS” one’s accumulated over the past decade or so.

So in order to keep the kitchen going throughout the renovation I had a grand plan utilizing the slow cooker, the BBQ (thank goodness for summer), an electric grill, the microwave and the laundry tub for washing up.

Food storage - I’d planned for all the oils and vinegars in one place – pots and pans in another, herbs and spices in another, canned stuff in another, etc etc. And I could cope without most of the whizz bang toys (very temporarily of course LOL ) …

Last night most of the cupboards and drawers were emptied. I cooked a pork rack in the oven with baked veges (enjoying the last use of the current oven). I should have been forewarned – the cutlery tray (taken out of it’s drawer earlier that day and put on a handy table) was buried under an electric drill, a tape measure and a tea towel covered with a brown sawdust type extremely questionable wet ooook.

To be continued …

And here I am again ...

A great incentive to get my blogs going again was offered by Lori Anderson of Bead Soup Blog Party fame, as participants in the 2013 event have to have a blog site where they can show their progress.

Here's a link to the amazing event  http://lorianderson-beadsoupblogparty.blogspot.com
Can't wait to get started :)

And where have I been the last 2 years?  Well, thinking about how bad I was not publishing more blogs; then there was a house and business shift in 2011, 2012 was our BIG OE and we were in France when I broke my left arm rather badly right up by the shoulder bone.  Four days in a French "Clinic" and surgery to insert various pieces of hardware to line all my arms bits up again meant a huge leap in my previous low ability schoolgirl conversational french, so I guess some good came out of it all.  And I have to admit one also becomes quite creative making ordinary day to day things happen when one only has one working arm / hand.  I'm still on physio but things are still improving so that's good.

So that's about it in a nutshell.

Time for me

Now that the weather's improved I've spent quite a bit of time in my garden instead of in front of a sewing machine or beading board.  Managed to get rid of most of the weeds and pulled out several shrubs that had outlived their prettiness.

Also had a huge clean up of plastic pots, potions and general clutter around the garden.  Couldn't believe how many empty plastic containers I had - surely I haven't bought THAT many plants - well where are they all if I did?  Well yes, I guess I did buy that many but I'm the biggest killer of plants that I know.  It's not that they get neglected in the garden, it's the neglect between the garden centre and actually planting them in the garden that's the problem lol.  I always have the best of intentions and pop the little babies down in a sheltered part of the garden, sometimes even where I'm going to plant them, and then unfortunately I move onto doing something else and a couple of weeks later I find the poor wee sods, usually dead or past retrieving - so another plant pot joins the stash.   Ah well, at least I'm keeping the recycling wheel going round.

So now I have most of the summer veges sitting up nicely - and actually in the soil - I've had time for a bit more beading.

This is my latest winner on the Australian Beading Forum YOJ.  The theme was "Sex Bomb" and if you've ever had that song on the brain, like me you'd probably also want to put a bomb under who ever wrote it.

Anyway, I decided I had to make something in Red and Black and it took less than a day for this to be created.  I called it "Madam Meets the Mistress and Does Lunch at the Moulin Rouge"

   

Polymer Clay, Crystals, Pearls and some Ostrich Tufts

Not sure if I'll ever be game enough to wear it but who never know - what's that expression about behind closed doors?

Tree of Life

I made this necklace recently for the YOJ on the Australian Beading Forum.  The subject was "Tree of Life".  It took a while for inspiration to strike but once it did this came together in a little over an hour.

I really love the design and hope you do too.  The little leaves are Garnet and the focal bead is a seed. I was told it was a coconut seed but I'm not sure ...

My description of the necklace was -
The seed sprouts, the tree grows, bears buds, leaves and fruit. The chain of life continues, the decaying skeletal leaf provides nutrients for the seed which sprouts, the tree grows .... 

I'd like to do something similar in real gold rather than artistic wire but at the moment can't afford it.

Wheels within wheels

Had a chesty cold for nearly three weeks now and can't seem to throw it off so I've had plenty of time to sit curled up in a rug in the sun, read lots of beading books and actually finish off several UFOs.


Last weekend I was feeling a bit more human so made this item for the "Wheels" YOJ Challenge on the Australian Beading Forum.  I thrilled to say it was voted the winner. 


I get a really neat little badge to add to my signature on the forum plus a lovely banner to show on my website (which YAY!!! I'm pleased to say is starting to look really good and should go public in a couple of weeks)  Perhaps make that a month lol.


Anyway my steampunk interpretation of "Wheels" was -


In Steampunk Land, if we were to look inside someone’s mind we would see a myriad of wheels and cogs. Wheels within wheels within wheels. Mechanical pieces all spinning, turning and interacting amongst a total kaleidoscope of colours and pictures - constantly evolving.
So if at times your brain can’t keep up with your thoughts and everything is whirling round like psychedelic wheels in your head – don’t panic! It’s a condition commonly called Creative Process and easily cured by a large dose of Me Time along with a course of Retail Therapy at your nearest craft centre. 

I wired Swarovski Bicones into circles and the stems form the (mostly) unseen spokes of the wheel into and under the watch movement. I ran out of room around the bezel at around the same time Mr Swarovski fortunately ran out of colours. It's on on a Du-kit circular base and has a wheel cog at the top for the chain.
Hope you like it :)  I think it will be a fun item to wear :)

I’ve always quite liked mice

Now mice of course, even really large ones, are not to be confused with rats. Specially the dark brown rat variety with foot long bodies and arm length tails that many years ago I’d often see scurrying away as I rode my horse past the edge of the local rubbish tip that cascaded onto the Petone beach near the mouth of the Hutt River. 

I doubt the tip still exists, wouldn’t be PC these days would it to have rusty car bodies, broken fridges and rotting rubbish cascading over a bank onto a sandy beach only yards from the water? The area’s possibly quite posh now - high-rise apartments and three-bedroom pensioner housing perhaps ???  Wonder where the rats went…

I’ve only ever had physical contact with two rats in my life so far. The first one, a small skinny grey was riding on the shoulder of a black spike-haired young Goth as we crossed paths early one morning. Well, spose you can’t call passing at arms length actual physical contact with a rat, but all three of us did make eye contact and I did mutter an early morning like greeting and got a sort of grunt in reply - I think it was from the Goth.  I expect he’s is now a respectable family man, wonder if he kept the rat…

I think pet rats might have been a sort of status symbol for persons of a certain age during that era. Many years ago on a visit to my eldest’s flat in Thorndon I was personally introduced to a fat white rat called Ratus Ratus. Yes I know that’s what they are but this one's name was actually Ratus Ratus.  He lived in a large cage complete with plastic Ferris wheels, shredded newspaper and pieces of limp teeth imprinted carrot. They said he came with the flat. Not wanting to appear unworldly in the way of rats, I could hardly refuse the request later that night to hold him while his cage was being cleaned.

Remembering the rubbish tip rats I steeled myself to sharp little claws, rough hair and bad breath but amazingly he felt so soft and warm and squidgy that I immediately felt an affinity with all the people who ever wanted to walk around with rats on their shoulders and lovingly shred newspaper strips night after night.

Well that was until he escaped my hands, ran up my arm, clawed his way to the top of my head and softly, gently and warmly peed down the side of my face – it was a very personal experience!

Eldest left that flat at the end of the year, I never heard what happened to the rat… Perhaps it went next door to live at Katherine Mansfields place.

Roll on Summer

I must admit I hadn't really thought much about winter until this week.  It's been so mild here that my roses are still blooming, my Scarlet Runners show no sign of dying back, the deciduous trees are still hanging on to most of their beautiful autumn toned leaves and my ornamental cherry tree is flowering.

Yes, well - all about to change.  Winter arrived last week with a vengeance, obviously intent on making up for lost time.  Thunderstorms, rain, sky so dark at times yesterday we had the lights on most of the day.  Today only marginally better and I can hear another thunderstorm circling in the distance. 

A great day to bead and catch up with 'chatty' things on the web.  Got to admit I've been paying a lot of attention to the former and not much to the latter recently.  Really need to organize my time better and not flit from project to project.  

Promised the next picture I posted would be of jewellery so here's a pair of earrings I made last week.  Very sumptuous and Eastern looking and almost shoulder dusters.  Not sure that I want to sell these as I just love them, the colours are so rich.  Now to find something to wear with them!

I named them “Salute to Scheherazade” and they're 14K Gold Filled with Vermeil filigrees, freshwater pearls and Swarovski crystals.  

Sunrise over New Plymouth

It's starting to look like I'm obsessed by photos of the sky doesn't it :-) This stunner was taken about 5.30am.  I'm not normally up at that time so just shows what I miss.

I promise the next photo will be of my beady stuff (no sky)

It had to start somewhere ...

Once upon a time I said "One day I'm going to start a blog".  Perhaps it was a threat, perhaps it was a promise;  I can't remember which or even who I said it to.


But here goes anyway ... 


The sunset photo above was taken from my balcony in July 2009 at about 5.25pm. Three minutes earlier, the rays of light in the sky were absolutely spectacular but as usual the camera was on another level at the furthest end of the house. Isn't it ALWAYS when it's needed in a hurry! At least I got several shots before the effect faded completely to an off grey.


It wasn't till I downloaded the photos that I saw the street light had just been turned on in this one - just seemed to put a finishing touch so it's the one I've chosen to show you.