I'm a lucky girl!

I just downloaded my e-mail & saw that I was the lucky winner from Beverly Ash Gilbert blog's give away. Waahooo! I'm doing the lucky girl dance. If you ever get the itch to see some lovely eye candy and photographs that will just blow your mind, check out Beverly's blog. I bought her color wheel book & can't wait for her new book to come out as it is about "Colorways" and do I ever need help on learning color theory. I was talking to Roxie over at Byzanitum one day commenting on how I need to work on this goal & she told me that she'd been to Art school & it still was a goal she was working on. She said that it was one of the hardest things to wrap your head around. Oh no, but I'm going to try & can't wait for Beverly's book.

On BAD we are doing the stuffed animal challenge. I've had so many things to do that the beanies that take me a week to complete are on the back burner. I only have this much done after a month, but I've been busy with other things. I was hoping to do a tutorial on how to bead the faces on stuffed animals, but every single blasted picture I took was out of focus. Do you think I need to study my camera a little more? Probably not as I was downstairs in the studio where it was dark. I was too lazy to bring out the lamps & see...I really need the lamps. Oh well, hopefully tomorrow or I could always whine & Chris might do it for me...hint, hint.

And I finished all the projects from the Bead Unique Retreat classes. I finished Sherry's pendent kit while in class & even though everyone told me I cheated (I used three beads instead of two while doing embroidery), I still had it done & wore it out of class. I got Marcia's bracelet done while at the airport waiting for my plane to take me from Denver to Columbus (very very long delay), but it was Beki's necklace that had me slowed down. You see, I have this mental thing about peyote...and it does take a while to make a 27 inch twisted herribone chain. BUT I'M DONE!!!!!!

What did I learn from the classes at the Retreat. Well, first...I love Sherry! Wish she lived closer, but you know Pittsburgh is only 3 1/2 hours away! I also bought two more of her kits & have one 1/2 done. Between Marcia's instructions & her wonderful book (Beaded Opulance) I was able to conquer RAW (right angle weave), and have to fight people off when I wear the bracelet as they want to buy it off my arm. Usually I sell things, but NOT THIS ONE! Marcia's ease with teaching got me to buy more kits to try my hand at more RAW projects. Beki really challenged me in Twinkle Twinkle, but Beki lovely...I won the peyote challenge! Now for some reason I ran out of some of the beads, so I improvised a bit. It isn't perfect & when I do it again (notice I said I'd do it again) I'd try to get the twinkle stars in a nicer pattern. I love the twisted herribone...can't believe I've never done that before, but it was fun & I can see that as a base for some new projects. Oh...and I just adore Beki. She was one of the most hardest working women at the Retreat. She made sure we all had lots of lovelies to eat even though she herself was in pain from a back injury. Oh and Shawn taught me that I can spend enough on bead to help out with people's car payments!