SpeedieBeadie

MonsterMakeOver

2012-01-23T17:02:00.001-05:00

I finally got pictures of the big huge necklace that was made from the left over pieces of the purse overlay that didn't turn out. I cut out all these medallions from the purse overlay and using a bag of vintage lucite pieces I got from http://www.beadinpath.com/ I manage to make this necklace. It is HUGE! But it does not weigh that much surprisingly so. I plan on wearing it next month when I head up to the Detroit area for Bead Daze. I'm still getting use to my new iPhone 4S. I LOVE it. Why didn't I get one sooner. I was able to download a score of books so I have something to read while laying around in bed, waiting at the doctor office, or just taking a quick break from beading.

Baby Flora

2012-01-19T16:40:00.005-05:00

Last November, Chris & I were at the Scot's Antique show at the Franklin County Fairgrounds. In the past, this was the beginning of our Holiday season, but since we've dramatically slowed down on collecting we only do the show occasionally. This year, we walked up and down the aisles some times stopping for a closer look at something that attracted our attention. We saw all kinds of things we truly loved, but didn't want to spend money on...or find a place in our home for. One booth was selling old toys. Most of them were very high priced Tonka trucks and extremely expensive comic books that I had probably just thrown away as a child when I was tired reading it. On one table was a box filled with the most ugliest dolls you have ever seen. They were plastic with atrocious faces and some of them were filthy from sitting in a garage or attic for years and years. A few even had some deterioration to the plastic from age. The booth owner said they were dolls given away at Fairs back in the 60's and 70s. I could not in my imagination want something so ugly back when I was a girl going to the Fair. But I was itching for them. Did you ever see something and know you wanted it not because of what it was but because of your Muse crying to your subconscious? Well, at negotiations and getting 16 ugly ugly dolls for ten dollars, we decided it was time to leave.

I knew I could not use any of these ugly dolls in the condition they presently were in. They were sticky from age and neglect...oh and they were so ugly. Now let's jump to Dick Blick's here in Columbus. We had a 40% off coupon burning our hands while we walked down the aisles looking for something new to try working with. We stopped and looked at each other and decided to buy the mold maker kit. Came home with our prize, and then it dawned on us...those ulgy dolls! Chris cut the head off of one with the least obnoxious face and following the directions, we were able to make a mold. Then we poured the plastic resin into the mold not knowing what to expect and were pleasantly surprised to see a charming face. But it was still plastic and white, white white. I did see that you can add coloring to the plastic resin, but I didn't want to do that. I'd taken several classes where we'd done cloth over a clay face, so I decided to try that with the white plastic head. After an hour of working diligently, I stepped away and was happy with the results. Then I got out my gel pins and chalks and colored in the face. How amazing it turned out. From something so ugly to something adorable.

I tried my hand at making a doll body to match the head. It turned out with a few flaws that I need to tweak to get corrected. I wanted to turn this doll into a toddler in her pajamas wanting to go to bed with her stuffed bunny. I tried different ways to do hair, but then I flashed on a picture I'd once seen of a little girl wearing her bunny hat and it came together. When I finished, I was very happy with her. I decided to name her Flora. I still have a way to go to get the pattern perfected so that maybe someday in the future I can teach it. Plus I have to work on the stuffed animal pattern as this one is a moderated pattern from Leslie Molen. If I want to teach this, I definitely have to have everything original!

So here is Flora. There are others waiting to be molded and worked on. Hopefully, this can be my year project to get all the kinks worked out and either teach or sell some adorable toddler dolls.

Sneak peak of Flora

2012-01-17T19:43:00.004-05:00

Flora

Here is the first of a new series of baby dolls I'm making. This one is called Flora. More pictures coming later.

Another New Year

2012-01-17T09:11:00.001-05:00

Wow, I can't believe the month is already half over. Happy New Year to my followers. May 2012 be a better year for all of us.

I've been busy the past two weeks mainly trying to stay on track with things. I've been creating new dolls but need to tweak them a little bit more before I can show you what I've been doing. I also finished up the necklace which originally was going to be a purse, but the neck strap isn't to my liking yet so that too needs to be worked on before I can show you.

The biggest thing I have to say is that as of yesterday the results for the Land of Odds Illustrative Bead Tapestry was announced, and my entry (Black Notice) won first place. I didn't even know it as I was working second shift yesterday. I got a text message congratulating me...I didn't know what for. Then it hit me that I might have won the LOD challenge/contest. I gave a quick call to my friend in Washington who confirmed that I did win. I quickly went online and saw "winner" beside my name. I was shocked, happy, and so proud. I want to take this moment to thank everyone who took time from their busy schedules to evaluate and vote for me. I'm still too excited. Now I have to figure out what I want as I won a $1000.00 shopping spree from Land of Odds.

Winner of Land of Odds Illustrative Tapestry 2012

Another thing that happened these past two weeks is that I finally decided to enter the 21st Century by buying a Smart Phone and getting my own Verizon account. What did I get? Since we are all MacIntosh/Apple in this house, I got the iPhone 4S. I have to say there is a big learning curve especially since this gal didn't even know how to text, but using Macs most of it is pretty self evident to figure out. I'm loving it as I can now listen to music at work using the Pandora Radio, and on my break I can check out Facebook. I can TEXT! And I figured out how to download books so I have something to read all the time. Now to learn how to use the camera and video functions. Did I also say that it has GPS and SIRI? And I did manage the voice to text very nicely. I'm sure there is still so much for me to learn.


My new iPhone is white

One other thing I want to mention and will post on Facebook more is that I'm going to be teaching a bead embellished fabric cuff on February 4th at 1 Stop Bead Shop. If you are in the area and would love to learn the basics of bead embroidery while making a unique and personal fabric cuff then join me on Saturday Feb the 4th. This will be my first time teaching an official class at the bead store. It has been a long time since I've been the teacher and and so looking forward to it.

The dogs are all doing fine. Arwen is adjusting to her new medication for the bladder cancer. Fiona still has insomnia and wakes us all up around 6 am every single morning to eat. Frodo is just a lazy slug dog.

Monster Mistake part 2

2011-12-29T19:26:00.004-05:00

Medallions from cut up purse overlay

So far, I have the big front piece complete and now will finish working on the neck strap. I'm thinking that I'll add two more medallions at an angle so the piece will lay flat. Then I'll use a rope of RAW which I find very strong compared to other bead woven ropes to finish it all off. Doubt if I get it done before New Years Eve but then where am I going to wear this thing...to work? I think not! But I want to get it done before my birthday next week.

Monster Mistake necklace without the neck strap

Here also is a picture of me at Christmas dinner. I was able to eat soft food so having our annual Christmas dinner at China Dynasty was just perfect.

Monster mistake

2011-12-28T11:01:00.000-05:00

You know sometimes after you've been working on a project for over two weeks, you've just got to give up on it and move on. I did this to a purse project.

Fabric insert with glass blobs attached

I bought a big purse in a thrift store loving the shape of it and thought it would look great with a newly fabric and beaded covering. I picked out a really fun looking fabric, glued some flat back marbles on it. Then to give it a Scottie flare, I went through all my old jewelry and found a cute pin to use. Then I started to work on it. And I worked. And I worked. And I worked. I finally was happy with the beading making sure that at least 50% of the fabric was still visible. Then I attempted to put the covering on the actual purse. It was a disaster. Luckily I hadn't glued it down yet or else I could never have salvaged a thing. I had it all pinned on and was looking at the piece from every angle. Suddenly, my brain just said this is a big monster mistake. First off the piece of jewelry didn't match the beading. Then the actual overlay on the purse looked even worse. So I took it all off and threw it on my worktable vowing to never try that trick again. The shape of the purse was just all wrong for attempting this in this manner.

So it sat there for only a day when out came the scissors and I began to cut it up. At first I was going to take all the beading off, but luckily my wits stopped me short saying what was I doing after two weeks of work. So I stopped and rethought the destruction process. Then I cut each of the pieces apart and sat them aside playing with this like pieces of puzzles. A flash! This was going to become a necklace instead. So now I've been playing around weaving all these pieces together. Oh it is one big necklace. I haven't any photographs of the actual necklace construction, but that will come later. I'm just hoping this works out as what will I do with a huge monster necklace?

Happy Holidays

2011-12-25T09:39:00.002-05:00

From Dot, Chris, Fiona, Frodo, and Arwen

Merry Christmas to all

2011-12-24T11:59:00.000-05:00

Pam's Santa doll & Mary's wee mouse

Merry Christmas to all my followers out there. I'm so blessed to have you all helping me with my problems and my successes this past year. It has been a roller coaster ride for me, and you've all been my rock.

Christmas Party Dolls

Dot's Doll (Jinty)

Evelyn's doll

Mary's doll

Mary's second doll

Mary and Pam

Mickey's doll (Santa's Ho)

Sue's doll

Mickey & Mary's dolls

Vera's doll

Last Sunday, I felt well enough to head up to Akron for our Time for Doll's Christmas party. It was so much fun to get together with this small group of friends to share our year with food, laughter, and dolls. This year we all brought our challenge dolls to share. The theme was Christmas so how perfect. We met at Craft Akron which has a fabulous studio space, but I must admit that the lighting wasn't the best for picture taking as everything had a yellowish tint to it. Plus, one of the dolls which was so amazing wound up being out of focus, but I am showing it anyway. I got a little workout with Photoshop doing these so I had to brighten them up and adjust the color hues (without help from Chris). So please excuse some of the images and blame the photographer. ME! Anyway, enjoy some of Christmas dolls made with love by the ladies of Time For Dolls.

Christmas Anyone???

2011-12-17T10:58:00.001-05:00

Christmas is going to be a very quiet affair here this year. At least I hope I don't get influenza on Christmas Eve like last year so I'm going to knock on some wood. We decided to not put up a tree this year. Just can't seem to get into the mood. Maybe because I can't eat anything delicious & Chris' funky after getting the steroid injection into his back. My family is doing things separate which seems to be more and more frequent as we all get older. This will be the first year that Grandma isn't coming up to stay with Mom for the holiday either. Only thing really planned is that we'll be going to China Dynasty for Christmas dinner with my sister, her new friends, & at least one of my nieces.

Tomorrow though, I am going up to Akron for a Christmas party. We did have a challenge for this year's party. We all are suppose to make a Christmas themed dolls. At first I had this ideas of making a Santa from this primative Santa pattern, but it was huge! I got to thinking where would I put this thing after I made it? So I got out all the other patterns I had bought at AFIC last May & came upon Jinty the Sewing Elf from Leslie Molen. He came with a premolded face so all I had to do was put cloth over clay (her pattern used felt, but I think the cloth looks much better). Then I used my gel pins to color his face (she recommended paints). I hand stitched all his clothes and even hand stitched the bunny using quilt batter to make it look more rustic. He's sitting on a quilted ornament I also made. I think he's adorable. So tomorrow he's heading up with me for show & tell. I've seen one other doll for the challenge that Pam made & it is amazing. I've got to remember to take my camera with me.

I've been watching a whole lot of True Blood on HBOgo. I'm such a vampire girl. Love most of the stories except the Twilight stuff. Just can't get into that one. Maybe I'm just too old for the teenager romance angle. While watching the episodes of True Blood on my lap top, I've been working on a purse top. Oh I got one side all done & went to put it on the purse that I got at the thrift store, and it just looked so funky that I got my scissors out & cut it up. I guess the "redo" button was pushed. So now to take all that work & try to figure out what to do with it. Guess it might come in handy for some future jewelry/box project.

Daryl & Edward

2011-12-16T08:24:00.004-05:00

Thought I'd go ahead and show both of the boys together. You can really see how both though made at the same time look so totally different.

Met Edward & Mick

2011-12-16T08:18:00.005-05:00

While I was making Daryl & Mike, I also cut out & sewed up a companion piece Edward with his bunny Mick. Though I made them both at the same time, Edward's face turned out a whole lot different than Daryl. Needle sculpting really puts character into a dolls face. You can sit there and do them one after the other & no two will be quite the same.
Mall shopping was iffy yesterday. I walked through a couple of stores before my jaw started to hurt so I called it all off. Found a couple things for Chris, but nothing I really wanted. I was going to try on a jacket at Sears, but thought "why?". I already have too many jackets as it is.

Today we are going to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie. Gotta run. Fiona is barking to come in.

Daryl & Mike

2011-12-15T08:48:00.006-05:00

I love making new trolls from Ute's Oggie pattern. I can't stop! It is an addiction, but a very fun addiction. I sew up the pieces, then go through all my stash of socks and fabric to dress each up differently. These are my two new dolls. The first is Daryl and his bunny Mike. Daryl is wearing a pair of monkey socks that my niece gave to me. The bunny slippers were bought at Joann's. I made Mike out of left overs from Arwen's crate fabric. The hair is from a feather boa I had hanging around.

I'm feeling better now. Tried to eat a Wendy's hamburger last night but it was so cold and greasy that I gave up & just had an orange instead. Probably was better for me. Today is is warm outside, but gray & gloomy. I can't let that stand in my way as I need to get out to buy some Christmas presents. I really hate going to the Mall but since it is only 5 minutes from the house at least I don't have to drive for hours. Usually I find a close place to park in the back so no problem there. Now I just hope that the crowds are in a better mood than last time I was over there. Keeping my fingers crossed.

December going fast

2011-12-14T17:25:00.010-05:00

I just can't believe that here we are half way done with December. I've been missing in action here because I had some oral surgery last week. I need to have three gum grafts, and I'm so happy that I had it all done at once as I would never have gone back if I had had them done one at a time. I basically have four holes in my mouth right now. I haven't been able to eat anything solid for this whole week, and I'm so missing out on all this holiday foods. Which maybe isn't too bad of a thing as I really don't need to gain any of that predicted holiday pounds. Haven't gone out much except to buy more soup or dog food, so I've had plenty of time down in the ArtCave experimenting with Hal (my Janome sewing machine) and all the beads I've accumulated. The dogs have been happy that I've been home. Arwen has made herself my nurse. The first night I was home, she slept outside my bedroom not letting Chris near. Then when I finally got up, she sat next to me licking my hand. She wanted to lick my jaw, but I had to say no there. She also has been sleeping with me at night, and I must say that I've been enjoying having a furry warm bed partner with these cold frosty mornings.

I've missed out on several things here in Columbus. Didn't make it to the Guilded Lily Christmas party nor did I make it to a retirement party for a coworker. One good thing with all this is that WOW our cable provider finally gave us HBOgo. I'm so thrilled as now I can watch all the HBO shows while I'm downstairs working on projects. What am I watching...True Blood. I watched the first year from NetFlix and was waiting to get the other seasons, but now with HBOgo, I don't have to wait at all. They are ALL there! So lap top is downstairs with me. Sorry TCM, but HBOgo has hooked me.

This Sunday I am going up to Akron for the Time for Dolls Christmas party. I'm sure I'll be ready to drive up there by then. Probably still won't be able to eat any of the delicious holiday party food, but I'll get to be with my fellow doll makers enjoying food, laughs, displaying our holiday challenge dolls and the exchange. This year we are exchanging pincushions. I had no idea how in the world to make pincushions, so I went to my file & pulled out some patterns I've bought over the years. So I came up with these two pincushions. Not sure which one I'll exchange. The Elvis one actually has the head off of the Inca Prince by Barbara Schonoeff as it was just sitting there wanting me to use it for something. I think it kinda looks like a post peanut butter and banana sandwich Elvis who just got out of bed. The other is from Marcia Acker-Missel's pattern. I spent hours playing around embellishing it. Don't know if there is room for actual pins!

And just a reminder that you have two more days to enter the big Lark book give away. Over 30 books can be yours if you leave a comment at this link.

More later. I have been a sewing maniac.

Button necklaces

2011-12-03T11:00:00.000-05:00

Are you like me & can resist that jar of buttons whenever you head out to a flea market? I just can't help myself. I found this big jar of metal buttons for only $12 at a local market. It has been sitting on the shelf over my work desk for month now just taunting me. So when I started to experiment with doing RAW I looked up and an idea popped into my head. Why not use these as cabochons for necklaces. As in the top picture, you can use them in a piece that incorporated more than one cab as they are all uniform in size so you don't have to figure out the count with each individual cab and can just whip these puppies out.

Or you can just find one big button with a nice design that is all right being the main focal. And did I say that I've been using up all the seed beads I've been hoarding from the destash over at Byzantium when they closed. Have no fear that I'll run out...the wall of seeds is still very well stocked! Plus, now that I work at 1 Stop, I get the teachers discount so I'll never ever fear of running out ever again.

And now for something different

2011-12-02T11:00:00.000-05:00

My brain has been on fire since I came back from Bead & Button in Milwaukee in June. I learned to design with Right Angle Weave with both Marcia De Coster and Carol Wilcox Wells. I knew how to do RAW and had no trouble with my tension, but I was just doing flat pieces that did not excite my imagination at all. So after 4 days and classes with two great Masters, I want to do RAW all the time. I even find myself dreaming of the bead weaving patterns. I have been working up simple chains and bracelets using beads I have on hand including the large amount of cabochons I've picked up over the years. The rest of this week, I'm going to share some of my experiments.

Today is a piece I call Fandango. It is basically a RAW chain embellished with Magatamas. The actual fans are stone cabochons captured in RAW and then attached to the chain using RAW. The tricky part is in the actual attachment. You have to really keep your brain wrapped around the concept of three dimension to get it right. About the only thing I don't like about this necklace is that after wearing it for an hour, the fans seem to no want to remain spread out. I think to make me "happy" with this piece, I'm going to have to take off at least one of the fans and reattach it in a different spot. I wanted these to lay overlapping each other. The drawing board needs to be brought out and more experimenting to make sure this turns out the way that will make me pleased with it.

Another Troll Girl

2011-12-01T11:00:00.000-05:00

Please Welcome Arline to the Lewallen household. She's going to be joining the family of Trolls residing in Dot's upstairs studio. Arline is from Ute's Oggie pattern. This time i just wanted to try to make a smaller nose, but as you can see Trolls just want big honkers. Arline is wearing a lovely sweater made from one of Shannon's monkey socks. I love the hair. I went crazy using some old yarn I had sitting in a box with other UFO projects. Arline does need some prop for her to have in her hands. I think I might have some miniature water cans and gardening implements somewhere.

Doll Street challenge

2011-11-30T16:28:00.009-05:00

First off I'd like to thank you if you have taken the time to vote for the Land of Odds Illustrative Tapestry competition. If you haven't there is still time as the deadline is not until January 2012.

I belong to an online internet doll makers group called Doll Street. I really enjoy this group as it has so many talented doll makers willing to share ideas and help out folks like me that get stuck in a project and needing a helping hand. We also have challenges from time to time. Judi our fearless leader decided it was time to get out some of those pieces of dolls we all have laying around or in my case in a big basket and actually make something with them. At first we were referring to it as the bone yard challenge, but consensus decided it would be more fun to call it the Morgue Mix up challenge. You can see the rules here.

For my first challenge doll, I picked out a few "parts" that I've had hanging around nagging me to finish. The first was the doll body, stand and fabric that I had made at my second MM&M with Pearl Moon. The legs were from a class I'd taken with Judy Skeel in her studio which I believe was her dragonfly rider class (I shrunk the pattern down for this). The face was from a workshop held by Cyndy Sieving at a Guilded Lily Retreat. The roushing ribbon was also from a workshop Cyndy held. The beaded belt was my class sample from Byzantium. I found the knitted fruits, and I do indeed have no ideas who made them or where I got it all. The head dress was made from the Inca Prince class by Barbara Schonoeff at a Gala up at Punderson Resort.

I put them all together put a few beads and some paper flowers that I bought at 1 Stop Bead Shop into the mix and came up with Bountiful.

Now I did indeed need to bead a doll to keep my fingers nimble, so out came all these pieces from different experiments I'd made over the past 4 months trying to learn enough to make up my own doll pattern. Oh yes, these definitely were all the rejects. I did like the head, but the nose when needle scuplted was too tiny. The feet/shoes were actually a piece of fabric from Arwen's crate padding. And horns...oh I had to throw the horns from my Pocket Monster into the mix.

This bead soup was something I had in a bag. I have no idea why in the world I made these colors. Maybe it was back when I was trying to learn the color wheel or something...blah! Most of colors came from a bead mix I'd gotten from Land of Odds, but the green I added was just too much. No wonder this was a morgue reject bead mix! But it worked with this. I added the brightly colored yellow for the hair to try to tone down the watermelon & green & reds.

And I had to end this with a picture of my Arwen. Arwen is doing well with her treatment. The Piroxicam is helping her with the symptoms of the bladder cancer. Her liver enyzmes have even gone back to normal. Love my baby dog and hope she stays with me a while longer.

Now for some Scotties

2011-11-18T08:13:00.013-05:00

Yesterday was such a beautiful Sunny day in Ohio. Cool outside but the bright Fall Sun collected in the front room bathing the area with soft warming light. Arwen has figured out how to open one of the gates to the room. She uses her nose to push it open and then lets herself in to run about and jump up to people watch out the window. Frodo follows along just to make sure she doesn't do anything too fun. They were having such a good time and the lighting was so perfect, that Chris decided to do some photograph. I even got into the act with a new portrait of me with two of the three. (Fiona was fast asleep in her basket)

Arwen is our baby Scottie. Though she is over 7 years old, she still is our little clown. Two months ago, we received the awful diagnosis that she has bladder cancer. She had been having lots of accidents so I took her to the Vet. At first he thought she had Cushings and we began the journey to get that diagnosed when she developed a bladder infection. Microscopic findings showed she had transitional cells in her urine. This is the biggest clue of bladder cancer in Scotties who are the number one breed listed to have TCC. Ultrasound a few days later showed that indeed she had a tumor inside her bladder. It was too close to the ureters to be surgically removed. I've had Scotties since 1989 and know that this was not a good diagnosis for our young girl. We decided to treat her with a drug called Piroxicam. Oh yes, we did cry a long time as we know that we'll never get to see Arwen grow old. I contacted some other Scottie owners who have TCC and some told me the expected life span can be up to two years depending on the advancement of the tumor. Almost all of them told me that this drug was what was keeping their dogs alive. Then one of the Vet techs from Worthington Woods animal hospital called and shared her experience with TCC and her dog. As horrible as this all sounded, the support from all these people have made us feel so much better. And almost a full month into her cancer treatment, Arwen is doing better. She has no accidents anymore and her appetite is back. We are just going to love her for as long as she is with us.

Now this is Frodo. He's our 8+ black brindle Scottie who is one of Fiona's sons. Before Frodo even took one breath, Chris decided that this was HIS BOY! Frodo is the dog that made Chris into a true dog person. Frodo is the dog who ate all the fringe off our carpet when we was a puppy and ate a big hole in the center of an expensive rug. My Vet jokes saying that maybe that is why he's still so skinny. I think it is because of all the wood he eats. Oh yes, he loves to eat the fence. At one time when he was about two, he chewed a hole in our wooden fence just wide enough to stick his head out of so he could bark at all the rabbits in the field. Oh he not only chews the wooden fence, but he also likes to grab hold of the chain link fence and pull on it whenever another dog walks down the sidewalk.

Doesn't he look all innocent here? But all the chewing and pulling on the fence caught up with him, and about 18 months ago when he went in for teeth cleaning he came home with 16 less teeth.

If you don't believe me, then here is the proof. He's still got enough teeth to still pull on the chain link fence, but I'm sure he'll probably lose them too & be a toothless old man. He's on a special diet too. He eats canned food mixed with kibble. So far that is his only health problem. Since his mother, Fiona, has Diabetes, we watch him to make sure he doesn't develop this either. Nothing like living in a house with Senior dogs, but I wouldn't have it any other way as I love these guys so much.

Frodo is always on the alert. He is one charming old guy and just a picture perfect Scottie as long as he keeps his mouth shut.

We love our Scotties so much. They take up a lot of our lives now that the girls are ill. Fiona wakes us up to eat and get her insulin. Arwen needs her pills, and Frodo just wants a little time in the chair with Dad in the mornings. They keep us grounded, and they fill our lives with unconditional love. What more could we ask for?

Black Notice: Land of Odds

2011-11-12T14:42:00.010-05:00

Well, here it is. Finally I've been able to post about the big piece I had worked on and off for 6 total months. If you'd like to evaluate and vote for my piece then please click here. This was for the

2011 International The Illustrative Beader: Beaded Tapestry Competition
from Land of Odds

The challenge was to chose a mystery book and develop a cartoon not using any other images from published books or websites. Then take that image and bead it into a tapestry that adheres to the rules posted by Land of Odds.

Then after beading for 6 months off and on, you had to turn this creation into a hanging piece for display and send images of this tapestry to Warren Fields and Land of Odds.

Then wait, wait, wait until that envelope arrives to tell you that YES! all that hard work (and sore fingers) paid off for now you are one of the 4 semi finalist. Now to wait and let the general public evaluate each of the 4 semi-finalist and vote. I'd so appreciate if you would take a few moments to go to the website & vote for each of the four tapestries.

These are the original jpgs that I sent to Land of Odds for consideration in this challenge. Below is the Artist Statement that I also sent explaining the origin and construction of this tapestry.
-----------------------------

Nothing sends the brain into a roller coaster ride of intrigue and puzzle solving than a good mystery story filled with full bodied characters, well placed clues, and of course a murder or two. Patricia Cornwell’s Black Notice, published by Berkley Publishing Group in 1999, outshines these three prerequisites for a spine-chilling ride from page to page.

I sat in the break room at work looking at the staff lending library when I noticed someone had brought in a set of Patrician Cornwell’s books. I picked up Black Notice and was transported into the world of Dr. Kay Scarpetta. The setting for this story is in Richmond Virginia. Instantly, I found myself trapped in this well laid out novel about a Medical Examiner who has gained notoriety as a top-notch investigator and Foresenic Pathologist. As the story opens, Kay has drowned herself in work after the murder of her lover. She receives a letter from Benton dated before his death. She has been in a trance like state, not noticing things happening that are threatening to tarnish her career and her relationship with her friends and family. Benton writes to her to reconnect with Lucy, her niece, and Pete, her long time colleague and investigator. Before she can pull herself out of the fog of withdrawal, she receives a call of a strange death scene. The victim is a badly decomposed male body dressed in designer clothes inside a closed cargo container. Only two clues are visible at the time of discovery: long fine yellow hairs and the name “ le Loup Garou” (Werewolf) written on the inside container wall. The autopsy shows no cause of death or identification of the victim so therefore he is designated as a “black notice”. Upon further investigation the victim is found to have been drown, has an unusual tattoo that has been partial defaced and the fine yellow hairs inside his clothing. Meanwhile Loup Garou begins a spree of monstrous attacks on the citizens of Richmond. The new police chief, who seems committed in destroying Captain Pete Marino’s career and tarnishing Kay’s reputation, is using Kay’s lab assistant in unsavory sabotage. Lucy returns from Miami where she works as an undercover agent for the ATF on a case of drug smuggling of the infamous Chandonne family after accidently shooting her partner. Then Kay and Pete are contacted by an agent of Interpol about their case and are whisked to Paris where they find out that this “Le Loup Garou” is a serial murderer and possibly a grossly deformed member of the same wealthy Channdone family crime cartel.

The story in Black Notice has many story lines about different characters associated with Kay. This book starts out assuming that the reader has read the numerous other novels where Dr. Scarpetta has been the heroine. So, at first it was a little overwhelming to keep track of the characters since this is about the ninth book of the series. But like all well written books, it did not take long to dive into the meat of the story. Using Medical Science as the bases for investigation intrigued me. I am not a fan of forensic investigation television shows as I actually do work in a hospital lab and know that most of what is portrayed on television is taken out of content and romanticized for viewers. Yet, I found myself intrigued with the forensic work in this story where the examiner was trying to ascertain the identity of this corpse and cause of death. The one thing that immediately caught my attention was when Dr. Scarpetta asked her staff during an autopsy if they’d check for diatoms. I began to form questions in my mind first what actually were diatoms and how were they used for identification.

Later in the story, Dr. Scarpetta sits with one of her staff as they show her under an Electron microscope the different diatoms structures. Constantly using the microscope for my own job made me want to further investigate. I found that diatoms are microscopic aquatic algae found in both fresh and salt water. There are over 100,000 species of diatoms. Diatoms are primary producers using photosynthesis to create organic molecules from Sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide. One half of the photosynthesized molecules on Earth come from fresh water and marine diatoms. Diatoms are also extremely diverse in nature. Diatoms can differ in locations one hundred feet from each other therefore they are specific for individual areas. I then asked myself why would this be so important during an autopsy. I did more research and found that diatoms can help a Medical Examiner rule out drowning as cause of death. If a person were alive while in the water, they would inhale water into their lungs. The diatoms would then circulate throughout the body, which would indicate to the Pathologist that the person had drowned. If no diatoms were found in the body then the body was put into the water after death had occurred.

That makes perfect sense, but then I began to wonder how these microscopic creatures could be found in a badly decomposed body. Upon searching, I found that diatoms have a “silica based skeleton that do not readily decay”. In the laboratory, a sample is taken from the body or other surrounding materials such as clothing and concentrated by boiling in acid, then centrifuged to collect the solid residue and examined microscopically. Microbiologist specializing in diatom morphology can then identify the types of diatoms found in the sampling. Since these are all specific to areas it is even possible to compare the diatoms found in or on the body to those diatoms in a specific location. Being curious about what diatoms looked like under a microscope, I began to search for images of diatoms and was taken aback by the beauty of the shapes, sizes and patterns of the different species. An idea began to form about the possible design for my book cover tapestry.

I decided not to dwell on the actual images of a Werewolf; especially since the cover design on the paperback book I read was one of a wolf’s face. I also decided to stay away from anything pertaining to an actual autopsy or showing gruesome images. Instead, I kept going back to those fascinating patterns of the diatoms. The defaced tattoo was also an interesting clue and one that gave Kay a possible name to the victim. She found he possibly was the son of the Chandonne family and had decided to leave the family business and set out on his own to smuggle drugs and ammunition to the Miami area. Then the clue of the long yellow hairs found inside the clothing of the container victim and on the recent murder victims lead Kay to postulate that possibly the killer was himself a victim of a rare genetic disease called Hypertrichosis where hair growth is accelerated over all parts of the body. The stigma of having a child with this affliction caused many parents in the past to hide their child away from public viewing or have them be a part of a circus as a “dog face” person. This abuse would possibly cause the hidden Chandonne son to become mentally deranged thereby killing his brother, change clothing with him to he could take on his identity and enter the United States under his brother’s papers. Then Kay hears of a strange event of a man swimming in the frigid waters of the James River. She once again postulates that possibly this could be the killer swimming in the waters just as he swam in the waters outside of his family’s home in Paris near a cathedral hoping that the waters would cure him of his affliction. While in Paris, Kay goes to the area of the Chandonne family’s residence and finding it near the Seine River, collects a sample of the water to have it tested for diatoms to see if they match those found on the container man, which are indeed a match. This image of a man immersing himself at night in waters to be healed of a cruel affliction and then those exact same waters used to identify his victim and eventually himself made me realize that here was the design I wanted to use for my book cover.

I found clip art of a swimmer and transferred images of actual diatoms into a cartoon depicting the Swimmer in the water. I then placed the name of the book at the top of the cartoon larger than the author’s name. Then I printed out the cartoon and basted the paper on a piece of felt. Using white thread, I outline the major pieces of the cartoon for placement. Using another print out of the cartoon, I cut out individual images as templates. Upon research, I found that diatoms are yellowish brown and in some instances are green. So I beaded the diatoms using this earthy palette of colors. I was also lucky to find some glass beads that looked to me like diatoms in color and appearance. For the swimmer, I made a pancake doll form beading it before sewing down onto the tapestry. The book title was done by cutting out the individual letters as templates and sewing them down onto the tapestry using bead embroidery. The author’s name was smaller so I was unable to use the same technique successfully. Instead, I charted out the name and made a band of square stitch that was then sewn down and embellished along the edges. For the background I wanted to use the image of a man swimming at night with only the stars shining down on him. I used crystal Rivolis captured in a peyote cage and then sewn down in a pleasing pattern. I then found a bag of vintage German glass sequins, and they looked to me like drops of star light reflected water. I used these in both the water containing the diatoms and in the sky as the motion of a swimmer will fling water into the sky. The remainder of the tapestry base was filled in with wave like patterns for the water and nighttime cloud patterns for the sky. To give the diatoms the feelers I used gold Soft Flex wire.

It was difficult to decide if I wanted the tapestry to be displayed as hanging from a bar or to be stretched over a frame. Because of the size and weight of the completed piece, I decided to stretch the piece over a frame for support. But I needed something strong enough to support this heavy work, yet light enough to not add additional weight to cause problems in the actual display. So I used lightweight molding from a hardware store and foam core board for stability to construct the frame. I glued down quilt batting to secure thread backing would have a durable base and then stretched the tapestry over the frame sewing it firmly in place. I then used another piece of felt for the backing and used a picot edging to sew the front and back together. To give the image of the swimmer in motion, I used a netting technique to simulate waves curling and added this same design to the bottom of the frame.

All in all, I was very pleased with the finish tapestry and with the mystery story that I had chosen at random. I have found myself enthralled with the adventures of Dr. Kay Scarpetta and bought almost all of the series and read each of them with as much joy and anticipation as the first novel. Each book of the Scarpetta series further fleshes out each of the characters I discovered in the first book making them almost as real as people I see every day on the streets.

Thanks so much

Dot Lewallen

7 Day Doll

2011-11-10T16:44:00.011-05:00

I realized that I had not made a beaded doll since the one I finished months ago for Beading For a Cure. And after spending all that time working on the Beaded Illustrative Tapestry, I hadn't even done any bead embroidery in ages. I decided to challenge myself and to actually see how fast I could make a beaded doll. I looked at my work desk and there was a doll form sitting in the basket waiting for me to do something with it. This is one of my practice pattern dolls. The head isn't exactly right so she was tossed in the basket with all the other bone yard rejects. Also, on my work table was a big bag of beads from a kit that I'd half way completed before I decided I didn't like it and number 2 that I would never finish it. So with that and some other odds and ends, I put myself on a time schedule to complete a beaded doll in just SEVEN days. I made it! I must tell you that one day was a 6 hours beading day so you won't think I'm that fast. Like the colors. And yes, those wee hat/horns on this still unnamed doll are from that peyote star fish kit I'd bought at B&B.

The doll itself is from one of my own patterns I've been tweaking.
It is called Night Time Up. I needle sculpted the head, the hands, and the feet.
I didn't like this small head, so that is why she wound up in the bone yard basket.

Day ONE:
Placement of the focal beads & start to work on the leg.
All of the beading on the body was back stitch and stack stitch.

Day two through five:
Most of the torso is done. Nothing too fancy here.
Just sorting of the bead mix to have a complimentary color pattern.

Day Six:
Pretty much finished the body, but unsure on what kind of hair to put on the head.
Also, I wanted to use the two peyote horns somehow.

Day Seven:
Completed doll. Still not sure of what to name her.
Something Harvest????

So I did it! One beaded doll in Seven days. My fingers were aching after this one as sometimes I'll bead so long that I actually wear the silver off the needle. I did lie about only two bead embroidery stitches. I actually had to peyote those smaller focal beads so that they didn't "pop" off the body. Not sure if I really like that look, so I still might embellish those to complete. But all in all, I'm pretty pleased with her...that includes that small head! See what happens when you start working on something you discard.

Bedtime twins

2011-11-02T18:46:00.010-04:00

I tell you...trying to learn to make your own patterns is HARD!!!!! I don't think I've ever had such a difficult time as trying to draw out patterns, then sew them up & then tweak, tweak, tweak. Along the way, I've been studying how other doll makers make theirs look so easy. Now I know there is nothing easy about this at all. So I'm showing you these my two newest dolls called Bedtime twins. I did a boy & a girl mainly because I just wanted to try to understand what works and what definitely doesn't.

This is the girl twin who I did second. The very first thing that struck me when I finished her was those eyes! I made the mistake of picking 9mm eyes which for this pattern are definitely too big. I wanted bigger eyes because I think they are more appealing in a younger dolls, but these are too much! I'm going to try to tweak this doll a little more by possibly applying a lower lid to take away all that creepy look.

Since I did this doll second, I tried doing a mitten hand with a little hint of fingers. Then I needle sculpted the fingers. I actually got this idea from some of Ute Vasnia's patterns. I like the look and the toes are just too adorable. I learned that technique from Lucy Landry's Wild Things dolls. I had fun with the ribbon roushing that I learned from Cyndy Sieving.

I do like the male doll, but think I gave him too big of a nose. Possibly next time I can reduce the needle sculpting of the news & give him a little button nose. I like his hands, but they were tough to turn with the crafting fabric for dolls that I bought from Doll Maker's Journey.

I don't think any other doll makers need to worry about me taking over their spots as designers...this is really rough. I think it is going to take me years to figure this all out. Meanwhile, I guess I need to learn to sew a little better. Maybe learn how to do DARTS! Oh well, this is all fun & I am going to have a house full of wee little dolls soon.

Happy Halloween

2011-10-30T16:26:00.009-04:00

Happy Halloween. Today is the traditional Beggar's Night, but in our community the actually Trick or Treat Beggar's night is tomorrow. All this moving around of the holidays from one community to another makes my head spin. When I was a little girls in California, we always went out Trick or Treating on October 31, Halloween night. We'd got out as soon as the Sun set with pillow cases running from house to house seeing who could collect the most candy. Then after getting exhausted and tired, we'd head home & my Mother would have us all dump our pillow cases full onto a sheet and there she would sort it all out. Most of it we would be allowed to keep, but she would throw away that candy she didn't feel was safe for us to eat. She's also take her "percentage". Then when we moved to Ohio, Beggar's night was Halloween Eve (October 30th). Once again, we'd go out until we couldn't put one step in front of the other and probably have enough candy to last through the holidays. One year, I think it was one of my sisters who hid their candy & was eating on their hoard until Easter. Now, the only way you can figure out when Beggar's night is is if you read it in the newspaper or hear the schedule on the local news. Also to keep the children safe, Beggar's night starts when it is still light outside & only until 7pm. Where is the fun in that? I'm glad I was a child back when Halloween was made so safe & also so boring. But then we did call it Halloween back then & had parties in schools. I don't think Columbus schools even have Halloween parties anymore. Last I heard, Halloween celebrations were called Fall Harvest celebration with cute little animals and scarecrows...where are the witches? the vampires? the zombies? the monsters? Probably soon there won't be Halloween at all just so we can all be politically correct and SAFE!

Well, I decided to do a few Halloween inspired dolls. First off is a piece I made for the Hospital Halloween pumpkin decorating challenge. You could not cut into the pumpkin & yes, that red blood cell with the spigot on it is a real pumpkin. They vampire is from Ute Vasnia's Ooggie pattern.

This is from a pattern I've had for many years. It is "Autumn and her Pet Crow". I doctored it up a little bit and made the crow larger.

This is called "Pumpkin Pie, anyone?" I used the doll body sitting on my work table that was headless for so long that I forget which original pattern it was from. I used the pattern from "Autumn's" head, but shrunk it down. Then I made even smaller heads for the pumpkin king's two children. For me the biggest challenge was coming up with the clothes for the Pumpkin King. I made all the clothes from scraps. His nose is a blister pearl and his yellowish teeth are ultra suede scraps. French knots for spots, and a velvet hat to finish him off.

Have a frightfully fun Halloween. I am thinking this would be a great night to make some Starbucks hot chocolate and pull out some old scary movies to watch.

New book

2011-10-17T18:55:00.005-04:00

Just a quick post here to announce that today I got a surprise package. It was small, but it was one WOW moment for me. Lark has come out with a new book called "Lark Studio Series Handmade Dolls". Inside on page #94-95 was my doll Sparkle. There my name is listed with some of the most famous of doll makers in the world. Some are NAIDA artist & people that I have admired since I first began making dolls, and others are those that I love to follow on blogs, websites, and in Art Doll Quarterly. I'm just thrilled to be with such talented people. The book is less than $10.00 so very affordable and just the right size to carry around in a bag for inspiration all the time.

Experimenting

2011-10-07T14:07:00.000-04:00

Remember the paper clay heads I made last month of H'dor & S'lease? Well, I finally got their bodies done. Let me tell you that trying to create a body for a specific head is NOT EASY! I measured the head, had some of the gals from Doll Street Dreamers give me ideas on proportions & even found a website to help me out...but still! It was tough. I must have sewn three bodies at least for H'dor & he still looks out of proportion to me. Could be his pin head! But I finally finished them up & they don't look too bad. I'm calling them Tall Tales for now as I have to figure out how I want to pose them & find some other things for them to be holding on. I think I'm going to try making some fishing poles for them & fish, but might change my mind about them.

I'm not done experimenting with sculpting head from paper clay. It was fun & OMG! I painted! I really painted. But you know what...the needle sculpted heads are still my favorite. Guess I just need to practice sculpting more.

Goodbye Steve Jobs

2011-10-06T18:00:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I heard on the news that Steve Jobs had died. We both were very sad. We've been Apple/MacIntosh people since the beginning. I can't tell you how many Macs & Apple products we have in our house. AND..most still work because that was the beauty of Apple. Enduring pieces of hardware that not only were user friendly, but were so well made that I'm sure all our Macs will still be working 20 years from now. I remember going to the computer stores years ago that announced they had an Apple area...one tiny section that was being spilled over by PC or at that time the new cell phones. I took a PC class at college & struggled with everything then just thought why does it all have to be so darn complicated! With Apple all you had to do was turn it on & everything you needed to start working was there & NO fear of viruses. I myself have had Chris' hand-me-downs for years now, but when the eMac came out, I got my very own new computer. Then I wanted a lap top & now I have a computer that is so awesome with a screen that is so bright. I still remember that tiny tiny screen from years back. Then Steve blew me away again with the iPod. I went into the new Apple Store here in Columbus saw the iPod on display before it was even coming out of the factory & bought one. I wish I bought stock right then & there. Yes, I still use my "Classic" iPod that has the hard drive in it...still works!

In memory of Steve I'm posting some pictures of webs from our yard. Without the ease of all the Macs in my life, I never would have been able to reach out & embrace the world pulling in friends, family, and inspiration. My Mac has been the focal point of a web reaching out to bring the world to me and to make me feel that I'm not alone. Thank you Steve.

Hooked on Ute!

2011-10-06T01:00:00.000-04:00

I started to count all the dolls I've made using Ute's patterns, and it is way over 10. Wow! I stopped trying to think why I love making trolls so much. Then I realized that it was because back when I was a little girl those plastic Troll dolls with the different colored hair were so popular. I wasn't allowed to have one. Don't know why, but when I'd whine to have a Troll while at the dime store, my Mother would always say NO! I guess that plus their big noses is what attracts me to them so much. This is Ute's pattern "Oggie". I'm made three dolls from this pattern already & I think I'm going to have to make more. According to Ute's pattern, I cam make up to 10 a year and even sell them as long as I indicate that she is the pattern designer...of course. I want everyone to met Ute!

Click on Ute's Trolls homepage to see Oggie. I'm not sure if she has the pattern for sell there on her website, but I'm guessing that if you write her, she has it. I also bought Crow Mother from her & Peter the Pack Rat. I'm thinking next month once the weather gets awful again, I'll bring them out and make them too.

This is Oggie the snaggle tooth Troll. The baby is Mae. Albert loves Scotties (to pet not to eat!).
Enjoy them as much as I had costuming them. Thanks Ute for the addiction!

Met Phil & Erma

2011-10-05T16:03:00.006-04:00

The Sun is out & what a beautiful day. Light coming in the front room windows was just perfect to get pictures of the dolls I've been making and finishing up.

These are the finished dolls from the class I took two weeks ago up in Akron with the doll club Time For Dolls. Wonderful two days with those gals & Ute. Scroll down to see pictures of the fantastic time I had.

This is Erma & Phil. Both are from Ute's Little Folks pattern I love them & have them sitting out in the front room so I can enjoy their fun faces every time I go into the room.

Check out the this great article about Ute's Trolls in Adele Sciortino's Costuming and Trim newsletter. There is a tutorial on how to make the shoes that Phil is wearing

Just a quick posting

2011-10-04T16:25:00.005-04:00

It has been a busy couple of weeks here. Getting the floors all replaced, having the doll making Muse in full swing, and struggling to get the girls back in good health. The weather hasn't been too cooperative either as we've just had the 4th wettest September in Columbus. Which also hasn't helped in the allergy area either. I do wish my parents bought stock in Kleenex back when it first came out...we'd all be rich.

Here are a couple pictures of the "after" of the living room. We still need to get a new rug as the old wool rug had been damaged by far too many cats & Scotties. Frodo finished eating all the edges when he was still a puppy & I think the southern Sun had faded it. So for now, we have the braided rug in there. Also, my poor Micheal Parks' print has faded so bad too. We really need to either find another MP replacement or find another print that will fill that lovely frame. Oh, and can you see way up there on the Zenith radio a few of my new "family" members. Two are from the the class I took with Ute two weekends ago, and the others are from her new "Oggie" pattern that I'm just in love with. Now that the Sun is shining again, I will get out all the equipment to have a photo session with all my new dolls and jewelry from the past long soggy month.

Arwen is getting better. She's on the last of her antibiotics from the UTI. This is the second dosage as it keeps coming back. I'm hoping this is the last, but we now need to concentrate on having her diagnosed with Cushings. I'm pretty sure she has it, but before she can get treated, she has two more test to have done. We also decided to try letting her sleep out of her crate at night. Frodo loves his crate & won't sleep unless he's in his crate with the door locked (he'll come out & bug you until you lock him in for the night). Fiona has to be crated as she won't sleep downstairs by herself anymore. I think she woke up in the middle of the night & couldn't hear anyone so she's start barking. So we got her a new crate & put her upstairs with Frodo. Also with her blindness we just can't take the risk that she'd roam and fall down the stairs. Arwen has always hated the crate. She whines, complains, and hides when it is time to go to bed, but really how can a 32 pound Scottie hide for too long without us finding her? Well, we both decided it was time to try letting her sleep in bed with us. Day one, no accidents. Day two no accidents! Now we are up to a whole week without accidents and a very very happy Scottie girl. I even come home from work in the morning & there she is still snuggled up tight next to Chris. She very happy now & doesn't seem as nervous during the day time.

Well a quick post turned longish. I'm hoping to get more photos done tomorrow when the Sun is out. Also...just got a call that the house painters will be starting the outside job tomorrow. I predict I won't get a lick of sleep tomorrow!

Giveaway: Felt Bundle and Book « Lark Crafts Lark Crafts

2011-10-01T13:47:00.000-04:00

Giveaway: Felt Bundle and Book « Lark Crafts Lark Crafts

Why we got new floors

2011-09-23T18:54:00.012-04:00

When I was growing up, only people we considered "rich" had wall to wall carpet. All the houses we lived in had hard wood floors with rugs. So back in 1989 when we were building this house, we decided that we mainly wanted carpet. Now this carpet has been replaced once, but none of it has worn very well. Don't know it that is because of the quality of the carpet or the fact that we have three Scotties. Some people think Scotties are small dogs, but they really are considered medium size and boy do they have big feet. Especially when they've been out in the muddy yard and bring back in a half ton of mulch each. So we decided it is time for new flooring. It was a tough choice to replace everything with more carpet and tile or just hard flooring. Since the dogs are all older, and all have been having accidents regularly, we decided to go with laminate hard floor. I have to keep reminding myself of WHY! So these pictures will help me explain why...

This is Frodo, and no! those stains were not made by him. When the girls both had bladder infections last month, they both had blood in their urine, and I swear but no amount of Nature's Miracle will get that blood out. Chris tried Oxyclean and a scrub brush, but that stain kept reappearing.

This is our kitchen flooring. It is an old when the house was built. Chris has stripped this and scrubbed it so much that some of the pattern is a little worn. It doesn't look too bad, but we were just so sick of all those little squares.

The furniture is pulled out here waiting for the flooring guys to come, and in honestly this room is probably one of the best as the dogs are not allowed in there. When we had SkyeBlue and she dumped a big pot of dirt on this floor when it was brand spanking new and that stain is STILL there.

This WAS the dining room. We rarely have big dinners here anymore, so we've decided to make this into a studio so I can work on projects upstairs & let the dogs in. Oh yes, this was the room where sneak peeing happened until the gates were put up.

Here is Frodo looking out the back door. As you can see, we have towels to keep mud prints from getting all over the place. I so want to get rid of this.

Here is Chris staining the baseboards with someone wanting to help him. Arwen is always such a good helper. At least she didn't get her nose in the stain.

And here she is giving Chris a "reward" for doing a great job.

So this is to remind me of what this all looked like before the flooring. The team came and did the scheduled three day job in just 9 hours. It is amazing. We are still putting things together and IF the SUN every comes out again, I'll take some pictures to show the after. It is pretty dramatic.

LIttle Folks Part 3

2011-09-22T11:33:00.000-04:00

Today I want to share with you some of the pictures of the girls in the class along with the lovely trolls they have created.

Here is Ute with my almost finished female troll. She still hasn't told me her name.

I'm hoping to finish up the coloration on my dolls tonight and have then tell me what their names are going to be. I'll be taking them both to the next Time for Dolls meeting to share with the other gals. But, I need to get them done now as I want to take them to the Guilded Lilies meeting and try to get them to have Ute come in and teach for us.

Little Folks Part 2

2011-09-21T11:20:00.000-04:00

After everyone enjoyed looking at Ute's Trolls (especially Stanley), Mary introduced Ute to the group. From the very first moments of the class, we all knew we were going to have a blast.

I sat next to Pam throughout the class. We had plenty of room to spread out. Evelyn sat next to me, and we had our "invisible" borders but you know what? by the end of two days everything was all over the place. The floors behind us had fabric, papers, scissors, and everything thing else strewn all over the place. But somehow we all found what we needed & semi kept the place organized.

Ute had me hold the camera and take a picture of us together. I think we'd just got back from lunch here. I was pretty well caffeinated and Ute...was just Ute!

Everyone jumped into work stuffing and sewing away. It was fun to share stories and gossip.

Oh and Ute even did double duties as teacher & waitress. Mary brought us "energy pills" or Dunkin Donuts holes. Like I always say "I've never met a donut that I don't love". I think everyone enjoyed these wee little bits of heaven.

Ute was sharing a hint on how to get the legs stuffed around an armature so the Little Folks could stand all alone.

Phyllis and Joanne from Glad Rags group were busy attaching ears to their trolls.

Ute it inspecting the great troll shoes as Carolyn is adding wrinkles to her shoes.

On Saturday night, Pam had reservations for us at Papa Joes. It was probably the most delicious Italian food I'd had. Mary wanted to start with dessert, but we all instead had drinks. I had this great dish with sausage and meatballs. Ute had something with chicken livers in it. I think I saw some lasagna and chicken on the table along with bread, bread, and more bread! Vera had some fish entree that smelled delicious. All the time, we talked and laughed and just enjoyed our time together.

Tomorrow will be the next part showing some of the troll heads and parts.

Little Folks Part 1

2011-09-20T10:28:00.012-04:00

I belong to another doll group in Ohio based in Akron called "Time for Dolls". Two of my friends (Pam and Mary) started this group for local doll artist to get together, learn from each other & once a year have a teacher come in to teach. This year, the group chose Ute Vasina to teach Little Folks. I had taken this class from Ute back in 2009 at AFIC, but I was so exhausted by the second day of class that it was hard for me to focus. So this time I decided that I would be relaxed & refreshed so I could enjoy the class & actually learn some new techniques that my fried brain did not store away. I drove up to Akron Friday night & stayed with Pam. Pam, Mary, Ute and I went out for a nice dinner and to catch up on each others' lives. After a couple adult drinks, it was bed time, and I just slept like a baby. Next morning it was time to have some fun.

Pam had found a great place for us to have class. It is called Craft Akron and was a great spot with lots of room for the 15 of us to spread out. The lighting was perfect and there were plenty of outlets for our sewing machines and Ott lamps. Ute had us do a little homework before the initial class. I was able to do a little more than she wanted as I already had a edge up knowing what she expected of us. I had all my parts stuffed, but Ute told me my heads were too hard so out came the hemostats and out came the stuffing.
We spent the morning needle sculpting the head. I love large noses on my dolls so this one got an extra big honker, and then Ute showed us how to give our Little Folks lots of wrinkles.

I actually made two heads as I wanted to get two dolls done. Here they both are with eyelids and ears attached. Look at the adorable teeth. Ute's secret was shared with us all.

This is the female doll I wanted to create. Doesn't she have the greatest boobs? Yes those nipples are 6mm glass pearls.
Here she is all clothed and ready to pose. I forgot to bring brushes to class so she hasn't gotten her coloring yet. I'm going to wait until I'm at home & can put down plenty of papers to catch all the chalk dust.

On the second day we made shoes for our Little Folks. Most people sewed up the shoes using cotton fabrics, but I had this great Spiderman t-shirt that I bought at Goodwill and thought it would be perfect for shoes. So Ute, showed me how to make these shoes with t-shirt material and glue. It was fun to see all these pairs of legs with shoes attached drying on the coffee table. Carolyn did these cute polka dot shoes. Adorable.Here are the two dolls I made at the end of the second day. The female has purchases shoes from a couple years ago. I knew I'd find something to do with them one of these days. Don't you love the shirt the male troll is wearing. Guess where I got the material from? Shocks! My niece had given me a bag of one of a kind socks, and when Ute saw this one sock she just giggled with glee saying wouldn't it be perfect for my sleepy eyed troll. Well, yes it is.

Stay tune for the next couple of days as I'll post more pictures about the Little Folks class.

Bead Soup Blog Hop Partner

2011-09-17T01:00:00.000-04:00

Hurrah! The day has arrived. It is the Bead Soup Blog Hop Event. Lori Anderson has done it again with another fantastic ride throughout the world connecting people together. The challenge was to partner people up and send out a bead soup consisting of a focal piece, a clasp, and/or beads and spacers. Then with what your partner had sent you create a piece of ART. Here is a link to click on to find out about the Official Bead Soup Blog Party. And here is the link to start the amazing blog hop with 362 artist.

My partner is Gaea Cannaday. Here is her blog with picture of her beautiful ceramic pieces. She has an Etsy shop with her beautiful pendents for sale. But if you really want to be amazed, then you must check out her webpage. I'm just in love with her Day of the Dea d pieces and can see myself purchasing some of them in the future. Now for the fun part. Gaea sent me a lovely package with my favorite color palette. I got a handmade ceramic pendent with an acorn as the main focus. She also sent color coordinated ceramic spacer beads and a handmade clasp.

At first, I was just in a daze as I could not even wrap my brain about how to take all these lovely treasures and turn them into a piece of jewelry. Number one, I don't do any stringing at all. Number two, my abilities to do wire working is very limited. So I was stumped. Then I thought to myself, that this IS a challenge. I could possibly get some other beads from my stash, add some nice complimentary spacers, get out my book on how to do some stringing, and throw together a piece that would met all the requirements...BUT...none of that would satisfy me. Deep inside, I'm a bead weaver and that is where my thoughts went to next.

My strongest technique is bead embroidery. I thought of taking the pendent, gluing it down onto a base, doing a round peyote cage, then embellishing it with other beads, then putting it together on a strung chain with the clasp. Sounded good, but really is that a challenge. So that idea was thrown out too. Next, I played around and realized that to make this a true challenge for me I needed to plan (I know...Chris is amazed that I'm saying I planned this design) exactly how I wanted the complete piece to be finished and drawn in my new notebook. I've been having a blast since Bead and Button experimenting with Right Angle Weave (RAW), so I thought this was to be my challenge. I was going to do a whole bead weaving piece using RAW and a bit of peyote to make a necklace worthy of this amazing pendent and the blog party.

I started out by using RAW to cage the pendent. I used size 8 and 11 seed beads and short Magatama drops. Then using the same color I charted out a RAW necklace to compliment the pendent. I tried incorporating the ceramic spacers into the actual necklace design, but either my skills aren't practiced enough to give it a nice clean look, or my initial design was flawed. I had half the necklace portion completed with sections of woven RAW between the spacers. It looked horrible, so I tore it all out and got back to the planning board. I decided to forgo the ceramic spacers this time around and just go with the RAW necklace hooked into the pendent. It looked great especially when I used two of the ceramic spaces to join the RAW necklace and the handmade claps together. At this point the necklace with the joined pendent looked nice, but nothing spectacular, so I decided to add the ceramic beads along the bezel of the pendent. Wow, that really made the piece look finished. I was happy.

Yet, I still had more ceramic beads, so I decided to just the same weaving design in the necklace strap to construct a bracelet using the original design plan having the ceramic beads between sections of RAW. This time it looked better, but I still need to develop this technique a little more to make it look more uniform and smooth.

All in all, I've really enjoyed this challenge which has taken me into a new realm of actual planning a design, drawing and writing down idea, working a prototype, and making decisions on how to construct something unique and challenging to the skills I already have. It has made me want to truly start designing more pieces of art pulling in more skills I know and learning new ones to slowly develop a talent in jewelry design. This was definitely not an easy task, and I see if I do indeed want to become a jewelry designer I have to study, experiment, and be prepared for failures. And all in all, keep laughing!

So now I'm going to spend a couple weeks checking out each of these 362 Artist blogs. I hope to take my time maybe visiting 10-20 a day. Join me in circling the globe looking at some delightful pieces of jewelry.

Semi-Finalist

2011-09-15T21:15:00.003-04:00

While I was sleeping this afternoon, Warren from Land of Odds called & told Chris that I was one of the semi-finalist for the Illustrated Tapestry. I'm thrilled to pieces. Sorry, but can't show any pictures yet until the Land of Odd's website is posted. I used Patricia Cornwell's book Black Notice for the Mystery Book cover. I had fun putting it together challenging myself to use all these blues. More about it later this month.

I'm off for the weekend to visit my friend Pam in Greene/Akron. We are taking a class with Ute Vasina called Little Folks. I can't wait. I took a class with Ute in 2009 & had a blast. I just can't wait. I need the time off to relax as next week the floors are being replaced in the whole first floor of our house.

Check out my blog on the 17th for the Bead Soup Blog Party. 362 artist are participating this year.

Meet Tibbs

2011-09-05T09:12:00.011-04:00

Last week was the deadline to send in our challenge piece for the annual Beading for a Cure. This is the fifth year that I've participated, and the colors for 2012 were a real challenge for me. I think a month before we actually got the purchased kit from Betcey at Beyond Beadery, I was hoping and hoping "no blue, no blue, no blue"! Well alas, it was blue with browns mixed in. I sat for days starring at the colors first off trying to figure out what would be my added beaded per the rules that would make all that blue less cringe factor to me. Up until this kit, I really haven't worked with blues that much. Oh, I've had to make kits up for classes I taught at Byzantium with blues as most students either like blues, purples, or greens while my color choice runs to either earthy tones or bright bright colors of Fall. So there was this blue starring up at me. I got out a color wheel as I'm trying to expand my color choices and nothing struck me. So I did what I always do when I'm stuck, I just go and look at everything I have getting immersed in the sparkle factor. I pulled out my sequins at the marigold was put in a pile of maybes. Then I opened a bin of vintage German glass cabochons that I bought...well, I don't remember where I got them, but one with a amber orange hue caught my attention. I played with it among the blues and browns and thought it might be the one color I hadn't thought of. So I pulled out a bin of Delicas and there in a plastic tube was this squash colored orange that not only matched the glass cab but seemed to make the browns want to dance. So there...my colors were picked.

Now to figure out what to do with my colors. I toyed with making jewelry, but at that point I just couldn't decide if it was to be a big necklace, a cuff bracelet, or something else. I think I was just really burnt out on making a doll from 2011 BFAC challenge where I made a doll over 24 inches tall totally encrusted. I believe I was also a little disappointed that for such a large doll covered with pearls and crystals the final auction bid was less than $200. Could it be that it was too big of a piece, or my needle sculpted face wasn't pretty or cute? I find that most people are drawn to a beautifully painted or sculpted face. And since this is a challenge besides an auction to raise money for colo-rectal cancer research, I found to make a pretty or cute type of face would be perfect for me. I've been toying with smaller faces that had more delicate or even child like features. The last two collaborations with Chris with our "Space man" and "Bot vs. Boy" used my new pattern and more defined needle sculpting for a "sweet" face. I thought I'd use that pattern and make it more into a doll that could be held in with out spread arms. I also wanted to work more on needle sculpting fingers and palms in a smaller scale, so that too was another challenge for me. My third personal challenge for the 2012 BFAC was to go back to another needle weaving technique besides netting to cover the limbs of the doll. I decided to go totally peyote! I had done a couple smaller dolls about 4 years ago experimenting with using free form dimensional peyote to cover a rounded doll form. I got out my old instructions I'd written for an article that never got published and sat studying them to get an idea on where to start. Well, to start is to just START! I began by using a peyote stitch to encase the German Glass Cab (learned this from Beki Haley at the Tahoe Bead Retreat and from a couple kits I purchase from her). Then I just began sewing down beads in a random pattern and let the flat peyote take over my needle. Next thing I knew the whole body was covered with a rag tagged free form patchwork of colors.

I made three heads for this doll picking out the one that had the sweetest expression. Then my favorite part...beaded hair. This time I used a netting technique combined with stacked stitch to create a head of luscious hair. I actually did run out of the one blue color from the kit and was lucky to have Betcey send me out another tube. Now one thing, I'd never used before were the magatomas. I had no idea what to do with them, so I sewed them down in a random pattern to give more dimension to the work. Now, after taking classes with Carol Wilcox Wells in Milwaukee this past June I realize how much more those magatoma can be used to create interesting embellishment as I'll reveal in the next two weeks (I've been having a blast experimenting with them along with my new love-Right Angle Weave ).

The doll was done, and as I looked into those wee eyes I found a name being whispered in the back of my head..Tibbs. And HE said HE was definitely a HE. So this is TIBBS. He should be in Kate's hands this week. He does fit into the hand. He's 14 inches long, 6 inches wide with a 2 inch depth. He's heavy, but still feels nice when lifted up and adored. Oh yes, he definitely wants to be adored. I hope he does well in next year's auction. Hopefully, but incorporating a more pleasing face to my doll someone will open a deeper pocket next year and want to have Tibbs come live with them while helping out our charity.

check in

2011-08-26T15:23:00.004-04:00

Happy end of Summer. Well, to me it seems that Summer is winding down as school has started this week & then soccer practice is in the evenings. How am I aware of all of this when I don't have any children? Our back yard faces the Worthington Park Elementary school. There is a walk way between my house and the neighbor's next door as entry to the school playground. When we bought this property 22 years ago, we got $1000 knocked off the price of the lot because of the "annoyance" of the school or so the realtor said. Hey, I was all for bargains back then so I said no problem, and after all these years it actually is no problem. I love watching the neighborhood children grown up each year walking down the sidewalk pulling on the ivy that has taken over the chain link fence. I hear them all excited about new school year and hear all the buzz about who likes who and who hates who and what teacher is mean or what teacher is nice or questions about what is going to be for lunch. Then during the Fall and Spring it is soccer time. Worthington spent tons of money to have the field behind the school cleaned and made into soccer field for practice and play offs in the elementary age group. It is sometimes fun to hear all the roar in the evenings, but I sometimes can live without the early early Saturday morning screaming & crying.

Now what else about all this is so worth telling you about? All of this is the greatest entertainment to all my Scotties. They adore running up and down the fence barking their fool little heads off at anything or anybody using the sidewalk. Long time ago, when we had our first Scottie FalaPink and the ivy hadn't covered the fence, FalaPink would hide behind the house. Just as someone would come right next to where he was hiding he would jump out and bark the big gigantic Scottie bark he was known for. Or he'd run the fence barking merrily along. I caught two little kids throwing rocks at him and had to stop them before this got all out of hand. One kids said Fala was a "mean bad" dog. I asked him why he thought that. He said because Fala barked at him all the time. I told the two kids that is how dogs laugh. When he is playing chase with you, he's so happy that he is laughing all the way up and down the fence. You know what? That was back in 1990 and to this day when new children walk down the fence with new school age children I hear "don't worry about them barking, they are just having fun laughing at us". It worked. So to modern day...Frodo and Arwen love to run that fence barking. It is also a very good training ground for new dogs to learn "avoidance". Duo purpose here!

I haven't been beading or making many dolls lately. I've been having a problem with my elbow for the past three months that was progressively getting worse. My Family Practice said it was "tennis elbow" and gave me oral steroids that did work for a few days, but then I realized I had to go to a specialist. So Wednesday morning bright and early, I went in and got two shots in my elbow. OUCH! The first one finally started to work yesterday & the other will slowly take affect. Interesting to find out that the real problem isn't my elbow that is aching, but that I have a weak left wrist and hand. So now I have a set of exercises to do with weights so my left hand can become just as strong as my right. Most of the damage is due to repetitive work which I work in a hospital & I guess the years are taking their toll. But all is getting better. I actually gave all three a bath yesterday when I got up! Yeah for clean Scotties! AND I can rotate my arm without much pain. So I'm wanting to get back downstairs & get some projects completed. Can't wait.

Hope you enjoy these two pictures of me and Fiona. You can't tell from the picture, but Fiona's eyes are all white from the blindness due to her Diabetes. I need to hunt for my pictures of Fala. He was such a big boy and the king of the fortress for many years. I can't believe he died 11 years ago. I miss my big goofy boy.

Getting a few things done.

2011-08-17T16:41:00.004-04:00

Yeah! Post office chore was accomplished & everything is out the door including my entry for the Illustrative Beader for Land of Odds. Sorry, but can't show any of that until I find out if my piece gets into the challenge. Also send out my beads to Gaea. We decided to take a tiny ride out of town & found a place with CORN! Fresh picked Ohio corn! I can't wait until dinner tonight.

This week, I was able to finish up some of the kits that I bought at B&B. One was Melanie Potter's Petalicious. It took me forever to get it done. One thing I'd like to say about Melanie's kits is that they have plenty of beads, and the instructions are just awesome. I had no problem following the thread paths or how things fit together...it just took forever to complete. Here is also a picture of Marcia DeCoster's Rising Sun from the class I took at B&B. I have it mostly done. I have to sew a couple more snaps onto it, and though Marcia has a step to connect the bumps together, I think I like it better without the connections, but maybe I'll change my mind once I once try to wear it.

I've also been playing with sculpting heads out of paper clay. The two classes I've had, we actually have used foil as the base of the head, but I was going through the basement trying to find something & I came across some styrofoam eggs that were suppose to be ornaments. I looked at them & thought what great heads they would be. So out came the tools, the paper clay, and paints. Now, I know it is going to take me a very long time before I can do sculpting that actually looks like a real or pretty head, but I just had a ball making these troll heads. I'd get the noses right & the next day I would work on the ears. It was fun. Then....paint! I tried to remember what I've learned about painting and thought to myself to just paint and see what happens. So here are two troll heads I've made. One keeps telling me he is H'dor and the other is S'leas. I'm working on the bodies right now. Now that is even more investigation. I had many members of Doll Street Dreamers giving me suggestions about how to proportion a pattern for the cloth body, and let me tell you that it is not easy! I have pencils, rulers, and you name it out along with fabric and Hal (my sewing machine). It is going to be a struggle, but I'm beginning to see how this pieces to that, and that goes with this, and all go on that...on and on...and on...

Also, while taking pictures, Chris grabbed this picture of me & Fiona outside after she got "lost". Since being diagnosed with Diabetes last Summer, I've seen her slowly slide into a canine dementia. I know her age & being blind has something to do with it, but I truly think she is getting a little senile too. She gets turned around and stuck by the door or gate & doesn't realize that she only needs to turn around. The relief of her face when we call to her to for guidance or actually go & pick her up & swing her into our loving arms is just something only another person with an old ill dog can understand. So here I am with my sweet old girl.

Bead Soup Blog Hop Partner

2011-08-16T19:12:00.004-04:00

This is my first time for Lori's amazing Bead Soup Blog Hop. Click on the link to the right to get flown away to Lori's blog to find out all about this great trip around the globe.

My partner is Gaea Cannaday. She has the most amazing Ceramic Beads. I spent my whole dinner break last night looking at her blog, her website, her Etsy shop. Everything is just wonderful and wow! those Day of the Dead pieces are just my cup of tea. All the Earthy tone colors, but still I keep wandering back to those Ceramic Sugar Skulls!

The one thing that we had to have for this Blog Hop was a nice clasp. OMG, I don't use clasp unless I make them with seed beads, so I had to go through all my boxes of things all over the studio, because I didn't want to send her the ugly lobster claws that I have rusting away in a box from when I first started to bead. Imagine me going through tray after tray looking, contemplating, discarding, then looking more. Finally, I found something nice enough that will match the focal piece that I picked for her along with some other things that will match. I saw she doesn't do seed beads, so I decided to not add them to the stash as I don't want to make someone go blind with all those size 11/15s I usually use. Then I saw she likes fiber, so I found a nice piece of fiber from my doll making stash that will work well. Now, the deadline to mail is the 17th. Do you think I really sent them out today knowing my "allergy" of post office? No, but I swear swear swear, that tomorrow they are going out with a few other things that I NEED to get mailed.

Here is a little sneak of what I'm sending:

So, what did I get in the mail today...my Bead Soup Blog Hop package from Gaea. Look at this beautiful acorn pendent & the matching beads to go with it...and I love the hand made clasp. Now the hard part! I have until September 17th to construct something with these treasures before the actually Blog Hop will start. My problem...I don't string so I'm going to have to figure out how to use these lovelies with bead weaving. I've been practicing doing RAW after taking classes with Marcia & Carol, but woo! I'm going to have to do some major jewelry design here. But isn't that what a Challenge is all about.

Also going in the mail tomorrow: Land of Odds Illustrative Tapestry package with all the pictures, story, information (whew, I was tired just doing it all). Gilbert Hippo is going to a new home. I'm hoping to find the pictures I took for BFAC so I can send that to Kate (or will have to take more pictures), and then a few other little things that need to get mailed!

Well, off to do more packing. We are getting new laminate floors next month for the whole downstairs & I have to take all my Scottie stuff & Doll stuff & jewelry stuff & just about everything else out of the china cabinets so they won't get damaged when the floors get installed. I'm not even half done & already got 8 boxes. I can see a nice adult beverage calling my name later.

kits, kits, and more kits

2011-07-30T09:13:00.004-04:00

First off, I just wanted to say that I usually am not the kind of person who buys kits from other bead artist, or at least I thought I wasn't. Being there in on Met the Artist night at the Bead and Button conference changed my ideas. I bought so many kits! I think I came home with a dozen different kits from 6 different artist. I've been working my way through them and have only completed 3 of them. I wish I didn't work full time so I can devote more hours each day to learning new bead weaving techniques.

This first picture is not of a kit purchase on Met the Artist night, but from the kit from Carol Wilcox Well's Master class. This is the third necklace in the series and by far the most time consuming one. I have completed the first two partially in class and finishing in my hotel room in the evenings. But this third necklace was a bit more exact with right angle weave techniques I had to stop and take my time to master. I love the look of this necklace and have worn it many times, but now the ring has stretched out so that it will not properly fasten. I'm going to have to either go back and tighten up the ring or figure out a way to secure a hidden snap into this lovely design.

Speaking of lovely, I just adore the kit I bought from Beki called Julz Spiral Cuff. All the crystals and pearls just add to the beauty of this design. Here is a LINK to some of Beki's kits. Aren't they lovely??? I've been lucky enough to have taken two previous classes with Beki so while I'm reading her instructions, I can actually hear her voice.

The other two kits that I completed were Nikia Angel from BuyTheKit. Here is the LINK to see all of marvelous kits Nikia has to offer. I had so much fun doing the Kaleidoscope bracelet with all those crystals that are my favorite colors. I've never had the opportunity to take a class with Nikia, but I'm sure it would just be so much fun.

Right now I'm working on another kit that I bought from Melanie Potter. Here is the LINK to her kits. I have taken this one bracelet apart so many times, that I don't even have to look at her fantastic instructions to repeat it over and over again until I get it to look just right. Hopefully, I can get that one figured out soon so I can dig into the bag and pull out another kit to work on.

HOT!

2011-07-20T16:10:00.003-04:00

IT is so hot...the crowd says "how hot is it Dot?". Well it is so hot in Ohio that the corn is popping out in the fields. Bring your own bowl and pat of butter. Yes, it is HOT. We are having a heat wave. Temperatures are above 90 during the day & only get down to 75 at night. Every afternoon the pop up storms go racing through here making the ground saturated so the humidity is high. This afternoon the heat index is well above 100. So yes, it is hot.

My poor A/C is working overtime. Our neighborhood Cardinals had a late start on raising their family in the bush surrounding the A/C. Those babies scream all the time. I feel so sorry for them, but I can't leave it off just because of them. So I have a feeling we'll have deaf birds next year. I keep cringing every time the unit turns on as it is ancient & wonder will this be the last gasp? But since I have Asthma I need it cool and therefore, I live inside. Now it would be cooler in the house if we didn't have an air condition hog. Fiona has decided to park herself on top the the register. I pick her up & her belly is chilly. Move her, turn your head, and there is is BACK! So nothing to do but turn the registers on in the other part of the house & let the old dog lay! Do you have an old dog that enjoys register sleeping???

Beautiful weeken in the area

2011-07-12T14:50:00.012-04:00

Sometimes I think we all have this thought that we have to drive hundreds of miles to have a good time. Or we must pay lots of money to be entertained so that we can admit to all our friends that it was a great experience. But then there is the truth. Sometimes all you have to do is drive a couple miles down the road to a community Art and Music Festival to find something new, interesting, and inspiring. Or an hour drive outside of the big city will find you in a garden filled with beautiful flowers and art to make you laugh. True! Since I got back from Milwaukee's Bead and Button show, I haven't had two days off in a row at work. So I've had a work schedule where I'll have one day off, work three, one day off, work four all in that order or any other combination of off/on days. It is hard to get anything done when you sleep most of the day because you are so exhausted, then have the next day to go back to the same grind. I thought I couldn't "recharge" my batteries this way, but this weekend with just Saturday off I was able to have a great time and met some other amazing artist and walk in a lovely garden on a hillside.

Saturday afternoon, I got up early enough for us to make it to the Westerville (Ohio) Art and Music festival. It is literally only 2 miles from my house. We walked among the stalls looking at the usual stands from jewelry (which I rarely look at), wooden vessels, paintings (about 50% of most art shows), to funky clothes. Two stands caught my attention. In one was an elderly woman who was making bowls and other items from pine needles. Her fingers were all gnarled up, but there she was weaving those pine needles into lovely patterns. I stopped and spoke with her about keeping those finger nimble. She laughed and agreed that it was the only thing that kept her from being crippled (hello! that is why I bead so much). I was tempted to buy a bowl from her, but nothing didn't caught my attention. I also stopped & said hello to a wood worker who use to be a pathologist over at Riverside when I was doing the H-1 User group. I see him at all the festivals and show and I enjoy talking to him about what he's been doing new. There was another tent that I traveled into as I thought the images were just amazing. I looked around then as usual, I walked on. I think I only got 100 feet from her tent, when I turned around and went back. I was intrigued with her images of women. They all had elongated limbs and were posed in amazing positions. We struck up a conversation, and I just KNEW I had to have one of her pieces to put in my studio. Her name is Kate Morgan. She did photography and now is doing image designs. She said that she gets her inspiration from the times she was a swimmer. Watching people in the water gave her idea for how to pose her human subjects, but with photograph she couldn't get a real person do those poses...so she got into drawing and image transfers. She has really inspired me to making dolls that aren't traditional posed. Oh thank you Kate!

Sunday morning we decided to head down to Hocking Hills in south eastern Ohio to attend the LilyFest. LilyFest is a sort of homemade festival started by this woman who just wanted to share her love of gardening to others in her lovely home situated in the hills. It has grown and is a haven for arts, gardeners, and a group of Vikings who set up camp every year. Oh, and it is all about the day lilys which are in full bloom here in Ohio. Years ago, I saw a painting in one of the gallery booths there by Joseph A. Greene. I feel in love with Joe's paintings. He has a humorous look at the world that just tickles my funny bone. This year I bought one of his pieces that is his view of Alice in Wonderland. He also has thrown in a little blurb about Humpty Dumpty in this painting. I would love to actually met Joe someday. I always just miss him at the LilyFest. We also purchased a new lawn ornament for the backyard. Every year we buy one more to go with the original iron lady bug. This year's purchase was a hummingbird post. I think the birds that like to visit our yard really enjoy our sitting post. I know Fiona use to enjoy them too as they were perfect for her version of bird watching.

Well, enough. Hope you enjoy some of these pictures from my one day off in lovely Ohio

beading away

2011-07-08T16:27:00.002-04:00

Sometimes I wish I had a window in my studio, but since it is in the basement, that would be kinda hard to do. I guess I could always make my own window to look out of, but what kind of world would I put in my window? Would it be a mountain view, ocean view, or some science fiction landscape? So instead, I just have all my beaded creations sitting on the shelf looking down at me or hanging on the walls.

I've been quiet in the blog world, but that doesn't mean I haven't been creating. I've been working on the Land of Odds-Illustrated Tapestry challenge for the past three months. Really, I have been working on it longer than that as first I had to chose a mystery book and then read it. I hate to confess, but I never read any mysteries ever until I came upon this challenge. I did read a couple back in my high school days but I could always guess the ending before I even got one quarter through. I found the book I wanted after about two chapters of a Patricia Cornwell book. I was hooked. So then with the help my my multi talented husband, I dived into the project.

Unfortunately at this point, I can't share anything visually about it or else be disqualified from the competition. Needless to say, doing a flat tapestry of such a large scale was a true challenge to me. I can do the most convoluted three dimensional doll ever, but flat...flat...flat. Wow, that was something. I didn't lay out too much of the design except to convert the cartoon (image) onto fabric. Then I began to just let the pattern unfold under my fingers. I used tons of blue seed beads and crystal and pearls and even have a dimensional doll embedded into the design. I finished with tons of time to spare, then realized it didn't look right. I measured the finish piece again and began to panic. The dimensions of the tapestry were all off. I couldn't figure out what happened! I printed the pattern out & transferred it onto the wool, but still it was off by my calculations by 2 inches. As usually, I went to Chris & he came to my rescue. He first asked me if I measured before I started. And my reply was "no, should I?" Well, indeed I should have before I started on such a mammoth project. I have a really bad habit of just plowing into a project and then realize I misread or miscalculated some vital information when I'm at least 3/4 done. Well, seems that I'm short two inches on the length of this tapestry. Thank goodness, I'd learned my lessons from the past and gave myself more material to work with. So, thinking I was done, I now have two more inches to complete. At least I found out this before I got too close to that August 30th deadline. Oh, and I have to write an artist statement for this piece too. This time, I'm not going to worry as I'm going to just write about how I created this humongous flat piece of art. So I'm now in the finishing stages. I still got to figure out how to mount it with the over 10 pounds of beads on it. We are thinking of mounting it in a frame just for strength.

Well, Bead Club tonight at 1 Stop Bead Shop in Dublin. And yes, not being a fan of blue, this has really truly be a unique challenge for me.

Spring challenge...late

2011-06-30T18:49:00.014-04:00

Spring in Ohio can either be a real bust or extremely pleasant. This year, Spring in Ohio has been record rainfall with lots of tornadoes and violent thunderstorms thrown in along with temperatures doing the roller coaster from weeks in the 90s to downward spirals in the 50s. And some of this all in one 7 day period. So really, we haven't had too much of a Spring here, though we did manage to get our tomato and cucumber plants in the ground. Poor things had to be covered so many times from the frost & watered for the withering heat. So for me Spring just slide by without too much fanfare. I think that is why I didn't get my ArtBeads challenge done in the actual Springtime. But here it is. I hope you like my approach to the challenge. Here is a quote from Duchess from Artbeads:

‘What’s Old is New Again!’ is our new blogging challenge. For this theme we would like you to seek inspiration from the past by incorporating old, vintage or antique items into your designs and combine them with modern elements such as Swarovski crystals, Glass, Resin, etc.

What's Old is New Again! When I was 13 long long ago in Los Angeles, my Father asked all of us what special present we would like to have as he'd come into some money & wanted to get all us children our heart's desire. In the 60s, there were only several things a kid really wanted bad...roller skates or a bike. All my sisters and brother wanted a brand new bike...then it was my turn. What did I want so bad that I could scream...not a bike. I had an old hand me down bike that still worked even though my brother would try to booby trap it so the chain would fall off making me fall, or loosen the screws on the handle bars so they too would fall off. Nope, what I wanted was a big transistor radio so I could sit on the porch in the late Spring evening picking up rock and roll songs to tap my feet too. Living in LA during the 60s was a magical time for music. There were the Beach Boys with their surf music, the Beatles singing melodic songs, and then there was my favorite, the Rolling Stones. I wanted to listen to it all on a radio that was better than the little 6 transistor that I got the previous Christmas and my brother buried the earplugs someplace so I could only listen to it with a pillow over it at night as my Mother just didn't get the new music. Oh she liked the Everly Brothers and Johnny Cash, even Elvis was sometimes listen to in our house, but she never would let that British (or beepbop music as she called it) be played in our house. But eventually, she too was taken in with the new sounds, but I wanted to hear what I wanted to listen to when I wanted to listen. So my Dad bought everyone a new Huffy bike, and I got an Emerson radio that plugged into the wall & had batteries (for outside listening). I locked the ear plugs in my jewelry box so my brother couldn't destroy these. So for me that radio was everything. It opened my senses as I dialed one station to the next. Late at night, I'd turn into mystery theater and listen to the radio shows. I loved that radio. Do I still have it? No, while we were moving from LA to Ohio, we had an accident and had to leave some of the boxes of our belongings along the side of the road because there was no room in our damaged car for two adults, five kids, and one bird. I didn't realize it until we were in Ohio that one of those lost boxes had been mine. There was my radio and along with it, there were the address of all my junior high school friends. All was long lost.

So when Duchess gave me the challenge to take something old and make it new, I thought of my old radio and all the joy it gave me. I'm sure I've mentioned to my followers that my husband likes to refurbish old radios. He buys the junk and then through hard work makes them new again. I begged him for one of the old Emerson table tops that looked like the one I'd lost. After a couple hours of cleaning and waxing, I had the exterior of the radio looking almost new. I found a Raku face bead that I had bought many years ago at a show & to me it looked like a wise old man taking me back through the years to rediscover the music I'd loved. I used an assortment of seed beads along with these beautiful 4mm firepolish red bronze and hematite to cage in the face. Then I glued this down over the speaker. Along the top of the radio, I decided to use the same assortment of seed beads to decorate the top, but I chose these lovely 18 mm glass cabochons in a milky chocolate brown. I loved the colors and the grill on this radio, so I left that portion of the radio in its original plastic loveliness.

I was enchanted with all the memories from this project, but how do I wear a transistor radio on my arm? It is nice & will be great to take outside or to the beach to listen to music on but I needed something else as I also got this great copper coin bead with a vintage bathing beauty on it. I thought to myself what a great companion piece for my radio it would be to use it as an enticement to wear to the beach (or in my case to the pool) as we truly have few beaches here in Central land locked Ohio. I used the same seed bead assortment along with those delicious fire polish. I found in my stash some old sea shells from a project (Fantasy Swim) I'd done back in 2005 for Bead International. I also used some vintage German crystals and a few pewter fish to complete the bracelet.

They worked perfect with the bathing beauty coin bead. This bead is two sided, so I had to sacrifice the image on the other side to turn this into a cuff bracelet that I could wear one one arm while I carry my radio, beach towel, snacks and of course my bag of beads in the other. So though I made these two pieces for the Artbeads.com Spring challenge, I think it will do me well now that Summer has come and the pools call to me. Maybe you'll see me out there on a chaise lounge soaking in the sunshine as I dial my radio from one vintage "Oldies" station to another searching for Rolling Stone tunes.

Have a Fabulous Summer!

Disclosure...As a reviewer of products at Artbeads.com, I receive the seed beads,cooper coin bead, and fire polish beads above free of charge. I have been asked to review these products and give my honest opinion of the products...positive or negative. I am not being compensated by Artbeads.com for my endorsement as it pertains to the products received and reviewed.

Master Class in Milwaukee

2011-06-19T15:59:00.009-04:00

Myself and Carol

Two weeks ago today, I started out on my first day of the bead weaving Master Class at Bead and Button with Carol Wilcox Wells. Can I say it was an amazing three days with a true bead Master? Well, indeed, I can. Carol's class was about "Creating a Common Thread". Each day we all sat in a circle and shared what we wished to accomplish and how, or what we discovered about our selves being there in class with so many other talented beaders. Carol would then show her journey through slides on how she developed her true voice by experimenting and establishing a style totally her own. She encouraged all of us to do that too, but the key to finding your own style or voice is to first master the venue you are wanting to excel in. So by taking us each day through the different steps in Mastering Right Angle Weave, we slowly grew and learned to take the different projects and make them our own. Carol was a fantastic teacher. Her approach was open and gentle. She taught the way I like to teach, taking time with each student and patiently listening and watching to make them not only comfortable but achieve the lesson without being overwhelmed. Carol's laugh is something I'll always keep with me. It was so true and so filled with joy. Carol's assistant was her daughter-in-law Annette who was just as open, just as charming, and just as joyful as Carol. Annette would patiently sit next to anyone helping them to understand the thread patterns while Carol was on the other side of the room helping another student. Annette & I talked about dogs (she'd just lost her dog to cancer), her children, her adopted children and everything else in between. She was such a welcome addition to this class & I think she herself is a great teacher.
Third Day project

Carol shared with us stories of how she progressed from making amulet bags to baskets to sculptural jewelry pieces. She showed us slides of her studio in the Appalachian Mountains, her garden, and her family. I felt like I was taking back a piece of Carol with me along with the skills to Master RAW. When I got back home, I was so immersed in this bead weaving technique that I even found myself dreaming of the twist and turns of the needle and thread. I dreamed of taking what Carol had taught me & reworking all the old necklaces I'd made using the foundational skills I have learned. Oh, it was such true journey for me those three days to "see" how I can take this one bead weaving stitch and use it on my own style. Thank you Carol. Thank you Annette. Thank you Bead & Button.

My entourage was with me during the second day class:
yes, I take my beaded beanies with me wherever I go.

Class photo

As for the Master Class location itself, we were shuttled to the Milwaukee Area Technical College each day. For me, it was just as fast for me to walk from the Double tree hotel each morning and afternoon. Every morning waiting for us was a luscious breakfast hand made. No microwave or thawed out donuts for us. A group that I forgot to get their names made us breakfast and a delicious lunch each of those three days. I would be so full that I could barely keep my eyes open but there was my favorite beverage all the time. I asked one of the guys if I could take a picture of him making my omelet for me. He was thrilled & did a little throw in the air to make us all laugh. I have to share with you this little thing about the MATC...the bathrooms on the 6th floor had the best view of downtown Milwaukee! I told my class mates this & we all rushed to the ladies' room to check it out.

For my classmates, we had people from all over the US there. We laughed, we shared stories, and we sat quietly beading away. One of our classmates was from Japan, and we all loved looking at all the beading treasures she was using in class. I got to share three wonderful days with women around my own age which for me was the best part of the Master Class.

Rainy Day Scotties

2011-06-16T16:20:00.008-04:00

I woke up this afternoon with rain showers plowing through the area. Though we had a record amount of rain in May, we really do need this rain. Our tomato plants are thirsty & we certainly do love our tomatoes around here. I was sitting on the couch with my first cup on coffee trying to wake up when another round of storms came crashing through. Something must have triggered in the brains of Arwen and Frodo, as both jumped up from napping and ran to the back door to watch the rain crash down on the patio. I was chuckling as they looked like a canine Laurel and Hardy. Frodo is just barely within his weight range and Arwen is way above her's. There they sat watching the rain and I think at one point there must have been a squirrel (LOOK!) running along the fence tops. Then Arwen comes over to Chris & isn't this the most adorable face you've seen. She sometimes looks so submissive, but in actuality she wants to be alpha dog around here. Trouble is that Fiona is the oldest but doesn't care. Frodo is Fiona's son & doesn't care either. But when Arwen tries to be dominate both jump on her...so I guess she does look sad because she just can't be the boss...but she is!

More pictures from Milwaukee

2011-06-14T17:00:00.008-04:00

On Thursday night as I was waiting to get into the big Market place, I walked along the Frontier Airline Building looking at all the displays. The piece from Bead Dreams were out along with a display of Japanese artist. There was one display that just took my breath away. It was Ukrainian bead artist. All these pieces were in glass cases so unfortunately there is some glare. Please enjoy these as much as I did.

I still haven't finished unpacking from Bead and Button. All the beads and kits I purchases are still stowed away in my bag. I'm waiting until later this week when I get the "I had to go back to work blues" and opening these bags of treasure will make me happy.

Speaking of Happy, yesterday was my last day of vacation. I've only been off 10 days, but it seems so much longer. Last night, Chris & I went to see Robert Plant and The Band of Joy. It was here in Columbus at the Palace Theater. It wasn't as nice a venue as two years ago when we saw Robert with Allison Krause, but it was a big plus at not having to drive up to Detroit and stay over night. I enjoyed the new band he was playing with & they played many of the new songs from the album "Band of Joy". But what was amazing was the new renditions of old Led Zepplin songs. They crowd was on their feet during most of the show, but luckily I was sitting in a spot where everyone was sitting through 75% of the show so I had a wonder view. Also being only 28 rows back and in the middle helped. Only bad this was that the feed back was pretty bad with some of the songs and my ears were ringing and the sound was very distorted. But all in all, it was a great show.

Bead and Button

2011-06-11T19:36:00.008-04:00

I haven't posted in so long. I think my writing Muse had taken a vacation long before I decide to. Just life getting in the way and spending too much time in the Art Cave beading away has left me limp by the time I come upstairs to sit in front of this computer and try to journal about what I've been up to. So instead I just took a sabbatical from blog land for awhile. I actually took a small sabbatical from all computer things for the past week. I went to Bead and Button show in Milwaukee last Saturday and came back last evening. I didn't think about work at all, and I didn't take my lap top even though there was free WiFi in the hotel where I stayed. It was kinda nice to just veg out with the classes and my beads. I took a great Master class with Carol Wilcox Wells and a full day with Marcia DeCoster. (More about both of those later). My goal for the week was to learn Right Angle Weave or what beaders refer to it as RAW. Did I ever learn it! I find myself dreaming in RAW! I woke up a couple times with bead weaving patterns imprinted on my eyes. I wrote them down and them smiled as they made no sense what so ever as they were mystical dream pieces. Hum...wonder if that is how Carol & Marcia come up with their wonderful designs.

Julie, Me (looking wind blown as I walked down to the Art Museum that morning with the winds blowing 30 mph), and Cynthia

As a come back from my long silence, I thought I share with you some pictures from Thursday night at the opening of the doors for the Vendor Night only for participates of the Bead and Button show. I got in line @ 3:15 & my two friend Cynthia and Julie met me there. It was chaos when we first entered but I had my plan. I wanted to go to Out on a Whim first to see Shawn & Beki and pick up some new seed bead colors. WOW is all I can say about their displays. I actually was first person at their booth! Woohooo! Then with map in my hand I wandered throughout the showroom looking at this purchasing that, enjoying a quick conversation with old friends and meeting new people who all love beads.

I got to show Betcy at Beyond Beadery the piece I finished with our BFAC kit and add a few more seed bead treasures to my stash. I found out that I don't have to whine about not having Silamide anymore as I found BeadCats has it in all the luscious colors I have loved and used all up. They told me they could order me more. Double Woohooo as I adore Silamide. Then I found a booth with metered/measured stones. I feel in love. I spent so much time there that I wondered if the skies outside had darken. Nope, still more time. I have to photograph all the wonderful treasure both bead, crystal and Fiber (yes, I bought fiber there that is to die for). So here are a few pictures I took Thursday night at the big Market in Milwaukee. I think I MIGHT have enough beads just from this show to keep me going another couple of years.

blue

2011-05-20T13:13:00.003-04:00

I have been just a little bit blue lately & have neglected this blog for so long. It must be the gray rainy skies that have overwhelmed me with self doubt. Or it could be the hours of work being constantly on my feet which are now whining for me to take them to the Podiatrist. Or it could be this big project that is consuming my brain. Or it could be that I'm just burnt out after AFIC. Or it could just be I haven't the energy to put myself out there.

But this afternoon when I woke up, there was Sun shining. The grass is almost over the dogs' heads because we've had about 10 days of non stop awful weather. I'm going to grab onto those warm cheery rays & pull them inside me to warm up my Soul and hopefully wake up my Muse.

Doll Street Dreamers Steampunk Challenge

2011-05-06T15:18:00.008-04:00

Here are more pictures from AFIC's exhibit. Cyndy always has doll clubs from around the globe send in pieces for display at AFIC. These are from an online doll makers group called Doll Street Dreamers. I've been a member for about three years now and enjoy the sense of community there. This year, Judy Skeel announced the challenge would be steampunk inspired dolls. As you can see, there were all kinds of different ideas popping out of people's head. Please excuse some of the pictures as the lightening where our display sat was limited. So sit back and enjoy a few photos from Steampunk Challenge.

If you'd like to see more pictures from the AFIC conference of the first night called "Hats and Heels Banquet" then please check out Leslie Molen's wonderful blog. I got to sit at Leslie's table where she was our "CEO". We had a challenge to make a doll out of a Bendi that would eventually be given to Children's Services here in Columbus. We had a Buyer (Pam), a Runner (Linda), Seamstresses , and I was the Speaker (but I sure did do a whole lot of hand sewing on that doll). We made a bear named Bernard who originally was a Steiff bear purchased at FAO Schwartz in NYC....he had seen better days & met two friends at a thrift store...okay enough with the story. We had a blast & see more about it on Leslie's blog which I warn you is charming and full of so much talent.

AFIC Challenge-Look Ma, No Stands

2011-05-05T10:01:00.009-04:00

Whew...what a blur the last two weeks have been. I spent so much time down in the studio trying to play catch up with all the things I needed to get done for AFIC. I can't believe that last week at this time, I was at the hotel helping out getting things ready for the opening. I did a little of this and that, but the main thing I got to do that was wonderful was help check in the dolls for the exhibit hall. I can't believe all the wonderful pieces coming in. When I got to personally handle so many of the challenge dolls, I was just blown away by all the talent coming in.

Cyndy let Chris & I take some pictures in the exhibit hall Sunday morning when it was very quiet. I'm going to be showcasing some of those dolls in the next few weeks. There were so many lovely pieces that it is difficult to just pick a few. I'm starting out today with nice pieces from the challenge "Look Ma, No Stand". So please sit back & enjoy pictures of some truly remarkable Art.

Scottie Sunday

2011-04-24T15:29:00.002-04:00

I thought I'd show you another one of my Scottie treasures that I've been collecting since 1989 when I bought my first Scottie Fala Pink. This is one of my Remler Radios. I could never afford a working radio as they are highly collectible by Scottie collectors and antique radio collectors. But you know when you want something, you want it. Here is where I am in lucky. When eBay first started out, you could find such great deals there. I found an auction where the person was selling two Remler's that were in bad shape. I got them both for a song but since they are vintage radios & the chassis were so heavy, I did pay a hefty shipping cost, but it was still a deal. Then the magic happened. Chris loves to refurbish vintage radios and televisions. To him it was a challenge. Of of the chassis were a wreck and on the other the shell was cracked. So Chris set to work to build one working complete radio from the wreckage of those two. Here is what he came up with. Isn't it great...and the best part is that IT WORKS!

Here is a little history about Remler Radios. There are so many more models out there & I'm always looking to add another on to my collection.
---------------

Remler Radio
Remler is best known to collectors for their striking black-and-white plastic radios with little Scottie dog mascots. These deco-inspired case styles has made many Remler sets much sought after radios.
Elmer Cunningham,who had made a mark in the radio world in the manufacturing of Cunningham brand radios tubes, founded Remler in San Francisco in 1918 along with Thomas B. Gray and Ernest G. Danielson. Cunningham came up with the name "Remler" for the new company by spelling his first name backwards and adding an extra "R" for "radio" to the end of it.
They started by making radio parts, sockets, switches, and other small components. By 1922 Cunningham had dropped out and although it's products were still branded "Remler," the company became the Gray and Danielson Mfg. Co. In 1924 they produced the first of their line of high quality super-heterodyne radio recievers.
In 1931 the company officially renamed itself "The Remler Company. Ltd." again. The original factory had been destroyed by fire a year earlier, and they had just built a new plant at 2101 Bryant Street in San Francisco (the building still stands today, and is still labeled "Remler Co. Ltd" across the top) and was making a major marketing effort for their two new sets, the Remler "Cameo" priced at $64.50 and the Remler "Super-Heterodyne" priced at $77.50.
Remler built consumer radios (and even had a quick flirtation with television manufacturing) up until the early 1950s. They had a reputation for high quality sets, and their plastic cabinets were quite handsome. After the war Remler had sold 25,000 sets on consignment to a salesman on the East Coast, but it turned out that only a few thousand were actually paid for, and the bulk of the sets were returned to the factory. Many of the cabinets for the hefty radios didn't fare well in shipping, and the company sustained considerable loses on the sets. After that they left the consumer radio market.

Goodies from ArtBeads

2011-04-22T12:32:00.006-04:00

Monday I received a great package from ArtBeads. I'm a one of their Design bloggers & this time around the event and challenge is "What is Old is New". Right up my alley, right? I have an idea, but I still need to have some time to let it percolate in the old noggin before I get these beads and cabochons to really "speak" to me. Aren't these great glass Cabs? And I love the new copper retro buttons. I'm thinking of doing something with one of the old vintage transistor radios Chris has decided to part with. Something beach theme. Also don't you just love the fire polish? These actually look copper when you take them out into the Sun. Which I would do today on this Earth Day but it disappeared (AGAIN) and looks like we won't have Sun until next Thursday.

ArtBeads is also having a Mom's Challenge : Enter your Mother's Day design & win a $250 worth gift card. AMAZING! I doubt I have time to do this as AFIC is next week & I still have things to get done for DC Design's vendor booth...like weigh out some wool roving, put prices on things & just organize a little better.

Well, I have tonight off from work. I've got so much to do but I hear my beads calling me, calling me, calling me. One thing I MUST do tonight & give some dogs bathes. I think some people will probably come over here next week since I live only 5 minutes from the hotel & I don't want them all thinking my house stinks like dog (it does, but come on...we have three dogs). Fiona has very oily skin so I don't want folks getting stains on their clothes when they pet my sweet Fi & then rub their hands on their pants...and Arwen is a little "greasy" too because it is Spring & she gets so itchy. Frodo...nothing wrong with that boy. I think if I gave him a bath once a year that would be good for him. Funny, but he always smells so sweet...guess it is just his personality.

Hope you all are having a great Earth Day. I think I need to thinking about recycling those beads from one area of my work table to another! You know I'll get down there start looking at things & just get into a sparkle trance.

Bad News, Good News

2011-04-21T16:28:00.003-04:00

Okay, I'm going to start out with the bad news right up front and in one sentence. My two dolls DID not get into Bead Dreams. There. I said it. I have no idea why. I have had really a hard time getting the beading community to accept bead dolls as Art. I think I either have to give up trying to stop entering them into competitions or take a step back and instead of doing whimsical pieces try to concentrate on pretty figures with pretty faces.

Now to the good news. My piece Mother's Love came in 5th in the Beading for a Cure competition AND don't forget that she's up for auction starting next Monday. I was told I was to receive a winning prize & it came yesterday. Wow is about all I can say. I was shaking with excitement as I opened the box and treasure after treasure kept pouring out. I'm going to try to tell you everything that was in the box & if I've forgotten to thank anyone then my apologizes to all. First off was books and folder with all kinds of posters off Crystallized Swarovski Elements. Some of the posters are going to be put in in the studio as the colors are just amazing and will give me color suggestion idea. There were two boards with crystals colors with real crystals embedded in the board. Now I won't have to guess what color crystals I want to order as there they are for me to actually match up. I also got Crystal Chic which is by Debbi Simon. Lots of great ideas in there to push me to start using metal and crystals together.

Next was a great brown and blue craft bag from BeadinPath with a package of lucite beads inside. AND a $50 gift certificate inside an envelope. I am going to go crazy trying to decide what kind of lovely lucite beads to order from them. Then a kit from Jeannette Cook called "the tiles of Antoni Guadi Cuff". Jeannette is coming to Columbus this Summer to teach at 1 Stop Bead Shop so I'll have to get the story of what that name means then. I got another kit called " Silver Lining" but there was no name of who the designer or the contributor of this is. Thank you to whomever this mystery person is.

Then in a box was a beautiful necklace and earring set from Beads: All about it from Gainesville Florida. Lovely colors with a sweet Czech button as the focal piece. Then a book from Rita Sova of Butterfly and Fairy Designs all in brick stitch. Wow! I'm going to have to back track and rediscover brick stitch to make some of these beauties. Then a bag of Vintage Cabs from Marilee Layman. WoW! These are amazing. I can see some lovely cuff coming from these. In another plastic bag was a lovely glass focal bead from Ann Sherm Baldwin. It is BEAUTIFUL. I sat and starred at it looking at the design and colors and dreamed of the ocean off Kauai.

Then opening another envelope there were two gift certificates for $25 each. One was from Betcey at Beyond Beadery and the other was from Beki from Whimbeads. These are two of my favorite online bead stores and boy am I going to have fun trying to figure out what I need.

The very last thing was a mind blower as this is what Beading for a Cure is all about. IN a bag donated by Jeannette was one of Layne's beads she owned & left to Jeannette after she passed away. I was in tears & I still am. It is a beautiful focal bead made by Nancy Tobey. Layne bought it & treasured it so therefore, I'm going to treasure this piece of Art that Layne loved enough to take home. I never really knew Layne as she passed away before I joined the online group, but I would love to think that she held this bead in her hand and loved it. I'm going to do that too & send my prayers to her and every other person on this planet who has had to receive the news that they have colon cancer. I also will send prayers to those family members and friends who have had a loved one pass away or who is still fighting the fight.

Thank you the board of Beading for a Cure. Thank you the judges. And thank you to everyone who takes time to go to our auction site and purchase a piece of our Art so that we can help make sure no one else has to go through what Layne has

Scottie Sunday

2011-04-17T15:57:00.005-04:00

I have been neglectful of Scottie Sunday and haven't had a chance to get any pictures of the things I have collected over the years. It is Spring, and I have a bad bad case of "puppyitis" since people have been showing pictures of new puppies all over the Web. So, I had Chris get out the file with the pictures of Frodo as a puppy. He with two other brothers and one sister were born 8 years ago next month. Fiona is his mother. Now Fiona is a wheaten colored Scottie and back then it was extremely difficult for me to find a male with the wheaten gene that was not related to her. I would have had to have sperm flown in from Canada to find a male I could safely breed her with. And it would have been really expensive. My mentor told me that since she wasn't "tested" or in other words hadn't had a live litter yet, we should wait before spending all that money. So I breed her with a WildWind black male. The puppies are all brindle which is hard to see when they were still so young, but if you look really really close, you can see a bit of brown fur by one puppy's closed eyes.

I don't know who was more excited about the puppies...me, Chris or Skye. Fiona could care less & it took three days before she finally became a Mom. She did a great job, but she really didn't care for being a Mom so this was the only litter of puppies she had. We have Frodo, Cynthia had Forrest (he passed away last Summer), Irene has Andy, and Fiona's breeder HAD the only girl but her husband "lost" the puppy when she was only 9 months old.

So enjoy some really Scottie Sunday pictures from me. Fiona has the red collar on in the above picture and Auntie Skye has the black collar on.

SteamPunk ShowDown

2011-04-17T15:34:00.006-04:00

Chris & I have been having fun doing more collaboration pieces. This one is a semi Steampunk set which is called "SteamPunk ShowDown". It is for the DollStreet Dreamer's Steampunk challenge that will be displayed at AFIC the last weekend of this month. Chris did the Bot and I did the boy.

They boy started out as my new pattern. My New Year's resolution to myself this year is to learn to make my own doll forms so I can use them for my work without having to give credit to other artist. Plus in the future, I hope to sell my patterns or actually teach doll making. Therefore, I spend time drawing patterns, sewing them up, stuffing them, tweaking them, needle sculpting them, and doing it all over again until I can be happy. I wanted to make this a chubby little boy who spends more time tinkering in his work shop building things such as the robot he is facing with his remote control. He's dressed up in his space boy helmet and has a cape around his neck as he's always trying to figure out how to fly. His helmet is an old glass votive holder and the remote control box started off as a flippie container for beads. His eyes are vintage nail heads and he is standing on a piece of lucite. The only thing I'm unhappy about with this is the shoes. I didn't have time to finish up around the shoes so he just looks like he is standing in a puddle of mud. I've been experimenting with faces, and here I gave him a gap tooth grin which is hard to see from these pictures, but he does have a sweet little smile.

The bot started out as a metal canister of bath salts and with Chris' imagination he turned into a full fledged bot with his innards magnified with a lens from our collection of corrective eye glass lenses we bought years ago. Chris used his supply of radio tubes, ploy clay, and other things we have in our stash to give his bot life. His glowing eyes are volcano crystal rivolis I beaded. Chris gave the Bot his own remote control as really who here is in control? The Boy or the Bot? The Bot or the Boy?

To see more pictures of the Bot click here which will take you to Chris' blog MacRadioBot

These were so fun to make & we already have more ideas for collaboration after AFIC is complete.

7000 Bracelets for Hope

2011-04-16T15:14:00.002-04:00

I decided to join the 7000 Bracelets for Hope after reading about this cause on Lori Anderson's blog. Please click here to read more about the cause and click here to see Lori's list of blogs to visit.
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If you are interested in joining please read below and think about adding your "voice" by sending a Bracelet of Hope to Global Genes Project.

It’s easy to help show support for kids suffering from rare disease and disorders!

The Global Genes Project (GGP) volunteer team is collecting blue jean/denim inspired bracelets for families living with rare disease, the campaign is called “7,000 Bracelets for Hope.”

To help raise awareness we’re asking 7,000 jewelry designers, volunteers from the craft community and various artists to donate one bracelet to this campaign to show their support for kids living with rare disease, disorders or conditions. These bracelets will then be distributed to participating families in December 2011.

24701 La Plaza, Suite 201 Dana Point, CA 92629

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These are the three bracelets I'll be mailing off Monday.

Whew...deadline

2011-04-04T18:42:00.006-04:00

Well, I managed to make the Deadline for the 2011 Bead Dreams challenge. The deadline is April 5ht, but I was afraid I'd have some computer issues or anything else to get in the way so I completed the entry for just now. I entered Gaia's Playground which is what I called the piece Rachel's Dream after I've spent over 50 hours completing the piece after it was returned to me from Best of 2010 in January. I was never really happy with it as I got so lazy at the end and didn't finish the edges. I made so many flowers and covered the edges all the way around with new types of flowers, crystals and pearls. I'm happy and now say it is DONE! I also entered Wild Wet Ride which was my attempt at making an original doll with my own pattern AND using flat peyote sewn onto the doll using the fabric as a pattern. Last year, I didn't get my two pieces into the show so I'm not holding my breath for this year either, but hey! we have to try don't we??

I was writing to Cynthia that since I decided to let the dolls to the side an concentrate on beading, now all that pops into my head is how to make this doll and that doll. I've actually been drawing patterns and coming up with new ideas for new dolls. One of my AFIC pieces for the Challenge "Look Ma, No Stands" has 7 individual dolls using three new patterns I made by myself. It is close to getting done. All the sewing is done, and tomorrow we are going to finish the top layer, then all I have to do is a little tweaking here and there. I think everyone is going to be blown away at AFIC by this as it is TALL and it has very few beads on it. I've also got on the table another new pattern for the Doll Street Dreamers' Challenge for AFIC calling for Steampunk. I don't haven time to do everything that I want for this piece, so Chris is making half and I'm making the other. I contacted Judy Skeel & she said it was okay as long as I met the criteria and got it to her by the 15th. I've got some sewing to do for this one, but I must admit that Hal and I are fast becoming friends...really...I want to sew now! Imagine me saying this 4 years ago...I don't think so.

Meanwhile, to keep my fingers nimble and to keep beading, I've come up with this little project that I'll be teaching at Bead Club in May at 1 Stop. It might turn into a class. We'll see. It is called Finger Cuffs and yes! it is not an original idea, but I think I've done some things to make it mine.
I've also been working on some beaded bangle to sell at AFIC. I need some slush fund money for my trip in June to Bead and Button.

As for the Scotties, it is that time of the year with thunderstorms and swamps. I keep hearing the weather alert radio going off reminding us that we are in a Flash Flood Alert. I really don't worry to much about that here as our house sits highest in the neighborhood so we rarely get flooding in our basement, but luckily this Winter Victor put in a big new sump pump for us while Chris was sick. I can hear that thing roaring to life all the time, but it keeps my Art Cave dry.

Well, enough for now. I really have to make some dinner and get myself in the mental mood for four more days at work.

{It has been brought to my attention that I have been remiss in several things concerning the ring cuffs pictured above. First is that I did not link to the blog where I had gotten the original inspiration. The blog I was referring to was Nicole Campanella's BeadWright. The post was from March 19th about her Comfort Rings. I follow Nicole's blog all the time, and find great inspiration from all the things she creates and shares with us. Secondly, I should have checked the actual name "Finger Cuffs" to see if it had been copy right by any other artist or was being used in a similar project. Lastly, I will not be teaching a Ring Cuff class as I find it is too challenging for a beginner to work on such a small area while learning basic bead embroidery stitches. Dot. 7/20/11}

ROCKET MAN

2011-03-31T17:34:00.004-04:00

I've been pretty quiet this past week. Work has been extremely wicked with the Emergency Room full every night, and you know that means those folks need lab work done which means...I'm on the feet all the time. I get home in morning and after feeding the three Scotties, I'm in bed. Yet even when I get up my feet are aching. I bought new shoes, and they are making the pain a little better, but I think I'm going to have to break down & visit my Podiatrist again & see about getting more steriod shots. Sound awful, but it does work.

Chris & I are going to be having a vendor table at AFIC. I'm taking classes there, but Chris is going to man the booth Friday night, and then all day Saturday and Sunday. I'm so excited that he'll be able to show off some of the great work he has been doing in the past two years. He wanted for us to do a collaboration to show off at AFIC, and I agreed it would be fun to work together again. He went rummaging through the basement where we keep boxes of things we've accumulated in our thrift store wanderings. He found an old lamp and a box of Christmas tree lights from back when we were kids (think we found them at a flea market). So out came the vacuum tubes and he began on a lighted Rocket. He challenged me to then make an Astronaut that could ride the Rocket. I sat down and drew up a new doll pattern and began to audition fabric. I didn't want to paint the doll body to make it look like a space suit and was so excited when down deep in a box I found this fun fabric I bought last Halloween. I also wanted my doll to look cute, so instead of the big noses I usually sew for my dolls, I went for a tiny little bump of a nose & it worked fabulous. Then, it went to Chris & he came up with this perfect item for the Rocket Man's helmet. It originally came from a child's toy we found at the thrift store. Chris cut an opening in the bottom, and the Astronaut's head fit perfect. Then it was back to me to finish up the space suit. I added two life support packs on the front and back with crystals to mock lights blinking off an on, and I made a collar so the helmet would sit properly on the shoulders. Then back to Chris. He posed and mounted the Rocket Man. Then he plugged in the lamp. The flames light up and it really looks like it is headed for deep space.

We had so much fun working on this project together. We are now doing another piece I hope to finish and enter into Doll Street Dreamer's Steampunk challenge at AFIC. I've been drawing a design & he's been cutting and getting the pieces together. I'm so lucky.

Scottie Sunday

2011-03-20T09:16:00.003-04:00

I thought I'd do a little something different this Sunday and hope to carry
through with this idea. It is going to be called "Scottie Sunday" where I'm
going to share some of my Scottie Dog Antiques with you all. I don't think many
people know that before I got obsessed with beading and doll making, my biggest
passions was collecting Scottie Dog pieces. It all began back in 1989 when I bought my first Scottie
dog named FalaPink. We wanted a Scottie dog after going to Hyde Park and saw a picture of FDR with Fala hanging out the window of the car. On FDR's desk was Fala's collar. I grew up with Dauschunds so I had no idea how a terrier would change my life. Boy, did Fala ever do that. I remember taking him to my vet after purchasing him from an elderly couple on the south end of town. My Vet asked me if I knew anything about Scotties. Well, I didn't as I just thought they were cute. My Vet laughed and told me do I have a lot to learn as terriers are unique and have a wee bit of a controlling attitude and can be stubborn. And yes, I learned that real fast with Falakins. So with my new four legged baby boy taking over my life and changing it forever, I began to surround myself with trinkets and knick knacks making my house look like some Scottie dog museum.

This is one piece that I was lucky to find at a Scottie Dog Antique convention in Cincinnati called Wee Scots started by Donna Newton. This is a pair of Hubley bookends. They are cast iron and have been painted. This pair is in fair condition. Here is a little history of the Hubley company out of Pennsylvania:

Hubley Manufacturing Company was incorporated in 1894 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania by John Hubley and produced toys throughout its history. Early Hubley production consisted of many cast iron toys including various horse drawn vehicles, guns, and household objects such as doorstops and bookends. Many of their cast iron objects were dogs, and they are highly prized by collectors today. With the automotive age, cars, trucks, and other transportation became their focus. The Hubley Company made accurate metal replicas of Model A Fords and other cars for many years; for example, there are 7 Model A Ford body styles alone: Sedan, Station Wagon, Coupe, Roadster, Roadster Pickup, Victoria, and Phaeton. Though mass produced, Hubley toys and doorstops were painted by hand, so each has become a unique treasure appreciated both for its subject matter and the �folk art� quality of its paint, form and design. After WW II, die-cast zinc alloy models for the most part replaced the cast iron ones. In the casting process at Hubley, metalworkers would carve out a form of wood, or hammer the doorstop or toy design out in metal. The form was then pressed into finely compacted sand, making an impression. Cast iron heated to 3000 degrees was poured into the sand mold and, when cooled, the form would pop out and rough edges were filed off. In the decorating department, painters applied a base coat (usually white or cream but sometimes black) to the doorstop. Then, colorists used a variety of hues to highlight important details, usually only on the side that would face toward the room. Many doorstops bear identical color schemes, suggesting that decorators may have copied a model finished by a master artisan. A well-cast iron doorstop will be smooth in texture. Small chipping of paint is acceptable, but there should be no repainting of an antique item.

I do have a few of the Hubley door stops in my collection, but most of them have all be packed away for the future. Someday, Chris & I are going to get all those boxes out of the basement of closets and go through what I have. I collected for over 25 years so there is quite a bit of those pointy ear dogs residing in my house. I haven't sold any of them as I decided to just wait until I retire, and then "rehome" some of them like other members of Wee Scots passing on their treasures to me.

AFIC challenge

2011-03-19T18:43:00.002-04:00

I've been working this week on the Artistic Figures in Cloth, which will be held
here in Columbus the last weekend in April,challenge doll. The theme this time is "Look Ma, No Stands". This means that you cannot use a doll stand or any visible means of support in your challenge piece. I wanted to come up with something a little different for this time. Two years ago, I actually won Best of Show: Original Pattern. That was my little spider rider called "Getting Motivated". Just as two years ago, I decided to tell a little story instead of just sewing up a doll. I'm know that I'm going to be ambitious with this latest piece that I'm going to call "Circus Grand Finale" with not two, not four, but seven individual dolls incorporated into one piece. I'm crazy! I actually drew up the design and came up with three different distinct patterns. I remember when I would never even think of trying my hand at drawing up my own pattern, but as I've taken more classes, studied how other doll makers work with pattern pieces, and actually got a little better at sewing, I'm developing my own style. Plus, all my dolls are small.

These are the four strongmen of the circus. They will be the bottom layer of a cake like piece. The hardest part getting these guys done was getting their legs into those shoes that contained the wire for the armature. I know the legs are a little whimpy for them, but any future strongmen type dolls will have a fatter or shall I say more muscular legs. I really don't like drawing eyes on cloth, so I decided to make their faces a little simple with sew on nail heads for the eyes, left over felt for the mustache, and wool roving for hair & chest hairs (my sister laughed when she saw their chest hair!). I used dyed cotton fabric that I bought from eleanor peace bailey years ago. It was a little tough to work with trying to turn those small pieces, but slowly and patiently I succeeded without blowing any seams out.

Stay tune for the next layer & if you are in Columbus the last weekend in April and would love to see the largest exhibit of hand made one of a kind dolls, the DoubleTree at Crosswoods is where all the fun will be held. Also, Chris & I will have a vendor's booth there.

2011 Resolution

2011-03-17T08:18:00.005-04:00

I know...two post in one day. But I didn't want to put these two pieces of jewelry in the blog announcement about Beading for a Cure.

My resolution for 2011 was to concentrate on practicing new beading techniques and to develop new pieces of jewelry. I've been busy making new necklaces and finished these two just in time to enter the Bead Maven's Vernal Visions contest with the deadline of March 21st. If you ever want to just spend some time looking at some delicious pieces of eye candy and pick up many ideas for beading and jewelry making, then definitely become a follower to this great blog where 5 top notch bead artist share ideas and projects with you. You won't be disappointed as it is an awe inspiring blog.

So here are the two necklaces I entered: This is Daffodil Spring which was inspired by a morning after getting off work looking at the ice covered world while the Three Scotties roamed the yard looking for rabbits. I looked down at the green sprouts around the patio and was just enthralled with the green sparkling promise of Spring Daffodils.

This second piece is what is left over from my big beaded collar called Na Pali Dream. Remember I said I tore it apart after putting in one only once and not liking it? Well, this is what I did with all those left over pieces cannibalized from that beaded collar. I like is so much better, and it actually looks good around my neck. It is once again inspired from that one moment in time standing on the north shores of Kauai looking over the Na Pali coastline as the mist from the surrounding water falls encompassed us. I frightened a small brown lizard who scurried from under the technicolored ferns. It was a mystical place and all this Winter with the snow, the ice, the frigid temperatures, and now the monsoon of rain, I think of that eternal place of Spring and beauty.Oh, by the way, Chris made a light box to take pictures of our new art pieces. Hasn't he done a wonderful job getting the diffused light to keep the harsh shadows from these? I can't wait to share some of the new items he's made. Also, he is going to be a vendor at AFIC next month here in Columbus. I'm going to have him post a few more of his robots in the coming weeks.

Beading for a Cure 2011

2011-03-17T08:03:00.002-04:00

This is the message I got yesterday from Beki. I'm still pretty much in shock that Mother's Love won Best Use of Kit: Non Wearable. I still remember working on her with all those delicious purples and bronze. I even took the head with me to finish all that beaded hair when I was in Seattle & then at Ocean Shores. Why am I shocked. Well, there are so many lovely pieces entered this year that it literally takes your breath away. Everything is auctioned on on eBay starting next week and all money goes to Layne's Legacy. So go over and do a little drooling at all the lovely entries, and start saving your money to help beat Colon Cancer and pick up some lovelies at the same time.

Beading for a Cure Auctions

Beki's message:



	Here are your winners for the 2011 Layne's Legacy - Beading For A Cure competition! 1st Place - Tracy Vincent 2nd Place - Grace Danel 3rd Place - Nikia Angel Best Use of Kit - Marilyn Peters Best Non-Wearable - Dot Lewallen I can easily speak for all the judges when I say it was very, very difficult for us to choose winners. All of the beadwork was just amazing! Here is a little note from one of our guest judges, Diane Fitzgerald: "Thank you for giving me the opportunity to judge this contest. One can see that each entrant put her heart and soul into making a beautiful piece and it was not easy to select my nominations. Even though not everyone could be awarded a prize, I hope that each person understands that they are a winner by contributing to this contest and I wish them all the best." Please join me in congratulating all of the winners!!

Bead Club March

2011-03-12T10:08:00.002-05:00

Before I tell you about Bead Club, I wanted to remind everyone that the 16th is the last day to register for Artbeads.com contest to win a trip to 2012 Gem and Jewelry show in Tucson. That is one heck of a prize. I would love to win that. Imagine living here in the snow belt and being able to board a plane and spend time in Tucson with the warmer weather and BEADS! What could be better? I can't think of anything in the winter except if they also threw in an ice cream social every single night. Also, Artbeads is having a special 20% off Luck of the Irish Sale with a 20% discount of orders of $60 or more. But you only have until the 14th for this deal. The coupon code for that is ZZ-IRISH20

Now to Bead Club. Last night was the second time I attended. It is held at 1 Stop Bead Shop the second Friday of the month. Two of the girls decided to do a mini workshop during Bead Club time which really hit home base. It is always more fun to sit with a group of women working on a project while gossiping and getting to know each other. The project this month was from a magazine we all had using the 2 needle right angle weave. I can do RAW but had never tried using two needles. The project called for 6 feet of Fireline which to me is way way too much. I got it all tangled up in my first try and decided to cut it in half and use only 3 feet which was easy for me to handle. Everyone else thought the 6 feet was a little extreme too. The first round went well with the color coded needles criss crossing to get the RAW pattern, then it got really funky as the written directions and the diagrams were almost impossible to decipher. Twelve of use scratching our heads and trying to come up with ideas on what the designer was telling us made everyone frustrated. Now usually I detest being frustrated while trying to figure someone out, but this time having others sharing this feeling with me made it more tolerable & we were all actually laughing about being so frustrated. I finally gave up the second needle and just concentrated doing RAW with one needle and you know what...the end product looked exactly like what everyone else who were brave enough to keep on struggling with the 2 needle version had done. So you want to see what my project looked like when I got finished? Sorry. I tore it apart this morning when I got up as I hated how it puckered when zipped the pieces together. Now, I'm not defeated by this project (for a change) and am going to rework it using regular 1 needle right angle weave. I'm practicing on doing this because I'm going to be taking Marcia DeCoster's Raising Sun at B&B and want to make sure I have a good understanding of the basics before tackling this class. So all in all, I had a blast! It was so much fun to spend three hours sharing lives, beads, and laughter with new found friends. Hope to see some of you next month when Barb is going to be sharing a workshop on beaded rings.s

My style

2011-03-09T15:59:00.005-05:00

This is one of the new dolls I was working on these past two months when the weather outside was icy or snowy or just plain yuck. She is called The Wild Wet Ride. My goal for the past two years was to develop my own doll patterns instead of using those of others. Since I work on a much smaller scale than most doll makers, it was a little harder for me to find something that worked for me since I do intend to cover the doll with beads.

Also, with the finding my own path in the actually designing and sewing of the doll pattern is experimenting with the actually fabrics used in making the doll. I never really sewed on a machine until about 4 years ago, so most of the sewing terms and fabric vocabulary where all foreign to me. I even didn't know you should change the needle in them machine after so many uses. I thought you used it until it broke! Silly me. So this has all been a learning experience for me. I've taken many doll making classes in person and online. I've purchased doll makers patterns, doll making books, and doll making magazines always studying the patterns and how they were all put together. I've sat at my desk drawing patterns always referring to those other doll maker's patterns as a guide. Then I sat at the machine stitching away many times throwing away what I had done. I'm still a long long way before I can easily just draw, sew, stuff & be happy with what I am creating. I always feel like I'm using someone else ideas instead of creating something original. Then I read Lisa the Whimsical Bohemian who created the One World One Heart Blog Event this year, this one post of hers really made me stop and think. I'm going to reprint what really struck me to heart & have to please read this blog post of hers to see why it made me feel so relieved that I'm on the right track:

"Art should be created with your own authentic voice, artistic passion and original thought that comes together to form a piece of art. It could be "inspired by"what they've seen others do BUT.... the end result should be from their own innate ability to bring together various elements to form a finished piece of their own. Even learned technique should have a completely new spin put on it to make it solely their own. "

Isn't this a wonderful idea? I realized while reading her post that even though I am constantly on the road to learning new things from others being inspired by doll makers and bead artist, I am taking all that knowledge and wrapping it into something that is truly mine. My dolls will have faces that I needle sculpt a certain way that I like taking tips from this person and that person until that face being created with my eyes and fingers will be a reflection of what my mind and heart are combined to make. Then of course the beading! It all comes down to the beading doesn't it??

This year, I have decided to go back to my core and concentrate on more beading techniques. I want to feel confident in different bead weaving and other metal and wire techniques. Therefore sometimes I AM just being a copy cat making a necklace, earrings or a bracelet that looks exactly like the one in the class or article I'm learning from. But that is it...I KNOW they are are "homework" and with each turn of the tool or twist of a needle, I'm slowly slowing teaching my mind to "see" a new way to doing something. Meanwhile, my brain is struggling to see how I can incorporate that new learning experience to what I already can do. I will be taking all these lessons, let them percolate inside my Muse, and come back out baked into a way that will be mine. Simple? Not really, but being an Artist (and sometimes I do cringe calling myself that as I struggle with the thought that me, yes me is an Artist) is a road of learning, expanding and creating always looking for the new thought, idea, or process. It is a journey that can be thrilling all the way home.

One World One Heart And Winter enchantment

2011-03-08T17:03:00.007-05:00

I wanted to share with you the give aways I received from the One World One Heart blog event last month that whirled us all around the world visiting other artists' blog & sharing a look into other lives. I found so many new blogs to follow from this event and am enjoying learning new techniques and getting to know other artist.

First off, I got this wonderful heart shape mini quilt from Monique. I wrote & told her that Daisy loves the quilt & won't let go of it since she saw it emerge from the package. Monique also sent me an adorable card, but Daisy squirreled that away & can't find it. Then I got this two Angelself.com. It was a cold wintry day here in Ohio when I shoveled my way out to the mailbox & two little pieces of Spring were there. They sit here so I can look at them instead of the gray gloom outside the window. Then another package came in smelling so wonderful, that Chris had to stand there when I opened it. There was a sampling of delicious soaps from Sweet Sally's Soaps. These are only a couple of the bars as the rest are in our bathrooms giving them enticingly wonderful scents. I don't know which is my favorite, yet.

Artbeads.com has also posted the entries for their Winter Enchantment Designs by bloggers. There are some great pieces here. Artbeads.com is one of my favorite places to shop on line...yours???

Chris & I have decided to become vendors at Artistic Figur es in Cloth this coming April in Columbus Ohio. Chris has been working on some new pieces to be for sale. I also have been working on a few things.

I just found out that Treasures of the Gypsy are also going to be a vendor at AFIC. If you've never ever ever seen some of their fabrics & trims then you are just going to be blown away. They usually don't travel East of the Mississippi, so Cyndy must have really worked hard to get them to come to AFIC. Even if you are not into dolls you MUST come just to visit Treasure of the Gypsy's booth. When in Albuquerque, I saw people dropping thousands...not hundreds mind you, but thousands of dollars as there are fabrics and trims you won't find any place else. So mark the last weekend on your calender to see some fabulous dolls and do some outstanding shopping here in Columbus

My studio

2011-02-23T08:19:00.004-05:00

I've been enjoying the new blogs I am following after the OWOH blogger event. One blog was asking "what is one your desk?". I had to laugh as I have something very odd on my desk besides the usual beads and sequins. Fiona woke me up this morning at a quarter after 5am. Yes...FIVE AM! She must have heard me tossing & turning as I did have the electric blanket up a little higher than normal & woke up to turn it down. Well, she barked & I knew if I didn't get up, she wouldn't stop. I let all three out (Frodo was definitely NOT happy about getting up so darn early), fed them all, made myself some coffee & went downstairs to work a little before Chris got up. I finished up another bracelet & had another hour before I would wake him. So I decided to work on some more Pocket Monsters since I got so many nice comments about them. Now to what is on my desk...cut up dog bedding! Honest! I use fleece to line Arwen's dog bed as she likes to scratch at it, turn around three time, sigh, then fall asleep. It was old & worn, but when I pulled it out to throw away, I thought to myself...wouldn't this be great (once washed) for Pocket Monsters. So this, morning I began to cut out bodies, arms, and legs for a new set of these beasties.

As usually I was watching TCM. I caught the last hour of Giants with Elizabeth Taylor Rock Hudson, and James Dean. It was great to see it again. This was the first movie where I realized I was not a child any longer as I when we all went to the drive in to see it, I stayed awake for the whole movie which was an event for me as after swinging for hours waiting for the movies to start, then running as fast as we could back to the car when the cartoons started, eating assorted junk in the back seat of the car, and then trying to stay awake through the whole movie...well it was just way too hard. But, this was the first movie where I was so enthralled with it all that I stayed up until it was over. All the other kids were passed out in the backseat of the car, but I got to sit up front with my parents. My Dad said my eyes were like little black buttons attached to the movie screen. Both my parents laughed when I asked if we could see it again the next night. So it was fun to see Giants again and remember the smell of popcorn and car exhaust from that long long ago evening in Los Angeles.

Funny about memories...I have to share this one thing more with you before I head out with Chris for a little ride up to Mohican to see the snow...I was walking through the studio when a smell caught my attention. It was perfume of incense & I stopped in my tracks & was transported back to Byzantium, my long lost bead haven. I looked around & figured out where that smell was coming from. When Bzyantium closed, I bought several of the racks that held the bead. Okay, I bought a lot of beads from them too. Joyce also gave me some of the black velvet trays that customers would carry around the store putting treasures into. I had three of them on the desk over where I have my bead rack. I miss that store so much. It was a place I would go to even if I didn't need any beads. It was just so comforting. So I thought, I have never shared a picture of that rack of beads I have...so here are a couple photos of my bead stash.

Classes & more classes

2011-02-20T17:35:00.003-05:00

The last two weeks besides traveling all over the world from one blog to another during the One World One Heart blog event, I also have been beaded & even taking classes at 1 Stop Bead Shop here in Dublin/Columbus Ohio. This first set of bracelets are from a little mini class during Bead Club where Cindy A. is developing a class. She wanted us to be her guinea pigs & my wasn't I lucky for my very first time to get to learn a new technique. I don't remember what she is actually calling the class, but it is netting using 4mm pearls. The closure is magnetic, but this can be converted into a free flowing bangle or use toggles or other closures. I have a bunch of magnetic closures left over & have used them. These are two of the three bracelets I made. I made a gorgeous one with orange & yellow sea glass with green Delicas, BUT...I lost it Friday when my brain was in a daze from lack of sleep. Someone either at Applebees on Sawmill or Trader Joes now has a new bracelet. No, they didn't show up, but those were the only two places I was before I noticed it was gone. I think I learned my lesson there about those magnetic clasp.

I took 3 out of 5 classes Janice Berkibile was teaching at 1Stop Bead Shop this weekend. I really enjoyed the Pod Rings on Thursday night even though I'd been awake for over 24 hours. I came home Thursday morning with my hip aching from being on my feet all night at work & took a pain pill only to realize instead of calming the pain and making me drowse, it calmed the pain but made me hyper! I hadn't seen Janice since I was out in Tacoma this past July taking another one of her great classes. Friday I signed up to take two of the classes Fierce Connections and Crown of Jewels. Well, it would have been great, but Fiona woke me up before 6 am so there I was forcing to stay awake during the day class trying to learn to make earrings. Do you notice I have no pictures of earrings...because I didn't finish them. I had to go & eat (therefore losing my bracelet) & then came back to wait for the evening class. I must have drank 5 cups of coffee at dinner so I could wake up & have some conscience thoughts. It worked, but I realized that when I crashed it would be bad. Lisa was so wonderful to get in touch with the person on the waiting list & having her take my place for the all day class on Saturday which I KNEW I couldn't never make. I'm happy someone else got to learn more great metal working techniques and tips from Janice.

Saturday? Well, Fiona must have been tired too as she didn't wake us up until 6:30 am. We were both so tired we went back to bed for another three hours. It felt so good to sleep in. Then lunch at China Dynasty and a local shopping at Costco. All the time we were in the car, we were listening to Robert Plant's Band Of Joy which has been in my car since I got it from Amazon last December. I love this CD & Chris feeling better really enjoyed it too. No, I didn't take it out of my car...still there for me to enjoy.

So this weekend it was nice with 60 degree temperatures, and now the ice cold dampness is back. I was wondering if Janice brought some nice weather for us, which was a much needed break.

I need to mail out my two OWOH giveaways but realized tomorrow is Presidents' Day so I'll have another day to package all that up along with some other things that I need to mail out.

I keep wondering when Spring is going to arrive. This freak warm spell caused our young maple tree to sprout some buds & I saw some plants shooting up in the back. I just hope they all survive as I KNOW Winter is still here for awhile. Meanwhile, I'm going to bead away and find some time to do a little metal working.

OWOH

2011-02-18T08:33:00.002-05:00

Good morning all. I'm getting ready to head out for a whole day of metal working classes. I was too tired last night after making a pod ring. So here are my two winners. I've contacted them.

First is Barbara from Texas http://rosesonthewater.blogspot.com/

The Second is Soraya Nulliah http://sorayanulliah.blogspot.com/

I've had a great time with this event, visiting so many blogs & getting to know so many other artist. I can't wait until we find out about the new event next year. dot

OWOH

2011-02-17T07:01:00.002-05:00

This is the last day for OWOH blog event. I am going to be taking metal working class this evening & won't be home until late, so I won't announce the winners until really late tonight or early tomorrow. So if you haven't posted a comment on my give away, you still got until tonight. I have had a blast with this event & am now following more blogs than ever from bear makers, to scrap book people, fiber artist, doll makers, beaders, and paper craft.

Today it is suppose to be 63 degrees! A breath of Spring. We really need it here. So a big weekend of pound, cutting, and bending wire & metal for me and a big thaw for everyone else.

dot

Snowman Blush

2011-02-08T15:32:00.006-05:00

I tell you all, but this jewelry Muse is really beatin' me up wanting me to create, create, create! I can't believe how many jewelry ideas are popping into my head, traveling down my arm, tickling my fingers to pick up needle, thread and beads. BUT...I can hear my doll maker Muse standing back in the corner tap,tap,tapping her foot angry because I'm ignoring her. SHE popped something into my head last night while I was sweating at work (our A/C went out AGAIN!) so I think tomorrow, I need to get HAL out & do some machine sewing. But in the mean time...more jewelry!!!!

I'm sitting her eat the computer with my steaming coffee cup as I just woke up & need at least three cups to get me going for the day. I look outside the window just to my right and what do I see...MORE SNOW! I'm getting so tired of this. I was remembering when I would have Loved to see this much snow...back when I was a little girl. I grew up in Los Angeles & the only time I'd ever see snow was when my Dad would pile us all up into the car & drive up to Mt. Baldy with several card board boxes and snacks to keep us from driving him crazy. We'd slide down in our make shift sleds, get wet bottoms, and happily drive back down to the valley. I was 14 when we moved to Ohio (kicking and screaming mind you) but was excited when Winter came as that meant SNOW...but it didn't. It didn't snow the first year we lived in Ohio. But the second year...oh boy! School was canceled for the day and what did kids do back then on snow days...we hit the road with our shovels knocking on doors to get paid to shovel sidewalks. We charged a quarter for sidewalks and a whole 50 cents for sidewalks and driveway. After two to three hours and with the changing jingling in our pockets, we'd head downtown to the Bake Shop to eat greasy hamburgers with french fries in the cafe, and then blow the rest of the money on pastries to eat on the way home. So that was what snow meant to me when I was younger. Now it means driving in ice with white knuckles scared to death that someone is going to plow into the side of my vehicle or slide out of control making me slide out of control. So it is pretty only if I sit here inside looking out.

So why all the talk of snow & jewelry Muses and rambling...well, I have another necklace to show you all made with the beads I received from my friends over at Artbeads.com. I actually was energetic into making not only a necklace (I wore it last night at work...thank goodness it didn't melt), but earrings! and a bracelet. I used a combination of size 11 and 15 Toho Round seed beads for the majority of the piece. The centers are these great pearls I got from a Scottie friend who was selling her jewelry stash (thanks Susan) and the embellishments are tiny teeny sequins. The "frame" is something I saw at Byzantium years ago in the pearl section & I immediately bought the whole strand thank goodness as they never had anything like this again. BUT...the wee little snowman is from a set of lampwork beads I bought from Grace Beads years ago. Then I used some fabulous 6mm fire polish to finish up the construction of the pieces, added a clasp and there you go...I get to wear Winter around my neck all year long. I do adore snowmen so this is kinda special. Did I tell you all that I have a snowman collection in my bedroom year round?

My cup is almost empty so I need more coffee or maybe some cocoa would be nice to warm me up. I did look out back on the patio when I let the dogs out and noticed the grill was covered with an inch of ice. Since I'm so wanting hamburgers tonight (craving big time), I think instead of a juicy grilled burger as I don't want to fall on the ice, it is going to be fried tonight, but I'll be dreaming of Spring and the time when the grass is growing, the dogs are rolling (probably in the mud or mulch), the grill is smoking, and it is WARM outside.

Disclosure...As a reviewer of products at Artbeads.com, I receive the seed beads and fire polish beads above free of charge. I have been asked to review these products and give my honest opinion of the products...positive or negative. I am not being compensated by Artbeads.com for my endorsement as it pertains to the products received and reviewed.

Ice Queen Bracelet

2011-02-07T15:07:00.005-05:00

I am keeping my New Year's resolution of making more jewelry. And I am having help with the wonderful people from Artbeads.com who have generously sent me beads for bloggers in their new challenge Winter Enchantment. This is the message I received from Duchess about this challenge:

"As we leave 2010 behind, we welcome the coming year with new ideas full of creativity and inspiration. This time around we ask that you create a ‘Winter Enchantment’ design that represents what you find beautiful or inspirational about the winter season. Whether it is the beauty of a snowflake, a winter landscape, a sport you love, the coziness of a blazing fire, fun indoor activities shared with family and friends, a vacation to a warmer place, a favorite winter themed story/poem or any other themes of winter you can think of."

This is my first piece for Winter Enchantment challenge:

I have already completed four pieces for this challenge with the beads from Artbeads.com. Today I'm going to share with you a bracelet called Ice Queen. Why Ice Queen?? Well, here in Central Ohio, instead of the massive amounts of snow other Midwestern states have gotten, we received ICE! And more ice. Everything has been coated with ice for a week now causing havoc in some areas here in Columbus and in other parts of the State. Ice has been covering the electric lines pulling them down, or causing tree branches to break off damaging property and barely missing injury to people. Frodo and Arwen don't mind skating around the yard which has a proper coating of ice on top of all the snow, but Fiona just stands at the door, looks up at me with her blind eyes & says "I ain't goin' do it!". So I have to brave the ice & take her out front. Finally, the temperatures have gone up this past two days so some of the ice has melted, but as I look outside my window, I see more snow coming down.

For Ice Queen, I used a variety of blue round Toho seed beads in size 8, 11 and 15. Now I usually don't wear anything blue, but when I saw this button many years ago for sale from a NIADA artist in Detroit, I had to buy it. I had hoarded it away all this time & when I needed something to really pop this bracelet, it came to my mind. Now, it did take me three days to find it in my boxes of treasured beads, but I was so happy when I found it & made the connections to the beaded strap and then went crazy embellishing. The strap started out with some round dyed mother of pearl round. The button itself was glued to a stiff backing and then peyote around the bezel. It is finished with a seed bead picot. Now the fun part-EMBELLISHMENT! I used 6mm crystals Swarovski 37 00 Margarita Beads.

I have three other projects that I finished this morning since Fiona woke me up BEFORE the crack of dawn to eat. But I'm going to share those with you later. I also have almost finished one of the two pieces I've been working on with the destroyed Napali Mist collar I made last year. I just need to finish up a herribone tube and then put them all together.

For those who have warm weather...I'm jealous. For those in cold wintery landscape...keep warm.

dot

Disclosure...As a reviewer of products at Artbeads.com, I receive the seed beads and Crystals above free of charge. I have been asked to review these products and give my honest opinion of the products...positive or negative. I am not being compensated by Artbeads.com for my endorsement as it pertains to the products received and reviewed.

traveling.......

2011-02-06T18:14:00.003-05:00

I am having so much fun clicking on all the blog through out the world on the One World One Heart blog Event. So far there are over 800 blogs to visit with each of them giving away a prize. I'm just amazed at all the beautiful sites, fantastic women and men, and the ART everyone is creating. I decided to follow many of these blogs just to see what all these creative people are going to do.

I've been doing other things beside clicking on new blogs and working. I've been busy as a little bee during my free time making new pieces of jewelry. I was off work last night & fell asleep on the couch, so Chris had me go to bed...I went to bed at 10pm! Lordie, lordie...when I was young that was the time I just started to go out & raise ruckus...now I'm in bed with my electric blanket on & dreaming dreams. Arwen came to bed with me (oh yes, she loves my blankie too), but I woke up at 2am. Tossed & turned until I finally went downstairs to work on a new necklace. Got it almost done, but the weather did not cooperate enough today (dark, gray, gloomy OHio) so no pictures, but honest...I do have things done ready to photograph.

I finally got over to Judy Skeel's house yesterday to return the box of dolls from the High Road Gallery show past June. I hadn't been over there for awhile & didn't realize Craig put a whole new garage on her house. Made her a promise we'd get together sometime when she's feeling better & I have time. Judy gave me lessons on needle sculpting years ago in exchange for beading lessons. Unfortunately, she's been ill & hasn't been able to do much doll making.

Today went to my brother's house so Chris could set up the television for him. I got a red velvet cake at Costco, which we let ruin our dinner but it was delicious.

I don't watch football, so no Super Bowl on at my house. I am off work tonight, so I'm planning on getting HAL the obnoxious sewing machine out and work on a couple ideas I have for AFIC...yes, I'm going to break down & sew up a couple doll forms...I think my doll making MUSE is jealous & wants to take over again.

Hope you all are having a great evening. More later.
dot

One World One Heart

2011-02-01T00:41:00.006-05:00

I stumbled across One World One Heart last year during the last week it and was so surprised to find some great blogs with wonderful give away. This is the Fifth Year for this event and unfortunately the last. I was just blown away by the great variety of artists and the generosity of their work they were willing to give away to other blogs. This global event started Midnight on January 20th and will run until February 17th. Take a few hours and come with me & stroll though the list of fantastic blogs. I promise you won't be disappointed.

I'm Dot Lewallen and started blogging when I joined the Bead Journal Project about 4 years ago. I mainly blog about my passion of beaded art dolls, but I have been known to write about my Scotties, doll making, work, life, BEADS, and all the wonderful connects I've made with my 20+ years on the internet.

For this event, I'm going to give away two of my Art dolls to two separate lucky winners. The first is a completed beaded dolls I made for BeadWorks magazine back when they were looking for pieces that had to do with Earth Mother. This doll was on their webpage. She has been loved enough and now it looking to find a new home.

My other give away is a Pocket Monster. I have a whole basket of them. They fight constantly with themselves & I promise the main instigator won't be the one I give away (fingers crossed behind my back! LOL!).

All you have to do to be one of the lucky winners is to leave me a message making sure I can get ahold of you. The drawing for the two winners will be on February 17th with Lisa's event is sadly ended.

Thank you so much for stopping by and spending a moment with me & my obsession.

dot lewallen

Even more Scotties

2011-01-30T15:35:00.003-05:00

You can tell it was a stay in the house day yesterday. Chris was busy setting up his new television. Our old set went to my brother Jerry who stopped by yesterday & hauled the big monster over to his house. Chris has been wanting a new television for awhile, and it wasn't until he was in the hospital that I got the flu over Christmas (DAY mind you) and sat long hours staring at the television. I noticed a little blue blob in the corner of the display. Then I realized what Chris had been trying to tell me about the set. It is fine for just casual watching, but for someone like him who really enjoys being entertained & has an eye for any blemish on a picture...he did need a new television. Plus, he has been through the wringer with his illness & the two months in and out of the hospital...so I decided he needed a new set. He bought it Thursday afternoon and has been in heaven since setting it up, getting the Internet connections to work with it, fine tuning the picture and rearranging all those cables connecting it to this and that, and oh my my head hurts thinking about all that. He finally has most of it put together & tomorrow on my day off, we'll probably try out the 3-D.

So last night he was working on getting the Blue Ray to work so he pulled out a favorite Disney movie-Lady and the Tramp. As it was playing along, I looked & saw that both Frodo and Arwen were running frantically around the set looking for those dogs that were barking. Both tried to stretch their necks around the back to see where that barking was coming from. Finally, Arwen got tired & just sat down to watch the television. I don't know if she enjoyed the clear new picture, but I did.

And Fiona...what did she think about all of this hub bub with a new television? That's right? Ho-Hum...where is my treat. This is an adorable shot of her in her favorite position, but this time I caught her with her head resting on her paw.

Gloomy weekend

2011-01-29T16:37:00.006-05:00

Today is just another typical winter day in Central Ohio. Or in other words: gray, gloomy, cold, wet. I think Seattle gets more sunshine than we do. We've had enough snow this Winter already, but at least we've missed the big snow storms that have been pounding the East coast. Still, I can't wait to feel some warm Sun on my face and that doesn't mean while I'm sitting in the front room looking out at the white cold stuff on the ground. People on Facebook are talking about going to Tucson for the big bead show...wahhh...I wanna go, but it is impossible as someone has to stick around working and making the world safe for those who are having lots of fun in the Sun in Arizona.

I've changed my rotation on weekends so that I can go to all the fun things I'm planning this year without having to beg and swap weekends with my coworkers. So I've worked two weekends in a row...I should be old hat at this considering how many weekends I worked last year in a row, but I miss seeing my family and getting to do things normal folks do who have weekends off. How many years until I can retire????

Well, I thought I'd post some gloomy Ohio winter pictures taken from my back window. The snow has been packed down with doggie tracks all over. By the way, they hate the snow too especially since I got them all groomed, and they are nekkid (ie, no skirts or furnishing).

This is Frodo checking out the back making sure there has been no squirrels or rabbits roaming around since his last check. With his new haircut (oops, don't say that word out loud or else he'll take off & hide under the bed), you can really see his brindle coat. I can't believe that he is going to be 8 years old in May, but he's still a little pain at times. He loves being out as long as possible making me put on a coat & "escorting" him back inside.

Fiona has the perfect thing to do in Ohio in the Winter...she takes a nap on the big leather chair. She's decided this is HER CHAIR! You have to ask her permission to sit in it...well, she wishes.

And here she is dreaming away twitching and snorting in her sleep. She's probably remembering the days when she could chase the rabbits...and catch the rabbits! She was our mighty hunter before she lost her vision. I'm looking at this picture of her sleeping, and I can still see the little puppy girl we got 11 years ago. My sweet Fiona.

Grandma's Birthday

2011-01-21T09:12:00.003-05:00

Wednesday was my Grandmother's 97th birthday. Yes, that's right. I said she is 97 years old! My sister decided to have a 9+7=Sweet Sixteen party for Grandma at her home. She cooked like a maniac and had all kinds of delicious foods that were Grandma's favorites. Many of our family made it to spend the evening eating, laughing and eating cake. My sister even had a game of remembering...we tied! I remembered that Grandma added applesauce to her mincemeat turnover recipe.

Now what is so important about this birthday besides she made it ninety seven years is that last Tuesday, Grandma woke up in her bedroom to two masked gunmen robbing her. Pointing a flashlight and gun in her face, they tried to get her to go down to her basement. She refused as she told me that she knew if they took her down there, she'd would probably never come back up. So they forced her back onto her bed & told her that if she moved, they'd kill her. They ransacked her house looking for money, jewelry,drugs, and guns. The cowards even took the small vial of medicine she uses for her glaucoma. She was so shook up after that & luckily a neighbor saw the lights on in her house early that morning & rushed over knowing my Grandmother never gets up that early. They neighbor then called my brother & the family rushed down to help her. Grandma has been living by herself all this time, but she finally realized that it is not safe for her to be alone anymore as now she has become a target for these cowardly criminals. My cousin from Arkansas is going to come up and move in with her to make sure she is safe. Grandma's arm was injured as the gunman ripped the skin off her arm. She had to have the Doctor's Superglue it in place and has had to have it dressed and monitored for infection. She's doing well now, but it just brings to point that our world has made it unsafe for our elderly to live peacefully and safely in their own homes. Grandma found out that she was one of 5 targets from her neighborhood who were robbed & attacked. One elderly gentleman down the street was beaten up and in the hospital. What is wrong with this world??? Why are these offensive cowardly men and women targeting and attacking our elders? Easy money is the answer, but still what a shameful label we now must have to our world. Grandma will be kept safe, and we already promised her that her 100th birthday will be spent at Chucky Cheese. (okay I shuddered at this, but my sisters and nieces thought this would be a blast...I'd rather jump out of the airplane, but that is my idea).

New Jewelry

2011-01-18T15:30:00.003-05:00

My resolution for 2011 was to get back into beading jewelry. I'm going to Bead and Button in June immersing myself into 6 days of beading and metalworking bliss. I'm also taking classes next month at 1 Stop with Janice Berkibile doing more metalworking. I'm still doing dolls, but I decided to put most of that on the back burner this year except AFIC. I'm going to take a sculpting class with Susie at Artistic Figures in Cloth.

Previously I showed a picture of Napali Mist deconstructed. Well, I'm still in the process of taking that and making one to two necklaces from it. But this is something I made last year, but didn't have time to post it. I called it Napali Maiden. I'd bought this carved bead many years ago when I first started to bead. I think I got it down in Cincinnati at one of the booths. I loved it and never could figure out how to use it in a design. When we got back from Kauai in September, I keep revisiting this color palette from some of the pictures Chris took, so one day I just sat down with the beads I'd purchased at the Puget Bead Sound Festival in July. I loved using the piece of stone I bought and those colors just made it zing, but something was missing. I searched through all my boxes and draws until SHE just jumped out at me. I sat her next to the necklace I was constructing and there it was. So here in Napoli Maiden:

I'm thinking of entering this piece with something else in the Ohio Designer Craftsman's Best of 2011. I noticed that there were some jewelry last year, but nothing with as much complexity of bead weaving. So, I'm going to take my chances and enter this. Oh and YES! I need much better pictures for this. Chris is doing better so hopefully next week the Sun will cooperate & we can get some pictures to send with the entry form.

Later this week...one necklace from Napali Mist...it is almost done. I just have to tweak it a little as I finally got it to lay right.

Scotties and more Scotties

2011-01-17T09:30:00.007-05:00

Last week was catching up with all kinds of things after the past two months of Chris' illness & hospitalization. One of the things I hadn't done while he was sick was to groom all three Scotties. I looked at them and realized that I just didn't have the time or the energy to bath and groom all three extremely fuzzy dogs. SO....I called my Vet and made arrangements to have all three cleaned up. Fiona hadn't been professional groomed since she was 18 months old and we were trying to decided if she could possibly be a show dog. She loved when Kim Lindsey stripped her making her red coat just blaze, but unfortunately Fi also didn't like being the center of attention at dog shows tucking her tail between her legs and ears flat to her head, so she wasn't made to do that. Arwen and Frodo have only been groomed by me, so it was a big old surprise for them to have someone else do it. I used the groomer at my vet, Worthingon Woods Animal Hospital. They all look great!

Arwen & Frodo were done Monday. Frodo had to have an aspirate of a growth on his shoulder (benign...benign...benign!). Oh, Fiona enjoyed the day without Ar & Fro. She was in doggie spa sleeping in the middle of the room, roaming around without anyone growling at her. She was in heaven. Then Tuesday Fiona had to have all her vaccines as my Vet put them on hold until her Diabetes was a little more control. Then Fiona got groomed on Wednesday. Wow...three cleaned groomed Scotties in three days! A record.

So now to get my new garage door opener installed today. Yeah! Seems that everything want to break all at once. I also know Chris is feeling better after his ordeal. He wanted to go to the Sony Style store over at Easton to look at new televisions!

Finally good news!

2011-01-05T20:44:00.002-05:00

Three wonderful things happened today which after these past two months have made me see that things have turned for Chris & I. First off, Chris signed himself out of Select Specialty hospital because he felt he'd had enough with some of the nursing care being not up to pare. He said some of the nurses & staff were helpful, but all in all it was like being in one of those nightmare hospital you see in the Stephen King movies. Today started with the Doctor telling him the insurance wouldn't pay for treatment after Friday. Chris started to think and realized he couldn't stay there that long with this one nurse treating him so badly. So he called me & I went to get him. The Doctor then came in trying to talk him into staying until Friday & he was determined to go home. The she pulled one sly little ploy saying well the insurance probably wouldn't pay for any of this stay if he left against medical advice. I was sitting there listening to this, so I immediately got on the phone & guess what...not true! I believe they were trying to bully him into staying for the extra two days of billing that the insurance initially authorized. Then they said they couldn't remove the NG tube...okay, I told them I'd take him to ER or pull the thing out myself. Finally, finally he signed papers, listen to their spill about leaving against their advice & he was FREE! He said it was the best feeling in the world. He came home & had to sit on the floor right as we walked in the door to get some very intense canine "nursing".

There was a package at the door when we came it. It was a gift basket from a dear Scottie friend who I met many many years ago on the internet back when we owned Scottie Obsession. I was just a puddle of jelly thinking of how kind she & her Mother were to send me this.

Then there was a call from Bead & Button telling me I won on of the lottery seats for the Master's Class with Carol Wilcox Wells in June! I even got to sign up for a class with Marcia DeCoster and a metalworking class with Richard Salley.

Today is the beginning of the turning point. I made an appointment with our primary care physician Joseph Carduci so that Chris can get some kind caring medical help. We've been going to Dr. Carduci for over 25 years & he is more like a friend than our physician. I know Dr. C will help Chris get back to normal and get his life back.

I've got to go to work tonight, but this is the first time since November 2nd that I actually feel my heart lifted. My friends in Scottie, beading and doll making world have all rallied with me these past two long months keeping my spirits high and giving me hope.

Today truly is the First of the year for me & Chris Thank you all.

An New Year

2011-01-03T16:43:00.003-05:00

Wow, I can't believe another year has come & gone. I would say good riddance to 2010, but there were some good things that happened last year. I think Chris' being so ill after his surgery has made me forget that I actually did some great things in 2010 and met wonderful people. But there were losses in 2010 too. My favorite bead store closed down, Fiona's son Forrest died, and my friend Pam's Barney died too. I almost lost Fiona this Summer due to diabetes complications, but my Vet & his staff pulled her through that. She's gained most of her weight back and is just as sassy as ever. I'm even thinking of checking out having one of her cataracts removed over at MedVet later when Chris gets home so that Fiona can have a better quality of life by seeing out of at least one eye. Speaking of Chris, he was discharged from St. Ann's Hospital and put into Select Specialty Hospital on the 1st. Select is a rehab hospital here in town. It is what use to be the old Doctor's North on Dennison Ave in Victorian Village. It is strange to go over there to visit Chris as it was 28 years ago that I did my Med Tech training at that hospital. I can't believe it has been that long. The staff & doctors at Select want to slowly get Chris built back up so he can eat & gain his strength back. I'm guessing he'll be there at least one to two weeks. All four of us here miss him so much.

I did a little deconstruction on New Year's Day. Remember my piece Napali Mist that I did for Artbeads competition a couple months ago? Well, after I finished it, I put it on, took a look at it in the mirror, and decided I did not like it at all. So I spent the whole day tearing it apart. I'm not crazy! I know I spent weeks working on it, but hey! if I'm not happy with it & won't wear it, then why keep it intact. I was successful is tearing it apart in pieces so I can reconstruction it in a more modular way. I didn't like the feel of that big breast plate just sitting there with that flimsy chain, but I like the components. So, I've been playing around fitting them together trying to find some combination that I like before I start to weave it all back together. I think there might even be two necklaces that might come out of this piece.

I got some piece back home finally. Back in October 2009, I sent two pieces that Chris & I have been working on for Art Doll Quarterly's challenge...they finally got back home on the 30th. I don't even think the magazine people unwrapped them at all as it all looked exactly like how I packaged them all up. I am disappointed as I thought they fit in well with the steampunk theme, but I guess our names aren't that out there to be published. Sometimes I feel that ADQ publishes the same people over & over again not giving new artist a chance. Just my personal opinion. Maybe some of my feelings about ADQ is because I'm changing my focus this coming year. I want to get back into my beading and jewelry making. I feel that I have so much more to explore in that arena still. Oh, I won't stop making dolls, but I feel that they are going to be taking a back seat this year as I experiment with more medias in jewelry making, take more classes in beading and metal working and finally...finally going to the big Bead and Button show in June. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I get into the Master's class.

Rachel's Dream is also going to be making it home this week. I heard from Ohio Craft Museum that the pieces for the 2010 Best of Show are back in town. I want to pick them up my next day off & take Mr. Transistor over to Chris so he'll have one of his art pieces in his room to cheer him up.

Well, off to play with my poor lonely Scotties. They miss their "Dad" so bad. Oh I miss him too! BAD! This is Frodo and Arwen wondering where all that snow went! That only means to me that it is time to clean the yard!

Belated wishes

2010-12-30T11:57:00.002-05:00

A very belated Christmas wish to all. I think all this stress from Chris being hospitalized again really ran me down, or I sat next to someone infectious that last time we were in the waiting room as Christmas Eve, I came down with Influenza A which lead to an Acute case of Bronchitis. I haven't been this sick in YEARS! I don't even remember driving home from the family Christmas party on Christmas Eve. I kinda remember getting up a couple of times on the 25th & 26th to let the dogs out and to feed them, but it all just blends into one feverish dream. I called Chris a couple of times to tell him I was too ill to come in to see him. I so wanted to spend Christmas with him, but I haven't been able to go to the hospital because I'm so afraid to give him a case of the flu on top of everything else he has going wrong. Finally on the 27th, I was able to get to the Urgent Care to get some medication (thank you the wonder of Pharmaceuticals) and a nebulizer. I actually feel almost normal and am looking forward to getting out of this house later this afternoon to see Chris. I'm also looking forward to going back to work tonight...really! I am.

Still unknown why Chris is so ill. He's on IV feeding, but he can't come home like that so they are going to try to do tube feeding so he can come home soon. It has been almost two months since his surgery, and I think he's probably only been home 14 days. This time, he's been in the hospital for 10 days. I called to him last night & he's so desperate for this to be over & to come home to me & the pupcakes. I think he also misses his big comfy chair & television too, but he won't admit that. I don't care...I just want him home and for our lives to go back to being somewhat normal again. I miss him so much! It isn't fun to watch corny television shows without someone to understand my snarky remarks. The dogs just look up at me thinking I'm going to give them some of my popcorn...not on your life...then go back to sleep.

I've had many wonderful people send me good thoughts, call me, send me cards, gifts and food. I want to thank them all. Without them and my family, I would have been lost. My sister Cheryl has been the rock for me because she listens to my whining and crying day after day.

Couple of beading things to share. I did get my letter from Bead & Button letting me know that I'll be informed if I got into the Carol's Master class on January 5th. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I do because I think I'm ready for the next level of beading. I want to learn to develop my own patterns and learn about arrangement and pleasing designs. Plus, I've never been to Bead & Button before & am looking forward to that. I also decided to spend 2011 focusing more on my beading skills. I'm still going to Artistic Figures in Cloth and will make a few dolls, but I want to get more into beading learning new techniques and networking among the bead world. I am sending in my application for the Great Lakes Beadworkers Guild today too hoping to get to met other fantastic beaders in my area. I don't know if I can make it up to Michigan too many times for meetings & am going to have to miss the winter classes with Marcia DeCoster in February, but hopefully as my life gets less complicated I can make it up to the Detroit area at least once this coming year.

And I want to share with you this necklace that I finished from one of Beki Haley's kits that I bought two years ago when at Lake Tahoe. It is so sparkly! I've worn it a couple times & it gets comments all the time. I have other things finished too, but have to wait for my photographer to get well & back home.

Happy new year to all

Very low

2010-12-22T14:37:00.002-05:00

I'm writing this now feeling extremely low in spirits. If you don't follow me on Facebook, then you aren't aware of the past two months of misery my husband & I have been going through because of a surgery he had back on November 2nd. He's been in and out of the hospital for nausea I believed caused from the surgery, but the surgeon keeps saying it is not. The last two times, I've refused to take him back to the hospital where the surgeon has privileges because he keeps saying nothing from the surgery causes this debilitating nausea or extreme weight loss. So he's at the hospital I work at with internal medicine Doctors who are actually taking him serious and trying so hard to help him. He got out of the hospital for the 5th time 10 days ago, but this past Saturday he started to have nausea/vomiting again & Monday I had him readmitted to the hospital. His Internal Medicine Doctor is very worried and has now decided to start him on TPN which is IV nutritional feeding through a surgical placed port. He was fine yesterday in the hospital, but now the nausea has returned. I'm beside myself with worry. And on top of it, here it is days until Christmas. Just now I realized he will not be home with me and won't be able to go to our family's Christmas party Christmas Eve. He'll be in the hospital hooked up to tubes, monitors and IVs. It hit me hard like a brick just now, and I'm so very low in spirits that I just want to cry.

I don't think I've been this low since the Christmas right after my Father died. I'm powerless as I have to work but at least he's there in the same hospital complex so I can just dash over if something happens. Meanwhile, I'm dealing with depressed dogs. They are so upset that he is gone again. Frodo is the worse. Last night, I heard Frodo upstairs so I sneaked up and found him rolling around on Chris' bed trying to get under the covers. He looked up, saw me, and started to whine. I had to hold that little dog's body to comfort him or was he comfort me. I haven't put up any decorations this year, I haven't baked, I haven't sent out Christmas cards, and I've barely shopped. I don't think I've ever had such a lonely time ever. My Mother tries to encourage me, and some of my coworkers seem to care about me. My sister is wonderful and my two brothers are as always my foundation. Yet, when I'm here in this house all alone with my three Scotties, I feel as if I'm the only one in the world. I realized from all of this experience that I truly do not like being alone. I know I have my dogs, but it isn't the same as being able to look across the room & make some nonsense comment about anything to Chris. This afternoon, I started to talk out loud and Fiona was so freaked out she had a little pee accident. Oops, next time I'll have to give her fair warning.

I do have Christmas Eve this year from the hospital. I plan on going to my brother's house for a little to spend time with my family and to find cheer. But then, I'll be spending some time at the hospital with my husband so I don't have to be in this house alone without him. I've learned that things don't mean a thing when you are alone. I can surround myself with all kinds of material objects, but the only thing that is important is the one I love.

My best friend told me that at Winter Solstice she went to a pagan ceremony where you sent three wishes for others to the endless night. She told me she sent a prayer/wish that Chris gets better. I hope it works. I truly hope for a Christmas miracle. I have seen then come true, believe me. If you will endulge me for a few seconds longer I want to tell you about such a miracle. Chris' Mom from a mishap with surgery was in a coma for three months. Doctors told us all that even if she ever regained conscious she would never have mental clarity ever. He practically told us she would be in a vegetative state. One Christmas while she was in an nursing facility, both of us & Chris' brother went to visit her. We brought her a stuffed horse that neighed when you shook it up only because she loved little stuffed toys. Chris unwrapped it for her and put it under her arm. Then he & his brother sat next to her. Miraculously, she opened her eyes looked at both of them and said "my boys are home again". We were all shocked as she kept talking and wanted to get up to make them something to eat. I ran down to the nursing station and was met with disbelief. The nurse came down heard Chris' Mom talking and stood there with mouth open. She rushed down to call the Doctor who did the same. His Mom was her own self and lived another year. So you see, Christmas miracles do indeed come true. I just hope that I'm blessed enough to be witness to another one.

Well, enough of my long long winding tale. I now need to get myself together and head over to the hospital just to touch his cheek, hold his hand, and tell him how much I love him and need him. I'm praying for a miracle.