Here are a few quick photos of things I've been working on recently


I got these wonderful bead caps a month or so ago and they just didn't work for any of the beads I have in stock.  Too shallow for my briolettes, too wide for any of my rounds, too small for some of the bigger beads I have . . .   But they make great tassel tops!

I've got another project in the works with coral beads and flaming red silk thread but that will have to wait a few more days.   Hand dyeing the silk thread was fun, too and I was a bit dismayed to discover how much thread I needed to use to make a fat enough tassel for thislittle bead cap.



And here are some alchemy scarves I did up as a custom wholesale order.  My customer wanted autumn colors so I dyed up some flaming warms, some thistley & plummy purples and some vibrant skies.  I'll be ironing and edging these later today and have them ready to ship tomorrow.  I've really been enjoying making this custom order, experimenting with new colors and combinations to capture some of the colors of autumn.  I'll post finished photos later this week so you can see the color shifts a little better, the wrinkling and crinkling  disguises the depth of color in each scarf.

O.K.  First day of school went amazingly well.  Everyone got on the bus without tears or drama and everyone came home alive - tired and over stimulated but alive and well.

Here are some photos of recent projects: 


One measly photo of my teal velvet Tarrot pouch. It really is gorgeous but I don't have a good photo set up here yet and getting a good photo of velvet is hard enough - throw in some matte gold lined aqua seed beads, some disco sparkle carmine roundelles and sweet milky almost-white aqua table cuts and I'm lost.  I'm lucky this one came out as well as it did. 


I'll try again as soon as I've got some lights set up.



Here is my new scissors case.   It has been languishing in my WISP box for a couple of years now but is finally finished.  I got the basic idea from this article, Jennifer Rochester's A Mermaid's Chatelaine from the Embroiderer's Guild.  Obviously, I strayed from the suggested color theme a bit. 




I didn't follow the directions very well and I don't intend to complete the entire Chatelaine but I love the little scissors case and I'm currently working on a cover for a needle book using the  techniques from the scissors case.  I will use a nice, thick flannel for my needle pages and the same lightweight linen/cotton blend as the scissors case for the decorative cover. 


Can you tell that I really love French Knots?  I just discovered that I like seed stitch, as well.  Don't know why I avoided it for so long.

Off to make dinner - whatever that turns out to be!














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Saturday night I finally got a chance to get back to that wonderful pink daisy I had started back in January.  I was originally thinking of making a bracelet with it but a bracelet needs to be very sturdy as it moves around quite a bit and can snag on things.  This daisy certainly has LOTS of petals to snag on stuff so I decided I should try it as a pendant.  It seems a bit too  . . . something . . . to dangle very low, maybe it is just that it really is so much like a flower. 

Mary Harding and Dr. Beamer both have some beautiful chokers made of ceramic or fused glass pendants put on simple single or multi-strand choker pieces over at the Arts Council.  I've  been admiring those for a while and suddenly realized that the daisy would make an excellent choker style.  So I filled out the back of the flower a bit and created a seed bead bail and slipped the flower onto a simple 5 strand choker with a slim twist & lock magnetic clasp.  It works wonderfully - very lightweight but secure, colorful & sparkley and the petals don't run into much hanging so close to the neck.












I'm already envisioning some variations - more colors of daisies, of course, but also chokers like this with multiple daisies strung on it.  I need to source some more sizes and colors of these wonderful daggers.

I have also been playing with crazy quilting this weekend.  Maxx was home Friday with some belly issues - just as I began to decide that I had been duped and that he wasn't really sick, he started screaming about his ear and asked to go to bed.  He was fine Saturday but yesterday, halfway through Sacrament meeting, he started in on the ear again.  At first, I thought he was just trying to get some more mileage out of Friday's complaint but he had to be brought out of Primary before classes even got started and slept in my lap 'till about half way through Relief Society.  I worked on my latest Crazy Quilt patch while he snoozed. 






I've got a spiderweb, some Daisies, some Fuchsias and lovely Algerian Eye motifs on one side of the block now. 










I'm not as wild about the strange knots and netting I put in here.  That may come out and be replaced with something that actually looks nice. 





People keep asking what I will do with these blocks.  I have no idea.  Right now, they are just a fun way to play with fiber on Sundays.


. . . . .

Isn't summer supposed to be peaceful? The days have been just packed here and we're enjoying it a lot. Maxx is having tons of fun with his cousins visiting from Wisconson and is doing very well with his asthma. He is down to just a couple of treatments a day and has been running and playing with all the vigor expected from a 5 year old. I'm so glad that we have medicines that allow him to be healthy and happy.

I'm busy preparing to teach a lot of jewelry classes at the Arts Council this summer - tonight's is on making vintage pearl necklaces (like Lauren's wedding necklace) and another one next week on making a sterling beaded cuff bracelet. Later in the month will be a Vintage brooch class and in August I'll be teaching a beaded bead class (teaching how to make the beads also featured in the post on Lauren's wedding jewelry). You can check out all the classes at the Arts Council on their website classes page - tons of fun stuff going on over there! I've also got a summer art camp coming up and the strawberries at the new house (which still isn't really ours yet but I think we are getting closer!) are coming on strong.

So yesterday, while Bry was helping the menfolk build Jonathan's house and Molly Bryn and Maxx were playing with cousins at Grandma's, I spent some time making samples for my upcoming classes so that we would have photos for publicity. Then I went to pick strawberries with the womenfolk. Mom Burnett, Molly and Nichelle were already out picking berries at Nichelle's when I arrived at 4:30. I helped them finish up there and then we went to the Beorningstead to pick that field. We got at least 30 quarts out of our patch and finished cleaning and bagging them for the freezer around 10:00 last night. I think that the Burnett clan is going to be one very busy (and very well fed) set of agriculturalists when we move into the Beorningstead and add some livestock and a bigger garden to the strawbery yields! It is nice work, though, especially when you have family around to share it with.

Today I'm off and running again - mailing packages, preparing to make jam with the next huge batch of strawberries and gathering up supplies for my class tonight. I hope to spend more time this week with all those cute kids at Gramma's house. It's so fun to see them out running around with each other and I wish they could stick around - maybe someday there will be a great job for their dad here so they can move back to the North Country.

I've been a little fragile this week and more than a little overwhelmed. I'm still trying to let go of Maxx's ER experience. It was so frightening and I was alone with him and the doctors - Bry and MB had stayed home because when I left the house with him Saturday, none of us were terribly concerned about his breathing being a big deal.

I've always considered myself a caring person, but I now have a totally new and intensely uncomfortable level of compassion for parents who go through this sort of experience and don't get to walk out of the hospital with their baby.

So - I've been trying to decompress a bit this week.


Thursday we scrambled out of the house early for our first walk-through. I went to work and was almost completely unproductive all day. After dinner, I sat down and did some window shopping on Etsy. I love to look at handmade glass beads. Glass is such a beautiful and magical media - I hope to work in it more someday when Maxx is bigger and less likely to unintentionally demolish my studio with exploding propane cylinders. Here are a few that caught my eye. BTW - artisan beads are a great preferred gift for Luna anytime!


Ice Crystals by ADKlampwork




















River Rock Marquis by airwynglass

C'est Si Bon- Dotted Disk Beads by Meital in Israel

Raku Splash with Electric Blue by Art by Lisi







Yesterday, I took MB to a doctor's appointment in Saranac Lake which had a good outcome and I enjoyed the drive between Saranac Lake and Malone immensely. We listened to Paul Simon and America in the car and enjoyed scenery that probably hasn't changed too much since the 1950's. I love NY State's brown and yellow forest preserve signs and there are lots of them on that route as well as lots of tidy roadside stands where you can stop and buy firewood for your camping excursion. So nostalgic.

Then I came home and made some jewelry. More decompression - whew! I really love how this this piece came together. The large filigree piece is so dramatic and the swallow so elegant.

Today, Bry has taken the kids fishing with the cousins and Aunts & Uncles visiting from Wisconson and North Carolina. I don't like being chilly and wet, so I've been working in my stores all day. You'll notice that I now have a Rapid Cart for my ArtFire shop right here on my blog. I'm pretty excited about that - especially since Etsy seems to be sinking into the smelly mire of big-business branding which seems to be hurting traffic to individual shops, including mine. They keep tweaking their SEO tricks, so maybe the kinks will work out soon and everyone will be able to see my beautiful supplies again. I've taken some of those great filigree charms and added enamel colors to them. They look pretty nifty.

I've been also really enjoying my Pandora station today. I stopped listenig to mainstream radio about 10 years ago because all of our local DJ's seem to have a chronic case of potty mouth so I'm very unfamiliar with newer music and haven't had many opportunities to discover new artists. Pandora is helping me overcome that problem. Every now and then they throw something in that I have to thumbs down but in general, I'm getting lots of wonderful new music. I'm amazed that I like Rufus Wainwright this much and it is great that they filter in the sweetest Dave Mathew's and Wilco music for me without the harsher stuff that my nerves can't handle right now. If you want to hear my Pandora station - leave me a message and I'll e-mail you an invitation to listen.

Kids are home and Maxx is asking for a story - so I'm off for some Mommy time.

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Here's a custom order item that I put together for a friend. She wanted blues and browns and while my bead palette does not include a lot of browns right now, I was able to find several beads with picasso finishes that provided those brown tones and blended beautifully with the turquoise blue colors.

















The only problem with custom orders is that they leave home so quickly. If she likes it, I won't get a chance to enjoy this one for very long.







This necklace is made with some super fancy-dancy Czech glass beads and copper spacers with some lower cost but still incredibly beautiful triangle seed beads to add length and provide some spacial rhythm between the larger Czech glass beads. The traingle beads are great - they are amer colored glass with an aqua blue coating inside the hole - two colors in one bead!




















...

Here are some photos of our beautiful bride wearing her jewelry. It was such a lovely day - an unexpected gift from Mother Nature in March. Lauren's look from her dress to her hair was very vintage - the pearls complimented this look quite nicely but they were nothing compared to her radiance.



One thing that really strikes me is that while many brides spend hundreds or thousands of dollars and many days and weeks preparing themselves for the wedding, Laren's day was relatively simple and she looked happier and lovelier than any big spending "bridezilla" I've ever seen.























Also in this post - some new earrings I've made with some beaded beads. These are my new favorite thing (wonder how long that will last) and the instructions can be found in the latest issue of Beadwork. These beaded beads are included in the Vintage Charm bracelet by
Amy Haftkowycz on page 73. You wouldn't expect to find these fun beads in this project but there they are and they can be used for so much more than dangles on a charm bracelet. Now I know why you need lots of 3mm fire-polished roundelles! I've alwas focused on having 4mm and up but I'll mend my ways in the future. ;)

So - Here is the finished wedding jewelry - pending the Bride's approval.


I switched out the monster jump rings for these smaller ones to join the pearl strands to the brass filigree. See - they are almost invisible now, compared to the first draft. Thank you, funkyfindings for getting these jump rings to me on time!




I removed one link from the large linked pearls to make the whole pendant hang asymmetrically and added a few beads to the pale pearl strand to cause that to drape a little deeper than the copper strand of pearls.


The earrings are made from two large champagne sand colored pearls and copper beads & button pearls. I got the gold plated leverbacks from beads4ewe because I forgot to include gold colored ear wires in my last bulk supply order. Beads4ewe shipped them out very quickly and at a great price.


That's one of the things I love about Etsy. I was able to go to an Etsy supply shop and pick up the few findings I needed for very little money and very reasonable shipping rates for this project. There were no minimum order requirements, no monstrous Fed Ex shipping charge and the mark up on the findings was not huge, compared to the prices I can get when I order similar things wholesale. Hooray for Etsy supply shops!



As a finishing touch, I added a teeny blue button pearl at the clasp to fulfill the "something blue" requirement. :) I'll try to snap some good photos of the bride in her whole ensemble on Saturday.










I'm planing adding lots more kits and mixes to GoblinsMarket this spring, including some involved bead weaving kits with detailed and illustrated instructions. Anyone interested in creating an ensemble similar to Lauren's wedding jewelry can just leave me a message here and I will let you know when I've got all the necessary pieces together for a kit.

Here are a few photos of two projects I'm currently working on.

I love these jet black picasso seed beads! I'm working on a beaded vessel pendant in them. They have brass filigree caps for the ends, beaded tassels, and a peyote stitch strap. The vessel is based on the Dustin Wedekind's Square Stitch Tubes from November 2007 Beadwork magazine.












It looks a little naked at the point where the vessel dangles from the peyote strap. I left the cord unembellished so that the vessel can open. I will probably add some dangly fringe from the main strap to fill that empty space with.
















I'm contemplating putting together a kit for this project but I'm not sure that I'm up to all of the illustration necessary!













The second piece is a lariat style necklace inspired by the fantabulous blue mix of beads and perals I put together for my store a few months ago. I posted some photos of the beads I planned to use back in November but the design has morphed substantially since that post. It was originally going to be a regular pendant with a large focal bead but I decided that a lariat style necklace would be more interesting and versatile.


I love the brass filigree circle that works as the 'clasp' for the lariat. the beads slide through nicely and it is heavy and substantial. I will have to order some more of these but they are quite expensive and I have to get them by the gross so they will have to wait a few months.










The cord is my hand dyed rolled cord in Helmsman colorway. I twisted the cord and sewed the ends together with silk thread (the same thread I am using to add the encrustation embellishments). The end of the cord is held together with the small oval filigree bead/wraps. They open up and cose again to enclose the end of the cord, efectively covering the stitching to sew the ends of the cord together.


Check back in in a few months - maybe I'll have these finished by then!

The end of last week really fell apart on me. I was breathing through both sides of my sinuses for the first time in two weeks but still not sleeping well and feeling very worn out after Studio Tour. I didn't accomplish much at all besides enameling these beauties. I've posted the minty pair and the amethyst pair at Goblins' Market this morning, the others will go up later.



I wish I thought I was going to have time to play with them myself but I probably won't get to do that 'till after Christmas. I am imagining them as Art doll Angel and Fairy wings and as embellishments on a tiara.

I am determined to try creating a tiara soon. I have ordered a bunch of new pearls and plan to order some heavy gauge brass wire today or tomorrow to use as the base. The price of sterling wire has always deterred me from making tiaras in the past but with this new steampunk movement, a brass tiara would probably find an appropriate market. I'm picturing something with a dark patina on the brass, maybe even a hint of verdegris, with lots of glistening pearls, crystals and a dragonfly or set of wings to add lift. I'll be sure to take lots of photos of the process when I get around to it!

Now I have to go clean house and pay bills. Maybe that would be more fun if I had a tiara to wear whilst sweeping and dusting.

Saturday was a hectic day around here - but very productive! About 30 members from our congregation came out to help us get some projects done on our house. We have been feeling so overwhelmed and incapable of getting this place under control that the help was really appreciated. I am truly amazed at how much was accomplished:

The front door was removed and a wall was put in place of it, the steps to the new entry way were leveled and installed and the frame for the entry way "porch" was put up. This may sound trivial but the steps we are talking about are composed of huge sandstone slabs. They kept our neighborhood engineer busy for several hours.

The broken tree was brought down and chopped up, several other bits of small dead wood were cut down and chopped and they were stacked along with 14 other cord of wood. The twigs suitable for twig furniture projects were stored in the barn.

The side rear foundation and cellarway recieved some much needed attention and a section of wiring was finished so that I now have more than one outlet in my computer room!

One participant volunteered some tile she had purchased last year and decided she didn't want after the return date - so I'll get a new floor in the living room or kitchen. The walls in the living room were scrubbed and insulation was put up. The window and door for Bry's garden shed were repaired and installed and a new cover was made for my Brother-in-law's boat.

Several women helped me tear the weeds out of the garden and take out the potatoes and some of the beets, we even found a few viable tomatoes left in there and the zucchini is still producing. They then went on to rip and tear out an old flower bed full of small exotic trees that had outlived its loveliness before we moved in seven years ago.

Lots of other small tasks were accomplished - Bry feels that we got more done in one day with all that help than he could have finished alone in a year. Now we can spend our remaining time and energy finishing the stripping on the livingroom woodwork, putting up the wall board and finishing the new entryway prior to tearing off the old porch before it falls off!

Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera out that day. Chrissy took lots of photos so I'll have to borrow some from her.

I do have photos of a little red eft that Bry and Maxx found in the cellar on Friday. He was quite a lively little fellow - we hope he winters over well down there! (I also have to remember to reset my white balance before using the flash - these photos are eerily blue!)

Another wonderful thing that happened this weekend is that one of my dragonflies made it to the front page of Etsy. It was in a treasury by justclaying along with other beautiful minty green items. I had a great weekend selling custom orders for dragonflies and now I have to put Molly to work helping me enamel another 70 of them tonight to replenish my stock!