This week's artistic creations

I've been slow about blogging, distracted by the summer.  But it has been a few creative days, and I thought I'd share my creations!

While watching the Olympics on TV, I made these two bracelets using beads from my personal stash.

I decided to replace the faded curtains in our Adirondack lakeside camp, for the first time in almost 20 years!  Last week I sewed and hung new kitchen curtains, and today we put up new bathroom curtains that I finished sewing yesterday.  The next big job is the living/dining room, but there's a LOT of windows so that might just be a project for the winter. 

 And my 10-year old step-grandson came over for the afternoon, and we made thin crust personal-size pan pizzas to order for everyone (including his mom, dad, and brother, plus my husband and me), using herbs, kale, tomatoes and green peppers from my husband's backyard garden, as well as other toppings. 

Here they are, straight out of the oven.  They were as delicious as they look!

 

Being creative isn't always doing a drawing or painting.  A pizza can be creative too!!

Bead Mosaics Louisiana Style - the workshop

My first night at the NAEA convention, I attended a hands-on workshop enthusiastically taught by Virginia Berthelot.  If you were at the convention, you no doubt saw the lovely Virginia, perhaps wearing her beaded dress, cowboy boots or hat (pictured above and below, along with her beaded Starry Night and other sample mosaics), or other beaded garb.  I make a lot of bead jewelry, and I've done a little free-form bead embroidery, so I thought it would be great to find something else I could do with my beads.

But this was a Louisiana workshop, so of course we used Mardi Gras beads, though any of my letover beads would work just fine.  Most of the workshop attendees finished their piece at the workshop, but I was slow, and finally finished mine at home a few days ago.  (Which means, of course, that my suitcase was stuffed full, not only with my clothes and shoes and convention goodies, but also with a mountain of Mardi Gras beads!  One more strand and I think it would have been overweight...)

I sat outside in the sunshine finishing my piece, and while I originally had a concept/plan, my results at this point were determined by which beads I had shoved in the suitcase and which were left behind in the hotel room. I started filling in the gaps with whatever beads I grabbed.  So I am NOT in love with my paisley mosaic.  I had trouble photographing the finished piece, and I don't know which way is 'up', so here it is below, twice.  (I was sloppy and got a lot of glue on the frame, so now I need to figure out how to deal with that...

 Anyhow, I was far more impressed with the work done by others at the workshop (and also by the fact that they actually were able to finish!!).  Below I will share some of the pieces they were creating.  By the way, the glue most of us were using went on white, but dries clear.  So in most of these images, the space between beads looks white.  The glue is mostly dry in the photos of my piece.  Virginia recommended that, with more time, the backing be painted prior to doing the mosaid, to show the desired color between beads.  We didn't have time for that.  You will notice two pieces in the  photos below where you see the tan color of the board we were working on instead of white.  I believe these were glued with hot glue instead of the 'Power Grab' glue that the rest of us were using.

 I guess eyes, in one way or another, were a popular theme!

 These two pieces struck me for their selective color schemes, which were different from anyone else's work.  And I thought we all had black frames??!?  How did someone end up with white?

 Another image based on Starry Night, perhaps?

And finally (below), it looks like someone else actually didn't finish!  

Though look!  She decorated her frame with beads!

 Postscript:  I just realized why I didn't finish when so many others did.  They were gluing down whole strands of beads, which leaves gaps in places.  I was cutting the bead strands apart and gluing just one or two beads at a time, in an attempt to fill in any gaps.  Actually I was SHOVING them into the gaps...  Just sayin'!!

My Beaded Dragonfly!

my completed dragonfly

Early in August, I took a one-day class at the Adirondack Folk School in Lake Luzerne.  The class was called 'Bead Embroidery: Freestyle Jewelry Design' and I had absolutely no idea what I was getting into (or I might not have taken the class!!)

True to form, my first project was kinda big.  I don't seem to understand the concept of baby steps; I always jump into new artsy-craftsy stuff fully committed, and this time was no different; I went whole hog!  Once the teacher explained what we would be doing, I decided I wanted to make a beaded dragonfly brooch.  Dozens of hours (no exaggeration) and almost two months later, it is done, but not without some detours.

As the dragonfly got close to completion, I realized it was too big for a brooch.  I'm not a big person, and this thing pinned on my sweater would bump into my shoulder rather awkwardly.  So I decided to make a purse for it.  (By the way, I googled free patterns for purses and bags, and came up with so many!  I need to remember to search for sewing patterns on line for free.)  So I took the almost-done dragonfly and off I went to JoAnn's to buy fabric for the purse.  Somewhere in the store, the dragonfly slipped out of my shopping cart, onto the floor.  I picked it up and didn't notice right away that one of the beautiful bead eyes had cracked and half of it was missing.  When I made the discovery, I searched and searched but could not locate the missing bead half.  I paid for my fabric and sat in my car and cried.  By the time I got home, I was calmed down, and emailed the teacher, who called me that evening to tell me she had two more of those beads.  She explained to me how to remove the leftover part of the bead, and how I could use tweezers and gently move the bead netting I had sewn around the eye and tuck the new bead inside just like the old one.   I followed her instructions and finished the project.  The new eye has a slightly larger hole, so the tiny bead that sits in the center sunk deeper inside, but it isn't very noticeable.  I sewed this cute little turquoise and black purse and stitched on the dragonfly.  Here it is, DONE!  Actually, after I took this photo, I sewed a Velcro closure on the bag and stitched a black button over it, on the central downward curve.

my dragonfly bag

Below you see the inside of the bag, and the dragonfly before I cut it out and edged it with stitched beads.  I picked out the funky fun fabric for the inside of the bag, but I didn't think about the fact that I needed to stitch right through it in order to put on the dragonfly in a way that it can be removed if I ever want.  So the inside isn't quite so pretty any more, but hey, nobody will actually see it, right?

Finally, Precious Metal Clay

It's been more than a week since I took a class in precious metal clay at the Adirondack Folk School, but I'm finally going to share what I did with you.

This asymmetrical pair of earrings (above) wasn't originally intended that way.  I meant to drill one hole in each earring, for the wire, but I put two holes in one and none in the other.  When I discovered my mistake, a made a hole in the second piece, but forgot that I had made TWO holes in the first one!  So I dangled an extra crystal from the one with the extra hole, and I actually really like the asymmetry. These earring were made at the last minute from the last tidbits of PMC (precious metal clay) I had left in my pack.  I had to hurry to complete them so they could be in time for firing.  Hence, my drilling mistake.

 

 I tried photographing this pair on so many different pieces of fabric, so you could see the lovely amethyst color of the crystals and seed beads.  But the purple hues just keep looking blue in these photos.  Sigh.  These teardrop shapes were actually the very first pieces I made in the class.  Hence their imperfections!

 We made a ring pretty early in the class, because they needed more firing time.  So I didn't have a clear plan.  I changed my textures about 6 times, and then rushed to put something on the ring.  The little holes were a quickie thing, and if I had time I would have wiped them out and redone the spirals.  But I did not have time.  Next time I will have a plan of how I want it to look so it isn't so lumpy and inconsistent looking.  Anyhow, I'm still proud of my very first handmade silver ring, and I especially love the floral texture on the back of the band.

 What fun!  We went outside and grabbed leaves to use as textures.  I'm pretty happy with the way these turned out, though I plan to make some alterations to the strand of green seed beads.  I don't like the way they hang and I think I can make them better. 

 I think this pair with the paisley textures might be my favorite, though I may change the way they hang from the ear wire to make them a tiny bit longer.  They look like something from India to me, and I love the way the little triangles swing on the big ones. 

I need to tell you, I had absolutely NO idea what this stuff was before the class, and doubted that it was 'real' silver.  Well, I was wrong.  It is most definitely real, 99% pure. No wonder the materials fee for the class was so expensive!!  But worth every dime.  I seriously love precious metal clay!  Now that I understand the properties of the material, I have some great quirky ideas of what I'd like to do with it, but I have to wait until the fall when the teacher has more classes open.  I don't have a kiln and even if I could get someone to fire my work for me, the material is expensive and I'd rather work under the supervision of the teacher for advice when I'm not sure the best approach to one of my ideas. 

Have you ever used precious metal clay? 

Lampwork beads - my first attempt!

I have always loved colorful beads.   I am particularly fascinated by the beauty of lampwork beads, beads made by hand in the flame of a hot torch.  And I've wanted to learn to make them for quite some time now.  So yesterday I spent the day taking an introductory lampwork class at the wonderful Adirondack Folk School in Lake Luzerne NY.  Here's what I made.

I was very proud that my beads mostly turned out pretty round, and that some of them are somewhat attractive!  I wasn't particularly successful at making dots, so I melted my lumpy lopsided dots into the beads and swirled them a bit.

 I tried making a cube bead and a barrel bead (below), but they are pretty misshapen and overworked.

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 The bead on the right in the photo below is actually a root beer color.

 Below, my favorite bead.

 

Sorry the photos aren't better.  I have cropped them quite a bit.

 My colors are a little muddy, because I worked a little too close to the flame, but I don't think these are too bad for my very first efforts!

Two new photos - me at the torch: