Nice weather and a new baby...

So, I know I haven't posted here in quite some time - not because I haven't been beading, but it has taken a back seat for now to all the other 'goings on'.

With the much anticipated warmer weather, I have spent a great deal more time outside with my family and am so grateful for that!

This past Memorial weekend was fun filled. Besides the barbecued hot dogs and hamburgers we
rode bikes.


played basketball,


corn hole


and football.


The kids ran through the sprinkler


and had more water fun on a slip 'n slide.




When night fell, we sat around a bonfire, roasted marshmallows and made S'mores


At the same time we were waiting for the newest addition to make her way into the world as she was due on May 23. She waited for the weekend fun to be over and made her debut on Monday night.

Meet my newest granddaughter... Alicia, here she is less than 30 minutes old.


She's precious and perfect in every way! Here she is the next day showing off that full head of hair.


And here's her brother meeting her for the first time (her big sister was in school).


It was a perfect weekend in every way. I'm staying at my son's house for a week, so beading will be on the back burner for now. I am working on a few things though. A bead embroidered bracelet as well as my Bead Journal Project pages.

I just happen to notice that my 2 year blogiversary was May 12 and this is post 225 (really?). I will find a way to celebrate here in the near future. In the meantime - a big thank you to all of you that have followed my posts and offered up so much encouragement and feedback with my beading. I appreciate it more than words can describe.

Fun mail and thoughts about today...

I am really behind in posting about the fun stuff received in the mail in the last 2 months (or so). First I was the winner of two items from the One World One Heart event. Both wonderful, colorful happy works of art.



First up a beautiful Laurel Burch fabric postcard from Fannie at Fannie Narte.



Second a stunning little hand made box by Carolee Clark at King of Mice Studios.



Pretty cool, huh? I'm a lucky, lucky girl! Both of these little works of art are SO much prettier in person and one really neat thing about the box - the top is magnetized.



Also - not long ago I was fortunate enough to win a couple of blog giveaways by Elizabeth - she lives on a Danish Island and writes a beautiful blog.



I won this beautiful handmade felt envelope



You can tell how much love and attention she put into her creations.



And how about this cute little egg cozy?



It's reversible too!

I'm looking at my calender and it tells me today is Administrative Professionals Day as well as Earth Day. My heart, however tells me it's the anniversary of my mother's death. Sadly she took her life 27 years ago after a long battle with mental illness. I think of her often and today I will hug her extra tightly in my thoughts.

I dedicated one of my Bead Journal pages to her last year. If you have not seen it and are interested - you can find it here.

Faces...

*** WINNER*** is... Nologic

Congratulations - I hope you'll let me know (and post pics) when you bead it up!

Thanks to all that participated.



I recently signed up to participate in a face swap over at All About Beads. I enjoy participating in swaps and the ladies that participate from that group will often share items I have not previously seen or worked with.

For this swap, we are to put together 3 packages containing a face or any other cab with complimentary seed beads. I thoroughly enjoy putting together this type of package, since it gives me an opportunity to look through my stash of faces and all those wonderful seed beads.

I figured while I was at it, I'd put together a package to share with you kind folks that stop in and say hi. It's been quite awhile since I shared anything here so I'm over due!



This package will include a beautiful face by the very talented Jen Martin from GraphixOutpost which measures about 1 1/4 inch around. Also included are plenty of seed beads in a range of sizes including 15/0, 11/0 and 8/0. A few leaves and some pinched beads.



While I was at it, I pulled out a coordinating piece of stiffened felt, ultrasuede (they are each about 2 1/2 inches) and enough lavender C-Lon thread to get you through the project. I thought I might as well include a couple of needles - so you should have everything you need to make a bead embroidered face. I would be happy to include a pin back if you'd like .



Maybe you'll even be inspired to enter the annual face swap by SassyArtGoddess? I'm making a big assumption that she's doing it again this year. Even if she isn't - there's tons of inspiration for beaded faces there - so check the links for each swap year.

All you need to do is leave a comment here by midnight eastern time on April 10 and I'll add your name to the virtual hat. Please make sure you leave some way to contact you in your comment

I think it's a great way to kick off spring and since it finally looks like we might actually experience some spring weather soon, I'd like to celebrate - won't you join me?

Landanna

I do not remember how I first found and subscribed to this blog, but I am so happy I did. Elizabeth lives in Denmark and creates beautiful works of art. She also takes wonderful photos.

She is currently having a giveaway week, so go check out her blog when you get a chance - there are 4 days left of giveaways. I don't get extra chances to win to post about it here, I just noticed that she has not had a lot of traffic on her giveaway posts and her creations need to be seen!

Have fun!



Speaking of fun, I thought I'd add an old photo of me to this post - yes, that's me up there. The bonehead. That photo was taken in August of 2000. I signed up for a trip with a couple of thousand others that descended on the state of Alaska to participate in a bicycle ride to raise money for an AIDS vaccine. I was not one of the riders, but a crew member. I just found this photo in some old stuff and it brought back a lot of wonderful memories of one of my favorite trips. It was my first time to Alaska and such a wonderful way to see the scenery. We spent almost a week camping in a different picturesque place each evening. We started in Fairbanks and ended in Anchorage.

It was one of the best weeks of my life. Unfortunately the company that organized the ride no longer exists, but if you're interested in seeing one of the old videos about the rides, you can go here - Alaska is the first video listed.

OWOH Winners!

This has been a spectacular event! I managed to visit the blog of every participant, and boy what a treat! I now subscribe to over 220 new blogs between those maintained by participants and others that left their names here. I have had a blast traveling around the world via your blogs - really how could I not?

I did not count how many times I added my name to drawings, but I did my best to limit myself to items that really struck me or that I could actually use. There were some really neat things/art/objects offered up or created for the event, it was challenging at times not to get caught up in the frenzy and just throw my name in everywhere!

I ended up with 354 entries for my giveaway. I requested an active blog be in place by those that wanted to throw their name into the drawing. I did visit each and every blog from those comments. After culling the duplicates (there were only 2) and those that did not have active blogs, the final number of entrants was 320. Pretty amazing, I think.

I mulled over how I might choose my winners. I know lots of folks planned to use random number generators, but I just couldn't. I wanted it to be a little more hands on - I'm crazy like that (control issue perhaps?).

I have giveaways here frequently and I enjoy the name drawing process as much as the rest of it. Over 300 is a LOT of comments though. So here's how I managed it - for anyone that's interested...



All my comments go to my Yahoo email account. I set up a separate folder for the OWOH giveaway and another folder for 'rejects' and saved all the incoming comments in one of those folders in the order of date/time received. I then added the number of posts to an Excel spreadsheet (in this case 318) so I could cut each one out and add them to my little basket. Since messages are numbered 25 to a page in Yahoo, it makes the process a snap!



After midnight struck, I drew two numbers out of the basket. Here are the winners:

The flower goes to Farmchick of Fresh from the Farm

and

The lips go to Jana of One Hillaceous Dream

Congratulations ladies and a big thank you to everyone that visited!

I'd like to take just a moment again to thank Lisa Swifka for organizing and managing the event. It was no small task to visit each blog - I can't imagine how much time it took to manage the links and the blog.

BRAVO Lisa... take a bow, it was another great year!

Beautiful felted bowl...

I was actually lucky enough to receive my second felted bowl recently. I LOVE these things!



I received this wonderful bowl from a friend (Bobbie) in Oregon. Bobbie is sister to the woman that made the other beautiful felted bowl I posted about recently. Such creative talent in that family!



I don't know if you can tell it's a square by these photos, it's so neat. The dimensions are 4 inches by 4 inches and it's 4 inches deep.

Bobbie, her sister Anne, and I have collaborated on a several quilt squares in the past. It was such fun working on a project with them.

Bobbie and Anne along with our friend Sammie have been my traveling pals in the last few years On each of our trips we have shared some wonderful creative time. It's always such a treat to vacation with girlfriends and a bonus when such creativity abounds. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that our 4th musketeer Sammie keeps us supplied with wonderful baked goods and lots of entertaining conversation

Another milestone...

***UPDATE*** My apologies for taking SO long, I actually drew the name the other night. It was late and I was in my jammies - so no video. But the winner is...

ARLINE

Congratulations Arline! We are still buried in snow out here, but I should be able to get this in the mail soon.


Well... I realized I just passed my 200th post and I wasn't even paying any attention!

I think that calls for some sort of marker, celebration or something... don't you? It just so happens I have several beaded brooches here - ready for new homes.

To celebrate the 200th post, I'm putting up for grabs the turquoise heart I just finished up. For anyone that didn't see my last post, the cab is a raku heart by the wonderfully talented Lisa Peters. It is about 2 inches by 2 inches not counting the little dangles. It could be yours if you want it.

How about it? Yes? Well - then it's simple, leave your name in the comments section with a link or email address that provides a way for me to contact you.

Anyone can play, no matter where you live or how you found me.

I'll leave comments open until midnight this Sunday, January 18 - that's Eastern time.

Good luck - and thank you so much for your support and comments over almost (*gulp*) 2 years since I started this blog.

We have a winner...

I meant to have this up sooner, but ran into some technical difficulties with my computer!

Last night I had my grand kids over and had devised a plan to draw a name for the Pumpkin Kitty doll. It worked out really well in my head - I promise it did!

Seeing as how it was a drawing for a kitty doll, I figured I'd get my cats involved in the festivities. With my grand kids here - that's 4 extra hands... this should be a snap.

Ha ha... best laid plans and all.

So, my plan was that I would print off the names and attach them to a cat toy, drag that around the house until one of the names was 'chosen' by a cat. The plan wasn't so bad, but I underestimated the amount of time it would take from beginning to end and how that might play on film (not really well with all the pauses and clowning around by my grand kids). All in all, it worked out okay and we had a lot of laughs while filming. I ended up editing out quite a bit of the video and had it all put together as out takes and *poof*... all gone! So what you have here is the beginning and the very end. The quality is not that great since the lighting is poor, so keep that in mind. Item of note and for those of you that have followed my blog for awhile, the kitty that 'pulled' the name is Mocha Java Joe - he is the kitten born here in April and previously blogged about on several occasions. He's about 7 1/2 months old now and approximately 10 pounds.

Here you go...


The winner is Pam T.

I have to tell you... it gave me pause when my granddaughter read the name. We were having such a silly evening last night and Pam, it seems, has not been blessed with a whole bunch of silliness recently. I think that is positively poetic that she won - she really deserves some good news.

For anyone that visits here that doesn't know Pam, she's one of the Bead Journal Participants and was recently handed some not so great news. Please take a moment to visit her blog, say hi, check out some of her beautiful/moving bead work and offer her some support with what she has to face in the coming weeks.

Pam... I hope this little guy brings a smile to your face when he arrives at your door!

Another year older!

I sometimes participate in swaps in a forum on Delphi - All About Beads. Last year I signed up to be included in the B4B (Beads for Birthday) swap. I celebrated a birthday over the weekend and received my much anticipated package.

There is a photo above of the goodies that arrived including several sheets of stiffened felt (one of the light blue pieces is already being used for a new cuff), several pieces of ultrasuede; beautiful bead mixes from Whimbeads, a neat glass face cab; a wonderful ceramic heart bead; curved needles and (always welcomed) chocolate.

We are not given the identity of our birthday buddy, so I have no idea who it came from. If there is a chance the person that sent me the box is someone who reads my blog I wanted them to know that I really appreciate the care and thoughtfulness put into the package.

I have another question, for those of you that do leave comments. I would like to reply to as many as possible, especially when there are specific questions. Problem with that is many of the comments left do not have an email address linked so I cannot reply directly to the person that commented. So do you come back and read the comments when you have asked a question? I have been curious about that for some time now.

Now to answer a few questions that were left in prior comments...

Denise asked if I use my color wheel often and the answer is yes - frequently, I used to refer to the wheel in Margie Deeb's book - the Beader's Guide to Color, now I have the wheel that sits on my bead station at all times.

Marty asked what I use to sign the ultrasuede on the back of my pins. I use a super fine point Sharpie pen.

Robin asked about the black beads in the corner of my September page. There is a significance to those black beads, but I'm not ready to reveal what that is - just yet.

Heart it forward

Well... it's my turn to continue on with the spirit of the challenge to 'heart it forward'.


I chose a cobalt blue heart bead, attached it to a small piece of Pellon (with thread - no glue used) and added flower beads around the outside and finished it off with a pointed edge stitch. It is approximately 2 inches wide by 1 1/2 inch tall.

The brooch could be yours if you're willing to play.

Here are the guidelines as set by Tonia (the originator of the Heart it Forward challenge):

The first person to comment on this post (or at least the first person to indicate they'd like to play) will be the recipient of the heart brooch pictured in this post. The catch is, that if you agree to receive this, you promise to then create something yourself, from the heart, that you will then offer to the first commenter on your blog, after explaining the "rules" in a post of your own.

What you make with the intention of giving away does not have to be jewelry. It can be anything--something sewn, something baked, something written--whatever. Anything that you put the spirit of giving into and a piece of your heart.

The 'Heart it Forward' challenge participants so far...
Tonia Davenport (she started it all back in February)
Lisa over at A Bead A day (great place to visit every day to see what she has profiled)
Cami from Art Like Bread (she sent me all the wonderful goodies mentioned in an earlier post)

So, what do you think ... do you want to Heart it Forward?

An art trade

I just finished a doll for a young friend out in Texas. I have not met her in person as yet, but she is a member of my extended family.

And I know her Uncle (my Mr.) thinks the world of her.

At only 10 years old Legacy is already an extremely talented painter. I have included just a small sampling of photos of her work throughout this post. I'm so excited about this trade!


Details on the doll... the mermaid form was made by oh sew wonderful Monica Magness and is about 6 inches tall, her face was made by very talented face artist Jen Martin.

(Click image for a larger view)
Her face is held in place by peyote stitch, I used two beautiful transparent amethyst luster leaf beads for her 'bra'. I added a 8mm light amethyst AB Swarovski crystal (margarita 3700) bead for her belly button and lots of peachy/yellow fresh water pearls for her 'scales'. Her fins on the front are decorated with size 12/0 dark turquoise beads mixed with size 15/0 metallic transparent violet AB seed beads.

On her back - I made my usual spiral on the back of her head for a nice base for 'hair'. Her 'scales' on the back are represented using vintage light turquoise sequins held in place by the same size 15/0 metallic transparent violet AB seed beads found in her fins. The bottom of her fins on the back are covered with size 15/0 teal beads.

Her 'arms' are 3 strands of beads with two ending with a drop bead and one strand ending with a purple pressed glass triangle bead. Then there is her hair... my very favorite part of beading a doll is the hair. It really isn't anything special - stitch wise, it's a basic fringe stitch. I try to incorporate all the colors used in the doll in the seeds beads used for the hair and end each fringe strand with a larger bead. In this one I added a few shell beads as well for texture, and, well because - don't all mermaids have shells in their hair?

I have not named her, I thought her new owner would like the honor of doing that.

Legacy... you just keep getting better and better! I hope you like your doll.

Me, Fay and good mail

So... I'm back from Florida, I wish I could say I was able to enjoy a bit of the area, but that was not to be on this trip. I worked long days and with Fay hovering the entire time I was there - it was not conducive to going out exploring with the little time I did have. Not to mention I didn't have a car at my disposal, maybe another time! There was one day the office was closed due to a hurricane warning which turned into a little breeze and just a bit of rain - nothing serious thankfully. I was staying/working in the Tampa/Clearwater area, other areas were not so lucky. I will say... I'm HAPPY to be home!

Don't you love those days when you receive really good mail? Me too!

While I was away I received a wonderful package from Mexico, but I'm getting ahead of myself - let me start from the beginning. About a month ago, I answered a "Heart it Forward" challenge from Cami on her blog - Art, Like Bread. You can read all about the details...here. I adore handmade cards and was lucky enough to be the first to answer her challenge.

How cute are these?

I was losing daylight when I snapped these photos...


Not only were the cards included, but there were some other really neat items. The hearts in the first photo were included as well as these wonderfully colored paper items seen below.


And the beautiful beads and chips you see below.


Stay tuned - in the near future I will post my Heart it Forward Challenge

Are you thinking pink?

(Top card in photo by Freebird, isn't it wonderful?!)

Yet? Still? I know I AM!

Anyway, I wanted to show another runner up item I have donated for the Pink Artist Project.

Not too long ago I answered a call for artists from Mother Henna for an Inspiration & Healing deck of cards. The project guidelines requested 2 pieces of art in your chosen medium from 16 artists which would be made into cards.

Each participant received 2 decks of cards for their participation. I'm thought I'd share the beauty and offer up my second deck of cards for the Love Squared drawing and let me just say... they are magnificent. Here I have displayed just a couple of the many wonderful images found on these cards. I wanted to show the backs too with a wonderful image by Mother Henna. Many of the participants are names you might even recognize from visiting their blogs :-)

Please check out Mother Henna's blog if you are interested in reading more details on that collaboration.

In the meantime, have you purchased your chances to win the fair Lady?

Paying it Forward

Remember last year when there seemed to be a frenzy of activity on many blogs participating in "Pay it Forward"? Well one of the blogs I commented on was that of Acey. Last week I received a beautiful quilt square from her. My photo does not do it justice, I didn't capture the colors very well. Also, there is quite a bit of stitching on this piece and it's accented with beads. I will find a special place in my office to hang it up so I can see it throughout my day.

Thank you Acey... I LOVE it!