Mini Bead Retreat

Since our friend, Lisa couldn't get into the Texas Bead Retreat back in January, we decided to do our own mini bead retreat. Originally we were going to head to a little town about 45 minutes north of here & stay in a hotel (suite room). Well, plans changed & we wanted to save money, so we had our mini bead retreat at my house (much cheaper & we were able to fix nice meals). We enjoyed beading, great company, good food, wine, music and movies. We're already talking about when we can get together and do another one. I'm so lucky to have such great, like-minded friends. I was able to make/finish 2 pieces at the retreat (I did have the base for the bracelet done in advance, though). The necklace uses Tim Holtz Key Plates & Keys. I've planned on doing a necklace with these for a while (especially after the success of my sprocket gear pieces).  The bracelet combines the new Industrial Chic line (from Susan Lenart Kazmer, available at Michaels) with Tokens typewriter key charms that I bought on clearance at Michaels earlier this year. I really like the steampunk style - it suits me and my eclectic style.

How does your garden grow?

This year in North Texas, very well, thank you. We've always done a tomato bed (you can see pictures of previous years on older posts. I've also always had an herb bed. This year we decided to have a full garden. Bennie tilled, composted, tilled, added more stuff, tilled, etc. beginning late last summer. We planted green beans (my favorite vegetable), 4 kinds of squash, zucchini, yellow, butternut and acorn. I've never had butternut before, but Hungry Girl makes faux french fries from it & several people have said it is good. Cantelope, 2 kinds of cucumbers (one is something I've never heard of but thought I'd tried, a lemon cucumber, shaped & colored like a lemon), stevia, green bell peppers, radishes, carrots and okra. We've already eaten some of the smaller variety tomatos and most of the radishes. I picked a whole row of green beans yesterday (I have 3 rows). I have a new respect for people who pick vegetables for a living, by the time I got to the end of the row, my muscles were protesting. I also picked 10 zucchini yesterday. Last night I fixed garden fresh vegetables with dinner - YUM!!!

I know my friends in the northeast are going to be jealous of these pictures. I think most of them are just beginning to plant their gardens. I can't believe it isn't even June and we are already starting to harvest vegetables. It is amazing, once they started producing, it was just a matter of a couple of days until they were ready to pick.

Bottles of Hope Challenge

Our guild, North Texas Polymer Clay Guild once again had a Bottles of Hope Challenge. I created three entries, one for each category - Wings, By the Sea & Nature. The winners were determined by adding vote points. I'm very thrilled to have won 2 first place, 1 third and Best of Show. The criteria for the pieces is that they must be formed with a bottle that can be opened - inspirational messages are put inside the bottles for cancer patients. Here are the pieces I created for the challenge with detail images showing how they open.

Impish Mermaid received 3rd place.

Tree Elf received first place in the Nature category. He has mushrooms, birdnest with eggs, butterflies, leaves and vines on him.

 

The Winged Dragon received first place in the Wings category and Best of Show.

I really enjoy pushing the limits to see what I can come up with on these challenges.

More Canvases

These are small canvases - I painted them & glued two of the together. I cut the top one & peeled it back. I sculpted little forest fairies from polymer clay, adding feather wings & acorn top hats. They are decorated with floral moss and silk & paper flowers.

Playing with Canvases

It's been a long time since I've played with canvases. I'd forgotten how much fun they are to do.
I used a picture of my grand-daughter & printed one as it was taken & manipulated the other one in photoshop (the blue one). I'm going to give Jerrica & her dad the green one & hang the blue one in my cube at work.

I used Tim Holtz new dies to make the flourishes for the blue one & the flowers on the green one - I really like the new dies!

Another Bead Embroidery Necklace

This time I decided to go a bit bolder and used bigger beads on the piece. Originally I was going to use seed beads, but I used cubes to capture the focal beads and that lent itself to the bigger beads. I bought some beads at Michaels and used Etch-All to change them from shiny to matte. It only takes five minutes in the etch bath to remove the finish from them.

I don't know how much detail you can see - it is harder to see the beads since they are all black or gray.

Bathroom Remodel

When we were working on this house 25 years ago, the builder's wife talked us into getting a jacuzzi tub in our master bathroom (no shower, just the tub). Well, the tub wasn't very practical - took way too much water to fill it so we didn't use it much. Then when you did use it, black yuck would come out of the pipes. On top of that the tub also cracked badly. Approximately 21 years ago we pulled out the carpeting (yes, she talked us into carpeting in the bathrooms, too - another mistake) and I laid peel-n-stick tile. I also painted over the wallpaper and rag rolled & stenciled the walls - heck it was the thing to do back then. I'm almost embarrased to share these pictures.

For years we've been talking about redoing the bathroom. We got one estimate and it was way high. One thing & another got in the way - gas went up to $4.00/gallon & all money went into my tank just to get me to & from work. The economy tanked & there was worry about keeping a job. There was also the issue about finding someone we trusted to do the work reasonably. We found a couple of reliable, honest contractors and got bids that were more in line with what we thought was reasonable.

FINALLY the end of February of this year we decided to go ahead with the project. It was completed in March & I absolutely LOVE it. Unfortunately the bathroom is not shaped such that you can take pictures of the whole thing at once.

We had them remove the tub, toilet, sinks & countertop. They created a new, doorless, walk-in shower, tiled the floors, did tape & bedding repair, texturing & painting and added new sinks, toilet and tiled countertop. I stripped the cabinets and refinished them. Big difference!!! The contracter & workers were all great.

Welcome Spring

I've said it before, you have to love Texas weather. We welcomed spring this year with record snowfall. Friday March 20, it was close to 80 degrees. March 21, I was working late in my studio & around 11:30 pm decided to call it a day and let the dog out (it had been raining earlier) front one last time before going to bed. Imagine my surprise to see approximately 2 inches of snow on the ground. There wasn't any on the street, but I wasn't too concerned as it was Saturday night & I wasn't going anywhere the next day. Well....this is what I woke up to the next morning - 10 inches of SNOW & it continued a misty snow until early afternoon. My family in Fort Worth didn't get any snow & it was sunny all day on Sunday. Monday our highs were again close to 70, so the snow went away fast. It was pretty, though.

Tiles

I'm participating in a tile swap on one of my online groups. The criteria is to create 2 x 2 tiles, swapping out 8 of each set (2 sets) & receive back 16 tiles, plus the two you created to keep yourself. It's really not as confusing as that sounds. I used polymer clay for my tiles (big surprise). One set has a foil & chalk ink technique for the background & the other set uses alcohol inks. I'm rather pleased with how these turned out & I'm looking forward to receiving my swap tiles back. I've seen pictures of most of them & they are all fabulous - this is going to be a great swap. Thanks, Nancy for hosting.

Valentine's

I hadn't played around with altered or paper arts in quite a while. I decided to do some items for Valentines this year. The first picture shows altered recipe boxes. I got the recipe boxes from the Fun Finds section at Michaels. I sealed them with gesso and had fun with several different types of paint. I stamped and embossed, added grungeboard embossed hearts, rusted jewelry components and stamped shrinky dink images to create a less traditional Valentine. I filled them with chocolate and travel size lotions, bath gels and such to give to my friends.

I also did some bookmark tag Valentines with hearts. I covered the tags with decorative paper, did some stamping, some masking, inked the edges, added hearts, ribbon, Prima flowers and such to make more non-traditional Valentine's.

One of the art doll egroups I belong to did a Queen of Hearts swap. I used a dollar store porcelain doll as the base for my doll. Her wings are wire and screen, she is covered with tissue paper and painted. She has stamped embellishments and a brass pressing crown.

The local polymer clay guild meeting is on Valentine's Day this year. Our swap theme is nature, so I did the turtle pins. We are supposed to wrap our swap items and I thought since it is Valentine's, I would wrap them appropriately. I made pilow boxes from red gloss cardstock and added Prima flowers and ribbon.

SNOW!!!!

Happy birthday to me, it snowed all day long on my birthday. In fact, it was record-breaking snow for the day & the year in this area. DFW airport officially reported over 12 inches of snow. I think our area reported over 8 inches. Unfortunately I had to change my birthday plans since I did not want to drive in that mess. Snow is very beautiful as long as one is inside and doesn't have to get out in it or go anywhere. It should all be gone within 2 - 3 days if it warms up like it is supposed to do tomorrow. I took these pictures this morning after yesterday's snow. It snowed almost 24 hours straight. The first picture is the view up the road from my house, except you can't see the road, or the neighbor's driveway.

The second picture is the view out the back door. I love the way the snow made the little antique fence around my herb garden look. The next picture is the view out the front door looking up in the trees - they almost look like lace. We were lucky and didn't loose any branches. In parts of Dallas, many trees split due to the weight of the snow. It was expecially hard on live oak trees which keep their leaves year round.

The last picture is Zeke in the backyard. I was able to get one picture of him before he noticed I had the camera. He acts like the camera is going to steal his soul and will disappear if he sees a camera or if he thinks you are taking a picture with the phone. He was also less than impressed with the snow and like me enjoyed it much better from inside.

Bird Wedding Cake Topper

One of my coworkers is getting married later this year and she wanted birds for her wedding cake toppers instead of the traditional bride & groom. I made her the whimscal cake toppers as my wedding gift for her.

Texas Beader's Retreat

Vicki & I attended our third retreat last month. The retreat sold out so our friend Lisa wasn't able to join us - hopefully next year. The first piece I worked on at the retreat was a beaded purse. The focal piece is a polymer clay face I bought from Kim Cavendar at the polymer clay retreat I attended in September. The purse is made entirely from recycled jeans. The handle is a denim belt from a dress. After I finished the purse, I worked on a bracelet and necklace in autumn hues to match a jacket I made (bought the fabric at the Houston Quilt Show a couple of years ago). The other piece shown is what I did for the challenge - a travel jewely pouch.