A Magical End to 2014!

This will be my last ever post....for this year!!! ;)  

I really like how this years inchies have been an easy, complicated, mind blowing, hard, learning roller coaster ride.  I have learned so much from the inchies this year.  I have also been surprised how the inchies; of which I design in the first few months of the year, but bead up each week when it is time; have meant something deep for myself each week. 

This year personally has been a roller coaster ride for myself and my family,  and the inchies have been a great retreat for me emotionally and creatively.  I do so enjoy them for their therapeutic power.   But for me, beads have always been therapy.

So let's get this last week of 2014 started with the theme over at Every Inchie Monday.  This week's theme is Magical.  We had this theme a few years back but I don't mind redoing a theme.  Especially since there are more Inchiers now.

Here is my last inchie from 2012

 And here is the one I did this year.

Very Similar, don't you think?  For this inchie I did it in 3 colors of Delicas.  Showing the magicians hat and wand.  I like both of them really.  What do you think?

Also this week I handed out beaded ornaments to my family and a few friends.  I did not have time to make all of ornaments like I needed to since I spent a good portion of the last month taking care of my daughter pre and post surgery.   But I think it was worth missing out on those for her.  Here is a picture of 3 of the ornaments I made. ( I always forget to take pics of all of them, LOL)

These ornaments are wine corks covered in seed beads and twin beads; which are a two-holed bead, and on the bottom is a crystal dagger-type drop.  I really love beading around the wine corks, it just gives such a great width and structure to the ornament.

Also this last week my daughter started having a home health nurse coming to the house to change her wound dressings.  She is such a sweet lady who is going through a really emotional time in her family with the loss of a family member.  I really felt lead to make her a stethoscope bead.  Just because she is a faithful woman and because she is our nurse.  Also, sometimes I just like to make things for new people in my life.  A stethoscope bead is a tubular bead that can be slipped onto the stethoscope for decoration.  I have made 3 in the past for the nurses at work.  I really love how this one came out. 

Here it is before I made it into a tube, it has 10 colors of delicas.  There is a gold cross, a rainbow an a dove.  I really adore the look of it.  I hope she likes it.

Don't forget to fly on over to EIM and check out all the magic going on over there! 

Lastly, I really want to thank everyone who stops by and leaves a comment and those who stop by but don't leave a comment.  I am so blessed by all of your comments, thoughts and prayers.  They have meant so much for me this last year.  You have no idea how important that is for me and my family.  I do pray that the Lord blesses everyone who reads this post and that they will be a blessing to those who they meet.  I can't wait for 2015, I feel like it is gonna be a "Journey" year for me.  I know I am gonna be working on myself and my kids are going to be doing the same.  May God bless all of you and may you all be blessed in 2015. 

LOOK OUT 2015 I'M COMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This week has been very zig-zaggy!

I think I am very glad that this year is almost over.  This last week, no month, has been like driving on a zigzag road.  You think that you are on the straight and narrow, going along like you know what you are doing and all of a sudden there is a curve; a sharp curve, that pulls the tires off the road!  You know what I am talking about? 

I am gonna say that next year is gonna be my journey year.  I am gonna try to stay away from the zigzag roads and work on my health and the health of my family!  My daughter is on the mend after her surgery and making good strides, she has a long road ahead but it is a straight road with no curves! 

Now, along those lines :)  Every Inchie Monday's theme is Zigzag, and for some reason I have to challenge myself, I have to use many colors of Delicas and make difficult designs!  This week is a prime example.  I used 9 colors of Delicas and did a vertical design of repeating zigzags. 

I did mess up with having the sky blue and the lilac next to one another, and having another purple color on there that looked to similar but I do like how it came out.  I don't think I will ever make this again though lol.  I do think that this would make a great tubular peyote bead; but again I am not one to try it ever, (well maybe not anytime soon LOL)

I just wanted to also say thank you all for stopping by and for brightening my day with your great comments, and if you have not already done it fly on over to EIM and check out the great artwork by all of the talented ladies.  And have a very Merry Christmas, and may you all be blessed this season.

Yellow, How Ya Doin?

I hope everyone is doing well.  I am better this week than last.  My daughter is on the mend and today she is getting her staples out.  We did find out that all of her tests came back negative!  YAY!!!!  We will find out what the next step will be for her.  For all of you who wished her well and sent prayers, I'd like to say thank you, from the deepest parts of my heart.  Thank you.  It meant a lot to all of us. 

This week, when I was not taking care of my daughter I was trying to catch up on Christmas ornaments. Sadly, I still have 5 more to do and might not get them done in time.  But I know that everyone understands, just makes me feel bad. 

I did however take time to make my inchie.  I just love to make them.  It is the one thing that I do each week for no other reason than to do it.  It isn't for a customer, family member or for my store.  It is for me to do just to be creative.  I think that is so cool, don't you?  This week over at Every Inchie Monday the theme is Yellow.   I decided to go with a banana, mostly because I just couldn't think of anything else yellow and also because I eat a banana almost every day. 

 I hope you like it.  Also, don't forget to fly on over to EIM and check out all the great yellow artwork from the extremely talented ladies.  Have a blessed and creative week my friends.

Some Days You're Up, Some Days You're Down!

I hope that everyone is having a great week.  Mine has been a very up and down week.  I have been feeling alot like a yo-yo!  Which works out great since this week's theme over at Every Inchie Monday is Yo-Yo! 

If you have been coming here for any amount of time you know that I almost always go with my first thought on my inchie designs.  This week I had designed a yellow and blue yoyo; but with all the stuff that has been happening over the last 2 weeks I felt that a new design was in order. 

You see, over Thanksgiving me and my kids went up to Illinois.  We had a great time eating and visiting the family and eating and hanging out with friends and of course eating!  The last day there we were going to a fish fry. In the morning my daughter got sick, very sick.  She spent the whole time in the bed, in pain and feeling like she would be sick again at any moment. 

We stayed at the fish fry for a little bit because I was hoping that she would feel better soon.  When she did not get better we left to go home.  I did not want to have to take her to the hospital to be seen, just in case.  It took up 12 hours to get home (it was a 670 mile drive).  We stopped often so she could go to the bathroom.  Nothing helped and she was still in so much pain.  I was really worried, but couldn't let her know that. 

After getting home at 4 am Sunday morning I tried to rest, since I was going to have to go back to work the next day.  But by 1:30 pm we were at a walk in clinic.  Her pain was way more than an upset stomach or bad gas.  After 4 hours we found out that she might have kidney stones and were sent home with medicine.

The next morning my daughter screams in pain.  She tells me that she feels like someone is stabbing her in the front and back!  We run to the Dr.'s office, who sends us to the ER for a CT scan.  Seven hours later we are leaving the ER with 2 new prescriptions and some very scary news.  She has a tumor on one of her ovaries that is the size of a grapefruit which is causing her the pain.  We were also told to make an appointment with an OBGYN to talk about surgery. 

The next day we are in a Gynecologists office and finding out all the scary news.  She will need surgery and very soon.  Like on Saturday! (BTW this is Tuesday).  On Saturday we are at the hospital.  It had been a week since she started hurting and who knew 1 week earlier when we were in Illinois visiting family that we would now be in Baptist Hospital waiting for my baby girl to have a life saving surgery! 

A 2 hour surgery took over 3.5 hours.  But she made it threw fantastically, with one exception.  The tumor was bigger than they thought, way bigger.  The Doctor was not sure how she was walking upright with it in her.  She also had to lose an ovary but she is still alive. They took tissue samples to see if it is cancerous, but they don't believe that it is.  Praise God for that. I would like to mention that family, friends, co-workers, churches, and even strangers were praying for her.  God is good!  All the time!  She is home and healing, she is gonna be ok. 

All of this made me think about the yo-yo, up and down, up and down.  That was how the last 2 weeks have been for my family.  Made me think about the fact that life is like a crazy yo-yo.  So that was what I made the inchie into. 

It might be hard to see but I used Gold delicas to make the word "Life" and used 5 different colors for the background.  It is a bit difficult to see the word "Life"  but I liked that since sometimes life is difficult. Very literal design I felt.

One more thing, I mentioned this on Facebook and I really want to say it here.  If you feel like something is wrong with your health, don't ignore it, don't play it off as "nothing".  Because it just might be "something".  You have too many people who care about you to ignore it.  Doing that almost cost my daughter her life.

Don't forget to fly on over to EIM and check out all the great designs from some amazing artists.  And have a blessed and creative week.

What the Xenon???

This week over at Every Inchie Monday the theme is Xenon.  I had never heard of Xenon before this week.  But upon researching it I really love the look of Xenon.  Check this out.

Xenon is a gas similar to neon.  It also lights up for extremely short amounts of time.  In a gas-filled tube, xenon emits a blue or lavenderish glow when the gas is excited by electrical discharge. Xenon emits a band of emission lines that span the visual spectrum, but the most intense lines occur in the region of blue light, which produces the coloration.

So with that info I decided to do my inchie using 2 colors of Delicas.  One being matte opaque black and the other color an opaque rainbow power blue.  I was going for the glowing color thing.  I do think I did a good job on that point. 

Don't forget to fly on over to EIM and check out the other great Xenon inchies.