Necklaces, Ornaments and Challenges

Hiya everyone and thanks for stopping by.  This week I have been so sore and tired!  I think it has to do with the start of the changing of the weather.  My shoulder has been in so much pain this week and of course my knee has been angry at me this week, more on that later.  Also, I think that work has been beating me up as well! Thanks work!  lol. 

If you have been reading recently you know I lost some weight; I want to continue riding that wave all the way to my goal weight.  So this week I also started a 30 day personal challenge.  I want to walk every day.  Yesterday I did not get much in but I walked.  I started on Tuesday, which was after 2 weeks of non-activity.  I think I was proud of myself for losing the 30 pounds and decided to revert back to my old habits.  No more!  I have to be accountable to someone so I am writing it here.

I wear a pedometer while I am on the treadmill and I wear it at work.  I have now gotten up to 20 minutes on the treadmill.  I don't want to go more than that right now for fear o hurting my knee.  I also think that all this walking is making my knee act up.  But I am not gonna let that stop me from walking. 

This week over at Every Inchie Monday the theme is Necklace.  I have been making more necklaces this year than I have before.  I am just to impatient to wait the time it takes to make a necklace, lol.  But this is a quick and easy one for me to make. 

For this inchie I used 5 colors including copper seed beads as the chain.  I wanted this to be one of those beautiful golden necklaces with a huge sapphire stone on it, on it's way to a red carpet gala.  So what do you think?  Do you see the mess-up?  I did not until just now!  ARGGG!!!!  Makes me so mad, lol.  But that is ok.  The Native Indians believe that all beadwork should have a spirit bead in it, a bead that does not fit in the design, wrong color or placement.  So I will call this my spirit bead. 


Also this week I finalized this years Christmas ornament design.  Sadly I cant show it here since some of my family reads this blog and I want it to be a surprise to them.  I did also finish the Christmas earring designs for the ladies at work.  That I can show you. 

This is a pattern from here.  It works up quickly and I added the crystal bicone in the middle of the earring as an extra bling. 

So that is it for me this week.  Don't forget to fly on over to EIM and check out all the great necklaces they have created.  Have a blessed and creative week.

This week over at the nest.

Hiya everyone, and thanks for stopping by.  This last week has been a long rough one.  Work has been very rough and when I was not completely worn out I have been working on this years Christmas ornament.  I think I finally have the design figured out.  But I can't show you all here yet since some of my family read my blog (hopefully LOL).

I did carve out some time to work on my challenges for this week.  Over at Every Inchie Monday the theme was Pavilion.  My first thought was the pavilions that we used to have family reunions at the city parks.  I just remember my brother cooking the food and everyone eating and talking, kids running around, someone playing music and tons of pictures being taken.  Two of which are so much my favorite.  One is of my daughter who fell asleep in the dirt.  She literally fell asleep while playing.

 This picture is very old, she was about 6 years old, now she is 23!  The other one is a picture of my Mom, me and my siblings.  It was the last picture we all had together.  This is totally us as a family.  LOL

I am the one standing up between my brother Tom and my sister Vicki, my Mom is the one sitting down next to my brother Larry.  As you can tell me and my Mom are kinda camera shy ;)  See that smile on Vick's face?  She is smiling like that cuz she knew better than to stand next to Tom!  LOL  Here is my inchie. 

I used 6 colors of Delicas and I hope that you can tell that this is a light over a green picnic table inside of a pavilion.


Now, over at 2x2x2 the theme is Grass.  You know what, when we moved into our house there was this weird small patch of grass in the front yard, it was yellow in the winter and soft and lush (thistle free) in the summer, over the years it has gotten bigger and I adore that part of the yard.  Best part (even better than not having thistles?!?)  is that it grows slowly and doesn't need to be cut as often! 

So this idea came easily for me.  There was not any other possible thing I could design. 

This Twinchie also has 6 colors of Delicas in it and if you can't tell it is a push mower.  This one is for my Son who really enjoys mowing!  Well, to each his own!  I don't mind it if he does the mowing, LOL.

So that is it for me this week and I want to thank everyone for visiting me and extra thanks for those who leave comments.  I always love to read what you think.  Also, don't forget to fly on over to EIM and 2x2x2 to check out the awesome works over there and hey if you are up to the challenges why not join them?  I would love to see what you come up with.  

I See the Light....err Lamp

Hello everyone and thanks for stopping by.  I hope that everyone is enjoying the fact that school is back in session.  I know I am enjoying it!  LOL

This week over at Every Inchie Monday the theme is lamp.  I have done lamps before on my inchies but I have never done a stained glass lamp.  So this week I did one.  I have always loved the look of stained glass.  The lights are no exception.  I always tell myself that one day I am gonna buy one.  Until then I can make one in beads.

This inchie used 7 colors of delicas.  Five of which were transparent.  I like transparent colors but sometimes they get washed out by the thread and the clear colors.  But I added them to this inchie because I was hoping that they would look like stained glass.

I am not 100% in love with the colors but I do like the impression it gives.  What do you think?  Also this week I was shopping at the Dollar Tree and saw something that just grabbed me.  It was actually just sitting by the checkout on top of the bubble gum and I just had to grab it.  Ohh those impulse buys! 

What I got was a set of 6 paper clips with a square gel sticker on the top of them (in the middle) and I just knew that I wanted to bead them.  I actually buy a lot of things with the intent of beading them, I know that I have a problem but I don't really care!  LOL 

I used some beads that I had sitting near me and made a quick pattern design.  I did not like the size of the first one I did (on the right) so I redesigned it and I like the size of the new one (on the left).  I then hot glued the beads onto the paper clip.  What do you think? 

I have 4 more that I will have to design patterns for and you know I will....eventually! LOL  That is all I have for this week.  I have been busy working on a few things that I will show off later on.  But for now this is it.  Thanks again for stopping by and checking me out and don't forget to fly on over to EIM and check out whats going on over there. 

A Wall of China of sorts

Hiya everyone and thanks for stopping by.  I am real glad that you did.  This last week I got some great news.  Me and my daughter have both lost 30 pounds!  How awesome is that?  It is very awesome that is how awesome that is!

Now to get to why you are here.  Over at Every Inchie Monday the theme is Wall and over at 2x2x2 the theme is China.  In 2012 at EIM we had the theme of wall and I did an aerial view of the great wall of China.  So ironic, right?  So this week made me laugh as I love irony.

Like one time this very tall guy (6'4") at work was asked if he has change for a $5 bill and he replied "Not this week I am short!"... ... ... cuz you know he is tall and he was short on cash.... o_O or like when a smurf says they are sad,  cuz...you know when you are sad you are blue....and smurfs are....blue....  OH you get it! LOL 

Anyways that is my humor in a nutshell and back to what I was talking about!  Oh yes my inchie this week.  This week I took the theme and design on my inchie to show the difference in delica bead sizes.  For those that don't know, Delica beads come in 4 sizes.  15/0, 11/0,10/0 and 8/0.  The 11's are the most common, and are the ones I use on my inchies. 

I know that many may not know the difference in the sizes of the beads and I wanted to show everyone the difference.  So I did this weeks inchie pattern to show off the differences in the sizes.    So my inchie is the 11/0 size and  rest will show you how that same pattern matches the 1 inch size of the 11's.  So check this out.

 This is each of them with a ruler.

15's less than one inch

11's this is my inchie

10's just over 1 1/4 inch

8's at 2 inchies

As you can see the smaller the number the bigger the bead.  The numbers mean how many beads can be laid down in one inch.  I can tell you I loved doing all of these except the 8's.  I don't like the fact that the 8's are not even in size.  The white ones were a bit bigger than the red ones.  Let me know what you think about the different sizes of beads.


Also this week over at 2x2x2 the theme is China.  My daughter loves teacups, fine china ones.  So I looked online to see if I could find a pretty teacup.  I found one that was red with small flowers on a vine and I fell in love.  This is the image that I took my design from. 

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-pouring-tea-chiinese-teapot-image13976632

Here is my take on this picture.

I only did the cup and changed the flowers to teal.  I really love this cup so much.  I hope that you all like it as well.

Thank you so much for stopping by and checking out my work this week.  I am so glad that you took the time out of your day to spend time with me, and thanks to those who leave a comment.  You make my day.  Also don't forget to fly on over and check out EIM and 2x2x2 and see all the awesome work over there, and maybe even join us in all our fun. 

Have a blessed and creative week.

Window to a Long Weekend

Hello everyone I hope that you had a wonderful weekend.  Mine was lovely and long.  We did not work on Friday so I spent time on Friday playing with my beads.  I don't normally do bead stringing but I just felt like it.  So I made 3 necklaces.   But because Facebook likes to take my first picture and post that when I post my blog I will show those off later.  LOL  Gotta love Facebook.

So instead I will start off with my inchie.  This week over at Every Inchie Monday the theme was Window.  I believe that we have had this theme before and that one was way more detailed than this one but I did like this one as well.  I used 3 colors of delicas and I originally was going to use a dark metallic purple for the curtains but with the black beads it seemed to get lost so I changed them to a teal color.  Hope you like it.

Like I mentioned earlier this is a window with teal curtains and a white background.  I love this teal color.  For some reason I am really into teal.  I think I could paint the whole house teal and be really happy with that. My kids might not be but so what!  LOL

Also this weekend, as I mentioned earlier, I made 3 necklaces.  I have a ton, ( and I mean a TON) of beads and for some reason I only used 3 different colors of 3 sizes of beads.  In these necklaces I used 4mm round beads, 6mm round beads and bicone crystals.  In the colors blue, green and clear. 

After making one necklace I realized that it was kinda long and really needed more strands.  But instead of taking it apart I decided to make a second necklace with the same magnetic slide clasp so that they could lay flatly on my neck.  Here is the long one.

Like it? I really do.  But can you see that it needs something more? So here is the short one.

Here is what they both look like together.

The lengths range from 22 inches to 40 inches for the longest one.  I wore both necklaces to town on Saturday and they lay great and are not too heavy.  But of course, me being me I just had to make one more necklace.  For this one I decided that I wanted to mix up the beads mixing the colors on each necklace lengths.  After making this one I wish I had thought about this for the other 2 necklaces.  They would have looked so cool like this. 

I am also working on a bracelet that I saw on one of the Facebook bead boards and forgot all about but remembered I wanted to make it so I got out the pattern and started to work on it but I will hopefully be done by next week so I will post then, right now there is still 9 more components to make yet, then I will have to put it all together, so we will see if it gets done by then.  LOL  So that was the artistic part of my long weekend.  The rest of the weekend was rather expensive and not so much fun, but it hurts to think about $1100 in car repairs.  OUCH!  Breath, Breath, Breath.  Ok so for my sanity I am going to get back to my beads.  lol.

Don't forget to fly on over to EIM and check out the great window art over there.  Have a great week and check the fluids in your cars please lol.  OUCH, where are my beads?!?