It's a Thankful Week

Hello everyone, I hope that everyone is having a blessed week.  Here in America this is the biggest food week of the whole year.  Some people wait all year for this week.  Some of those people wait for the football and food, others just wait for it to be over so they don't have to see certain family members until the same time next year.  (just kidding)

This week over at Every Inchie Monday the theme is Crochet.  I think those people who can crochet are awesome.  I can not do it.  I really want to try to do bead crochet again.  I love the look of it and think that it is beautiful.  One of these days I am gonna sit down and force myself to learn it.  But until then I will stick with what I love to do; beading.

Here is my inchie. I used 2 colors of delicas and designed a crochet pattern in flat peyote.  Hope you like it as well.

I got the pattern off of a crochet pattern website.  I am not sure how you can crochet this pattern but I thought it looked great and think that it translated well into peyote.

Also this week I finished a bracelet that I put together from a friends earring pattern.  A few weeks back I got a starfish earring pattern from my friend Becca, she is an awesome lady who has a great sense for design.  I started to work on the starfish, but since I can't wear earrings I decided to make 7 of them and make them into a bracelet.  But the need to get Christmas ornaments done superseded my desire to finish this bracelet.

But if you are an artist and you feel a piece screaming at you you have no choice but to listen to the art.  So I went back to the starfish and finished the bracelet.  Check it out.

This bracelet has Super Duos, 8/0's and 11/0's.  I love how the pattern works well with each new piece.  I added each new starfish at a 180 degree angle.  I like that it looks like a wave of starfish sitting on the beach.  What do you think?  If you would like to get the pattern, fly on over to Beccas and get it.

Another thing about when art screams at you for your undivided attention is that you end up doing one thing and another one comes up from it.  After making this bracelet I decided that I wanted to make a necklace to match.  One problem, I did not have all the beads I need for the necklace, so now I have to wait for them to come in so I can make the necklace.  ARG!  Makes me think I need to have more beads.  (Snort!)

I just wanted to mention here what I am thankful for.  I am of course thankful for family, friends and the fact that I have a job.  But I am also thankful for the fact that I am able to be creative.  I think without creativity in my life I would probably be very unhappy.  What are you thankful for?

This week I will be driving 1500 miles round trip to visit family and so with that in mind I say to you all have a blessed and thankful week this week.  Enjoy your family and food.  Be safe and be blessed, and I would like to say that I am thankful for everyone of you who visit regularly and leave me a litle comment.  If you would like to join in the inchie fun just fly on over to here and check out EIM.  The 2016 list is up and it looks to be a creativity stretcher for myself.  I hope that you all think about joining in the fun.

Bee Exotic and Show Love for Paris

Blessings to everyone this week.  I know this has been a tough one for many of us this week.  My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone in Paris.  For me, when things like what happened in Paris happen I feel helpless and many times my beading helps me to cope.

I wish I was able to just show off art pieces this week and not have to acknowledge what happened in Paris.  But, sadly, evil happens in this world we live in and I would be less than human to say that it does not affect me or have anything to do with me.

But, I do know that art in any form can unite peoples and help to sooth the pain that we all feel in times of crisis.  How about us as an artistic community help to bring about change, healing and possibly hope through our individual art forms.  Lets all spread love through our art and start to make a change.  With this in mind I made this.  It is a 1.5 x 1.5" piece of artwork, I used 4 colors of delicas. I designed the French flag with a silhouette of the Eiffel Tower.  I hope that you like it.

Also this week over at Every Inchie Monday the theme is Exotic.  For this one I thought real hard trying to figure out something exotic for the exotic inchie.  My first thought was to make some colorful exotic drinks.  The kind with flowers and umbrellas.  So for this inchie I used 9 colors of Delicas.  I did mess up once but did not notice it until it was too late.  But I like the finish product.

Lastly, this week over at 2x2x2 the theme is Bee.  I really loved designing this one as I had to design the background separately, add the bee over the top of it then merge them together.  Which was a design concept that I had only done 2 times before in this program.  I really love the outcome of it, and hope you do as well.  Isn't he cute?

That is it for me this week.  Don't forget to fly on over to EIM and 2x2x2 to check out the challenges over there.  I hope all of you go out and beautify your world this week.  Keep Paris in your prayers and have a blessed and creative week.

Different Design This Week

I hope that this post finds everyone warm and doing well.   I have been busy working on the Christmas ornaments and have only got a few more to go.  So this weekend I really only had time to work on my inchie and nothing much more that I can show right now.  There is alot of longing, but little time for doing!  Why does it seem that we cant wait for the weekend to be away from work, and we spend the whole week at work wishing the days would go by fast but then we want time to slow down on the weekends?  I mean I know that is one of those questions that needs no answer, but still!

This week I had a hard time with the theme over at Every Inchie Monday but finally got it in an abstract kinda way.  The theme is Nymph.  I really had to stretch my thinking on this one.  I was not sure how to portray that in an inch of beads but finally I got into desperate abstract thinking and I ended up with this.

On this inchie I used 3 colors of Delicas.  Sadly the picture does not show how bright and shiny the orange beads are.  Can you figure out what this is & what it has to do with a Nymph?  Got it?  Need more time?  I will wait and give you more time.  Give up yet?. . . . . . OK I will tell you.  It is the top corner of the nymph's wing.  See it now?  Maybe tilt your head to the right. . . . then the left. . .  ahhh now you see it!  YAY!  LOL.  I did have to dig deep for this one as you can see, but I do like it.  Let me know what you think about it.  Also don't forget to fly on over to EIM and check out the rest of the great art there.

As I write this I am reminded that 6 years ago today, I lost my best friend and soul mate.  Robert; my late husband; was always supportive of my beading.  He always knew it calmed me down and gave me great comfort.  When I was so stressed out that I had issues with my PTSD he would tell me to go to our room and play or just hold my beads.  He so knew that would center me and calm me down as much as prayer does.  I think that he would be proud of what I am doing with my beads.

He always wanted to be able to have a passion like I have with beads.  But growing up he was always pushed away from being creative (by his father who felt that was not something that men did), which always saddens me, so my thought to everyone who is reading this is please don't ignore your creative voices.  Even if you have to stop what you are doing and take time to write down something or draw something for later on, then please do it.  If you have someone in your life who seems interested in something creative, please encourage them.  You never know where it will take them.  Have a blessed and creative week my friends.

Emotions Run Wild This Weekend

Thanks for stopping by the nest this week.  This weekend I had a 3 day weekend, and it was supposed to be drama-free and relaxing.  But just as all well laid plans, this one was not completely meant to be.  I seemed to sleep most of Friday.  Which is ok LOL.  Saturday started out great, My daughter started a new job, YAY!  Then things kinda went down from there.  My daughter told me that she felt like her car roof is leaking!  ARG!!!  Then my driver side window went down and never went back up!  ARG!!!  It has fallen off the track and I am going to have to go first thing in the morning to see if they can fix it.  Hopefully not for an arm and a leg!

But for now, I just want to look at pretty beads, how about you?  This week over at Every Inchie Monday the theme is Emotion, and this one surely gives out my emotions this weekend for sure.

For this inchie I used 3 colors of Delicas, sadly it is not to visible in the picture but the outlining and eyes are done in a silver-lined green, and the silver lined orange of the face is not that discernible.  But I still  like how it came out.  GRRRRRRR!  Kinda how I feel at the moment!  LOL

Also this week, over at 2x2x2, the theme is 9 patch.  I did not completely know what a 9 patch was.  I figured it has something to do with quilting, and it does.  Nine Patch quilts are the kind that have a 9 squared design in a single design square of a repetitive design in a quilt.  But, it is also a stretchable, repeatable images reduced to their smallest size.  Most commonly used in Android devices.

But for me this week I went the quilt route.  I designed my twinchie from a quilt pattern that I saw online.  I originally made this design using 4 colors of Delicas.  One of which was supposed to be blue.  But when it came time to make the piece I found that I did not have enough of the blue that I wanted to use so I grabbed another opaque color that I thought would work out just as well.  Green.  It did not dawn on me until I was about 4-5 rows in that the colors that I chose were the colors of the Green Bay Packers.  As a loyal Illinoisan I am not a big fan of the "cheese heads"  I may not have teams that win all the time (or sports that I follow, like football, but whatever)but still they are not cheese heads!  I am a self admitting "flat lander" and I am not ashamed!

But anyway, here is my Twinchie. Despite the colors I hope that you like it.

You may notice that I did this and the last twinchie out of order.  I skipped last times and did this one instead, but I did fix that last week, so the next time, (in 2 weeks)  I will be back on the right track with them.  This isn't the first time I have messed up and it wont be the last time, of that I am sure!  

I do hope that you have a blessed and creative week, and thank you for leaving me a comment, it means alot to me.  Also, if you are interested in joining in the fun over at EIM  or 2x2x2 just follow the links and check them out, we would love to have you join in.