Running behind with a gecko.

Sorry I am posting late this week.  Work has been a bear and kinda worn me out.  I have had trouble catching up with my bead work.  I did finish a challenge over at Seedbeadsters.  Where the challenge is bead tubes.  I decided to make 2 of the tubes and incorporate them into my daughters gift.  But after trying to work them in it did not work out.  But I do love them and will prolly make more.  Check this out.

One of these is zipped up as a tube and the other is what it looks like flat.

I have gotten a bit more work done on the amulet bag for my daughter but I have not taken pictures yet.  I will make you wait to see that, lol.

Over at Every Inchie Monday the theme was gecko.  I decided on the "typical" gecko pose.  I am not really happy with the look I got because of the background color but here it is.  Maybe I should have said that he is camouflaged, haha.  Anyways, here it is.

Can you see him?  Yea I know it is kinda hard to see but still.  Hey, thanks for stopping by and don't forget to fly by EIM and check out the rest of the geckos.  Have a blessed and creative week.

Knitting an Inchie and an Amulet Surprise.

I would like to wish everyone a belated Happy Easter.  He is Risen!

This week over at Every Inchie Monday the theme is "Knitting"  Well knitting is not my thing.  I just shared with another inchie ninja about my first and only time knitting.  My daughter tried to teach it to me.  We worked on it for about 10 minutes or so and she had a lovely springy 7 inch row of stitches.  I on the other hand, had a tightly woven 2 inch row that was prolly bulletproof!

One thing that this theme had reminded me of was something that I actually bought as a teenager from a garage sale.  It was one of those little quarter machine plastic dolls and someone had knitted a little dress on it. The doll was prolly 1.5 inches long and the stitches were so tiny, I had that little thing for the longest time.  I don't know what ever happened to it but I loved it.  The thought that someone could stitch something that tiny just made me in love with all things tiny, still to this day; can't you tell? 

Originally I was going to bead a ball of yarn with needles in it.  But just before I started I decided to go a different route.  I thought about all of those beautifully ugly Christmas sweaters.  So that was what I went with.  Hope you like it.  It has 8 colors of Delicas in it and I don't think I would wear it!

 Dontcha just love it!  LOL. 

Also this week I decided to start to make something for my daughter.  In a month she will be graduating from college!!!  FROM COLLEGE!  Oh my gosh my baby girl is growing up.  Where has the time gone. 

My daughter is not one to wear jewelry, besides her studs and gauges so making her jewelry is not an option.  But, instead I have decided to make her an amulet bag.  I got the idea from our Egypt inchie that we did a few weeks ago.  My daughter loves everything Egypt.  Ever since she was little all she ever loved was Egypt.  The pharaohs, the pyramids, the history.  Egypt has it all. 

So I went to work and thought about some of the icons of Egypt.  I thought about the pyramids and camels, Nefertiti and King Tut, scarabs and cats.  But in the end I went with the Eye of Ra and the Eye of Horus on one side of the amulet and on the other side was King Tuts Death mask. 

What do you think?  I have a lot of work to do with it yet, I need to attach the two sides, add the necklace and the fringe.  But I am having to do it when she is not around or when she is too busy to pay attention to what I am doing, so hopefully I can get the rest of it done before she graduates!  Wish me luck on that one.  

Have a blessed and creative week and don't forget to fly on over to EIM and check out the rest of the knitting inchies.

Oak Inchie

Thanks for stopping by!  I know the title is not exciting, LOL.  Sometimes it is hard to think of something cool to title the blog.  But I could lame it on the fact that I have a horrible cold right now.  Yea, that is the reason,  ;)

This week's theme over at Every Inchie Monday is Oak and that makes me breathless, teary-eyed and itchy!  Yerp, I am allergic to trees and it is that time of the year, the trees are blooming.  Mostly I am allergic to American Elm trees.  ut anything that blooms will cause me to be miserable!  So without further ado here is the only tree that I can not kill and it wont kill me.  LOL

I copied it after a necklace that I made for a customer last Christmas.  This inchie uses 2 colors of Delicas and I really like how it came out.  Reminds me of a lot of trees that are around here. All craggily and all over the place. 

Thanks for stopping by, I truly appreciate it.  Don't forget to fly on over to EIM and check out the rest of the Oak trees. 

Lasso up an inch of beadwork.

This week I really only had time to start a new project from a Spring and Summer competition over at the Facebook group Beadwork Mentoring.   The rules are to pick a category that they have specified and then design something original.  I was so excited when I finally got the inspiration, designed the pattern and got to start it on the 15th!  The competition goes until May so if you want to join in then fly on over there and check it out!

Now, over at Every Inchie Monday the theme this week is "lasso".  I really had a hard time thinking of something that I could do in beads.  Then I thought about my favorite super hero growing up. Wonder Woman!  I mean she had it all, the cool boots, the invisible jet, the cape and of course the lasso!  How cool is this!

She wore the lasso even in the water!  Gotta love that woman! 

So for my inchie I just had no choice but to pay homage to Wonder Woman.  Hope you like it. 

Don't forget to fly on over to EIM and check out the other artists lasso's. 

Hitting the Nail on the Head

This week I finally got a bracelet finished that I have been working on for the longest time.  Almost felt like FOREVER!  What do you think?

  This is a pattern of mine, Lone Tree Click here to go to my Etsy store to see it and many of my patterns.  I have to say that I really adore the colors in this.  I added a 3D triangle and Peyote tube as a toggle.  I am not too happy with the bar part of the toggle but I might get to like it.  This pattern has 9 colors of Delicas in it and, even though I complained about it, I loved making this bracelet.  I was just not able to bead it as much as I wanted to. 

I also finished the monthly challenge over at the Seedbeadersters page, Netted Surround Bezel.  I have these big beveled 1.5 inch plastic "crystal" beads.  I love how big they look and wanted to have one as a pendant.  So this is what I came up with.

I used 11/0 Purple Iris Czech glass seed beads, that I bought from eebeads.  By the way, they are having a 60% off going out of business sale.  Awesome prices!  I really like how this came out.  I have never been successful at making a nettted bezel before.  The last one I made was too loose and the cabochon on the inside just kinda rolls around in it lol.



Also over at Every Inchie Monday the theme this week is Nail.  In the past I used a nail head for an inchie so I decided to go to something that I am getting well versed in.  Finger nail polish.  My daughter loves, and I mean LOVES nail polish.  Kinda like how I love beads! 

So I see her painting her nails often.  Which is something that I have never been good at.  I am not really patient enough to paint my nails.  But I am patient enough to bead two nail polish bottles!

For this inchie I used 5 colors of delicas.  I love the blue one most, the color is  really creamy, like nail polish should be.  Hope you like it.

Don't forget to fly on over to EIM and check out all the great artwork and have a blessed and creative week.

Egyptian Inchie and a New-Old necklace

I hope that everyone had a great week. Last week I missed the whole work week due to weather and family appointments.  We got about 3 inches of snow and about 1/2 inch of ice and it seemed to stop the whole state!  I did have a lot of time to do bead work but ended up doing mostly design work instead.  I did work on a bracelet a bit, since later this week I will be starting a new challenge over at one of the Facebook bead groups, Beadwork Mentoring.  I can't wait for the challenge to start since I have the pattern designed and ready! 

I have this necklace that I made a few years ago from beads that were sent to me as part of a bead soup challenge, a bead soup challenge is where you have been given/bought a certain group of beads that you then have to add beads to to make something beady from.  I was given some turquoise colored glass beads, gold beads and 3 2.5' peyote tubes, some metal spacers and some 6/0 seeds.  Back then I added some beads and made a bracelet.  But I was not happy with how it came out, it felt like I did not do justice to the beads I was given.

The bead soup I was given 

The bracelet I made

 I ended up taking the bracelet apart about six months later and turning it into a 24" necklace which I never took picture of, because it also looked bad.  I know many of us hate what we make and we are our worst critics, but I really hated wearing the necklace because I just felt like I dropped the ball on the design of it. 

The other day I saw a 100" pearl necklace and it gave me such great idea. I was gonna take that necklace apart and rework it with some of my newer beads and make a 100" necklace!  From the bead soup necklace I used the 2.5" peyote tubes and the spacers.  The rest of the beads will be reused for something else very soon.  To that I added 4mm silver round beads, calsilica oval beads, along with small calsilica oval tube beads. Black 5mm cube beads, O bead, quad beads, 4mm glass beads, and diablo beads. 

The necklace turned out being 96.5" long, (I was shooting for 100, but i will take it lol) I added a magnetic clasp to help with wrapping the necklace.I really REALLY love this now, I feel like I did right by the beads.  What do you think?

wrapped 3 times

as a bracelet

 Also this week over at Every Inchie Monday the theme is Egyptian.  My daughter love anything Egyptian.  So I am used to seeing shows about Ancient Egypt and the pyramids.  One thing I do like about Ancient Egypt is all of the jewelry and the colors of jewelry that they achieved.  So for my inchie I decided to make an Egyptian Motif using 4 main colors of Ancient Egypt.  Red, orange, light blue and teal.  I really love these colors, don't you?

Hope you enjoy this next week.  We are supposed to be in the 50's and 60's!  Thanks also to everyone who has been flying in and leaving messages on my blog, it really means alot to me, thanks again. 

Don't forget to fly on over to EIM and check out all the rest of the artwork from the other inchie ninjas!

Peace, Love and Family

Hello everyone, it is Monday again.  It has been a rainy weekend here.  Just glad that the rain did not freeze.  For those who are having the bad weather, I feel for you and hope that you are all safe. 

This week over at Every Inchie Monday the theme is Love.  A great theme!  So many ways to interpret that theme.  But to go along with that theme, I also ad a great weekend; with family that I do not get to hang out with.  Two of my brothers. 

My brothers came down from Illinois to get some things from my Mom's house.  I got to hang with them and got to talk to them a bit.  It was a super short visit but it was soul filling.  There are some health issues going on with one of my brothers and it is kinda scary.  That said, I stand in my faith in God that my brother will be ok.  I feel a peace on me about this, which is really awesome since my inchie this week is a peace symbol. 

What some of the newer inchie ninjas might not know is that when I get the years inchie list I design the whole year right then, within the last weeks of the current year and the first weeks of the new year.  Which means that I designed this weeks inchie prolly around Christmas time, 2014.  Which to me also means that God is in control of my design ideas and knew that I would need this peace symbol right now, at this time. 

I do feel at peace about my brother and his health right now.  I know that no matter what happens God is in control.  And His love is absolute and full.  Which also gives me peace.  Love means family, family means love.

I was so happy to spend time with the guys, it was great to talk about our lives, our kids and the things that have happened to us and our parents.  (Note;  one brother is related to me by a shared Mother, one brother is related to me by a shared Father, but as close as they are you would think that they were always brothers!  Again, family is what you make it and that makes it love.) 

I hope that this all made sense to everyone.  I am just very emotional since in a few hours my brothers will be making the 750 mile trek back to Illinois, and I wont be able to see them again until the Summer when I get to go up there myself and I get to see them, my other siblings and my Mom. 

Here is my inchie, as I said it is a peace sign.  I used 2 colors, one is a matte iris rainbow bead and the other one is a silver lined red bead.  I hope that you like it.

Don't forget to fly on over to EIM and check out all the great artwork over there.  Also, have a blessed and Love filled week.