LOVE Orange!

For those of you who know me, you know I love orange.  This bracelet came about because I had this cute little orange kitty face and wanted to use it.  Then I decided some fun wire wrapping and texturing would be something new and different.  I never realized how many

orange beads I had.  :D

Area 51

I had far too much fun making Area 51 earrings.  :)  I hope I don't suddenly disappear!  :D

Embossing Fun!

One of my clay pals was destashing and had a ton of embossing powders.  Naturally, I just HAD to have them. :D  Then I hadda go buy an embossing gun as my heat gun blew the powder into the next zip code.  Sigh.  But, good old Amazon.com had a super one called ZAP!  It's great!  Has a little blowing power but at least I didn't have to go outside to find the powder.  It stay all nicely centered all over our stove.  Never mind.  Don't ask.

Ok, then another clay pal sent me some different powders that she got from some mysterious source that has long since ridden off into the sunset.  But...one of the envelopes was called..*southwest*.  Well, I LOVE the southwest and turquoise and carnelian and coral and silver and stuff.  So, I decided some fun beads were in my future.

Out came the clay and the new ZAP! and into the kitchen I toddled.  Hours later I had these cool beads and a lovely coating of embossing powder on the stove.  No.  It wasn't cooked.  ;)

In my stash I found these really cool faceted carnelian stones.  And I got out one of my wire books and made these curly coiled beads.  I had FUN!  Do you know there is about 2000 yards of wire in those beads?  Man, Parawire will be owned by me shortly.

Anyway, here is the end result of my efforts.  I love it!  ;D

Rainy Summer Morning

SOS having her morning relaxation.

A New Fun Thing

This is something I have never made before.  What do you all think?  Is there a market for them?  I mean, do lots of people wear shawls and scarves?

This one is for my friend.  We wear shawls here sometimes and this was fun to make but I can't decide if they'd sell.  Chime in everybody!  :D

Seeing Stars

So, I got all these cool enameled stars and wanted to make all kinds of fun things.  I LOVE stars!  So, here's a pix of the *before*:

and the *after*:

Stellar, don'tcha think?  :D

Serendipity

A few years ago my clay friend Ginger gave me a round ceramic box to cover.  I made cool leaves and flowers that look like they had melted on the leaves.  ;( Being far too lazy to *do* anything about the melted flowers, I left them until a couple weeks ago when I was washing a few layers of cat fur off the top.  It came right off the ceramic box and a flower broke.  Yay!

So, I took all the melted flowers off and threw them away and left the leaves, which I must say, were very cool.  I put the leaves on my work table then decided to make some fun sea glass.  I got my glass all done and no matter what I thought of... it sounded ugly. Then, I looked at the leaves, and I looked at my faux sea glass, and POOF!  Instant match!  This is the result:

I was SOO happy!  The *rope* is wire with seed beads coiled around it and attached to a fun vine-looking wire wrap that I thought would look good with the leaves.  A wire wrapped clasp and earrings and it's all done.  :D

Holy Crow..It's Been TWO Months!

Yikes,  Two months since I was here.  I wonder if I have and friends left?

My friend Lee makes dichroic glass.  She makes other stuff, too, but her dichroic is just great!  So, I wanted to tell you about her shop.  I've purchased several pieces for bead embroidery and they are beautiful. In the picture below, you will see a necklace I made.  Lee kindly gave me that cab and I thought it was so cool that she ought to have it to wear as an advertisement for her beautiful glass.  So I made this necklace and sent it back to her.  She's in the Chicago area.

So, it came out nice, didn't it?  Maybe I should ask for it back?  No?  Ok, she gets to keep it.  :D  Isn't that brick pattern cool, tho?  LOVE those colors!

So, please go visit Lee's Etsy shops.  Let's see if I can do this so the links are clickable:
www.etsy.com/shop/beadsbuttonsandmore
www.etsy.com/shop/beadsbuttonsdichroic
Please do pass on Lee's name to anyone who loves dichroic.  Happy Beading!  Happy Claying!  Happy everything!
xoxoxo

Cloudy Days and Frankencacti

It's a beautiful cloudy/rainy day.  This is a good picture from our living room window.

And speaking of cacti...

we bought this little cactus when it was a small little thing about 3 inches tall.  Look, it has gone insane.  What couldn't it just be a normal cactus?  NOOOO.

And this one?  Brian got this one when it was a baby, too.  Maybe 4 inches tall? He named her Sally.  She's 25 years old and look at her since he brought her home from his office.  She stayed about 7 inches tall in his office.  We put her on the lanai and now she's over 3 feet!  Yikes!  And she has red hair.  :)  When the sun hits it, the spines glow all red and ethereal.  We have cacti issues.  ;D

Sunshine Allie

Allie just LOVES the sunshine.  Can you imagine laying in the Hawaiian sun in a fur coat?  Yikes.

Pets

Most people have normal pets, yanno?  I have Spawn of Satan and The Bruce.  I do NOT want to know what that says about me.  Sigh....................

So, I was in the kitchen sanding beads when I dropped one.  Naturally, it rolled in between the fridge and the pantry wall, a space of about 5 mms.  Swell.

Lucky I have Icabod Crane fingers.  Not so lucky..I put on my glasses and got out my baby Ott Lite.  Holy sh*t!!  There were cobwebs big enough to swing on in there.  I get palpitations from the horror of it all and run for the vacuum.  Wine.  I need wine.  And I find not one but TWO beads!  We will NOT discuss where the other bead belongs.  :D

So, after frantically scrubbing down the kitchen, I take my maniac cleaning to the living room. One look at The Bruce's perch tells me he and Bhaltair are in dire need of a bath.  I did not used to be a slob.  Really.

Now, most of you know The Bruce.  He's a Wee Highland Cow who hails from bonny Scotland.  He's also a MAJOR pill.  His cousin Bhaltair is a sweetie.

Anyway, I inform the wee cows it's bath time.  Bhaltair says ok and The Bruce raises holy hell.  Thankfully, I am LOTS bigger than both of them so I cart them off to the bath... aka the kitchen sink.

I figure I'll wash this pretty bowl while I'm bathing wee cows.  The Bruce puts up such a fuss that I must resort to Chinese water torture.

You will notice the water runs only upon The Bruce.  Bhaltair is laughing.  :D  Anyway, The Bruce is so awful that I promise him some wine later if he'll stop whining.  He doesn't believe me but submits to drying when I told them to just pretend they were laying on the beach.  Apparently one can fool a wee cow with an unlit candle.  :D

When his wine was not instantly forthcoming, The Bruce got all huffy, went to the cupboard where he keeps his accoutrements, and proceeded to tell me he's leaving home.  I said Byebye!  and went to hold open the front door.  Isn't he cute in his plaid and tam with his very own little suitcase?  It's the one he brought when he emigrated from Scotland.

The poor Bruce.  He is all verklempt that I so willingly held the door open for him to leave.  If ONLY he'd take SOS with him!!!  I'd PAY him!!!  So, he remembers that I promised him wine.  He waits.  I wish I could say... patiently.

So. I crack open some yummy pinot grigio and he lets me have some, too.  :)

Check out that big smile.  One happy Wee Cow.  And BTW, methinks his Scottish mom is making a Wee Cow Tutorial soon!  I'll keep you posted.  Nothing cuter than The Bruce, yanno.

So, all the trauma is over.  The Bruce is clean.  Bhaltair is clean.  My house is clean.  Wine is drunk.  All is right with the world.  And The Bruce is back in his regular spot. 

If only Spawn of Satan were so easy.  Sigh..................

What To Do When Your Muse Leaves

Ok, the ever-wonderful Carolyn Good has found the answer to this question!!  You know how you just wanna go play with your clay but you have no *oomph* and nothing in mind to make but you just wanna do SOMETHING?  Well, Carolyn's Color System toot [how the Hunnibunni spells it  :D] is the PERFECT answer!

I bought her toot a while ago and had some (ok, I admit it) problems grasping the idea.  I can almost remember when I was smart.  Can't think when I started getting dumber than rocks.  :(  But, I digress....

Anyway, one day I decided I would make color mixes.  Yep... I have bought many and tried many and the mere thought of yet another color mixing toot made my Last Remaining Brain Cell start quivering in fear.  But, I bravely got out all my clay.  See mess below:

Undaunted, I dove in.  Now, a collective "AWWWWW, POOR Carolyn" here, if you please.  The long-suffering woman had to put up with frantic emails because my LRBC just couldn't *get* it.  Then, it dawned and the light shone brightly.  My LRBC was happy.  I figured it out then wondered how it could have seemed like a hard thing.  Jeez.  There is no help for me, yanno?  And poor Carolyn.  Her halo is shiny!  Not once did she tell me to take the proverbial hike.  Not a single time did she tell me to take a long walk off a short pier.  What a girl!

So, for the first time I had a roaring good time making new colors.  It was just the perfect thing to do when I wanted to make something but didn't have anything in mind.  I got to play with my clay, make gorgeous color combinations and not have to produce a finished product to sell.  Therapy for clayers.  :D

So, here are some of the fun things I made with my new colors!

And check out those fun tube beads.  Carolyn strikes again!  :)  These are from her texture toot.  So, go visit her blog at www.2goodclaymates.blogspot.com  I also got her brand new bargello toot but haven't got to play with it yet.

I LOVE this color system.  You can make all these fabulous colors and it just really rejuvenates the old brain-dead muse.  Even my LRBC is feeling perkier!  :D

Fun Stuff

Hi Everybody!  Haven't seen you guys in a while.  Thanks for stopping by! :D

I need some suggestions, ok?  I got Christi Friesen's new Flourish book and now have leaves on the brain.  So, I made these leaves last night and have ZERO idea of what to do with them.  They are about 2 1/2 inches at their widest.  I guess they should go on a box?  Help!

And then I got Sherry Kellberg's toot on how to make faux lamp work glass.  Now, this is a really fun toot!  :D  I made these blue and green mokume gane beads then spent 3 days putting on dots of liquid clay.

As you can see, on the last curing, the liquid clay started to singe.  Now...my oven stayed at 275 according to the thermometer.  This is the very first time ever that I had something burn.  Oddly, all these beads were on the same bead rack.  Check out this bead here:

This bead was right next to the barrel above.  How did just one bead get so dark?  But wanna know the coolest thing?  Even this bead is beautiful.  Instead of just being burned, the singed part is a root beer color with red highlights.  It looks like dark amber and is really pretty.

So, because the singeing made such pretty gold sparkly colors, I made this bracelet.

And, when I'm not torching faux glass beads, I am making color combinations from Carolyn Good's Fabulous Color System.  But that's for another blog soon! :D

Upon Being Old :(

Well, yesterday was my birthday and a fun time was had by all.  So, here's the *official* picture of Moe At 66.  YIKES!

SOS

SOS gives B the Baleful Stare.  :)

Happy 2013!

Hi Everybody!

I hope everyone has a wonderful new year.  This last one was grim so this one's gotta be better, right?  :)

Here's my contribution to a fun new year!

I gotta remember to NEVER use this background again.  Yucko.  :D