September page and other activities

Hello everyone, it is a nice day here in northern CA. Tomorrow I think we will be going for a farm trail tour and seeing some farms in Sonoma County. Should be fun. http://www.farmtrails.org/.

I joined the beaded face swap sponsored by Carol Strand-Siebers, http://www.sassyartgoddess.com/, I have posted my pin. The picture does not do it justice. One project I finished this month. I also had an opportunity to go to an open house at a local airport. They had an exhibit on raptors. I got some great close up shots of a hawk and a kestril. I have posted those too. Foster #3 has been adopted, KoKo. I found a shot of her, my dog (Disco) and myself taking their picture I sort of liked, so I posted that too.

Now on to the real reason for this post. I worked on my September page and am either blocked, or it is done as it is and needs mounting work and cutting off some loose threads I see are still on the piece. I have hardly any beading. I really like the material I selected and I guess I do not want to cover it up. Also, the material is so dark, beading on it does not seem to work too well, or at least with the beads I want to use. I still can't quite get the hand of putting material on the pellon I bead on. Or at least finding a process I like well enough. I more or less sew it on, but I don't want the thread to show. So this page I sewed from the back (I am using very thick pellon) and pulled the piece off center a bit. I don't know if you can tell from the picture. The page is called Dragonfly of Autumn (just came up with that and it sounds kind of cool so I will keep it, even though no autumn colors in my page!) It has a dragonfly button on it. Which probably needs some beads around it, but it is what it is for now. I will be moving on to October. October's page may be something different again. I have and idea that has been talking to me for awhile, new color scheme among other things, that I want to explore. So I think that will be my path this month. Stay tuned, I will probably post pictures as I go. No Flickr pictures yet, though. I don't like my September page well enough yet to post it there.

Happy Beading everyone until I post again.

My pictures:

My bead face brooch, Live Your Dreams, as I said, the picture does not do it justice:

September page:

Self portrait with dogs:

Updates

I still have not started my September page, but I have almost finished my face brooch for the swap. I have to get it in the mail by Monday to hopefully get it where it needs to be on time. I will post it when it is done.

I have done other bead projects this month too, so it has been a good beading month even if no page yet. It will not be a completely covered page. I am going to bead on material and leave some of it open.

Updates

I had a great trip to a local quilt and bead store last week end. I wanted to get material to go with the beads I had picked out for my revised September page and got some beautiful material. Now I wish my page was bigger so I could use a whole pattern. But I have a general idea of what I want to do. I have been beading on other projects and knitting this week, so bead journal page yet. I also joined the face brooch swap and need to get that done too. I have been planning that in my mind. We also have someone coming to look at foster dog #3 this afternoon. One of those happy sad things, I hate to see KoKo go, but if it is a good home...

Have a great rest of the weekend everyone. Nancy

Blogging

I am getting enthralled in blogging land today, so much excellent work out there, one page leads to another, than another, and so on. I am not sure I can put this into words, but when I see people without a dog when they are walking I always think they need one. I have been thinking this along the same lies for awhile about art/crafting/beading/creativity, but looking at blogs and websites today got me thinking it again, everyone has creative instincts and in their own way I wish those people that think they are not creative, knew that they are. I guess my thought is, people should be creating! Well, not everyone, I know that it is not for everyone and there has to be buyers for those of us that sell our work and those that make their living that way but the urge to create I think is in all of use, just comes out differently in some people. I can remember when I was younger making doll clothes for my Twiggy doll or my art classes I took in high school. My family all are creative, my mother has been making our Christmas gifts for years. I have an aunt that is an artist, she did not do that for a living. But I do have a cousin that does machine embroidery for a living (sports jackets and things like that,) that's a big deal in some parts of the country. I have a brother that could basically build a house if he wanted to. And on. And lucky for me since I like beading so much, I have always been a big jewelry person. In grammar school, I remember wearing rings on each finger!

Now I better get back to my housework and a potential shopping trip, or at the very least, beading. And as always, do I wish this program had spell check! I am too lazy to cut and paste into Word and do it that way.

Have a great day!

Artful Blogging + September page

Well, leave it to Somerset Studio to start a magazine on art blogging, called Artful Blogging. And it is great, wonderful graphics, a great source of information. And hints about blogging. I never thought of this, but of course there is blogging etiquette! Looks like it will be coming out 4 times a year and can be subscribed to. Looks like the first quarterly subscrption issue begins in February 2008. The cost is $59.95 for a year.

On to my September page, I think I have changed plans for this month. I had one page all lined out in my mind, got the beads and am now inspired to do something almost totally different. Although the colors appear to be close, some new ones. I used to belong to a bead of the month club. Which was great, just got to be too expensive since I was still buying beads elsewhere. Anyway, I found a full month I had kept together and am thinking on using that for my September page and may stick a face in, or at least some larger focal beads.

I just looked at one of my earlier posts that listed all of my ideas on my pages at that point. I am so glad I wrote them down. So if I go with my idea above for September, I will be taking two off of my list of page ideas, new colors and more faces. And thanks to Beadbabe49 for reinspiring me about using faces. Grace, you are correct, I had a great time doing my last page. It evolved as I went along. I changed it many times. I kept putting different beads in the lower right corner and finally ended up with what is there now.

I hope to keep up with the blog every few days this month and even post more pictures. As I mentioned, the magazine is very inspirational.

Flowers and Faces, The Three Graces

It has been so long since I posted, almost a month. I can not believe it. I am nearly done with my August page, but needed a break. I got my break and got inspiration from two recent classes I took. One was Etruscan Treasure by Marcia Decoster (picture in this posting and link to her website to the right.) The other was Oothecal Bead by Rachel Nelson-Smith. (Rachel's link will be added to my list too.) It was wonderful to switch to beadweaving. I will post my necklace with my Oothecal beads when done. One of the things I did in August was to go through some of my bead and other magazines and rip out projects I liked or thought I would do and inspirational pictures of projects, for the color or an idea it gave me. That was fun, relaxing and inspirational. Gave me the incentive to work on something else too along with the classes. I ordered beads for one of the projects and am halfway through with it. That picture I have posted. It was a project I saw in Step by Step Beads from the July-August 2006 issue. I don't recall being stuck by it last year, but this year, wow! Plus I used a color I have been trying to get more accustomed to and that is lime green. You can order kits or the components (which is what I did, I had to have my usual turquoise/blue colors) at www.twistedsistahbeads.com. I am also posting pictures of my August page in progress, which I have named, Flowers and Faces, The Three Graces, which will be obvious once you see it. This is a theme(s) I like (flowers, faces and goddesses) which repeats in my work. I also happen to have a fountain in my back yard that is the Three Graces. Never thought I would like a naked fountain, but I do!

Finally, we are on foster German Shepherd #3. Her name is KoKo. I am posting her picture too and also #1 (my Daisy girl) and #2 Lucie. Daisy was with us 4 months, very hard to say good bye to her. Her adopters are great people and are okay if I check back with them and even sent pictures of how well she is doing. I also had to change my picture on my profile as it had Daisy in it. Now it is a flower.

We had Lucie a week, so did not get too attached to her. She was an 11 month old puppy and I called her the devil dog upon occasion. KoKo is such a sweetheart, it seems as if she was used for breeding a lot and is still very shy. But she is coming around!

One final comment on my August page, I may be done. There are some open spots I planned to fill in, but may leave them open. We will see. Still no final plan on how I will mount my pages. Anyway, thanks for stopping by and happy beading, Nancy. P.S. I will comment on this in the main blog, but oh my goodness, such wonderful work this past month! I checked each entry, just did not blog on them. I did not see anything I did not like. Talk about inspirational!

Here are the pictures:

Etruscan Treasure


Leslie Pope bracelet

#1

#2
#3
#4 and possibly done (?)
Close ups
Daisy

Lucie above, and KoKo below.