Saturday, April 25, 2009

Renovating the Yard

Our oldest son Brian is marrying a wonderful girl named Alisha this coming Labor Day weekend. For the rehersal dinner they requested a cook out here and in our party barn. We didn't think that was fancy enough (- that's our excuse and we are sticking to it!) so we are renovating the back yard. Craig hopes to never have to mow a huge yard again and thinks gardening will be easier. We'll see about that! So he bought a baby back hoe and a dump truck for the project. He built some raised areas using landscape timbers and we are giving the yard tiers. This is a diagonal view of the yard. Using 720 red brick pavers we created a 17' across patio around the new fire ring so we have a great place to roast marshmallows now. I laid all the brick except the ones Craig had to cut to fill odd spaces. So here is an in progress view of the fire ring in the rear with Craig, my mini-greenhouses in the center (with the covers off so the seedlings get sun because it was in the 80s today), the new stone walking path and closest is the stone raised bed with azaleas. The board walk, deck and porch were projects a few years ago. The wood wall is further out and extend across almost half the area side to side. It's wonderful being married to a man who can do anything but boy are we tired!




Thursday, April 16, 2009

More Beads


I have had so much fun creating beads I had to share more. The leaves are finished here, and ready to string. Below are a few jewelry pieces created using my hand designed beads. This is going to be a wonderful class! I hope you like them too!

Thursday, April 9, 2009

String 'Em Up!

I strung some of the beads I've been working on. This batch of greens are complimented by some gold toned beads from my stash. Flat spacer beads cover the large holes in the round beads and an occasional green glass bead adds a little sparkle. This is a lightweight necklace and comfortable to wear! The red set includes a bracelet for a nice matched set. Very classy looking and I have just the outfit to wear with it!
These pressed polymer beads were fun to make and just popped out of my oven. I'm waiting for them to cool to add accent colors, but I think they are pretty cool already!
Okay, my favorites of the day: Marbled leaves. I began with polymer clay and have a little more to do to these puppies to finish them with pizzazz before stringing them, but I love the curl to the leaves. The curl held beautifully while baking too! They will look awesome on a finished piece. Who knew writing this on line class would be this much fun?


Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Bead Crazy

Well here is another fine mess of beads!
These were sooooo simple to make I feel guilty putting them in an on line class so I'll tell you what I did here to releve the guilt. Hmmm.... I wonder if chocolate guilt can go away that easily...
First I started with wood beads that had a 1/4" diameter hole. A big hole is essential for this! Then I painted the beads gold. Then I used a flat yarn and wrapped the beads keeping the yarn from twisting. This yarn has gaps, which is way cool at letting the gold wood bead show through but I did another bead using krinkled eyelash yarn and got a totally different bead look.

The bead above is the same concept, same wooden bead with a large hole. It had a walnut stain and I didn't even paint it! The hole is much tighter now, obviously from the bulky fibers but can still be strung and hung!

I'm headed back to the studio to play with more beads and maybe create some new jewelry!

Thursday, April 2, 2009

BEADS!

This week I'm working on making bead samples for an on line class where I will be teaching how to make an assortment of beads for various projects. Here's an "in progress" bead. It's a little bit of tweaked and fried Tyvek and still needs "embellished" but it's looking good so far. I love the textures!

Here's a gaggle of embellished felted beads. My next step with these puppies is to create a project using them. I'm seaching for just the "right thing" to compliment them.
I've got too many fun ideas swarming in my head again so I plan to spend the afternoon in the studio with the French doors open to warm weather, daffodils and singing birds. That should make everything work perfectly! Don't you just love Spring?!