So Close!

Last night I was determined to get as much done on my beaded collar as I could.  I wanted to finish up the fringe.  Oh the fringe that is driving me insane.  But I ran out of beads at this point.  I'm getting my order in to ArtBeads today so I can hopefully get the project done before next fall.  This project has taken me so long.  I guess trying to take on my first bead embroidered collar while trying to buy our first house was a bad move on my behalf.  I'll remember that the next time I'm buying a house ;-)

✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿

Do you want to hear a side story on the fringe and the pain it's causing me?  I guess it's a funny story, it wasn't so funny when it happened.  So I'm gonna tell the story anyway.

The other day I had the whole day off for a dentist appointment.  I work for the university, so I have to take a number of furlough days a year, I try to plan them around things like dentist appointments.  Well my appointment wasn't till later in the day so I thought I would get some work done on the collar.  Why not, I didn't really have anything else to do at the time.

So I get my lap desk out and snuggle under a blanket or two (hey, it's getting cold here in WI already) and started working.  Well to no surprise, both cats jumped up and made them selves comfortable on the blanket.  They always do this, and except for the occasional I wanna touch the shiny things moments, they aren't any trouble.  Well I guess Nacho was not content on being content.

I had just cut a new piece of thread, got it all tied in and started in my beadwork.  I had just put the beads for that row of fringe on the string when Nacho started eying up the string.  I noticed, and I cautioned her to behave.  Well Nacho doesn't do very well at listening to anyone.  She grabbed the string in her mouth and took off at mach speed towards the basement.  I truly didn't know she could move that fast.  She pulled the string out of the needle (that I was holding in my hand) and pulled the collar off my lap desk.  And with that action, the carefully counted out beads I had sitting on the desk went flying through the air almost like they were in slow motion.

Luckily, Nacho dropped the string half way to the basement, probably because of the horrible noise that came out of my mouth.  It probably scared her to the point she knew she better drop what she had and save her own life. 

Now I knew I would be close on my beads, I couldn't afford to loose just one.  So as I looked at our carpet that is perfect at camouflaging beads, I knew this wasn't going to be good.  With a huge sigh, I set me lap desk on the table and got down on my hands and knees picking up every bead I could find.  This continued for at least a half an hour because I was determined to find every bead that had fallen. 

Did I find them all?  Oh hell no.  You know how it is, you have something that is important and tiny and then you drop it, you'll never find it again.  Anyone who beads can contest to that.                   

Needless to say, that did not boost my excitement for fringe work.  It actually made my so much more frustrated, that I stopped working on the collar for the rest of the day and made a cuff.  And now Nacho is no longer allowed anywhere near me when I bead.   

And that is my beaded fringe story, or as I like to call it, the day I thought I might kill our cat.  :-)

Halloween Sale!

I'm having a sale!! I've decided to have a sale because I really haven't had one in quite some time and well it's almost Halloween and I love Halloween. So to celebrate my favorite holiday everything in my store is 15% off.  Check it out!

I'm also giving this Etsy on Sale site a try.  It's a new (at least it's new to me) site that allows you to program sales in your etsy store and it changes all the prices and adds a little message to each title if you want.  Which is nice because anyone who has a large amount of items in their stores know it's a pain to go through and change each additional item.  They also give you a sort of home page with all your sale items.  Each item links back to etsy. 

It was pretty easy to set up and plan a sale.  So we'll see how it goes and see if I would use it in the future.      

Featured!

Well I didn't get any more work done on my collar last night.  I know I'm never going to get it finished if  I keep procrastinating, but I had a good reason.  After J and I got home from work, we went straight to the grocery store and then by the time we got home it was 8:00.  Then we had a light dinner and well with all the stress and drama we've been having lately, we both passed out on the couch by 10:00.  J has practice tonight, so I'm hoping to get some time to sit down and get at least half of the fringe finished on the color.  Then I think I can gauge how many more beads I need to order to finish.

In other fun news.  This is the cuff that I'm dropping off tonight for the professional photo shoot.  A UW student contacted me and asked if she could use this cuff in her article about female artists in WI.  I was more then happy to help (and be featured), so I told her I'd drop it off on my way home.  I don't know when the magazine is out, so I'll keep you posted and make sure to put up links when it is.

I've never been featured in a magazine before, so this is a pretty cool thing.  Where have some of your work been featured, and do you remember the first time?

Day 5 - Started the Fringe

I've finally got most of the bead embroidery done and the leather attached and the edge on.  I like how it's coming along so far.  Last night I started on fringe.  Oh how I hate fringe.  I say this every time I work on a project with fringe.  I just have the hardest time ever with it.  I think these four strands of fringe took me an hour to complete because I took them apart about a billion times.  At first I was just playing around with different looks, but then when I decided on something, I just kept making mistakes and breaking beads (The one vintage beads I'm using have fairly small holes).  It was so annoying.  I finally just called it a night and set it aside.  I'll pick up work on it tonight.  Hopefully my fringe will cooperate for me tonight. 

As soon as I'm done with the fringe I need to get the spiral rope started.  I don't think I'm going to have enough beads to finish that up, so I also need to get a small order placed.  This project is taking me a lot longer then most projects I work on, but I know it will be worth it.  I'm already pretty in love with it and the pictures just don't do it justice.  I can't wait to get it done and get some good pictures of it.

Flowers!

I took a break last night from my beaded collar for ArtBeads.  I'm so close to being done with it, right now I'm just working on getting the edge stitch around the whole thing.  Can't wait.

But while I had some free time I sat down with my beads and some wire again to tackle more french flowers.  I am just working on getting some of the basic stitches/loops (I don't know what you call them) down.  I have made three flowers so far, the newest one being the one on the far right, the largest one.

It's so cute and I had so much fun making it.  I could definitely tell my first petal from my last petal.  I had improved pretty well from the first to the last, not that I'm even close to being an expert.  I have really no idea what I'm doing at times and the patterns I have for some really pretty, but complicated flowers, boggle my mind.  But hopefully I'll just keep practicing and keep improving my skills and I'll maybe be able to actually make a beaded flower that looks like a lily, instead of a generic looking flower.  

Day 3 - Sneak Peek

Last night I finished up all of the bead embroidery on my fall collar.  I'm pretty excited about this because, well I think anyway, that it looks so pretty already.

I'm currently embellishing it with some glass pressed leaf beads in fun fall colors.  I'm really happy with how it is turning out so far.  Now all I have to do is get it sewn onto a piece of leather, the spiral rope made for the necklace, and add the fringe.  Yeah, really nothing much less to do, yeah right.

But I'm really happy with it so far.  I'm just a little worried that I don't have enough seed beads to add the border and add fringe, guess I'll have to make another bead order, oh no.

I won't have time to work on it for the next couple of days because we're looking at another house tonight (for more house hunting news click here) and then J has a gig Thursday, but hopefully by Friday I'll be sewing the leather on.  Oh I can't wait.

❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁

In other super exciting news, a student from the UW contacted me today.  They would like to feature one of my cuffs in an article about female artists in WI.  That's super cool.  They're going to have a professional photographer take pictures of it, which is really exciting because well my photography is okay, but I would love to see what my stuff looks like after a professional gets their hand on it.  I'll update everyone with more news as I get it.   

Progress - Day 2

Here is a quick sneak peak at my first beaded collar type necklace.  After receiving my beads from ArtBeads, I quickly got to work.  I have the majority of the bead embroidery done, just a few more rows to go.  Then onto embellishing, sewing it onto the leather, and making a spiral rope to finish it.  Almost done (I wish).

But even though I have a ton of work to do on it still, I'm really happy with it.  I'm really having a lot of fun working in bead embroidery.  It's fun to use the beads to paint pictures.  I see plenty of bead embroidery in my future.

Stay tuned for more progress pictures in the upcoming days.  We have a busy week ahead of us, but hopefully I can make some time for beads.

So Excited!!!!

Looky what just came in the mail?  It's my beads for the ArtBeads fall blog partnership.  I can not wait to dive into these little guys.  This is what I was waiting for to finish up my bead embroidered collar. 

I got some really fun beads, including a bunch of pressed glass leaves and daggers.  And of course an absolutely beautiful leaf toggle clasp.  Love it.

I'm adding a few beads that I already had on hand, like the silver lined red triangles and squares.  And I think I might use some of the glass leaves I already have. 

I cannot wait to get started on this one.  In my head this is going to be beautiful, lets just hope when I start actually beading I still feel the same way.  Hopefully I'll have a little time tonight to work and I'll have some progress pictures tomorrow. 

Wordless Wednesday - Yarn Bombed Bus Stop, Madison, WI

The Stress of Being an Adult

So for some of you that haven't stopped by my other blog, I'll do a quick update.  J and I have decided to buy a house.  J just started his new job (today was his official 1st day after a week of training), and we decided it was finally time to just do it.  We have been looking for about a month now and boy is it stressful.  Well I guess not necessarily stressful, just exhausting.  We have looked at more houses then I want to think about.  But we think we have found one that suits us and we hope to look at it again this coming weekend and even possibly put an offer in on it.  So then it's on to the next headache of buying a house, but it will be all worth it in the end.  ☺

In bead news, I have actually found some time to sit down and work on beads.  I took last Friday off as a personal day and all I did was bead (and some cleaning, but not too much).  I worked a little more on the beaded collar I started, but I have to wait for the rest of the beads to finish that.

I also tried something that I had always wanted to try, French Flowers.  I love the way French Flowers look.  They are so delicate and beautiful.  I have a few books on them, but have never actually sat down and tried to make one.  Well this month's Bead and Button had an article with a bracelet made with small beaded flowers, so I decided I might as well try.

I tried making the flowers in the B&B article first.  They were a little bit more difficult then I had expected, but once I got the hang of them, they weren't too bad.  Here are my first two.  The one on the right is my first one and the one on the left is my second one.  I really like them.  I have some ideas for Christmas decorations using these, but now I just have to sit down and make a billion more, okay maybe not a billion, but close to it.

I also started on a lily.  I have accomplished one petal so far.  The lily seems to be a little bit more difficult for me, but I am determined to finish one.  I'll take some pictures when I have more then one petal made.  ☺