home page

What’s that page you went to when you clicked the link to get here??? That’s my new home page! I now feel like an official web page and not just a really fancy blog. I have an announcement box that I will fill with exciting information as it comes in. I’ve also done some rewording of the About page, and am currently working in the Gallery. We did some organization of all the different bouquets and I’m about half way done with uploading new pictures of everything. It’s definitely a process, and a process that I hope to finish by the end of the weekend.

Oceanic 6?

I saw a commericial this week talking about the Oceanic 6…the 6 surviors that get off the island and become famous. I could have sworn the commercial said they’d get off this week!  Seems a bit early but anything is possible in this show.  We know Jack, Kate, and Hurley get off…so who are the other 3?  any guesses?  I’m thinking Ben b/c for some reason I think he was the guy in the casket.  The other two I’m torn about.  Also I’ve been told that when Hurley looked into Jacob’s cabin it was Jack/Claire’s father he saw.  My eyes weren’t that fast, but I’ve heard its true.  Tonights episode is going to fly by, I can feel it b/c I’m already anxious for next weeks!

what are you doing this weekend?

So far this week has been filled with more crazy weather. Yesterday was dense fog all day long, it was like living in a video game. The high was around 50 so all that snow we got is mostly gone. Today the fog isn’t as bad, and the temps are lower and dropping. It’s supposed to rain, sleet, and then snow some more this week. And then by the weekend get warm again. Right now the prediction is sun on Saturday which after a week like this will put anyone in the mood for spring! And where there is spring there are flowers, and if you go to the Bead Parlor this Saturday the 9th I’ll be teaching a class on how to make these sunny, cheery, bright flowers that will bring spring back in any room. haha, some sales pitch huh!

Really though I will be at the Bead Parlor in Bloomington this weekend teaching this class. Call this week and sign up! Also good to know, Shelley is having a major bead sale, so all the more reason to stop in.

Spring is definitely starting to creep it’s way into my thoughts. I’ve been staying very busy and really haven’t noticed the winter blues, but knowing IL weather in Feb, we could still have a lot more winter to go. That doesn’t stop big plans for yard work from creeping in. I enjoy gardening and working in the yard almost as much as beading flowers. We have some pretty big landscaping plans we’ve been talking about all winter. And after my trip home this weekend I’ve been really thinking about the veggie garden. Last year wasn’t very successful, but I really wasn’t as into it as I should have been. This year I’m working on a plan. I’m thinking lots of different veggies…but keeping the tomatoes, peppers, possibly onions/garlic, near the house. And putting the squashes out in back in the real garden. They need lots of room anyway. These plans along with the house plans that are starting to creep in, plus all my bead goals this year…I’m bordering on overloaded. BUT thats ok right now. I know something will probably fall thru the cracks, but I’m going to try the balancing act and see how long I can keep it all going.

freaky weather

Today is the weirdest, freakiest weather I have ever encountered.  We got home from Chicago around 430 and were unloading the car and discussing whether we were hearing thunder or trucks on the road.  5 minutes later we look outside and it had started to snow.  10 minutes later we leave to go to a Super Bowl party and its snowing very hard, the roads are already covered.  We get down the road and its starts lightening out and booming thunder.  We call the party to see how the weather is there (its kinda out in the boonies…not good roads to get stuck on).  We go farther down the road hoping it’ll get better…more lighting, some sliding, thunder, more thunder, and we can’t see the car in front of us.  We turn around and drive home.  We were only what would normally take 5 minutes away, it took us over 10 min to get home from there.  No more than 15mph, crawling, and still can’t see a thing.  It’s now an hour later, we’re home with the game on, cable is going in and out, there’s at least 2 inches more on the ground and its just slowing down.
It has been a weekend of snowy weather.  Friday we got 8-10 inches of snow, enough to call off work.  It was wonderful, like a trip back in time to when I was a kid watchin the news for school closings.  We still had to wait until mid day to leave for Chicago to give them time to get the roads cleaned up.  I spent the time working on pictures for the website.  Tonight I’m going to download my camera and see how they turned out.  The weekend itself was fun and went by in a blur.  We got to see some friends that we don’t see very often.  It was nice to catch up and see whats new.  Also saw both families which is always fun.  Now we’re home and that’s a great feeling…despite some weird freaky weather.

Lost returns

Yes I admit it…I’m a big fan of Lost and I’m super excited that tonight is the first night in over 6 months that it will be on TV. Although it will not be the full effect watching it by myself, I will very much miss the wine and M and mine’s quick predictions of what will happen next during commercial breaks. But I’ll take what I can get and tonight is last season’s season finale. A two hour event on ABC, I think it starts at 7 central time. I’ve been trying to remember all the cliff hangers…is Kate preggers? will they kill off Juliet? how about Jin..I believe he got caught drinkin and driving and the writers have a record of killing off the characters of actors that get in trouble with the law. what else… I know there’s lots…something to do with Jacob..is he real? or an alter ego of the creepy Ben. What’s the deal with Locke? I dislike him by the way. And I’m a big Sawyer fan!

So tonight while I watch Lost and remember the rest of the cliff hangers I’ve left out, I will also be working on some beadwork. Maybe lacing some leaves…perhaps wrapping some wire…and possibly thinking about fishies. Last night while hiding from the cold and wind I finished the winter bouquet. I need to take pics…not sure when that’ll happen b/c Lost is on and then Friday we’re headin up to Chicago. Could be next week.

And now I leave you with the nerdiness of scientists. enjoy and yes that is a “who’s your daddy” line. 

tug o’ war

This was a weekend of tug o war and not only with Orion. Although that was my favorite battle. Photography…I’m getting there. I made a photo tent and put lights on either side and snapped over 170 photos. Some turned out ok…I’m still trying to decide if they’ll work. With the tent I was able to get a smooth background so that you can’t see the folds in the fabric. I was also experimenting with a textured background. It was harder to photograph but I think the pics turned out better. FYI kitty’s and photo tents don’t mix well. It’s like a small child…at first it was a fort to nap in and then it was a fort to demolish.
I did get somewhere with my winter bouquet. I’m working on a real name for it. All the flowers are assembled and I’ve even found what I’m going to plant it in. Right now I’m working on the arrangement of flowers and that will determine if I have enough leaves. Pics of that will be coming fairly soon…perhaps next week.
I am trying to be patient and wait for the right idea to come to me so that I can finish my other large project. I’m having probs with the patience part. I want to work on it, finish it, so that I can start on a couple other projects floating around in my head.

the blurry line

LB wrote a post today about a topic I’ve been thinking about lately.  She’s just now voicing the identity crisis that I’ve been having in my noodle for ages now.  Am I an artist?  Typically art is considered a drawing, painting, or sculpture…I’ll give you that.  In my personal definition I’d go farther than that.  I’ve seen some amazing collages I’d call art.  My aunt is a is creates amazing basketry that can’t be anything other than art.  I’d consider much of the metal work I’ve been oogling over lately to most definitely be art.  And I would and have always considered LB’s pieces to always be art.  And just recently I’d put my own debate behind me, it will always be there, but I’m wasn’t listening for a while.  That’s when I started making progress…making decisions about what to do with all the flowers that are spewing out of me. 

And then I went to Borders book store last weekend.  I was browsing the new magazines looking at some recipe mags and then making my way to the new bead mags.  The bead mags at Borders are under the “crafts” section, not a big surprise that is usually where they are found.  I’d been griping recently that they don’t carry the “Art Jewelry” mag or some of the lapidary mags I’d been interested in.  Well last weekend I went to the other side of the magazine racks to browse that area..mostly men’s mags about cars and women.  But I did find an “Art” section and in it I found photography, sculpture, weaving magazines.  And then there it was “Art Jewelry” as well as a couple of other metal magazines.  Some of these other metal mags were just as step by step walking you through projects as any bead mag.  So who decides that metal jewelry is art where bead jewelry is craft.  I know I don’t make jewelry but technically my stuff fits more into beadwork than metal work…so are my flowers craft?  I work really hard at them…I create them from nothing, I don’t use patterns, and a most of the time my stuff almost makes itself.

I know this is a debate that is one of those where the line is so blurry there will never be a clear answer.  It is also a debate that will never completely leave my head.  But my husband just told me something that makes the most sense right now….“It’s up to you to decide what it is…art or what you want it to be.”  He’s right…it shouldn’t matter to anyone but the person who created it.  And that’s what could in the end make it art.

professional?

Last weekend I spent the majority of the time beading, thinking about beading, or mentally designing or arranging flowers. I mentioned a while ago that the website is going to get a little spring cleaning soon. The major thing change is to organize the gallery section. But before I can do what I want to do with it I need better quality pictures. As close to professional quality as possible. I’m not really sure what professional quality is, but I need to get there. Here is a pic of a new bouquet. I took the picture using a sheet over my Ott light, and I’m still getting hot spots although not as bad. But the colors themselves are a lot closer to real life than I was getting before.  You can see the difference in the second picture.  That is the same bouquet I posted a picture of here.  Maybe I can learn some photoshop techniques to tone down the hot spots and crop out the folds in the background. But whattcha think? is the photo professional enough?

The actual beading that I worked on was a combination of the winter bouquet and leaves for a single flower. The single flower is approximately 5-6 inches in diameter and I made enough leaves to wrap around the flower twice! I used over 100 feet of wire on leaves alone. It’s a good think I bought green seed beads by the kilo on my last large bead order.

Last night I took a break from beads and flowers. I’m not sure what the plan is for the nights the rest of the week. But next weekend’s plans have not worked out so I’m sure I’ll be taking more photos and lacing up a ton of leaves!

sneak peak

This was a busy weekend, we had today off for MLK Jr’s birthday.  I tried to take advantage of as much time as I could.  Well between spending time with Chris and Orion.  I’ll go into more details in the next post but I spent a good amount of time on the grey/winter bouquet.  Here is a very very rough pic of what I have right now for the bouquet.  None of the flowers are finished…and there aren’t leaves yet.  And that is definitely not the final arrangement.  But it is a sneak peak.  I went between this project and another that I won’t post pics of yet. 

off and on the list

The first thing on my list was accomplished yesterday. Mom and I had been discussing some sort of trip this year. We looked into going out west but ultimately decided to make our trip the Bead and Button show this June. It’s only an hour away so it’s not much of a trip per say but we’re turning it into one. After two days of probably close to a 100 emails back and forth we decided to take two classes at the show this year. We will be taking Stacked and Stitched and Textured Twining, both with the teacher Mary Hettmansperger. Stacked and stitched will go into some metal techniques that I’m wanting to learn, especially cold connections. Textured twining looks like fun, and I think I could use those wire work techniques in all sorts of flowers. In between classes we plan on doing lots of shopping and possibly staying a night up in Milwaukee so we can just walk to the show. It’s a huge show and having a place to go rest will be a huge benefit. So that’s pretty much set, and checked off the list.

Next on the list is photographing my flowers. For christmas I received a desk lamp that has one of those day light bulbs, its supposed to show true colors. I used it last night to take pictures of some flowers and found that I did actually get true colors in my photos. I was even taking the pics in my bead room at like 9 at night. I still am getting hot spots where the light reflects off shiny beads, so this weekend I’m going to do some more experimenting. (weekend plans for hiking are postponed, due to the B+B booking up). Right now I’m thinking may be another lamp like what I have and then shine them one on either side of a bouquet and between the bouquet and lamps a white bed sheet…to diffuse the light. Worth a try I guess.

Now that one thing is off the list, I’ve added another to it. Yesterday I chatted with Shelley from the Bead Parlor and we’re going to try offering the flower class again next month. I’m still working out the details…maybe a different flower, and picking a weekend. I’ll have more details soon. Also since I’m going to work on photography I’m going to try and take better pictures of the other finished bouquet I’m waiting to share. The pic I have has a very blue background (its actually sitting on a grey sheet) and the flower itself is turquoise so it gets lost in the pic. I’ll get better ones and share those soon. For now here’s the newest pic of Orion. =0)