Metal Embellishments

Introducing a new spin on beaded flowers…Metal Embellishments! I’m thinking this is a pretty new idea, I haven’t found anyone else combining the two ideas to come up with anything similar. Either way it’s new to me!

For a year now you’ve heard me mention metal work, whether it’s talking about a budding interest or griping about not having time to play with it yet. In truth I have been playing a little bit. A year ago I made my first metal purchase…I got a saw, bench pin, some sheet metal, and some wire. I’ve played with all of this and even invested in some more tools. But the first thing I started to play with was the wire. At first I didn’t like it, the coiling was mundane and tedious. Now I’m finding the coiling to be relaxing, it’s perfect to work on when my hands need something to work on but my mind wants to turn off. It is very similar to stringing beads.
All the magazines and books that talk about wire work all focus on how to make it into jewelry. Lately I’ve become more receptive to making jewelry but it is not my primary focus. I found I really enjoyed making the swirlies and curly shapes with the wire. Then I placed these shapes over some beaded petals and voila my new technique was found! I really love making flowers and want to stay in this medium so I was really excited to have found a way to incorporate my new interest with the beaded flowers.

I have four pieces to show the first two are my first piece from last summer and my most recent piece. Copper Blue is my first flower with metal embellishment. The flower itself was just completed last month, but the petals have been together in my bead room for a year now. The center is a wonderful piece of denim lapis, and the wire is copper that was antiqued and then shined up a bit.

Brilliance in the Dark is my most recent and biggest piece so far. The colors really just came together on their own and while making all the leaves for this project I came up with a story behind the flower. I envisioned this flower growing out of an ancient oak tree symbiotically deep in the forest. It blooms twice a year and only at night. The wire work is brass and the center of the flower is a swarovski crystal. The flower is permanently planted in a bamboo bowl that is about 4 inches high and 9 inches in diameter.

I have created a new category in my gallery for metal embellished flowers. Here I will show flowers incorporating wire work and any other metal work that might emerge in the future. I have lots of ideas and am hoping to get some real cool stuff in this gallery. Soon I’ll add the other two pieces for everyone to see.

piles and piles

Nope not the assembly line piles I talked about last time I had that post title. These are packing piles. I’ve been getting my stuff together for the craft show this weekend. I have a pile of paper work that needs to go, piles of flowers, piles of display items, piles of just in case I might need this. I have a list of things I need to do or pick up. So far I’m enjoying the process. I emailed the lady in charge of the show to ask if there would be food vendors and she told me there would me…hot dogs, brats, hamburgers, portabella sandwiches with a garlic wine sauce, then Italian ices and the church is having a bake sale! I think I’m as excited for the fair food as I am for the show!
I still haven’t checked the weather…I’m hoping for nice and sunny! It’s been a chilly spring around here so as long as the sun is out I’ll be happy. I did buy a canopy, just in case. This will give me the opportunity to get a real booth shot for applying to future shows. And I got my hair cut. I know that doesn’t sound like it would be on the list of to dos to get ready for the show…it wasn’t really..I just needed one. I decided I needed something different. So I chopped my already short hair in to the Sienna Miller cut. I love it!!! it feels so good to have something new. Next time I go for a trim I’m thinking of getting highlights! I haven’t done that since right before my wedding.

Other piles I’m making are the beginnings of what is going with me up to Mom’s for the week of the B+B show. It’s getting close and we’ve been chatting regularly about our classes and what we want to work on that week. We finally got our tickets in the mail this week so it is becoming very real. I think it’s going to look like I’m moving back in with the amount of stuff I’m probably going to bring.

first craft fair

A week from today, May 18th I’m going to participate in my first craft fair.  The fair is the first annual craft show in Pingree Grove IL.  Where in the world is that ???  It’s just west of Elgin and south of Huntley IL, a tiny little town that is growing fast enough that they can now support a craft show.  And just to show what a small world this is, our friends Jon and T just bought a town home here which turns out to be down the road from where my cousin and his wife live.  And even crazier…my cousin’s wife will be in the show as well!  We’ve requested to have booths next to each other.  She paints in watercolors and I can’t wait to see her work.

You’d think I’d really be freaking out… but so far I’ve actually been ok about everything.  I’m fairly confident in my stock.  I have a little bit of everything that I feel confident in.  I have a pretty good idea how I want to set up my booth.  Today I spent the day putting price tags on my pieces, pricing everything, and making an inventory spread sheet.  I need to start making a pile of things I need to bring to the show.  I need to buy a money box of some sort and get money to put in it.  I have some finishing touches to add on four of my pieces.  I know there are more things I need to think of and add to the list.  So this week I might start freak out mode.  And if I don’t freak out by Friday I’ll definitely be nervous by Saturday.  I’ll learn a lot at this show, it’ll be fun to learn the flow of setting up a booth and talking with people.  I have a hard time talking with people about my flowers so this will give me a chance to get used to that.  Plus it’ll be fun to see friends and family. 

If you’re in the area and hopefully it’ll be a nice day out stop by the show.  The should be a little over 50 participants, with a little bit of everything to look at. 

Fiesta, Rouge, Berries, and Jewels

Today I’ve uploaded and opened the rest of the batch of 16 flowers that I’ve recently completed. They don’t really combine together into any themes, they’re just wonderful beauties on their own.

While I was thinking of this flower on Monday which was Cinco de Mayo, I wasn’t able to get it up in time. Fiesta Lily is the perfect flower for a Mexcian celebration. The vibrant colors and fun petals would fit in perfectly on a table full of fajitas and la cervezas. This year we didn’t go out to celebrate, or even buy yummy themed food to cook. But we did enjoy some Pacificos on the deck.

The next bouquet is Pink Rouge. This was another one I had a hard time naming. These are new flowers that just fit together after I’d made them. It’s a small bouquet with all the flowers on the petit side. The colors are really different shades of red even if some of them venture closer to pink.

Berry Delight could have fit into the so good you could eat them, but I had trouble photographing it. So it’s just now being posted. Older flowers that found their way to fit together into a nice bouquet. The purple lily is actually accented with pink, it’s hard to see in the pic.

Finally there is Jewels. This was the first mini table bouquet I made. The colors are all jewel tone using silver lined beads. Although small this piece has a ton of color and would not fade or get lost on a desk full of papers.

That’s all my newly finished pieces. They were fun to group together to show in my blog. I haven’t been doing a lot of beading lately. I’ve been more working in the yard. My squash plants are all planted in the garden now. I planted them a week or so ago and then we had a frost. So I put some more seed out there and am hoping they’ll sprout soon. We’ve been out buying a some flowers for the yard, the other day I was out working in it past dark. Right now is really the best time to be working, the mosquitoes haven’t started coming out yet. This weekend we’re going to finish up some painting around the house. I think then we’ll be done painting for a while. We have a couple more things on our list but we’ll see how it goes. Gotta have some fun too, all work and no play is never good!

wishing for the sun

It’s chilly and cloudy today, one of those days when you wonder if it’s spring or fall outside.  Good thing I have a couple of sunny flowers to show that will hopefully warm up the day. 

Hues of the Sun is a flower that I came up with the idea for last fall.  I made all the leaves in October and then it sat in the unfinished pile for months waiting for the perfect center.  It turns out some dyed fresh water pearls worked wonders and truly complete the spectrum of sunny colors. 

StarSuns you’ve seen before.  I taught a class at the Bead Parlor in February using this flower.  Just recently I gave them leaves and made them into a permanent bouquet.  Each flower is actually a slightly different shade of golden yellow because of this and the contrasting centers they truly glow.  And right as I typed that the sun started peaking through the clouds.  Maybe these flowers will help warm up the air.

This weekend Mom and Dad came to pick up Velesa, so we are now back to two kitties.  We helped the Dude semi move into his apartment and got to check out the area.  He’ll only be 45 min away so that’s kinda cool.  Plus he’s only 10min away from the Bead Parlor     Last night while the guys watched bad Sci Fi movies Mom and I chatted about our plans for the B+B show.  It’s now only a month away and a reasonable time to get excited.  We looked at the classes we’re signed up to take.  Went through my treasure bead boxes and pulled out treasures that might be useful.  I made lists of things I want to work on during my time off…and it was a long list.  I still have a couple more flowers left to show, plus an announcement of a new line of flowers coming out.  I’ll be probably talking a lot about the B+B show and I signed up to be in my first craft show…more on that soon.

Meet Velesa

aka She-Devil!
We are cat sitting for Mom and Dad while they vacation in southern IL checking out the state parks and wineries. Chris says we must be cat people if the number of cats in the house out number us. I’ll give him that. Velesa, yes named for the dinosaur, is an old kitty. We got her the year Jurassic Park came out on video. She was jumping around like a raptor and so she got her name. She’s half Siamese and half Persian, so that explains the long hair and her vocal qualities.
All these years she’s been the only cat in Mom and Dad’s house. She’d never even been in the same house as another cat until we got Orion. And that didn’t go over too well. Last November we watched her and she was not a happy camper but she did ok. This time around she wants nothing to do with me. She’s kept separate from Orion and Mira, and since they have each other they leave her alone. But if I go in the room with her she lets me know how upset she is. Chris went in to feed her last night and she became her lovey dovey self. He brushed her for a bit, she ate in front of him while he rubbed her. So at least she likes someone in the house. The picture is one Mom took and caught her yawning. It’s pretty much the same look that she’s been giving me the last couple days while hissing except her eyes are open! She’s actually a very pretty cat, she just misses Mom and Dad.

Here’s the next flower I uploaded…. Just Beginning. I showed it a couple months ago when I was fist making petals for it. I think it finished up really great. I’m loving the layers of petals. This is also the first flower I’ve given a bud.

so good you can eat ‘em

Time is flying by and I have more bouquets to show off.  These are not part of a series or anything, they just all happend to get named for fruit/berries.  BE asked how I’ve been coming up with the names.  Mostly I just say what the colors remind me of…unless it is a bigger project.  The bigger pieces tend to have an inspiration that picks the colors and styles.  When I finished with this huge batch I was sitting on the deck with Chris and we brainstormed up the names to all but three pieces.  And even those have found names now.

First up is Blueberry.  These are flowers I made a couple years ago.  The blues in them really glow together with the purples.  They were originally made to become apart of my first large bouquet piece.  That never happened b/c life took over, but the flowers themselves are still quite wonderful.

Watermellon is the next yummy bouquet.  And what else would pinks and greens bring to the mind.  This is a small simple bouquet that really reminds me of summer.  Hot days equal smaller flowers and yet just as pretty as the large lush ones found in spring.

The last one for the day is one of the bouquets I had a hard time naming.  Tutti Fruity is what I came up with, totally corny and yet it works.  This bouquet looks great paired with Horizon.  The colors are similar and together they blend so well its like a large bouquet piece. 

April Nights, Horizon, Candy

It’s a chilly spring morning, but the only morning of the weekend that rain is not in the forecast.  I was hoping to get the squashes planted outside this weekend even though the weather man says its supposed to get dangerously close to freezing over night in a couple days.  But if they don’t get in the ground they’ll die from lack of space.  I think I will risk the weather and see what happens.  Its just to pretty outside not to be doing something out there for part of the day.

Since it’s so chilly now I thought I’d add a few more flowers to the gallery.  First is April Nights, these flowers were all made this year.  They were inspired by the purples I had pulled out while trying to design a different flower.  I didn’t have luck with that but this came out of it. 

Another bouquet that I’ve added is Horizon.  This uses a combination of older and newer flowers.  I love the combining the bright colors.  They remind me of all inclusive vacation resorts, or islands, or tropical drinks.  This one in particular reminded me of the horizon right around dawn.  Pinks, oranges, and then the light peeking thru….  maybe it could be the horizon on an all inclusive resort sipping a tropical drink! 

And this last flower is sort of a new design.  It’s called Cotton Candy, and the pinks really do sparkle nicely.  This flower is permanently planted in a small wooden box.  B/c it is permanently planted it’s apart of the table bouquet section in my gallery.  I have a couple more of these to show soon.  They are perfect for a splash of color on your desk or on a book shelf. 

Peridot plus 2

Some times a girl just needs some wine, and some days she just needs a beer. Monday was a wine night, Chris and I polished off one of the few remaining Owl Creek wines. Yesterday was a beer night. I worked late, didn’t feel like cooking, its been a wacky week so we went to BWW for wings and tall beers. Nothing special or flavorful…just a nice 23oz glass of beer while sitting outside on a nice spring day. It was glorious!

I also worked on uploading some pictures of new bouquets! This is Peridot Blossom. I really love this flower and it gets a lot of attention. Even BE spotted it when it was pictured in the piles on my assembly line. Something about the colors just glow and really the pictures don’t give the sparkle this flower emits justice. The fun yellowy green sparkly beads were a real treasure to find, and I wish I had bought more. They are a 3cut bead of yellow-green glass and lined in pink to give the unusual color. If the gemstone peridot were a plant this is what the flower would look like.

I’ve also uploaded two more flower bouquets. Sherbet and Mermaid’s garden. Click the links to see the hand bouquets in the Gallery.

Funny thing, the assembly line was filled with petals of flowers that have been around for years and never finished. Each of the pieces I posted today are new flowers made this year. Oh well, I have plenty more coming that use lots of older petals and look just as good. =)

all leafed out

I’m here, I just haven’t blog in a while. I caught a cold or allergies or something weird last week and haven’t had any extra energy even to blog! I’m better now, but Chris is starting to catch what I had. =/ I really thought I was suffering from allergies. The news keeps saying how tree pollen is extremely high right now, and I couldn’t stop sneezing! The trees are all blooming now or about to burst into bloom. My fruit trees are white with buds. Lots of small shrubs have tiny leaves on them as well. My hosta are finally coming up, so now I can see them to transplant them. About half of the fern I planted last week has little fiddles coming up. It’s exciting that everything is turning green. And its been warm enough to leave windows open and air out the house. It’s been making the kitty’s very hyper as well. The seedlings I planted a few weeks ago are doing well. The eggplant finally sprouted, but it is tiny and no where ready to go outside. So I learned tomato and eggplant need lots more time to sprout and grow. All the squashes are desperate to get outside, they really need need it. I had planned on planting them this weekend, but its supposed to get down to the 40s early next week! yikes.
Outdoor plants are the only ones all leafed out. Over the weekend I camped out on the couch in the living room surrounded by green beads. I made leaves to finish the 16 bouquets that were on my assembly line. Then finished the construction on them all. Yesterday I took pictures of them plus a couple more that hadn’t seen a camera yet. Tonight I’ll work on the computer and start uploading.
Tomorrow night both Grey’s Anatomy and LOST returns. So get excited