Focus on life–week 13-have faith

This week Sally had us thinking and snapping on faith:

 

There are many of us who are religious and there are many of us who are not, but most of us religious or not have faith in someone or something. A faith that gets us through our day, a sickness or even a death. Faith is held by each of us, it is what keeps us believing that there will always be a positive outcome even if we can't see it at the time.

I picked up this little ring dish at the local pottery guild show one year.  I own a lot of pottery and confess I’m not sure who made this piece.  At some point it migrated to my work table.  After being frustrated by dents in polymer that I was rolling out I realized I had to stop being stubborn about keeping my rings on.  This little dish became a safe spot for them to sit in the mayhem while I worked.  Sometimes I have been known to forget to put them back on.  Hubby has come up with a whole variety of jokes to point that out to me when he has caught my finger naked.

Thinking on this I went and dug out that third ring you see on top.  That’s the engagement ring I bought him.  It’s Titanium and used to be a brushed finish.  The finish changed after my dad polished the heck out of it after it was discovered and brought back to me.
 
You see one day, maybe a month after we were engaged, we were headed out to meet up with friends for a ski vacation a few hours away.  I noticed he didn’t have his ring on.  There was searching and then we decided it must have flown off packing the car in the extremely cold day.  At some point I shared this story with a girl I worked with.  A girl who was in college and the walk from her house to school took her right past his house everyday.  One day when the snow was starting to melt a bit she remembered and looked around the driveway.  She called, in disbelieve I described it and went to pick it up with a big bunch of flowers as thanks.  It just so happened his birthday was the next day so with its fresh polish and one stubborn scratch into a new ring box it went.  It took me at least ten minutes to convince hubby and his parents it really was his.  They had all searched extensively.

Ring on, ring off, the faith remains.

Lets see what the faithful are up to at Sally’s

Resin bauble slider reveal

Welcome! Today is the day to see what a group of designers inspired by Lorelei Eurto’s Michael’s find could all come up with.  No surprise, she finds the coolest stuff. I knew I wanted in as soon as I saw her photo and thought “what the?”  Girl on a mission, I was happy to find both colours.

First a false start…



She wants to be a butterfly, but we had words over what her wings would look like and I stripped them back off.  So she will languish in the vicinity of the work table for the perfect inspiration another day.

I switched to working with the blue ones.  I made a joke about not showing you bugs on fire when I was talking about my initial inspiration – I guess I couldn’t get that idea out of my head since I bring you a bug made of bugs or, well, bug products.
 

I used brass wire to create  a bunch of teardrop shapes that I hammered. Two of these I turned into integral parts of polymer components.  The large blue circles you see are the ends of a silk worm cocoon that I created a polymer bezel for, so they are hollow.  The center portion of the cocoon I cut and twisted to become the “tail” of my bug focal.  The body is a polymer base with a natural gold silk overlay (this is a cocoon that has been eaten through).



This picture gives a better sense of the height of the silk and polymer element.  Below you can see the the silk I included on the bottom side and have a better idea the size of the holes.  Isn’t it amazing that that gold is natural?



This necklace clasps on the side and I created it by twisting one teardrop and covering the other in polymer.



Just a glimpse of the chain which I had hanging around the studio salvaged from a thrift store find once upon a time.  Literally the only goldy tone chain I had on hand but I like how the circle links echo the resin baubles.  I wasn’t going to include this last photo since it is so washed out but it lets you see where that clasp sits on the upper right.



Many thanks to Lorelei for tossing the challenge out there, I would have never found these on my own and they did present a very interesting design challenge.  Lorelei’s blog will have the full list of participants and I will update here too. Can’t wait to see what everyone came up with!


Lola

Denise McCabe

Mustard Bead

A Polymer Penchant

Pearl and Pebble

Peacock Fairy

Beads for Busy Gals

Dawn Williams

Shirley Moore

B Street Studios

Sally Russick

Pamela770

Erin Prais-Hintz

Heather Powers

MirandAck

Lily

Karen Firnberg

Tanya

Mary

Rosebud101

Ann

Toltec Jewels

Micha

Terri

Tiaras, baubles, beads and zombies

The first reveal of bead soup is coming this weekend! It’s always so fun to see what everyone comes up with especially since I often secretly design with soups in my head and it great to see how different a take is actually produced.   (shhh you didn’t hear that).

You’ve got to love how Lori plans a party complete with beautiful tiara.  I can say I’m all prepared on that front



Sharing happy meals on my birthday last week was a spur of the moment decision.  My toy was a tiara!   I had to snap this pic in the bathroom mirror as someone was laughing at me trying to manage my tiara and sunglasses atop my head.  I think it’s a keeper.

The resin bauble challenge that Lorelei through down is going to be revealing Friday and I tell ya it’s exciting that my piece is all done and photographed and I’m looking forward to seeing what everyone else has come up with with this odd little beauties.

Zombies, yes, I too have caught the fever despite my resistance.  I think it was the end of the second season of the Walking Dead that I started watching it myself.  That’s as opposed to leaving the room with my nose turned up as my hubby would watch.  So I’ve been sucked in and am spending my evenings catching up.

I’m not comfortable working with polymer on my lap at all.  I would hate the idea of losing track of 6” blades in the sofa for starters. So I decided some seed beads would be a great addition to my bead soup since I had planned some the last time and it hadn’t come to fruition.  This time though, I set out a bit ambitious and while it may be beginners luck I am liking the looks of it.  Can’t wait to share come the second reveal!

Focus on life–week 12–observe the curve

This week Sally directed us: “take a moment to focus on all the different kinds of curves that surround you everyday”.  Curves, wonderful!  I was raised in a house full of paisley – curves are my briar patch. 



Looking at this photo now I’m also seeing a bit of yin and yang going on, although that casts the table as the good and the mug as the evil and that is ass backwards. Ok, getting ahead of myself, let me explain.  I’ve sat down several times at my worktable to get moving on a variety of projects.  There’s usually at least a handful of different ideas going on in my workspace, I like to flit from one to the next as down time arrives.  Well lately, whenever I’ve sat down, I’ve turned around some ideas mixed a few colours, done a little obligatory experimenting (not the fun kind) and things haven’t been clicking.

Hubby walked in at one such moment of frustration and casting his eyes about me, about my space, and said, “how do you work like that?” I shook it off not wanting to really hear that thought, but by the time it was lying in bed that night I was already rearranging the room in my head.  Naturally, the next day I was pulling all sorts of stuff out with a rough idea how it would all go back together again.  Well it’s far from done and I’ll save all the nitty gritty for another day, but the part that makes it hard to arrange is this table. 

I did not by this table on purpose.  I was at the Salvation Army thrift store just before we moved into our house.  I was looking for a pair of chairs for our kitchen, having already chosen a small square table.  I found one that I loved the lines on, the wood (teak?) was in ok shape and the seat was an easy single screw to pop out and recover.  Perfect! There were three sitting there so I grabbed two and headed for the cash to see how much.  I was informed they were part of a set.  I argued that three chairs would not be a set.  She reassured me it was part of a set that included an oval table (missing a leaf) that was up against the wall legs removed.  As she gathered the legs I tried to negotiate just the two chairs.  She wouldn’t budge there was one price and there was no way she was letting me leave without this table.  Of course I was alone, and this was solid wood but I hauled that sucker and three chairs somehow into the car and through our apartment parking lot, up the stairs and into our storage locker.  All that to say an oval table would have never been my choice to fit in a studio workspace, but it’s hard to pass up free.
 
Silver lining moment though finding my favourite handmade mug that I had bought for my day job specifically.  When I moved form a work office to a home one I knew it made the trip but somehow I misplaced it.  That was about five years ago.  The best part is the handle, it fits my two fingers so perfectly, a very good curve indeed. the glaze is very pretty too although the shadows here hide all that.

Those are the curves on my mind at the moment.

Thanks for all your sweet comments about my little dancer, I fought the urge to show you the curve of her eyelashes… mustn’t make it all about her.

Now off to see the twist, turns and curves every has come up with this week, linking up on Sally’s beautiful blog

Dear Spring,

Seriously, what gives?



Why are my bare feet stuck in boots, stuck in snow?



I see a little melting.



But look at this mess!



I see you sun, but you need to TRY HARDER!

I wondered do people in warm climates know what the yellow stick is? Does everywhere with snow use yellow?

I felt a little self conscious carrying my camera to the mail box with me taking these.  So I decided to go all in with a couple cliché type shots. ie my feet above, and below back on my door mat.



This one was from the other day, mid complete studio overhaul – more on that later.  But I looked up while taking a picture at a different angle, decided I just had to take one of “those” pictures I hadn’t taken yet.



See that spring – I have to settle for FAKE flowers. [ In defense of the filthy mirror it was found buried a few hours before and stuck on the nearest available screw.]



By the way, some are smart enough to dig out the hydrant denoted by the yellow stick.  I hope the others will all be sprouting soon as the snow melts – faster, faster!

focus on life–week 11- the possibilities are endless

“This week pay attention to your surroundings and your daily activities and show us what holds endless possibilities for you.”

 

Sally’s words above for this week in this wonderful series called focus on life.  Can you hear my picture? tap-tap-tap!

A couple of months ago, while dancing around the living room with Averleigh, I mentioned she would be a great tap dancer and that we should look for tap shoes for her.  Toddler fashion, she didn’t really answer me, just kept on dancing.  A few days later I’m trying to get her out the door, telling her we are going shopping.  She stops.  Looks me in the eye and full of hope asks “to buy me tap shoes?” I confess: “no, but we will keep our eyes out for some”.  Time goes by and it becomes clear, they don’t make them as small as her size, not around here at least  (and not under $60). 

Now Averleigh hasn’t hit that stage yet where she begs or expects things every time you enter a store.  In fact I found this great colouring book for her once and she wouldn’t let me buy it.  So when she brought up tap shoes again and again I really was trying to find some, these were not “bratty” pleas.  I checked the local classifieds –again – last Friday and wouldn’t you know there was a pair one size too big, but close enough! So the next morning off hubby went to get them for a mere $15.

Sheer joy! She has no idea how to tap dance but she doesn’t know that.  I kinda love that.  I checked for lessons but it seems you have to be four (!) to get to tap class.  If you are not quite 3 you miss out on every other dance class that’s not for real young ones for this season.  So back to gymnastics for the spring and maybe the fall will bring jazz or hip-hop or …

Yes, I think the possibilities for what she would like to explore with her time are truly endless.  Which will be a whole lot of fun if I can remember to show her a path or two but let her lead the way.

Now off to be inspired by all the possibilities being shared at the studio sublime.

Resin Bauble Slider challenge accepted!

I found them! They were tucked in behind the others but I sure did find them!

My little pink ellipses are showing you the most unusual resin sliders that I first thought “what the heck is that?” when Lorelei Eurto shared them the other day.  She thought they would be the perfect component for a little challenge.  Now hearing her plan was to have participants the next day I thought I’d have to give it a miss.  But when she shared the participants “so far”this morning it seemed the door was open to go see if my Michael’s would be as up to date.  I was practically shocked to find them. Yay!

I have to share this picture in particular for Lorelei’s post



Their shape, that little zig-zag makes me think of butane. That’s /\/ shape is how you represent the structure of butane, and it was the first thing to pop into my head.  Next thought was bug eyes because of that photo above. 

This is going to be fun!  I promise the final piece I share on reveal day, March 27th, will not include any bugs on fire.