Its been awhile......

Gosh, since my last post I have been fun-busy. With Spring arriving in Western New York, I spend less and less time indoors. My garden is bursting with forget-me-nots, tulips, lily of the valley, bleeding hearts, ferns, hosta, etc., etc. I love the new-ness of the garden in spring. Cleaning out all the winter debris from the beds, and watching new shoots emerge daily is one of my simple pleasures.....



My husband and I have been out hiking and canoeing (more on that on my other blog, if you are interested in that sort of thing) and I've had some fun girlfriend dates too -- golfing, victorian tea, concerts, art gallery visits and the like. Add to that my knitting addiction, and well, its a wonder I remember to go to my day job!





With all that, I've still managed to get some beading done. Most of which needs to be kept under wraps until the end of July, but I do have a few things to show-n-tell.





My friend Pat shared a new bracelet pattern with me and me being the bracelet junkie that I am, I just had to make a couple. Although they are not the most photogenic pieces, they are fluid and soft on my wrist. Since I wear a lot of black, I made one black and one a reversible 2-tone gray. One side is a frosted gray and the other side is colorlined rainbow luster. They look great together. The best part is they made up quite quickly (plus I have a small wrist which helps) which is surprising because they are made using size 15 seed beads. And it just so happened that I had all those 15s I got from the Artbeads.com $1 sale!


These are the beads for the gray one - I wound up using the vintage round button for the closure. The contrast of the 2 different sides is much more noticeable in person.






When I was looking for props to lay the bracelet on, I used my sunglass case that I made a few years ago, so I thought I'd show you that too. I am still amazed it is in perfect shape-it's been squished between the front seat of my car, tossed around in my purse, thrown in the glove box and yet it has basically no signs of wear and tear.

I used 15s on this too.



I started on my life box, although I haven't gotten all that far.

I keep accummulating stuff to use. It's become a hobby in and of itself! I keep taking all the little what-nots out and laying them on the pieces, and then I put them all back in the bags. I don't know why I'm kind of dragging my feet on this. Keep in mind, that this pic just shows the top layer of doo-dads.........I have all the pieces cut out and covered with the cotton velvet and just started the one side piece yesterday. I picked up the large cabachon at last year's gem and fossil show. The size 6 beads on the base of peyote surround are the prettiest color! Believe it or not they actually have a blueish tint to them, but why they don't show in the picture, I'm clueless. I even tried taking a shot of just the cluster of beads on my table, and still the color doesn't show right. Anyhow, they are from Artbeads.com and the color is called Matte Natural Picasso.


I'm itching to get back to it, but I've got other 'life' things to take care of. Hmm, I hope by calling this my life box, it doesn't take a lifetime to finish! tee hee