Friday, May 16, 2014

Traveling Once Again -

Back in 2009 my hubby and I took a trip out to the West Coast of sunny California, to visit with my sisters Camille and Norma.  It's been a long while since I've seen them so we've planned another trip for this May.   I will be gone from my blog as I'll have no way to connect to the Internet. 

On our last trip my hubs brought his laptop but now he has a new laptop and he says it is too heavy to carry around the way he did with his old laptop.  TRANSLATION: "No I don't want to lug around my laptop so you can spend your evenings blogging."  :D

The photo above was taken back in 2009, it is a picture of my sister, Camille's citrus grove with the Ojai Valley mountains in the background.


2009 Photo above - Camille's citrus grove from a distance.
2009 Photo below - My hubby and my sister Camille.


Our journey now begins - I'll miss you - till I return I'm

Wishing you all well and much happiness.  :)

Thursday, May 15, 2014

The Cutest Baby Wear Anywhere !

If you're looking for some adorable gifts for the wee-little ones that you know, head over to Sonya's  Tee-iabo Designs
http://www.tee-iabodesigns.com/lil-hummers-pg--2.html .  There you'll find some of her incredible custom designed onesie sets. 
 
I could not get over the intricate detailing that she has put into the artwork of these adorable tiny creations.  When baby outgrows them, the onesie can be framed and enjoyed for the art that it truly is.

 
 
 So if you're looking for the perfect, unique baby gift for either a baby shower or for that precious little newborn I doubt that you could find anything more adorable than Sonya's incredible little onesies. 

Monday, May 12, 2014

Life has an Expiration Date !


Enjoy life... it has an

expiration

date!



 It's all too easy to take ourselves  and life much too seriously.  We are on this beautiful blue planet for only a short time, during that time let us enjoy each moment.  Let us pass kindness and joy onto others, a smile can be contagious ... let us give it to everyone we met.  :)
 
Found this lost in back pages of my list of blog posts, it was marked as  "Draft" so guess I never got around to posting it.  Such a shame for it has merit and is a wonderful message to pass on to others and to keep in our thoughts.  May you always be joyful and find kindness wherever you go.
 

Sunday, May 11, 2014

To Moms, Mamas, Mommies, Mums, And Any Other Names That Mother's Go By

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL YOU WONDERFUL MOMS OUT THERE
Hope your day is fabulous.


For all her hugs and kisses that made our scrapes and bruises feel so much better...
For all the stories she's read to us at bedtime ...
The dozens of cookies that she's baked or bought for us ...
For listening to us complain about our Bad Days ...
For encouraging us ...
For guiding us ...
For a million other things ...
But always and forever for being there when we needed her most.
We Love You Mom !

Saturday, May 10, 2014

CAPTCHAs Love Em or Hate Em


One thing that annoys the bejeebers out of me are CAPTCHA codes.  I understand their need in certain instances (though right off hand I can't think of one) but I absolutely despise the Sneaky CAPTCHA. 

You know the ones I'm talking about. You go to a blog, see an interesting post and decide to make a comment.  Upon reaching the comment page there's no sign of that obnoxious CAPTCHA code, so you go ahead and spill out that wonderful comment, hit publish or submit and . . .  CRYING OUT LOUD, that frigging  code pops up out of nowhere.

Why try being discreet about it ?  If someone is going to have that irritating thing then have it out in plain sight for all to see, don't lure us in and then club us with it after the fact.

Bloggers often get involved in blog challenges that require visiting  numerous  blogs and, out of courtesy, leaving a comment.  If there are 30 or more blogs to visit can you imagine how time consuming it would be if each had a CAPTCHA code that had to be deciphered and entered ?

In the past I've made suggestions to bloggers about changing their comments setting to Self Moderate and getting rid of the CAPTCHA. 
If you're moderating your comments you have the authority to delete anything you deem as spam or inappropriate.
Also I couldn't help but notice that a lot of CAPTCHA blogs receive few to zero comments.  So why DO bloggers have them and why, when it is suggested that they remove it, do they insist upon keeping them ?  Do they really love CAPTCHAs?  Do they actually seek out sites with these codes because they like to see if they can guess what those smears are? Or could it be that they really don't want to be bothered with comments?  Is it really all that much work to view one's emails, read the comments that others leave and hit one of 3 options: Publish - Delete - Mark as Spam ?

Last night I visited a Canadian blog and I swear their CAPTCHA's are designed by demons.  I stared at one smudge for almost 10 minutes and could not figure out what the letters were.  I even called my hubby in to see if he could figure it out and he too stared at it for a couple of minutes and declared, "I have no idea !"  So I took a guess and the demon code happily informed me that I had gotten it wrong and to try again . . . so I tried again and got the second one wrong too.  By now I had wasted a good 20 or 30 minutes of my time over a friggin' CAPTCHA code.  Finally the third attempt met with success, I don't know if I truly guessed it correctly or if the demon had simply taken pity upon me.


Today I visited a few blogs, read their posts,  typed up my comment and when that cursed CAPTCHA code popped up.   I blew it, clicked on the little X at the top right hand corner of my screen and exited their blog without even attempting to decipher the code. 
Naturally that meant my comment would not be published but at that point I really didn't care.  A couple had been blogs that I had previously left suggestions regarding the removal of their computer generated security code, I mentioned that by removing the CAPTCHA they could, perhaps, receive more comments.
Obviously they chose not to take my suggestion so I chose not to leave a comment.  Was I being mean?  Was I being unfair or unreasonable? 


Photo above was actually taken from my monitor I could not make out what the second word was so I took a wild guess with "Jzntern" and amazingly guessed correctly !  Also, amazingly there were no other comments left on this blogger's blog except for mine.  Could she not want comments?
 
 






Friday, May 9, 2014

FINITO - Terminado - Done - Complete - FINISHED !




Finally, the Piccadilly Bracelet is complete (except for adding a clasp).  To me it is fun and colorful and so unlike anything I've ever done before.



Photo Above - The left side of the bracelet features colors of light and dark coral, chartreuse and turquoise.  Embellishments contain semi-precious beads of green aventurine, wood agate, moss agate, dark blue sodalite, larimar, dark blue dumortierite and olive jade .  A cute little triangle bead in vibrate lime green adorns this first section and to highlight this little bead I encircled it with a halo of turquoise glass seed beads topped with much smaller, silver plated, seed beads.


Photo Above - Progressing from left to right: tube beads of lapis and apple green quartz combine with round tablet beads in pastel yellow and green, thus forming a bridge between the first section and a striped, seed beaded tube. 

Connecting the beaded tube to the bracelet's middle section is a glistening olivine crystal, flanked top and bottom with tiny garnet beads. 

Like the first section, I used a peyote stitch to form the base that is then embellished with tiny glass flower beads and a fringy stripe of garnet beads.


Photo Above - Heading toward the left side of the middle section, the smaller size 11 Delica seed beads give way to a section of larger size 11, Toho beads in turquoise blue.  A sweet iridescent, jet glass, heart sits proudly in the middle of these beads and is decorated with two tiny garnet beads. 
 
Another fringy stripe of garnet beads follows, bringing us to an open frame that features an unusually shaped white glass bead ( I only had one of these beads and wanted to make sure it received special attention).  Two little garnet beads are used to fill in the extra space and help center the white bead in its frame.  Once again I've added a fringy stripe of garnet beads.  These tiny garnet beads are only 2 mm round so I used the smallest size 15 seed beads I had as topper-stop beads. You can see them above in both a chartreuse color and in a pinkish color, called strawberry.


Photo Above  - Finally the last section. A peyote spiral striped tube in coral, white and chartreuse sits between two large crystal beads.  The crystal on the left is a dark ruby red while the crystal on the right is a fresh grass green.  Like the previous crystal, tiny garnet beads are used to hide the Fireline that connects the crystals to the bracelet.  When I fabricated the peyote tube I made the mistake of adding a fringe to the tube's top and bottom.  This made attaching the crystals difficult and if I had it to do over I would have attached the crystals first and then added the fringe.
 
The last section is again, flat peyote stitch, it features simple white stripes with a silver beaded center embellished by an adorable, pink glass, heart bead. 
 
This end of the bracelet terminates with a fringe of small 2 mm beads, since only three of the tiny 2 mm garnet beads were left I had to improvised by adding three tiny red jasper beads and three tiny hematite beads to complete the fringy stripe.  Sure it isn't like the other garnet bead stripes but with this bracelet just about anything goes. A fringe of turquoise drop beads graces
this end of the bracelet.  
 
Welcome to the World, Piccadilly ! 


 
I haven't decided if I'll place Piccadilly with some of my pieces in the Manatee, Florida art center (called; ArtCenter Manatee) or if it will go into a gallery in the Village of the Arts, where I have also displayed and sold many pieces of my handcrafted jewelry.
 

 


Saturday, May 3, 2014

PROGRESS ON PICCADILLY

Piccadilly is coming along, though progress is slow.
Before I go much further I wish to give credit to Beading Daily  for it is there that I found Beth Kraft's tutorial on her Collage Bracelet.  Granted I took great liberties with her instructions, basically borrowing the primary concept but putting my own unique spin to it. 
There is a material's list included in her written directions, some of the findings and beads I didn't have nor was I about to purchase them.  Since the idea was to use up my dribs and drabs of beads why go out and purchase more ?  Also the instructions called for a Tube Clasp with side bar, an item not among my supplies, but I did have a pair of Slide End Tubes which, after having used them, I must say are divine.  If you're not familiar with these ends HERE'S a short video on how they function.

Photo below - close up of the slide tube end.



After playing around with different ways to attach the peyote strip to the peyote tube,  I finally found that JoJo's idea worked and looked the best.  JoJo of Tahoma Beadworks & Photography suggested using a large bead between the two elements and connecting them together by running the thread through the large bead and down through the seed beads of both the tube and the strip.  Hers' was a straight forward solution that ended up working beautifully.  Thank you JoJo.

Photo below :  A large Crystal oval bead is used to bridge the two sections together.  Tiny garnet beads and #15 glass seed beads help fill in the spaces and give a nice clean transition from the peyote work to the crystal bead.
 

 
I found that the main problem with connecting the two elements was that the peyote strip was wider than the tube, even though both were 10 beads in width and both used size #11 Delica seed beads.  Other methods that I tried turned out looking lopsided. By using the larger bead as a bridge I found I didn't have to finagle with the difference in size.
 
Right now the bracelet measures about 5 and a quarter inches. That would fit a really tiny wrist, so I need to make it a reasonable length, attach the other slide end tube, add a clasp and then finish embellishing.  Well guess it's back to work on the beading.  :)
 
 

Friday, May 2, 2014

PICCADILLY PICK



There's nothing really different about me, as far as being a beader goes.  Like many other beaders I love beads and have accumulated an impressive stash of them.  I also have accumulated quite a collection of odd beads, orphan beads and a vast array of What-The-Heck-Am- I-Going-To-Do-With-These beads.  This situation is probably true of all crafters and the medium of their choice; bits and pieces of scrapbooking supplies, fabrics,  odd skeins of yarn along with many partial skeins, and the list goes on and on. 

Trying to use some of my odd-bit beads I began constructing the bracelet pictured below.

Kind of kooky, especially for me but I'm liking it and have already given it a name, "Piccadilly".  Usually I reserve a name until a piece is finished and then only christen very special pieces.  I must admit that as this bracelet progresses it gets more and more "special".
 
At the moment I'm faced with a dilemma and that's;  how should I go about connecting the peyote beaded strip (over on the left in photos below) to the beaded tube? 
 
A bridge of some sort is needed but I haven't decided what I want to do yet.  You can see that I used a couple of flat-round tablet beads and a few tube beads to bridge the other side of the beaded tube.  If anyone has ideas or suggestions please feel free to share them in your comments.  Also I'd love to hear about your collection of odd supplies that you just can't part with but haven't figured out what you're going to do with.
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