A Record Breaking High Wire Walk

Wednesday night I watched Nik Wallenda make a record breaking tight rope walk on the Discovery Channel's "Life on a Wire".    I wish I could embed a video for you but for some reason I can't get the blogger video to work ... maybe it's just me or maybe its blogger... again!

I must admit that the information I had gleaned from the June 22nd edition of the Sarasota - Manatee Herald Tribune was not completely correct.  It was stated that the premiere episode of this new reality series would be in San Juan Puerto Rico where Nik and his mother, Delilah, would walk across a 300 foot high wire.  In truth the episode was filmed in the Bahamas where Nik, his family and crew set up his high wire rigging between two high rise luxury hotels ... spanning a distance of 2,000 feet and over 200 feet in the air. 

I held my breath as he went across the wire and can only imagine how suspenseful and terrifying it must have been to watch live from the audience far, far below.  Nik first went across the cable on a bike and then later ventured across this huge expanse on foot and holding a balance pole.  Afternoon tropical winds had picked up, the warning of an approaching storm.  Nik's shirt flapped and fluttered about him but he was on the wire and now committed, there was no turning back. 
Meanwhile, on the ground below, his wife and mother rushed about frantically giving commands to the men holding the stabilizing cables that kept the high wire from swaying.  "Pull back tighter !  See the the way that cable sags?  Lean that way, take that slack out to the cable."  The two women had a lot at stake here, Nik was a husband to one and the father of her children and to the other he was a beloved son.   Both women knew that a fall from such heights meant certain death and the Wallenda family was no stranger to death.  In the past, through 7 generations of Wallendas, there had been several injuries and a number of lives lost in fatal falls ... one of which was a fall that involved a multi person high wire pyramid.  The fear factor was extreme and very real.  Breaths held, hearts stopped until Nik finally reached the safety of the building at other end of the cable.

As I said, I wish I could have embedded a video for you, however I did receive this from Delilah this morning on facebook :

Delilah Wallenda, a circus high-wire acrobat and the seventh generation of the Flying Wallendas circus family, walks across a 300-foot-long wire suspended 100 feet in the air between two towers of the Conrad Condado Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Saturday June 4, 2011. Delilah's grandfather, the German-born Karl Wallenda, tried to perform the same feat in 1978 but fell to his death at age 73. Delilah and her son Nik Wallenda commemorated the famous family patriarch by successfully completing the same stunt simultaneously Saturday. (AP Photo/Ricardo Arduengo)http://my.news.yahoo.com/photos/delilah-wallenda-circus-high-wire-acrobat-seventh-generation-photo-193152661.html

FOR SOME REASON THE ABOVE LINK ISN'T WORKING IN BLOGGER I'LL TRY THIS AND KEEP MY FINGERS CROSSED :
DELILAH WALLENDA

THE FLYING WALLENDAS !!!

The Flying Wallendas ... they fly through the air with the greatest of ease those daring young men on the Flying Trapeze.
 
Delilah, beautiful, vibrant, light, breezy and clever. It was hard to believe that this lovely woman could actually be a grandmother but the fact was she’s not only a grandmother but a high wire artist as well. A member of the famous "Flying Wallendas" that performed world wide and astounded audiences with their tempts of fate. Perched high above the ground the Wallenda family do their amazing acts of showmanship, flying from trapeze to trapeze, twirling, turning and somersaulting through thin air.  But this is not their only fame, the Wallendas are especially famous for their performances on the high wire, far above the ground and without a safety net. Risky? Definitely !  However these are professionals, the Wallenda are artists that never take their skills lightly, theirs is a life of constant practice, practice and more practice.  Performing high in the air is in their blood and the gene, if one wishes to call it that, is passed on from generation to generation.

In 1978 Karl Wallenda, the patriarch of the Wallenda family, performed in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It would be a performance that no one would forget, one that would make news world wide. Karl would plummet to his death ! 73 years old at the time, Karl was sharp, stable and knew what he was doing, his death was not caused by diminished abilities but by improper rigging.  Rigging is the link between life and death for a high wire artist,  just one cable not in the proper position or not tighten enough could spell tragedy.

I first met Delilah in the early 90’s at the Palm Aire Country Club and Restaurant where she worked as their charming hostess. She was one of those rare dark haired beauties that turned heads when she walked by and whenever her name Wallenda was mentioned people would quip; "Oh are you one of the Flying Wallenda’s ?". To which she’d respond; "Yes I am". You could only imagine the jaws that dropped. "Are you serious?" Delilah would smile ever so sweetly and explained that she is the granddaughter of the famous Karl Wallenda and that , yes, she performs on both trapeze and on the high wire.

Tonight, June 22nd, the Discovery Channel will be airing a new series about "Life on the Wire", a true reality series featuring Karl’s descendants his great-grandson, Nik Wallenda and Nik’s mother, Delilah Wallenda. The first episode airs at 10 PM tonight and will take the audience back to San Juan where the grandson Nik will walk across a 300 foot long cable, stretched across a span between two tall buildings, 100 feet above ground ... Delilah will accompany him.

I intend to watch this show as I’ve never seen Delilah perform before. Though it was well known that at the Wallenda house their backyard was home to a full rig of trapeze and high wire equipment and that at certain times the public could witness them during practice sessions. I was never so fortunate to witness this, each time we drove by their home I’d glance into the tree tops to see the high wire rigging empty but filled with promises of an amazing family with incredible abilities.

If you can I suggest you tune in the program, I have a feeling Nik Wallenda will be making his great grandfather very proud.

How to Show Your Ankle ?

Show a little leg ... show a lot of leg! It’s summer and the season is perfect for shorts, Capri pants and short skirts ...  and ankles!  Nothing looks quite so nice as a cute pair of sandals and a pretty ankle sporting an attractive ankle bracelet.


Recently I beaded two anklets and I’m pounding my head against the wall wondering what I should do.   It’s summer in South Florida so local galleries and boutiques have seen a drastic drop in business and, as far as my etsy shop goes, well I could list sterling silver beads and findings all day long and they’d sell like hot cakes ... as long as I list them for almost what I purchased them for ! If I list my jewelry it sits there ignored and no one even gives it a heart. So what to do ?

Photo above ... I beaded this from #11 Delica seed beads in Cobalt blue and Gold adding a picot trim in #15 cobalt blue Charlotte beads.  Wire heart and  extender chain are also handcrafted by me and links are embellished  with light cobalt blue firepolished Czech glass 3 mm beads.  Measures 9.5 to 10 inches depending upon which link is used for the 14k gold filled spring clasp.  Price $16 (includes shipping and handling.)

Photo below ... Sunflowers.  I love sunny, summer sunflowers and I had some pretty matte green Toho glass seed beads that were in the perfect shade of those big, green sunflower leaves.  So using bright yellow seed beads and a glass seed bead color called Rainbow Rootbeer, I beaded a row of happy sunflowers against a lush green background.  It reminds me of the fields of sunflower we drove past as we crossed the state of Kansas.  My handcrafted clasp is made from a perky yellow glass disc bead and has 3 beaded rings that measures from 9 to 10 inches.  The last ring is embellished with a pale yellow glass teardrop bead.  Price $14 (includes shipping and handling) 

MORE PHOTOS BELOW

If anyone is interested you can contact me either through my blog profile or my etsy shop AlmostPrecious and I'd be happy to list it specially for you.

Look Ma ... No Thumbnails ....

I've done some dumb things in my life, matter-of-fact I've done a LOT of dumb things in my life. I'm sure I've done enough stupid things that I could dedicate a whole blog to them; "All the stupid, dumb things I've done in my Lifetime Blog".
So what's one more thing to add to the ever growing list ?


I have thin, fragile fingernails and when I do wire work my nails take a beating. I tend to use them as a fulcrum to bend the wire into the "neck" of a loop. After making several wrapped loops using my thumbnail as a bending point I usually end up with a chip or a notch in the middle of the outer edge of my thumbnails. That's not normally a problem until I try to do seed bead work and then the tough nylon beading thread always finds its way into that notch and most of the time it causes the nail edge to split down towards my thumb. Recently, like a couple of days ago, I had this happen and I thought I'd take care of it before it got worse or before it got painful. I've tried bandaides before but they're awkward and it's hard to do bead work with a bandaide wrapped around the tips of ones thumbs. I recalled hearing that some ladies used super glue to help hold a cracked or split nail into place until it grew out but this was a little different since it was right down the middle of my nail. Anyway I devised a plan, I found some gauze and carefully cut it to fit the top part of my thumbnail and then I glued it down with a healthy dowsing of instant glue (Loctite 454) . When it was dry I coated both nails with clear nail polish and thought I was all set. It was the next day as I was washing some dishes that I realized that one of the make shift nail splints had come off in the wash. No problem, I'll just reattach a new one.


The first thing I did was take nail polish remover to remove the clear nail polish and any traces of the old 454 ... OMG ... the upper part of my thumbnails have dissolved. No joke, the glue had etched half way through the nail and I could see and feel a very distinct line where the healthy nail is and where the nail USED to be. Insert very strong curse words here and a whole lot of them !!!


Now instead of a week or two to wait for the split to grow out I will have to wait 2 or 3 months for half of my nail to grow out. Yeah this HAS to rank right up there with some of the dumbest things I've ever done.

A Glutton for Punishment Part II

In truth I had placed my last blog posting into drafts until I had completed this complicated necklace as there were many days between where I left this project and its ultimate completion.

As was mentioned in my last post, I'm either a glutton for punishment or crazy as I put a small fortune and way more time than I should have into creating this piece. In the previous installment of "A Glutton for Punishment" we left my black and white project at about this point in its progress towards completion (see Photo below).

  Photo below...Since then much has been added.

I decided to use the sweet little, jet black glass hearts as single dangles instead of coupling them with the silver glass leaves. If you look closely you might be able to see the jet hearts topped with tiny 3 mm firepolished crystals and micro 2mm beads of hematite. Instead of the black glass hearts the silver leaf dangles received small swirled wire charms that I made myself (see photo below for close-up). It worked out well, or at least I'm satisfied with the results.

You probably don't remember (I certainly didn't expect you to that's for sure) that I mentioned my project had to be put on hold yet another time as I required some type of link to add the side of the necklace. Not just any old link, I needed something special and found it in this hammered textured rhodium finished oval link. Perfection !!!

Personally I like the way this link helps tie the elaborate center section to the sides of the necklace but I realize this is a matter of taste.

 

The other side is attached by way of a link that I made using a large black glass bead and a couple of pretty bead caps, making sure that the wire loops were sufficiently large. A sand dollar charm was added as a counter weight to the large link and as an element of interest.

This side of the necklace also sports some whimsical hand coiled spirals and an assortment of stacked or capped black and white beads.

 

The side with the spirals, ends with a hook style clasp that I made using 20 gauge wire (doubled) and embellished with a complimentary black (slightly wire wrapped) bead.

 

The other side of the necklace features a fair sized cable chain to accommodate the clasp. A cute teardrop white bead is used as an end to the extension chain and is adorned with contrasting black beads and that really cute bead cap (love these caps!).

Photos below show the completed necklace.  Perhaps I fell into Alice's rabbit burrow and went a little too far with the whimsy but to be honest this piece never truly followed my carefully drawn plans, instead it seemed to tell me what to do and, even though it was a long time in the making and created a lot more work than I ever imagined, I'm grateful that I listened to it. 

Unfortunately the stacks of black beads look like one continuous bead in my photos, I tried making them (the photos, not the beads) lighter and though that made the individual beads recognizable it also washed out everything else  ... so I settled for what appears to look like big long black beads which are in reality really either 3 to 5 beads stacked together.  Ah the joys of photography.

A Glutton for Punishment Part I

I'm not sure if I'm just a glutton for punishment or just plain crazy ! I tend to underestimate my future projects and start out thinking they will be small and manageable however they always end up becoming big, complicated and time consuming.
Several posts back ( Trouble Getting From Dream to Reality )I gave you a glimpse of a vision that I had of a black and white piece. It was a vision that danced in my head like those proverbial sugar plums in the poem "Twas the Night Before Christmas".   But what a challenge it has been, seems I never had just the right things that I needed such as strong enough jumprings, ones that wouldn't come open as soon as the necklace was picked up. So I'd order parts, wait for them to arrive, then sit down and with anticipation of completing the project dive back into putting it together. Part way through it would dawn on me that something was wrong and guess what ? ... I needed something else that wasn't in my vast supplies of beads, findings, wires and parts. SHOOT !!! DRAT !!!  And Double Dang-it !!!
So have to go look around,  find what I think will do the trick, place an order and wait some more.

Photo above..Lovely black and white Venetian glass oval bead will be the center focal point.  Only as the more I worked on it I realized that 1 - the center focal point was being buried beneath the disc bead dangle and 2 - my handmade jumprings,  made from 20 gauge silver plated copper wire, kept coming apart. 

Finally I did manage to put together the center area of the necklace and it has turned out far more complex than I had ever imagined. The heavy weight 18 gauge jumprings from Jewelry Supply that I ended up purchasing are performing well and I haven't had any open up on me yet. Yay!  Unfortunately I've just about used them all in this project and decided to order some more from a different vendor ... the new jumprings are not nearly as nice nor as strong so it's true that sometimes you get what you pay for.

Photo above ... Been busy as a bee wire wrapping black and white disc beads to use as dangles. I decided to add a larger solid back bead for the Venetian bead to hang from as the black and white oval bead needed to be longer. Yes, it's filling in nicely but still needs something.

Photo below... How about some of these Czech pressed glass leaf beads with a silver finish ?  Might add the tiny black hearts as dangles just below the leaves ?

Photo below ... As you can see I added a large black bead at the focal center to make the Venetican oval bead hang lower, it was being hidden by all the black and white disc bead dangles.  Hmm and those lovely little jet black glass hearts that have one side with an aurora borealis finish ?  Well they didn't look so hot as dangles hanging WITH the leaves so I may add them as dangles on their own ... not sure at this stage.  Besides I now need some type of large, fancy link to attach at the side of the necklace. 

Photo below ... As you can see I've attached a few of the silver leaves but it still has a lot of fill work left to be done and there's still the problem of what to add to the loops that I created beneath the silver leaves ... the loops I made to hang the sweet little black glass hearts from.

Stay tuned for Part II as things may change ... oh undoubtedly they will change!

Staying South for the Summer

We have some new neighbors next door to us, a couple of snowbirds who've decided to stay south for the summer. Perhaps they don't mind the Florida heat and humidity ?

This pair of Canadian Geese have taken up residence in our neighbor's pond. It's not a very large pond but these lovely birds don't seem to mind.

To them it's Home Sweet Home, or at least during the daylight hours, at dusk they seem to disappear and I'm not sure where they nest at night. However they are very protective of their "home" and this "outsider" has not been allow to come into the pond. Perhaps with time it will be welcomed but until then it can only watch from the banks of the pond.

A few days ago a flock of these large water birds flew over, there were about 6 of them in all. The flock honked and made quite a racket as, on several occasions, they attempted to land. However the residing Geese couple would not hear of it, they protested loudly and told the flock, in no uncertain terms, to "Get Lost!" I'm sure they realized that their little pond could only accommodate a limited number of water birds and they weren't and aren't willing to share their domain.

Photo below... a pair of duck paddle around the circular pond and are quickly confronted by the possessive Geese.

Hey ! Who invited you ?

No!  This is OUR pond, you two will just have to leave.  Here allow us to escort you to the exit.

Of course the water level in this little pond is starting to drop as we've not had much precipitation in a few weeks. Hope we get some good rains this summer or these two very possessive geese will be waddling in a mud hole rather than wading in a pond.

Hallelujah ... Another Project Completed !

Not long ago I lamented that I had purchased some foil glass pendants which did not meet my standard of perfection and was trying to figure out what could be done with them. 

I received a number of good suggestions one of which came from  Moonlitfantaseas   who recommended that I make a seed beaded bezel  to go around it and conceal the flaw.  So I beaded a bezel AND a bail for the pendant (yes I could have just used the hole that was a part of the glass pendant but I tend to make more work for myself than is necessary. LOL).  All this was done with tiny little 11/0 Delica beads and minuet 15/0's ( I was cross-eyed for 2 days afterwards).
Since I can't seem to leave well enough alone I then embellished the bezel with firepolished Czech glass beads and an assortment of lovely freshwater pearls.  

The swirls of copper and silver foils embedded within the glass pendant reminded me of   galaxies or a cosmic nebula so I named it "Pearl Nebula".  If you think of a better title please feel free to leave it in a comment and I will certainly consider changing the name.

Next I beaded a rope necklace using crystal seed beads with a copper lining to match the tiny beads that were used to construct the bezel with.

The Herringbone beading pattern consists of over 550 size 8/0 seed beads in copper lined crystal and Straw Gold with an aurora borealis finish.   Naturally I didn't have any end caps or cones that would fit this rope and when I tried making my own seed beaded end caps it made the rope so thick at the end that it would not fit through the beaded bail of the pendant.  OH BOTHER !  Fortunately I found these pretty antique brass flower end caps at Ornementea, they fit perfectly and look so feminine.

The end flower end caps are topped with solid copper beads that match the copper in the seed beads nicely, to this I've added my handcrafted extender chain constructed with Swarovski adorned wire links and 10 mm jumprings.  At the ends I've added my own handmade hook and eye clasp.

I think it came together well.  In this photo I had to pull most of the rope necklace back in order for the pendant to rest on the flocked display bust.

May? Already?? ....Where did April go ?

I can't believe how much time has passed since my last post.  Wish I had a valid excuse but none comes to mind ... other than busy or forgetful!    Oh! and then there was the Royal Wedding that kept me totally preoccupied, couldn't pry myself away from the TV.  Kate was absolutely an angelic beauty, loved her gown. The couple seems to be deeply in love and, as everyone else, I wish them a long and happy life together.

As far as anything new, well the kitchen tile work is done and  I could not be happier with the results.

Photo above...Gives me something to look at while slaving over a hot stove.  :)

Photo below...The damaged drywall was repaired and now, with the new tile, this corner looks so much nicer.

 

Photo above...All my new space for the old coffee pot and ....

Photo below...and the single serve coffee brewer (the culprit that started this whole remodeling).

Sorry about the angle on this photo I was trying to avoid my shadow but it is still in the photo.  A good photographer I am NOT.  LOL   Oh well I'll just enjoy the wonderful photos of  others such as Aly at AlyGator's Everywhere, Annette of So Many Memories , Tash of Palos Verde Daily Photo  and dear, wonderful T at Poppy Place PDX.