New looks for some of my designs

Have you shared my last blog post about classes I and some of my friends are teaching at the Bead&Button Show?  No?  Please, please, please check out The Great 2015 B&B Show Class Share-A-Thon post and share it on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, or wherever you'd like.  Also, please encourage your friends and family to share the post.  Thanks!

A few weekends ago I participated in the Gardens and Gears Steampunk Faire at the Mitchell Park Domes.  Attendance was double what it was last year, and I had such a good time!
 
In preparation for the show, I stitched up a few of my designs in what I thought were "steampunk-y" colors.

Here's my SDN15 - Dino-spine bracelet in colors I don't think I would have picked out.  My friend Amy suggested them, and I think they look really nice.

 
Here's the other side:

I've had a lot of fun playing with the new Pip beads in my Double Decker Daisy bracelet.  I'm even considering changing some of my kits to have Pips instead of dagger beads.  For the first time, I experimented with colors not usually associated with flowers to give it a more industrial look:

One highlight of the show was this well-dressed man:

(I have to say he was "well-dressed" instead of "hot" so my husband won't get jealous)

It's a little hard to see, but he's wearing one of my inked vintage dragon dominoes on his fob chain.  He had quite a hard time deciding which one he wanted and how he would wear it.  I almost did a rush job to make a pin for him so he could wear it to an event the following weekend, but then he realized it would look great on the chain!

Here's a closer look at one of the inked dragon dominoes:

My dad found them at an antique store, and I'm so glad he did!  They are very popular.

The weekend following the Gardens and Gears Steampunk Faire was the annual Spring Retreat held by the Loose Bead Society.  It was a great weekend of beading, eating, laughing, shopping at Funky Hannah's, beading, and eating.  I would say it was relaxing, but I stayed up far too late and got up far too early.  I blame Amy.  My number of hours slept at a retreat has decreased dramatically since she started coming a few years ago, and I don't regret a single yawn.

I was finally able to finish a few projects that have been languishing, but I also completed a few smaller projects.

Here's the completed teal SDN15 - Intertwined Pyramids that I'm teaching at the Bead&Button Show this June:

I had considered making it big enough for my mutantly-large wrist, but I decided against it.  Although the color is pretty, I only have one top I can wear it with (not counting black or white).  I have a lovely RED (I type it like that because it's so red it screams at you), and I'm going to make another bracelet with those and black seed beads to fit me.  I have a few red tops, and it'll look great with a black one.  I'm also going to make earrings.

The Society's President-Elect, Katy Hess, pulled me aside during the retreat to show me these earrings:

At the Milwaukee Bead Show, Katy picked up my postcard that had free instructions on how to make these Polka Dot beaded beads.  She stitched a loop instead of stringing them on headpins, and I think they look so cute!  I'm going to steal the idea of making that loop.  That way I can make the beads with 15/0 seed beads instead of 11/0s.

In case you haven't picked up my postcard, you can get the directions for the beads and how to extend it to make a bracelet or necklace here.  Feel free to pin it!

Beading for a different cause - Senhoa Foundation in Cambodia

Two weeks ago and on Wednesday I wrote about the Bead-It-Forward project and the item assembly night that was held at Kalmbach.  I explained that the proceeds from selling all of the donated items will go towards breast cancer research.

On Thursday I went back to Kalmbach for a presentation about two organizations - one local and one in Cambodia.  Both have similar missions - to help women and children who come from impoverished and/or abusive backgrounds improve their lots in life through a number of different programs.

The local organization is The Women's Center of Waukesha.  Their mission is to "provide safety, shelter, and support to women and their families affected by domestic violence, sexual assault and abuse, and to facilitate their development."  Here's what they offer, directly from their website: "The Women’s Center offers free and comprehensive services including domestic violence, sexual assault, and abuse counseling, an emergency domestic violence shelter, a 24-hour hotline, free on-site child care, legal advocacy, transitional living, and life skills programming that includes employment, parenting and grandparents support groups, educational forums and advocacy."  It would be nice if centers like this in Waukesha and all over the country weren't needed, but unfortunately they are.  If you can, donate to or volunteer at the center in your area.  If you need help yourself, don't hesitate to reach out to them.

The rest of Thursday's presentation was given by Lisa Nguyen of the Senhoa Foundation in Cambodia.  Their mission is very similar to the Women's Center of Waukesha's mission, but it has an extra edge to it:  "Senhoa Foundation supports vulnerable persons & survivors of human trafficking by providing income-generating opportunities, social reintegration and programs for self-empowerment."  Here's something from the Problem page of the Senhoa website:  "Women and children are predominately trafficked for the purpose of forced labor, domestic work, and sex work. Individuals are usually sold or stolen by family members, friends, and strangers."  She told us about how girls' virginities are sold by their parents so they have money to survive.

Lisa showed us a video - I think it was this one - and I had tears in my eyes seeing what's going on there.  The video also shows how the Foundation helps, including the reason why the presentation was given at Kalmbach: in one of the programs they have, women make beautiful jewelry using Swarovski crystals.  That part of the video starts around 2:39.  Lisa explained that making basic jewelry is an easy skill to acquire, not requiring literacy (many of these women are illiterate), and the women gain confidence and self-worth through handling the beads, making jewelry, and having the pieces be sold.

She brought some of the jewelry and passed it around.  It was stunning.  There were pieces with chain, metal, wire, and stitching.  The stitched pieces included beaded bezels and peyote tubes.  In the boutique's main page you can see a gorgeous necklace that's all beaded bezels - silver beads around large black crystals.  She passed that one around, and it was breathtaking.

I'm not going to go into more detail.  Their website can do a far better job than I can.  You can read all about what the foundation does and how you can get involved, either by purchasing items from the boutique, by donating, or by volunteering.

At the very least, you have to check out the boutique to see all of their beautiful pieces.  You'll marvel at how women can come from such humble backgrounds and make such amazing jewelry.  The breathtaking bezeled necklace is Kelly, and we also saw Angelina (which also got lots of oohs and aahs), Chantrea, and a few other pieces.  I really like the Solidarity pendant necklace.  It's elegant but simple enough to wear every day.  Like Lisa said during the presentation, whenever someone compliments you on a piece of Senhoa jewelry, you have the opportunity to explain where it came from and hopefully get someone else involved.

This is the second program like this I've been to since I joined the Loose Bead Society of Greater Milwaukee.  The first was Beads of Hope Africa.  In that presentation, we were told about women who were breaking rocks for a living (among all kinds of other things that were going on - please read this page for their mission and background).  Beads of Hope Africa works with them to make beautiful paper beads, and those beads are assembled into jewelry and sold all over the world.  You can see and order their jewelry and other items here.

With each of these presentations, I'm struck with how lucky I am.  Yeah, I have a lot of health and financial problems, but I live in a nice house with a nice husband and have a nice family and three nice cats (although Pixel has been interfering with my writing by constantly getting on and off my lap).  I bead for a living, but for the most part I'm able to put all of the money right back into the business.  I'm dependent on Steve, but that's okay.  He loves me and will always take care of me.

Hearing about these organizations that help women become independent through making jewelry is humbling.  I look at my life and think I'm really not contributing much to society.  I teach people stitching techniques and how to stitch my designs, but it's not on the same level at all.  Steve and I aren't able to help support any of the organizations I've talked about financially - it's all we can do to keep our heads above water.  It's the same with volunteering.  If I could do anything more than I currently do, I would.  It all looks like excuses as I'm typing, but it's really true.

However, I'm also inspired.  If those women can pull themselves out of their circumstances and have better lives, then maybe I can do the same.

In the meantime, what I can do is encourage you to look into these programs and organizations, to help where you can (jewelry and beaded items always make great presents, and buying gifts from such worthy causes will increase the value in your recipients' eyes), and to share the information with your family and friends so they can help out, too.  It's like that 80's Faberge shampoo commercial, "And they'll tell two friends and so on and so on and so on!"

So that's what I can do.  What can you do?  I'd love to post pictures of you and your Beads of Hope Africa or Senhoa jewelry.  E-mail pictures to traci@creative-pursuits.biz, and I'll post them!

To keep you from scrolling around looking for links, here are the organizations and programs I've talked about the last few days:

Bead-It Forward
Beads of Hope Africa
Senhoa Foundation
The Women's Center of Waukesha

Keyboard innards jewelry

Before I get started on the keyboard innards, I have an announcement!  The Bead&Button Show class catalog has shipped!  My Cobblestone Path class is on Friday night (June 6th) and is smack-dab in the middle of page 114:

I'm so excited!  Registration starts at noon CST on January 7th, 2014.  If you might be interested in taking my class, please e-mail me at traci@creative-pursuits.biz if you have any questions.

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Now for the innards...

When I read and reviewed Recycled Crafts: Crafts Made Using Recycled Materials, I got inspired to do something with keys from a computer keyboard.  The book showed making keyboard necklaces and word magnets, but my ideas were for making earrings with the keys turned backward - either with beads or with the little figures I have leftover from my My Milwaukee: A Triptych bracelet.  Unfortunately, I had taken a number of keyboards and other electronic devices to the electronic recycling center before deciding to do this, and we could only find one keyboard in the house that was not in use.  It was a newer one, and the keys are too short for me to do what I want.

However, I found something much, much more interesting:

I said, "What on earth are these things, and why are they so cool?"  Steve said that keys on modern keyboards press into silicone sheets (shown on the right) to press the two layers of circuit boards (shown on the left) together to tell the computer what key has been pressed, and that's why the keys are shorter than they used to be.

Well, I flat out fell in love with the silicone sheet.  It's stretchy, and I like pushing in the nubs.  I decided that I must make jewelry with them.

Here's the silicone layer close up:

Because of the layout of the keyboard, the nubs are understandably somewhat far apart.  There are also holes in various places.  It takes a little bit of planning to determine what you want to cut, and it takes a lot of patience to actually cut it, since the sheet is stretchy.  It likes to move around on me.  Until I can find modern keyboards at Goodwill or somewhere like that, this is my only silicone sheet, and I need to be judicious with it.  I got a whole box full of keyboards from my mother's basement, but those are all old and have no magic silicone sheets.

I knew I'd need to stitch the sheet onto something so it wouldn't just flap about in the breeze, so I trotted off to Knot Just Beads to get some Ultrasuede.  I wanted bright colors so they'd show through the silicone, and I chose pink and light blue.  I also picked up a brass cuff and a tube of mixed purple seed beads that Kim said would look nice against the blue.  I'd been eying those purple beads for a few months, and I was glad to have an excuse to buy them.  She didn't have to suggest it twice.

I was a little nervous working with the silicone sheet for the first time on something large like a bracelet.  I didn't know if it would work at all, so I started out with earrings.  I cut out circles of silicone with a nub in the center because I like things that are symmetrical and because the nubs were too far apart to have more than one on each circle.  I had some metal blanks with a hole at the top, so I sandwiched one of those in between layers of pink Ultrasuede and the silicone.  So I had Ultrasuede, metal blank, Ultrasuede, silicone.  I stitched a beaded whip stitch like I did on my Milwaukee bracelet (you can see how that looks "in action" here), and it went together pretty well.  I did have to make sure the silicone stayed where I put it - it tended to want to pull away on the edge that still needed to be stitched - but that wasn't too bad for the earrings.

I stitched a loop where the hole of the metal blank was, and when I was done I realized that it wouldn't hang correctly from an earring wire.  I twisted the loop of the earring wire, and that worked just fine!

Here are my finished earrings:

Oh, geez.  I made boobs.  I really didn't plan on them being boobs, but with the pink and the nubs in the middle...  Accidental boobs.  Oh, well!  I'm definitely not taking them apart, so I have them up on Etsy celebrating the fact that they look like boobs.

Now that I'm afraid to make more silicone jewelry with the pink Ultrasuede, I turned to the blue and the brass cuff.  I wanted to do the same type of technique but also to incorporate mini petals stitched around a few of the nubs to look like flowers.  I cut the silicone sheet at a diagonal (at Steve's suggestion), and stitched the flowers and a few rings of seed beads around some of the nubs before I stitched the layers together.  I had the silicone-shifting thing a lot more on this bracelet than I did on the earrings.  If I do this again, I'll cut the silicone a bit bigger and trim if I need to.  Better to trim than to not have enough.  As it is, I was able to stretch the silicone enough to make it work.

Here's the final bracelet:

I think it's very cute, and I hope it finds a good home.  I've listed it on Etsy, too.  Update!  My bracelet did find a good home with my Aunt Nancy.  She saw it at my show in Waukegan on December 7 and adored it.  Thanks, Aunt Nancy!

After the holiday selling season, I'll be working more with both the silicone sheet I have left, the circuit board sheets, and maybe even the keys.

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Speaking of the holiday selling season,  I have two more shows:

Cookie sale and craft show
December 7, 2013
9a - 2p
St. John's United Church of Christ
1520 N McAree Rd, Waukegan, Illinois

I have done this show a number of times, and it's always a lot of fun!  There will be many different kinds of cookies, sweets, and other goodies as well as a number of vendors.  I'll be there with my finished jewelry, vinyl decals, and magnets.


Weihnachtsmarkt
December 14, 2013
10a - 3p
German Immersion School
3778 N. 82nd Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

This will be my third time at this Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market).  There will be many vendors selling a number of different items, and there's a lot of hustle and bustle up and down the school's halls.  I'll be there with my finished jewelry, vinyl decals, and magnets.


If you can, come by either show and say hi!

2013 LBS Challenge - Part 1 - Inspiration

I know last week I mentioned that today I was going to blog about the earrings I made for my mother for her birthday.  However, I forgot that last night was the voting for the 2013 Loose Bead Society Challenge, and I could finally blog about my piece.  I asked Mom if she was okay with me postponing the earring blog, and she said that was fine.  (Pssst... Mom... I need a picture of the necklace that goes with the earrings.  Can you please ask John to take one and send it to me?  Thanks!  Love you!)

Unfortunately that earring blog is going to be postponed a very long time.  I want to really go in depth about my Challenge piece, and that will take some time, since I'm trying to keep my posts shorter.  :)

The theme of this year's Challenge was "What Says Milwaukee to Me?"  I loved this theme because I love Milwaukee.  There is so much to do here, and everything is right at our fingertips.  The drive to downtown takes 15-20 minutes in good traffic, and it's not that much longer in bad traffic.  Easy in and out, and there are many free or low-cost events.

Pretty soon after the theme was announced, I knew what I wanted to do.  I knew it would stretch my abilities, but I wanted to create something large in concept that would match my love for Milwaukee.

I decided to do a bead embroidery bracelet.  For someone who has done a lot of bead embroidery, that wouldn't be too daunting of a task.  However, I had only made one bead embroidery piece:

It's a pin, in case you were wondering

I love it, but it's a far cry from a bracelet.  I wanted to showcase different aspects of living in Milwaukee, and that meant a bolder, more elaborate piece was needed.

The first inspiration was Point Fish Fry & a Flick, which is held every summer outside next to Discovery World:

 
I got that picture from the To quote or not to quote? article from A.V. Club Milwaukee.  It gives a good view of the area.  Off to the right you can see the huge inflatable movie screen.  Curving around to the left and behind is a pier, where boats frequently came in to turn around.

We didn't go this year, mainly because there were few movies, and it didn't get started until late August.  It gets really chilly after dark that late in the season.  Last year and the year before, though, we went a number of times, and we really enjoyed ourselves.

The Fish Fry & a Flick would be in the center of the bracelet.

The second inspiration was this piece of art that can be seen along the RiverWalk:

I don't know exactly where this is or anything about it.  My friend Sherri Ballard took this picture when we walked along the river with her daughter Sydney.

I had originally wanted to do this on either side of the Fish Fry & a Flick section, but something was niggling at the back of my brain.  Possibly it was because I wasn't able to find the right color brown for the bricks, but I think it was because I wanted to include the main reason I love Milwaukee:

It's my home.  I would never have moved here if I hadn't met and married the most wonderful man in the world.  If you missed my review of him and our marriage so far, click here.

So after all of that, I should probably show you the bracelet.  I'll break down how I made it in later blog posts.

I give you:

My Milwaukee: A Triptych

Here's the Fish Fry & a Flick section:

The art along the river:

Our house:

Oh - one last piece of inspiration: the beads represent the Loose Bead Society members who are my friends and who have supported me as I've grown in my beadwork.

And to prove that it's actually wearable (although I won't wear it to the grocery store):

I think I didn't mention this earlier, but I won for the Advanced category of the Challenge.  Yay me!


Next week: designing the shape of the bracelet and the Fish Fry & a Flick section.

Book Review: What Is Your WHAT? by Steve Olsher

Today I'm going to post another of my Amazon book reviews for two reasons:  I'm still frantically getting ready for Sunday's Milwaukee Bead Show so need to be quick today, and What Is Your WHAT: Discover The One Amazing Thing You Were Born To Do is fabulous.

Many or most of you know that I run a small business making jewelry (and a few other things), teaching my jewelry designs, and selling tutorials and kits of my designs.  Some of you know that I didn't always do this and that I was a computer programmer for many years.  A very few of you know that job was not my first choice.

My junior year of high school I had an awesome math teacher, so I wanted to be a math teacher.  My math teacher my senior year was awful, and I lost interest in being a math teacher.  I seemed to have an aptitude for computers and programming, so I majored in computers in college.  I didn't know if that's what I really wanted to do, but I didn't know what else to major in.

While there I decided to specialize in AI (Artificial Intelligence), and there were so few women in the computer major that there were no women in the AI track when I joined.  (To give you a time reference, this was in 1989 or 1990.)  I told one of the guys about my decision, and he yelled up and down the hall, "There's a woman in AI!  There's a woman in AI!"  I really didn't know what I was going to do with it, but I thought it'd be neat to program robots and to be involved in other experimental things.

Unfortunately I fell into a deep depression (partially because of a man and partially because I had a bunch of philosophical questions in my head I couldn't/can't answer) my junior year of college, and by my senior year I was pretty useless.  I ended up dropping out after the first semester after scraping by in my computer classes.  I took a semester off to regroup, and I switched schools.  Again, I didn't know what I wanted to do, so I stuck with computer programming and got my Bachelor of Science degree.

Eventually I found a programming job at a small business but didn't enjoy it.  Sure, I enjoyed aspects of the job, but there was much of it I found tedious.  Same thing happened years later when I had another programming job with another small company.  The parts I liked best were talking with customers, teaching them how to use their software, and troubleshooting problems (when there wasn't a time crunch).

I'm not going to go into all the details here of either job and what I had problems with, but in 2010 it was decided (by me, my husband, and our parents) that I would quit.  Because I wasn't caught up with what was current in programming, I was more than a little scarred from my last job, I had developed the Fibromyalgia and Osteoarthritis I'm always complaining about, and a few other factors, we decided that I would start my own business doing web design for creative folks.  That didn't work out very well, so now I make jewelry and teach.

I'm very lucky that Steve can support us and that our parents help us when unexpected expenses pop up.  My business is called "Creative Pursuits" for a reason - I am free to pursue my creativity and (with luck) make money at it.

So knowing all that, one might wonder why I picked up What Is Your WHAT?.  It seems that through a series of events I've figured out what "amazing thing I was born to do".  To be blunt, the author offered an advance ebook version for free in exchange for writing the review I'm about to share with you.  Also, I'm curious if what I'm doing is really what I'm supposed to be doing.  I love to write (as you can tell by the length of my blog posts), so perhaps I should be focusing on that.  Wow, as I write this I'm getting quite the jolt of deja vu.  Have I typed those exact words before?  :::shiver:::

Anyway.  I'll let the review tell the rest of it so I can get back to preparing for Sunday's show and a class I'm teaching tomorrow:

I was a bit skeptical when I started reading this book because it opened with six pages of "Praise for What Is Your WHAT?". Quotes upon quotes touting this book as the best thing since sliced bread. I read them all and was curious if the author could really deliver the "ultimate guide on self-discovery" as Erika Gilchrist says in her review. However, it didn't take too long to see why so many people came forward to endorse Steve Olsher and "What Is Your WHAT?".

Instead of diving right into figuring out what your WHAT is, the author helps the reader lay the groundwork for it with explanations of the four stages of learning (and what that means in practical terms) and exercises so you can begin to recognize where you're vulnerable and where you excel. The author walks you through step by step and encourages you to take all the time you need and even to talk to other people (if you're up to it) to gain insights into your faults and strengths. Once that's done, he leads you through designing your ideal life and what you need to do to stop the downward slide and start to live a better life through seven life-altering principles. Once you've absorbed all of this, it's time to discover what your WHAT is and how to achieve it.

The author covers every topic thoroughly with numerous examples from the author's life and from people who have taken his reinvention workshops. There are many case studies of people who are doing what they're meant to do and how they got there. He also includes the people's websites so if you're interested in learning more about them you know right where to look.

This book is ideal for those who feel like they should be doing more with their lives but don't know how to get there. I will say that this is hard work and not to be taken lightly. The exercises are designed to really make you look at your life with a magnifying glass. The ultimate goal is for you to live the life of your dreams by doing what you love to do and getting paid well for it, and that's not something most people can just fall into. You need to shed the bad and cultivate the good, and that takes serious introspection and time. The author is with you throughout the whole process, asking questions to help you along.

I was very impressed with the information presented in this book and will definitely be working through all of the exercises and keeping the seven life-altering principles in mind as I live day-to-day, figure out what my WHAT is (although I already have an inkling what that might be), and become successful at it. I plan to frequently dip into the book to refresh my memory and to plan for the future.

The author also gives a website where you can get another of his books for free. That book is for folks who want to profit online. I already had it but haven't started reading it yet. Now that I'm comfortable with the author and how helpful he is in "What Is Your WHAT?" I'm really looking forward to it! 

If you have any doubts that you're doing what you were meant to do, read this book.  It's never too late to change careers (the author recommends a slow change, not a dive-in-head-first-like-Traci-did approach).  Have your children read it before they go off to college and stumble around trying to pick a major and a career.  If you read it and gain any valuable insights, e-mail me at traci@creative-pursuits.biz and tell me about it!

My quote book

Almost a month ago I mentioned my quote book, and I said I would post about it more soon.  Well, with everything that's been going on and with all of the things I wanted to post about, I nearly forgot!  Then as I started writing this post, I could have sworn that I have posted about it before.  I remember my cousin Dawn telling me I should make two - one for her, too.  Maybe that was on Facebook, though, because I couldn't find it.  I looked through my list of posts, skimmed through a number of them, and asked Steve.  So if this seems familiar to you... so sorry!  Hopefully this version will be more interesting.  :D

I'm always fascinated by quotes and poems.  They can be uplifting, inspiring, funny, and motivating.  And they can touch something deep inside you.  I have at least one published book of quotes (Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, I think?).  I even typed up a number of quotes, cut them out in strips, and put them in a box where I can pull one out from time to time:

Anyone who looks inside will get a nice surprise!

I was starting to amass too many quotes, though, so I decided to get a book I could put them in.  Another thing I'm very fond of is blank books.  I have a whole box of failed diaries, books for my poems, sketches, and just blank books.  I love blank books.  I don't remember when or where I found this particular book, but I loved it.  The leather was soft, and there was a flap that folded over the top with a leather strip that wrapped around and could be tucked in to keep the book closed.

I happily started writing my quotes in (with a purple pen, of course):

And then....disaster struck.

He looks so harmless, doesn't he?  Caegal, the Pomeranian I had when I was with Dave (this is over 10 years ago, I should mention), loves to get into things he's not supposed to:

We had to take him to the animal hospital once because he got into a closed pillbox of diet pills.  He chews through bags and packages to get to bread (that loaf of bread plus a Ziploc bag of dinner rolls that he had to climb to get to) and chocolate, he loves rummaging around in bathroom garbages and litter boxes, and... he loves leather.  Shoes, purses, and my poor quote book:

He's lucky he's so cute.

Well, eventually Dave moved out, taking Caegal with him, and all my leather products (and my food and my cats...) were safe.

I had this book out to take pictures of it, and Steve said, "What's this?"  I told him it was my first quote book, and he said, "It's been Caegaled?"  He knows Caegal all too well.  We watched him once, and it was quite a dance we had making sure the cats could get to their litter boxes but Caegal could not.  It was like the movie "The Others" - we had to close one door and make sure it was secure before opening the next door.  We had gates up with chairs on either side so the older (and the fat) cats could navigate through the house.  I love the pup, but it was exhausting!

It took me quite a while to find a replacement for this book.  Truth to tell, I wasn't looking all that hard.

Whenever I'm in a bookstore I like to look at the blank books.  They have come out with so many beautiful books that it's difficult for me to not get one every time I look.  This particular day in 2006, though, I was not so strong.

The picture on the left is the front, and the one on the right is the back.

Yes, it's mostly gold, but something about it spoke to me.  (I usually cringe when I see gold things.)  As I mentioned when I posted about the book a month ago, it has a quote on the spine:  "The soul would have no rainbow if the eyes had no tears."  The quote is from John Vance Cheney.  I had to look that up - it wasn't on the book at all.  I find that odd.  Anyway.  The the image is a self portrait of Laurel Burch, and I think it's stunning, especially paired with that quote.  It's a PaperBlanks book, and all of their books are beautiful and well made.  There's a magnet embedded in the book and the flap, so when it's closed it stays closed.

Instead of just writing the quotes in like I did in the first book, I decided to make the book a work of "art" on the inside like it is on the outside:

Not everything is motivational, of course.  :)  This one is one of those that speaks to my heart.  I bordered it with heart stamps to tie in with the theme of the poem.

On these pages I stamped a harlequin pattern in the middle of each page, sponged the same color around the edges, stamped some flowers in the corners, and wrote the quotes large, emphasizing a word on each.

Since I love quotes, I tend to get quote stamps, too.  These pages are simple, but possibly my favorites.  I sponged blue around the edges and stamped flowers above and below each of the quotes.

Not all of the pages have just one quote per page:

If I'm feeling ambitious I'll stamp the first letter of the quote and stamp a border in between.  This one also has borders stamped in the corners.

Even if you don't stamp, you can do something similar for your own quote or poem book.  Use different color pens for the first letters and make them large and add a doodle border in between and in various places on the page.  Do whatever makes you happy, and you can have your own book of quotes and poems that are meaningful to you.  You can start with the ones on these pages if you'd like.

Hidden treasure

I've been busy since I last posted, but not with anything new I can post about.  I submitted classes for next year's Bead&Button Show - the six designs I submitted last year plus two new ones using twin beads.  The other thing I have been working on was relabeling my finished pieces for sale.  It was a lot of work, but I'm happy with the results.  I think my consistent branding will look good at the Donna Lexa Memorial Art Fair I'm in next Saturday (August 18th).  Something else occurred this weekend that I'll tell you about at the end of this post.

A number of my Loose Bead Society friends sell their work.  We frequently talk about how to price, what to do with older items that haven't sold yet (keep plugging on with them or take them apart and try something different?), how to balance making the time-consuming yet gorgeous pieces with items that will more quickly sell, and how to set up our displays.

One person I always look to for neat displays is Brenda Schweder. Here's her business's Facebook page and her Etsy page for steel wire and her new "Now That's a Jig" wire jig.  She's written three books, too: Junk to Jewelry, Vintage Redux, and Steel Wire Jewelry (every time I see her books at Barnes & Noble, I take them off of the shelf and put them facing front in the "special books" section).  Whew!  After all this I'd better get a commission!

Anyway.  Brenda.  I've posted about her and her studio before and the little bit I did to help her organize (you can read it here if you missed it).  What she's very good at is getting cool vintage displays.  She takes anything and makes a display out of it - old suitcases, old boxes, metal display shelves from some old store, and tons of things.  A friend and I found wooden crates for her at a garage sale (originally for pears, I think), and they were perfect for her to put books in!  We also found her a neat wooden tool case.

Since I haven't quite found my "niche" yet, I'm always on the lookout for functional but cool-looking displays.  I've started using paper-covered boxes that I've found at Michael's, and Steve is making me wooden earring racks (which we'll be posting about soon).  I have decent bracelet displays and a few standing necklace displays, but I have these horrid white spinner racks for the bulk of my necklaces.  They're horrid because they easily tip over, and they don't nest very well, so I don't know how to store them.

Coming home from the grocery store today I was thinking about what I'm going to work on next - mini key earrings to match a black and purple necklace.  Could I make a bracelet to match?  Hmm... probably!  How am I going to display these pieces so customers will know what all is available?

I pull into the garage, open the trunk, and for some reason look across the garage:

(I opened the other door so there will be more light over there.)

Do you see it?  No?

Behind the ax is... I don't know what it is besides cool!  And vintage!  And free!

Anyone who has bought an old house knows there are hidden treasures everywhere.  In my last house, there was a picture on some sort of metal with a cow.  When I sell that house, that cow picture is coming home here, unless my renters have tossed it.  In this house I've posted about the shelved closets and built-in desk in my studio (click here for the final studio-organization post - you can click through to the others from there).  There have been many times where we thought, "Hey, it would be cool if we could..." just to find that there was a hook right there or a shelf or something.  There's a laundry chute, a milk door, and two built-in china cabinets.  And closets and shelves everywhere.  The previous owner was an architect, and he designed this house.

Apart from neat built-ins, we have found a few other hidden treasures: old suitcases (I take one of the smaller ones with me to all-day bead events so I can put my feet up after I've emptied all the goodies out), records, and now this.... box?

I carefully extracted it and took it outside:

It's about 19" long, 5 1/2 " wide, and almost 3" deep.  It was covered in cobwebs, scary-looking white nest thingies, and general been-in-the-garage-for-God-knows-how-long ickiness.  My first thought was, "I'll ask Steve to clean it up for me!"  My second thought was, "He'll roll his eyes at me."  My third thought was, "I want to post about it, so I'd better do it myself!"

I got a few wet paper towels and carefully cleaned all the gross stuff out (and off of the back!).  Outside.  I even threw the paper towels away outside.  Just in case there was anything still incubating in the scary white nest thingies.  I brought it inside and washed my hands.  I then went over it with a disinfectant wipe and washed my hands again.  Because of my allergies, of course.  Not because I was afraid of it or anything.

It's all nice and clean now:

Here's a view of the slightly beat-up side (which is what you want in a vintage piece, I think):

Now, what do I do with it?  I could hang it on the wall and put stuff in it, but I think not.  It won't be good for my original quandary about displaying sets, but... wait... KITS!  This will be perfect for displaying kits at the Milwaukee Bead Show, and I bet I can come up with something to put in it at other shows, too.

I don't know why I didn't see it before, but I'm glad I did.  I'll have to take another look at what's in the attic!  What do you have in your house?  If you find anything cool, send me a picture at traci@creative-pursuits.biz, and I'll post it here.

________________

Now, on to what happened this weekend.  I've gone back and forth on if I should post about it or not.  Many of my regular readers already know.  Steve and I decided not to publicly post about it on Facebook, but should I post here?  Yes, I think so.  This blog is not only about what I do but also about how I do it, where I do it, and who I do it with.  Thorns along with the roses.

Simoon passed away Saturday night.  She had a large mass in and around her intestines that would have been more than difficult to remove, plus her spleen looked odd.  We decided to not put her through that, and we held her when she went to sleep.

She was my companion for over 14 years, and she loved to be right in the middle of what I was doing.  You've seen that in my chainmaille post as well as my studio posts.  I looked through all of my pictures of her so I could post one you haven't seen.  There were many where she was just hanging out or grooming, of course, but there were quite a number of pictures where she was on top of my supplies.

These pictures are "quintessential" Simoon:

Big, cat-sized open space on the desk, but she has to sit on the messy side!

Needless to say, I had to move on to something else.  (This project was the altered book I made for Mom a few years ago.  See the posts here:  part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4).

She had a ready, loud purr that made me content while I worked (when I eked out a space where I could work).

There is a more-than-cat-sized hole in my studio and in my heart.  Pixel is doing his best to comfort me by sitting on my lap and jumping on my desk, but Simoon will be missed.

I have a blank book that I put quotes and poems in.  I'll post about that soon.  One of the things I love about it is a quote on the spine:  "The soul would have no rainbow if the eyes had no tears."

On to happier things tomorrow.

Inspiration staring me in the face

Hold the phone!  Stop the presses!  Traci is posting TWO blogs in a week!  I hope you're sitting down.

A few days before a beading party at a friend's house I was looking for something new to do.  It's not that I don't have a huge backlog of projects like everyone else does, but I just wanted something new.  Something inspiring.  Something slightly different but well within what I'm capable of and would be capable of at a bead party.

So I was sitting here at my desk, and I looked up at the shelf above the desk and found....

Before I tell you what I found, let me first remind you of my room.  I posted about it early in my blog "career", and you can (re)acquaint yourself with it here.  The room has changed a bit since that post.  The bookshelves and cart are still there, but when I got my new Cricut Expression (you can read about it here), the Cricut station had to change.  I moved in a folding table which has ended up being an extra dumping space more than a Cricut station.  I did use it as such yesterday, but that was the first time.  Our dining room table has been a Cricut station more.

Another change is that the more I've gotten into jewelry, the more room I need.  We moved all of the scrapbooks into the spare room to give me more room for jewelry books, magazines, and supplies.  I'm so far behind on my scrapping.  I'm going to a crop this Saturday - hopefully I'll get more than one or two layouts done.

Once I clean things up I'll post updated pictures.  It seems that any time I clean off one thing, everything else gets messy, then I start a new project, and all bets are off.

In the last picture on my craft room blog post you can see my desk.  I love this desk.  It's sleek, it's smooth, it generally has a cat (or two) on it, and it has a shelf above it.

Here's a closer-up picture of the shelf in all of its messy glory:

The little ledge on top has a "t" stamp (I love monograms, especially stamps!), a metal page border I Staz-Oned purple, an eraser, a pedometer, a bunch of little knick-knacks, a thumb drive, a small piece of art I got out of a vending machine here in Milwaukee from a Waukeganite artist (Peter Bullock - www.art-hounds.com), and another monogram.

The lower ledge is much more of a mish-mash.  To the extreme left is hand sanitizer.  I'll not name everything, but the highlights are: clear nail polish (for earring wires, not nails), a baby anvil, a decoupaged rock one of my cousins in Germany gave me, sushi erasers, a binder with examples of my punches, my favorite picture of Mom and me at my wedding, a book where I've written some of my favorite quotes with stamped embellishments, a bunch of resin bottles and sealers, a few more thumb drives, some alcohol ink, more little knick-knacks, at least one monogram, a picture of my first cat (Perin - he's been gone 7 years now), a little vial I made in a Christi Friesen polymer clay class, some soul candy, and a lot of dust.

But wait, are any of those things the inspiration for the new piece?  Well, you should know I'd save the best for last.  A number of years ago I frequented a shop where there were crystals, Reiki, fairies, beautiful jewelry, and neat music.  I was friends with the owner.  One day I saw a dark purple pyramid with a Goddess symbol on it, and I just fell in love with it:

It's been close to me ever since - on my bedside table when I lived in Waukegan and now practically right in front of me at eye level.  No, I'm not super into Goddesses, but it spoke to me of the glorification of the female form.  Besides, it's purple (duh!).

Here's what's inside:

A few crystals, rose quartz, a slightly heart-shaped rock, and my favorite poem.

So that night, when I was looking up at my shelf, my eyes fell on my beloved pyramid and I really looked at it.  Then I did some research.  Come to find out that this symbol is the triple moon goddess.  There's also a simpler symbol where there are just the three moons - waxing, full, and waning - right next to each other.  If you're interested in seeing that picture plus a number of other ones plus a bunch of information, please click here.  I remembered that I have dark blue moon beads, and my mind started spinning.

I was wondering if I could design a peyote pattern to represent this.  I found an image somewhere with a spiral for her coochy instead of a circle, so I did that instead, plus added a few other spirals.  It was a bit difficult because you can't easily do curves in peyote, but I'm happy with what I came up with.

There is a neat free program called EasyBeadPatterns that I frequently use for these designs.  It's a quick download with a pretty easy interface.  You can design loom beading, peyote, two drop peyote, and more - check it out!

It took quite a while to bead, and Steve and my friends were teasing me that it looked more like a spider or alien than a Goddess.  They relented once it was done, however.

After ALL that lead-in, you've either left or are dying to see the piece.  In case it's the latter, here it is:

I incorporated the simpler triple moon goddess symbol twice on the necklace and once at the bottom of the focal piece.

Here's a closer look at the focal:

Since I didn't want to go to the store, I picked blues that I thought would work well with each other and with the moons.  The Goddess herself is done with silver beads, and she shimmers nicely against the light gray background.

I've been finding that I can put together some nice color schemes when I try to use what I have instead of hot-footing it to the store.  Don't tell the bead stores that, though - I spend enough there as it is!  :)

My friend Maggie Roschyk just had a book published that's all about getting inspiration from things around you.  It's called Artistic Seed Bead Jewelry: Ideas and Techniques for Original Designs.  You can check it out here on Amazon.

Today's experiment......

.....failed. (and it's only 4:30a!)

This was going to be a Facebook status update, but it's becoming too long, and I thought my readers would like to learn from my (copious) mistakes.

Steve and I were at our friends' house yesterday (Saturday) to play games, eat, chat, etc...  Cindy and Russ are our "couples friends", and we have a blast with them.  We played Scrabble (I won), Balderdash (which is a stupid game, but I somehow won anyway), Yahtzee (I think Cindy won that), and Shanghai Rummy (This is a GREAT game I wish I could play online.  You can find rules online, but not the actual game.  I think Cindy won this one, too).

Anyway.

Cindy, Steve, and I were talking about my influx of ideas while trying to sleep and that I could use a notebook next to my bed to write things down instead of getting up to do so and/or to experiment. Well, I didn't want to use the book light - I thought it would wake Steve up. I wrote copious notes, flipping pages all over the place as I'm flipping around in the bed trying to sleep.  On my left side... ooh!  I could try this... On my stomach... ooh!  I need to add this to the notes.  Flipped to my right side....  you get the idea.  With the Fibromyalgia, it's difficult for me to get comfortable, especially since I've had a number of nights where I've gotten up because I was over-hot or wanted to try something out (either with labeling my goods in a nicer, more professional way - that was my friend Judy's fault) or with making something).


Anyway.  Flip, write, flop, write, flip...


I got up for no reason you need to know about (I had a lot of water the first time I got up tonight), then wanted to add something to my notes...


Checked them in the bathroom night light.  Ack!  Things were written on top of each other because I flipped the notebook around (a few times), and other things are invisible because the pen didn't have a good angle on the paper.  So now I'm up, with the light on in my craft room, trying to decipher my notes, rubbing pencil over the invisible parts, and trying to remember what my ideas were.  Ack!

Here's a taste of what I ended up with:

Yes, it's something about a tree and clay.  I tell you NO MORE until I do my experimenting!


Needless to say, based on these results I'm less than convinced.  I'm going to use a pencil next time - a REGULAR one, not a mechanical one, and I'll have to tie a ribbon on the top of the spiral so I know which way is up.

On a side note, I've had a few sleep studies done this last month, and I seem to have moderate to severe sleep apnea, plus some restless leg/limb stuff thrown in for good measure.  It seems highly likely I'm going to have to use a CPAP machine (information about it can be found on Wikipedia here).  Although I slept well with it during my second sleep study, I still got up a number of times to use the bathroom.  Highly irritating.

One thing I'm concerned about, though, is if my sleep gets fixed, when will I come up with my ideas?

Wait.  I've been writing this blog instead of finishing my notes.  Oops.  Hope I remember everything!  Off I go!

Challenge necklace

During a trip to Midwest Beads a few months ago, Steve decided to pick out a few pieces for me as a challenge.  I got nervous that he'd pick yellow or orange or gold or something else I would have difficulties working with, but he's a good husband and would never do that to me.  He picked a large, dark blue stone bead and a pack of mixed beads.  He also included a magnetic clasp:

Because I've been on a bezelling kick lately, I chose these seed beads to go with the large bead:

Due to having a number of other projects I wanted to get done first, these pieces sat, waiting, looking at me questioningly every time I opened the case.  I knew I wanted to bezel the large bead, but I didn't know what to do for the rest of the necklace.

As you may have picked up from the rest of my projects, I'm more comfortable with symmetry and solid colors than with mixed sets.  That was part of the hesitation.  Another hesitation was that I've been really into stitching lately and haven't done much stringing.

But this week I sat down with the beads and stared at them.  I had thought to have the bead hang vertically with some dangly bits off of the bottom.  But then I turned it 90 degrees and the ideas started popping.

I bezelled the crap out of that bead on Sunday and Monday.  No, I don't know what "bezelled the crap out of that bead" means, but it sounds good, doesn't it?  I did have to fight with it some, especially after the bead went sailing out of the half-finished bezel at Alterra coffee shop Monday night.  I had difficulties getting it back into the bezel, which did not make any sense to me.  It slipped out easily enough, so it should slip back in easily, right?  Yeah.  Not really.

But the bezel finally contained the bead, which is its purpose.  Then I realized that I had to thread 2 wires through the holes which were now all covered up by the bezel.  With a long flexible needle and my trusty needle-nosed pliers, I was successful!  There was one casualty, however.  The needle did not survive.  The pliers snapped it in two while I was forcing the second wire through.  It was able to finish the job, and I gave it a little mental salute as I threw it into my empty Chamomile Lavender tea paper cup.

Tuesday night I sat down to string.  A normal person would have just grabbed beads and strung, but I am not a normal person.  If you haven't figured that out by now, you don't know me at all!  When I was looking at the mixed bead collection, I noticed some dangly kind of beads.  I thought it would be neat to have some dangling off of the bottom strand of the necklace.

I set to work separating all of the beads in the mix.  I decided that some of them were too shiny for this project and set them aside.  After I got partway through, I determined that I wouldn't have enough beads to continue both strands all the way to the back, so I joined them after 4 inches to have a single strand to finish the necklace off.  I still didn't have enough, and I didn't want to put the shiny beads in, so Steve and I raided my stash and found something that "would do".  None of the pictures show these beads, though - they're okay, but not spectacular.  My hair covers them, anyway, and they'll remain hidden unless one of you comes up to me and lifts my hair to check them out.

Here's a close up of the finished necklace, sans the hidden stash beads:

And here I am with it on:

I think it turned out well, and I look forward to future challenges!  I encourage you to challenge your friends, whether it be with jewelry or scrapbooking or any craft.  Trade some pieces from your own stash with a friend and see what each of you can come up with!  Take some pictures and send them to me (traciotte@att.net) and I'll post them here.