The Charmed Life

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Mysterious Wisteria, Shyolet Violets, Fanzy Pansies, and Sunrises Irises

Bracelet on etsy. Flowers everywhere. Happy spring!

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Love to Eat Them Mousies

Gilda has been catching mousies lately.

Lots and lots of mousies...which she leaves in various places

to surprise me when I'm barefoot.

She looks all demure in the picture but,

in truth, she is a fierce huntress.

It put me in mind of the Kliban cartoon and song.

There's a link to the Kliban website at the bottom,

so you can hear the song performed, and then can sing it to your kitties.

Love to eat them mousies...

Mousies what I love to eat.

Bite they little heads off.

Nibble on they tiny feet.

charms on etsy

charms on eBay

the extremely charming Kliban website with a cattoon every day

Saturday, March 3, 2012

When Life Gives You Beads... Make Bead Soup!

I'm participating in the 5th Bead Soup Blog Hop Party. The way it works is that you are partnered with another bead lover -- one whose pieces are quite different from your own. My lovely partner is Cindy Cima Edwards and you can find her work at www.zimaj.com, www.etsy.com/shop/zimaj, and www.cindycima.com/. She even told me how to make a favicon, which is the little black cat at the top of my blog... which looks remarkably like Cindy's favicon.

You send your partner a bag of beads, a focal, and a clasp and your partner sends you a bag of beads, a focal...

...and a clasp. Here's the clasp Cindy sent me, and some of the beads.

Then... you make something with your beads and focal and clasp, and so does your partner. Elsewhere other partners are scratching their heads and wondering what to do with their beads.

I was a very lucky partner. Because, though my partner's tastes and mine are quite different, she selected a disparate group of elements that appealed to my eclectic nature.

She gave me beads in colors I rarely use...

...

...and metals that I've never used...

...but in colors and textures that looked fabulous together.

This forced me to think out of the box, break out of my comfort zone, and experiment.

Some of the Bead Soupers made several pieces out of their "soup" but I was enchanted with the way my bits looked together. I went out and got more chain in matching metal but un-matching patterns.

I got myself some bronze colored copper wire, knowing I'd be able to wrap with that. I got myself some stringing material and some end loops and started pondering how I was going to join chain with strung beads.

And I came up with a concept -- something I'd been wanting to do for a long time. I wanted to make a complex and long lariat necklace. A lariat necklace, for inquiring minds, is generally long, with an open end and a loop through which the open end can pass.

Of course, first I had to figure out how to do that with the pieces I now had heaped in front of me. I figured out a way to join strung elements and chain.

Then I figured out how to make one end of the necklace split off and form a loop big enough for my tiger's eye focal bead to pass through.

I even figured out how to combine the elements so that each element enhanced the others.

I wire wrapped and strung and strung and wire wrapped.

I struggled with the beautiful clasp. I also struggled with the concept that a lariat necklace doesn't HAVE a clasp. Mine does.

It turns out (as you may have already guessed, that if your necklace has open ends and a clasp, you can end up with two disconnected pieces of necklace. I'm still working on that. ;0)

But it was all okay because the necklace was looking cool.

Really cool.

I mean, seriously cool.

It is, in fact, so cool, that I am going to give it as a gift to my friend Melissa, who faithfully follows my blog every single day (as do her cats) and who supports my jewelry and writes me wonderful emails even when I'm too buried in beads and work and cat fur to email back.

And it's going to look very cool on her.

Now... if you would like to hop to the other blogs, coolness awaits, and here's a little "map" for you.

Enjoy and thanks for sharing my beady adventure.

Hostess, Lori Anderson
(who made this utterly amazing list and organized the whole beady shebang)

Special Book Sneak Peeks, Cindy Wimmer

1. Adlinah Kamsir (Singapore) and Hajer Waheed (Kingdom of Bahrain)

2. Adrienn Lukacs (Hungary) and Agata Grygiel (Poland)

3. Agi Kiss (Hungary) and Carolien Muller-Genger (the Netherlands)

4. Agnes Asztalos (Hungary) and B.R. Kuhlman

5. Alesha Conklin and Becki Mendivil

6. Alice Peterson and Carol Dillman

7. Alicia Marinache (Canada) and Dita Basu

8. Amanda Dittloff and Brandy Thomason McNair

9. Amanda Tibbetts and Andrea Trank

10. Amy Freeland and Kay Mallery