New Etsy Listings!

My latest Encrusted Beaded Cuff Bracelets have been added to my Etsy Shop! Above you see the Cuff that I am calling "Tropical Turquoise". You can read all the details about this piece HERE.
Here are several more detail shots of this piece.

Now may I present Pink Pazzaz!

This cuff is encrusted with many layers of work. I have added beaded fringe elements that move and add great depth. This cuff has already been a source of great interest and has brought on many spontaneous conversations in the checkout line at the grocery store!!

You can see all of the details posted HERE.

Here are several more detail shots!

I would relly appreciate it if some of you wonderful readers could swing by my Etsy Shop and let me know what you think of my listings. It would be so very helpful!

Thanks you all so very much for all of the thoughtful and supportive comments that you continue to leave for me, here at my blog!! You all really make my life so full and rich!!

ART ON!!!

Laughing Through The Tears

Tom lowered the flag to half mast on Friday.

Ted Kennedy, my Senator from the great State Of Massachusetts was laid to rest yesterday. Although I have not held residence in the state of Massachusetts since 1991, Ted Kennedy was my Senator and has had a profound and lasting influence on my life.

This is not a political statement, this is a statement about humanity, in all of it's glories and failings.

The stories told at the Wke on Firday night, had us laughing and crying and wishing for more. We were all blesssed to have had him with us for as long as we did. He fought for and worked for and loved and cried with the people of Massachusetts for 3 quarters of a century.

Every person alive can learn something positive from the life that this man led and the good that he has achieved for every one of us.

He loved Cape Cod. I love Cape Cod.

He loved the sea. I love the sea.

He chareished his family. I cherish my family.

He loved his dogs. I love my dogs.

He loved to sail. I love to sail.

He found solace in his faith. I have a faith.

He loved to laugh and he loved great stories. Who does not????

He thought about the needs of others. We all MUST!
He respected EVERYONE whether they agreed with him or not. I Strive to do this.

HE fought for those who could not fend for themselves. I try , to do this in my own small way.

He was an amazing parent and Uncle and Grandfather. He set an example for parents everywhere. I work everyday to be a good parent.

He suffered immeasuable tragedy and sheperded his extended family through horrible loss and darkness. Could any of us accomplish that?????

He rose above adversity countless times and strove to be a better person. He was an endlessly compassionate person. I try to be.

He constantly championed those who had no voice. We MUST ALL DO THIS!!

, "...the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

Love Changes Everything by Andrew Lloyd Weber

Love, love changes everything

Hands and faces, earth and skyLove,

love changes everything.

How you live and how you die

Love can make the summer fly

Or a night seem like a lifetime.

Yes love, love changes everything.

Now I tremble at your name

Nothing in the world will ever be the same Love,

love changes everything.

Days are longer,

words mean more.

Love, love changes everything.

Pain is deeper than before,

Love will turn your world around

And that world will last for ever.

Yes love, love changes everything.

Brings you glory, brings you shame

Nothing in the world will ever be the same.

Off into the world we go

Planning futures, shaping years.

Love bursts in and suddenly

All our wisdom disappears.

Love makes fools of everyone

All the rules we make are broken.

Yes love, love changes everyone

Live or perish in its flame

Love will never, never let you be the same.

Love will never, never let you be the same!

When I heard this song sung during the Memorial Service on Friday, it struck me that this song says it all. Love can change the world. If we all would TRUELY follow the Golden Rule, just imagine where we could take the world!!!!!

Follow the lead of this wonderful man.

Love each other as we love ourselves. The Golden Rule. This is enough- there need be no more.

Peace!

More Beadwork

I have completed three more beaded zipper cuffs! Two will be for sale on my Etsy site SOON and the third, the bottom one in the above picture, is on it's way to Tanzania for my neice, Kate's 13th Birthday!! Happy Birthday Kate, a bit late but worth the wait, I hope!!!!
The Turquoise/Green cuff has been beaded for a long time but now the lining has been completed. The Orange and Pink cuff was finished just recently and the cuff for Kate was completed today and in record time!!

I love the way the cuffs look all stacked together! But then I do LOVE COLOR!!!!!


Here is a shot of Kate's cuff beofre I stitched it to the cuff. This is the best way to photograph all of the beadwork.


Once on the cuff, here is one end,


and here is the other end. The two blue donut beads are made in Africa from recycled bottles. kate and her Dad brought those beads to me last year! I also used quite a few pearls on this cuff. The green disk bead with the blue swirls is a bead that I made form polymer clay. When Kate vivisted this year and I showed her my Ocean Cuff, she could hardly put it down! I think that she will be quite pleased!!

Here is the middle section.

If you want to see even more detail you can left click on each shot for a close up view!!

I will announce the posting of the Pink/Orange Cuff and the Turquoise /Green cuff, to my Etsy Store ,in about a week. I will be away from my computer for about a week and will attend to business as soon as I return!!!

Two Finished Journals

Here are two of the finsihed Journals that I spoke of in the previous post. ( Despite several attempts and opening and editing these photos in some editing programs, Blogger is insiting on posting the pictures every which way!! SIGH!! )

Each journal is approximately 5 x7 inches in size. each has two signatures of six pages each which are sewn into fabric bindings. The exterior binding of each is a bit of the hand dyed silk that I created in my dyeing workshop. I delivered these journals along with a large flock of large and small Muse Birds to the Liberty Ton in Fredericksburg, yesterday and folks were quite pleased. We will see how customers respond! So here are the pictures.

Inside cover.

inside pages

Back cover.

Spine detail with embellishments. The purple bit its a piece of quahog shell that I found on the beach this summer. Critters had cooperated and added some holes for me to use!


Front cover of second journal, again with silk binding and spine embellishment.and button and tie closure.
Spine close-up.


Inside pages.

Pocket added to inside back cover.

I apologize for the wonkey publishing of these photos!! It is really quite frustrating. I will have several more quick posts to add today . Then I will be away from my computer for about a week!

Collage Papers

After my recent adventures with dying fabrics, I have been consumed with color!! I have been feeling the need to play and create colored papers and collage with the thought that I would create small journals to sell during the holiday season. You see, there is a method to my madness, I am thinking and working ahead to create some stock for the upcoming holidays while following my muse and having fun!! The planets don't align for me very often so when they do I MUST take full advantage!!
I wanted to ahve texture and lots of color but make things realtively simple. So I chose to start with gesso resist and acrylic paints. I cranked the above papers out in a couple of hours - these are the best ones, in my opinion but all will be used in some fashion.
Here are some tighter shots. (Left click on any picture to get a look at the details!)

This next piece is the large sheet of paper that I used to protect my work surface! I used sktech paper from a big pad for all of these. I just love the Serendipity of this sheet!!!

So I decided taht I would create another set of papers with simple bright color washes to complement the gesso resist papers and I would stitch the two sets of papers together n the sewing machine. This way I could avoid bubbling papers and not get everything all wet with glues. Plus the stitching would add more fabulous texture to each set of pages.

Next I had to think about covers for my little journals. I took some heavy watercolor paper and did some paint scraping and sponge work to come up with these two cover sheets.

All that I did was scrape paint over the surface using an old gift card. ( A favorite tool!)
For this next sheet it was all about color and a small sponge!

I found a sheet of collaged text that I had created awhile back and took the gift card and paint to it as well. There is a glare on this shot as the last layer that I added was a metallic blue. If you click on any of the pictures you can see all of the details, especially on this one. I will be able to get several covers from this one sheet.

Once I had painted up a storm, I took the frilled edges off of the full sheets of paper and saved them , of course!! Then I tore all of the sheets down to size and stitched a bunch of them together to create packs of pages with three sheets to each signature. (More on this aspect in a later post.)
After a round of stitching, I started to gather everything up and unearthed the bag of frill edges that I had put aside. I threw together a quick collage with the left over bits and this will become a cover as well. I think of all of the thigns that I created in this paint session, this piece is my favorite!!


So now I have lots of great pages all stitched for signatures, a bunch of painted papers yet to be torn and several really fun and different covers all ready to put together into journals. I have more work to do and I will share the finished journals with you very soon!!
have a great day!
Art On!!!!

August in the Garden!

August is the time of year that the tomatoes really roll in and the flowers are at their finest, Annual varieties that is. Yes, my beloved daylilies have past but the zinnias and the phlox and the Cosmos and the Brown Eyed Susans add real zing to the garden. The roses are getting ready for a bumper fall bloom and the marigolds are looking brilliant!! The visitors are everywhere and many of them seem to be extra patient this year. I spent about 20 minutes outside the other morning trying to get my camera to cooperate with the movements of this enormous dragonfly. I spied him thru our front door sitting at the very tip of a spent Hosta Blossom stalk, his wings spread glistening in the morning sun. He was gloriously handsome!! I grabbed my camera and quietly let myself out the door. After about 5 minutes of frustration with my camera, the dragonfly took off and did several loop the loops in the air and settled back down on the exact spot where he had been.This happened several more times and I managed to take 20 or so pictures at different focus points!! It was truely miraculous! It was almost as if he had descided that I was not going to hurt him so he might as well hang around for a bit till he sensed that I didn't need him anymore. (He was enjoying his sunbathe!) If you click ont he picture you can see every detail of his beautiful wings!!!!!

Yesterday I picked this bouquet for the dinner table and ran back outside carrying three baby Praying Mantis that had come along for the ride!! As tiny as they were, they reared up on their back legs and seemed to hiss at me- too cute!!!

This is a brand new variety of Cosmos that I discovered this year! it is very frilly and almost looks like a dahlia. I think that I prefer the original simple Cosmos or the Seashell variety better than this one but it is fun to try out different varieties. The hummers and butterflies seem to like both equally!

As for the tomatoes, this is my first of three trips that I took to my 6 plants this morning!!!! I am eating pints of cherry tomatoes this year and loving every one of them!! I do so wish that my kids would get over their dislike of tomatoes!!!! The yellow toms are as sweet as candy- theya re the favorite of this years crop. As you can probably guess I have several batches of sauce ahead of me and I will probably give in the simply blanche, squeeze and freeze alot of them!!


This reminds me that I must make a date with DH to go see the Julia Child movie with Meryl Streep!! Has anyone seen it yet??? DO TELL!!!!

Turning Up The Color!

This is one of the pieces that came out of the jars from Dyeing Day. I was not pleased with the lack of color and the spottiness of the color that was there.

This doilie began it's life as a very dark ecru color and really needed a color intervention. After it had been thru the dye process, washed and dried it was even more washed out than it appears here. Sooooo, I fixed it!

Now it looks like this:

I used Setacolor Paints to juice up the color and I am very happy with the results! Now this IS COLOR!!! After it dried and was heat set with the iron,it was ready for use!!

This is what the paper looked like that protected the work space. this will definately find a place in a book or journal project!!

Once I started I had to do more so I added fushia Setacolor to this rust dyed piece.

There is a woven in texture to this piece and I love how it looks now with the added fushia and orange paint!!
And I painted this ecru piece of lace, that I believe was created by a great grandmother ( one piece of many that I have) with yellow and oranges. I will be using both/all of these pieces to embellish a jacket that I am planning to create from the linen that you saw hanging on the line!!

So if you don't like the color, CHANGE IT!!!!

Dyeing Day At Artistic Artifacts!!!!

I had such a wonderful day of color and fun!! Judy at Artistic Artifacts is starting up Dyeing Day Workshops! What a delight!! We learned how to work with Procion MX dyes and to Parfait Dye in the methods described by Fiber Artist Ann Johnston, in her book Accidental Color. Judy has been dying her own wonderful vintage finds useing these techniques, for years and now she is teaching. She has a great space for working , on big plastic covered tables with all of the dyes ready mixed and ready to go!!

We worked in quart sized canning jars and layered our fabrics and color and Soda Ash solutions one on top of the other.

Judy provided 4 fat quarters of cotton fabric and bits of trims for us to use. We all brought various fabrics of our own, that we wanted to try.

I came home with these four jars absoluetly packed with fabric and dye. After letting them sit overnight and washing in the machine, this is the result!!!

Here is a much better view followed by some close ups!!!

It is 92 degrees here today and it feels like 103, but I simply had to see all of my fabrics hanging on the line together in the sun!!! The things that I do for a few pictures!!!!!

Here are some shots of my favorite pieces!!!

I am totally amazed at the variety of colors and the amount of fabric that I was able to cram into 4 canning jars! The class ran from 12:30 - 3:30. Granted Judy had all of the dyes mixed and ready to go and the set up was done, but we were all new to this!! Look what I accomplished in 3 hours!! I am sold on this method and I am so excited to use these fabrics in upcoming quilts and collages of all sorts!! One never knows where you will see them again!!

If anyone is in the area of metro D.C. and you are interested in building a stash of hand dyed fabrics, I can't reccomend this workshop highly enough!!! You can find more info about all of the workshops offered at ARTISTIC ARTIFACTS HERE.