And the roses bloom...

These photos are of one of the miniature rose bushes at the house. They are of the same flower... one taken on Thursday morning and the other taken this morning, after all of the rain...
Ahhhh... the beauty of nature!

Bead Challenge Sept. '09

Just a few photos of what a few of the members of the Hole in The Bead Gang bead club created for our September 2009 challenge.

Jo went to the ISGB Gathering in Miami and brought back oodles of beads she received in trade from other bead makers... she told us to pick out one or more and the challenge was to make SOMETHING out of them... whatever we wanted...


The copper and beaded necklace is mine... two different glass artists made the beads, but I loved them together... just add some copper, pearls and Swarovski crystals... voila!

The Cat box was made by Donna... she fell in love with the cat bead and didn't want to make jewelry... so she knit a little pillow, added beads and a ball of yarn...

The black and white bead was one of the ones chosen by Phyllis... she made the kumihimo braid bracelet and embellished with seed beads...




The fish is 'Little Jackie Horner' the fish with Horner's Syndrome... and that was Mom's entry... The starfish bead was one that Terri made into a wonderful necklace that has garnered a lot of compliments this past week...

And the one with the gold kumihimo and chain maille is another of the ones Phyllis designed...
Next month we will see what others may have done with the beads they chose...

A Pendant for Cheryl

One of our customers was in a couple of weeks ago and saw some of the wire wrapped pendants I have done while teaching classes. She didn't want to take the class, she wanted me to wrap it for her.
I know the name of the stone, but it escapes me at the moment. It has gorgeous shades of light teal and lavender. I finished it on Monday and she picked it up yesterday. I was so happy with how it turned out. I know it sounds strange to some, but the stone let me know what it wanted me to do with the wire.


The top photo is of the front of the pendant, and the bottom is the back. I try very hard to make the back as appealing to the eye as the front.

The Fox and the Fish

A little over a week ago, I was test firing a new terra cotta clay. For some reason, I have been wanting to make a fish for a few months now (since Art Camp). I proceeded to roll out a slab and cut out a fish (Bass). When the Bass was completely dry, I prepared to fire it. At the same time, I finally fired the small fox head I had made in Art Camp.
I had been carrying around a small ball of clay while checking on the students' progress. As I walked around, I fiddled with the clay, and the result was a fox head. I finessed it and kept it on my work table here at home for 2 months. It was definitely dry... but for some reason, I was wary. When I loaded the kiln, I put the fox head off to the right and the fish off to the left. What you see in this photo is the remains of the fox head and the bare spot the fish shielded. The photo doesn't show the fine details. It literally vaporized! There is a fine terra cotta clay dust covering the entire shelf except for where the fish was and where some larger pieces of the fox landed. Unfortunately, the heavy debris you see near the fishes tail broke the tail off. But there are creative plans for the remainder of the fish...
The good news is, I am glad I got the new terra cotta clay, it survived the firing, which is why I wanted to stop using the old clay (which the fox was made of)... I had too many things explode on me in firing...
A little more good news, I have found another resource for black porcelain (that is closer to home, so lower shipping costs!). I still have to do the glaze test firing to see how it works with my glazes and also how black it actually gets. Those results will follow in a couple of days...

Sandie & Cleo

I went to dinner with some friends last night... it was a nice relaxing end to the day. After dinner, we all sat out on the deck and watched to see if the deer would come to eat the corn. Sandie & Cleo joined the rest of us. They seemed to know that the deer was in the trees before we could see it... their nosed started sniffing the air furiously... unfortunately, the deer got spooked and went back into the woods without eating any of the corn. There had been some gunshots heard back there earlier in the morning... poachers. That could explain the deers hesitation to come out and eat. I was able to get a few good shots of Sandie & Cleo, though a lot had to be deleted because of blurriness.