Spring Has Sprung!

This weekend was absolutely beautiful!  We (mostly my husband) planted an early garden and most everything has sprouted and is starting to grow.  Very exciting!!!!!  We put in spinach, lettuce, beets, Swiss chard, carrots, green onions, snow peas, and kohlrabi.  My husband thinned the lettuce this weekend and I got to eat the little sprouts-- first greens from the garden!

 Paul thinning the lettuce.

 Scarlett standing guard for squirrels.

 First salad of little sprouts. Yum!

On the beading front: I've been super busy at my work and haven't had as much time as I would have liked this last week for creativity.  I did manage to finally finish the bracelet made out of hexagonal components.  I've decided to call it "Jeweled Honeycomb".  Bees make perfect hexagonal compartments in their combs to store the honey and this bracelet reminds me of the richness of honey and perfection of natural structures. Hexagons fit together with out cracks and are quite common in nature: quartz crystals, basalt columns, wasp nets, snowflakes, the scutes on a turtles shell, etc.

Jeweled Honeycomb bracelet

Jeweled Honeycomb bracelet

I started a new project today that I'm really excited about.  It has a distinct Art Deco flare and is more architectural than my usual work.  Kind of a new direction for me!   Stay posted for photos : )

Disastrous Mess

My studio area has become a terrible disastrous mess!  I have too many ideas all at once that I just have to try and then forget to put things away............  And then of course it takes time to clean it up, which takes time away from being creative.  Oh, the vicious cycle!   

 One section of my studio. 

My husband made the neat wooden shelves for me on the left.  They are modular and he is making me another type to go underneath of them to hold a different type of container.

I am also lucky enough to have a beading friend who never gets tired of keeping me company.  My dachshund, Scarlett, is very much the lump on the bed and perfectly happy to stay that way!

Scarlett being one with the covers.

Hexagonal Lenticular Bracelet

Progress on the bracelet I'm making with the greenish-blue hexagonal lenticular components.  Just trying to figure out how I want to incorporate a complementary toggle closure.

Loot!

Today I went on an adventure to Picayune, MS to visit a bead store. The store is called Gerry's Bead Gallery and is owned by Gerry of Clay Designs by glee on Etsy.  She is closing the store to be able to focus more on her artwork and is currently having a fabulous sale. So, of course, I have to share all the goodies that I bought today.  Can't wait to start making things!!!

 Lots of Czech firepolished beads

 

Gorgeous Swarovski crystal pearls!

Seed beads with other odds and ends.

Random Notions

More hexagonal lenticular woven components, greenish-blue this time:

A variation on one of Marie Géraud's (Biloba Bijou) wonderful designs:
  

Some Current Projects

Current projects:

This one I've been working on forever and have no idea of what it will turn out to be.  It is a 2 needle netting strap.  I just really like the colors and pattern--I think it looks very ethnic.  I learned the stitch as a Russian beadwork technique, but am not sure if it originated in Russia or another area.

 

I usually have some sort of bead crochet project in the works because it is so portable.  This is my current one.  I believe this will end up being another lariat.  I'm making it with 9/0 3-cut seed beads on cotton thread.

 

  

This is another project that I've been working on forever. It is made out of Delica seed beads and pink opal gilt-lined seed beads in a netting stitch.  I believe this one will also turn out to be a lariat, although I'm not sure how I'm going to finish the ends.

 

50 Ways to Wear a Lariat Necklace

Okay, so not really 50 ways, but here are a few to try:

 1. Wrap twice around neck and then cross-over once in the center.

2. Over-hand knot in the center.

3.  Wrap once around neck and let the ends swing free.

 

 4.  Half hitch knot on upper portion and let the ends swing free.

 5. Double the necklace in half and pull ends through loop formed in the end. Wear to one side.
 

 6.  Wrap twice around the neck and cross-over the ends once toward one side.

 7.  Wrap once around the neck and cross-over the ends in the center.

 8.  Wear as a belt!!  Either thread through belt loops or wear over shirts with a square knot for a closure.
  

I've been very hung up on making lariat or rope necklaces lately.  I believe it's because they are so versatile and different.  They work up into a substantial piece of beadwork and usually have interesting accent pieces on the ends.  I particularly like to add Swarovski crystals instead of a fringe or tassel.  I think it gives the necklace a cleaner, more elegant look.  At some point you may have asked yourself how exactly you wear one of these things (I did!), so I hope this is helpful.

Happy Mardi Gras!

Happy Mardi Gras!!! I unfortunately didn't get to go to any parades this year but here are some photos courtesy of my friend Allison Walker. She went to the Krewe of Bacchus parade in New Orleans this weekend.

Parade route with a person in a good bead catching seat

A float

Crazy revelers with nice beads! : )

Elizabeth Veglia: Mosaic Artist

For those of you that are locals, you may have seen the mosaic that have been installed on the Ocean Springs side of the new Biloxi/Ocean Springs bridge.  It is made of 4 panels that are 110 ft long.  It is incredible!  The artist who put these together is Elizabeth Veglia.  I highly recommend stopping for a closer look if you are in the area.  Here are photos from this weekend:

 

 

  

Long Weekend

I hope everyone had a happy Valentine's Day!  I was lucky enough to have a 3-day weekend and figured out a few new designs that could end up as tutorials in the future. One is a new beaded bead and the other will be incorporated into necklaces and bracelets so stay tuned!  I've been working on a few pendants for my mother for an extremely late Christmas present (didn't have the right supplies on hand). Here are some photos of the weekend's creative work:

Pile O' Treasures!

Hexagonal lenticular components

My mom's pendants

Black Theia

I finally finished "Black Theia" and also made a matching set of earrings.  I was pretty pleased with how the lariat turned out.  The all black color scheme allows the neat pattern of the St.Petersburg chain to stand out.  I used true cut Czech seed beads for the body of the chain, which gives you little sparkles of light when it is moved about.

 

Theia was the Titian goddess of sight and the shining light of the clear blue sky and by extension endowed gold, silver, and gems due to their brilliance and sparkle. It seemed appropriate to name this necklace design for her and especially since the first one I made was a beautiful dark sky blue.

Amphipod Cake

My friend Kris (a.k.a. Dr. Kristine N. White) defended her research for her PhD yesterday and she did great!  She studies amphipods and the title of her PhD dissertation is: "Development of Representative Species-level Molecular Markers and Morphological Character Analysis of Leucothoid Amphipods (Crustacea: Amphipoda)".  Our friend Sarah made her the coolest cake to celebrate.  We were quite impressed with her cake-icing drawing skills : ) !
 

Sick Day

Well, I'm home sick today with a cold and it's sleeting.  That is a very strange thing for south Mississippi.  My  parent who live in West Virginia have about 20 inches of snow right now.  Kind of wish I could go sled riding!!

Gorgeous WV snow (photo by my mom, P. J. Waggy)

Googins Gallery Online

A friend of mine sent me a link to a great website for Gulf Coast Artists: Googins Gallery Online. Run by Jennifer Googins, a local artist and art teacher, this site gives Gulf Coast artists an inexpensive and convenient way to display and sell their art to a larger audience. The site also has a wonderful directory of artists for those folks seeking artistic services in the area.

New project and listing

Well, I guess the first thing I should say since I live in south Mississippi is "Go Saints"!!  We are making chicken wings using the famous Frank's sauce (YUM!!!!!) and getting ready to cheer for our team.

And on the creative front, I just listed a very pretty and lacy, soft pink bracelet to Etsy.  It's a design for which I hope to soon be able to offer a tutorial, so be on the look out  for it in the near future! 

Here's a sneak peek at the next Theia Necklace.  It's completely black to show off the texture of the true-cut seed beads and Czech glass beads.

 UPDATE:  The Saints WON Superbowl 44!!!  Who Dat??!!

Teasers!

Here are mystery photos for some items I listed on Etsy last evening.  For a full view you’ll have to check out my shop : ) !

P.S. Went to the gym this morning (5:30 AM!!) for a good weight lifting workout to start the day.  Highly reccomend it: Coastal Fitness--Les Mills Body Pump.

Beadwork and Non-Beadwork

I’ve been busily adding things to my Etsy shop and here is a photo of the latest. I love the brilliant blue of the Swarovski crystal in the center; reminds me of a clear summer sky.

I also wanted to share a non-beading project that I’ve been working on at my job at the Grand Bay NERR as a fish ecologist. I’ve learned to digitally illustrate tiny fish for identification descriptions and I love it! These spiny little fish are all less than a 1 cm in length and are very young greater amberjack (Seriola dumerili). I’ve also been working on a group of fish called Fundulus or killifish, which I will share when I get a few more completed.

VERY Belated Update

I have been very delinquent about posting to say the least!!!!! : ) Many things have happened in the last 2 years. The first and foremost is that my husband finished his graduate degree. Yipee! That pretty much took up the majority of our lives for 2008. I became the chief cook and bottle washer in addition to everything else while he basically lived at his laboratory. I still continued to work on bead projects whenever I had a spare moment. Everything finally fell into place and he graduated in December of 2008.  Happy Days!!

Paul doing what he likes best
 

In 2009 we managed to get our feet back on the ground and finally got to pursue our lives for the first time without one of us being in school. I started doing more beadwork and experimented more extensively with different types of techniques and materials. I got my work into a small Ocean Springs gallery called Theresa’s Gallery. The other major projects I undertook were to make wedding  jewelery  for my friend Sarah (photos to come in a later post) and a french beaded flower wedding bouquet for my friend Jessica. It took me months of work to make the bouquet, but turned out fabulously! It has coral/orange lilies, blue delphinium and white crocosmia. Her wedding was in September of 2009.

 

  

  

  

Jessica and Tim

 

 Jessica and Allison

 

Now the biggest news that I have is that I’ve started an Etsy shop: Silver Perch Designs! I just got it going this week and am extremely excited to try this venue as an outlet for my creations.  I hope to be more diligent about posting and am going to try very hard to do at least one new one every week!