January 2017

I cannot believe that my last post was in September!

Wow- time has flown and it is has been a great couple of months.

Here's what I have been up to:

House update- we moved in in November after lots of cleaning, painting and re-flooring. We are still unpacking boxes but we are almost completely unboxed. Phew!

Holidays- we made it through the holidays and everyone was treated quite well. We took the kids to NYC for a weekend to see the city all lit up and it was a great time.

Work- is still keeping me busy busy busy and I am having a hard time finding time to be creative other than once a month when I need to whip up a project for Book Club.

My New Year's resolution is to get back into it. But we still have some work ahead of us where my workspace will eventually be. So until then, it will be an "as time permits" sort of thing.

So, since this is a 'catch-up' post, here are some of the projects that I completed this fall for book club:

September: This Census Taker

I drew this one day because I was intrigued by the sentence above. Obviously, the scale is off, but it worked for me. Drawing isn't really my thing.

 

October: Vampires in the Lemon Grove

 

This was a book of short stories and to be honest, I only read a few of them and one of them being the name of the book.

 

I have in my collection a piece of jewelry that I ordered for another book that dealt with blood (Henrietta Lacks) but I never used it because it looked to Halloween-y. So here was my piece for our in-person meet-up:

 

 

November- Sabriel

 

I had NO time this month to accomplish a thing other than pack and move and unpack boxes. But I did find a piece that I had made previously, and that I guessed matched what the book was about...

 

 





 

 



December- we didn't have a book to read, but I was pretty pleased with a piece that I made for a class that I had at the store one time in the fall. Here is the original (I think it was an Anthropologie piece):

 

And here is my version using the awesome Manik Manik beads at the shop:

 

 



January- A Place of My Own

 

I got about 3 chapters into this book and was more concerned with making my new house a place of my own than reading about someone else doing it... Anyhow- I knew I had a great bead from Diane Hawkey that Alison and I had found at Beadfest, so I unearthed it from a pile in my basement along with a strand of African beads I had forgotten I had, and whipped this piece up at the in-person meet-up.

 

 

I added a strand of two-toned orange Czech beads and a strand of purple AB finish Czech beads to the design and had a fun little piece to wear (once I add a clasp, of course!)

 

I also had some other miscellaneous things with me in my bag so I showed everyone this piece that I had come up with a few months ago:

 

 

While I was at the shop, I purchased this piece of art from the new show that debuted on Saturday. The artist's name is Gaea and I can't wait to add this to one of the walls I have at the house that I plan to devote to artists that I like. The theme of my wall is 'home is where the heart is" so if you see anything that you think would fit the prerequisites, let me know!

 



 

 

Finally, I found this cool pair of earrings online that I really want to try to duplicate but change out the colors. I found some really pretty royal blue deer hide strips in Montana and have the pyrite already, so I am really excited to make some earrings and a matching necklace... stay tuned!