Why I’ve been so Unproductive… and a new piece

Well… Lately, even though I seem to have all the time in the world, as my son started pre-school and comes home at 4.30 everyday, leaving me lots of time to bead… work… and even exercise… I found myself unable to sit down and come up with anything creative… although I have managed to work and, believe it or not, exercise… every morning, as soon as I have dropped him off at school, I blast my ipod and power walk for an hour… very proud of myself!!! yet… beading… has been more difficult to do… so I looked at my workspace… and this is what I found… a HUGE mess!!!!

Shameful, right? :-) This could explain my cluttered mind and my inability to sit down and bead… nowhere to sit and bead, that’s why!!! So I dedicated a whole day to cleaning up and tried to re-organize my workspace! and here are the results:

So much better, although not perfect, but at least I can actually find the tables!!! :-)

So no more excuses!!!

I bought these AMAZING lampwork beads from Tera Belinsky-Yoder of BeadyGirl Beads and really wanted to make something with them!

Here is the first piece I made using one of these beautiful pieces of glass art:

Cosmic Carnival Bracelet

Amazing what can be achieved with a bit of order in ones life! :-)

I even made another bracelet, although not with Tera Belinsky-Yoder’s beads… a remake of one of my first designs that I found at the bottom of a box…. I haven’t worked on the photos yet, so come back tomorrow and check it out!!!

Updates + preview

I'm not feeling my best today, and am finding it difficult to concentrate on the beading for long periods of time, so I bead a bit, I catch up with my blog reading, then I bead some more... but am just not feeling it and I really, really like the new project I started yesterday afternoon, so I want to enjoy it, not force it :-) So decided to write an early post today, why not? maybe I'll feel like beading later.

My desk looks like.... I would like to say like a bomb hit it, but with everything that is going around the world and especially here, I feel like it's a bit inappropriate... it looks like a bloody tip!!! My tidy-up lasted... not very long, as you can all see :-) but at least I have a good excuse... hmmm, I meant reason ;-) I'm currently actively working on 3 projects and that makes for a bit of a mess, both on the desk and in my head :-)

Sometimes it happens... when I'm not 100% sure where I'm going with a piece, I start getting loads of ideas in my head, and the ones that get discarded are the ones that inspire new pieces.... and in my attempt not to forget these ideas, I need to start them off. So that is how I get to have 3 almost completed but far from finished project on my beading table in the space of a couple of days!!! :-)

So here are the updates:

Water - no progress yet, lots of ideas flying around in my head, but nothing concrete yet - Water progress - part 1

Purple flowers - some progress, am at a crossroad regarding which way to carry on, will post progress later on, see Purple Flower progress - part 1 and check in later for part 2.

here are 2 previous bead-embroidered pieces that have been on hold for a while, I really like both of them, I just don't know what to do with them YET! :-)

ok so in the midst of all this chaos.... and in between deciding the last few steps for the Purple Flower, I started a new piece, also purple/lilacish and white, also flowers and also I don't know what I'm going to do with it :-) I have NO idea what on earth is going on with me lately... I'm so undecided and unsure.... not my usual self... well, I'll just go with the flow for now, and hopefully I WILL snap out of it soon... and just think of it this way, all of a sudden I will have (hopefully) 5 new pieces all at once!!!! :-) and then everyone that hasn't been following my ramblings :-) will think I'm a super-fast beader!!! :-)

Here is a preview of the new flowery piece... yes, I know more flowers!!! what can I say, I'm sorry... I love flowers, I even worked in a flower shop for a year, which I LOVED immensely!!!

I have 3 flowery tattoos, although arguably not pretty flowers and mostly chosen to balance the more intense tattoos I have spread around all over the place :-) If I could afford to, I would buy fresh flowers every week and have them all over the flat.... as I said, I really love flowers!!! :-)

come back later to see more on the purple flower progress

What I did today :-)

This has been a long time coming.... and today, I decided, after having spent the last few days beading on my bed... not too comfortable... to finally do a proper clear up of my beading table... and the truth is, I couldn't do that without rearranging all my bead boxes.... I can't believe I acutally did this but I actually took all my beads out of the containers, layed them on my dining table and colour co-ordinated them all back into the containers... and I'm glad I did, because there were so many beads I forgotten about and others I never used simply because they were placed next to a less than complementary colour, rather than one that shows it off.... colours change so much just by placing them next to other colours... so I discovered these new (for me) colour combinations that I wouldn't have necessarily thought of putting together.... but ultimately I'm so happy to have my table back... I'm so happy to be able to see the table top... but most of all I'm so happy I now know where all my beads are :-) I'm so looking forward to sitting down at my table tomorrow morning and start something new and fresh.... no clutter, just endless possibilities :-)

just look how lovely it looks now!!! :-)

even after I've put all my stuff back on the table :-)

I'm so proud!!! :-) Can't wait to start beading first thing tomorrow morning!!! :-D

Pink Flower (in the making)

I can't believe how long it has been since I last wrote!!!! shocking!!!

I won't bore you with all the details as to why I just couldn't... as far as I'm concerned you can blame it all on the builder of my flat (Ariel Soltzi Ltd.) who did not hold up his end of our legal contract and even when ordered to pay me by the courts... hasn't!!! so I live in a flat that has had more leaks than years, a lot more leaks!!! and he carries on building as though nothing happened and he has no legal nor moral responsibility!!!! As I don't want to be sued (ha ha ha) I will refrain myself from calling him every single name under the sun!!!! :-) please use your imagination :-)

So another leak fixed (and no thanks to the builder!) and finally I've been able to both post my progress and actually progress with it!!! it is almost finished, but in the mean time, as promised, here is the piece in progress...

Well it all started out with me finally getting round to clearing up my beading desk... I won't show you how bad it was before... but as you can see it's not even perfectly clean after :-) I'm just running out of space where to put all my beads and beading!!! :-) and as you'll see below... it didn't last long!!!! I want an additional table/room :-)

So basically I start off with pulling out all the beads I own that go with the mood I'm in at that moment.... and my mood lately has been pink! :-) I'm so not a girly-pink type of person... but lately pink is what inspires me....

and I do have to point out that the weather here has been soooo hot!!! yesterday was 37 degrees Centigrade in the shade!!!!! and all around are flowers in bloom... so maybe that's why I've gone a bit soft :-)

I bought these gorgeous vintage opaque pink glass teardrops from a fellow EtsyBeadweaver, JadeDogBeads and I had to use them!!! after all they are pink!!! :-)

so I started playing around with a geometrical design onto beadbacking... and started working around the teardrops, slowly building up the design till I got to this...

I used a flat Mother-of-Pearl bead for the centre and beaded around it and the teardrops with matte pink and matte burnt ivory type of colour... hard to explain but like a very rich cream mixed with toffee... Czech seed beads

so the centrepiece for the necklace is finished... sort of... cut excess beadbacking... glue to suede, cut around suede and sew the backing to the suede using brick stitch with the contrasting small beads...

and as I hate wasting material I decided to make a couple of elements from the left over bead backing... also to give the necklace a different element... not just because I hate waste :-)

Now all there is left to do is put the elements together :-)

Come back in the next few days to see how it all turned out... actually... could do with your help... leave me a comment letting me know whether you think I should fringe the flower or not.... I'm still completely undecided... would love to hear your opinions :-)

Creative Process - Bronze Embroidered Collar - Part 3

Well... finally!!!! After a really long week.... first I wasn't feeling well... then I got a really bad eye infection and couldn't really see out of my right eye..... and just as my eye cleared, my son got the flu, high fever and.... as soon as that cleared he got some stomach bug!!! so he's been home, and I've had a really hard time trying to get anything done!!! + I haven't left the house in more than a week.... I feel imprisoned.... the weather is so beautiful outside and I'm stuck indoors!!!!! the only thing that is keeping me from total depression is the fact that my computer and my beading table are next to my balcony window/door... so the light coming in is lovely and the view is gorgeous... and I just look outside whenever claustophobia creeps up :-)

the view from my balcony is thankfully a beautiful open space....

and my sanity :-)

So, for all the above reasons, it's taken me the longest time EVER to finish off and post the embroidery collar progress!!!!

I've actually finished it!!!! :-D and will post it later....

but in the meantime.... here are the last steps.... before the end! ;-D

I CANNOT say that I'm sorry that this piece is

finished!!! it was definately a challenge!!!!!!! so I'm entering it in the EtsyBeadweavers Spring Break Challenge (voting info to follow in a few days)... and I'm actually looking forward to making some more "wearable" pieces (smaller ;-D)...

I honestly never thought it would get finished!!! but it is!!!!!! :-)

in case you would like to see the 2 previous posts regarding the progress of this piece:

Creative Process - Bronze Embroidered Collar - Part 1

Creative Process - Bronze Embroidered Collar - Part 2

Top left is the unfinished "finished" piece :-) top right is what the back looks like , not too pretty!! :-) and bottom left shows the cereal box cut out that I used to make the backing which will be sandwidched between the beadwork and the ultrasuede, bottom right the beadwork is glued to the ultrasuede and then carefully cut around the beadwork



now all there is left to do is brick stictch the ultrasuede to the beadwork.... fringe, decorate, embellish... and of course the fastening! :-)

Come back later on today to see the finished piece!

My Workspace

This is my office, my workspace, my retreat! It's where I go to be me!!! It's part of my living room, but the way I'm going... soon I'll need to enlarge it, find better storage solutions or move :-)... I've already expanded it by about 60%.... it used to be just the one small blue desk for the computer and 3 shelves above it... therefore, I used to bead at my dining table and eat in front of the telly (don't like that!). Now it's 2 desks and an extra shelving unit, which acts as partition from the rest of the room, that way when people come to visit they are not subjected to the mess that is my beading table :-) as you can see from the photo :-)

oh yes... and the picture on my computer screen is of a painting by my good old (from school) friend Michael Onona, whose work is amazing!!!! and who has painted my son Ethan, so I have to love him! This painting was part of the 'Babysitting' exhibition which took place in London at the Old Truman Brewery (20-25 October 2005). Ethan was about 8 months old. This painting was also used for the cover of the exhibition's catalogue. My son is famous! :-) Go check out Michael's work! Love him or hate him, his work is amazing!!! ;-)

http://www.michaelonona.com/