Beads, beads, I love 'em I need 'em...

(Ok, so the original song is about brains. I can take a little liberty, right?)

I managed to get down to the Post Office today and finally get my hot little hands on my box of Earthenwood Beads. They're all gorgeous and I can't wait to make things with them. I always love it when I can add a new artist's beads to my selection, and when it's a new medium, even better!

I've got hearts, robots, skulls, faeries and so much more. This is going to be great!

Today I also had to break down and buy some new Fall clothes. Dear Fashion Designers: Please stop trying to make me wear ugly 70s-inspired designs made out of cheap fabric. I'm rather image conscious and I know what looks good on me. I also know what won't last more than 3 trips through the washer and dryer. I'm not going to waste money on garbage and I'd really like to be able to buy some tops other than plain long-sleeved tees. Thank you, that is all.

Oh yes, and as it turns out, Lebanese food wasn't quite as exciting as I hoped. It was tasty, but the nearby Greek place offers similar fare in a larger variety and a nicer ambiance, for about the same price. Still, it's good to try new things, and beef shawarma is quite delicious.

Various and Sundry Things

Today I finally get to all of the things that I've wanted to post about, but have been too busy to collect my thoughts on.

First! Isn't the above Greenman awesome? My equally awesome mother made him for me a couple of weeks ago, and I keep forgetting to post a picture. He's made out of polymer clay, with a dusting of mica powder on the face. Eventually I'm going to hang him on the wall, but for now he's sitting on my desk, guarding one of the many stacks of books.

Second! As you may already know, I love to write. My work to date includes assorted novels and short stories (all of them unpublished, sadly); roleplaying gaming columns; reviews of movies, comic books, books, and whatever else that I feel I can get away with reviewing; some of the text on the LL-BFAC site; bios and artist statements for several of my beading pals; and of course, all of the text on my site and this blog. Armed with all of that experience, I've branched out into the world of writing website text and such for others. My first client is Hollyrose Aromatherapy! I had a lot of fun re-writing her product descriptions. Oh, and by the way, I highly recommend the Patchouli Woods scent if you decide to order anything.

Third! Art Bead Scene's challenge theme this month is "Gothic Queen." Needless to say, this theme appeals to me a lot, and of course, it's perfect for October. I am all kinds of jazzed. So far I've entered Dark Lady of the Depths and Devil Duckies! Be sure to look at the other entries, there's some great stuff up already and the month has only just begun.

Fourth! I am working on two other exciting things that I will post about as they develop.

Polymer Book Reviews.

This weekend I acquired two polymer clay books. There's nothing quite like the joy of having new books, especially how-tos for arts and crafts. I had the time to flip through both books, although I haven't had the chance to test out the quality of the instructions yet. Nonetheless, both books look pretty good.

My first new polymer book is Cats: Big & Small by Christi Friesen. This is the fourth installment in Christi's "Beyond Projects" series of books, and it continues the trend of being entertaining, informative, and enticing. I never intended to make polymer clay beads, but these books tempted me into it! I bought the Dragon one just because I wanted to look at all the pretty pictures and support a great artist, but then I looked at it and said "Hey, I CAN do this."

As the title suggests, this new book teaches you how to make wild cats and house cats. The projects include beads, sculptures, wall-hangings, and pins. There are even instructions on how to make yarn balls and mice, the perfect accessories for crafts. One thing that I really enjoy about Christi's books is that even if you don't want to make the particular subject of the book, there are lots of little tips that can be integrated into other clay work. In the case of Cats, there's information on how to make an eye cane and how to add artistic fibers to clay pieces.

The second book that I picked up is The Polymer Clay Techniques Book by Sue Heaser. The name says it all! This is not so much a project book as a how-to on various ways to work with and modify clay. I bought it because I jumped right into making sculptured dragon beads without ever learning the basics of polymer clay. Of the small collection of polymer-related books at my local B&N, this looked like the best for my needs. After reading through it at home, I'm pretty impressed. It covers making molds, adding various inclusions, how to mimic stones and other natural materials, how to use embossing powders, mica powders, enamels and more with polymer clay! In addition to showing the bead techniques that I'm most interested in, it also discusses how to use polymer to make sculptures, mosaics, boxes, miniatures and more. It's given me a lot to think about, and I am looking forward to trying some of these techniques out!

Both books are clearly written with lots of photographs of various steps to help you out. If you're looking to try polymer clay, or expand your existing knowledge of it, you can't go wrong with either of these books!


Today's Cool Thing is this beautiful Nymph corset top. I'd love to see it paired with a handkerchief-hem skirt and a pair of delicate faerie wings!

New Playthings!

Well, it's been a very nice couple of days. Last night I went over to my parents' home to celebrate both my and my brother's birthdays. I had a great time, and ate delicious carrot cake. Mmmm, cake. My parents gave me a very cool sewing tote with a few sewing supplies and PearlEx powders! I've really been wanting to try those powders with polymer clay, but the JoAnn's stores in town don't carry them.

My awesome husband Chris gave me a balanced scimitar for belly dancing. Hurray! There are few things cooler than dancing with a sword on your head. Of course, I'm not yet very good at keeping the sword balanced, but I will learn. Practice, practice, practice.

Today we went to JoAnn's. I wanted a few more sewing supplies and some more t-shirts to butcher (they were on sale for really cheap). Chris wanted a couple more pairs of pliers for maille work. I also picked up the latest issue of Bead Unique. The cover necklace is by a member of the beading forum I frequent, and inside there's also an article by the ever-awesome Beki Haley. Oh, and I got paintbrushes so I can apply my PearlEx powders. Maybe I will play with them tomorrow.

Then I came home and got the mail, and I'd received the kimono fabrics that I'd recently won on eBay! If you'd like to buy some kimono fabric of your own -- and really, who wouldn't? -- you can visit Dream Keeper Designs' eBay store. I just love kimono, and I will be using these bits of fabric to make a couple of beautiful wall hangings.

Today's Cool Thing is Foster's Creations. Shannon is having a rough time right now and could really use some sales to help make ends meet. If you would like to help an independent artist, brighten someone's day, and show your support for cancer patients and survivors everywhere, please take a look at her awareness bookmarks and cellphone charms! You could also treat yourself to some wonderful body-care products. Go, browse, buy! :)

In Progress.

This is another in-progress item. When it is done, it will be similar to the "Moss Strands" necklace displayed over on the side of my blog. For now, it's just several inches of base strip. I really enjoy these multi-strand pieces, as it's so much fun to pick out all the different beads along the same theme, and bring them together. This one will have a very tribal feel, and is intended to go with my outfit for Ren Faire this year.

I spent the weekend working on another little something for myself, a feathered serpent done in polymer clay. I feel that I'm getting a lot better at claywork, but I don't expect that I will be selling it anytime soon. I take so long getting every little detail how I want it that I would just have to charge way too much. I do enjoy making things for myself and as gifts, though.

I have several items planned already for this week's update, plus more page maintenance.

Are you ready for today's Cool Thing? It's my talented friend Deb's 2007 Beading For A Cure necklace! This is my not-so-subtle way of pointing out that HEY! The BFAC auctions are up! After you enjoy Deb's beautiful work, be sure to click "View seller's other items" to see the rest of this week's offerings. And tell all of your friends!

I made an octopus!

True story: Once upon a time, my parents had a pet octopus. His name was Fred. This might seem a little weird to you, after all, the Addams Family had a pet octopus, but no other popular TV family did. But you have to understand that my parents had numerous aquariums and all sorts of ocean-dwellers as pets. Fred was just the tip of the iceburg. Although I never knew Fred, I grew up dealing with aquatic creatures which ranged from feeder goldfish to sea anemones.

Of my two parents, my father is really much more in to the whole ocean and aquarium thing. I've been buying him gifts related to various sea creatures for years, and so this year I decided "Hey, I'll make Dad an octopus!" Christi Friesen's new book had instructions and they looked easy. I decided I'd even get fancy and put said octopus on an Altoids tin, so he'd be functional as well as nifty.

Armed with this confidence, I set off to Wikipedia where I researched octopus, because I really didn't know what color they should be. It turns out that octopus can be any number of colors due to their natural camoflage capabilities. I also learned that octopus are darned scary. They have no bones. They have three hearts. They're scarily intelligent. If they lived for more than a few years, they'd probably have taken over the world by now.

I decided I would make a red octopus, because that would be pretty striking and within the realm of natural cephalopod hues. But then I remembered that because I'm not a huge fan of the color red, I don't actually own any red clay. Drat. So what the heck, I decided I'd go for broke and make the Blue-Ringed Octopus. The funny thing is that I knew exactly how I would make an accurate depiction of those rings in lampwork. Too bad I'm not a lampworker.

I could go on at length about the difficulties I encountered while making this octopus. I could complain about the brittle translucent clay, the way the suckers kept falling off, or the fact that the best way I could come up with to make the rings was to make a tiny ball of blue pearl clay, flatten it out, and then poke a hole in with a sharp little tool (with the dot resting on my fingertip, which also often got poked) and then wiggle the tool around to enlarge the hole. I could even mention the fact that the octopus developed a few cracks when I baked him.

But you know what? The important thing is that my Dad opened his present and loved it, started talking about how cool octopus in general were and how beautiful blue-ringed octopus were. It was a good feeling, just like being a kid again and having either one of my parents say nice things about the drawing I did, or the little chunk of loomed beadwork, or the short, short stories I used to write.

So there you have it, my tale of octopus creation. I might make another one someday, for Chris who also loves octopus, but I'll be using a different clay blend which will hopefully behave better. I also had an idea this week for how to make a nautilus, so I might try that soon.

I'm going to go ahead and end this post now, before I decide to go off on a rant about my personal life, so I'm going to leave you with today's Cool Thing, which is the Vampire Squid. All this research on Wikipedia, by the way, has convinced me that the vast majority of what lives in the ocean is creepy. I'm never going to the beach again!

I'm back!

Well, it was never my intention to take half of December off from blogging, but I got distracted that that's exactly what happened. I got busy with holiday preparation and gaming and generally being cold and lazy. I suspect that I may actually be a cold-blooded creature, as I become unbelievably sluggish when winter rolls around. I sleep for 11 hours some days! Ok, so only about 8-9 of that is sleep, and the rest of it is me going "Bed so warm... world so cold..." and snuggling deeper into my coccoon of flannel sheets and fuzzy blankets.

I have not been idle, though, even if I do spend half the day in bed! This week I'll be posting a pic every day to show you all what I've been up to. The above actually predates my sudden hiatus. I'd like you all to say hello to Mr. Crimson, the dragon I made for my friend and D&D GM Rene. Basically I blended some crimson and gold clay to make my MIL's present (which I forgot to photograph, DOH!) and said "Wow, this would make a cool dragon" so I used the leftovers to decorate Mr. Crimson. His body and wings are black swirled with gold, and the other accents are straight gold. Because he's designed to just hang around (reportedly he spent Christmas on Rene's tree), I was able to do things that I couldn't do on a bead, like make a delicate crest and gigantic but thin wings. He is without a doubt my best dragon to date!

One of my New Year's presents from my undeniably cool parents was the set of tools I've been wanting for clay work, so I will be able to do even better things in 2007. I'm really looking forward to that, especially since there's all kinds of things I've been wanting to try in Christi Friesen's "Under The Sea" book. I might even get bold and do one of those wall hanging with lots of sea critters on it.

My family came over on Christmas Eve and I finally danced for them -- that's one of the really big things I did last month. It was my first time ever dancing for more than one person, which made for an interesting challenge since they were sitting at two couches which are at 90 degree angles from each other. Also, my living room is already small, and when you factor in leg room for 4 people (my dad and brother both being in the 6 foot range), I had less room than usual to dance. Nonetheless, I feel that I did pretty well and everyone had a good time. It was a great feeling! Of course, because of said sluggishness, I haven't danced since...

But that's all going to change, oh yes! My wonderful husband Chris gifted me with a pair of fire fans for the New Year! Yes, FANS that you light on FIRE! Ok, so you light the wicks on the ends on fire, but still. There is fire involved! What, did I forget to mention that I am a (socially responsible) pyromaniac? I love fire. And I love fans. And these particular fans are designed to be held while one is dancing. So now I must practice dancing and practice with my fans (they are kind of heavy) so that someday I may do awesome fire dancing. I did just a little bit in my parents' front yard last night (don't worry, it's all dry gravel and we had a fire extinguisher on hand) and cars who were driving by slowed to nearly a stop trying to figure out what was going on. Good times, good times!

Anyway, now on to some business-related stuff, since that's really what this blog is supposed to be about. You may have noticed that my website hasn't been updated since about the 15th. That's because Chris is still working on the new version, and I can't currently easily access my editting features. The site is almost done, or so he keeps telling me, and when it is finally up, there will be nifty new options for you, the shopper, and me, the content creator.

Ok, so maybe nifty new options aren't quite enough to pique your interest, so I'll say this as well: Once the new site is up, I will be having a SALE! Discounts will abound! Out with the old, in with the new! I love sales and I'm pretty sure that you do, too, so watch this blog for a big announcement when it happens. I'm hoping for sometime this week, but I can't pin down a definite date.

Today's Cool Thing absolutely has to be a video of fire fans in action, so here you go! I really like this one because the interplay between the two dancers is wonderful. Enjoy!