Fixer-upper

I highly recommend this to anybody:

1: Clean out your jewelry box. Grab all the stuff you never wear anymore.

2: Call your peeps and tell them to do the same.

3: Get together and revamp.

*see below

When my friends and I got together and revamped I gave everyone a post-it and we kept a list of items we needed from the bead store. That is if I didn't have the item in my stash (<-shock and horror, not having a supply in my stock?!). Then we walked to the bead store in my borough and gathered.

This is a great way to finish projects that have been laying around forever wanting to be competed. It's really better with a gaggle of people, because you have more creative heads and more fun.

Oooh, collaborate on snacks too!

(*isn't my coffee table the raddest color!?)

Pasadena Bead and Design

I took as many classes with Christi Friesen as I possibly could. She's great! She is very open and magnanimous. Her ideas are shared freely and we are all encouraged to make pieces using her methods. To be so generous with my ideas and and creative self is something I aspire to.

This is from her Art Nouveau Blooms class. The bee was a generous gift from another class-goer who brought TONS of goodies, and didn't mind that I touch EVERYTHING. Soooo shinnneeey...

What was I saying? Oh yes! Christi gave a free class on nest making! CUUUTE! And there was another booth showing how to make donuts! I made this one with the Simpsons in mind... mmmm donuts... aaaghhhhh...


This is next group is from her Foundpunk Garden class. It's a cross between found items and steam punk and gardens. I of course took it one step beyond and also included color vomit. YES!

Piles of cwap. Soon to become....


A brilliant wall hanging. We also made molds with 2 part silicon mold making goo. The pics didn't turn out well. They just looked like blue blobs.


If you want to check out a workshop on youtube zip on over!

What have I been doooing!? The ugly truth

Hi! It was my mom's birthday! It was fun to get to hang with her and my family. Other than that I've been working on some water color projects:

There are inspired by a book called Watercolor- painting outside the lines by Linda Kemp. A very cool book! She walks you through exercises to get familiar with your preferred medium. I use Dr. Martin's Hydrus. A totally liquid water color. It feels more like dye to me, which I love.

These two works are hot messes, but it's easy for me to get flustered. I'm not quite grasping her method, but practice practice practice*! Here experimented with more abstract shapes, and want to keep working with the idea but I've got to set it down and move on. The method is really fun, and these are my getting-to-know-the-technique works. I'll stick with something a little less ambitious next ;)

(*raspberry noise!)

koi fish!

We went to the Japanese garden in town. Very pretty. Most everything had bloomed and was fading because it's summer now and a bit hot. But there was enough fun stuff still going on!

These poor fish! The last inhabitants of the pond got ick and died, bless. All systems were cleaned up and new fish were brought in. No public feeding, though. The last fish were greedy little beggars. They would beach themselves to get treats and wobble back into the water. These guys just coasted around. They looked like they were flying underwater.

It was more peaceful this day.

Much less fish frenzy.

More blossoms.

PS congrats to Katharine for winning the summer scarf! As soon as your address is emailed to me you will get your scarf... toe is tapping... ;)