I Heart Macro - Early

It is another I Heart Macro Sunday - early.

I have been down with a migraine and stomach flu since Thursday.  Today was the first day I have actually taken a shower and left the bedroom, I know, probably too much information for you all.

I was over at mom's today, trying to take it easy, so I took some pictures of her flowers that are blooming.  So, that is this week's I Heart Macro.

Barberry Bush

Black Choke Berry

Columbine

Columbine

Maple - Choppers
Mom loved the colors of the choppers

Choppers

Choppers

Moscow Lilac

Moscow Lilac

Moscow Lilac

Moscow Lilac

That is about all that was done today.  Mom does have all the inventory laid out so we can start re-labeling everything for our show next week. 

I hope to have some photographs of the finished necklaces tomorrow - after I add the clasp and finish them off.  Still going to try and take it easy for the next few days.

BTW - Just a Quick Look

It is another BTW (Bead Table Wednesday) hosted by the most awesome Heather of Humblebeads.

Currently mom and I have several projects going at once - assembling necklaces, pieces needing to be enameled, pieces to be sawed out and beads to be made.  Right now mom is at physical therapy and I am heading home to finish up laundry and possibly vacuum the house, don't know about that yet.  I thought I would share what we have in the works.  I also wanted to show you the goodies that came in the mail today too.

So, on with the show:

These are two necklaces that mom assembled - pendants are from BeeTree by m.e., and the yellow flower necklace has our lampwork glass beads.  I just need to attach the clasps and these two are done.

This is a necklace that mom has started to assembly.  I told mom how I wanted to look so she is trying to assembly the necklace with the idea I gave her.  I sure we will be tweaking it here and there, but this is just the beginning stage.

These are three pendants that need to be sawed out.  The first pendant is a dove, the second is an owl, and the last pendant is a Scottish Thistle.

I had to share the goodies that came in the mail today.  Mom and I ordered more pendants from BeeTree by m.e. and chain from MyElements on Etsy.

Pendants from BeeTree by m.e.

These are the goodies from MyElements:

Okay, I am off to my house and do some cleaning.  I hope you head on over and check out all the other wonderful things people have going on their tables!

Have a great day and I hope you aren't like us where it is a wet and soggy day.

I Heart Macro

It is a another wonderful I Heart Macro Sunday - and it is Easter to boot!  I hope you all have a wonderful Easter Sunday with family and friends.  Mom and I will be leaving shortly to my aunt's house for a wonderful Easter Sunday lunch with the fam.  I think we are now up to 15 of us for lunch and then it is time to find Easter eggs for the kids.  Mom and I can't wait.

Okay, on to the pictures.  I thought I would share what I have been making for the past two weeks.  I am in love with my frit and here are photos of what I have been working with.

Enjoy!


Frit in a bottle - from Glass Diversions

 

Color of glass I was using for the beads

Frits I have been using a lot of:



Clear frit - sort of looks like snow



Emerald Isle frit

  

Fiesta frit


 

Japanese Maple frit




Purple Delight frit


The end results - the beads.  This is just a small sampling of what I have been making.  Mom used some of my other frit beads in necklaces I posted yesterday:

I thought I would end with some cute pictures of mom's youngest cat Lily in a Bag.

Happy Easter everyone!

April ABS Challenge Piece and Completed Works

Finches and Bamboo, Northern Song dynasty (960-1127)


This months challenge piece was based on the painting called "Finches and Bamboo".  You can learn more about the painting on the Art Bead Scene site.

Mom and I worked on the design for the pendant and then today we ran over to Von's, our favorite store, and bought the rest of the materials to finish off the piece.  Both mom and I liked the idea of the finches and bamboo so we combined them both into a pendant.  Mom sawed out the pendant from 20 gauge copper and then I enameled the copper today.  The colors I used were transparent woodrow red/sunset orange, transparent otter/chestnut brown, black, transparent peacock green, and transparent soft/flax/wax yellow.

Because the painting is from China mom and I wanted to use silk ribbon in the piece.  We also wanted to show bamboo too, so we found bone beads that sort of looks like bamboo (though mom said it looks like corn to her now) and we finished it off with a silver looking toggle clasp.

So, here is our piece for the April ABS Challenge:

Mom and I also worked on finishing up several other projects that we have been working on.  I enameled the April ABS pendant, a horse pendant (called Day Is Done), and two bowls that I needed to fix from the last enameling session.

Day Is Done - horse pendant

This is a pendant I was going to use for a Stringing Challenge piece but I never got around to completing the project.  I finally broke down and enameled it today.  I wasn't looking forward to enameling the piece because of all the small holes and intricate detail mom sawed in the piece.  I wasn't swearing too much at her today.


Next weeks enameling project


Now, on the other hand, next week I will probably be swearing at her a lot.  Mom sawed out all these tiny leaf pendants to be enameled.  These suckers are not fun to try and keep on the trivets during enameling.  I will try and keep the swearing to a minimum.

Mom is also working on two necklaces.  She is using flower pendants from BeeTree by m.e., our lampwork beads and accent beads to assembly the necklaces. These are what she has done so far.

Now, here are the completed necklaces, that I have finally taken photographs of.  Again, the pendants are from BeeTree by m.e., ribbon is from Jamn Glass, lampwork beads by us.

First necklace is the Happy Gecko Necklace:

The second necklace is the Pod necklace:

The last necklace is the Flower necklace (sorry no name yet).  This is the necklace mom and I were having problems with the flowers flipping over, so we ripped the bottom portion apart and tried something new with the flowers and it seems to lay fine now.  Thanks for the recommendations from Copper Diem and Janet Bocciardi.

That is it for both mom and I today.  We feel good becasue we actually got a lot accomplished plus mom isn't in too much pain, so YEAH!

I hope you all have a wonderful Easter weekend!  We will be pigging out at my aunt's house tomorrow.  I will post my I Heart Macro in the morning.  I hope you all participate because it is a lot of fun!