Autumn Oddity

Finally a day that feels like fall! TACA's fall show is on the grounds of Centennial Park, Indian food is nearby. This bracelet has it all, the spicy colors of the food I am going to eat and the leaves just starting to turn, the shapes and textures I expect to see at the show and a little bit of asymmetry just for fun.

We Real Cool

There's rarely a time that goes by that I don't have some poem singing in my head. All those years as an English teacher must have done a number on my memory. I was thinking about this poem by Gwendolyn Brooks. It's always been a favorite of mine and so many students learned to love poetry when they saw this one:

               THE POOL PLAYERS.
           SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

Secrets/fidget beads

When I'm making beads I usually like to smash a few into fidget beads. These are flattened beads with a big hole in the center that can be twirled around another bead and fidgeted with as you talk. (I'm a very fidgety person). This is a bracelet that appears to be entirely made of fidget beads, but there is a secret inside. You have to see one to get the effect. These are a bit "diva", but look very cool with casual clothing.

Primavera lila

This pale purple color was my grandmother's fave. Is is lilac or lavendar? I never know. This one was made as I was learning how to make Skinner blend flower petals. Very feminine and pretty. "Primavera Lila" is the name.

Bits and Pieces

Today's bracelet is a mosaic. Talk about labor intensive! I don't expect to make many like this since they take forever. It was kind of fun to see how different it looked once I applied the "grout". Anyway this one is titled "Bits and Pieces".

Bracelets/beads

Okay, I've been feverishly churning out these bracelets and now I want somebody to see them. My goal is to post a pic every day until the end of the calendar year. This bead set is part of the "threads" series. I really enjoy embellishing with texture. The gold and green combo is one I particularly like. I was thinking about the poem "Eldorado" when I made this one.It's called "Eldorado verde".
Here's the first pic.

How I spent my summer vacation

Hi everybody,
It took quite a while to make the transition from spending my days at the bookstore to realizing that there was a life outside those walls, but things have finally started to fall into place. I had some time on my hands this summer to prepare for the fall craft shows. Making my" little people" sculptures was fun, but my heart wasn't in it anymore. I had just read a book on how to age gracefully and the author emphasized that really cool jewelry was the way to make all of your old clothes look like new clothes. Not having any cool jewelry was a problem. Since I have never been a person who could comfortably go out and spend on a whim, I took out my polymer clay purchased to make sculptures and started to play around with bead making. Here are some of the results.