Bracelet Bonanza

My first craft fair with the bracelets in tow today. They were a big success. I think people enjoyed reading the names as much as they liked the actual bracelets. Some sold were: The Eyes Have It, Mermaid Singing, Cavegirl Bling, Jane Hathaway, Cinema Classic, Purple Kimono, Firecracker, Angel's Breath, and Here's My Heart. I wish I had time to make more before the next show. What fun!

Hope's Lamp

The inspiration for this bracelet was a lamp I saw in the living room of a fictional character named Hope on Thirtysomething. The lamp was so beautiful and soft looking I had to try to recreate the look in beads. Translucence is an area I am working diligently to achieve in clay. The blue, green, and coral were mixed 1 part color to 16 parts translucent clay. For the base I mixed a creamy antique yellow. Then I sliced the colors thin enough that light shines through. I love the watercolor effect and plan to continue studying translucence in polymer clay. Perhaps tinted liquid clay will be the next step. There's always something new to learn with this medium!

Cow Eggs

There was a time in the 80's when I had a houseful of cow-themed kitsch. It was during that "country/crafty" time when there was a little festival on every town square in the summer and every other booth was filled with white ducks with a welcome banner and mauve and Williamsburg blue were the only colors that you could find in stores. I casually mentioned to my class that I thought the patterns on those black and white cows looked cool. Every occasion after that I got cows: cow canisters, cow placemats, cow pens, cow candles,cow coasters, cow notepaper,cow plates,cow keychains....Anyway, I took the bull by the horns one day and gave the whole lot of it to Goodwill. I just thought I'd make one cow bracelet for old time's sake. MOO!

Rhapsody in Gray

I think much of this bead making experience has simply been an exercise in color. I've learned to mix colors, to find my personal pallette, and to appreciate purple though I had never cared for it previously. Before this I thought my favorite color was red when it is actually tomato red (which is not red at all, but orange). I discovered a passion for smoky, stormy blue-greens and a deeper respect for the versatility of olive. I realized that brown goes with everything and you can't go wrong with a marbling mix when you add a little black, a little white, and a lot of gold. This particular set of beads was the result of taking strong colors straight from the clay package and adding my own gray "mud"to form a sort of shadowy rainbow. I applied the white threads to add a little contrast. It works for me.

Citrus Surprise

I have always thought those pink grapefruits in the fall fruit boxes the high school band sold had the most gorgeous color palette of any fruit. I just wanted to look at them, never to eat them. I remember spending the night at a friend's house and having grapefruit served for breakfast. They all knew how to eat it without the juice squirting all over their faces. They didn't even slather it in sugar! Weird. Anyway, this is my tribute to those yellows and pinks and oranges and yinks and pellows and whatever you call the whole spectrum of colors in between.

Whose woods these are?

Finally fall! These beads were inspired by a walk in the fall woods. The rusts and golds were the leaves crunching under our feet up the hill from the old spring. The deep browns were the buckeyes we were scrabbling for in the leaves. The grays were the sky and the rough bark on the tree trunks. We found my father's initials carved on a trunk when he was a boy. Nothing beats a nature walk in the fall. Nothing!

Tennessee Flag

In Tennessee's bicentennial year we did many, many craft fairs across the state. I bet I painted hundreds of the ubiquitous rocking chair with a Tennessee flag draped across the arm. This makes me think of that season. Good times...