Fidget beads

Just a few bracelets with fidget rings. The perfect way to use up bits and pieces of a cane or special color combination.
Someone just told me that they can tell if I have been making beads or not by how I sound when I answer the phone. If I'm beadmaking I sound happy. I'm needing to let go of a lot of baggage lately. Is it safe to say that there are beaders and there are beadmakers and one does not necessarily have to be both? I LOOOOVE to make beads. I don't mind stringing them into simple bracelets and have even managed to make a few necklaces which I truly enjoy wearing. After buying several books on more complicated jewelry making, however, I've realized that I really don't want to invest the time and money into learning how to do wire work and more sophisticated techniques. Will this change? Perhaps when retirement comes or I get bored just making beads I'll take a class or read just the right book, but for now let's go make some more beads.

Ocho de Mayo

For some strange reason this one makes me think of balloons. I've been listening to an internet radio station that plays 70's songs all the time. Lots of Rolling Stones, Beatles and Chicago. Saturday in the Park...I think it was the Fourth of July...

Cowgirl Boots

A long time ago I had a cowgirl doll and a pair of red cowgirl boots. When I look at a picture from that time, I can remember that doll perfectly, but not the little girl who wore the red boots. I've been thinking about mothers and children lately. It's strange how the person we remember being is not the same person our mothers remember. Mothers tend to attribute traits and characteristics to a child before they are able to fully express themselves: "She has Grandmother's freckles and Aunt J's stubbornness," they say, but are these things true for a lifetime? Probably not. We try to assert our adult identities, but should realize that our mothers will never see the person we are now without the misty and cherished image of the child we once were.

Sing a song of sixpence

I've been quite obsessed with adding text to clay lately when I should have been concentrating on context. I made some little bird beads and started thinking about the children's rhyme "Sing a song of sixpence" and the necklace just sort of happened. The pie was fun, the pockets of rye not so much. The birds I'm making in every color because they are so friendly and I sure could use a friendly face right now( even if it is made out of clay and has a beak).

Poetry Redux

It's spring and poetry is in the air (along with lots of scary thunder and lightning and rain). I've been experimenting with adding text to beads for a while and finally settled on a design I really like. Here's a bracelet with the text of an Emily Dickinson poem I love. I've also done one with Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky". What direction should this take: more poems, quotes, different colors....?

Spirals

I so admire the complex canes that some polymer clay artists are creating. At this time,however, experimenting with the diverse effects you can achieve with simple canes has me enthralled. The fingerprint bracelet started out as a simple black and white spiral reduced and manipulated until the spirals turned into fingerprints.

Bubbles!

Such a simple concept that feels so fresh and spring-like when done in a soft palette.