I've been hunting down vintage images to use for a variety of creations lately, and I came across this one of Ophelia that's so hauntingly beautiful I couldn't stand it! I decided that Ophelia needed to grace a pendant, so I made one from shrink plastic. That stuff's so much fun, and I wind up crouched in front of the oven window watching as the pieces curl up and then flatten themselves back out during the shrinking process.

Don't you just love this?!

A bird flew into our patio door yesterday. I think it might have been a female robin. I heard a thunk and then a squawk, and when I opened the door the poor thing was flailing around trying to regain her footing.

My husband went for a towel -- we were going to try to hold her still so she didn't hurt herself any more -- but by the time he returned she had righted herself. Then she just sat there for about 20 minutes with her eyes closed most of the time.

And then she flew away! Granted, it was a wobbly flight at first, but we think she's okay. Whew.

My husband made lunch for me yesterday. Sometimes when he makes lunch he arranges the food into something fun. Just look what he did yesterday with my sandwich and veggies! :-)

I just snagged a picture of a Treasury that featured one of my favorite beadwoven bracelets -- the Raspberry Wave (it's in the bottom row in the center). The Treasury was put together by SandFibers, who's one of my favorite bead artisans. She does some awesome projects with those little seed beads of hers, so I was truly honored to be included in her treasury along with other members of the Etsy Beadweavers Street Team.

Scalloped Seahorses. Reading that, it sounds like an exotic seafood dish, but it's not. I found this image of a seahorse with lots of detail and shading, and I decided to turn him into scalloped tags. They're so cute!!!

And then I decided to make some tags using vintage Alice in Wonderland illustrations. After messing with them for awhile, I found that I just couldn't get them all to look right if I made them all round or all oval or all square, so I created an assortment of shapes and sizes.

I just keep going back to beading. Yeah, I do a bazillion other things in between beading projects, but it's the fascination I have for all those tiny seed beads that just calls to me. That, and perhaps the fact that I have millions of them stashed in my craft room...

I really like the metallics, and I absolutely fell in love with this silvery-pearly-white bead. Peyote stitch doesn't lend itself to creating squares (or at least not for this particular bracelet), so I wound up with sort of a funky honeycomb pattern. I really like it, and I was so happy to find the buttons I used for the closure.

If only I wore bracelets... :-)

Where does the time go?!?!?! I can't believe I haven't posted here since the end of May. The summer's flying by me at the speed of light.

June's been a busy month. Once again I attended the Bead and Button Show in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and once again I walked out of there with a slightly melted credit card. There are so many fabulous beads and supplies on exhibit that it just causes sensory overload. I purchased less than I have in past years, but I still wound up with a few pounds of new beads. My friend Colleen says I'm like a magpie, attracted to bright, shiny things.

The one new thing I did at the show this year was to attend a class. The one I chose was called 'Dragons Rule' and was conducted by Christi Friesen. She's a polymer clay artist with a unique style to her pieces, and I wanted to get a chance to see how some of her things were made firsthand. The class was fun, and although I pretty much completed the dragon I made I don't really like him all that much. I overblended the clay, which was in shades of brown and gold, and wound up making a dragon who looks a bit like a pile of poo. Ah well. I learned some stuff, though.

Last weekend was spent at the Custer Street Fair in Evanston. I went with another artist (Laura, whose internet moniker is artonthehoof). Neither of us did very well. We both attribute it to the fact that the fair, while it was heavily promoted as an art fair featuring handmade artist items, really had lots of things that were made in Taiwan or China... It was disappointing to have worked as hard as both of us did, but we learned something from the experience. Best of all, I have a new friend now. Laura and I have lots in common, it seems; and we just kept discovering more and more similar things about ourselves and our backgrounds. Weird.