Back to Beads...

 In a recent post I lamented about inspiration and beading.  I also inquired how others sort and store their beads.  I got some wonderful responses.  I am so appreciative when bloggers leave comments that are relative and meaningful.  Thank you sincerely.  These photos will show you my current bead storage.  These bins are sorted by bead types...gemstones, seed beads, pearls, etcetera.  Within each bin are little baggies of beads...by type or color relating to the category.  This works pretty well for me. 

 Here are more examples of my storage organization.  The little clear paint cans on the top left are costume jewelry bits sorted by category...pins, earrings, bracelets, etcetera.  Eye candy for certain.  When I can see what I have it is that much easier for me to be inspired and to use what I have.  The mason and jelly jars contain buttons of which I never have too many.  These are sorted by colors and some by type...flowers.  All of the clear boxes are actually tackle boxes for fishing.  They contain dividers that are movable so as to size the compartments to fit the contents...wooden beads, charms, pony beads, sequins...you get the idea. 

 This shelf is a bit more industrial.  The tool box is what it stores...tools.  I love my tools and once I sorted them into this little tool box now I know exactly where to find that screwdriver or pliers or whatever.  The plastic bins contain more jewelry supplies. I'll post the contents in the blue lidded box soon.

Here is another tackle box/briefcase style container.  The dividers in this are not changable.  I put beads in here that I was working with.  Key word...was!  I really need to empty this case and reorganize it completely.  I really have no need for it to be portable as I am not traveling with it any further than from the shelf to the table.  :o) 

 Here is a photo of one of the tackle boxes with the movable dividers.  This one is containing gemstone chips.

Then I have this large clear glass container holding lots of my lovely costume bead necklaces sitting on a shelf in plain view just waiting for the perfect project.  I find when I can see my stash then I am much more inclined to use what I have. 
Can you tell I love beads?  It is true.  I love beads!  I always have since I was little.  My Grandma did lots of beading.  She would sew a dress and then sew little tiny beads all over the neckline or down the front just to make it extra special.  Oh how I do love beads. 
Thank you for inspiring my bead storage and helping me to really see what I have. 
Now I am getting inspired to do some beading.  Yay!
Our weather has turned very cold!  We are having rain!  Over two inches just during the night.  It is so cold that there is considerable snow falling just above us closer to Lake Tahoe.  The snowboarders and skiers are getting a very early start to their winter of activities and fun.  I really like the snow...if it is at least 50 miles from me!  Did I say how cold it is?  I can hardly type with my frozen fingers.  We have turned on the heater and it is working overtime.  Summer was far too short for my likes.  Autumn was beginning to happen and hopefully will come back once we are past this extreme cold spell and rain.  Yes, the cold is necessary as it is what allows the leaves to turn the intense colors of Fall. 
Wonderful days of Autumn...

Lost days of blogging...

Do you ever have a plan and your plan gets sidetracked? That is what has happened to me.
Bad Blogger.com really caused me to get my plan off track when it decided to have a two day breakdown. Yes, I admit I am addicted to blogging and so many super creative artists who blog. I was beside myself every time I checked my computer merely to find Blogger "unavailable".
Well I am flexible and I did manage to spend my time otherwise as well. I did a LOT of yardwork. It is amazing to me how quickly our five month very wet winter turned from nice moist ground to harder than a clay brick which won't release even the tiniest weed when I tug on it. So after spending untold hours on my hands and knees you would never even guess that I had done so much weeding. Argh............
I also sewed. The fabric in the top photo was purchased for a special yoke on a swing jacket. The grey circles are actually a bit metallic and I love the sheen they have.

Then I thought how fun to use my Texture Magic and sew a grid pattern on this fabric. I sewed four circles in each grid. Next time I would sew the same four circles but inside of each circle to see what design comes from the magic.

Now I have a photo of the sewn fabric which I have partially steamed and you can begin to see the pattern emerging. I do love the texture that this process creates. It does take a bit of time and a lot of thread but what a fun technique. I remember hand smocking with my Grandma many years ago and I can honestly say that was time consuming!

So now my fabric is all "smocked". What was I thinking? What plan did I think I had? The bulk that this fabric would create on the yoke of my jacket is far more than this mature body needs to be wearing.

Well, now I have a lovely piece of fabric and have scrapped the jacket yoke plan. It would make a lovely pillow however I have no rooms with these color schemes. How about a tote bag? I am flexible and will merely put the fabric on a padded hanger in the sewing closet to await the perfect project.

So this week has been quite the challenge in my planning department.

Today we are preparing for rain and snow tomorrow. Our temperatures have dropped and it is quite cold. Unusual? No. Last year it snowed in May. The Amgen bicycle race is supposed to begin tomorrow in nearby Lake Tahoe and then on Monday pass through our little Historic gold town. Do they even make snow tires for racing bicycles? Hmmm...plans and flexibility are what life is all about.

I hope everyone is recovering from Blogger misbehaving. May you each have a relaxing and wonderful weekend.

Now I am off to catch up on my favorite blogs I missed for two days. :o)

Snow and Easter Eggs...

Well it is snowing here again. The weather reports said a chance of rain early afternoon. Hmmm...by 9:30 am we had an inch of snow and the snowflakes were huge and beautiful. As the day has progressed the weather has turned to all wetness...rain, sleet, hail, snow, slush. I want to thank each of you for your wonderful comments on my last post. I have had some really good visuals of projects you have sewn. I have also had some really great laughs over some of the antics that led up to sewing something or not sewing something. Thank you my wonderful blog friends. You really make my days so interesting and happy. Now for Easter eggs...I love to hard boil dozens of eggs and then color and decorate them just like when I was a little girl. My mother would boil one dozen for each of us and an extra dozen just for breakfast. By my count that would have been about 7 or 8 dozen eggs each Easter. We had a giant old library table for our dining table as it could accomodate so many of us. Lots of layers of newspaper and plastic cloths and every fun color you could imagine for dipping and rolling and coloring our eggs. We used stickers and crayons and lots of imagination. Even mom would color a dozen eggs. I think she had as much fun as we youngsters had. Maybe that is why I always enjoyed coloring eggs when my daughter was home and then when my granddaughters were visiting. Now there are no eggs to color as Mr. C won't eat hardboiled eggs, deviled eggs or eggs-a-la-goldenrod. My girls are 500 miles away. I do miss the fun. This year I am going to try to color a few with beet juice, which will make them so softly pink, from my canned beets I love to eat, the water from boiling artichokes which makes a lovely greenish blue aqua shade and some brown onion skins for the creamy tan colors. I think that ought to satisy my creative need to color eggs. At least my girlfriend and I like to eat egg salad sandwiches so the eggs will not go to waste. What are you doing for egg coloring? My daughter will at least carry on the old family tradition of eating brunch consisting of eggs-a-la-goldenrod. Such good comfort food. I made this lace bunny for my sister who is having her birthday Saturday and we are celebrating on Sunday with a day of shopping and lunching. This will be her Easter decoration from me. I am really having fun making these. No two alike but all with the same ideas. Happy creating...

Spring and Quilting...

Here we are April 1st and our weather has given us a glorious Spring day. The sun is shining and the frogs are croaking their mating songs. The Robins are searching the grounds for just the perfect things. I have spent the better part of the day working in the yard. I decided to put my blinders on as we still have some snow on the ground in the yard and also so I wouldn't get overwhelmed with the massive job to do just cleaning up the debris from such a harsh winter. I chose a small walkway near the pond and merely worked in a small circle hand raking and picking up pine needles, oak leaves, old acorns and heavy wet soggy mushy plant stems. After a few hours I had finished with my little piece of heaven walkway. I have daffodils blooming and there are even hopeful tiny new green sprouts on a very dead looking geranium I didn't think would survive the winter. Life is good. Now for quilting...my small little patches of cleanup work remind me of how quilting goes. In small little patches of fabric that eventually become the finished piece to be proud of. The photo above is a small piece of Cathedral Quilting I did all by hand about 4 decades ago. It was tedius and took forever because I wanted my stitches to be as tiny as possible. Now all these years later it is still perfect...in my eyes. Oh yes, I can see flaws however these only make it more cherished to me. Now days I don't quilt however I know that someday I shall...when I am ready. As I follow blogs and find things that really speak to me I was super fortunate to find Terri Stegmiller. I know many of you already know Terri but for those who don't here is her link. Terri is also part of 3 Creative Studios and you will find lots of inspiration there. From Terri's blog one day I visited the Twelve By Twelve blog. I was intrigued by the quilts that various artists were creating. They were each only 12 inches by 12 inches. Hmmm...now that seems much more doable than some huge king-sized piece that is montrous to work with. I digress but back in the 70's Dear Grandma and I each made king-sized crazy quilts out of small pieces of double knit fabrics. What were we thinking?!! And I don't even still have that monster...me who never gets rid of anything! I do hope you visit both Terri and the 12x12 just to see all the amazing art that is created. Twelve By Twelve had a lovely coming out party online for their book they published and I was super fortunate to be selected one of the lucky recipients of a copy. The book is published by Lark Crafts and Terri actually signed my copy that she sent to me. Thank you very much Terri. This photo above is the front of the book cover. This photo is the back cover. I have perused this book from front to back and it is so beautifully done. Each of the twelve artists who participated and created twelve quilts in the 12x12 inch size are featured. How fun and challenging that each quilt had a theme and it is amazing to see how each artist represented it in their quilt. I will definitely be devouring this book for a very long time. Each time I look I see something new and different. Who knows...maybe this is the catalyst for me to make a tiny little 12x12 inch quilt of my very own to be proud of for decades to come. How are you enjoying your weekend? Maybe a little outdoors and a little indoors creativity? This sunshine is definitely re-energizing me after all the gray, cold, wet and snowy days we have had. What?!! Rain is predicted for Saturday???

This is NOT Spring...

This is NOT Spring...

I just stepped out my front door and took this photo.

This snow and rain is here for the next seven (7) days.

Only one of my couple hundred daffodils started to blossom yesterday.

Now it will be smashed to the ground with heavy wet snow.

Please wait for me dear daffodils.

I so look forward to your bright yellow blooms.

That bright yellow that makes me smile.

That gives me hope sunshine will come and stay.

Oh winter you may rest for another year.

Our water tables are happily full to capacity.

Our forest trees have filled their energy with your water.

Please bring Spring...

Birds Who Sing...

Sunshine and Smiles...

Patience My Dear Self...

The days have become a week and I must remain patient. My new monitor is scheduled to arrive late this evening. Somehow that is when our wonderful UPS truck delivers to our street. Normally I am extremely patient however somehow this computer glitch is taking my calm and turning it askew.
I have plans to accomplish another creative task today. It has been wonderful to get so many things done in the past several days. I will have projects and photos to share with you very soon.
Meanwhile I am wearing more layers to gain warmth as our weather has turned very chilly. Today is a beautiful sunny day and the ground is saturated after the approximate 9 inches of rain we received in two days. Maybe more rain in another two days. All good for nature and I hope fire season will be gone with all this rain.
Happy creating everyone and may you have a wonderful day...

Winter Hijacked Spring...Again

The rain is so refreshing and clean and clear. I really do like it. However, Winter has hijacked our Spring again. Here it is April 28th and no sunshine again. When I took this picture it was just between hail and snow and a white layer on the ground. Snow level is 4000 feet today and we are 3400 foot elevation. The Sierra's are definitely getting another batch of snow. This rain is so good for our water table. We are on our own well so we are thankful for the rain. It also means we don't have to turn on our drip irrigation system yet.
Welcome refreshing rain.

I was going to post pictures of my clever creative artistic bookmarks I made however I seem to have some little (or big) gremlin who deleted the two pictures I needed. Afterall they were sandwiched in with Mr. Createology's car project photos so I can easily see how a couple of "craft" photos were not needed. LOL

I was going to show you how I use an old catalog for my gluing station. You probably already are doing this or know about this but just in case you aren't using this trick here it is. Get an old catalogue and instead of throwing it out just yet, use the pages for your base to apply glue to your pieces of ephemera. As each page gets messy just turn it over and you have a new clean page to work on.

I recycled some propaganda (so mysterious sounding) mail I had received and cut it into bookmark sized strips. It had some lovely flower photos on one side so I merely embellished around the photos. Some old sheet music, some glittery butterfly stickers, some text and done. The other side I glued my vintage wrapping paper to cover the strip. Some corner punches, a single hole punch and some ribbon finishes and a bookmark ready for mailing and using.

Very simple and kept some junk mail out of the landfill. As for my glue catalogue it takes a long time to fill every page with glue. Once filled you can use it for another art project.

P.S. I couldn't retake the photos because I mailed out all the bookmarks I made.

Do you have a handy tip for gluing paper or such things?

Scrapping...

I was working on this scrapbook when I got the call. Please, please can you do this Saturday?

Well, this was last Thursday afternoon and I just cannot say no. So last Saturday I spent my day at our local Chamber of Commerce Visitor Center as a volunteer to greet people and help them with what they might like to do in town or what they would like to eat for lunch or dinner. Unfortunately it was pouring rain...again. This is my third Saturday that it has rained and needless to say it makes for very few people visiting and walking around. I practically open the door for anyone even close to it so I can invite them inside.

Luckily I knew when I was going that it was raining so I went prepared for a lot of down time. I scooped up this mess of pictures, papers, tape gun and scrapbook and toted it along with me to the Chamber. As I had so few visitors I busied myself with sorting, ripping and taping all of this into my little book. I actually had more time than supplies to work on.

My little book is well on it's way to being up-to-date. It will never be complete as it is ongoing. I shall share additional pictures with you soon. It chronicles my girlfriend and I becoming and making "Saucy Chicks". It is so funny to look back over a few years and see what we were doing. The phrase "What were we thinking?!!" comes to mind.

I have some additional things to include in my little scrapbook. Then I will take some more photos to share with you.

Talk about UFO's! This is a major task just to get caught up on this one. It has been sitting well over a year and I did it in a day and a half thanks to rain.

Do you have any rainy day projects?

Amazing...

If you haven't seen or heard of Nathan Sawaya, Lego artist you must check out his amazing work. www.brickartist.com

Mr. Hubby and I took a Sunday drive to Downieville, Sierra City, Graeagle, Quincy, Lake Almanor, Chester and on to Red Bluff to visit friends for a couple of days. While visiting we went to Turtle Bay museum in Redding and were fortunate enough to see an exhibit of Nathan Sawaya's work. The pictures above are fine but to see these and many more in person is truly inspiring. The photo above is titled "yellow" however my friend Ginny and I both agree it should be "pouring out my soul". I personally have never owned or played with Legos however my daughter did have some but they were much larger and certainly never sparked any artistic ability in our household. Mr. Hubby was amazed by the incredible works of art. Before we paid and went in he definitely was not interested in a lego exhibit however once inside he was really engaged and interested and quite amazed by the ability and clever use of such simple plastic pieces. We all left the museum with a new appreciation for such creativity using such a basic medium.

Our weather was beautiful and not too hot. Actually it was 68 degrees in Chester when we stopped for lunch at the Cotton Candy Diner (great food and friendly people) about 1:30 pm and within 5 minutes it dropped to 58 degrees and rained. We did not mind the rain as it was very refreshing and I really like the smell of rain. It was only 85 degrees for us in Red Bluff and Redding so that was quite pleasant. I believe it will be 95 the rest of this week so it was a good time to leave and come back home via Granzellas which is rebuilt after the bad fire they had.

So today it is back to reality and scrubbing bathrooms, fixing meals, watering special plants and enjoying daily life. It is always so good to get home.

P.S. Our friends Herb and Ginny have two of the cutest brand new calico cats. A white calico girl and a black calico girl but not litter sisters. I had so much fun playing with them and watching their antics. Now I am enjoying my beloved Sasha BooBoo kitty who patiently waited for us to return. She was entertained and cared for by her Aunt Lorraine.

Lots of rain...

Hello blog readers:

We are having another couple of days of rain here in Northern California. I am happy because we so desperately need the water table. My daffodils are happy because they are just beginning to blossom. The froggies in the pond are happy and singing and swimming and singing. I even hear them singing during the night. It is a most happy sound.

As it was raining yesterday I had the opportunity to do laundry while indoors and snuggly. I also had the ambition to clean out some cupboards in the utility room. My husband and I have lived here in this home for a decade already. It is amazing what I manage to cram into cupboards. I am famous for fitting 10 pounds of stuff into a 5 pound bag but that is not always a compliment. I found things in the cupboards that had gotten shoved way into the back where no one could have seen it from a normal position. However I saw everything yesterday as I was up and down the step stool and crawling around the floor on my hands and knees. I reorganized lots of cleaning supplies and made them easier to access. I donated lots of crafty things I will never get to. I threw away lots of junk that I will never use nor need. I didn't help out my studio as I carried lots of supplies into it and shut that door. I had paper making supplies, paint, glues, finishes and other assorted crafting supplies in the utility room thinking that I would be working on those types of projects there because of the large sink with water. Well, in ten years I have not done so and decided that craft and art supplies really belong in the studio. My Saucy Chick Co-founder agreed via telephone that when we are working on a project in the studio I am always saying, "Oh, that is upstairs" and running to get whatever it is we need at the moment.

After an entire day of lots of toil and trouble I have some very nice and clean and neat cupboards. I also left some empty just to impress my husband who always complains that I have too much stuff. I definitely needed a good long Epsom soak in the air-jet tub last evening.

Today I do not have the same ambition as yesterday even though it is still raining. I am doing paperwork and correspondence at my desk. Our home office is very quiet and cave-like without even so much as a window to hear or see the rain. Fill water table, fill.

Butterflies always make me smile. They are the bearer's of 10,000 happinesses.

Refreshing rain...

Don't you just love fresh blooming flowers? So bright and cheery they are. Well with all this rain we are having we should get some beautiful flowers blooming come spring. There are lots of wonderful wildflower walks to partake of in this part of the country. Some have docents that know all the types of flowers and some walks are just for you to meander along just taking in the beauty of it all.

I am really looking forward to all the daffodils that will be blooming very soon. The highway is planted with thousands of them in a very short distance that are spectacular to look at and enjoy. Then there are the 99 daffodil bulbs that my dear husband planted for me a couple years ago so I could look forward to the end of dreary and enjoy the bright yellow white and orange multitude of sizes and shapes of daffodil blossoms that spring forth. This year he bought me another large bunch of bulbs but this time I had to plant them myself. Well, that didn't go so well and I fear the bulbs were not the same excellent quality of the previous lot. I do see the tiny beginnings of poking through the earth so there is hope for them yet.

I realize this picture is not a daffodil however it is the brightest flower I could find to post. We are having a lot of rain so nothing is blooming and it is way too soggy outside to even think of working in the yard or taking photos. So for now I am content inside the house doing chores and listening to the refreshing rain drops on the windows and roof. I did just come back from running some errands in the rain and did not enjoy it at all. My dear Grandma loved this kind of weather so much that in Southern California where she lived she would get in her car and drive in the rain to the coast along the ocean and she was just as happy as could be. I am hoping I will someday have the same love of dreary soggy days just as Grandma had.

Now I definitely think a cup of hot chocolate is in order.