Little Colonial Christmas House

One of several paper art projects I managed to work on and finish in the weeks before Christmas.  It was part of a competiton Patty at The Queen's Ink in Savage Mill thought up.  The houses are on display in the store until January 15, 2012.  

This little house was a challenge for me to start because paper art is something I love, but I don't do as much of it as I would like.  Once I started, with some prompting from my husband and daughter, I really got into it and thoroughly enjoyed the time spent creating it. It didn't start out to be a little colonial building, but since that's the architecture I'm drawn to the most that's what it became!  

Here's a front view: 

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.  We did at our house, family and dear friends, what more can you ask!

Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy the remainder of the the holiday season!





The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!



All my best wishes to everyone for a wonderful Christmas with family and loved ones!  Thank you for stopping by to read my blog and share my creative adventure. 

Beading Babes~Part Two

Today is the reveal for the second installment of the Beading Babes challenge created by Karyn of Releases by Rufydoof.  We could have created two different patterns, but I chose to do just the one.  I had some other obligations that I had to complete, so I decided I would do the Sleek in Silver necklace that was in a recent issue of Beadwork.  I'm so happy that I chose that pattern.  I had really liked it when I first saw it and I was happy that it was one of the two designs agreed upon.  It's a very easy and quick design to make and it uses the gorgeous Tila beads!  Here is my version of the necklace:

Unfortunately, the picture is very dark and I couldn't get a better shot of the majority of the necklace.  I really need to learn to use Photoshop Elements after the holidays!  At any rate, I used a wonderful cranberry iris Tila, along with bronze 11 seed beads and cranberry red size 8  hex beads. The pattern used size 8 seed beads, but the hex beads were a good color match to the Tilas and I love the way the hex beads catch the light.  In place of the briolettes used in the original design I used these wonderful two toned spotted daggers that I found at a bead show.  The colors in the daggers was perfect with the other bead colors.

This close-up definitely shows the color better than the larger photograph.  And, you can really see the daggers which are so wonderfully random.  Some of them are cranberry on one side and ivory on the other, some are split down the middle, as you can see, and some have a less symetrical division of the colors.  I love daggers and these have to be some of my all time favorites.  I think they really add to the overall effect of this necklace.

I love the way this necklace turned out and the colors are great for the season.  I know I'll be wearing it to a yearly dinner we attend with good friends. 

Thanks again to Karyn for organizing this challenge.  It's great fun and it gives me the opportunity to bead some projects I really like. 

Enjoy your day.  I'll be spending the rest of my day getting ready for the holidays to really begin! 





Happy Thanksgiving!



Best wishes for a happy and blessed Thanksgiving Day spent with family and friends. 



A Harvest Combination

This is a detail of a cuff bracelet I made using some of the beads from the October Beads in the Mail collection that come every month from The Beadin Path in Freeport, Maine.  I love finding my collection of beads and other coordinated goodies in the mail box the beginning of every month.  I don't always use them in one piece.  But, this collection for the Fall was too great not to use together. 

I had been wanting to make a cuff that used ruched velvet for a base with beads embroidered on it.  As it turned out, I combined bead embroidery with freeform bead weaving and I like the results.  The velvet was a small piece of hand dyed velvet I've had for a long time.  I don't remember  where it came from but I've loved the butterscotch color.  It's very rich looking and it's very soft.  It worked well for the base of the cuff.  I ruched it lightly and tacked it to stiff stuff, then I beaded it.  I backed it with brown ultra-suede and used snaps as a closure. 

I used a small copper spacer bead in the embroidery and I like how it looks very much.  I don't usually use metal beads in my bead embroidery or bead weaving.  But, this worked out so well I think I'll be using metal again. 

The color isn't very good in this picture, but that is a copper spacer.  The leaves are from The Beadin Path, but they were in my stash. 

Here's the entire cuff. 

I've decided I like combining embroidery and freeform weaving.  It provides a lot of space for improvising in a piece.  And, I love this collection of beads.  The colors are all my favorite fall shades. 

I've been  absent from the blog for a while.  This time of year is always busy, but I've managed to squeeze in some time to bead, knit and do some mixed media.  And, best of all this weekend I took two classes with the very talented and lovely Sylvie Elise Landsdowne at Bead Soup.  Sylvie is a lampwork artist who creates the most wonderfully whimsical beads and faces!  She began bead work to feature her glass and her designs are just so colorful and fun that you can't help but smile.  I'll be showing you some of what I did in the classes as I move along with the patterns. 

Well, time to get on to preparations for Thursday!  I hope to find some time to create this week, I hope you do to.  Thanks so much for stopping by!





The First Frost

I haven't done any garden pictures in a long time.  But, Tueday morning I had to take some pictures of the frost on the leaves of the shrubs in our garden.  It was such a beautiful sight!  This is the burning bush by the side of our driveway.  The entire shrub looked like it was sugar coated! 

Here is a little tour of the garden covered in the first frost of the season.

Have a wonderful day!  Take inspiration from the beautiful colors that surround us right now.



Happy Halloween!