Lots to do getting ready for the show on Saturday but before  I forget I wanted to show how great the spiny back came out on the lizard. He still does not look like a dinosaur but at least he is a more interesting lizard.
Last night as I finished the legs of the crab I would think, three more to do, only 2 and 1/2 more. two done and one to go and at the same time another part of me was wonder what the next crab would look like in reds and yellow. Some days I wonder who lives in my mind? A glutton for punishment?

Just got the news that the Visiting Snowman made finalist in the Fire Mountain Seed Bead Contest! The letter with the good news went astray and returned to Fire Mountain so only today did Susan Phelps send an email. Just yesterday I gave up hearing from them and let Barbara carry it off for the big bead show that opens this Saturday.

Yeah, I made the poster.
And yeah, I am back to beading crab legs.

Adding the golden under color really added a lot to this poor animal. The thin thigh area let the leg make that amazing twist. It was 12:30 last night when I got this far and was too sleepy to make a decision about whether to do the dinosaur back. I can make it off-animal and try it on before sewing it down. Maybe I should make a whole Halloween 'costume' for it. . . At this point it seems finished and I could live with it as it is. Since I still have the greens on my tray I may go back to the crab to see if my new idea for the tops of the claws work.

I wish I liked this little lizard better. If this was 1992 and I was boss of the division creating these animals I would be sending the designer back to Google images for a better look at lizard legs. However even though  head is poorly made it engages me. I created the bug-eyes by using the biggest fringe beads I had and then making peyote stitched rims around them. Still the head structure does not flow around the eye sockets properly.  I have the head and tail and one leg beaded on the underside which makes that color easier to take. If I get a quiet afternoon (no phone calls) I have hopes of finishing him. Last night I did consider making a zig-zag spine as dinosaurs have. Maybe if I made him into a dinosaur, something no one has actually seen, he will be more believable.

Last night I was so tired from too much typing that I felt I simply could not go on with the crab. I had three more of the legs done but that done was done so poorly I found myself reading instead of beading. However beading relaxes and restores me while often reading lets me lie down but whips up my mind. So I reached blindly (the sun had set and I was too lazy to turn on another light) into the box of new animals and my hand found this lizard. It was copyrighted in 1993 but used in the 1996 collection. I had not seen it before so was glad to start a new animal and even more happy to find it so straight forward to bead. I found the colors on the original to be totally weird so that gave me incentive to change them with beads. I had a lovely evening working on this and was so clear and rested that this morning I saw in my mind how to get the tops of the crab's legs done. I really hate to 'give up' on an animal, so I was relieved to find out that I only need a change to open me up to the solution. Next time I will not waste time with calling myself "Quitter," and a few other choice names.

You can count Claude the Crab's legs but there is one more! Last night I did one of the back legs (I think the one with the yellow spot) and it looked so bad after it was finished that I celebrated the midnight hour by taking it out. That means I have done three legs and still have eight to go. Math was never my best subject.
I had gotten a box of my latest auction wins on Ebay ($15.01 for 50 animals) and was very tempted several times to toss this crabby crab aside and dig into the many new animals. Chocolate the Moose and the raccoon bear call to me as surely as chocolate can call me from the fridge.
I reclaimed my cedar chest (Werner had used it to store kindling) and have put all my animals in it. How good to find them smelling of cedar instead of the various homes where the packages had been stored.

Bad cookie? Halloween nightmare? Trick or treater's bad joke?
It is Claude the Crab! I did his tummy in white pearls and his back in glass chips and am now working on the front pincher. This, at least, shows how I tame the many protrusions of these animals as I work on each leg. I use tape on the parts before they are beaded but never use tape on the glass beads as it can leave them sticky. I cannot believe I have started another 10-legged animal. These have to be done on the animal as they are very ingeniously formed. The scanned color of the greenish beads is closer to my imagination than the beads looked to be in artificial light last night.