I got tired of making green trees, in spite of loving that olive color! So I began doing snow covered trees which moved into Valentine's Day with hearts on the top. I think the series is done. Last night, instead of beading, I worked on the computer with my new netbook. It was the wrong way for me to wind down my day. Had huge light clouds in my night vision. So I need to find a new project for today.

Maybe if I clean up the studio I will stumble over some forgotten bunch of beads that will spell out the new project. I feel beads cast spells over me. I seem to get possessed by a bead, or an idea that I cannot let go of until it lets go of me.

The back cover of

Had such a lovely surprise on Friday. Melody at Fire Mountain sent me a copy of Christmas 365. I loved reading the magazine with its refreshing layouts and super ideas. I think the idea of keeping Christmas throughout the year is a marvelous idea. Of course I have just spent the last week making Christmas tree earrings! Am ordering the magazine for my granddaughter who is really into Christmas - evidently we share a gene pool. . .

What a marvelous pick-me-up to see my beaded work on the beautifully done ad on the back cover! Thanks to Arbel and Melody and probably many others I do not even know about, I had such a joyful day then and the shine continues even yet today. What a great reason for beading. Now I need a new idea for next year's bead contest! Hm. . .

My 'inner beader' is obviously not burned out on vending! As I was cleaning up and sorting my pounds of beads the other day, I discoved these olive green 11s that I had gotten last year to make more of the Christmas tree earrings. So I have been doing these!

Found a new way to start the circle. I simply do the brick stitch around a #8 bead. This makes a very smooth start and the hole in the bead is perfect for passing the headpin through. As you see I have not yet finished off the tops. I hate making wire loops! which probably explains why I do it badly. Even with two tools I am not able to make two alike. But that is always a problem for me with earrings. Here you can see I have made 7 instead of 8!

Anyone interested in duplicating the Christmas tree on my Fire Mountain entries from last year and this year should start by making these earrings as practice. I will email the instructions if you wish to have them. No charge.

Got the paperwork from Vicki for the sales at the Art in the Redwoods vendor booth.

Vicki and Marianne (and husbands) had erected the tent, set up tables and chairs, decorated the displays and had it open 3 hours on Friday night, 8 hours on Saturday and 7 hours on Sunday and then took the whole thing down. My thanks to them for doing this!

My total sales were $152. I paid Gualala Arts 10% = $15.20. I paid my one-third of the booth fee = $16 and $2.71 for use of credit card charges. I spend one day attaching prices and making arrangements in the trays. There were two trips to Gualala.

And still there were smiles!

Here you can see how they hung the branch in the gallery. I was very pleased with how the hanging committee placed it. There had been talk of hanging it outside so I was very glad to see it inside and in the gallery and being treated like art. It won no prizes but I had not expected it to to do that. It was just an idea I had. Several people did come up to me to say how much "it looked like something I would do" and others said that they loved the new idea. Hard to show something that has not been seen when there are over 400 works competing for attention.

Here are Vicki (seated) and Marianne (in blue, also) in the booth they (wo)manned all three days at Art in the Redwoods. Saturday had been foggy and cool so they didn't sell that much, but yesterday was sunny and just warm enough and they thought they had sold more. Marianne was still computing numbers when I left. Walt Rush, another jeweler loaned us the tent. Both husbands were waiting for us to get our stuff out so they could take it down. Thanks to everyone for all the help.

After covering 48 of these wooden beads I strung them together to find out they do not go together as the beads in the yellow bracelet did! The spaces between the petal-like sets are too wide for the thing to hold together. When it is bent around the wrist the petals collapse. I tried the weaving pattern again with pony beads and 6s but again they were too slippery to hold the shape.

I gave up at midnight and I suspect that I will go back to all today and try to find a way to make it work. Who knows? I may invent the wheel yet!

This afternoon I plan to go to the Art in the Redwoods and I am looking forward to that!

Got the box back from Fire Mountain with my seed bead contest finalists and finally got around to unpacking it. Was surprised how glad I was to see this piece back home. I put it up on the special shelf and every time my eye wanders in that direction I get a good feeling. I am thankful I was able to make the piece and I am glad it has been appreciated by someone else. Still I wish that in the spaces between the beads were the words spoken as others looked at the piece. Will keep it for the Gualala Art Festival of Trees which is not all that far away. Maybe then I can see how others see the work.

You must be wondering what this is! I am still trying to figure out the yellow green bracelet Sharon loaned me as shown in yesterday's blog. At the top is the bracelet I am trying to make out of the beads that I designed because I did not like having to cover the round beads. Okay.
But still the mystery of the yellow green bracelet remained. When I showed it to Werner he immediately said, "I see that on a brown arm." Then it hit me. This style is very African! I have seen pictures of African beading that had this feel and this color. Also the seed beads are the opaque kind they use. So with the desire to figure out how an African woman made this bracelet, I returned to the puzzle with a lot more enthusiasm.
First of all I had to figure out how the balls were stitched together. This is not done with any stitch that I know. By holding the elastic apart I was able to follow the thread paths and then to draw them and then to duplicate the process with plain wooden beads. However, this does not work with smooth beads. The roughness of the bead-covered beads actually holds the beads together in place. So there was nothing for me to do but to cover the 48 beads with seed beads. This is, to me, another clue that says this bracelet is African - it is very labor-intensive. I worked all afternoon and evening and only got 16 of the beads covered.
Got to run! Need to deliver my beads to Vicki so she can take them to the Art in the Redwoods vendor booth she and Marianne are having this weekend at the Gualala Arts Center. In addition to all of this, Marianne started a blog this week. Check it out at: simplyseablimejewelry. blogspot.com. She is running a raffle for people who visit her blog and leave comments.

Sharon showed me this bracelet she had bought at Cotton Fields in the Seacliff Center. The little balls are made by taking a glass bead and covering it with seed beads. I tried the process and got frustrated with the slipperiness of it - it took a lot of work to go around and around the bead adding the lines of beads and making them lie flat.

So I am trying to make my own little beaded bead and when I get 48 of them (stay tuned; don't hold your breath) I will try to duplicate the bracelet. It seems the person used the peyote stitch with elastic cord. One of the reasons I am interested in this is because so many people love bracelets they can slip on and off and I hate working with findings and even bead-made clasps.

I am using silver-lined gold 6s peyote stitched into a 3 x 6 bead flat piece that is then zipped up to make the bead. Then I lace in 11s between the beads to add another color. Either I am happy not to be making myself cover all those beads or I really prefer having two colors on the bead, but I like my little beads more. I am enjoying the challenge!

" Ballsy"

Was chosen as one of the finalist in the Fire Mountain Seed Bead Contest.

"And the Stockings were Hung"
got the Gold Metal award for Holiday in the Fire Mountain seed beed contest .

You can go to the Fire Mountain page to see their photos. Off to celebrate!

Got a call from Vicki to tell me that she and Marianne are having a booth at the Art in the Redwoods Festival on August 20 -22 at Gualala Arts. Somehow they were able to wrangle a tent from Walt Rush so all systems are 'go' for that weekend.

She was kind enough to invite me to take 1/2 table and better still, to excuse me from all booth sitting duties. I think she knows how terrible I am with numbers and sales slips and figured it would be easier to do the job herself than to have to straighten out my goofs.

So I stopped doing the puffy bracelets. I did send one done in maroon and gold to Bambi so she could wear it to work. She said when she wears beaded work she get so many more comments and compliments than when she wears higher quality items made by jewelers.

Anyhow, Vicki's offer made me think that I need to make more lizards because they do sell. So it is lizards on my bead trays for a while. If you look closely you can see that two of these are bracelets. I like this idea and am doing one in reds and golds. You may have to look at more of these.

In the latest issue of BeadWork, August/September, Nancy Cain has instructions for a necklace she called "crystal twilight" which has rings like these as part of it. Making just these rings has set me off in new directions (bangles?) and has me experiementing with various sizes and ways of making them. She used only two sizes of silver beads, but I like the way two colors, one inside and one outside, give the ring a radiance (as in the small white one).
Basically she uses 5 rows of 8s or 11s in a flat peyote ring, with 5 rows of a smaller bead, 11s with 8s, or Delicas or 15s with 11s divided up so 2 rows are one side and three rows are on the opposite side. Then one zip stitches the sides together to make a closed circle. The only other way I knew to make such a form was to crochet a tube. These rings, being hollow are lighter weight and more pliable. I still have not gotten the right amount for a bangle. One pink circle is too small and the other one is too large. All because I refuse to count beads for my base and think I can eye the size of the circle.