FAUX JADE, EARRING BEADS AND BEAD CROCHET

FAUX JADE

Didn't feel like blogging much since Annie died but I saw a bright star tonight and knew that was her shining down on us to tell us she is ok and that we should keep doing what we love to do and that she is ok now.  My grandma always told me when pets die, they always go to heaven and when they get there, they turn into stars.  I believed everything my grandma told me.

A couple weeks ago Cindy Lietz "The Polymer Clay Tutor" http://www.beadsandbeading.com/blog/ did a video on Faux Jade.  I decided to play around with a couple batches.  I need to make 16 pair of earring beads for our clay guild's May swap.  I've done a couple things and haven't decided which ones I'm going to use yet but here are some things I did with the batches of Faux Jade.

There are 3 different colors.  The top two are a little darker, the bottom right is my favorite, the large one on the left is really pretty but it has little specs of gold in it.  A friend of mine just came back from a two week cruise and went to Costa Rica which I didn't know was the jade capital of the world.  She went to a lecture about jade and her son bought her a purple jade bracelet.  So you know I'm going to be giving that a go.  If only she would let me touch it.  Anyway, I'm liking this faux jade thing.

CLAY GUILD EARRING BEAD SWAP

As I said, our guild is having an earring swap.  I did a few different things just to experiment.  We are making the beads but not finishing them into earrings.  We are going to let each person decide how they want to use the beads.  Some don't wear earrings, some don't wear pierced earrings, etc. so we decided to made sets of beads and the person can decide what they want to do with them and where they want to put the holes in them. 

These are a few of the ones I've been playing with.  Top left are my mouse in the cheddar cheese earrings, the shiny ones shaped like ginko leaves were done with Tina Holden Shimmering Batik tutorial and then covered with Magic Glos, the elephants on the bottom left were done with a mold I made from earrings my mother gave me 20 years ago that were suppose to bring me luck.  The middle ones are part of the faux jade that haven't been buffed yet.  Caught my tee shirt sleeve in the buffer tonight.  Don't do that, it scares the cat.

BEAD CROCHETING

Many years ago a friend taught me how to bead crochet.  I have been crocheting with yarn since I was 5.  I can make a normal size afghan in a week.  This bead crocheting and I didn't get along.  I gave it up.  About 3 weeks ago I saw a necklace I fell in love with and the lady said it was bead crochet.  So I went on youtube and found a lady teaching "BEAD CROCHET".  She was great.  I also ordered a DVD and decided I was going to conquer this.  I strung my beads and was ripping right along until I realized I shorted myself one bead in the sequence so I crushed all the beads till I came to the place where the next set of colors came up correctly.  It was then I realized the cording I was using tore when I crushed the beads.  I've got it back together and am hoping that the place where I fixed it won't show.  I can always sew some beads on there to cover it.  I'm going to keep doing this till I get it right.  LOL.

I'll post a picture of the finished piece, don't hold your breath.

ANNIE

Annie lost her three week battle with the uterine infection and kidney failure.  She died yesterday and was buried today.  I have not stopped crying since I found out.  My heart is broken not only for Annie but for Beau and Bev and Rex.  She stole their hearts in the 4 short months she was with them.  I feel helpless.  She was so little and so mighty.  I'm so glad she had those wonderful people to love her even if it was for a small part of her life.  I thought maybe blogging about this would help the pain but it's only making it worse.

GOOD NIGHT DEAR ANNIE, WE LOVED YOU MORE THAN YOU WILL KNOW.

SWEET DREAMS

If you have an animal, please take care of it.  Have them neutered and spayed because it could save their lives.  An animal will give you unconditional love for as long as they live, never take you for granted, won't try to make you feel guilty for something stupid and will never let you go to the bathroom alone.

NEED PRAYERS FOR ANNIE

Little Annie isn't doing well.  She's not eating and hardly drinking.  It's been a tearful day because she's not responding to the antibiotics they gave her and she can't keep food down.  Please say prayers for Annie.   She's brought joy to the hearts of a lot of people since she showed up last Christmas.  She's only 6 and needs to be loved for a lot more years than that.  Please say a prayer that she makes it through the night and the vet can help her tomorrow.

I love you Annie and I'm praying you will be ok.

Aunt Bonnie

SOMEONE STOP ME

Well, you'll never guess what I've been doing in my studio?  SHIMMERING BATIK AND MORE SHIMMERING BATIK.  I'M OBSESSED.  SOMEONE STOP ME.

Since I bought this tutorial I have done nearly, and I say nearly, nothing else as far as polymer clay.  I usually make 200 to 300 beads in a week that I use to make my golf stroke counters and now I have no beads but I sure have a lot of Shimmering Batik pieces.  I sold a few before they were even finished.  I've used 2 bottles of Magic-Glos and I will need a 10 gallon drum at this rate.  Tonight I'm making beads and who knows what wonderful piece of art tomorrow will bring.

My silver experiment.

My multi-color experiment

My green and purple experiment.

My red experiment with a pair of earrings I made for myself.

My first white and gold experiment.  The toggle is gold plated and is a magnet.  Easy for people to get on and off and pretty enough to wear next to the focal bead.

This is pearl clay, with layers of cane from a Jana Roberts Benzon class that I took two years ago.  They do have Magic-Glos on them and need a couple more coats.  Not sure what I'm going to do with them.

AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST

The lemon meringue pie I made for Easter dessert from lemons from our tree.  It was awesome.

A girls got to eat to keep up her strength to roll beads you know.

MMMMMMMMMMMMM

SNOWBALL AND JANIE

Tonights blog is going to be short for two reasons.  I made some more Shimmering-Batik pieces and I took them over to my friends to show them to her.  I was going to take pictures of these and put them on the blog but I forgot them at her house.  It's a sign of age, I believe, but I blame her because she gave me some chocolate cupcakes that she made and I think I was more interested in the cupcakes.

"CHOCOLATE IS THE REASON SOMEONE INVENTED CONTROL TOP PANTYHOSE"

I don't know who said that but I love it.

SNOWBALL

A couple weeks ago my younger sister came out to visit and we had a really good time.  The only thing she worried about at home was Snowball her dog.  She's a Cockapoo and a smart one. This dog had my sister trained so well it was unreal.  When Susie would get on the phone, Snowball would start barking because she knew Susie would throw her treats to keep her quiet so she could talk.  How smart is that?  This dog loved popcorn.

Snowball was not allowed to go in the dining room or up the stairs, she had a bad leg. So Susie kept a gate up so the dog wouldn't climb the stairs.  When it rained or thundered, the dog pushed the gate over and went upstairs to sleep with the family.  She could do that anytime but stayed in her bed when things were calm.

  Susie and her best friend Leslie ( a veterinarian) went together and got Snowball 15 years ago when the dog was only a couple weeks old.  Leslie gave her the ok to buy the dog after she checked it out.  Leslie has been on hand all these years to help Susie every time she had a problem with Snowball.  She's a really sweet girl and has been a great help to Susie because Susie is a teacher and works a lot.  Older animals require more time and it's hard when you work.

About a year ago Snowball started having heart problems and yesterday her heart wasn't beating right and she had trouble breathing and other parts of her body started shutting down.

This morning Leslie put Snowball to sleep.

Goodnight Snowball.  Sweet Dreams

You were a good old girl.

JANIE

I have a friend back in Wisconsin who turned 95 last Tuesday.  I've known her since I was 5 years old and I'm 63 now.  The last 20 years Janie has been a big part of my life.  Since we moved to Arizona I talk to her on the phone for an hour every Saturday and "we chew the rag" as Janie would say.  I go back and spend a week with her every summer.  We go out to dinner every night and she has her martini.  We go riding during the day because her legs aren't good.  She says from the waist up she's 39 and from the waist down she's 95.  She's been living in the same house for 60 years.  Never married.  She remembers the first purse she ever bought, every boss she ever had, when she had her teeth pulled, how much she made on her first job, what it cost for a pair of shoes, etc.  I can't even remember what I had for lunch.  Wish I liked martinis, maybe that would help.

Well, the sad news is that, Janie is going to a nursing home this Wednesday.  She's fallen a couple of times and can't make her meals anymore.  She's very scared and I wish I could be there to help her.  Janie has been my sounding board for 25 years.  She's the one I call when I need an answer and when life throws me things I'm not sure how to handle.

I wish everyone could meet her, she's an inspiration.

This is Janie just last summer in a fancy shirt I bought her.  We were getting ready to step out on the town.

She has to give up the house and everything in it but a chair and a table.  She keeps saying "Life has been good and thank goodness for Smirnoff".

See you soon Janie

YOU SHOULDN'T BELIEVE ME WHEN I SAY THIS IS GOING TO BE SHORT, WILL NEVER HAPPEN :O).

ANNIE AND BEAU - TINA CREATED A MONSTER

Want to thank you all for your prayers for Annie.  She's doing good and started eating and drinking and taking her medicine.  She will have surgery as soon as the infection is gone and she's a little stronger.  I have some great pictures that her dad sent over.

Nothing cuter than a sleeping puppy except a sleeping cat.  Just kidding Rex.

This is Annie and her big brother Beau out getting some vitamin D in the beautiful Arizona sun.  He's quite a guy.  He looks after her and brings her treats and toys.  When Beau sees me in my golf cart he jumps in and wraps himself around me.  He's a great dog.  I told my husband I wanted a dog and he said we would have to build a casita.  I told him I hoped he liked it out there.  Ha ha ha.

Here's my other buddy Scooter.  He's standing by a cactus in his back yard that had 72 blooms on it.  Is that beautfiul or what.  This time of year in Arizona the cacti bloom and the flowers only last one day which is sad because they are so beautiful.  Scooter is a snowbird and will be going back to Illinois sometime this week.  I'll really miss him.  He smiles when he sees me.  He's a good dog.

TINA CREATED A MONSTER

OK, Tina Holden created a MONSTER.

About a week or two ago I bought Tina Holden's http://beadcomber.blogspot.com/p/batik-tutorial.html tutorial called Batik and Shimmer and that's all I've done for 5 days.  I tweak a few things each time I do it to see what I come up with and every time I do it I love it more and more and I have all these beautiful pieces and I don't think I'm going to be able to part with them.

I sent Tina an email last night and asked if there was a meeting like AA where I could go so I could stop doing this.  I need a 12 step program for sure.  The only thing I can tell you is that it uses Magic-Glos so I get a lot of exercise running out to the patio to put my pieces in the sun.  I have one of those little UV lights but I don't like it.

This is my latest batch and now I have another one in the oven.  I'm going to need a 10 gallon drum of Magic-Glos which means I'll have to get a job to pay for the Magic-Glos which means I won't have time to do clay.  What a dilema.

Anyway, I think you all should buy Tina's tutorial because that will mean there will be meetings everywhere for those of us who can't stop doing this.  Even my husband said they were awesome and he was glad to see I was finally getting some exercise.  LOL

Goodnight Annie, Goodnight Beau, Goodnight Scooter, Goodnight Booboo, Goodnight Grandma

SHIMMERING BATIK - BEADING WITH CABOCHONS - ANNIE

First of all I want to tell everyone who said a prayer for Annie that I appreciate it and so do her parents.  She's doing better but not out of the woods yet.  She will have to have surgery in about 3 weeks when she gets over the infection, but she's fighting.  She finally started drinking water and eating a little.  Annie says thanks.  I do too and I'm going to keep praying that she gets 100% better.  She's very special and now has a happy, loving home, a big brother and lots of dog friends who don't abuse her.

SHIMMERING BATIK BY TINA HOLDEN ALIAS BEADCOMBER

I mentioned the other night that I bought a tutorial from Tina Holden http://beadcomber.blogspot.com/   and I posted some pictures that weren't anything like what she put on her blog after doing the technique.  WELL, I missed two important parts when reading the tutorial.  DUH.  My pieces came out ok but not like Tina's pictures in the tutorial.  Last night I started over and did two sets with a couple different twists (colors) and won't say what they are because you have to buy Tina's tutorial to appreciate this.  I did want to post my pictures of what I finally came up with after reading and following directions.  I also used almost a full bottle of Magic-Glos on these and I still have more pieces to do but I ran out of sunlight.  I did get a lot of pieces out of each set and I'm thrilled about that.  I want to tell Tina I really love this technique and I probably won't get anything else done until I have couple hundred pieces like this.

I'm having a little camera problem tonight.  These are so much prettier in real life.  I'll put up pictures when I make jewelry with them and they are finished.

BEADING WITH CABOCHONS

A couple weeks ago a friend was here visiting and she is into beading now and does some beautiful work.  She had this book with her and it fascinated me.  She was beading around cabochons and showed me what she was doing.  I saw the cabs she was using and thought "I could make those out of polymer clay and bead around them that doesn't look hard".  Then I remembered what a great time I had trying to crochet with beads.  I think I invented some new swear words.  Good thing there is a lady on youtube that shows how to do that.  I bought the book and it's beautiful.

It's by Jamie Cloud Eakin.  Now I have another book and maybe someday I'll teach myself how to do that too.  Don't hold your breath.  I just like books.

Back to my clay and Lupe if you are reading this I want that necklace http://miramecreations.blogspot.com/.

Goodnight Annie, sleep well, we love you.

POLYMER CLAY EXPERIMENT, GIVEAWAY AND SCARF FOR SOLDIERS AND ANNIE NEEDS A PRAYER

I bought the tutorial called Batik and Shimmering from Tina Holden at http://beadcomber.blogspot.com/.  It's a wonderful technique but I screwed it up somehow.  My friend Lupe at http://miramecreations.blogspot.com/ did a beautiful job and made a pendant that she is giving away but don't bother commenting because I'm going to win it.

I did the same technique but I think I used too many inks.  Here are my beads that I did.

Each one of these pictures has a story.

These are the original sheets of clay I made.  I think too much ink.

After I baked them I tried doing the technique where you put liquid clay on them, let them level and then bake them for 12 minutes at 325.  The back of the clay burned, the large bead got too plastic looking.  I peeled the liquid off.

These have Magic-Glos on them.  As you can see, I couldn't leave well enough alone and I used my new stamp pads on them before I baked them.  I am a mad scientist at heart.

These also have been stamped.  Some of them have liquid polymer clay on them and the two bottom right ones have a resin coat on them that I just got in the mail.  One step UV resin.  No mixing.  I have to sand the sides and bottom and it's a little thinner consistancy than Magic-Glos.  Going to take some practice with that.

These also have the ink stamped on them and they have a layer of Magic-Glos around the outer edge.  Tina Holden suggests this as a way to stop the Magic-Glos from pulling in.  I'll finish them tomorrow now that the taxes are done.

SOFTENING OLD CLAY AND CANES

Found some old canes that didn't want to soften up and I couldn't decide what I wanted to do.  Had to buy a new coffee carafe today and saw this at the hardware store and remember reading that someone used this to soften their clay and canes.  It's a Mr. Coffee mug warmer.  I'll put a piece of cloth on it and put the clay on to warm it up. 

SCARVES FOR THE MEN IN IRAQ

 

I told you I was crocheting a scarf for my club that will be donated to the 282nd Battalion in Iraq.  Well, they gave me the yarn and I mentioned it was 100% wool.  I got the yarn Friday and not realizing it, every time I worked on the scarf, I got a severe headache.  Finally figured out what the cause was and had to put a mask on to finish the scarf.  Either I'm allergic to the wool, the oils in the wool or it sat on a shelf or in a warehouse where there was mold and mildew.  I finished the scarf and sprayed it with that new Febreze.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST, ANNIE NEEDS SOME PRAYERS

I know you all remember Annie the little Yorkie that my friends adopted right before Christmas.  She is 6 years old and came from a drug home where they raised pit-bulls for fighting.  Annie held her own but needed lots of food and lots of love.

This is a picture I took of Annie this past Sunday.  She was very lethargic and wasn't eating.  I held her for almost an hour.  My friends took her to the vet yesterday morning and Annie has a severe uterine infection and sepsis.  She's been given some major antibiotics but she's so small, she's really fighting.  She had tremors and was crying because the pain was so bad.

PLEASE SAY A LITTLE PRAYER FOR ANNIE.

GOLF STROKE COUNTER INFORMATION FOR LINDA AND CAROLYN

These are the latest ones that I did.  One I did with all polymer clay beads and the rest I put in the beads that I bought at Michael's.  Sometimes the holes in those are too big and they don't stay up so I put a little glue in them or wrap wire around them.  The beads must not fall by themselves or the counter won't be any good.

Girls (ladies) if you click on the picture it will show you a close up.  The beads on the far right have wire wrapping on them to make sure they stay up when the bead under them is pulled down.  You can see the new swivel lobster claws I put on them from the url I mentioned in our conversation from El at Tantalizing Stitches at http://bagnsupplies.com/.  She ships fast and 5% of your purchase is donated to animal charity and you know how I feel about animals.  Thanks El for that.

This is the Amy 2mm Macrame cord that I told you about.  You could probably use others but I like this.  I usually cut about 16 to 18 inches sometimes less and use that for the counter.

These are the two drills I use for the beads.  On the left is 5/64ths and the right is 1/8th which is the perfect size for the Amy cord.  Don't start your hole with the 1/8th right away.  Work your way up or the bead will crack.  Save all the little shavings and roll them into some translucent clay for a wild effect.

Let me know if you need anything else.  Maybe you two should come to Arizona and we can have a clay weekend.

SCARVES FOR OUR FORCES IN IRAQ

I belong to a club here in Sun City West that does a lot of charity work.  A couple months ago the Cave Creek, Arizona American Legion adopted a batalion that is over in Iraq.  They asked if someone could make them scarves and hats because it does get cold in the desert over there.  Our club volunteered to do this.  So far, I've made 4 scarves and 3 hats.  They are only allowed to have pure wool and the scarves have to be 12 inches wide and 42 inches long so they can be tucked into their pants.  They have to be pure wool in case of fire.  Wool does not burn the skin.  I started this scarf this morning.  It's suppose to be single crochet which is very boring and takes forever but we found out we could do a double crochet every few rows.  Now I've finished almost a foot in the small amount of time that I've been working on this and I still only have 4 inches of the bead crochet I've been working on.  GO FIGURE.

It looks pretty boring but if it keeps one of our people in Iraq warm I'll make 100 more.  This yarn is pricey.  We have been able to use Joann and Michael's coupons to buy it which helps a lot.  I bought some at Hobby Lobby but could only use one coupon.  When we send this back, the paper work from the yarn has to be wrapped around the scarf.  That's how important it is to them to make sure it's wool.

WINNER WINNER WINNER WINNER WINNER

My friend Lupe from  http://miramecreations.blogspot.com/ won another giveaway.  I think this is number 4 or 5 just in the last month.  Please go to her blog and see the latest pieces that she has done, they are gorgeous.  Talk her into giving away some of her pieces but she needs to give them to me LOL./

If I don't blog again, have a Happy Easter and eat lots of jelly beans.