March 2005

Wednesday, March 30, 2005 Golden Brown In New Orleans Monday, I stopped by the accurately named The Bead Shop. I've been wanting to make a design with dyed freshwater pearls for quite awhile. The Bead Shop had loooooads, so I finally picked a dozen strands and made these luscious necklaces and bracelets: These are at once light and rich. Golden yellows to bronzes to warm taupes. If you like topaz or smoky quartz's colors, you'll like these. These pieces would look super with a linen shirt or a chocolate brown sweater. I like that instead of stuffy, perfect white pearls, these are more organic, more character while still being elegant. Necklace 15" • dyed freshwater pearls, glass seed bead spacers, small lobster claw clasp • Qty 1 - 15" • Price: $29 $14.50! 1/2 off Summer Clearance   Bracelet 7.5", 8.5" • dyed freshwater pearls, glass seed bead spacers, small lobster claw clasp • Qty 3 - 7.5", 2 - 8.5" • Price: $15   Length 7.5" small 8.5" medium posted on 6:05 PM Wednesday, March 16, 2005 Finger Puppets Galore! Felt = Joy. The ker-chunk of cutting it. The colors. The heft. These was SO much fun to make. From left to right: White Bear, Sunflower, Orange Bear, Rabbit, Chickie. And here's the trio of bears, with the Green Bear, that couldn't fit on my 5-digit hand: The chickies are about 2.5" tall, all the rest about 3". Bunny is taller with those fetching ears. Get yours for a mere $6 each. Orders by Friday should get to you in time for Eastering. White Bear • Qty 4 • Price $6 $4.50     Sunflower • Qty 0       Orange Bear • Qty 2• Price $6 $4.50   Bunny • Qty 0 Chickie • Qty 0 Green Bear • Qty 5 • Price $6 $4.50   posted on 11:51 AM Saturday, March 12, 2005 More Spring Thinking Here I am looking out the window wondering if Spring will ever arrive. Last night, the was snowing big, wet, messy flakes and it got me supercranky. This morning, I finished the think spring necklaces. I'm wearing three of them above. Here's the new, smaller lobster claw clasps on this bracelet. I ordered these in addition to my favorites, because they are smaller and this is a more delicate necklace. The thinking is that the smaller clasps will have to migrate to the front less. I'm now making all of my necklaces and bracelets to standard sizes. I am definite that the necklaces will be 15", 17" and 19". That accomodates both my bias and design toward shorter necklaces and people's different neck sizes. Bracelets? I'm still figuring that out. Any suggestions? FYI, my neck is 15". Out of that 4 yards of strung beads, I made 3 15" necklaces, 3 17" necklaces, 1 19" necklace, 1 7.5" bracelet, 1 8.5" bracelet. Bracelet 7.5", 8.5" • glass beads, silver color accents, small lobster clasp • Qty 1 7.5", 1 8.5" • Price: $13   Length 7.5" small 8.5" medium posted on 2:45 PM Friday, March 11, 2005 Smartypants Revolution! I love that loads of women order my "I am wearing my smartypants" shirt on CafePress. Of course, the design isn't gender restricted. I'll admit I think it's darn cool the ladies are buying them. And the world can always use more people wearing smartypants. You can buy yours here. posted on 5:07 PM Monday, March 07, 2005 Beautiful Materials Today I returned from Madison, Wisconsin. While there, Amihan and Shaima introduced me to Jade Mountain Bead Shop. Found a few gems! Had a very good visit, but every so often I was itchy to get home to make a brand new necklace from the yellow turquoise, red coral and quartz beads: I adore these colors together and there's some great texture and depth in these three beads: If you find this necklace as alluring as I do, you can get your own! The beads are hung of black fake leather cord and the length is up to you! Silver color lobster claw clasp. posted on 12:32 AM Thursday, March 03, 2005 Chicago Craft Mafia in Time Out Chicago! Our familia graces page 37 of the premiere issue of Time Out Chicago. I'm tickled to have my photo chosen for our write-up, but go to our site to peruse the sites of my mafia mates. Here's an online version of the article and here's a scan of my hard copy: posted on 9:11 PM Tuesday, March 01, 2005 Alice All Told Here's February's addition to Loobylu's Month O' Softies with the theme Alice in Wonderland. I know I'm stretching the definition of the "softie" with this mini quilt. I promise I'll be stricter in March. It took a few tries to get this one right, but I like the end result. My favorite parts are that she's looking at the White Rabbit to her left, who started the whole adventure. I'm also keen on the circle of a queen playing card sewn on and that all four suits are represented. And while I think letter beads can be overdone, I really like the A-L-I-C-E spelled out along a bottom border. Gives it a sense of a bookplate. Once I switched gears and when flat, I wanted to evoke a book illustration or a playing card. I think that comes through. Warning: Failed opening '../Shop/alice_quilt.htm' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/www/loosetooth/Shop/blogarchives/0305.php3 on line 371 posted on 4:47 PM