Some............

.............red feathers and...............
............a few more enamel beads.

Challenge Piece

This is another challenge piece from our week of beads that I still have not finished using. I guess I really made a lot of beads that week.
This piece is another Alice's Garden piece called Ten Feet Tall.
This piece is part of a series I am working on if you want to look back at a couple of the other pieces you can look here and here.
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Another feather

I have really been having fun making feathers. So after making some smaller ones the other day I decided to make a nice big focal bead.
This one is almost three inches long.
The fog this morning made the trees so pretty. It was a good thing that I only had to open the door for a minute though because it is cold as heck out there.

What a difference two weeks makes. Take a look at what it did look like earlier this month.

Kathi's Necklace

Kathi Tiede made this necklace with one of my poppy buttons for a friend of hers that really likes poppies. The neck cord is a purchased cord she tells me, the rest is bead embroidered. Isn't it fun and different.

Enameling.

Since I have been playing with the enamel on metal I decided to get out and play with my enamel on glass. I have not made any of these beads in a while so I had fun playing with the colors. I think a few of these are going to be made into one of these.............
............row counter bracelets. They are for knitting and work like an abacus where you move one little bead for each row and then move a big bead for the 10th row.
Here's more of what it looks like when it is on your arm.

The last few days...........

..............I have been playing with enamel again. I am beginning to like what I am getting and while they are fussy to make I can see lots of things made with them. So I..............
........................took one of the new leaves hubby has been making for me. (see I had to enamel one of these too.)............
............and one of the beads, and made this little necklace. I of course had to put in a little lampwork. I kind of like how it turned out.

On another note Noreen Pope gets to choose a feather bead from the last post because she was the first one to say feathers. I am sure glad you all saw feathers like I did.

What do you think...............

...............these are? And yes I know they are beads. :-) I am trying for a specific look and if I have it you will know what they are.

The first person to leave a comment here telling me what they are will get to choose one for themselves. Make sure I know how to reach you so I can get your address.

A couple months..........

............ago I was playing with some beads like these. I haven't decided for sure what they look like but I keep coming back to "The Cat in the Hat". They also kind of look like little layer cakes. Any way I was making some more last week and all of a sudden I knew they needed to go into one of these wrap bracelets.
So last night I finally got out all the supplies and made this one up. I really love the way they kind of look spiky but still have that wild "Cat in the Hat" feel. I really want to make a black and white one now.
Pardon the really pale and fat arm, but I had to show you what it looks like on.

On another note it is January 9th and this is our back yard. In all the years we have lived here never has it looked like this, this time of the year. Tomorrow it is supposed to be 57 degrees out and snow. Not sure how that is supposed to happen but that is what they are telling us.

January's Buttons

I finally finished my January buttons. The challenge was to make one bead embroidered button per month, I had such a hard time with my first one I decided I had better make a second one to see if I was just not able to grasp the whole thing. The one on the left is the first one and the right is my second.
Since Jodie showed the back of her button I had to show you mine. It seems great minds think alike. I was talking to her the other day when I was having such a bad time with the process and told her I did not like the looks of the back and was thinking about turning it into a pin. LOL she had already done that with hers.
This being the first one I had discussed with Jodie ahead of time and thought doing it on the form would be the best. That is the way she does it. Well let me tell you I was so not happy with how that worked. It took all day and I had mangled the end of my finger totally up.
The second button I did off the form and did remember to wrap my finger in a band aid. It only took a couple of hours and it went on the form just fine, which was my original concern. I did not break three needles like I did doing the other one either. I think I will get faster as I learn and the second one was fun to do. My eyes however say don't choose transparent iridized beads again I am about blind tonight.

Do make sure to check out Jodie's January buttons.

Yesterday..............

..................I worked my fingers to the bone. Well maybe not all the way to the bone, but as you can see by this picture I poked a zillion holes in the end of this one. I was working on my bead embroidered button and to say it didn't go well is an understatement. It took all day and while I am very pleased with it it wasn't all that much fun. I asked Jodie why I had this idea in the first place and she of course told me I wanted to expand myself. (Personally I think eating cheesecake would have been a better expansion.) In the midst of the work I decided I did not like the metal back of the button and that it would really not sit well as a button so have decided I want to make it into a pin. Well that means I have to have a pin back to finish it and unless I can find one someplace in my stash I will probably have to wait until next month to finish. Not a good thing.

Happy New Year!!!

Well I hope that you are all having a wonderful day. I have still not finished our last challenge and here it is January and I am starting a new one. I want to learn to do more bead embroidery and one way is to plan a small project for every month of the year. The plan is to make one embroidered button each month. Jodie is going to do this one too so it should be fun.
And these are some of my new two part cone flowers. This set is headed to Etsy in just a few minutes.