Sue Beads

I have been a blog partner of Chinook Designs for a while, and Mellisa finally got back around to doing the design team again!  This time I was chosen, and we were given a very cool twisty bead, which you can find here in her shop!

Here's a photo of my bead, it's purple and very cool!



I used brown leather cord I purchased from Melinda Orr and made my own cord ends.  That was very tedious, but I'm glad I know how to do it now!  I also made the dangle from one of my own lampwork beads, a rhinestone rondelle, and a pretty potato pearl, to give the cord a little bit of femininity.


Please go to Mellisa's blog to see who else is playing along with this design challenge!  It was fun, and I'm sure there are many other imaginative ways you can use this twisty bead!

Woo hoo, two weeks in a row!  This is my photo for abstract - my Andy Warhol-ized photo of some tulips in my backyard.  I did this on my phone with pixlr!  The real colors are a very pretty red and deep yellow, they are really gorgeous flowers!  Hope you visit Sally's blog to hop around and see everyone else's photos!

Sorry I'm late today but better late than never!  Today is the next reveal for the Art Jewelry Elements Earring Challenge!  Here are my two contributions, which I will pin in a minute!
 This first pair is made with my sunny mimosa sparkle beads, and fishy charms with gorgeous blue lined seed beads!  Very summery - think I need to go to the islands?
This second pair is made with my enameled bead caps, and gorgeous blue chalcedony beads and tanzanite crystals.  I love these too! 

Please check out what everyone else made by visiting the Art Jewelry Elements blog!

Sadly I have missed a few weeks, maybe I'll get caught up.  I've been busy working and just don't have time to do anything but the absolutely necessary anymore!  Here's my photo:

This was taken at my daughter's school, at her last concert performance of her high school career!  She plays the alto sax and bari sax, and has for years!  It was somewhat sad to realize it was going to probably be her last concert, unless she continues with some sort of band in college.  Please see Sally's blog for everyone else's color this week!

It's the 7th Bead Soup Reveal day today, hosted by Lori Anderson of Pretty Things!  I have to say, she's pretty awesome to keep doing this, all by herself, with her health issues right now!  Thanks Lori! 

 My partner was Krista Quantrill, of Cornucopia of Crafts - she resides in Canada and is a newbie this year to the Bead Soup swap.  Above is a photo of what she sent me.
 I toyed with the idea of making a three-strand bracelet, but in the end, I decided to make a necklace with a "rosary chain" type design.  I just looked at Lori's soup from the second reveal, and I really like her idea of using jump rings to connect instead of the loops, so I may go back and do that.  But I am pretty pleased with the necklace as it is, too.  It is going to be for my daughter!

 Then I made a pair of earrings; I really loved those copper patinaed beads and had to use them for something!  I think the earrings turned out pretty cute!

Here's what I sent Krista - I'm looking …

Today is the reveal for Erin Prais-Hintz' Challenge of Music.  The challenge this year was music with no words, or instrumental.  I chose Holst "The Planets".


I have always loved music, mostly contemporary, although my dad and I would play a game in the car where I would have to name the music that was playing and of course, he wasn't playing Led Zeppelin!  But I did gain an appreciation for all sorts of music.  TV shows of the 70's like Lawrence Welk (we watched this with my grandmother all the time!!!) or Hee Haw (yep, even Hee Haw had music!) allowed me to learn about different music.  It wasn't until I took a college course in Classical Music (we called it Clap for Credit) that I gained a real appreciation for instrumental, classical music.

In this class we learned about Gustav Holst and "The Planets."  This 7-movement piece was written between 1914-1916 and each movement is about one of the planets in the solar system - not including Earth, and…

My latest pair of earrings for the Art Jewelry Elements earring challenge!  Made with my own lampwork rounds, and Kristi Bowman's copper charms.  Brass findings and sterling earwires!

Tracy Statler, over at Make Bracelets, is hosting a Wellness Words Blog Hop today!  We were supposed to take a word that meant something to us and make a piece of jewelry that interpreted that word.  My word was health.  However, that's pretty generic, so my real word is more like thyroid-health.  I had thyroid cancer about 9 years ago. I had surgery and radiation and I am fine now.  Yes, there are side-effects to both the surgery and radiation, but I want to concentrate on figuring out how to feel better at this point.  I haven't been treating myself very well, and this year I am going to change that!

I concentrated on two parts of that - the chakra, for one, and in particular, the blue chakra for the throat and ability to express truth through the spoken word.  I feel deeply that my habit of holding in feelings contributed to my getting cancer in this area.  Please see Three Hearts Company - they give you a really good overview of the chakra and meanings.

The first bracelet …