Bubbly Beaded Bangle

On one of my many YouTube binges on craft videos, I ran across Jill Wiseman, who is a beading artist  from Austin, TX.  I love her!  Her works are intricate, and she has an eye for texture and pattern that I appreciate.  Her tutorials are easy to follow for the beginner but the results are stunning.

I love her so much that when I see her tutorials, I have to do what she's doing, even though I don't have the same beads. I know my results won't be the same, but it's my own piece, made from the things that strike me or from my own needs, like reducing the f-ing bead stash. That's the beauty of art, it's a freeform thing with only as many rules as you see fit.  Take an idea and run with it!

So, here's the inspiration, Wiseman's Plush Pearls bracelet for Jewel School.  Hers, you'll notice, are beautiful and oh, so precise.  Mine is larger, more organic, and wilder.  Both are awesome. This has everything to do with the beads used.  Smaller beads will yield a more delicate result while larger beads will give you a larger statement piece.

Supplies:

• silver glass seed beads, 3mm, I think.  
• Blue glass beads, round-ish and 4-6mm 
• mercerized cotton thread*
• Beading needle
• scissors

*I am using cotton thread because I have it on hand.  If I had my druthers and a smidge of patience, I'd use FireLine or even thin fishing line.  It's sturdier and less likely to break.  If  you use cotton thread, remember to reinforce all of your stitches.

Y U No Write???

Between the new hours at work and the depression that's been creeping up on me slowly, I'm feeling a little lost.  I'm struggling to do things that I normally do, and I'm terrified of becoming suicidal again.  I feel that urge to pay for my sins with pain and blood, and I know that's... extreme.  

Instead, I find myself slowly sinking under the waters of depression, choosing instead to slowly grind to a halt, finding any excuse to sleep when the day just seems like too much to deal with anymore.  I've been staring at my last project and just unable to get the urge to make it into something cool.  I can't think of much that I want to do.

The pain and fatigue from Fibromyalgia are good excuses.  "I'm too tired."  "I'm in pain." "I just want to rest."  It's true.  I am in pain.  I am tired.  I am not used to being up at 6 AM to be functional by 7:30 when my shift starts.   I'm working fewer days in my daycare, but I'm back working the morning shift.  I love watching the dogs play, the sunrises, the slowly warming day and retreating shadows in the yard.  It's so much fun playing with the dogs when they're chipper and eager to run.  Unfortunately, the pain starts at 9 and slowly gets worse as the day goes on.  Sometimes it's so bad all I can do is sob hysterically for a while when the feeling of carpet is too much for my feet, or when the pressure from an affectionate kitty head bump makes me scream. I end up spending a lot of time in recovery mode, which is code for sitting on the couch and not moving unless I have to.

"I'll do it later." is my go-to excuse to myself.  I make plans and tell myself that I Totally Won't Do What I Always Do because present me forgets that future me likes to procrastinate, too.

Last weekend, I painted my nails.  I didn't like the way they turned out, but it's about taking care of myself.  I could go through those motions without feeling overwhelmed, or (bonus!) moving.  I re-did them this weekend, and like this result much better.  I didn't use any sort of guide, so this is my own little Halloween design.

This weekend  Ben had his first cuddle party, which was a success.  I was there to be a cuddle assistant, plus support the Ben, and didn't feel like I could do what I really wanted, which is to find someone who would be willing to hold me while I curled up into a ball and cried.  I thought I needed to be ready to be supportive of anyone else there and I walled myself off and hung out on the couch, spending a little time cuddling with Ben, catching up with another Cuddle Buddy and just listening.  I felt better being around a whole bunch of kindhearted, open people for a few hours.

The next night, we played Forbidden Island with some friends of Ben's that I'd met briefly before.  We had a great time and it helped a little more.

I'm doing something today.  I'm not standing still, I'm moving forward.  The pain is overwhelming and it's breaking through the distractions I use to keep me from feeling it.  I just need to put one foot in front of the other and I'll get through this.  It's hard.  I don't want to, but I know I must because this dark place of mine only gets darker.

I did manage to get something done, though. The first necklace I made in time for a play that I went to with Ben to support a friend of ours who was on the cast.  I don't like it because I think it looks cheap.  The idea is interesting, but I don't know.  Maybe more beads so that it's like a collar?  The eye size is out of place?  This particular incarnation has a nasty tendency to flip at the sides.  That's probably because I put on the chain with a twist, but I couldn't figure out where it was.  I wanted to do something with more chain and less bead and while I like the idea, this one didn't pan out.

In a half-assed effort to feel in control of something, I went through my bead stash to see what I had.  Expect to see more beaded stuff as I begin Operation: Reduce the Effing Bead Stash.  I did find some beautiful purple, blue, and silver beads that I thought would be really cool in a necklace.  I had 3 shapes: oval, round, and a square-ish shape.  I used the two squatter beads in the spiral rope with cobalt, clear, and silver beads.  I think this one looks much better.  There's a better proportion of beads and eye, I think.  

There will be more stuff.  I'm not giving up yet.

Star Trek Cabochons and necklace

Those of you who've been reading this for the last several months may notice a few new changes.  Now that I've got lots of crafts up, I'm adding a page to make finding a specific project easier, in addition to what I've got on my Etsy shop.  The numbers for this blog keep going up week after week and I want to make it easier for new people and crafters to see what there is to see.

Speaking of Etsy, I'll be producing some components that you'll see on the crafts here, like the cabochons in this project.  You can purchase them here.

Thank you to everyone who has come to my site.  I hope that I can continue to inspire you all.  

Star Trekkin' across the Universe

I remember sitting down with Mom, Dad, and my brother to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation every week when I was a kid.  Mom loved the original series, so we'd gather around the tv to watch the latest episode on UPN.  The Inner Light, where Picard encounters an extinct alien civilization, is one of my all-time favorite episodes. I still cry at the end!

I love seeing the evolution of Star Trek as it responds to new concerns and values in our culture at large.  It's always been a groundbreaking show, and I hope that future incarnations, whether fan-made or Hollywood made continue that tradition.  I follow several former cast members on social media because they seem like genuinely nice, interesting and compassionate people.  I've seen every episode of the original series and TNG, a few seasons of DS9 and  Voyager, a few episodes of Enterprise (Didn't like that one), the animated series AND the web series Star Trek Continues.  I've watched documentaries about the fandom and the wonderful series hosted by Shatner called The Captains, but I don't consider myself a Trekkie or Trekker because I'm not involved in the fandom. 

I was looking at a cameo and I wanted to do a simple design that would have a lot of visual impact. I decided to do the iconic Starfleet insignia.  My original idea was to do some sort of piece glued into an ornate bezel to resemble a cameo.  I wasn't able to find any bezels that I liked, so I ended up wrapping the cabochon in wire.

Fun fact... The delta shape was originally the insignia for the Enterprise crew on TOS.  You'll see different insignias on the crews of different ships.  Lore has it that it became the Starfleet symbol after the Enterprise was the first ship to return safely from its 5-year mission.  

Aw, hell.  Maybe I am an antisocial Trekkie.  There are worse things to be!

Dr. Who TARDIS mini Journal and necklace

I can't wait for the new Dr. Who to start up this month, it's one of my favorite television series! I'm going to miss Matt Smith, but I'm excited to see what Peter Capaldi will bring to the role.  I wanted to do a Dr. Who craft for the blog, but I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do, until I went cavorting on my one of favorite craft inspiration sites, YouTube.  I stumbled across some book making tutorials and because I'm a little nuts, I thought it'd be a lot of fun to do a miniature of River Song's TARDIS journal.

I wasn't satisfied with the tutorials I found.  The crafters did a fine job with their materials and came up with some great journals, but they didn't look like the stills from the show.  They'd glued
something, usually card stock or cardboard on the top of their existing journals, which gave very sharp edges to the journal, however the prop makers seemed to have embossed the leather instead. I wanted something that looked closer to the prop, so I went looking for a material that I'd be able to work with that wouldn't cost me a ton of money.  I had some craft foam left over from a previous project and so I decided I'd give it a shot.  I think it looks a little more like leather than some of the examples I saw.  Of course, after painting, mine's not an exact copy of the journal from the show, either, but distressed items rarely look the same.

I wanted to make a necklace after seeing some of Jill Weisman's beading tutorials on YouTube, so this was a perfect opportunity to combine them both into one very stunning necklace.

Oh, and NEWS!  I have an Etsy shop now where you can find all of my crafty goodness for sale.  Most of the items listed there will be one-of-a-kind items all inspired from the blog.  You can find the pieces at the shop tab up at the top, too.  It'll take you to Etsy to purchase.  Go check it out!  I'll be here when you return, I promise.  :)