BTW- bead cheater episode

I'm having a minor (umm, major) obsession with making bronze beads these days. And I really never get tired of dragonflies.

So what about that cheating thing? Well, I made these beads thinking about the bracelet that I made with a bronze flower bead.  Only when I got them done I thought oh my, wouldn't they look nice as pendants? That tube shaped one on the upper left especially. I just wanted it to be a very simple pendant with a heavy bail. I can make ball end head pins but I really didn't want to see a little knobby thing at the bottom. I could have made a flat end head pin sort of rivet style out of heavy gauge wire. But all of that tedious working it out with my hammer was not meeting the needs of my miss imapatient, gotta do it now self.

So here's my cheater solution to a heavy gauge flat end head pin.

With an 18 gauge piece of wire, I made a very gentle little bend in about a quarter of the way from the end. The wire is probably about 8 inches long. I started a little spiral of wire with the shorter end of the wire.

On the flip side, longer wire section, I went back in with a round nose pliers and centered up the piece of wire that will go up through the bead.  In the second photo you can see the top side of the head pin.

 

I put the whole thing into my cheapo vise from Harbor Freight and and hammered the spiral flat.

The bottom of the bead.

Notice how I actually cheated twice? You didn't really get to see much of my bead table at all. It's very messy. Lots of little snippets of wire lying about.

I'd love to see what's on your bead table. Even if it is piled high and even if you cheat too and just show me the pretties :-)

You can do it too!

This pile of pendants just went off today to Camp Summersault in Los Angeles. I first heard about this over at Gaea's blog. Camp Summersault is sponsored by the American Cancer Society and is free to kids with cancer and their siblings.  I have a little soft spot in my heart for projects like this. I spent a lot of years working in a cancer hospital and have seen how opportunities like this can make a world of difference in the life of child. I especially like that it gets the siblings involved as they often get lost in the whole scary cancer world of a the brother or sister with cancer.

Karen Braverman teaches a beading class each year and she'd love to have you donate beads for the class.I just think this is such a wonderful idea that I had to pass this opportunity along to you.  You can read more about it below. I think you can click that photo and it should enlarge to a more readable size.

You can do this too! You don't need to be a bead maker. You just need to dig into that bead stash of yours and send them on their merry way. You can email Karen at Designerkaren2@aol.com for more information.

BTW

Yeah! I cleared a little spot off on my very messy bead table!!!! And I made some bronze things.

In fact I made a couple of kiln loads of bronze things. I even have some new ideas. To tell the honest truth, I was starting to feel like I might never have a creative impulse again.

What's on your bead table? I'll be around shortly to have a look. But first I've got to get some of these goodies into the kiln.

Homeward Bound

This boy is on his way home. Late Friday night we got a text message from our son that he was a couple hours from getting on the plane. There are no words to really describe how happy we all are. Except for 2 weeks mid tour, he's been gone for nearly a year now. It's been a very rough deployment in the moutains in the eastern part of Afghanistan on the border of  Pakistan. We don't any us talk about it much. We've just been looking to that day when we hear that he'll be home safe and sound.

The other emotion I feel deeply is relief. His last mission was brutal. They lost 6 soldiers and had 15 medevaced out with injuries. He's a medic and I know how this effects him deep in the core of his being. But I also know how strong he is and that time heals when you have the strength to face your memories.

Sometimes, I feel shame at my happiness. My son is coming home. Other sons and daughters are not. I know this is a normal feeling. I know other mother's who have felt it. The feeling will pass.  

I feel enormous pride in this son of mine. He's chosen a path that I would not have chosen for him. But it is his path and he has walked it with pride doing a job that not many would do. He's done it well. He's good medic and a good soldier.

I feel blessed.

Mostly, I feel this almost overwhelming love.

Home Sweet Home

This is it. The new house. We got word this week that our offer was accepted. I fell in love with this house the moment I walked up the front walk. On the left there is a dog wood blooming and in front of the house is a red bud tree. My absolute favourite trees because they are among the first signs that spring is here.  It was like they were welcoming us home.

This is the newest house we'll have ever lived in. She was built in 1939 and is on the historic regester in a street of houses all in a historic district.  She started life as a parsonage and is pretty good sized with 4 bedrooms. I rather like that the cultural significance of the district is that it was built as a middle class housing alternative. Most of the homes in this street were built in the 1920's and 1930's and they are all different from each other. Some rather grand and others more modest, like ours.

Let me show you around. The front door opens into a small foyer with an original light fixture overhead. You can see the fourth bedroom at the back. The rest are upstairs. I'm not sure how well the dogs will like the stairs but I love having the bedrooms upstairs. The carpet on the stairs is going. It is ugly, worn out, and just too hard to clean. Those shelves you see in the fourth bedroom are going too. Have pry bar, will wreck.

At last, another working fireplace in the living room. I've missed the fireplace in our Melbourne house. We spent so many cold winter nights gathered around the open fire. It's nice to think that we'll be able to that again.

Yes, those are powder blue bench tops in the kitchen. They have got to go. But for now we have made a promise to each other that there will be no renovation for a year. Except for those shelves in the bedroom. They have to go right now because they are in the way of anything we might put in that room.

We are serial renovators and we are tired. We'll live with the house for a while. Get to know her a little better and let her tell us what she needs. I know that sounds weird but I do think that houses can speak to you if you open up to listening.

This is probably my favourite part of the house. The studio! I walked into this room and said, 'this is mine.' It's a great huge back porch that's been enclosed and had heating and cooling added to it. There are windows on three sides. So much light. The carpet will go. We have no idea what's under there but carpet just isn't going to work for me.

I'm not sure how I will deal with the distraction of the view from the studio. This is the back garden. It's so green out there. If you've ever been to West Texas, you'll know just how distracting all that green might be. It's calling to me. Come plant flowers here. Why not some tomatoes here?

Have a great weekend! I'll be dreaming of the new studio while I start to pack up the old one.

BTW

The last time I posted a Bead Table Wednesday, oh so long ago, I showed you that bronze bead in the center of this bangle. Maybe it wasn't a BTW but it may well have been the last time you saw anything from my studio.  In fact today was the first time I've actually seen my studio in weeks. Each day this week I've gotten up full of energy to get in there and do something. Each day another more immediate need related to the whole moving, renting the house, other stuff has pushed me off course.  So that bangle up there is still waiting for me to finish the patina on the wire. Tomorrow, maybe tomorrow.

Sadly, this is the actual state of my bead table. It's a tiny portion of it. The rest is worse. The bangle is sitting there in a little tray of to do later things. Tomorrow. Absolutely nothing can interfere tomorrow. Right?

Thanks so much for all of your well wishes about the upcoming move. And especially, a big thanks about the old Bob dog. Yesterday, he actually hopped into the car in a very spritely way so that he could go visit his good friend Dianne at the vet's office. He loves the vet and all of those many new meds he's on seem to be making a difference.

2 countries, 5 cities, 9 houses

 That's the number of  moves Peter and I have made over the last 24 years. It's a lot. It seems like such a short time. And, we are about to do it again. While I was away last month, Peter accepted a position at High Point University. So it's off to North Carolina in June.

So if you were wondering just where I had disapeared to, let me give you a little recap of the last couple of weeks.

Painted 2 bedrooms
Painted front door
Caulked crown molding in 3 rooms
Regrouted the tile in one bathroom
Cleared the garage
Spruced up the back yard
Had the exterior trim repaired and painted
Packed books
Put house under management with a real estate company
Cleaned, and cleaned, and cleaned again

Did zero studio work and that makes me a little cranky. But in fact I am a little too exhausted to be very cranky.

Oh, and we made a house hunting trip to North Carolina. Offer is in on one and now I am holding my breath waiting to see what happens.

And I've spent a little time feeling sad. My old boy Bob has just been diagnosed with congestive heart failure and pretty advanced arthritis in his spine. He's been spending a lot of time on the deck watching spring unfold in the back garden. But all in all, he's doing pretty well for an 11 year old. He still loves snuggles and ear scratches and he still chases his ball. He just does it all a little more slowly these days.