GINKGO + KCM = LOVE!! :0)

 I have been playing around with Kato Clear Medium again… have I told you how much I just LOVE this stuff?!?! 

I made up some more dried Leaf beads.  This time I used a Ginkgo Leaf.   Look how pretty the beads turned out!

of course there are some air-bubbles that I trapped in the bead… I still need to work on that, but it has to do with the layering of all the “stuff” I put into these beads! LOL!! 

– I used a layer of colored pencils, then Kato Clear Medium, Glitter, cook…. then another layer, cook, then so on and so on!  They are just so much fun to make Layering and adding until you have an altered bead that screams out STOP! LOL!!  (I always have a hard time stopping though!)

Here is another veiw of them… I just think that they are so pretty!! :0)

I hope everyone one had a wonderful Thanksgiving – reflecting on all that we are grateful is always self healing!  I consider my life a Blessing….  Looking around the table and knowing how much I love my family, and they love me, just made me smile and really know how thankful I am to have them!

…..Next, Christmas!!! Man, time is really sneaking up… did you get your tree up?  I did, but I am waiting on one special item…. I got a new tree topper!!!  YEAH!! 

 Here he is :

I

I purchased him on eBay, (I am truly addicted to the place!)  and I just LOVE primitive snowmen !  (the seller has another primative snowman up… he’s cute too!)  I have slowly rid my tree of most decorations… and have just put up the snowmen, but there are some ornaments that the kids just “have to have” on the tree…..  (one day it will be mine!  All MINE!! LOL!!) 

See I just love my tree!!

For my dad!

Sorrow comes like ocean waves

Sorrow comes like ocean waves. It swells up and as one comes crashing in the next is about to unfold…. slowly eroding the edges of my soul.

I sit at the edge and wait for the waves arrival, knowing fully that the next wave could pull me under.

At this very moment I feel NOTHING…  just the emptiness that runs deeper then my dreams could have even imagined.

I just want to be filled with anything….

Just let me drown in my sorrows, just let me cry a million tears to fill an ocean, let that ocean be my comfort.

Let the waves come, let them surround me – let them fill me. 

Let them take me back to the first time…

Take me back to the first time you held my hand and we walked the beach…

                         Together hand in hand….

This is for you Dad!

November 11, 2007, I wrote this poem…..  I received a phone call the 10th informing me that my dad had passed away suddenly of a massive heart attack…  he was only 54 years old.  

My relationship with my father was a very difficult one… one that I can honestly say, had grown leaps and bounds in the last 6 years….  we had a saying,

“You just don’t know what this means to me!” 

Each time we said that, we did know how much we were truly in love with knowing each other and not taking advantage of what we had…. 

Life is way too short…..  don’t let your love ones slip away without expressing how much you do love them…  Mend those fences before it is too late….

God Blessed me with my relationship with my dad…. we learned to forgive and love unconditionally… who he was, it no longer mattered…. it’s what he left in my heart that will live on forever……

No “what if’s” for me… or “I should have”…. I did!!  He did!!!  and together we did!!  We made a wonderful father/daughter relationship that grew beyond our own beliefs!  I can not be filled with sorrow no longer…. I now rejoice in the love that we had and I smile knowing that I will see him again!

Thank you Dad for loving me!  You just don’t know how much this has meant to me!

Christmas Beads

Christmas beads… man, I think that  a while back ago I stated that I would show off some of them that I had been working on…. that was a few blog weeks ago!!

Here are my Snow-Girls!

 How about a cute little snow man? 

Snow-Girls and Snowmen are some of my favorite beads to make…. I just love adding all the little details to them!

and then I made a few sets of Santa beads!

I have decided not to seal these beads… I just let them stay as is from the oven.   I really don’t mind the look at all…..   Switching to Kato, and using more Kato in my mixes of clay seems to be helping with the finger prints…  It seems to have a better finish to the beads…    But then, I wonder is it the clay, or have I just grown as an artist, being more aware of my prints and smoothing them out, using a lighter touch when handling the clay…..  Growth… man, it seems that I am always learning something new! 

Each day that I pick up the clay I have no idea what I am going to create….  I have a thought and I run with it.  Some ideas are wonderful…. some are not so pretty…. (like capturing a fairy in liquid clay and burning her alive! that wasn’t such a great one…. but it did lead to my fairy beads and mermaid beads ….. and that has led to an ‘idea’ that I am working on now….)  

Personal Growth =  learning from your mistakes and making it work for you! 

–But also    knowing when to let something go…. and not deeming yourself as a failure, but as being willing to try! –

(It’s working for me  as an artist, a friend, a wife, a mother, a teacher, a “business” woman, a child care provider, and so on and on….)

I hate to be wrong! :o(

I was so excited about using the heat gun to bring out a richer color to the clay and to give them a wonderful shine….

But as Jana pointed out to me, it could be just the clay sweating and she stated that it could come off  with a nice scrubbing with a tooth brush and dish soap….. man I was so hoping that this was the real deal!! :0(

So off I went to the sink with a wash rag and dish soap an I scrubbed the beads and scrubbed some more and then a tab bit more….  then I dried off the bead and did a comparison….

2 were left as is and the other two scrubbed (the two center beads were scrubbed)… can you tell?  They are just a tab bit less shiny….

well, look….  here is a better picture:

See the top bead how nice and shiny it is and then the bottom bead isn’t as shiny….

BUT HERE IS THE CATCH!!  They are shinier then what they would have been right out of the oven…. and the colors seem to pop more!!   I am still pretty pleased with the over all effect of the bead.  So, maybe, just maybe this still can work….

Here is another pic of the 4 beads, 2 scrubbed and two with the sheen still on:

Not that big of a difference…

I’ll be trying this again, I am hoping for the same results on the next set of beads I make…. either way, I will still be taking my heat gun to the beads…. for now….  and I am keeping my fingers crossed in hopes that this is a short cut worth keeping!  :0)

Thanks again Jana, for the heads up….  (I am still holding my breath and hoping for all hopes that this ‘short cut’ is a keeper! LOL!!)