Micah Models

This is Micah, Marsha and Darrell's youngest. She came to town to sing at a funeral at the family's request.

Her voice is heavenly. Before she changed out of her dress-up clothes she took a moment to model the peacock.

CF STYLE PEACOCK!

Yes, I'm yelling... I think it's done! I crimped and beaded and strung and beaded and crimped all afternoon. I even made a trip out to Flamingo Follies to try it on a few people to check the length.

I must say it was a project and a half but I had a ball making it. Christi's directions are fantastic!

As I was finishing it up, I started to feel like a dragon in her lair... I was turning my treasure this was and that, checking for sparkle and counting beads and in general enjoying my wealth.

Next I will make earrings. They will be a minor project in comparison. They'll be flower dangles with a few dangles and maybe another dangle added for good measure.

Peacock Patina!

I got the peacock necklace baked and patina-ed. First... I learned that Christi is right as usual(d*%^ it!!!!!!).... crappy sponges are much better than paper towels when it comes to wiping off the patina. I'd been using paper towels, fully convinced that it didn't matter. While I was roaming the dollar store I saw big sponges on sale for... one dollar so I bought one to humor Christi. I tore it into bits tonight and put it to use wiping off the patina. It's much messier than paper towels but it's instant success. The sink is splattered with paint but the peacock was done in a jiffy and is lookin' good.

I was in the bathroom working on it when Marsha came in. I told her about the sponge and also that I was not using browns to patina it, rather I was using bronze. She barely glanced at the color and said, 'No dear, you're using bright copper'. She was right... d*%^ it. She has a much better eye for color than I do. I used bright copper for the leaves and switched to silver; at least I think it was silver, I didn't ask for confirmation; for the peacock. Lovely mixing of metalics and it pops the peacock forward. He was a little too camouflaged before in my opinion.

I've planned the layout, nothing is strung yet, that will have to wait until tomorrow. It's a huge necklace, as Marsha says it's not a necklace, it's a shirt.

Two Kats at the Follies!

I went to Flamingo Follies to visit Gena Jayne a couple of days ago. There was a lovely couple shopping there. I heard the gentleman call "Kathryn" and I turned to look. Seems the lady's name is Kathryn also and she spells it 'right'. So the only thing to do was to try on feathers and get our picture taken together. We had a blast choosing just the proper ensembles for our impromptu portrait. Aren't we the GRAND Ladies?

Today is my birthday. I'm 55! I celebrated by going to Walmart this morning. I bought a convection toaster oven for the kitchen. When I came home, I played musical toasters. I cleaned up the oven that was in the kitchen and brought it into the craft room. The craft room toaster will go to Flamingo Follies for demos and classes. Gena Jayne is going to let me keep some supplies at the shop so I'll be able to play while I'm there.

I've been making peacocks today. They're tricky little creatures. It took me several tries to get it just right, but he finally agreed to show off his feathers and is he every showy!

I think the necklace pieces are ready for baking but I'll probably wait until tomorrow to give it a last check before it goes in the oven. Then I'll have to figure out how to assemble all those little pieces. Then I'll have to make earrings....

then.....

Ahh well, it's time to move along.

Peacocks are Messy

It's been a busy day. One last trip to Michaels to use another 50% off coupon. Then it was on to the dollar store. I found mirrors for $1.00. I'll decorate them with clay an put them out at Flamingo Follies.

I went out to Flamingo Follies for Gena Jayne's birthday party. I got to meet her family. I didn't stay for the whole thing, I wanted to get back home and play in clay. I'm going to start taking clay supplies out to the Follies so I can play out there while I'm visiting.

Ah well, I think it's time to head to bed....

Here's a picture of the peacock in progress. It's rather messy looking as there's many parts and none of them are connected yet. I'm trusting Christie that it will all come together! I'm having a bit of difficulty getting the peacock to look like a peacock. I think if I added an eye, it would help.

Peacock Two

Working on the peacock necklace again tonight. It's growing! I'm not sure how this is all going to fit together but I'm following Christi's directions.... sort of...

Peacock in Progress

I've started making a CF style peacock necklace. She very generously allowed Fire Mountain Gems to post her directions for this necklace after it was used as the cover photo for their newest catalogue.

I started in on it two nights ago, only to discover that IF I had crimp beads in the house they were well hidden. Since Michaels has a 50% off coupon this week, I knew it would be faster and easier to buy more rather than search my craft room.

Of course I had to skip around in the directions and 'find' my peacock last night before I finished the beads or even started on the dangles. He wanted to watch his home being created he said. So I allowed him to start morphing into the scene.

That's one of Christi's tools to the left. If you don't have one, you should consider getting one. I know that they make plastic ones 'just like it' but really does make a difference to have it in high quality metal. http://www.cforiginals.net/

The directions can be found at: http://www.firemountaingems.com/beading_howtos/beading_projects.asp?docid=940K&doccat=projects

And now I've got to leave my peacock and scoot off to work!

Big Inro

New Penni Jo Style Inro is almost done! Find Penni Jo 'stuff' at http://www.sweetbrierstudio.com/
or visit her blog here: http://claylady43.blogspot.com/
The Museum of Aviation Foundation holds an auction every year. Huge fundraiser. I was asked to make something and donate it to be auctioned. I'd worn my portrait inro to work and my boss thought it was really cool. She asked if it could be made bigger and would I make it and donate it.

























Instead of a huge necklace I decided to make it as a small purse. It's been in progress for a couple of weeks...

I went to Michaels today to use my 50% off coupon and found a really cool way to display the inro during the auction. It's a wreath hook according to the label. It was in the wedding department. Whatever, I think it makes a good display method, it will get the inro up off the table and make it more visible.



Thank you Penni Jo!

Click on the pictures to see them BIG.

Yes A Blooming Cactus..

... is an EVENT in my life!

I know this is redundant, but when a cactus blooms once a year, only at night and the bloom is wilted by dawn, I can't help but honor its efforts. We had two more blossoms last night. One of them was very unexpected. Darrell found it when he was taking out the trash.

When Marsha moved the big plant, it's in a pot, a piece of the cactus broke off. She stuck it in the ground and we sort of paid it no never mind. She figured it would either root or die. Last night the little thing bloomed. The flower was as big as the plant! I have to assume that it put down roots, but I'm not going to disturb it after its big night!

When I went outside to check on the big plant, I noticed there was a grasshopper sitting on the 'bud'. It's hard to refer to these buds as buds since they're about 6 inches long and as big around as my fist. I decided it was a good photo op, so I went and got my camera. The grasshopper hung around.

I snapped a few pictures and it was at that point that I decided I had to stay up for the bloomin' replay and settled in for a long evening.

Actually, it wasn't terribly long as Marsha gave me a Thai massage. That's the kind where you get 'walked on'. I bought some "learn how to do Thai massage" DVDs a while back and we've been practicing on each other. She walked on me for an hour. It was very good. I was relaxed enough that she was able to work deep muscles.

By 10:00 we settled in for

"The Event -

The Second Blooming".

We kept check on things and finally around 11:15 it was time for "Smelling the Flowers". As I said last night the scent is absolutely fantastic. We admired the little bloomer and marveled at it's ability to produce a flower "That Big". It opened first as it was in a darker spot in the yard. I took a few pictures of it.... do you want to see? Of course you do, because I want to show you!

The petals are chewed because every insect within a mile seems to be attracted to these flowers. This big blossom was close to the ground since it's on such a small plant. It was tucked behind the log when Darrell found it, so I pulled it out and propped it on the log.

After paying due homage to the little bloomer it was on to check the big bloomer. We danced around it getting the best angle for photos. Yes, it looks exactly like the other bloomers but with such a magnificent flower it just seems necessary to keep records of each flower.

Only.... this one turned out to be a little different. We have to keep the lights dim when we look at these flowers, otherwise they start to wilt. We do use flash on the cameras but otherwise it's dim lighting for this Event.

I downloaded the pictures to my computer to see what I got. I was very surprised to find that not only did I get a couple of good photos of the flower but the flower still had it's friend, The Grasshopper. It had stood guard as the flower opened.

There's still two buds left on the big plant. I think it will be a few more days before they are ready for their debut.

And, just because he's so cute.... Here's the Yo!Fred as I found him this morning. Yes, there's always bottles of paint on the sink, sometimes there's even more than that. You never know when you want to paint something... but first you have to get the cat's permission.

I know, I know....

I should have updated this long ago. I've been avoiding visiting here as I didn't want to see how long it's been since I last checked in.

OK... the very quick update.. I went to Durham, NC to the GBS/CIDP Foundation International Board meeting right after the previous post. Had a wonderful time. Talecris allowed us to tour their pharmacutical facility to see how IVIG is produced. Very impressive and I darn near froze! Many of the areas we toured are kept at 45 degrees. Fortunately, we only looked at the freezer building from the outside... as it is maintained at -25 degrees. Many of you know that I do not have hot flashes, I have cold flashes. Nothing like 45 degrees in the middle of a cold flash!

As I was returning home from the airport on the shuttle, I noticed I had a runny nose. I attributed it to atmospheric pressure changes and my return to Georgia pollen.

Not.

By that evening, I had a full blown head cold. I was certainly glad I wasn't sitting beside me on the plane. By the time I recovered from that, I didn't even want to see how long it had been since I posted here, so like I said, I didn't come look.

So, what's the flower picture all about you wonder? Could it be that she's been surfing and found a pretty picture to copy and paste as a means of distracting from how long it's been since the last post!?

No, Last night, we had a cactus bloomage... A friend gave us cuttings from her night blooming cereus a few years ago. It's always bloomed in early September before, but I noticed a few days ago that the buds were forming. Last night we had four blossoms open. Heavenly scent, even if we did have to wait until almost midnight for them to open. We had to keep all the lights off in that end of the house so as not to delay the grand opening even more. We're going to have another flower open tonight. I haven't decided yet if I will stay up to honor it or not.

Here's Marsha taking pictures of the bloomers.

I've also been playing in clay.

Hopefully pictures tomorrow. I'm making a large inro to donate to the Museum of Aviation Foundation Auction.

There Phyll, I've blogged.

Oh! Hi Clara!