Wish I FELT better!

If I felt better I would be working on more felt beads to go with my gumball necklace! Sorry the pictures are not better but the pain from using my SLR camera is more than I can bear! My plan is to make a long necklace, say, 40 inches, with lots of felt beads made to look like the glass gumball beads that I made for the necklace shown.

These felt beads were made in the late evening hours during my stay at Penland. They are great for calming the creative mind before heading off to slummer town. The base bead is wet felted and then the spots are added by needle felting.

The color on these beads are very bright, however so very hard to capture with my Iphone.
I love wearing BIG, funky jewelry. That is why I started making beads in the first place. If I could find beads big enough for my project, my wallet couldn't open wide enough to buy them...so the fix was to make them myself. That was 10 years ago.

I was able to make this base bead with my broken arm...but even that was more pain than I could handle right now....maybe it will be part of my therapy...you know, the range of motion and all that fun stuff that is down the road for me.


These beads are about an inch round....I adore them...my dearest of friends, Linda, was a sweetheart and put the necklace together for me. She knew it would be a long time before I would be able to do it on my own. She also gave me the best complement...she is going to copy the necklace...you see, she was the one who taught me to make beads.Her work is to die for...so for her to copy me!!! wow.....I have really tried to do nothing the last 3 days.....something is making me sick...it is either the pain or the meds...but I sure felt like I had taken a couple steps backwards in the healing process...so I am trying to be still....a very hard task for me....thank you all for your continued prayers.



Joy.......................always, yep even now!

HEARTS I WEAR.......a little peek into my jewel box

Happy Valentine's friends.................






Joy..........................................................always

It is snowimg glitter!

This is the best shot i could get considering that I could not lift my camera due to my broken right arm. If you will click on the photo to enlarge it you will see the glitter effect a bit more.



Let me also share a peek of where I was headed before the big fall...I am trying to make beads that feel the age of time. By wrapping the hot glass in silver foil and burning it off in the torch you get a fuming of silver. I also was working with a baking soda wash while the beads are hot to get a texture of age....I want my beads to fit in with the vintage findings that I use. Once healed I will continue this exploration...

Looking out the front widow I would swear that Martha must be perched on clouds above dusting my world with glitter!! The light breeze is gathering spays of snowflakes and swirling them in the morning sunlight...it is like living in a snow globe full of glitter. I would so love to have photos to show....but this morning I discovered that I can not raise my camera to my eye. The pictures I share today were taken in the safety of my home, camera perched chest high.
It was so pleasant to watch the open of the Winter Olympics as snow fell outside...growing up in Southern California this is never something I thought I would experience. I am still waiting for the white Christmas....



Joy..........................................Always

Broken hearted

SO.....in my last post i said that i risked life and limb to post my update...well, the next day it cost me my limb...i didn't actually lose a limb...just a six week sentence. Wednesday morning my friend and i were on are way into the glass studio...chatting about her crazy morning, when, before we knew what happened we were both on the ground. Victims of black ice!!! I knew immediately that I had done something to my shoulder. I could not move my arm without shooting pain!!! An hour drive to the ER to find out I had broken my right humerus bone....the good new no surgery the bad new nothing can be done but a sling and lots of drugs!!! I spent another day at Penland in bed. before my husband came to bring me home. So not the pictures I was hoping to post. The last bead I had made Tuesday night was a broken heart....how apropo! So no driving for a month! My world has been turned upside down......but alas it coulld be so much worse!!!!




Joy.........................................always

Penland straight from the camera

I am working in Circus color as Elizabeth in our class has tagged these colors. With the overcast outside it is a warming palette to be working in. The beads pictured are by first treasures from the kiln.

Soldiers of color standing at ready!
GLASS,GLASS.....everywhere!






OK bloggie friends, I had to risk life and limb to find internet connect to catch you up. I am at Penland School of Craft up in the Blue Ridge of North Carolina. I will be working at the torch for a solid week....heaven! There are 11 of us here playing on the torch. No class...all play. And of course, all woman chatting, all day. We show up around 8ish and break at 6:30 for dinner, and then back on the torch until we drop. Everyone brought something to share for dinner...so no meal planning needed. Today mostly pictures...and let me tell you there is so much eye candy her for the photographer in me it is hard to contain myself...well I leave you wanting more. I am off to torch some more glass....more tomorrow!!! That is if the weather allows me to get down the hill to the print studio....sans sled!!!!


Joy...........................................always