Yeh! My Buttons

My Buttons

I was in this button swapping project. I  had to choose some buttons for my partner Cat from boo beads and send it to her.

 

Similarly I received a nice pack of buttons from her too.  Like her, I love buttons made of natural materials too.

Aren't they beautiful?  Cat made the copper one herself and her mom made the one with the letter D.  I am so touched to receive hand made buttons.

O, I forgot to mention that I found some vintage copper buttons from an old jacket.  I discarded the jacket but saved the buttons to share with Cat.

Cat and I both saved one sample piece  of each button for our selves and would share later what we did with them.  In the mean time, my head is working more than my hands and that is the hard part.  Now I just have to carve a couple of quiet hours when I can totally immerse in the creative process.

Well, it is 9:39pm now.  The night is still pretty young to me.  I should rather be beading than blogging.


 

7000 Bracelets For Hope

7000 Bracelets for Hope- What a touching thing to organize.  Every time I visit Lori's blog I get some thing new and enthusiastic.

The project is that we have to make a bracelet with BLUE ( Denim blue is their awareness color).  This bracelet then  has to be sent to the Global Genes Project ( The address is:
7000 Bracelets of Hope /Global Genes Project
24701 La Plaza Suite 201
Dana Point, CA 92629 .

The Global Genes Project, an advocacy group for children's rare disease awareness is going to send it to the seven thousand families having children with rare diseases to show them love and support. You may visit this site to see how you can help.


112 jewelry artists have already joined knowing it from Lori's blog.  You can see their wonderful work if you visit Lori's blog to get the links.

I wanted to be a part of it too.  So what if I am late!  Better late than never.  So, I started thinking about my blue bracelet.


My thoughts took me to Sedona, Arizona where I went last year.  I was pretty sick at that time.  I remembered buying some turquoise beads  from a bead shop and then I  was sitting facing the red monolinths, waiting for my husband.

An interesting feeling came to me.  I had heard about the vortex power of Sedona.  I closed my eyes and prayed that may the beads in my hand have magic power to heal and cure the wearer.  I don't know  who'd get these beads in future, but I had known the healing power of turqoise.

I prayed for myself too, may I be cured soon, so that I can sit and do my beading.  My prayers were answered.  I hope the rest be true too.

 With these thoughts I created this bracelet with tiny turquoise and silver  beads.  They are  individually strung and then I  knitted the silver wire part with a pair of very thin knitting needles to form the half circle part.  At the end  I finished  adding  some oval turquoise beads and silver adornments as you see in the picture. There is an extender to accommodate different wrist sizes.

I'll send it soon to the address given with a note and my prayer.  May it heal a child.

Going Green

Go Green

As the signs of spring hop in, tiny new leaves on the branches, the wisteria blooms with lovely lavender blossoms and the gold finches swing on my bird feeder I feel like giving Mother Earth one big hug again.  Thank you for being so beautiful.

I become extra vigilant to protect her.  I take oath to think more how to reuse and recycle more the things  I already have.

I have  to ship some one a box .  I was going to buy one but then I found a box  just across the room that had  brought some materials for me the other day.  I decided to use this box.  I repacked it using some nice contact paper.

Now I save the bubble mailers that were posted to me and just put a nice piece of contact paper on it and use it to ship my things. I save money in buying the mailers  which I'd rather use to buy a delivery confirmation when I ship something.  In my etsy store it will not make a difference that way.

I learned a lot of tricks from the Eco etsy site and their ideas stimulate me to think new ways of going green. 

   

Check out this interesting thing from Rings and things

Take their challenge

A humble offering to Japan's refief

My humble offering to Japan:

I get immuned and numb when I see the same pictures over and over on the T.V screen.

On quiet moments if I zoom out, and try to think that it is just not two dimensional, what happened to those people is real, I shiver. So many people have lost their homes, lost their loved ones, so many children can't find their parents or food...

It could happen to us too. Can I fathom that?

Japan is such a beautiful place. I have been there several times on my way to India. Yet, all those sky scrappers, modern equipments and highways look like a child's toys, as if a child is playing with his lego set, in contrast to the vast ocean when you see it from high above - when you take a bird's eye view.

We human being are so small, so insignificant against nature's vast force!

I have high regards for that nation. They are so disciplined, hard working, spiritual people. They are resilient and will recover, but right now what are they going through.

As I watch out, I see our cherry tree in full bloom through the window. I think of Japan. I was first introduced to flowering cherry trees in Japan. Being a young girl from tropical India I had never seen a cherry tree before that. And I planted a wish that some day may we have a cherry tree in our home.

My wish was granted. The tree is full of rosy whisper soft bloom today.

My eyes well up as I work on my beading project. My knitted wire work gets blurry. I wipe off. I put the last crimp to secure and decide to offer this humble creation with my prayers to the Japan relief fund.

Agony of artist's life

I had been reading about Renoir and  how he painted.  It is interesting to note that even artists like him had to go through such misery concerning money..  The story opens , Renoir with a broken limb trying to manage painting. He broke his arm trying to paint part of a house and fell down from the ladder

In his dreams he visualizes known people, common people as his models.  He murmurs to himself never to waste time doing things that you do not love to do.

He wants to sketch normal life, happy stories of his time in history...but the agony is, he has to compromise to things that pays him more.  He hated to take  salon commissions and paint aristocrat families all  seated on velvet sofas but that is where the money was coming from.

Do you feel like that some times?   Do you hate the marketing and selling aspect?

I do when I have to make the same pieces over and over.  I try to stay away from that.  And since I am not that famous and no one is really bugging me to do the same pieces, I do have the luxury to not do what I hate.

Actually at this phase I kind of like when people asks me to do custom order.  A friend of mine asked me to make some thing for a girl born in October.  She bought a  turquoise in copper  book marker I made earlier.

So I made two book markers this time.  One with tiny  pink tourmaline beads and the other one with rose quartz chips both knitted in silver heart.

Rose Quartz in silver heart

 Now Pink Tourmaline tiny beads in knitted heart

Both are October birth stones depending on the Zodiac signs -  Libra or Scorpio
Which one do you think she'd like?  Which one do you like better?

Knitting with beads and wire

Knitting with beads and wire is my new passion now.  I used to knit a lot when my girls were little, then I picked up beading.  Now I find that I am inclined to knitting with beads and wire.

Knitting with wire is quite different from knitting with yarn.  Wire knitting can tense your fingers.  Now it is getting better each time.  The wire loops will not be the same as working with yarn.  Then again knitting with wire has its own good things.  It is much forgiving in terms of shape.

My very first book was Knitting with Beads  which I got as a Christmas gift in 2009 from my daughter .I did not see too many books in this area.  So this time from the library I brought some craft books ( March is National Craft Month, I came to learn) and one of them really caught my eye.  It is Element of Style by





I think I'll try quite a few designs from here.  I came to know that there is a yarn named Habu which is just what I was looking for.  I knew it exited but I was not sure what to ask when I go to the knitting store.

Now I am a person who cannot really follow a recipe or direction all the way.  If I am not really judged or tested, once I understand the basic I deviate.  So this is what I tried from her book

and this is what I came up with.

Did you see any books on bead knitting?  Will you please let me know?