A child is born

In the middle of being busy with my bead soup and blog hopping some thing very interseting happened to my life.  My youngest daughter had a baby daughter.  It's a wonderful strange feeling indeed.

Bead Soup Blog Hop Reveal

What did I do with all those beautiful beads my bead partner Debbie Davis  sent to me?

Well, today is the day to bring my soup finished and show it to the three hundred and ninty nine  plus members who took part in this bead soup party,  like me.  Before everything,  I bow to our organizer Lori Anderson who had conducted this whole thing and gave us this wonderful opportunity.

Here are my goodies.

Few weeks ago my partner Debbie sent me these wonderful beads.

With the focal:

I was excited to see the donut shell .  I had bought a fantastic tutorial from an amazing wire artist named Donna Spadafore.  .  You can find this in her Gailavira etsy store.  I did not have any donut bead.  So I decided to try it here first.  I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge, even though you'll see my novice work there.  But this is my first try with this complicated design.

I knew that I'd use the heishi beads with this shell pendant.  But after finishing I am having doubt - probably the shell pendant did not need this extra adornment.  It was pretty enough to start with.  What do you think?


With the clasp:

The clasp is so pretty I wanted it to be shown in the front.and  I wanted  to use the green agate beads she sent with the cute filigree connectors.  So, in the beginning this is what I made.  It was a long necklace about 30" long.


But it kind of missed the oomph!  It was too plain.  So I broke it and spent a whole afternoon staring as that torn  piece.  I knew I did not have much time .  I grabbed my design journal and started to doodle.

How about having  chains in one side and something...something on the other?  Now something what?

 Then I found that  I had these mini malachite chips that raised their hands to be part of it.  I told them I'll think it over,  they have some chance as they are green too but can't promise yet.

 You can see from my diary that I was a bit scared to take this leap.  I like asymmetry more than symmetry but then there has to be a  rhythm, a  balance .  I just don't want to be too radical and make it tacky!

However, I tried it.

 Still not quite sure until wore it.

Not too bad.  I can carry this.

Oh, I forgot about the earrings.  Here they are.  I know I'll be using them a lot.

So what do you think?

This blog hop was my second one.  I enjoyed it intensely and it gave me a chance to take risk and jump out of my usual style, and comfort zone.  That is an important part in this journey of being a jewelry artist ( wanna be artist )  I think,  with all its agony and ecstasy.

Be sure to check out all the other artists who were part of this party world wide and you may find some amazing jewelry that you never saw before.

Thank you for dropping by.  Your comments will be my treasures.

Whole wheat zucchini bread with honey and friendship

It's so nice to cook with a friend.

Whole wheat zucchini bread with honey and only 190 cal ( 5 PPV)

My friend Ann has the most amazing vegetable garden.  Her veggie patch is such sun kissed that my shade shy one  is kind of jealous.  More so,  because I am thinking that  next year I might do volunteer gardening in her soil with my favorites  veggies like the Persian cucumber and Thai chillies.

Ann had a back surgery recently so I help her with the harvesting part where you have to bend down; and what enormous jewels do I find.  There are so many zucchinies that we could feed the whole neighborhood, except that  theses neighbors are also blessed or overwhelmed with their own crops now.

So,  we decided to make some zucchini bread.  We made three loaves that have 36 servings!

The best part was the time spent together while the bread was cooking in the oven.  We shared stories from our past and plotted ideas for future projects while totally being in the present...the sweet aroma of the goody cooking there, did not let us forget that.

I learned how you can dry things without using a drainer board that eats up space on your counter top and this little shelf has  dual purpose to hold things when not on duty to dry things. Isn't that cool and green?

And you may use zip loc bags instead of buying containers to hold your packet of flour or crackers.  The zip loc bag can help if the paper flour bag gets a hole, it  protects  from bugs and  it lets you see clearly what's inside and it is always there in your kitchen.

Now our yummy treat...MMM. and just 5 PPV - totally worth it.  This is what I ate this morning for breakfast  with a glass of milk and half a banana and felt no guilt  at all.

Happiness is..? And the answer is...

When you open your mail box

 

 and inside you find a nice thick packet

 you open it and inside that you find a fine a little card with lots of scribbles from your three year old grand daughter and

some YUMMY COOKIES.
You munch on them looking at the picture your grand daughter sent you

 and come to know from another little note ( that her mommy wrote)  that these yummy goodies are only 1 1/2 PPV( Weight Watcher Point )

And then what do you do?

You  tell the whole world how happy you feel!

Teaching ESL I mean English to Students from Italy

I had a fun day today teaching English ( American) to a bunch of teenager students from Italy who came to USA in Saint Mary's College   to study American culture and language .  They will be here in the San Francisco Bay area for only two weeks this summer.  Every morning they will come to the class and then  go to visit celebrated places in  the San Francisco  area.

As a non native English speaker I was going back to those early days down the memory lane  when I could not explain all that was swimming in my head.  My tongue was not ready.

 The same thing is happening with these kids and sometimes  interesting even hilarious things are cropping up.  For example, I asked some one- " Is she taking a break?"- showing the picture of a lady who was sitting on a bench , kind of in a relaxed mood with a Starbuck coffee in her hand

 One of my student replied  with her brows crossed -" Break?  No she is no break... fine , she is not taking any break.  She is all whole".

They are a cute bunch of kids and I am looking forward for what happens tomorrow.

Bead Soup Packet

My Bead soup packet arrived today.  What a surprise in the mail box !  These days the mail box is not that exciting for me, most of the exciting news come in e mail form or at the face book page.  But today it was different.

My bead soup partner Debbie Davis sent me such cool things that I can hardly wait to play with them.

Oh, the clasp is so pretty and here is the focal

Deb also sent me the most beautiful green agate beads, and a string of heishi beads that will be very useful too.

There are some pretty brass findings too.  Now the colors of the green beads are so pretty,( my photos have not done the right justice to them)  I am feeling like going shopping and getting  a blouse to go with that green , or may be many colors will go with it.  But I just love that lime green for these summer days.

Thank you thank you thank you Deb, I am very happy for what you have sent. 

I am going to talk about what I had sent to her in my next post.  Now let's relish this soup.

 You may wonder what this bead soup thing is?  Well it was started and is  organized by an amazing jewelry artist named Lori Anderson.  Visit her blog because you'll be refreshed.  Any way, this is the 6th Bead soup party where more than three hundred jewelry artists all over the world are taking part.  Each one is matched with a partner.  I did not know my partner Deb Davis before and what a pleasant surprise knowing her and her amazing work.

Deb sent me some beads and I did to her  and now our challenge is to make something with them and then reveal them in our future blogs.  Our revealing day is August 11th 2012.

It is a lot of fun indeed and I give my heart felt thanks to Lori for coming up with this unique Bead Soup  idea and taking the trouble of organizing this massive project.

Wire work Pendant 
Today I created a new wire work pendant.

  I was so excited to get this tutorial from a very talented wire artist Donna Spadafore, or Gailavira.- Check out her awesome tutorials if you are interested to be wired up.  I mean literally, you may get all wired up, ...this is quite  some addiction.

 After I bought them and  printed out the tutorials, it was past midnight and I could hardly sleep,   I was just waiting for the morning.

 I know it is frustrating when things do not  happen the way it should happen, the wires to behave , or my wrist to turn the way it must,  yet there is fun...huge fun... like we had had  when we were little making sculptures.

I fiddled with it for a long time and finally  here is one of my  finished products.

Some of them may go to my Etsy store soon.  And that's  another" tomorrow's project".

I wrapped some coins too.

 Which ones can you identify?  They are from different parts of the world.  I am going to reveal the answers soon.