My Purple Heart

So I came up with another creative urge.`Another necklace -My Purple Heart was born.

Here, I have chosen the amethyst glass beads which are actually very very tiny teardrops,(the most delicate, tender, forgiving shade of purple) as the main thread. This will be holding the playful bunches of pink bicone crystals.

Look at the wires at the end of the swarovski crystal bicones.. They are individually wrapped with unique twists.. No easy quickfixes with commercial headpins.

Here, I played with the light and dark shades at the two sides of the locket. Oh, by the way I learned this new trick of wire work that I have applied in wrapping the locket. Did you notice that? This locket is a highly faceted Czech glass briolette crystal. It is so capable of splashing beautiful rainbow hues just agreeing with your mood.

So, how do you like it? Did you like Pinky Princess better or My Purple Heart? None of them? - Really!

A Beadazzled Day

Finally I got a chance to play with my beads and was quite busy the last two days. The memory of the tulip fields that I had seen in Kukenhoff, Holland visits me this time of the year in early spring. Ribbons of purple, lavender and pink stretched all the way up to the horizon. I can still see them if I close my eyes. Then I get up and fetch my bead box. I am inspired to make some thing with those colors.

I had seen a picture of a necklace some where. It had an amber drop in the middle and on the left side there were swarovski beads from the cool family, I mean the blue, green purple... all united. The right side was rather ruled by the hot stuff- yellow, orange and red.

Hmm! That's an idea. But how about keeping the main tone PINK but play with the translucent and the opaque beads? So I mixed up fresh water pearls with pink and copperish swarovski faux pearl with the crystals. The metal is sterling silver though.

Now after making this I felt happy. I named it PRINCESS PINKY.

The next day Princess Pinky took me by the hand and made me open the bead box again.

Home Sweet Home

Here, my home was anxiously waiting for me too, as I was for her. The tiny crocuses are out and the yellow daffodils greeted me with a warm nodding of their heads. The cherry tree that we had planted thirty two years ago in the back yard on our anniversary date is in full bloom now.

The rolling hills across 680 look so green and soft .Yellow mustard flowers and California poppies are happy to see me back.

Tomorrow I am going to organize my workshop and start making jewelry. It's been such a long time I haven't played with my beads.

My first real snow experience

One day it snowed. I saw it all from the very beginning. In the wee morning as I was rocking Zoe in the rocking chair, I watched it falling very slowly, very gently like soap flakes falling from the sky. The sun has still a couple of hours to come and the sky is steel gray. It is amazing how quickly the snow covered the whole alley and buried the cars and every thing that were parked at the street sides.

Then icicles hung from the awnings, the schools declared a snow-holiday, children gathered and came out for snow rides and tobogganing.

Later, much later the sun came out eventually and the snow from the awnings are quickly evaporating now. It looks like flocks of cloud going up back to the sky.

We are stuck inside but it is lovely watching all these and sip hot coco.

Zoe is a month old now, her cold is much gone and she makes all kinds of funny faces and plays with her hands and fingers, pedalling up in the air with her legs.

I am now writing from California where it is not snowing of course.

I miss Zoe. I miss their cozy, tiny N.Y.home and her mom and dad.

The Valentine Gift

This Valentine Day I was presented with the most precious gift- my first grand child. Zoe Shona Zych landed safely on the planet Earth on the morning of 14th February 2009.

Hearing the news we flew to N.Y. and for a whole month I had been busy grand mothering my precious Zoe.

In these thirty two days she learned how to gulp after a coughing fit, handle hiccups and burps. Though she loves to hear mommy baby talking to her and daddy's deep voice, she feels a bit perplexed at the sounds of siren and smoke alarms which are quite abundant at the 81st street apartment ,N.Y.

Then there are lights. Some are nice like the warm glow of sun rays that come through the window and play peek-a boo with her in the morning but those two kitchen lights- they are just awful- too harsh to look at. And those weird smell that comes from the kitchen when Dido cooks- make Zoe sneeze, sneeze, sneeze. Why don't they rather have mommy's milk instead and mommy's smell...mm! That's best- even when she's sweaty and stinky That's what Zoe'd say if she could talk , I think.

In the mean time I have learned that though sneezes and hiccups are harmless, coughs can be serious matter for little newborns like Zoe. And she did catch the cold from her mom. So we had to keep her almost vertical all the time for those few days. The only relief we could provide was taking her to the steaming bath room and pray.

I gathered a galore of knowledge from the lactation workshops when I accompanied my daughter and was wondering how do the mammal infants and their moms do in the third world countries where there are no La Leche support group or breast pump renting shops!