Howdy, Boehner!

I know nothing about the men. I just saw an uncanny resemblance.

New Beads. Blue Beads.

Nice new set of Indigo Roswell beads. And some Xmas sock monkeys.

Sweater Time

I love fall because i love wool sweaters. I have nothing in my closet like these hoodies by Enlightened Platypus on etsy, and i would never wear a sweater like this, but i can sure enjoy looking at them. They are constructed using recycled wool sweaters. Many other color combinations are shown in their shop, deserving of a peek.

Braided Tree

Check out this nice little tree. It is a green walnut that we had to chop down because it was dropping big dead branches onto the neighbour's truck. A number of suckers emerged from the stump and i braided three of them. This was maybe three or four years ago now. It's a perfectly shaped little tree right now, but i hope i'm around when it is twice as big so that i can see how this trunk turns out.

I'm quite pleased with the popularity of the minty Frosty snowman beads and zipper pulls, but i've run out of white glass. The shipment should come in on Tuesday, so in the meantime i'm trying to come up with some other, non-white, seasonal beads. I like Rudolph, but it took me too long to make--i don't seem to have the patience for half-hour beads.

alphabet book

I love the idea of making books. I do enjoy writing, but managing images seems easier and more pleasurable somehow. I've illustrated a kids book and made a bead calendar, and now i'm making an alphabet book.

It is expressly for my two preschool nieces in Canada. All of the letter images are my photos. That's been neat because i look at my collection of isolated letters and know exactly which local signs they came from. Today i'm trying to get all of the photos of the words that my letters represent. Since the nieces are in Canada, and we are down here in the southwestern states, i'm trying to use images that reflect how and where we live. It's meant to be quite personal, so for instance "S" will be a photo of their cousin Henry on his skateboard, since that is his passion. And "D" will be a photo of our dog. It's a lot of work, but the final product should be pretty darn cool.

I'm using shutterfly.com, a site i've used before and been very happy with the results. Hint: if you sign up with them, they will soon try to entice you to make a book project by offering you nice discounts. :-)

Mint Brothers

The fresh, minty, cool snowman triumvirate: Wintergreen, Candy Cane, Peppermint. Get yours today! I'm selling the beads loosely and will also be selling them pre-made as zipper pulls, eventually.

Bits of Glass Menagerie

More sculptural beads coming out of the workshop.

I could have been a hand model, but i like the feel of digging in the dirt, filing metal, and detailing my own vehicle. Don't look too closely at the fingernails, plox. :-)

i'm going to etch the ape and the frog. The bee was made for my little daycare charge, but you can't give a glass ornament to a 15 month old. It is the bee in one of his favorite books--he's fascinated with the buzz (which i guess comes from the reader, not the book). I'll show it to him tomorrow and see if he recognizes it when it's off the page. It's so interesting studying a developing mind! The fish and the snowman will probably show up in the etsy shop.