Brainstorming

The theme for the Art Bead Scene Challenge this month is "Mother Earth." I decided to sit down tonight with a pile of beads and brainstorm for a bit. I'd love to get one new stringing project completed to enter the challenge before the end of the month and, as you can see, I have some beautiful materials in my stash that meet the theme (or at least I think they do). The ceramic art beads were made by two artists. The gorgeous organic round pendant (feel free to click on the photo above for a close-up of any of these beads) was made by Mary Harding. The extremely powerful animal spirit beads were made by Diane Hawkey. These beads have been sitting in my stash for way too long - I'm dying to do something with them. Initially, at least, I've set out a strand of petrified wood slices, some faceted prehnite and two beautiful strands of amber that my Dad gave me for my birthday last year. Color and texture-wise, I think these stones work quite well, but I may end up having trouble with scale if I try to combine these beads. I'll have to think a bit about the best way to tackle this.

I can't believe how busy life has been the past couple days. I've actually had a kiln load of silver ready to fire for a couple days, and I simply haven't found enough time to do it (I don't like to work in the garage this late at night, if you're wondering why I'm not doing it now). We took the Short One to the local children's museum on Saturday and, sure enough, he's started coming down with a cold tonight. As much as I try to keep his hands clean when we visit places like this, it just doesn't seem to help all that much. The first night is always the worst, and he's definitely not sleeping well right now. Sigh.

Starting at the end of the week, I'm going to be taking a vacation until June 1st. I decided that I would relax and enjoy my official entry into middle-age. I will be posting links for Ornament Thursday on the appropriate day but, other than that, I'll be kicking my feet back a bit. I will definitely be back at the beginning of June, though. I'll try to come back tomorrow to post, but there is always the possibility that I'll be too busy twitting the Husband about being 40. I don't have much longer to hold the high ground on this issue, so I feel that I have to make the most of it while I can!

Thanks for visiting.