good day sunshine

late morning at the market.

a very introspective and grumpy day.
never the less, i bummed around & cleaned some beads this evening - pictures soon.

horst janssen

i picked up an art book at a garage sale - it is a monograph on the german artist horst janssen.

ever hear of him? neither had i, but i am loving his way with a colored pencil.
fading rose if you're out there today, i think you will be moved by him too.

from the book;
"by 1980, janssen himself inventoried over 10.000 drawings created by him during some thirty years."

ten thousand drawings?
sigh.

preposterone

it's wednesday, and that means a trip to my favorite used craft supply store "bit & pieces."

i found some fake daisies and stuffed animal eyes.

pulled a daisy apart and added an eyeball and got...

i am not sure what i will do with this idea, but my daughter says my hormone levels are off - my estrogen & testosterone are fine, but i have way too much preposterone in my system.


some great vintage trims.


fabric for tote bags



someone's cast off novelty yarns for more weird hats.


and two new bottles of acrylic paint for 25 cents each.
today's shopping spree grand total - $6.25

alcho-romantic jazz

if you like tom waits...

billy's band
from st. petersburg (& i don't mean florida)
my favorite act from this year's jazz festival

daylilies

marigolds

marigolds - i really am pushing my crush on the color orange.

i think it will be marigold beads this week.

poppy-ish beads

my poppy beads are not all that i hoped for.
there are a few that worked, but the rest of the batch are rather homely.

i am going to need to make more...

poppy flower buds inspired this pair of beads


a 2 1/4" long skinny bi-cone.


and a pair of dotted beads in poppy colors.

the leftover ugly ones will be etched, etching can hide a lot of sins. however i suspect that they are so sad that even an acid bath will not perk them up.

yankee fan

i was born a righteous yankee fan.

this is the counselor - a rabid boston red sox fan.

he lost a bet. ha.

zimmerman's
a garden of earthy delights at the rochester public market.

my sausage, egg & cheese breakfast sandwich with hot sauce.

i love the sunday city flea market.
this morning i had my breakfast and then found some lovely junk to use in my new jewelry pieces.

yellow blossoms

a delicate pair of little electric yellow blossoms.

i made them to fill a special request, from my mom, for yellow earrings. now, all i need to do is add some rice pearls and sterling then pop them in the mail.

wet poppies

new poppy beads happily soaking in the kitchen.

some of them are fun, but some are real duds.
when they came out of the annealer, i was like, whose beads are these?

wild magnolias

the wild magnolias last night.

yes, that is all elaborate beadwork on the costumes.

wildbirds & peacedrums

i saw this duo from sweden last night at jazz fest - twice.
they are nothing but wonderful!


wildbirds and peacedrums
their myspace page

glass rod storage

i have seen several ways to store glass rods on other blogs -
but none like mine.

my stash is stored in the top drawer of a flat file. the shallow, wide metal drawer it is great for laying out the whole spectrum of glass. the rods are resting on a nice white cotton terrycloth bath towel to keep them safe and show off the true color of each bundle of glass.

the small orange round thing on the floor (left side) is an old metal 3-legged milking stool. i use it as a step stool because i am only 5' tall and need a step to reach just about everything.

p/s i added an rss subscription to my blog, whatever that means...
if this is something you use there is now a button at the bottom of my righthand sidebar.

junky lovebirds

a pair of little birds found at the flea market this morning.

the 3" brooch is hand painted metal with two huge faceted pink glass stones on each bird's breast.

$1.

i was going to blog about all 9 days of the rochester international jazz festival but decided it would be a bit tedious...
still these guys were amazing.

the bad plus

iris germanica - savannah sunset

knock, knock.
who's there?
banana.
banana who?

knock, knock.
who's there?
banana.
banana who?

knock, knock.
who's there?
banana.
banana who?

knock, knock.
who's there?
orange.
orange who?
orange you glad i didn't say banana?

a beautiful new orange iris for my garden.

i have to say that my clever daughter has turned me on to the color orange. i was never a fan before, except for maybe a tasteful pumpkin or muted curry shade. her penchant for retinal burning hot safety orange has opened my eyes to all of orange's more vivid shades, especially tangerine.

why not?

a silly little pen & ink drawing i did in my sketchbook last night.

everyone should keep a sketchbook.



there was some very fun torch time this evening.
with a little luck there will be 'poppy' bead pics tomorrow.
a long lost beader dropped by more fire glass during tonight's session, if you're reading this, it was great to see you.

watermelon man

can you believe he let me pose this photograph?

iris bead set

the iris bud and the large focal bead it inspired.

side view of the focal, which is about 1 3/8" in length.


most of the set, in all there are 13 beads.


spiral coin.


swirled tab.


two smaller bud shaped beads for earrings.


another large coin shaped bead.
all they need now is yards of fine sterling silver wire and lots of lusciously colored freshwater pearls.

beastly (hot)

the weather here is so crazy hot that f**k nothing got done today.
all i have for you is some more poppy eye-candy.

torching on thursday, this week's inspiration: papaver orientale

i hope to ream out my iris beads tonight.
the set is pretty exciting - there will be enough for a necklace, earrings and a matching bracelet.

iris beads

iris inspired beads fresh out of the annealer...

and the bud from my post a couple of days ago is now a blossom.

the beads are soaking and i should have more pictures of them soon.

p/s: 6x6x2008 went extremely well - all 9 of my small bird paintings sold in a matter of minutes, which is grand because the crowd had over 3,500 pieces to choose from.

decaying carrot

ever make a butt ugly bead?

behold the moldering carrot.

but it's ok, it will be fine as a body for a mexican voodoo pendant.

iris bud

an inspirational color combination?
yes, see below for the glass rods i selected to match.

the rods:

(left to right)
light ivory, transparent yellow with an opaque yellow core, pea green stringer, green filigrana, copper green, edp, transparent purple light, transparent purple dark.

poppy cakes

poppies


chocolate coconut cupcakes with lime cream cheese frosting & coconut sprinkles, by margaret.

nom nom nom