The Heart of the Matter

Hearts were wild at both my bead guild and polymer clay guild meetings within the last month. Though I'm not at all partial to the heart motif and rarely include hearts in my work, I thoroughly enjoyed both meetings. The company of fellow bead and clay enthusiasts is more crucial to me then the specific project or program. I never leave a meeting uninspired.

Both groups welcome men but have large majorities of women. We span generations and have a variety of backgrounds. We are straight & gay, "red" & "blue", paper & plastic...but our obsession with beads and/or polymer clay surmounts our socio-economic dissimilarity in spite of the media desire to break us down into ever more specific demographics.

'Nuff said.

"New Shimmer is both a floor wax and a dessert topping!"

It's been too long since my last entry. These two pins took about twice as long as they should have because my hands were giving me fits...once I finished the purple one (the focal embellishments are a polymer clay experiment, a beach pebble and and abalone bead---the pink one sports a beach pebble, lake-smoothed pottery shard and vintage button) I decided to forego beads until my hands healed. It didn't quite work out that way...I just couldn't resist participating in the crystal heart project at bead guild on April 27th and this weekend I had to remake a beaded ring to take "step out" photos for a class I'm scheduled to teach.



Making the ring was fairly painless, so I was inspired to make a seed bead entry for the Beading Daily, Bead Star competition. That took most of Sunday. Funny, the object of the contest is simple straightforward stringing, but I found it more difficult to string seed beads then any off-loom needlework. I'm happy with the result and will post a picture later this week.


My hands are still peeling, but the warmer weather and the Badger balm I found at the local garden store seem to be helping. And, as luck would have it, the Badger balm conditions my thread while it soothes my skin.

Now and again my fingers still crack and bleed a bit, but my mood is a lot sunnier now that I've decided to bead through the pain.