I don't believe it!

Yes - I glued beads, something I said I'd NEVER do! But I am prone to break all the rules, even my own. This first one has pearls and plastics, buttons, beads and a buckle.

Here's one that I used fused glass pieces and painted the grout silver.

And finally - the really ugly one. Pottery dish pieces made the grouting really difficult!

Birds and other critters.

I found this "slowpoke" exploring the materials on my worktable on the back porch.

This is one of my favorite regular visitors. This little froggie and friends are frequent visitors to our front porch.

and here is my "Bird- Day" party. Fun, Funky folk art birds. They are made from recycled wool clothing. Each one carries a message such as "happy Bird day", "for my tweetie", "congratulations love birds"

Beware of Thrift Store Pants!

OK - so I bought this really cool pair of pants at Goodwill. Linen/cotton blend - lots of pockets. As I was getting ready for an Art Show yesterday, I found out why they were so cheap. The elastic was sprung! Every time I put something in my pocket they slipped a bit further down. But they were perfect in every other way, cool, comfy, lots of pockets and matched a nice oversize T-shirt I wanted to wear. So with a dozen safety pins to the rescue, off I went to sell some wares.

Then it rained! Wet fabric is much heavier than dry. Fortunately I managed to get things packed and loaded up before they fell off.

Since I still really like the pants, I guess I'll replace the elastic, install a drawstring & get me pair of suspenders before I wear them again.

BEADING AGAIN

A beading group at our rock & gem club gets together once a week. As a result i'm totally hooked on beads - again! Above are some examples. Freeform remains my favorite technique, but I do occasionally follow a pattern.

mess-oupage

I decided to decoupage an old metal office cabinet. There's certainly emough random papers in my"art room" to do it! Here is the work in progress.

And here is my workspace - the floor.I learned the following:

Tear up your papers first - gluey fingers & torn paper are a real mess.

Fingers make a better brayer than the real thing.

Use good quailty paper napkins - the cheap ones roll into little balls & stick to everything except where you put them.

It takes two-and-a-half times the papers that you estimate.

It's good messy fun! My kind of art. Messy and random.

Recycling

Here's a couple of little clutches I made using old cassette tapes and a skein of yarn each. Each one has a vintage button for the closure.

The idea came from My Recycled Bags, check it out.

An honor

Ellen Lindner, Adventure Quilter, has included my nature quilt in her gallery. I made it in a class she taught our Weaver's Guild. She is a great teacher and offers on-line classes. I still need to finish the other two projects from on-line classes!

Check out the gallery here.