Owls and trees and a bit of seed beading - my creative space

I'm still finding inspiration from Beadfreaky's lovely little ceramic pendants.

I bought a few of them!

Here I combined an owl pendant with some nighttime themed components.
Some gorgeous rainbow moonstone beads, silver beads that look like birds nests. Contrast comes from the blue agate beads and labrodite beads and chips. I found some glass star beads to continue the theme and add some depth.

Here I used a tree pendant for a woodland theme - brass bird components plus some beads in the same tone family. A wonderful mookite beads, some rutilated rhodonite (the slightly pinky flat ones), a couple of green ceramic bead tubes, accented with the bright green howlite composite beads and a few unakite beads (the pink and green ones).
I used a small portion of chain at the back for lightness.

I'm pretty pleased with the way these turned out - but time will tell if anyone else is!

I also wanted to do a small project that I could do while the tennis is on (yes, it's Wimbledon time again).
I had an idea for some circle earrings - I guess it was making the large loopy ones awhile ago that kept the idea in my head. You can see them here.

I thought I'd have to use different size beads for this, but I really don't like the really little size 15 ones - and I don't have a great variety of this size anyway. But realised that I'd have to use them and some size 11's plus maybe size 8's in order to get the circle thing going.
Now I realise that I'm not inventing the wheel here and that there is probably a tutorial somewhere about how to make circles - so off to the interwebs I went - and I didn't have to look far.

If you haven't already found it, Interweave Press's Beading Daily site is a wonderful resource - there are many free downloadable projects as well as tips, technique tutes and all sorts of other grand stuff.

I happened to spot a beaded toggle clasp by Melinda Barta in the free peyote stitch projects ibook - that would tell me how to do it!

Sure enough it told me what I needed to know - bead sizes, number of stitches, number of rows - easy! So I could also concentrate on the tennis (Our Sam won and then our Bernie : D )

This is as far as I got last night and I think they might need to be a bit bigger, but I'll see what they look like when I finish.

How has your creative week been?

Do you have any favorite in-front-of-tv projects?

Joining in with My Creative Space at Village Voices on Kidspot - hop on over and have a look.

Some days...

Some days I can't even wake up. I feel like I'm drugged...but I'm not.

Some days it's far too tempting to stay in bed for far too long. You know, when it's too snuggly and you take a cup of tea and breakfast back to bed and the cat cuddles up under the doona and you listen to the radio and can't think of a good enough reason to get out of bed?

Some days it seems as though I'm carrying problems from near and far, shouldering tragedies big and small.

Some days I need my spirits lifted.

Some days I just need to GET OUT.

Days like this when the sun is shining and the air is cool...these are the best days to get out.
These are the best days to lift my spirits.

These are the best days to get out into the bush.

Especially when these guys and gals run over to the fence to say "hello".

There were so many birds out and about today too - little flitty birds, whip birds, rosellas, sulphur crested cockatoos ripping at the tree bark.

An hour later I'm home again.

Some days you just have to get out and smell the fresh air.

Blue gum forest one day...swamp the next!

I am so lucky! There are some great bushwalks withing half an hours drive of where I live and even more within an hours drive.
I guess living in a city in a national park is the reason why.
The other day I posted pictures of my walk in the Blue Gum forest - today I am in the Blue Gum Swamp.

This walk is a great little 9km circuit, through some Blue gum forest.
They are the lovely pale straight trees.

Because it is a valley and dampish - hence the swap, there are moist area plants - ferns and such.
It is quite lovely.

Then the track clims out of the valley onto a typical Blue Mountains rocky ridge - drier and so different.
One of my favorite plants grows here in abundance - Flannel flowers
If you look closely you can see that they have little green tips on their petals.

They are thriving in the sandy soil here.

The new leaves on the baby gum trees are so colourful.

Up here on the ridge the trees just have to grow where they can! How do they hold on?

Down to the valley and up again - wordless wednesday

 

I'm joining in with Wordless Wednesday over at My Little Drummer Boys

What I saw on my walk - wordless wednesday

I'm joining in with wordless wednesday day over at My Little Drummer Boys blog.

Wednesday Wishlist

A whimsical wednesday wishlist today -

cotton dress with trees by elviainvidepland

wooden brooch by psyboom

balloon factory by pearsonmaron

That's all!
Have a great whimsical wednesday!

Wednesday wishlist

Mostly this wishlist wednesday is about things beyond our wildest dreams - things you covet but know you will never buy.

This week I'm going to wish for some non-personal things.
Some things that make a crafty persons mouth water!

Things that I can justify because they relate to my craft and I might actually use them and I might eventually make some profit out of them.
Their purchase can be justified on an economic basis!

Like fabric to embellish some tshirts for BoosTees

bike bits fabric pack by breenolivetextiles

Or stamps to make some cards, stamp some wooden blockor polymer clay to make pendants.

winter trees by oldislandstamps

Or some papery goodies to make tags or little thankyou cards.

french ephemera by CharmedMemoryCollage

Then I might actually use some of the things I have stockpiled here - tshirts, dominos, polymer clay, assorted bits of paper and card etc etc.

How do you justify your crafty purchases?

Wednesday wishlist

Is my mood grey today?

I think it is.

No cheery brightness brightness this week, but subtle quietness.

grey branches cushion covers by VeeDubz

dent resin bangle by Milkwooddesigns

katy did purse by Osier

Wishlist Wednesday - 29

It's a post-and-dash wednesday wishlist for me today!

First up, a wish from my daughter -

wicked-y tree by littleputbooks

but I like them too.

A cute pendant -

it's raining by mujoyas

And I can never resist a chicken - or two.

cheery chickens by papervictory

Enjoy!