March Project and Personality Check

Well, I've been a busy little girl lately. I did my Bead Oasis booth. Then I got sick. Then I was out and about with my sister who was on vacation: lots of mall crawls. Then I got sick. I got a doctor's appointment to check out my badly swollen thumb ~ I am in the midst of an arthritis flare up. Then I got sick and missed the lecture downtown to help starving artists with the business end of art. And that more or less brings us to today.

I want you to read what Jean Campbell, yes, the Jean Campbell who co-authored The Beader's Companion, says about our personality and our beads. She offers ideas for our next pieces that should stretch our minds. I got the inspiration for an artisan jewellery commission I have thanks to this article.

Oh, yeah, I've discovered something new about myself: it seems I hibernate over winter. I'll have to work on my dark and quiet months to get my beaded pieces completed. And, I'd like to announce that I've finished my March challenge.

A bride to be married in July will be pulling together the odds and ends associated with her wedding. She has the hall, and the church. She has her dress and lined up the groom's wardrobe. She has done the same for all the wedding party. She has her flowers and the caterers and the makeup/hair and the cake taken care of. And she has ridden shotgun as the 2 mothers vie for dominance over the bridal pair.

This should be a happy time for the bride, but .... Everything has become a job with an incredibly tight time constraint. At least, that's the way it feels. But wait, there remains the gifts for her attendants.

How do I fit in? Aside from 'being there, done that, got the divorce to prove it.' Well, 5 or so years ago ~ how time flies ~ I swapped bead stringing lessons for a consultation from a dietitian. She had special family heirloom beads and strung the necklace and matching earrings for her daughter to wear at a wedding.

Now her daughter, Sarah, has sought me out to make the jewellery for her 9 attendants and herself. Lots of 3strand stuff.

You have to know, too, that Jessie has returned with another well loved necklace she wants to wear at her daughter's wedding. It needs tweaking and a new clasp. Did I mention? Jessie breaks into a rash with all metals save the most expensive. And that means the clasp will have to be beaded. Exactly the same as the clasps of the bridal jewellery. Only different.

And that is my April challenge. Not so much the stringing of a single strand of pearls, but the variety of clasp beads and their associated loops. These buttons are an exotic version of a toggle clasp and without the metal. And these buttons, if made in lots of designs and sizes, can be made into earrings, pendants for a necklace or a bracelet. Even button covers and shoe buckles; you know, the fancy kind of buckles.

So, where are the pix to show you my wonderful March challenge? The bride hasn't seen the jewellery yet so these pix are still on hold. There's no way I want to steal her thunder by letting the wearable art we designed together slip to the outside world without her go ahead. I haven't shown these pieces of artisan jewellery to her mother, even.

And for May? May is going to be a busy month for me. And an expensive one, too. I'm still all a-pearl and beaded beads ~ they fascinate me ~ and 2-hole buttons and my expanded stash.

That happened at the Bead Oasis show. I met Meagan who was de-stashing and who gave me an incredible deal for some of her beads. They still sit in plastic bags but I'll be transferring them to spice jars soon. Imagine the king in his counting house or the dragon protecting her accumulated treasures and that image will fit me right down to the ground.

For now, though, I've gotta run. I'm writing projects for some kits I'm developing.