Heartfelt

I finished another beaded heart today.  I went back to the more traditional shaped heart as you can see.  I am finding that I enjoy making these better when I am making them specifically for someone.

Here is a close up of the charm I used, I shall call this the Goddess Heart.

Also I am continuing to make these fabric hearts, which I intend to give as Christmas gifts.  I'm getting a little faster at them, these are #2 and #3, Love and Cherish.  They are rather like a combination of my beaded hearts and my dooleybobbers.  I am still experimenting with the heart shape, but I'm liking the shape of Love.

On "Cherish" I used old lace, some vintage fabric, sequins and beads, with hand embroidery.  There is a little angelina fiber too. When the light catches this one just right, it looks like it has tiny electric lights on it, due to the sequins.

"Love" is using more lace and vintage fabric, a velvet heart with a shell-like green heart on top, beads and hand stitching.  Oh yeah, and a tag from a tea bag, that says something on it.  Maybe you can read it if you click on it.  Okay, I'll tell you, it says "When God made time, He made enough of it."  Celtic saying.

I hope you all are staying safe and warm.  I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for taking time to read some of my posts and to follow along with my artful musings. I appreciate that you do, and especially when you have time to leave a comment.  I wish you all of the best that this season has to offer; generosity, kindness and love.

Be well.

 

Winners!

Thank you to all who entered my giveaway.  I with I could gift each and every one of you with a beaded heart.   Your reasons for wanting this heart were varied and sometimes amusing but always gratifying.  I couldn't decide so I resorted to asking Chainsaw Man to pick a number and he chose 17 which means Susan of  Art of Mine is the winner.  Then, to make up for my changing of the rules, I decided to give a second heart away and again, had Chainsaw Man pick another number, which was 13 and so the second heart goes to Gabie of http://perlenkatzes-schmuckblog.blogspot.com/.  I didn't count the comments from people who have already received hearts from me.  I will gift these hearts and then I will begin making some for sale since I have had a few requests.  I'll let you know when that happens.  I shall let Susan choose to have a special heart made just for her in her choice of colors and charms.

I am quite honored that you all were so eager to receive one of my pieces of art.  Thanks for playing along.

On a different subject, and in order to have a couple photos, here is where the situation with Charlie and my new dog Sadie stands.  Charlie is adjusting.  He didn't flee growling when Sadie laid down this close.  Progress!!

Cute Charlie paws.

Be well. 

Beaded Heart Giveaway

 Hello my lovely followers!  I feel so fortunate to have met all of you!  It has been such a pleasure.  Many of you have expressed much appreciation of the beaded hearts I have made so I have decided to give one away. 

What must you do to win one?  You must leave me a comment, telling me why you should win this heart. Oh, and you don't have to settle for this heart although you may.  The winner can choose to have me create a heart especially for them, with their choice of colors and maybe a charm or a button.

Anyone care to comment?

 Be well.

 

Recently I have been....

 I first want to thank you all for kind comments on my last post, especially regarding the self portrait of me and the scarf I was gifted.  Maybe I should become a fashion photographer, ha ha. Amazing how using a prop like the hat can add to the glamour of a photo.

I have been working on a beaded heart.  This is what I stitch on, a piece of felt.  I will cut all the background out and then use beads and picot stitch to attach the back piece of felt. 

I also made this little needle felted brooch.   I have given it away.

And I finally made a back for my sister's queen size quilt and sandwiched it all up to baste.  I laid it out on my deck to do the pin basting, the day before the rain came back.  I wore knee pads so I wouldn't wear out my knees.  It is quite tiring to do this!  
 

In my last post I forgot to show this picture of the framed post card that Audrey sent to me.  Cute, isn't it!

When I bought chicken scratch for the birds recently it came in a woven fiber bag instead of the usual paper bag.  So I made this strong tote out of it.  I cut off pieces of the bag to make the handles.  It sewed up quite quickly and easily, I want to make more of these.

Here is another picture of the bag, and my new dog, Sadie.

 My neighbor Gwen saw this old dog wandering down our road a few weeks ago.  She stopped to look at it since she didn't recognize it.  The dog began to approach her with a hopeful expression but when she saw it was not her person she ran off.  Gwen saw the dog a week later, still on our road.  The rain had come by then and she determined that the dog was homeless.  She said it took about 20 minutes to entice it to her car, and she brought the dog home.  The next day when I went to Gwen's she showed me the dog and I took her home with me.  Gwen's 3 dogs were not so happy with a 4th. 

She is an old Golden Retreiver, I am guessing she is about 11 or 12.  She seems in perfect health and as though she had been well cared for all her life.  She and Rocky get along like old friends.  Not a problem at all.  I named her Sadie.

You can see she is still rather tense, she hasn't quite settled in here.

Charlie cat doesn't much like her yet so he has taken refuge on Rocky.  Good boy, Rock!   It is nice to have two dogs on the walk again.  Sadie is sweet and I'm glad to have her a part of my family.  No owners have responded to my "Found dog" ads so she must have been abandoned.  She has a forever home here.

Be well. 

 

Latest beaded heart and Dooleybobber#9

 I finally made a beaded heart for myself.  What better charm than a Pit Bull smiling face?  A Laughing Dog, in other words!  Thanks to Martha for the silver charm.

I tried my hand at making a beaded bead.  It turned out all right but if I were to make this particular bead again I would choose different colors.  It is called a Caterpillar bead.  I found the instructions in The Art and Elegance of Beadweaving, a book by Carol Wilcox Wells.  Lots of diverse patterns in that book, from easy to difficult.  This was fairly easy if you are a patient person and can work tiny.

Here is Dooleybobber #9.  It is about 6"x6"  Like the others it is needle felted on top of white wool batting.  Hand embroidered, beaded, embellished.  I love the combination of that bright orange and hot pink.

This section shows some buttons I stitched down surrounding a bit of beaded fringe that comes out of a copper washer with a flower shaped bead on top.  I enjoy doing beaded fringe.
 
That little golden guy was a gift from April.  It's cute and seemed to fit right in to this piece.  The round gold piece in the center with the leaf shape on it is from a wine bottle foil.

Above is a paper clay thing I made using a rubber stamp, then I painted it and poked holes in it so I could stitch it down.

 

I love the way the beads flow through this section.

Above is a little zippered cloth grocery bag I made.  Looks like you could maybe carry a candy bar in it.

Surprise!  It opens up to be this size.

Inside it is lined and has this little pocket for receipts.  Closes with a zipper. I bought the pattern from Studio Cat Designs.  I will probably make a bunch more of these and other bags to give away.  And to keep.  I like to use them while shopping, it is a matter of remembering to bring them into the store with me.  This design folds up so nicely, it can fit into a large purse.

I've been entranced with music by The Tallest Man on Earth recently.  Great lyrics and interesting guitar tunings.  Acoustic folk music.  The link will take you to his Myspace page and you can listen to his songs there.  If you listen, let me know what you think.

Until next time, I hope you all are enjoying some fine autumn weather as I am.  Be well.

More Beaded Hearts

These are the rest of the beaded hearts I made for my friends.  Above is one for KarenL, she loves blue and cowboys.  The little charm that you might not be able to make out is a saddle.

This one is for April, she loves Teal but I chose these colors for her, I knew she would like them.  And she is always attracted to Dragonflies, also collects buttons.

Yes, this one is for Pinky, who is enamored of sea shells.  And Pink, of course.

For Joan I chose yellow, and I couldn't choose any charm better than a llama for our Llama Lady.

Last but not least is Mary's, she loves red and sun faces. I still need to make one for myself.

The sun is out, so I must get outside and enjoy it before the rain returns. I've got my mp3 player plugged in and now is playing Bruce Hornsby's version of Bob Dylan's Girl From the North Country.  One of my most favorite songs of all time.

Be well.

 

Beaded Hearts

Recently I have been making these beaded hearts. I didn't blog about them because they were gifts and I wanted to wait until the people had them before I showed them to the rest of the world. I put little charms on them that correspond with something special to the person I made them for. The first one went to my friend Martha who raises lots of birds including peacocks, so I chose a peacock charm for her. I think her favorite colors are green and purple so I chose those colors for her heart.

This one I have shown before. I sent it to Anja over in Germany. The face is representative of our friendship. She does a lot of bead work herself and likes most all colors but seems to especially like dark pink and turquoise.

This last one is gifted to Anne. She is especially fond of sacred heart images so I created this one for her, with the sacred heart charm in it.
They are all the same size, about 2" x 3", and they have pin backs on them. Now I want to make one for myself.  I have a little charm that reads GIRLFRIENDS on it, but I also have a necklace that Martha sent to me that has a sort of Pit Bull dog charm on it. I might use that. It is cute.

Listening to a mix on my mp3 player, last song was from Into the Woods, I love Stephen Sondheim.  Now there is some Leonard Cohen, "there is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in...."

I see I have picked up some new followers.  Welcome!  and thanks for joining me in this artful journey, I appreciate your support.  

Until next time, be well.