Beads: Wonderful Beads

While on vacation , I had a chance to stop in at the " No Name Cafe" in Port St. Joe FL. What a great little shop this is, cafe, coffee, books and crafts what more could a girl want. Anyway, I came home with the most amazing assortment of beads, clearanced priced at that. Some are stone, some handmade, some are glass and others are wood, I love them all.
Beads are used in my clutches all the time but usually they are a generic type, nothing too special unless I am feeling whimiscal, or doing a special project like the White Wedding clutch which I incorperated AB glass and swavarski crystal in it. But these new little gems are wonderfully great.
My favorite is a little Garnet stone bead semi-circlish in shape with ragged edges.

I'm back, started this post a couple of days ago, got side tracked , but  where was I?
Oh yeah , the little red garnet stone beads, too cute and such a great color of red. while going through them again this morning I found a similar one in dark blue, not sure on the stone of this one, there is also jade, some green  agates and other assorted glass types.





the assortment

my favorite one : garnet



shell slices I plan on using for closures on my clutches



Red Lily Clutch

Made a new clutch purse today. Its called the Red Lily Clutch for obvious reasons.

Used a technique I developed through a happy mistake at creating  my own felt, that I call dreadlocks, because it poofs up when sewn around, after hand needle felting.

-TNfrmgrl

Yellow Clutch : Solar

I finished the yellow clutch yesterday. Its name is Solar. After completing a thought hit me, don't you just love it when you could have made a great change but it doesn't hit you until AFTER you completed your project. My thought, I should have used Solar thread so it would change colors if the sun hits on it.

Or how about glow in the dark. Seriously, why don't these thoughts come to me when I'm in the creating mode. Oh, well. Its in my head now so I'll have to try it out and see what becomes of it. Might make some pretty cool thread paintings using solar or glow in the dark thread.

this is the back, note organza eye, top center, the waves or solar flares were created with silk or organdy ribbon, then wave stitched over top.

flap has opaque yellow multi-colored glass beads on the edges

here are a couple pictures of the yellow clutch ( newly listed on my Etsy site).

inside lining is a printed brown  cotton floral

a little sunny sparkle was added using Angelina fibers in Pearl.

I did a couple of large yellow organza eyes, stuffed wool Neb's then stitched just around the edges, kind of poofed it out a little. Its all about texture.

Power of the Purse 5/3/2012 pictures

As many of you know I donated a clutch for the Greater Duluth United way Power of the Purse Auction on May 3rd of this year. Today I received pictures from this event.
My clutch actually sold for less then I had it marked for, but every donation helped as they raised 22,000 dollars for this literary event. I would love to hear from the individual who won it, for feed back, where they are from, etc.


Anyway, here are some pictures from this event.

To see more pictures from this event go to www.unitedwayduluth.org/Events/PowerofthePurse.aspx

As for new projects i have been working on a yellow clutch. I said several topics ago I wanted to make one in shades of yellow.,well I finally got around to it.

Its coming along. I tried a new trick , instead of using felt for my background I am using a med weight quilt batting. Surprisingly, this is a little harder to needle felt on. I suppose the thickness has something to do with it. A peer recently told me about how she felts on it, and has no trouble. Maybe it is the pile/ thickness, I used baby quilt weight, Warm and Natural brand as this is what I had on hand.

I don't know.. I tried it, not a huge fan, I will probably go back to using felt for my base.

 What do you think? (see pictures below)

this is the back of batting, it should show more coming through.

mm, not sure it is worth doing this way.

Onward, I up cycled/ recylcyed  this purse for a challenge in Haute Handbags, but the deadline came and went before I had a chance to submit it.

Last but not least not sure if I showed this one off to you or not. Soon be new on my Etsy site. Not named as of yet.

until we  speak again.-TNFRMGRL

Adventures of a wild feline

We have this cat on our farm, she is a feral calico with we have named Callie.(should have been ghost as she is that shy) We had thought she was looking unusually plump lately, and I guess we were right because she had kittens. Of coarse we really didn't know this until my mother in law and myself were pulling weeds in the water garden near the barn, when we stopped cause i saw something moving  against the wall of the barn and rocks. I first thought oh look its a baby opossum, but as I got closer and called mom over she reached in(very daring, I think) and pulled out the sweetest smoke grey kitten with piercing blue eyes.  As we watched over the course of the next hour or so we noticed there was more than one. Six to be exact. Three, white and orange, one tabby, Possum, one dark grey.
So you might be asking where does the adventure come in, well , we really didn't want to raise kittens in our barn, so we were more than happy to let Callie-cat move them if she wanted too, if not , it was okay for them to stay in the barn. note; (our neighbor was wanting one or two once they were weaned.)
anyway, I guess we were being too friendly with her babies, domesticating them and all,because a week later, she up and starting moving them down the road. Our neighbor saw her and the kittens, and rushed out to capture them, momma cat included. Did I mention these are feral cats. Well the babies were captured easily, but now for Callie-cat.  The babies were moved back to our barn and put in a large animal cage. one was put in a live trap with food and water to try and catch the mom. She was quiet elusive for several hours, but stayed hidden under the tack room, watching her babies from afar. Finally, i guess the mewing and maybe the smells from the can food became too much and she went into the live trap.
Now to get her out and with her babies. HK and our neighbor, cautiously went into the barn, and move the cages together in a haphazardly fashion, open slowly... and before we knew it Callie-cat (momma cat) was in with her babies in a flash.
So now we have kitten... we think they are about three weeks old maybe four.Callie-cat hisses when we come in but isn't too threatened as she is being fed and is in warm place with her babies.
If our neighbor would volunteer to take them would be wonderful. ( as she and her sister are the ones who want them... they are cute. But I am allergic, and one dog is plenty for me.
Did I mention they are too cute. See for yourself.

 Before capture.

Callie -cat peeking out at me from under the tack room.

 Possum kitten, the name stuck, this one has been potentially adopted.

After capture... one mass ball of CAT/KITTENS!

 This was a visitor to my garden he jumped out at me and sat me flat on my backside. Scared the tar out of me. I guess I uncovered him, better him then a snake.