Sunday Funday: Week 3

Week of October 26 - November 2, Happy Halloween and Dia de los Muertos!

I did strangely little beading this week...but still have a lot to share!  How does that happen?  Well the digital bead world is very busy at the beginning and end of each month.  I've got 3 blog challenges to catch you up on, but first I wanna reveal my 500 likes Giveaway winner!

Huge congratulations to Lisa Walton, of England, for being the random winner of the giveaway!  Lisa chose Flower, and I'll be headed to the post office with her in the morning to fill out that pesky customs form!  I am pretty sure this is my first piece that will have a home in the UK, and only my second piece to live outside the States.  How cool is that!  I hope you love her as much as I do, Lisa!

Bop on over to the Art Bead Scene blog and Pinterest board to see all the lovely entries for the month!  You can see more of my entry in this post!  I can't wait until Tuesday when they announce the new piece of inspiration art for November - I'm really looking forward to playing again this month.

And then there's the Art Jewelry elements Component of the Month challenge!  Check out my post from yesterday to read about mine, and don't forget to click on the links for everyone else's blogs too!  They all made fantastic pieces, and the best thing is being able to see what a bunch of different artists do with the same (well, similar) focal component.

Remember this post?  Well, the reveal for the Operation: Tackle That Bead Stash blog October Jet Black challenge was yesterday too.  I was super impressed with the amount of entries that they received!  And so many of them are seed beaders too!  The theme for November was just announced, and it's Winter.  I've already got the perfect pendant pulled out, so stay tuned!

This week I only made a couple of things.  I think household chores, and thinking about all the Christmas ornaments and gifts I need to start was stressing me out...along with an EPIC beadsplosion on my work table.

One of the things I did complete was this little pendant, as a surprise gift for Sue Kennedy of SueBeads.  We recently did a swap, and while I was working on my half of it (it's a gift for someone so you'll just have to guess what it was), beads arrived from her in the mail!  I was so inspired by them that I immediately took this tiny disk bead and added it to one of my encrusted polymer clay faces.  I embellished her, and strung her on a sari silk ribbon, so she was ready for Sue to wear.  I love that she looks like she's wearing a little fascinator head-thingie!

I also received a swap package from Jen Cameron of Glass Addictions!  She asked that I make her a necklace using this key that she's made a lampwork bead on, and this is what I came up with.  The necklace is 30" long, so I was able to use leather in the back, and beadwork on the sides...I'm hoping that this will make it a bit more wearable for Jen (who doesn't wear much jewelry in her everyday life).

Here you can see the beadwork around the key up close.  Each of the little charms is different, and they add a lot of movement to what would otherwise be a very static piece.

Here's Jen's work up close!  I purposely chose a palette closer to the key so that the bead would really stand out, and went with dark purple accents to bring out the purpley-blue colors in the bead bumps.

You thought I wasn't going to give you a beauty shot, right?  I didn't forget!

The rest of my creativity was used up this week on the great Christmas ornament fiasco.  When I was packing to move I discovered a bag of halfway made ornaments from 4 years ago.  I have a tendency to make things like this in an assembly line fashion, so when I was making these back then I only finished as many as I needed.

I think you can see the direction I was headed.  They're little flat stuffed animals, with felt fronts and leather backed.  Then I do some accent bead embroidery to define eyes, noses, mouths, and other fun things.  I had 3 that were already beaded, and drug out all the beads to finish these...I was fully intending on spending the next week or two working on these non-stop!  But I was just hating every second of it...

So I came up with a new idea, bagged all these back up and put all the beads away!  I feel so much better now, and worked some yesterday on my new ornaments...I think they're going to be super cool!

Here's a sneak peek of the direction they're going - these are the paper pattens!  I've gotta run out to the storage unit later to get some more supplies for them, but I should be able to continue working on them tomorrow.  All the fun parts are left!  As long as everything works like it does in my head...

I wanted to share one more thing this week, completely un-bead related.  I made oatmeal for lunch yesterday.  So what, you say?  Well, I made it in my rice cooker, and it was the most AMAZING oatmeal ever!

If you have any type of rice cooker, and all you cook in it is rice, I HIGHLY recommend this book - trust me, no one is paying me to say that.  Our rice cooker gets more use than our microwave - there is really no end to the delicious sides and meals you can cook besides plain rice.  That includes grains like oats - old-fashioned rolled, and even steel-cut!  Yesterday I used their basic ratios for a large batch of oatmeal, and added a couple cinnamon sticks and a handful of raisins.  When the cooker finished (mine plays music when it's done...bonus), I got a bowl full, added a bit more almond milk, and drizzled maple syrup on top.  Seriously, rice cooker oatmeal is unbeatable!  It gets so much softer and creamier, the raisins are delectably plump.  It's almost like a pudding, and it's so good!  If you like steel-cut oats, this the ONLY way you should cook them.  And in case you're wondering now that I've mentioned pudding...yes you can make rice pudding and other types in the rice cooker.

Thanks for catching up with me this week!  I know I promised Etsy listings...well, they didn't happen, oh well!  I'll aim for this week with those!  Don't forget, you can always keep up with my daily beading exploits on my Facebook page, and shop on Etsy!  As always, thanks for looking!