Another Versa loom project and poly faces

I'm having a good week again, very into doing more projects, when actually I need to be getting all my 'stuff' packed up for a bead retreat I'm going to this weekend. This is a yearly deal that I managed to get myself included in back in the late 90's. It's the most inspiring thing I do, beadwise, each year, and I always learn a lot. We should be doing some poly clay work this weekend and learning some other mixed media stuff as well as beading and SHOPPING!!
I can't wait! The bracelet was made on the versa loom in size 11 matte triangles, I used silamide as my thread and it has a lovely soft hand....

Love my Versa loom!

Having finished my September piece, I moved on to something I'd been wanting to do for a while, make a new bracelet pattern that I'll probably refine and sell on bead-patterns. It's a little day of the dead bracelet pattern, I haven't decided whether to mount it on a metal blank or make it a soft bracelet. I also played around with another polymer clay face that I made and mounted it on a little aluminum pill box, and have named it my moonface box. This one I'm selling on etsy.
All in all, a good week!

Success!

I spent most of the day working on the 'hair' of the central face on the womandala, and then I worked on the bracelet. Now all I have to do is mount last month's and this months bracelets (thanks to Betcey at Beyond Beadery, I have my bracelet blanks). I love how this one turned out.

More progress

I've changed my schedule from full-time (3 12 hour shifts) to part time (2 12 hour shifts) in the ER, because of burnout and exhaustion. (I realized that if I'm frugal, I should be able to make it OK on just part time work, now.) I've been working nights for 25 years and it's beginning to wear on me. Anyway, I've got another whole *day* to work on my projects and am having a blast! So I've managed to get probably 2/3 done with my September piece and have mounted the cab for the bracelet. The blue doesn't show up as well as I'd like, it's more of a dark cornflower, and the pink is a color I think of as Cheyenne pink-lovely Charlottes that I got at the Gathering of Nations Pow Wow last year. I'm planning to try and do some sort of 'hair' for my face cab, either branched type fringe or a twisted fringe...not sure yet. And I'm not sure it will work, but it'll be fun to try.

September progress

Wow, after the struggle of August, September is going much more smoothly. The bead embroidery part is well within my comfort zone, but the poly clay face is the first piece of poly that I've made that I think is really nice, and I'll make a face for my bracelet project, too. I can't wait to see what color progressions will come with the mandala. Right now I'm thinking reds and turqouises, but we'll see what happens.

August BJP and bracelet done!

Phew! Not too far from the end of August, and I'm done, except for mounting the bracelet, which has to wait until I get more one inch brass bracelet blanks. My journal page was very uncooperative at the beginning, resisting the idea I had for it and insisting on going it's own way. Things got better when I relaxed and gave in to the process. I had no idea why or where it was going until it was almost done when the words "my compartmentalized life" popped into my head from nowhere. It went a lot faster after that. Looking at it, I correlate the right hand corner with my dreaming life, the next section with my work life, the next one to my emotional life, the next one I see as my creative energy and focus and the last one as my somewhat meandering spiritual path. It was an effort, but I like the outcome.