Lacey's Wedding

Emma was in her cousin Lacey's wedding this weekend. She got to be a flower girl along with her two cousins. Photos started at 10:00 am and the wedding wasn't until 3:00, so it was a long day for a kid! Fortunately some of the photos were in this beautiful park full of wandering trails, streams, and hills. Lots of bugs and sticky hot, but I think the girls had a blast running around in the weeds in their white tulle, which acted like butterfly netting--you should have seen the amount of tiny grasshoppers we had to shake out of their dresses before we got to the church!


Lacey was just an absolutely stunning bride. She wore a white beaded lace strapless gown with a simple veil tucked into her up-do. She made her pearl earrings to match her great-grandmother's 3-strand pearl necklace. Her veil was rimmed with Crystal AB flat-back crystals--they added just enough glint to make the simple veil special.


Of course the girls found no limit to the multi-uses of their dresses. Here they happened upon air vents in the church so they could turn themselves into marshmallows...


I was so excited that we were all scrubbed and polished all at the same time and it was such a beautiful night and setting that I demanded the perfunctory Christmas photo. We clean up pretty well, eh?


I'll have to admit, both Joe and I were struck at our feelings about becoming part of the sea of "old folks" at these events now. He looked at the photo above and said "Wow, I'm really middle-age guy now, aren't I?" Weddings, I suppose, are ripe for posing such a stark contrast, what with the new love vs old love inherent in the scene. These situations remind me of my "fading rose" status. You know, where you just want to tell Mr. DeMille that you're not ready for your close-up yet? But I suppose even fading roses are the best part of potpourri... I think I'll put out a bunch of it in my office as a reminder!

Beadblogger's Sunday

I've been honored to join the Beadbloggers, a group of wonderful people who love shiny bright objects as much as I do. Here are the highlights of what's been on their minds this week:

A Bead A Day
Lisa shares her selection of summery pink beads and crystals. The "Watermelon Crawl" bead mix is sure to conjure up visions of a family picnic on a warm summer day!

About.com Jewelry Making
Take these quick polls about wearing and making jewelry. Which are your favorite pieces?

Art Bead Scene
The Trendy Bead shows off wood filigree pendants.

Barbe Saint John
Read Barbe's interview on the Objects and Elements blog

Beading Arts
Cyndi's initial thoughts on working with the new CopprClay. There'll be lots of projects coming this summer!

Carmi's Art/Life World
Carmi hand felts a pretty bead from wool roving.

Cindy Gimbrone aka The Lampwork Diva
A trip to glass city doesn't go as well as planned. Yet Cindy finds inspiration and few new tools!

Earthenwood Studio Chronicles
Melanie mixes up gunmetal chains and components with brass to make a necklace with one of her Toolbox Treasure pendants

Humblebeads
Heather sketches out some new designs using this summer's hottest color.

Lorelei's Blog: Inside the Studio
Searching for some new inspiration? Lorelei's got just the place for you to find it!

Snap out of it, Jean! There's beading to be done!
Jean reviews Wirework, a new book by the famous Dale "Cougar" Armstrong

Strands of Beads
Melissa shows off her new lunar phases and compass rose designs

The Writing and Art of Andrew Thornton
Andrew introduces eight new fine pewter pieces from his family's company, Green Girl Studios.

Eureka!

Backstory: I've been doing my best to come up with a fantabulous design to teach at Beading by the Bay, a March 2010 retreat in San Francisco with Marcia Decoster and Maggie Meister. When I was invited to teach at this event I think I wet my pants a little. I love these two women, for one thing, and am overjoyed at the idea of hanging out with them for more than 5 minutes, which is usually the case at shows and whatnot. But they are also two major heavy-hitting teachers/designers, so I knew the pressure would be on to come up with something not only great-looking, but interesting to make. I think the pressure has caused some shrinkage in my right brain because try as I might, I've come up with squat.


Okay, so here's the front story... Emma had a 3-game fastpitch softball tournament on Sunday morning. It was 5 hours of sitting in the stands, cheering "Good eye!" and "Get a piece of it!"... I tell you, there's just nothing like salty popcorn on a Sunday morning to tide you over until Father's Day brunch.

I knew I'd have lots of waiting-around time at this softball tournament, so I found a picnic table near the fields and planted myself with my beads (yes, lots of stares from parents, and one dad who commented "Boy, you must like to stay busy!" Oh, boy, Buster, you don't know the half of it...). I think all the fresh air helped, because Eureka! I was able to come up with this really fun sculptural petal shape during Game #1 that I think I'll be able to use for my Beading by the Bay design.



So now to build the rest of this design. It's a 1-day class, so it needs to be fairly involved... Any ideas? Bracelet? Necklace? Colors?

My Monday After-Lunch Phone Call

RINGGGG....RINGGGG....RINGGGG

Hello?

Hi Jean. We have room for you to teach a class.

Oh, great! Which class would you like?

Well, we like the necklace on page XX of your XX book.

Uh, yeah, that's a great-looking necklace, but it's not my project. You could call the artist to ask her to teach, though.

Do you have anything similar?

Are you just looking for beginner wirework items?

Yes, that's about it.

Um... uh... yeah. Let me get back to you in the morning.



AND A FIVE, SIX, SEVEN, EIGHT!

Circles.... walk in circles... raised heart rate, sweat forming on upper lip.... think-think-think.... dig, throw, arrange, toss.... move, compare, select.... ERRREEEEEE.... hammer-hammer-hammer.... coil-coil-coil... $#!&!!... blood... band-aids... deep breaths.... twist and shape.... ahh, yes.... link-link-link... smile... AND exhale!

HipHopping

We've been looking for a dance studio for Emma to take classes out here in the 'burbs, but unfortunately a lot of these places are pretty funky. The fierce competitions, heavy makeup, weird costumes, and pole-dancer moves aren't quite what my little artist girl can handle. And thank goodness for that.

Anyway, I checked out Zenon Dance Company in Minneapolis and found an intergenerational hip-hop class that both Emma and I attended yesterday. I was:
1) easily the oldest one in the class;
2) sweating like a pig;
3) really dorky;
4) quite embarrassing to my 11-year-old;
5) having the time of my life!

Not many of you know that years ago I was trained in classical Russian ballet and performed in a local company...you know, Giselle and Sleeping Beauty and Scheherazade and all that. But about 25 years ago my body gave way and I had to have reconstructive surgery on my feet, which put an end to that career path. (Not a terrible thing since I'm over 6 feet tall en pointe!) It was really depressing to quit dance cold turkey after being consumed by it for so many years. I really love to dance and have always wanted to find some kind of replacement...

Anyway, this class was so wonderful! The studio is just like it should be--in an old downtown building with big windows; funky garage-sale furniture to wait on; and lots of interesting-looking people of all walks of life coming and going. Our teacher, Arturo Miles, was buoyant and supportive and completely, well...jubilant about hip hop. His liveliness was contagious and it helped me forget about how terribly out of shape I am and that I'm getting a bit too old to do complicated step combinations. But you know what? I was there and that's what matters.

Being there. Trying. Showing up. Giving it a shot. I figure that at any age, that's what matters.

Road Trip Report

Annie Singer and I hit the road on Friday morning, solved half of the world's problems (carefully saving the rest for the drive home), and before we knew it we were in Milwaukee for the Bead&Button Show.

I didn't really have a good reason to go to the show this year other than to have fun, so I approached the fun-having like it was my job. I love going to big shows like this...how often do we get to be with so many creative, enthusiastic, innovative people in one room? It was truly wonderful. I became so absorbed in shopping and chatting people up that I didn't pull my camera out much. Here are the few I took, plus some of the products I picked up along the way:



Went to a great party thrown by Tierra Cast on Friday night and picked up these cute charms from their new Tattoo and Spirit lines. Julie Young is actually the reason I ended up going to Milwaukee this year--see what she wrote on her invite? It refers to the fact that I tried to teach her peyote stitch several years ago and it just didn't work out. It cracked me up so much I felt I really needed to head east to see buddies like Julie.



Check out this chainmail jacket by Vanessa Walilko at Blue Buddha Boutique! She says she's working on a kimono next. Amazing.



I love seeing friends like Joanne Baumann and Judith Schwab Bodacious Beads) at shows like this. (Please note the matching necklaces...)



I've been looking everywhere for a quick-dry resin and found Magic-Glos at Lisa Pavelka's booth. Her samples looked great! Lots of people were using it at the Tierra Cast party to make resin earrings, and they were dry in about 10 minutes--couldn't believe it! Makes me realize I can do my Chat Noir bracelet as a class really easily now. Just need to get a UV light next...



Here's my buddy Jamie Hogsett at the SoftFlex booth. She's doing some great designing for SoftFlex...I sure miss this girl!



Stopped by the Miyuki booth to say hello to the ever-cool Kenji Katsuoka. He was showing off a couple things that pricked up my ears. Miyuki's doing what they're calling "long magatamas". They add a really nice embellishment when stitched into beadwork--not as pointy as daggers or as bubbly as drops. A nice in-between. You can currently get them at Caravan Beads.



They've also developed a fantastic faceted metal bead line in 2.5, 3, 4, and 5mm sizes. They aren't available in the U.S. yet, but I'll keep bugging him to make it happen!



Speaking of cool guys, I spent quite a while chatting up Thomas Mann and bought his book. He's doing some wonderful things with kitting basic metalworking how-tos. Very smart, very inspirational. Wish I would have known him before so I could have put his work in Steampunk Style Jewelry. Oh, well...next book, right? I'm sure we'll stay in touch.



I spent a lot of time chatting with the ever-fabulous and close to my heart Dustin Wedekind at the Beyond Beadery booth. Here he's pictured with Star Alvi--don't they look fantastic?



The Beyond Beadery booth is always hopping. I stood in line for quite a while to buy this lovely assortment of permanent galvanized seed beads, but I didn't mind--it's fun to look at what everyone else is buying and eavesdrop on conversations (okay, I'm not the ONLY one guilty of that!).



The fantastic Betcey Ventrella of Beyond Beadery with her gorgeous daughter to the left and the wonderful Laurie Marcum on the right.



Andrew Thornton of Green Girl Studios has become a lighthouse for me at these shows because I always seek him out. He is truly a gem.



I yakked with Cynthia Thornton, the artist behind Green Girl Studios, until she had to shoo me away. I really like her--she's so talented and down-to-earth. Check out her new book, Enchanted Adornments.



Ah, my buddy Melanie Brooks of Earthenwood Studio. She's another fountain of creativity, always coming up with new designs and ways to incorporate them. She's got a great new colorful line called "Toolbox Treasures"--do yourself a favor and check it out!



Finally, Annie and I spent the night at my friend Margaret's just north of the city. I think the last time I stayed at Margaret's house we were Flash-Dancing in her parents' basement in Edina...1983, maybe? This visit included no leg warmers or torn sweatshirts, but there was at least one pretty serious Stevie Nicks imitation. Margaret is a dear and I feel so happy to have reconnected.

Did you go to the show? What did you think? See anything great I missed?

New Gig at Beadazzles!

Just spoke with Alice at Beadazzles in Sandy Springs, Georgia...I get to teach there in January! Woohoo! Beadazzles' reputation as a fabulous bead shop outside of Atlanta precedes it... Many of my teacher friends rave about this shop. Can't wait to go! They host several national teachers a year--looks like they've got Laura McCabe scheduled for August and Sherry Serafini for next April...makes me feel like I'm playing in the big leagues now, scheduled between those two!

I'll be teaching one 1-day and one 2-day classes. I used to teach Star of India as a 2-day workshop, but beaders have become so skilled now that it's easily a one-day for advanced beaders... So I intend to clear off the worktable and come up with a new, fabulous design. Any ideas? Requests? What do you think...seed beads and crystals? sculptural peyote stitch? A necklace, maybe? Possibly nature-inspired? Or I could go the other way completely and do a Steampunk-inspired metalworked thing with found objects and stamping and drilling and hammering on the first day, with some stitchery that pulls it all together the second day... If you were taking the class (or intend to), what would you like? Let me know!

Fossil hunt

I went on a field trip with Emma's 5th grade to the Lilydale Brickyards on Friday. It was the same field trip that I took in 5th grade--probably one of the highlights of my educational career.


The Brickyards aren't functioning brickyards anymore--it's a state park near the Mississippi that contains huge fossil beds. It's amazing how many fossils are in this park...like walking on a beach full of shells, they are just everywhere and it doesn't take much to dig in a little clay and find a trilobite or coral or shell.


I was chaperone to 5 kids--we named ourselves "Team Sponge". It was a miracle no one wandered off and fell into the river because this park is truly a maze of paths, bushes, and cliffs. Thankfully I could whoop "TEAM SPONGE, FALL IN!" and the kids would immediate gather around. (I don't think we were as responsive in 5th grade on a field trip?) Anyway, the thrill the kids got from finding these ancient rocks brought it all back for me. I hope they hold the memory of the day as I have.

Emma and her teacher, Karen Swanson