Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Getting better

I can't believe it's been so long since I have been here.

Life had been so filled with ups and downs that I just don’t know where I am at right now. First tonsil surgery and it's many complications one that is still here where I cannot always pronounce all my words correctly and I'm starting to be self conscious about it. And now I have put a pinpoint on the headaches I am having. My creativity has been effected by the stuff happening medically and I'm trying to get out of this hole. Getting better has so many facets to it's definition.

I did get a really cool Japanese bead book and have visions of crystals dancing in my head because of that, so there is hope.

I hosted my first swap in many years and I feel it was very successful, so much so that I'm hosting another one! So I have 10 pair of earrings to make myself for the swap. I need to order kit beads when I get home, so I am looking forward to that. Beady things are looking up.I was a little down when I last wrote here but those things have been picking up there too. I patched up a few bad relationships in my life and feel richer for it.

I did design a cool new netted earring, so I have that to look forward too.

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Life is just too short:

To sweat the whiners


To placate the people who want their butts wiped for them


To miss enjoying the simple things


To allow the insignificant things to get me down


To baby the babies


To stress over a speck of dust


To stress over a hair out of place



Enjoy the simple things - a lingering look from the man you love - the smile of a child - the sun on your face - a slow, passionate kiss - holding hands - playing your favorite song one more time

Take the time because you never know what tomorrow will bring

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Vive la difference!

I think I have the total trigger to my hurt feelings.

It's when my unique qualities are not only not embraced but shunned. It's when the things I do uniquely at looked upon as the trash in the receptacle.

I have never been shy that I do some things in my beading in my own way. I try not to push my way on people. I might show them what I do, explain my I like it that way but I don't ever expect them to change their own ways.

And I am faced at this time with a dislike for the way I do things and I simply am not equipped to handle it. I embrace differences whenever I can in others.

Even when they are foreign to me, I embrace the fact, that while sharing the same love of beads, many of us have things we do to get to a similar end that is extremely different. I find it fascinating! I try to learn from it instead of digging my heels in.

I could sit with a beader who mixes all the beads in a pile on their pallet and have my neat triangle trays out and bead just fine. I couldn't trade places and bead just fine from her pallet and maybe she could not bead from mine. As long as neither of us forces the other to do that, we should be peachy. Not that I would generally even pay much attention to the way they set theirs up, but neither way is wrong, just different. I use wax to assist me in threading the needle some of the time, seldom coating the entire thread with wax, as I don't care for the feel of the thread coated. I am a tactile beader - it's all about the feel for me. Another beader can coat their thread with wax and be just thrilled with the feel of the thread. We wouldn't want to trade places but we could sit and bead just fine with our own preferred wax usage. I have needle and thread preferences. So? I feel like I'm under a microscope and I don't understand why it is like that now.

I think what has me upset is the feeling that what I do that is different is looked upon as wrong. It might be wrong for one person but it's a bunch of right with me. It brings me back to when I created my first beaded ornament and the beading mentor I had at the time looked at it as I showed it off to her with glee and curled her lip and said, "where did you get THAT?" with as much detest in her voice as she could muster. I didn't create another new ornament for over 6 months. I let her have the power.

Not much has changed for me now, 10 years later. I should not be seeking approval at this point in my craft but I still do it. It's the approval I never felt I got from my mother. I seek it elsewhere because I never felt that anything I did was good enough for her and there are times when I STILL feel that way. It was a B could have been an A. It was the perception I had and not even always the reality. I don't like being treated like I am different. I do and don't want to be "normal", whatever that is. I guess I don't mind being different but I don't want the differences to be the focus of things. I like them to be part of the bigger picture. Like I bead this way and it's the end result that is the focus of things. The biggest difference this time is that I am not letting it stop me from creating. I have grown a little.

Friday, March 24, 2006

Beads are flowing in my thoughts these days!




Beads are just flowing for me!!!

I have not been this prolific in my beading since I first started. It's like I had my beading excitement re-charged. I have so many designed in my head right now, that I can't bead fast enough to get them done!

I beaded for hours in the last few weeks and all the feedback I have gotten has been very positive. It's very nice to be able to spend my time with things that I really love doing.

I also love to have beady people around to share things with. It's as much fun seeing what they are doing as it is making the things I design. I'm headed to Nebraska for a beady trip and I can't wait for the beady inspirations I will have while I am there.

Getting away refreshes me and renews my energy for beading. This burst of creating new things is so much fun for me right now. It really started with my trip last year but changes in things at home have helped that bud that was started a year ago become a huge blossom. I have more ideas right now than I have time to bead them up and I have lots of beading time right now. I am working in colors that are out of my comfort zone these days too.

Back to the beads now!

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Creativity




Creativity...

***I dedicate this to all the people who care about me and really do mean well...

I know how it happens for me, but almost every time I talk to most people about it, I end up feeling like a freak.

Ok, maybe I am a freak. I mean my beading comes from a place inside me that even I don't completely understand. I have had beads in my life as long as I can remember. My Nana had them and passed on her addiction to me.

I dream many of my designs. I guess that makes me weird. I tell people and then that makes me feel stupid... it's like I'm trying to share my soul and instead when I'm done, I feel like a freak.

Ya see it's like this...

I have the dream. It is generally pretty vivid when I wake up. IF I remember it, I remember it very clearly. I then attempt to make what I dreamed come to life, usually after making a little sketch in a book. So it comes from inside me. Then I talk to people, and many of them try to steer me in directions that just aren't in me. My beading is very much a part of who I am. In the colors - the choice of beads - the pieces I make and the pieces I wear are a direct reflection on me. I have never liked making things I didn't find appealing... One friend occasionally doesn't understand this and suggests things that will bring in money for me. But it's not about the money. Another friend tries to steer me in other directions in my work when I make affirmative statements about how the design is going to be done. It's when didn't ASK for them, and yet the offers for ideas come. Still another tries to get me to work in colors I don't care for. My mother seldom understands what I make or why I make the choices I make when I create. What none of them seems to realize is that it's all done in my head and until it gets completed - that piece won't leave my head. It's my design after all. I guess I would not be a good team player in a design group of any kind. I get tunnel vision. I have a goal in my head and I move forward toward it.

I do have people that help the beading flow. Sometimes they are the very same people I just mentioned. All are well meaning. All are great friends of mine and all only mean to give me ideas that I can build on. But it's inside me. Nothing anyone says will really affect the end result IF I'm clear in my head what I plan to make. These are the same people I can talk to when I'm stuck with a design. They can be the ones who help me get something to work that isn't. So maybe that is the confusion - they have become accustomed to me talking about things and needing input, so that when I don't want any - I am not clear in my communications... But then I had a situation where I was sent blown glass bubbles - and told that I should make hot air balloons from them and it was almost instant - the right inspiration at the right time, and I had it done in less than 24 hours. It has a lot to do with the timing too... See - typing out my feelings here isn't such a bad thing. Maybe I need to be more vocal that I have an idea in my head and I'm meaning to get it out exactly as I have envisioned... maybe that is it.

It comes out sounding very Zen and maybe it is... I mean I bead what I feel. I can't produce beading like an assembly line. I can make pieces in colors I don't like but I have to like the design first.

When I first started beading, I had a "wanna be just like you" roommate who started beading too. She was pretty good at the mechanics of it but she didn't really do much designing. She had a customer who wanted her to make a pair of earrings that by her own description, she HATED. So she spent 4 or more hours working on a pair of earrings that even she disliked when done. She then put them on a card with her name on it and sold them. When we talked about it, I told her that I would not have taken the order. Even back then, I had a feeling for beading like I never had for any other "craft" I had ever tried. I wouldn't spend my time making things just because someone was willing to pay me for them. I told her I would feel like I was prostituting myself if I made things just because there was money involved. She claimed I called her a whore. I tried to get her to look up the definition of prostitute... but she wouldn't.

The definition according to dictionary.com is:

pros ti tute n.
1. One who solicits and accepts payment for sex acts.
2. One who sells one's abilities, talent, or name for an unworthy purpose

I referred to the 2nd one for me. I didn't say she was to feel that way - I made a statement of how I would feel in the same situation. I simply would not have taken the order.

It's never been about the money. I'm not independently wealthy or anything but I simply can't get motivated to bead something I don't like. It becomes a chore when I make a piece I don't like. It's art for me. I'm not claiming to be an ahhhhhtist or anything. It's just an expression of me and I want things that reflect on me to be things that I like. It's a skill I feel comfortable with. I live beads! Right now I'm in a very fluid, flowing state of mind right. I'm trying to keep that going and get the things in my head beaded while I still am in the mood to do it. I could wake up tomorrow and be in a total beader's block. I have had it happen before. Beading great for a long time and wake up in the morning and I just can't get a bead to lay right or I make more mistakes than are worth bothering with - my thread is getting chewed up from frogging so much. So I move on to something else or even worse! Nothing else!

I guess what is happening is that things are flowing so well right now, that I don't want any suggestions to make it stop! I wake up and can't wait to bead right now. It's pretty amazing actually. I am in a zone and I want to do as much as I can to keep it going!

I feel that if I put my name on a piece whether it be a kit or a pattern or a finished piece, it's got to be something I find appealing in some way. It's that simple. I will not put a product out with my name on it that I don't like. And no matter how many well meaning people try to get me to do otherwise, I don't think that will ever change. It's about creativity for me. It's my ability to create and right now, I do that with beads. It's from inside me and it won't be changed for the all mighty dollar. It's the definition for create that is: To produce through artistic or imaginative effort. It's my effort and it has to be what I like. When it becomes a chore, I will quit beading.

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Wow....

I just had a wow moment... in an otherwise uneventful day.

sort of surfing around today - cleaning out my Kim Kommando newsletters in my INBOX

I got a site of the day for http://www.caedes.net/

Cool wallpaper site. First on I put was fireworks.... I guess I should explain the way I like wallapaper. Generally something cool in the middle and lots of darkness framing the outside edges. I keep the middle clean and all the shortcuts are all around the center. I'm wierd. I know it - no biggie.

So I put fireworks up - I love fireworks but this particular picture is veyr much on the red side - the warm colors. So I look at it but am not thrilled, like I should have been. I keep looking and then I see a rosette nebula... blues and purples.... veyr appealing. I get it and the second I put it on the desktop I crack an automatic smile.

It's all about the comfort zone in life isn't it?

What makes you comfy, makes you happy.

ahhhhhhhhhhhh :-D

and I guess that's a wow for me right now.

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Super Bowl Sunday

spent watching chick flick with SO, no football at all... Since I don't like sports, it's pretty important that he not be very into them either. Life is good sometimes!

I have several beady projects to work on when he goes to keep from thinking about him not being here.

Lots of beady things in my future.

Happy Super Bowl Sunday to all who don't play second fiiddle to sports.

Monday, January 30, 2006

Rejuvinated!!!!

New Year Rejuvenation!

It's a brand new year and I feel absolutely rejuvenated!

I have DSL and I feel like I am finally re-connected to the beading community like I was until about 2 ½ years ago. Trip I had planned to take got canceled and I decided to make it my time for revitalizing my beading! I have designing running through my head and I have started to bead them up. I designed a new ladybug earring and it came out really cute on the 2nd try! I have a love for netting and the Olaf books have a certain style all their own when it comes to netting in flat circles. There is nothing like it and I have come up with more designs in that style lately than anything else.

I can now get away into a fairly distraction free environment that fits my comfort zone and design to my hearts content, read e-mail and chat with my beady friends all at the same time! It is just a comfort level for me. I have almost always beaded that way. I thought it was a little ADD but someone else suggested it is just multi tasking. I can't seem to get into that groove of beading/designing without a bunch of things happening at once. I do them all and I bead.


I had some issues with a couple of my friends and they are ironing themselves out a little at a time. It's hard to tell someone how much you miss their friendship when you never have the opportunity to talk to them anymore. Then when you do - you don't miss it, so it doesn't come up that you just have a real yearning for that friendship. I have many friends on the Internet but there are a few especially close friends that I feel I am missing something if I have not had contact with them. With one person, it got to the point that I had to ask others if she was ok because I just had no way to find out any other way!

The pieces of my life are starting to fall back into place and I'm thrilled! It's going to bead a very beady year!