Tim Holtz!!!!

http://timholtz.typepad.com/my_weblog/

Hi everyone!!! I'm down to the wire on school! It's exam and final essay time! I really want to bead and look at what's tempting me to the art room!
Tim Holz and his twelve tags of christmas!
Go! Look! Be Inspired!
I'll be back soon to show you some beading, unless you want me to cut and paste my essays into my blog!
See you soon!
cheers, Denise

The Carleton Community Art Show


Featuring artwork made exclusively by Carleton
students, sta¬, and faculty

Everyone is welcome and admission is free!
Free parking is available in Lot 6 on weekends

Opening reception:
Friday, 7 November, 12 - 1 pm
Dr. Roseann O'Reilly Runte, Carleton's President, will open the
exhibition at 12:20.


Party:
Friday, 7 November, 5 - 7 pm
Local artist collective Mix Media – DJ Memetic, Mr. Peers and Maki


– will fill the gallery with live music, video-mixing and painting.
Hours:
Friday, 7 November: 10 am - 7 pm
Saturday, 8 November: 10 am - 5 pm
Sunday, 9 November: 10 am - 5 pm
Monday, 10 November: 10 am - 5 pm


Carleton University Art Gallery

St. Patrick’s Building, Carleton University


I did it! I entered 4 pieces into this gallery. Of course, there is a fancy logo but I can't seem to figure out how to load a pdf file on this, so I'm going to leave it for now. It will be really neat to see my pieces shown off in a gallery! It was a spontaneous thing but good I think.
Alas, I'm going to miss the party because I have an exam on Friday night. Oh well. Drew and the kids and I will go on Sunday.
Too Cool!
Cheers, Denise

Blog Hoppin'!!!

Homework. Schoolwork. All the time.
Well okay, I still make dinner, still shop for groceries, still drink a glass of red wine in the evenings, but really, I am reading, writing and thinking. A lot.
That's all good! I love being in school full time actually and I love making the connections between one class and the other. Because I've been doing an interdisciplinary program, I find that there are connections in different fields and I enjoy that. And I enjoy learning. What am I studying this term you ask?
Oceanography, Sociology of Popular Culture, Children in Conflict and Research and Writing in an Academic Setting.
Can you guess which one I like the most? Go ahead, guess!!!

Blog Hopping!
I love to blog hop! I start at one of my bookmarked blogs, pick one from their list, go there, poke around, pick one from their list etc. and so it goes. This is a neat way to get new blogs on your favourites and be introduced to new artist, creators etc along the way.

So instead of the non-existent beading - (it'll keep I know) I thought I would show you where I pass the time when I'm browsing the internet. That way, at least you can live a little through their blogs! You can go Blog Hoppin'!!!
Cheers, Denise
Tim Holtz
This man is so creative and upbeat! He always makes me smile!

creativity prompt
I just tripped over this one, but it looks interesting doesn't it?

threads of love
There is Christmas on this blog!!1

fibermania
I never get tired of going to visit Melody!

The Lone Beader
This wonderful beader shows us all the steps.

The Procrastination Meme

I should be working on an assignment, but I'm doing this meme instead!

Okay...so 7 unknown facts about me...then tag 7 friend/bloggers I'd like to know more about and link to them all....that's a toughie since I've seen this meme all over and most of my tagees have already been tagged by others!
But here goes....

I have been watching General Hospital for about 30 odd years. I even remember Luke and Laura's wedding!

I am allergic to water. I break out into hives when I shower, go swimming, or sweat too much. It actually means that I am indeed allergic to hard work!

I sleep better when there is a stash of chocolate in the house. I can go weeks without eating it but when I want it, it better be there!

I actually want to do my Masters. I know, I can hear you - crazzzzy!!!!

While almost everyone who knows me knows I don't like pink, I actually don't mind dusty rose, or ummm, well dusty rose.

I graduated high school and college and never went to the graduation ceremonies.

I snoop in my husbands wallet, his in-mail box, his stuff. He knows too. We've been married for 20 years and he really doesn't have anything to hide!

Now I'm supposed to tag a bunch of people.




Kelly
Susan
Mary
Emmy
Amy
Dot

Here you go! There isn't 7, cause I dare to be different and I have to go out!

cheers, Denise

Sooner than I thought...

Hey all! I took a picture of my September page. Sarasvati is finished. I thought I had a mini book for her but it seems to have been misplaced. If or when I find it, I'll add it to the page. The charm is a swan, the flower she is surrounded by is a lotus.
She is made with 15's, as is the flower petals. I really enjoyed her. Oh and her lyre. I weaved it with 15's in square stitch. that was cool, I had never done that before.


Meet Henry.
He is a mascot for Christmas Prescence. Christmas Prescence is a store I work in that opens this weekend and goes until the first of the new year. I am celebrating working there for 10 years!
So Henry is our mascot and he needed his own tree, with some decorations. He has a friend in the chicken.
I did peyote around his neck and made the tree out of peyote too. I made the water and the island out of bead embroidery. He is going to be a gift to the store. I glued the base to a piece of styrofoam that is wrapped with gold ribbon.

Henry is my little side project. He himself is an ornament. I look forward to him being part of Christmas Prescence this year. I can't wait to see the reaction of a certain, specific person who I work with!

So where do you think I've been?

Can you say School? I'm going to try to post a picture of a certain project I have been trying to finish, but school keeps getting in the way!
Bear with me while I finish this school thing! I miss my beading!!!
Cheers, Denise

A wonderful little contest!

Isn't this a great idea! I love visiting new blogs and seeing what's what. So check out this one for a new book!

Cheers, Denise
Baking Delights

Thank-you Birthday Bead Buddy!!!!

Sorry this is sideways, I thought I had rotated it, but it didn't show up that way now. This is my cat Sherri. She sleeps anywhere! This shelf is our homework shelf, where we keep homework papers and find books and such that are important. I think it's funny that she curls up there, it's plastic and her little paw kept slipping, she'd pull it up and then it would slip again. How can a cat sleep when her paw is moving like that!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEADS!!!
I want to say thank-you so much!!! What a great gift! I think the little packages are 15 delica's and hex's! This is amazing!!! She also sent me some gorgeous triangles, which are some of my favourite beads!! The faces are wonderful and I needed some needles, so that was awesome, along with the thread!
There is also an absolutely wonderful, adorable fairy girl. The camera battery ran out so I don't have a picture. She is gorgeous and she is on my mantle right now.
My suprize birthday bead buddy said that she reads my blog so I want her to know, that I couldn't read her signature and don't know who she is.
Here is a great big thank-you for a wonderful beady day!!!!!
As usual, feel free to click on the picture for a bigger version!
cheers, Denise

AND THE WINNER IS...

Heidi!!!!
I wrote up all the names on slips of paper and my eldest daughter Claire picked the name. I don't have a picture cause she was in her pajamas!
So I'll round up the beads, take a picture and send them on!
Heidi, if you send me your address in the comments section, I'll get it and it won't go to the general public because I moderate my comments.
It was great to see other peoples places! It always seems to connect me to other beaders in somthing that is a lonely endeavor!
Thanks everyone for playing!!
Cheers, Denise

What does your bead desk look like? - A Give Away!

I've always wanted to do a Give Away!

So what does your bead table look like? It is messy? Has it got too many beads on it? Has it got vellux? Is it fancy or simple like mine - a t.v. tray in the family room with my beads in a chest and also downstairs in my art room.
Post a picture of your bead table, or surface and leave a comment on this page with a link to the picture. At the end of the week, I'll pick a name and send you some seed beads!







Don't forget to click on the picture for a larger size!


On another note, here is an update of my Beaded Journal Project. Most of this has been done in 15's which allows me great detail in the colours of the leaves of the lotus. There is a lot more to go, so it's fun to show the progress pictures!!

What's wrong with the word "Artist"

Hi Everyone,
Here are a few things that have been on my mind.

The other day I was watching Ellen and she had Usher as a guest. I guess they are good friends. Anyway, she asked him to draw a picture of his new baby. He took the pen and paper and then commented that he would try but he wasn't much of an artist!
~~~Hello?
Usher? Not an artist? The man dances, and sings and writes music and choreographes but for some reason, he doesn't think of himself as an artist!
What is wrong with this word? It amazes me how often I hear or read this from people. Artistic ability isn't just about being able to draw, it's about being creative on all kinds of different levels!
After he drew the picture, Usher got up to dance. That man can sure dance! What an amazing artist!!!!

On another note.

I would like to apologize to another artist and blogger. I recieved some comments under her name and thought that she had made them. They were comments that said that she thought my work wasn't beautiful. This was strange and I jumped to the wrong conclusions. Apparently this was actually SPAM!!!! I had no idea that it came in this form! I would like to sincerely apologize to cramzy for jumping to the wrong conclusion. If you ever recieve comments that seem strange or unusual, then perhaps it's spam. I had no idea.

And, if you were thinking that my pictures seemed a little blue, it turns out that one of the members of my family was fooling around with the camera and changed a lighting setting and everything is a little blue. Things look better now and upcoming pictures won't have the blue look.

Okay, this picture. I try really hard not to use grocery bags and to bring my own. I've done it for years, long before the big push. But one thing that niggled me was that I always use the plastic bags for fruits and veggies. Then I was sent a video about plastic and it's affect on the environment and animals and I finally acted. I made this smaller bags specifically for fruits and veggies. They may indeed weigh more than the plastic ones, but I feel a heck of a lot better for using them! I want to stamp veggies and fruits on them, but I'll do that with the girls.
Cheers, Denise

Beaded Journal Project and my new project

Here is my new project. A very long time ago I made a similiar picture and was all set to bead it when I found out through the wonderful people at Quilty Pleasures here in Ottawa, that I had used to wrong iron on stuff. It sat in my art room for way too long until I finally took the scissors to it and cut it up.
Then I created a new one with Steam a Seam and now I am beading it. I have mostly just started and I don't like the free motion sewing up on the blue part because it didn't turn out very well. My machine doesn't drop it's feed dogs, so I used the feed dog cover, which really doesn't work very well.
I've started beading the green seaweed and I'm working on the orange/coral beading. It is very relaxing and fun.




Here is the start of my BJP. The Goddess is Sarasvati. It isn't finished and I've got lots to do but the shape is fun and the colours are soft. I am really looking forward to this years BJP!




Cheers, Denise

The Book List!

Here's a great list of books that popped up on a blog -Pearls Journey I saw. Apparently:
It's a list from the Guardian paper in the UK, and seems to be a slightly edited version of that provided by the Big Read at the BBC. “The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed.”
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Strike out the books you have no intention of ever reading, or were forced to read at school and hated.
5) Gray out those you are unfamiliar with.
6) Reprint this list in your own blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve read 6 and force books upon them ;-)

So, what have I read from this list?


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen +
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien +
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling +
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee +
6 The Bible (parts)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte +
8 Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell +
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations- Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott +
12 Tess of the d'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22- Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare - William Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier +
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien +
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger +
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald +
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll +
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame +
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis +
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis +
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini +
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernières
39 The Time Travelers Wife- Arthur Golden +
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne +
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell +
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown +
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery +
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood +
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding +
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel +
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley +
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon +
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck +
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold +
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett +
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray +
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens +
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry +
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White +
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams +
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare +
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl +
100 Les Misérables - Victor Hugo

So I've read 35 on the list. I guess I better get reading. I have to say that there are some on the list I would never put there and a few good books are missing!
How 'bout you? What does your list look like?
Cheers, Denise

Need I say more?

Beading For A Cure Beaded Juggling Balls

These balls will be going up for auction! They are a curious mix of soft and hard and easily jugglable! My dh tested them out for me.
I have to say that as much as I enjoy these colours, I am ready for a change!!
Cheers, Denise

I'm trying again

Hi
I had this all lined up nice, written well, then went and lost it. How often do I do that? Arghhh, much too often.

Anyway, here are my messy piles of works in progress! It's fun sometimes to take these pictures and see what you've done with your work, can you tell I've been flitting from one project to another?
The BFAC ball is there, the beave, and the other BFP. I see Nanabush and I see some odd beads that really should be running home by now.


















Here is my Canadian Beaver. This BFP is month April. Thanks to That Bad Liz - I love the Moose and the Dragon and her style and wanted to try it. Of course, I have to do the edges of course. I really like the beaver! He's cool! He looked like a groundhog until I put his tail on, it's amazing how similiar those animals look. I used a piece of leather for the tail.

I finally picked up some Grunge board. I'm going to see if I can bead it. You can't see it here, cause it's down in the art room but I was so excited to finally get my hand on some!

I am almost finished my May page too. It's been very intuitive and I'm just at the stage where I need to stare at it and see if there is something else I want to add to it.

Then my March page. It's got the outline beaded and I hope to finish it this weekend. I have to, have to, HAVE TO!!!! finish my BFAC first!






Alright! Time to go! Have a Great Day Everyone!!!

Will there be 2 or 3?

Beading For A Cure!
I was inspired by some children's toys. My daughter won them for me at her local school fun fair fish pond so I opened them up, took out the foam, cleaned and dyed them and then stuffed them with new polyfill. Oh and then the fun began! I outlined the edges and then filled in each side!

Oh this was fun and it's not finished!!! I want to make three if I can get enough beads and thanks to some wonderful amazing women at All About Beads, there are some in the mail to me.
If it's not three, sitting nicely in a bowl to be played with, it could be two - like fuzzy dice hanging from a rear-view mirror!

I hope to make each side different and I added the yellow/lime beads as my extra bead.
I'm still beading my BJP and there will be pictures soon. I just got inspired by the BFAC beaded juggling balls and there is a deadline!

In other news, I'm not working. It didn't work out so I'm looking for work again. That means more time for beading!

Enjoy!!! Denise

Finally some pictures!

Her name is Rae! She is a North American Traveller who made her way back home to me! I'm so happy to see her after so many years. She's got some amazing features to her and I'm still trying to decide if I want to add beads or just leave her!






This is my beach vessel! It was fun to make! I want to thank Bobbi over atBeading At the Beach. I have another one in the works, but I am being side tracked by my BJP, which I'm behind in.

I started a new job!! I'm working at Beddingtons Bed and Bath and believe me, I have a few things to learn about bedding and towels and such but it's a great place and elegant feel to it and I'm so enjoying the atmosphere and the staff I've met so far! Oh and one of them is a quilter so you can bet I'll be talking up a storm with her!









So enjoy yourselves and I'll be posting my Beaded Art Journal Pages very soon!
Cheers, Denise

I'm playing again!!!!

Cyberfyber

I'm playing!!! I've been back at beading and saw this a few days ago. Then I was at Beading at the Beach and it was mentioned again, so I'm going for it!!
I'll post some pictures when I find the extra battery, the battery charger or both - do you think they are together somewhere?
I'll ask the kids!!!
Cheers, Denise

I'm working on my school project - and it's coming along!

Thanks for the comments everyone! I have all kinds of bead ideas running around in my head and I should have policy running around in my head!
I'm almost finished my paper, then back to beading!!!
What till you see the beads I bought at Out on a Whim Beads!
I'm using them as incentive to finish my honours project! When I'm done, I get to bead with my new beads and the ideas are bouncing around in my head!!!
Cheers, Denise

Picking Up The Pieces - well 1 of them anyway!

Picking Up The Pieces
She has puzzle pieces missing! But she found one, and I think that's all I'm going to add otherwise, it's going to look funny. The puzzle piece has boucle stitching on both sides and is quite tactile. The doll itself is only beaded on one side, and that works for me, cause she's hanging up on the wall. I did back her with another piece of material to cover and protect the stitching though.
I like how she turned out and I like how she is looking down at the piece. I really enjoyed working with the yellow - just what I needed as I watch the snow melt outside. It was a fun project. Hope you enjoy her!
cheers, Denise

In which the Beaded Art Doll Women Inspire Me!

I joined Beaded Art Dolls on yahoo. What an amazing, creative group of women! The latest challenge was to use a flat puzzle shape and bead it a specific colour. Everyone had two choices, they could do yellow plus 10% of a contrasting colour or be randomly assigned a colour. My random colour was red but I've done red, so I went back to the yellow.
What you see here is my tray, with most of my yellow beads, and my beady doll. She's called Picking Up The Pieces, because, as you can see, she's missing a few. They will be beaded and dangling from her arms when this is done.
It's been fun! And relaxing as I continue to work on my thesis.

You can check out their:blog here.

Take It Further Challenge

This is February's Take it Further Challenge. I haven't done much at all in the way of beading but still want to do this challenge in the form of tags. The February theme was what do I remember. I remember drawing bubble letters and colouring them in. It was a fun and simple project. I want to add some pom poms on ribbon to this and cover the back stitching but I decided to get it up here first cause it's been so long since I put anything on the blog.
The Take it Further challenge for March is to pay attention to the little things. I'll be thinking about that. I want to at least start it in March, and I want to start March's Beaded Journal Project too but I've been concentrating on my paper for school so we'll see how it goes.
Cheers, Denise

 

 

Beading for a cure starts!!!

Beading For A Cure.

An excellent cause, awesome artists and some wonderful art pieces. Go and be part of the solution. It's a month long endeavor so there is something for everyone! The new beads are making their to people's homes and the fun for the new projects has started. But please, go and help!!! You won't be disappointed!
Cheers, Denise

I've been Tagged....

So 7 things about me that are weird. Hmmmm.... Perhaps I should get some of my friends to write this instead as I'm sure they could come up with a few things.

1. I'm known as the trouble maker. I can definitely design michief. Or maybe it's that I like to laugh. And I will say things to encourage others to laugh. Just to get that look of boredom of their face.

2. I love my bed. I love being horizontal. No smirking here!! I could lie for hours reading in bed. And I don't have to get up to pee before I do it. I can even drink coffee and not get up to pee. Being horizontal is awesome!

3.I like to eat cherry pie filling on plain biscuits. Or even just from the can. Enough said?

4. I've been watching General Hospital since I was like 12. Is that really 30years? Oh man!

5. I like a 20 minute nap. I really like a 20 minute nap.

6. I like to blow my breath into the belly of my cat and make her fur all warm. She hasn't figured out if she likes it or not. My male cat doesn't like it at all. But he does like to sit on the furnace vent and have the hot hair blow up his butt. He is too funny.

7. Hmm. I love the smell of the air caught between my screen door and the regular door. I like this smell when it's been all warmed up by the sun. It reminds me of when I was a kid.

Since I've seen this all over, I don't feel compelled to tag people. It's too funny to ready how interesting we really are and what turns our cranks!
Cheers, Denise

2x2 square

This little square will be in the mail very soon! There is another one around here, it is being elusive though, so I have no picture.
Cheers, Denise

BJP Project update

This is the finished Paisley page.





Here are two close photos of the felted and beaded page. This was fun. I enjoyed playing witht the colour of the felt and the texture that the beads added. I also tried to learn more about perspective and laying out a landscape. Still new at this and still trying out new ideas.

I have to confess, I had this finished in February because I had a craving for colour. I beaded this coloured flag and it was fun and bright and vibrant. The little lizard dude is actually from the Dominican Republic from a trip a few years ago and made its way onto the page quite nicely.
The flower is actually a felt ball cut in half and then beaded. I then sewed it onto the page. It actually has quite a bit of dimension and works well with the lizard dude cause they both are quite big. This page speaks volumes about my need for the sun!