Imagine Sunshine

It looks something like this outside today:

I went to sleep to the sound of rain on the roof and I woke up to the sound of rain on the roof. It can be a soothing sound but when you live close to a river that is at or above flood stage it becomes a worrisome sound. So far we seem to be okay. I think I'll make sure our evac kit is up to date today though.

Yesterday I decided to switch gears in the studio. I turned my cutting table into a beading station. I've decided that for my bead journal projects this year I'm going to make a set of cases the size of artist trading cards (ATC's). So basically an ATC with a pocket back. I was thinking of a pink and orange color palette when I started out. Pulled out those bead drawers and then went for fabric.

It's a hand dyed piece, lavender with pinks and oranges in it. It's not quite as gray as it appears online. The next thing I laid my hands on was a string of dyed shell chips. Not exactly what I had in mind for this piece but that's what I was guided to. And finally, for the focal element:

Toward the end of the day this is what my beading station looked like. You may be able to see that I'd pulled out two additional drawers of beads and several packets of sequins. I also switched from the gray thread that was in my needle in the beginning to a lovely happy orange.

I didn't give up entirely on the pink and orange color scheme. The shell chips are pinks and blues and yellows and green but the seed beads I used to hold them down are mostly orange or fuchsia. I'm not sure how much that's going to show in the final product. This is where I left off last night:

I don't have a lot of room before I get to my basting stitches but I want to do something to sort of fill in around the perimeter. Hmm...