Happy Mailbox Day

If you are a regular visitor to the Magpie's Nest (and thank you if you are!) you may recall that I participated in the Pink Artists Prize Wheel last fall.

Not only did I donate to the cause, I won a prize! It turned out to be a two-parter. First I received this original mixed media picture by Alma Stoller:

Then, in yesterday's mail, I found a copy of her self published zine. But that's not all. Inbetween almost every page there was another surprise. There were six patches of fabric, three skeins of embroidery floss, a couple of inspirational cards, and a couple of texture sheets (for lack of a better word - I'm not a mixed media artist so I don't know exactly what they're called).

One of the "articles" in Alma's zine was a pattern for a doll. I was so inspired by the words I read and the fabric she sent that I sat right down and cut the doll pattern out. Once I had that done, however, I decided I wanted a slightly different size doll. So I drew my own pattern and cut the body pieces out of batting. Using the sew and flip method I enjoy so much I covered the doll back and front with fabric. I even started embellishing before I had to quit for the night.

What you see on the left in the picture above is what will be the doll's back. The fabrics are those sent by Alma. I added the ribbon with the spiders and webs. On the right is the doll front. Her head is another of the patches Alma sent. Most of the body is covered with scraps from my own bags. Again, I added the heart and the measuring tape ribbon. Below is a close up of the stamped bit of muslin Alma included in the zine.

It was that bit of muslin that really got me moving. "I make art because the voices tell me to." Between that scrap and the encouraging words in the interviews in the zine I couldn't hold myself back. Oh for more magical moments like that! Even after I went to bed I was getting ideas for more things I could do to the doll. So now I'm going to go take a shower and get busy!

Little Treasures

Had to go out for groceries yesterday and I was feeling so good I decided to make a trip into the thrift shop as well. I found a couple of books, some gently used toys for the grandchildren to play with when they're here, and this delightful teacup:

No saucer, just the cup. And there was only the one. I love the parrot on it. The cup has been well used; the imagery is partly worn away on the other side. I've thought about making it into a pincushion but I doubt that will ever happen. Right now I'm just using it to hold a couple of small bags of beads I have separated from the rest of my stash for the time being.

Further progress has been made on my "Celebrate" ornament:

Here's a close up of the most recently embellished discs:

Double clicking on the photos should enlarge them for you. The millefiori disc on the left was surrounded by size 11 seed beads in Robin's "Wildflowers" technique. The disc on the right is surrounded by short bugle bead stacks topped with a tiny 5 petal flower sequin and seed bead. The sequin is the red color you see. I was amazed at how indistinct they became as I worked my way around the disc.

I want to get this finished as quickly as possible because I'm getting antsy about my commitment to make a birthday quilt for a little girl in May. The trouble is that I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm going to want to start on my March ornament as soon as I have this one finished!

Not Celebratin'

Just a quick post to show you my most recent progress on the Celebrate ornament. I've done something to offend my back and it won't let me sit at the computer for long. Can't sit and bead for very long either for that matter. It's all about laying flat on my back at the moment. I am not a happy camper.


Here's a close up of the two millefiori beads I've embellished:

There are two rows of seed beads circling the yellow disc on the left in the picture above. The innermost row was done all in orange size 11's in sort of a cross between the techniques Robin calls a bump and a petal in her latest book. The outer row was also done in size 11 seed beads but this time I used deep red beads at the top of the bumps.

The millefiori disc on the right is surrounded by some chunky not-quite-cubes. It took me a long time to figure out what to do with them once I had them in place. Then after I'd figured out what I wanted to try I had to audition several colors and sizes of beads to see what would work best. I was surprised to discover that bigger beads worked better than tiny beads. I don't remember exactly what size those purple jobs are but they might be 9's or something on that order. Anyway, that was a very satisfying element to complete because it had me stumped for what seemed like a long time.

At this point I'm not sure whether I'm going to end up covering all of the background fabric on this ornament or not. In the beginning I thought I would; now I'm exercising patience and making every effort to just go with the flow. Last night I had an idea about how to embellish the next disc (whichever one that turns out to be!) and I'm anxious to get after it. I think I'm going to have to go lay down for a bit first though... :-P

Out of the Mouths of Babes

The twins are doing well, although neither of them have broken the 5 pound mark yet. Baby A's cyst near her tear duct has completely dissolved so that distinguishing feature has been removed. There have been a couple of interesting conversations in the household since then.

While waiting for her mother to collect Clover from the crib Miss M asked, "Mommy, is this Buttercup or Clover?"

"That's Clover."

"Well I want her to be Buttercup so she'll be Buttercup today."

Just so you know, Miss M will be observing her fifth birthday in a few weeks.

And I just heard about this one: Miss M was watching her mother tend the twins.

"When did you change their heads?" she enquired in all seriousness.

"When you were sleeping," her mother calmly replied. (Later she confessed that she hadn't really done so.) Does that crack you up the way it does me?

Meanwhile, I've made a little progress on the Celebrate ornament:


The first things I added were the millefiori discs. Then I didn't know what else to do with them. A few hours later it occurred to me to sneak the bugle beads in between the spangles. Now I'm waiting for further inspiration.

You should get bigger images by clicking on the pictures. You may also notice that I used red thread through the yellow beads. I've been using red thread throughout the process so far. Before I went ahead and sewed all the bugles on I tried it with a white thread. It looked flat to me so I went back to the red. Red is an auspicious color in the East, and I've long been in the same camp as Freddy Moran who considers red a neutral. ;- )

I haven't been around to visit my blogging friends much lately. Blame the Olympics and the books I've been reading. I'm not ignoring you, there's just not enough time in my days!

Beginning

It took me hours to come up with a palette of beads and a decision about how to begin the beading for my new "Celebrate" ornament. I chalk this up to my inexperience in this particular medium.

The first thing I found that resonated strongly were some spangles. That's what I'm calling them anyway. Basically they're just sequins with the hole punched near the edge rather than in the middle. They are red so I started with my red beads but I tried several different color families. I kept going back to a bead soup of reds and oranges and yellows so it seemed like a good idea to expand on that collection of beads.


The next question was what to do with them. I considered several approaches but just couldn't make up my mind about what would work. In the end I simply sewed the spangles around the charm:

By the time I had that step complete I had a pretty good idea of what I would do next. Rather than mixing my beads into another bead soup I poured out a bit of each one into the various sections of my paint palette. Then I came up through the hole in one spangle, threaded on several beads of various shapes and colors, and went back down through the hole in the second spangle away. Then I went back to the spangle I had skipped, came up through that hole, and threaded on more beads. Skipped another spangle and went down through the next one. So I was doing a giant back stitch essentially. I went around the charm twice that way and got a nice twisted rope look.

The holes in the charm were big enough to allow me to do a bit of fringing through them. I did branch fringe with a sequin at the end of some of the branches.

I'm very happy with what I have so far. Now the question is what to do next?!