Author: susanmwb

Multi-passionate artist living each day as creatively as possible!!

My Favorite Show…(better late than never)

Bead Soup Hoppers…..you can find my bead soup here:  https://www.susansartcircus.com/bead-soup-all-at-once/

Over Mother’s Day I had my booth full of things at the Bernardo Winery in San Diego, California. It was the 37th year that this show has been going on and about 10 years that I have participated.

Peek!

The winery is a beautiful spot. Filled with antiques from the century they’ve been raising grapes on the property. Hundreds of olive trees line the walkways and buildings. Lush landscaping and flowers all around. Many small specialty shops and, of course, the wine tasting room plus they have a restaurant in the middle of everything! Needless to say it’s my favorite place and I get to be there (as long as Veronica juries me in) twice each year…Mother’s Day weekend and again the weekend a couple weeks before Halloween.

This time my whole family came on Mother’s Day. My son…

Paul

…he fell in love with my friend April’s Yorkie, Suzy. Isn’t she cute?

Ua

My daughter came all day to help out.

Goofy...

And my husband, well, let’s just say he found some new friends.

Whenever you get the chance go visit the Bernardo Winery…you won’t regret it!

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Bead Soup! All at once!

I have been a bad blogger….but I now have the perfect reason to come back strong! Its the Bead Soup reveal! Aren't you excited? I know I am! Here goes…

First, since I've been a crazy person I never allowed myself the chance to show off what i received as “soup” from my partner Susan Kelly. You can find her at midlifegreaterexpectations.blogspot.com

Fabulous carnelian, Swarovski crystals and pearls, semi precious in gorgeous fall like colors and some of my favorites. Funny, she and I sent each other focal clasps from the same artisan maker, just different colors…ha! Great minds…

Gorgeous!!

None of this soup is anything that I use or buy for my line on a regular basis. Susan hit a challenge for me right out of the gates. I laid all of this soup out on my desk from the moment it arrived. First it was visible inside bags then I laid it out on mats. I moved it around, fondled the beads, stared at it and this past week it came to me.

I hear angels singing! I love it! With the soup i used chocolate patina'd brass findings and a few charms from my stash to keep with the leaf theme. Measuring about 24″ long the necklace closes in the front showcasing the hand made glass leaf…oooh, can't wait to wear it.

And it doesn't stop here…i also made a bracelet…

Hello! Thre strands of yummy! And here's the clasp. Enamel in yellow…again, not in my normal color range but I love it! This is probably my favorite of the three pieces I made…did I say three? Um, yes…

Earrings! Long kidney wires and I saved a couple of the yellow Swarovski cubes for this. Love these too.

So what do you think? Do you love fall colors and the thoughts of falling leaves? (I realize we just came out of a crazy winter but i still love the palette that fall brings to mind)

Well this was so much fun! Thanks so much Susan! You were very generous and I still have some beads left to play with. This was my first time with Bead Soup and you made it special! Thanks so much.

Now for the rest…there are almost 500 participants in this Bead Soup Blog Party. Grab a cup of coffee, get comfortable, and take a tour of some of the best jewelry girls in the planet. Click the link below for the entire list of participants…

http://lorianderson-beadsoupblogparty.blogspot.com//2014/04/welcome-to-8th-bead-soup-blog-party.html

 

 

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Christmas with Ice and Santa!

Christmas is coming?! Really? Didn’t we just do Christmas?

I have to admit that Christmas has not been my favorite holiday over the past decade. When you’re on the road, as I am, through the holiday season Santa is more work than pleasure. Add to that 10+ years of this love/hate relationship and thinking about Christmas seems really daunting.

So, several months ago I was sent some beautiful Rue Romantique pieces from the Ice girls and asked to do something for Christmas. My first honest response in my head was, “oh no, not that!” I’ve wrestled with it ever since…until this past week.

Knowing our blog hop was fast approaching I knew I had better wrap my head around it or be totally delinquent. Out came all the pieces and more from my design team stash…ribbons, the component Rue pieces, resin, bezels, papers….all of it all over the studio. I stared at it for several days. Pushing it aside I went back to my all time favorite material, shrink plastic, and just began to play with some holiday stamps. Then it dawned on me! K.I.S.S. Stop over thinking it and keep it simple stupid!

Merry Christmas and Santa emerged…

Merry ornament

I pulled out the alcohol inks in red and green to add some holiday color to the components. Wrapped a bit of vintage ribbon to the bottom.

IMG_3104

Santa had to have some shiny, sparkly areas so out came the iridescent glitter added to some ModPodge then painted into his fur, beard, hat, and sleeves. Also some glitter was added to the component piece then resin over the top to seal.

IMG_3105

Here it is a bit closer so you can see how wonderfully the glitter falls into the component grooves then lights up under the resin. Santa and all the pieces also have a resin coating. Such a nice gloss to reflect the lights when these are hanging from the tree. The bottom crystals are also from the Connie Crystals…last blog post…beautiful, faceted teardrop shapes. They made the perfect sparkling end to the base of both.

Here’s to Christmas…a better relationship with Santa and wishing you all the meaning of the season!

Check all the fantastic Christmas projects for the hop!! Don’t miss any of them!

ICE Resin site  http://wp.me/p1MCno-2W3

Lexi Grenzer http://lexigrenzer.blogspot.com/2013/11/rue-romantique-ornament-blog-hop.html

Pamela Huntington  http://pamelahuntington.typepad.com/february_2007/2013/11/handmade-holiday-blog-hop.html

Jen Cushman  http://wp.me/p1lhEq-Gb

Until next time…

mainsignature1

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Hop Along With The Ice Resin Team & Their Connie Crystals!!

Hello everyone! I’m baaaack!

Well, if you’ve been following the Ice® Resin Creative Team then you know we’ve all been to the Emmy’s and back again. What you didn’t know was some of the back story. Each of us was sent a huge box of goodies directly from Ice headquarters and we also received a box stuffed with crystals from Connie Crystals. There were so many that we decided to design a few more things after the dust settled.

Alice2

Alice is a favorite of mine as are all of these bezels. Pair that with these enormous cut, round Connie Crystals and I think I have a simple yet stunning bracelet. I didn’t want to overpower the images but accent them. A few smaller crystals swing with the little pewter pig at the clasp. What do you think?

And because I can’t ever do just one or anything easy AND I had more of these crystals…here is the second piece. (also an Ice® Resin piece)

Castheartwings1 Castheartwings2

 As you can see from the pictures there is an obvious range of color reflection coming from the crystals. It’s an aurora borealis coating that reflects an iridescent array of color . Aren’t they  gorgeous? And all the hanging pieces? Yes, they are cast Ice® Resin…but that’s another story.

Now here’s your chance to see what all the other gals have in store…

Today you can hop on over to…

Thespa K. Jones McLaughlin

Jen Crossley

Tomorrow the following designers will also have goodies to share!

Lexi Grenzer

Sandy Martin

Pamela Huntington

Have fun! See you again soon!

mainsignature1

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Forgotten Words…

me1

Today’s task was to write up a short 100 word bio about my self for our Ice® Resin Team…not an easy task! But I found something that I had forgotten about completely and it’s pretty funny (at least to me!) Not even sure what or who I wrote this for and it may very well be on my old blog…not sure.

But, in either case, here it is again…

Quirks and the Divine (Divine Quirks..?)

My husband was quick to jump into this!

  1. Known only to one other is the fact that I have an innate aversion to the tiny leftover bits of just about anything. I will leave the last dregs of the toothpaste, the last half ounce of mouth wash, a food leftover, and sometimes even the last bite on my plate. Weird, huh?
  2. My family thinks I have kitchen OCD (technically shouldn’t it be CDO…alphabetical would be better). It makes me crazy if the pots aren’t hung on the rack just right, tools aren’t in the same places in the drawer, or the dishwasher isn’t loaded the way I would load it. I take it all apart and put whatever it is back together the “right” way then I can breathe again. And this doesn’t bother me anywhere but the in the kitchen…(okay, so if the toilet paper is upside down I turn it over…are you a paper under or a paper over person?)
  3. My children were quick to point out that I always want to watch the same TV show or movie…all the time! Let’s see…I’ve watched the latest Star Trek movie about 20 times, the first Alien movie several dozen times, I’m on my 10th or 11th go around on the Tudor series, and I’m hopelessly addicted to Downton Abbey. Every time they come into the room with me they can tell just by about ten seconds of sound what is on my screen. I like the familiarity of it, is that bad?
  4. No matter what time I need to get up I set my alarm clock between 15 and 30 minutes before that time. In the just waking up state of mind I can trick myself into thinking I’m going to be late if I don’t get up when the alarm goes off and if, in my morning haze, I hit the snooze button once I’m still on time! My husband thinks this is just plain madness. “You can still read the time on the clock!” Yes….but it’s psychological trickery for the gal who hates mornings. Nuts, maybe?! Does it work for me? Yes! Every time!

Divine?

Live everyday like the devil is chasing you! I believe that life is short and each day is precious. You need to find your path to be happy, laugh, love, and deeply live your life to the fullest. You only get one chance at it. If you don’t like your current path then change it…mold it, wrangle it, work at it until you can say you’re pleased with it. Don’t blame your unhappiness on others…you choose! You get to make your life passionate and happy! Now go blaze your trail!!

mainsignature1

 

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