2009 Bead-A-Day calendar

I am a featured artist in the 2009 Bead-A Day Calendar click here to order one

Disclaimer; I am not associated with this calendar nor do I receive any monies from the sales

Remembering Mother & Dad

Dolly Tucker - 31 December 2007
Bert Tucker - 15 December 1980

Sweet are the memories silently kept,
Of those we love and will never forget.
Nancy, Colleen, Anne, Ellen, Isabell & families.

Mum & Dad you danced so beautifully together & I miss you so much

More on the bailout $$$$

Where'd the bailout money go? Shhhh, it's a secret

WASHINGTON – It's something any bank would demand to know before handing out a loan: Where's the money going?
But after receiving billions in aid from U.S. taxpayers, the nation's largest banks say they can't track exactly how they're spending the money or they simply refuse to discuss it.

"We've lent some of it. We've not lent some of it. We've not given any accounting of, 'Here's how we're doing it,'" said Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money. "We have not disclosed that to the public. We're declining to."

Read on here:-
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081222/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/meltdown_secrets

Shame, shame, shame is all I can say!!

Where your tax dollars went!

Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts, awarded their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits last year, an Associated Press analysis reveals.

The rewards came even at banks where poor results last year foretold the economic crisis that sent them to Washington for a government rescue. Some trimmed their executive compensation due to lagging bank performance, but still forked over multimillion-dollar executive pay packages.

Read on here:-
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/executive_bailouts

I am appalled about this & if you are too, write to your Senators & Representatives about it & demand accountability..

The Bead Nest

The Bead Nest is what my husband has called the spot where I sit to bead. I have a beautiful cabinet to store my beads in that I designed & DH built for me.

I have spent the last few days sorting beads & getting them in the new flippy containers I bought back in July & I am finally done. (where I get my flippies)

Before

After
The Bead Nest

I use an old TV tray to bead on & have 2 OttLites, one either side of me when I bead. Notice, there are no more tubes or baggies of beads. I do need some bigger storage for the cabs & stuff but it is sorted for now. I have 'deep storage' for extra beads of the ones in the flippies, in my messy studio. The studio is next in line for a re-organize & what better time than winter to do that.

We are surrounded by snow here at the beach, this is a picture of our place that my DH took yesterday morning & more snow is falling as I write this Brrrrrrrrrr

This little guy is an Anna's Hummingbird, one of several that come to the feeders I keep out all year for them but especially in winter when there really is no food for them. He is perched on the Christmas lights on the front porch near the feeder. I have feeders on the front porch & the back deck, as the males are very territorial, they sit nearby & chase other males & the females away from the feeders.

A little bit more

I have got my first 2 pages attached to the ultra suede, they still need to be edged but that can wait for another day...

I am happy with how these look now, the stack stitch really frames them nicely while hiding the edge of the fabric

I am waiting on some more ultra suede in different colours. Ya gotta love E-Bay, eh?

BJP pages to share

I have got 3 of my 'The Women in my life' BJP pages finished....

And yes, I did change my mind again about my pages but hey that's a Woman's Prerogative, isn't it? I decided that as lovely as the Nancy Doll is, it was bigger than I wanted & I was also finding beading on a stuffed form harder than it used to be due to some issues with my wrist.

My pages are oval 5" x 33/4" & backed with fusible Pellon interfacing & will be mounted on leather.

My plan is to match the face with the month of birth but some months have more than one birthday so as my Sisters & my dear Mother come first, the rest will fill in the gaps..

Here is September - This is Nancy, my oldest sister & you can read more about her if you scroll down a few posts or click on the link above.

This is October & Katy, my granddaughter.. Katy turned 18 last August & is living in Darwin, NT Australia. She is the youngest of my only daughter's 2 girls. Katy shares August with her Mother, so Elizabeth with be my August face, which is only fitting & right..

December is Isabell, my youngest sister, who celebrates 55 on the 17th of this month. She has 3 sons & 5 grandchildren. Her & her DH own a motel down home in New Zealand, so if you are heading down to New Plymouth in Taranaki, NZ, be sure to stop by & say hi.

I still have to do November's page & I am waiting on my girlfriend to bring me a picture so that I can get hers started..

Meanwhile I am working at getting my pages attached to the leather or Ultra Suede which I am using to display them..

Long time no post..

I have been battling with a bit of depression, not something I enjoy. So rather than subject my bloggy friends to my daily woes, I have been reading but keeping myself mostly to myself.

I am finally beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel and it's not a train but bright shiny beads twinkling in the light of my Ott-Lite.

Last week my DH read in the paper that a bead shop in Nehalem (down the Oregon Coast about 1 & 1/2 hours south of us) was going out of business with all stock at 50% off. So on Black Friday, we headed south in the wind & rain to that little bead shop & I loaded up on sparkly beads, which as we all know, lift your spirits more than almost anything..

Crossing the Megler Bridge from Washington to Oregon in the wind & rain. Astoria sits beneath the hills that you can see in the distance & that bit that sticks straight up, is the top of the bridge where the ships pass below - Yep we drive right up that thing!

These are the sparklies I got, they are size 11 cuts except for the reds (12s) & the oilslick purples on the right (9s) I also got some turquoise beads, some lovely blue pearls & some metal nailheads. The little Swarovski flower sew-ons are from a couple of E-Bay buys that I just had to have..