♥ Valentine's ♥ Heart ♥ for my Honey ♥

I'm a member of ABeadStory a group my friends Cyn & Dot created for those of us who love to bead embroider.

The challenge for this month was of course a Heart & so I started with the thought that my heart would be in a frame like my BJP Under The Sea series.  I was wrong ;)

As I sat beading the other day, Joe sat down & started cutting up an old pair of jeans which he'd finally admitted had too many holes - he uses them for rags out in his shed.  He came over & put the small coin pocket on my beading table.  As I beaded on my heart, the tiny pocket caused my Muse to get excited, so we (my Muse & I) went & got the back of the jeans & picked the pockets off them. 

The heart is embroidered on fabric that I backed with several heart shape layers of  felt to give it shape. I started with a heart shaped piece of Paua Shell from New Zealand, which glued on before I beaded around it.  I used mainly matt black czech 11s along with a variety of sizes & finishes in black, to create texture along with a sprinkling of red & blue/green to spice up the black.  There's some Hematite too, to add good energy to the heart.   I cut a slightly larger heart from red fabric & stitched both to the pocket, poking a little fiberfill behind them before I finished sewing them down. 

Red embroidery thread & a few tiny flower beads topped with sparkly red beads finished this off.  I used cardboard covered with denim  to back the pocket & used copper wire & beads to make a funky hanger for my ♥valentine♥ for my honey♥

Joe loves it ♥♥

I do love it when my Muse takes over because then I really bead outside the box!!

DollieBeadznSewz

So.... Because I find it hard to simply sit & do nothing, I decided to make things to sell using my sewing machine & am now proud to announce my Etsy Store DollieBeadznSewz which I opened today.

Here are few of the items that are for sale & I hope to offer more as the weeks go by.

I thought these hearts would make the perfect Valentine's gift for that someone special in your life.

Or, they might make the perfect base for someone to use for their BJP pages.. I can make a set in the colours of your choice if you'd like..

So please go to DollieBeadznSewz & tell your friends about it too ;)

Here I am again, at last..

I can't believe it's been so long since I blogged..

I have arthritis in my thumb joint & I'm waiting to see if my health insurance will approve a scan of the joint, so that the orthopedic dr can then decide what is the best action to take. I cannot take pain meds & the OTC ones don't do a real lot to relieve the pain.

I have trouble picking things up & holding a needle is painful so I have not been beading lately. In fact I spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself & I ate way too much of the things I should not have & managed to put 8 pounds back on, after losing 17 pound early last year! Of course that made me feel worse & so goes the not so merry-go-round.

Then to make matters worse I fell at work about 2 weeks ago, I slipped on a wet patch on the floor & landed on my back. I've had a sore back since then & pains down my left leg, I believe it is my sciatica - I can't sit for very long nor can I stand for too long & of course I cannot take anything to help with the pain Grrrr

I am waiting now for L&I to approve my claim so I can start PT to help relieve this. Man do the wheels turn slowly at L&I!! I go back to see my dr again on Tuesday - I have also been off work since this happened & my sickpay has covered me to date but what the heck is going to happen when that runs out??

Oh well a new week starts tomorrow so maybe things will fall into place for me, at least I can hope, right?

Overdue update

I have not been doing a lot of beading of late. In summer my garden seem to take first place on my list of priorities. So here are a few pictures of my yard & garden so you can see what I have been up to while not sitting in the 'bead nest'

This is the side yard looking west towards the greenhouse, the house is to the north /or right of this yard

Looking towards the house from the vegetable garden, which sits behind the greenhouse. The bright blue building to the left is my potting shed, that Joe built behind his garage/workshop.

The back deck, this is where I love to sit with a cuppa any time of day;) The hot tub is under that grey area on the deck & is a life saver, especially when I get home from my evening shift at work ~ ahhhhh

The front yard looking north, there are no lawns here to be mowed ;) That is the front of the garage where the motor home lives & beyond that, the old spartan trailer which is home to Joe's studio where he builds his robots & stuff that you can see here

My plant nursery, I propogate cuttings to sell in plant sales in the spring & summer.

The Gunnera with Joe standing behind it, it reached about 7 feet this year! This is part of the view from our deck. A little bit of the tropics in our back yard.

One of my favorite plants the Hebe, Aumumn Glory. Isn't it a beautiful shade of purple?

Looking in through Joe's 'Moon Gate', which is between the house & the garage. You can see the door to his workshop and the front of my potting shed..

Just one of my giant sunflowers...

This is a 5 year old Bonsai vine maple that I started from a seedling, it started as a 'what if' - This is the first year the leaves have been small, so something is happening as it should. I now have several more in the green house to see if I can do it again ;)

And lastly here is what I am beading at the moment, it's slow going though so don't expect to see it finished any time real soon LOL but then who knows?

Ouch!

While we were away in the motor-home a couple of weeks ago, I caught my thumb in one of the drawers. As the week progressed I felt soreness at the base of the nail on my thumb & figured I had bruised it, I was wearing nail polish - a rare thing for me ;) so I could not see if it was discoloured. The following weekend I sat down to remove the polish & found that my nail was infected underneath. I bathed my thumb in salt water but nothing much happened as the infection was right in the center of the nail but I kept that up as often as I could. Anyhow by Sunday evening my thumb was throbbing & all the bathing had done nothing at all!

Monday I called my Dr's office & got in to see him that afternoon, he used a wee tool that burnt a hole in my nail & let the nasty stuff escape ewwww & the Dr gave me a prescription for an antibiotic. Of course my thumb felt better right away and the infection appeared to be going away with in a day or so.

Today the Dr's office called to say that the results of the swab he took, have come back & that there were 2 bacteria under my nail!~!

So the Dr has called another prescription in for me - two antibiotics!!!

I spoke to the Pharmacist & he said that going by the two antibiotics I have to take, that I most likely have a Staph infection, now that is scary stuff!!

Here is hoping that this thing goes away fast, never to be heard of again!!

Make tobacco prevention a part of health care reform

I just took action on preserving and protecting tobacco prevention funding in health care reform.

I urge you to take action yourself and spread the word!

Please write to your member of Congress today

&

Make Your Voice Heard!

The Health Insurance Racket

Getting Rich by Denying Americans Care

UnitedHealthcare CEO Stephen Hemsley owns $744,232,068 in unexercised stock options. CIGNA’s Edward Hanway spends his holidays in a $13 million beach house in New Jersey. Meanwhile, regular Americans are routinely denied coverage for the care they need when they need it most.




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STILL more to read here if you're interested..