FELICITY'S TIDE (MUSIC & SLIDE SHOW)

This is another of the pieces of music Paul and I wrote and performed together, Felicity's Tide. I wrote the lyrics after dreaming the story, and Paul wrote the music, including my flute part. You'll hear him singing and playing bazouki, and me singing and playing flute. I'm sorry to say I've forgot the name of the man who stepped in with the fiddle. Our album, by the way, was produced by Steve Einhorn of Artichoke Music.

WALTZING IN THE WOOD (SLIDESHOW & MUSIC)

My niece, genius that she is, has shown me how I can, finally, put my music online. I put one tune on in an earlier entry, but it has odd clicking noises in it from my camera. This is perfect--combine a slide show of my photography with a cut from the Cd Paul and I recorded together, Waltz of the Wood, which was also the name of our two-person "group".

In this piece, you'll hear Paul on vocals and guitar, and me on flute, with a snippet of vocals thrown in. The photos I took on a rafting trip down the wild portion of the Rogue River in Oregon, which I adore.

FROM MY KITCHEN WINDOW

I'm so glad most kitchen sinks have a window over them! I've spent a lot of time at kitchen sinks over the years, and don't want to imagine what it would be like to have to stare at a wall while I was there.

This past few weeks, the weather has been changeable, to say the very least, and quite by accident, I have taken pictures from the window over the sink, and specifically of the top of the birdbath under the rose arbor. (The deck railing interferes with the lower part, as you'll see from the second week's photo.)

Week one, and I thought, What are you doing here, Robin Redbreast? It's too early for spring to come!



Week two: I was right!


Week three: Squirrel Nutkin eats rose hips that hung around over the winter. Things like this make me glad I'm not a conscientious dead header.


Like I said, the weather has been changeable.
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A FAVORITE VALENTINES DAY (PROJECT)

Let's face it. At this point, I have a lot of Valentines Days under my belt. I've been trying to think whether I had a favorite one or not, and really not coming up with much.

My first Valentines Day with DH does stand out--I'd managed to live through one marriage and years beyond, without ever having anyone give me chocolates for the occasion. For whatever reason, that was the one thing I craved--a heart-shaped box of candy. When it finally happened, I felt simply suffused with a sort of quiet joy, and I still have the box, all these years later, and the velvet ribbon rose that held the lid in place, too.

But I really think my favorite Valentines Day was one I shared with my children.

When I was a little girl, Valentines Day at school was always a big thing. We decorated the boxes our Valentines from the other children would go in, red and white, paper lace, people made out of hearts--oh, the bliss and the excitement. Every child would get a Valentine from every other child in the class. No stressing out about whether you'd be popular and get a lot, or suffer the embarrassment of having fewer than the other kids. It was that way when my girls were little, too. I wonder if the etiquette remains. I do hope so.

The downside to all that romantic excess was that afterwards you had this pile of Valentines! Heartless (so to speak) to simply throw them away, but what to do with them?

One year, the (I think) perfect answer came to me: Placemats!



I put the materials out on the dining table, doing the necessary prep before I called the girls in. Here's what we needed:

Self-adhesive vinyl (aka Contac paper)
Valentines and other pretty pictures

The first thing I did was cut sheets of plain paper the size of place mats, to use as a template. Or maybe I used actual place mats; it was a long time ago!

I gave each of us a place mat template, and each girl her stack of Valentines. My youngest wasn't in school yet, so her sisters gave her their extras and duplicates. A decorated napkin filled the last empty space for her.

Then we lay the Valentines out, trying to fill the whole rectangle while creating an attractive arrangement. I remember it required a lot of rearranging, but we had fun, and thinking about that afternoon has put a smile on my face.

When the girls had figured out their layouts, I helped them with the next step:

Cut a sheet of the self-adhesive vinyl about 2" (5cm) bigger than the place mat. You want a border that will seal itself all the way around.

Lay the piece of vinyl on the table, sticky side up. This piece is the back of your place mat, so it doesn't have to be the clear kind, but if you do use clear, you'll be able to see the signatures, if they're on the backs of the cards.

Carefully place the Valentines on the vinyl, smoothing them down, in the arrangement you created on your template. If you have cards that overlap, it's helpful to glue the overlapped edges before you do this, but not strictly necessary.

Now comes the tricky part: When you've got all the cards stuck down, cut another piece of self-stick vinyl, and, being careful not to let it wrinkle, smooth it over the whole thing. Trim the edges, leaving about 1/4" (6.35mm) all around, to seal it.






And one last one I made for my (now) ex-husband:




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MORE SHANK BUTTON JEWELRY DESIGNS

Yesterday felt like a day to make a bracelet, so I did. Then I made earrings to match, and then more.

In the past, finding a way to incorporate shank buttons in jewelry has kind of stymied and frustrated me, because there are so many really beautiful buttons just crying to be used. I begin to think I've found the answer.

So, if you want to try this, you might start here:

A Small Shank Button Tutorial

because that's actually where I started. The bracelet simply enlarges on it. So, pictures first, and then a bit of explanation on the difference between using the buttons for a bracelet and using them for earrings.

This is the finished bracelet:


And this is what I used:

• 5 vintage shank buttons, about 5/8" (1.59cm)
• 5 charcoal mother-of-pearl flat circle beads, about 1" (2.54cm) in diameter
• 12 oblong vintage black plastic "jet" beads, about 1/2" (1.27cm) long
• 12 head pins, 2 1/2" (6.35cm) to 3" (7.62cm) long
  
• 36 black seed beads
• 2 round vintage plastic "jet" beads
• 4 small silver bead caps
  
• 1 clasp
• Non-tarnishing silver wire, 20 gauge

Here's a photo of the back of the bracelet:

As you can see, I didn't fill the gap between the shank of the button and the ring bead, which added one more possibility for movement to the piece. It also wasn't necessary to bring the wire to the back of the bead to prevent the beads' spinning to show the wrong, or back, side--your wrist will do that.

So the process would be to make a wrapped loop on one end of a piece of wire about 2 1/2" (6.35 cm) long, string on one side only of the circle bead, then the shank button, and then run the wire through the other hole in the bead, ending in another wrapped loop. After the first bead group, of course, you'll want to join the wire-wrapped loops as you go, to create a chain of wire, buttons, and beads.

When you've joined the five buttons, measure the bracelet to your wrist, to see if you need another button-bead link. My wrist measures about 6 3/4" (17.1 cm), so five was about right. More length will be added by the clasp assembly, in this case a silver capped bead wire-wrapped to each part of the clasp and the bracelet ends.

After you've created the basic bracelet, string the head pins:

• 4 head pins strung with one oblong bead and three seed beads
• 4 head pins strung with one oblong bead and two seed beads
• 4 head pins strung with one oblong bead and one seed bead

Attach one of each group to the loops joining the bracelet links, using a wire-wrap or simple loop. (I prefer to wire-wrap, as it's sturdier, and looks nice, myself.)

Note: While my seed beads were all technically the same size, I did pick through and put a slightly smaller bead on the top of each stack.

To make the matching earrings, I followed the process given in the A Small Shank Button Tutorial.

With these earrings, I did fill the space between the button shank and the inside edge of the circle beads, as I wanted the button to be centered on the ring. The beads you'll need for that will depend on the dimension of the button shank.

As you can see from the photo, I also brought the wire used for the stringing and upper loop to the back, to provide that spin-stopping function.

Finish the earrings with a dangle made from one oblong bead and a seed bead, and add the earring wires.

Just for fun, here are three more pairs, made using the same basic technique:


Notice that in the last pair, I brought the spin-stopping wire to the front, for some extra design oomph.

Well. That was fun for me. Hope it gives you some fun, too!

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FRIDAY FENCE POST #14

It's been a long time coming, this Friday Fence Post. The weather has been colder than a fishwife's glare, and they do not call me "Temperature Wuss" for nothing, so I haven't gone out any more than was absolutely necessary, and certainly not to take pictures.

But. We went to our son and daughter-in-law's today, and thinking of adorable grandchildren on top of the drive through all that ruralness, I put the camera in the front seat. It was, like I said, cold. There was frost everywhere, even at 10am, but as I drove up the hill, following a white sun, there was this fence...oooh...

I was able to resist the impulse to park the car and grab my camera for the span of probably an entire ten feet.

Barbed wire never looked so beautiful...

and the moss atop the weathered black fence post was a world unto itself...

I wonder, as I finish this, whether my youngest will recognize her home, at the end of that fence?
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MORE SHANK BUTTON EARRINGS--Mini Tutorial

Once I made the first pair of shank button earrings, all I wanted to do was make more. So I did.

This little tutorial builds on yesterday's, so if there's something you don't understand, you might want to look at it. The thing I think about when I'm working with shank buttons is the space between the shank and the edges of the button. With a bead, whatever you're stringing with--wire, thread, etc.--won't show, but with a button there's that span to cover.

I use extra beads to do that. Sometimes they don't show at all. Other times, they become part of the design. In yesterday's pair, the beads were very much part of the design; with this one, not so much so, although there's just a tiny bit of color showing above and below, almost like a seed bead.

So again, you start with a wrapped loop at the bottom, then string on a bead, in this case a blue bugle, then the button, and then another bugle bead. There should be just a little of the beads showing from the front.

At the top of the bugle bead, begin a wrapped loop, but instead of clipping the wire, bring it down the back of the button, and around the shank, and then back up to the top of the bugle bead. Are you following me so far? Here's a picture, and below it I'll continue with the rest:



Loop it around where you've begun the wrap, and then bring it back down to the back, ending with a tiny coil. The wire will cross the front of the bugle bead on the diagonal.

There's a reason for all that looping around in back: It keeps the button from spinning on the wire, so that the pretty side of the button will face forward all the time when you wear your earrings. You could accomplish the same thing with a dot of glue, probably, but I like the simplicity of this, and the interesting appearance it gives the back. That's probably not very important--I mean, who looks at the backs of their jewelry? But I like it anyway.

Here's another shot of the back from a different angle:

And the finished pair:



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