this is your last chance.....

....to take my Nature's Muse - Beaded Art Doll class, before the new year! It's one of my most popular classes...I supply the face cabochon and the pre-stuffed doll body....all you need to do is stitch with joyful abandon!  My doll family has grown, so you'll have your pick of unique doll forms, to choose from. As it's running on Halloween day, I'll even bring along some treats!!

Where - BeadFX - October 31st, from 10 am until 5 pm

See you there!

altered dominos, yes....but what else can I alter?

As many of you know, I love to experiment, and I also love my Alcohol Inks. What better way to play with them, then to design a new workshop? So I did! Details are as follows: If you're interested in learning more about Alcohol Inks, then this is the class for you! We will be working with a variety of techniques, tools and substrates, and I promise that it will be an action packed class! Not for the faint at heart, and definitely not for those that hate to get their hands dirty! Some experience with the inks is recommended. Jewellery and non-jewellery applications will be discussed. BeadFX in Toronto - Sunday, May 17th, from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm.

I promise a day full of colour, creativity and laughter!! Stay tuned for more mixed media fun in June...

november workshops

There's still space available in two of my November workshops, at BeadFX in Toronto! "Tart Your Tiles: Glass Cabochons & Pendants", this Thursday, from 5-9pm,and "Beading Without A Net: Intuitive Bead Embroidery", on November 23 & 30th. Won't you join me for a little creative play?

wrists and fingers and twining around

Dear bloggers, it's not that I don't love you, but I get so involved, that I forget to write! I'm probably, at least three posts behind, but hope to chat with you again, later in the week. April was a busy, learning and refresher month for me. I took a few evening and weekend classes at BeadFX, but I'm only going to discuss one of them, with you today. I seem to be getting deeper into jewelery mode,so I'll show you two fibre cuffs, I made before starting to play with something entirely different. The first is a felted cuff, made in a class with Dawn Liu-Smythe, who's easy humour and casual teaching style, made for a very pleasant day. The second, a sari silk cuff, hand stitched on water-soluble stabilizer, and then embellished with hand embroidery, and freeform beaded netting. I dreamed it up, after last weekend's spending spree at The Creativ Festival, as I just had to justify those $$'s with a possible class sample! Nothing's firm yet, but I'll keep you informed.

My next foray into fibre, was a result of a blog post about Scrap Fabric Twine, that I found somewhere on the internet. A great little stash buster, very easy, and also quite addicting. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it, but I do seem to be twining fairly regularly. Dare I say that I'll make it a daily task? Probably not, but weekly is a definite possiblility! Of course, my next challenge will be finding something to wind it on, while waiting for inspiration. I know that my friend Kaite in Australia is planning to coil baskets out of hers, and Sue in Arizona, may wrap a chubby doll (LOL!). My ideas = a total mystery!

If you're interested in "twining", please play along, and share your results in the comments. As usual, more later.......

not just your mama's paper beads?

Who says that paper beads are boring? Why can't we combine junk paper with modern elements? What if we just use recycled materials and then embellish the living daylights out of them? Why not make them into teeny, little art projects? Why do we even need to make jewellery out of them? Why can't we use them as decorative elements in our homes? If we make paper beads out of book text, does that make them part of an altered book? How about using them for toggle closures? What if we mixed our paper beads with other beads? How about combining a text bead with fabric? Does that make it a fabric book? Does painting a paper bead, make it a painting? Why not make them fun, funky, colourful, sophisticated and most of all, fabulous? Come join me at BeadFX on Sunday, April 6th, for my "From Junk to Beads-Making Paper Beads" class. Time: 12 PM to 3 PM. I promise that you won't regret it!

Hmm......looking at the top photo, I realize that I need to add a jolt of colour? Perhaps red, lime, or maybe even yellow? What do you think? My bowl has the start of two necklaces in it, but tell me, what would you make out of paper beads?

Intuitive Bead Embroidery Class

A few random shots of last weekend's class at BeadFX. The names have been excluded, to protect the innocent. LOL!

Thanks so much to all of you, for being so wonderful! I can hardly wait to see your finished pieces!!!