Seeing Christmas Stars

It was my intention to create a sky-scape of stars for Christmas but the weeks got away from me and my beading time got all shrunk.  I managed to finish this ONE today.  Hopefully I'll remember to start making some stars next summer or even in the spring.   They are so cute and just the perfect size.  I'll have a bit of beady time this week and I plan to go over Kate's Contemporary Geometrics that she so kindly offered on an early PDF.  These pieces are really a challenge and I'm so up to it!  Will try to be more faithful to the blog in 2013!

While He Was Out!!

Peter and I spent an extended weekend in Texas where my nephew was married.  While we were gone, I had my designer friend re-do his man room, formerly known as number three kid's room.  I've had lots of ideas and have wanted to do a makeover so he'd have his own space for a long time... like 4 years!  I just could not get it going.  Well, you get a designer type involved and the ideas flow all over the place.  He loves his motorcycles (Yamaha, Kawasaki, Suzuki) and his books.  I thought he'd like a place to read and contemplate rides.  Everything was done while we were in Texas and he was soooooo surprised when he saw it for the first time yesterday.  Notice his keys are still in his hand!  This was fun, partly because he's a bit critical of the OMG moments on HGTV.  So this is Peter's OMG moment (which was really a "Holy Crap" moment).

Holy Crap!!!

Here's what's cool in my World

I've been beading away and life's busy (what else is new, right?)  I've been working on this amazingly cool zig zag bangle.  Very fun to create, lots and lots of beads!  I'm digging the results... it's looking kind of Christmas-y so I may play with that when I add the bells and whistles...hmmm bells... gotta think about that.  One of my beady heroes created the pattern: Kate McKinnon (not the one from SNL, but the cool Kate).  Another of my beading heroes, Jean Power who created this pattern (caldera bangle), this star pattern and much more, has asked to put my caldera on her fb page.  That is VERY COOL!! Thanks for the shout out, Jean!  These are things beady dreams are made of.  Makes me wish I was one of those who could quit the day job and bead, bead, bead all day long.  I really could do this all day. It's a passion, an expression, certainly a distraction and an attraction at the same time.  Love my beads!  Love my bead-y peeps.  Also, tonight I love my president and hope he's good for four more years.  Go Barack and Michelle!

Nothin' Better: Beads/Pandora

Does it get any better than that?  Clean house, day off, beads and pandora... oh and sunshine!  Last night we went to "Last Thursday" on Alberta in PDX.  A friend suggested we wait in line... no matter how long it was... to get ice cream at Salt and Straw.  Well that line wasn't THAT long (15 minutes).  I got the salt and carmel ripple with hot fudge!  Are you freaking kidding me?  That was the best EVER!  This is hand made ice cream... deeeeelish! Yum!  Here's what my face did when I taste it!!

Yummy!  Keep pdx weird so I can have ice cream like this!

Kinda Diggin This

Okay, I'm a bit obsessed with Photoshop Elements.  I just got home from and work and I'm going to do another free webinar. Here's something that I played around with... took out Peter's wrinkles, did a couple of effects.  I think it looks cool.  This just happens to be what's on my desktop right now.  Sorry for repeating (three-peating) our bike ride.  It was a fun day to remember!  At some time I'm hoping to create digital scrapbooks with these photos.  Not the ones you that are pre-formatted but something I create and have printed.  It's kind of graphic design for dummies:)
Portland has been gloriously mild... no rain, no wind... occasional smoke from fires a couple hundred miles away.  September is the absolute best time to be in PDX.

Peter and Makenna on our bike ride.

Playing around with Photoshop

Makenna on our bike ride last week.

I just downloaded a trial version of Photoshop Elements 11 and look what I did in 10 minutes!  Pretty cool!  I think I may have to buy this one.  This newest version just came out and it's so easy to use.  Much more intuitive than PSE 8, which I've been so lazy about learning.  With some quick results I think this will give me some motivation and ease the frustration.  I know it's not great... but it's a first try.  Also beading away these days.  You'll soon see some really cool stuff here.

Biking the Springwater

Peter and I took our granddaughter biking on the Springwater Trail this weekend.  Peter's always on the lookout for sweet blackberries.  They weren't as abundant as they a were a few weeks ago, but we all loved them.  We ran into some folks with their dog and they told us the dog enjoyed the berries, too. We all know not to eat the berries on the low branches, right?  Some dogs eat the berries, some dogs just pee on 'em.  Fun day!
In the beading sphere, I'm working away on some stuff.  Life is pretty darn good right now:)