This post is temporarily highjacked for the squeeage. I just got a picture of a bead that Ziggy made me.. Contact her for pricing and ordering information if you're interested.

It has sparkly eyes. Stardust eyes even. It had to be said.
She also made me a grey, and some matching accent beads.
*does the happy alien dance*

Back to your regularly scheduled post..
One of the dolls we got at the thrift store a few weeks ago was a Kelly doll with long black hair and short bangs, so I'm having W bring over his paints tonight so I can re-do the eyes/lips color to start turning it into a little Shala doll. Because I'm amused with a self portrait doll, and if I don't keep it.. I'm pretty sure I can find a home for a mini shala doll.

Wow.. I had lots of ideas for this post.. but.. I'm all alien headed now.
GOSH!!!!! I'm the luckiest girl in the world!

( My cute sushi earrings )
I made them yesterday. The pattern is up here.

beadslut made an SGA themed bracelet. Turned out nicely didn't it?

I got my package of beads from PizazzWorks, they have a sale going on now, 88% off their regular prices, which are, admittedly, a bit on the high side, but with that kind of discount, they are a really decent price. I got pink pearls. Pink pearls make me happy. I also got turquoise so I can restring my bear claw necklace. Which is entirely too big and with more beads can make 5 necklaces I'd actually wear.I can see all the vegans on my list just flinching at the thought of a bear claw necklace. The claws are real, they came off a very damaged, very old bear skin rug. We don't hunt bear because none of us like the way it tastes, and we won't hunt for trophies or fur. Now... moose on the other hand.. as soon as I get a deep freezer, Dad and Mike are planning to go out to fill it with moose, but we intended to use almost the whole animal.

Anyway.. :) Beady happiness.

Working on: Kite earrings
Witch hat

This is a collection of the bead patterns I put did based on comic books I love, I'm posting it here so I can find it quickly.
( yeah.. I'm geekiest beader ever )
I've been sick all week. I'm sort of tired of it now.
I made an Invincibility Star necklace I need to get a picture of soon.

I was in a tiny bead shop in the middle of nowhere, and it felt like a carnival. I was with a pregnant friend. I noticed a have a take/leave a penny box filled with tubes that had change and beads/button/crystals in them for people to take if they needed. Like the button tubes you see at bead and quilt stores sometimes, filled with little stuff a beader who didn't have a lot of money might need. The owner gave 3 to me and my pregnant friend to share, and we enjoyed going through the contents of the tubes.

I really like that idea. Taking your extra supplies and donating them to be made into grab bag type kits for other people to have.

Wanted to write it down before I forgot about the dream.

Today I spent the day graphing out knotwork bracelets, and after I finished 4 different designs, I thought "Why not a dragonfly?"

And that was it, for the rest of the day. It took something like 6 hours to get graphed just right for me. Of course, I'm NEVER going to make it. It's 110 beads long and 90 beads wide, in either flat peyote or brick stitch.
( wanna sneak peek before I post it with the bracelets? )

E and I walked up to the grocery store today, it's just a bit shy of 2 miles, and a friend saw us walking and offered us a ride, he looked at me like I'd grown another head when I said "No, we're just enjoying the weather and the walk." It's 35 degrees today! Positively summery!

At 6pm PST here, come and join us and talk about beads!

(and if anyone thinks of it, can you call me and make sure I'm awake for it? I need a nap!)

Also, I posted odd count peyote instructions at Beadwork at BellaOnline for the method I use.

I have a beaded Green Lantern ring!
( in brightest day, in blackest night )

I got a book to review yesterday, it looks great. I also got lots of charlottes.

The charlottes were from Bette, for winning her chat room contest. Yum yum!! A lot of great vintage-y colors and opaques. The sort of beads that are perfect for a barrette.

E likes the resin cabs a lot, especially the ones that look like snowballs, and asked me to make her a necklace.
( Picture of the necklace so far )
With the macro setting on my camera, it sure takes nice crisp pictures of beadwork doesn't it? The flash did cause a bit of a glare on the cab. The chain piece I put in so you could get an idea what it will look like when it's done. I hate spiral chains. That technique is so slow and repetitive, but I'm making myself stick with it because it's also a really strong chain.
Because I used 2 different brands/finishes of size 11 seed beads that are just slightly different in size, I didn't have to do any decreasing, the dark blues are enough thinner to make it all nice and tight. The back is completely encased because the sort of resin you use catalyst with leaves the edge exposed to air just slightly tacky. Usually people just sand it, but since I was beading it anyway, I used a flat peyote circle to cover the back.

( do these suit me more? )
My sister? About the black/green pair of earrings? Was brutal. She said they were pretty enough, but not only did they not suit me, but looked like sh*t on me. I said "You haven't seen them on me! And besides, mostly my hair covers them" and she said "But I can imagine, and it's not good." She went on to explain I need bigger and longer with my face and hair. Possibly with skulls.
These? Much bigger then I wear. Seriously, not a big earring person. The fringe hits my jaw swinging forward. But since I made them with delicas, they don't weigh (jeez.. yeah. I misspelled it the first time.) much. The accent beads are size 8s and cheap glass E's from Wal-mart (the Es, not the 8s, I get the 8s at my LBS).
It's almost like being back in the 80s though, remember all the earrings from the 80s? The shoulder dusters, the idea anything that could go on a hook could on your ears? Big and glam and covered with glitter, or shiny plastic.. ahh.. the 80s.

Beadwork at BellaOnline- updated.
Bead Chat- 6 pm Pacific, every Friday.

No vs this week. It was another HUH? I don't even remember who now, since.. you know, only knew one of them.

Make suggestions please, for weeks when the vs require entirely too much comic book geekspeak to bother with.

We skipped E's craft class because of a bead show downtown. Before we left, we checked the mail, and my books from Microcosm were there. More on those in a bit.

The bead show was missing some of my favorite sellers, but I did manage to find entirely too much to spend money on. Fish Lips and Bird Teeth had a couple wonderful poly clay pins, no magpies though! She said she would have some at the next show, after finding out that jays, while corbies, weren't my favorite. I like magpies. I got a pin from her that says "I'm not bossy, I'm just always right", Mike and the kids thought it was hilarious, and entirely too perfect for me. Alaska Bead Company had a trunk show going with sparkly after market coated riviolis. Too shiny, too pretty, and too much. I spent a lot of money on 6 pretty crystals. One of them is triangle shaped and just incredible shine. Since I'm getting some gold beads from Pamy, I think the triangle crystal will be my "Not a Christmas Party" necklace this year. I also got a pretty blown glass angel to hang from my window, she's holding a rose.
After that, E and I went for lunch at the Brewhouse, yeah, I know, tight budget I totally blew yesterday, but it was fun. She had halibut fish and chips, and I had a garlic-y pasta/chicken dish I love. I did not have creme brulee. See? I was watching the budget.
We walked for a bit, and going by town square, we ran across Eyes Wide Open, an exhibition done by American Friends Service Committee. It was amazing. In the center of town square was a neat square marked off with American flags, filled with neat rows of combat boots representing a small part of the soldiers that have died in Iraq. Surrounding that, on the small hills around the center were pairs of regular shoes all marked with names and ages of Iraqis that have died in the war. They were everywhere, baby shoes, kids shoes, slippers for elderly women, all with names and ages. I started crying when I saw a pair of shoes that represented a 12 year old, with my 12 year old daughter next to me. There were a lot of people looking at the names in the section with the soldiers boots, but for me, it was the rest that was heartbreaking. The servicemen and women who died signed up for it, and even if they didn't really know what they were getting into, they knew there was a possibility they would be asked to fight for their country. A 6 month old, an 80 year old, a 12 year old, they don't ask for it. They weren't waging war. They were trying to live. I picked up literature about the exhibit for my son. I didn't realize until I'd gotten home I should have picked up extra copies for Mel. I'm sorry!
After that, we walked over to Nordstrom's for coffee. You know, when I was 16, it was 25¢ a cup, it's gone up to 2.50. E and I each had a cup of coffee, and split a piece of chocolate cake (it's really rich and dark chocolate, even sharing, we didn't finish it, E did NOT want to admit the cake had her beat). After you've seen an exhibition like that, and when your shopping bag is filled with catalogs from a place like Microcosm, you feel strongly like saying very rude things to people spending hundreds on dresses and shoes, you know that? I settled for leaving a couple catalogs in the ladies restroom lounge.
Then we walked to the hotel, and just when we were a block away, Mike called to say he was off work, so we waited for him by the door, and he picked us up. Then we went to get Wm.
About the books-
The cookbook, Hot Damn and Hell Yeah/The Dirty South had a recipe in it for a mushroom gravy, that modified a bit, made a marvelous "safe to eat even when on a diet" gravy for Mike. So last night, he had leftover chicken instead of halibut with the rest of us with gravy on it. Since he hasn't had gravy in a month, he loved it.
( gravy recipe )
Before bed last night, I read some of Stolen Sharpie Revolution, which is as amazing as it sounds. I know at least one person on my flist has a zine, and I've considered starting one a few times. This book is absolutely chocked full of information. The real question is, who would be interested in a zine I was doing? It would be a lot like this blog, a mix of crafts, politics, ideas, and journalling, in print form.
Making Stuff and Doing Things is full of a lot of ideas I won't use, but it also has some great ones I will use. One of them is to make buttons using safety pins, bottle caps and can tabs. Which I had some of. So I tried it out.
( Bottle cap buttons )

Well, I finally got started on the tessallated skull mini-pouch. And then had to frog. Restarted. Had to frog again. Restarted, got 16 rows done.. and noticed another mistake, plus I realized it needed a slight regraph.

But it is, right this moment, working.

Of course, I feel almost guilty posting another skull pattern. Because I've posted an awful lot of them. I think skulls might be starting to bore some of my readers.

This one, minus the frogging, is working up really fast in just plain old Japanese size 11 seeds. After doing so much in the last few years in 15s and delicas, I forgot how nice it is to work with something you don't particularly need a halogen or ott lamp to see properly.

But now I'm too sleepy to work on it, but I'm staying awake for the mailman because I have a package coming from Microcosm. Love them so much, and always want to spend more money then I can with them, but I had a 25 dollar mastercard gift card, and decided to order 3 books. Vegan cookbooks, Making Stuff and Doing Things and a copy of Stolen Sharpie Revolution. *happiness*
The other day, I got to use the word aglet in a sentence. I was re-lacing my shoes, because the very cute tinkerbell laces in them tend to come untied*, and I noticed the aglets were frayed. So I got to say "My aglets are frayed.". Nobody made the obvious pun. I'm glad. E ran over to the computer to check on dictionary.com what the heck an aglet was. I replaced the laces with cute Halloween ribbons. Because 'tis the season to be spooky.

Other then that? Still working on blue and green panda, plus I have some *cute* bubble bottles (check Halloween aisles) in different colors, all the purple ones I'm sending to Pamy, but E wants me to bead an orange one for her.

* My dad** has been warning me for weeks about my shoelaces. It's horrible warnings. "Shala, tie your shoes, or you're going to trip and die." "You're going to trip over your laces and break your neck." "Your shoe is untied, do you want to go to the hospital?" Apparently, dying of an untied shoe is a lot more common then I realized.
**I still think, other then W, I'm the sanest person in my family. Even if I do take my life into my own hands and live dangerously with untied shoes.

Still no new vs up. Darnit. Maybe I should have suggested one?

I meant to make a panda last night. I got distracted, and instead did a lot of graphing, unsuccessfully. I can not seem to successfully tessellate bats. I did do a basic fish tessellation though, because, well.. it's classic.

E and W were arguing over something last night, probably E being bossy. She is you know. And she said this "If you don't, I'll become really smart, and I'll invent a machine that lets me go into movies and I'll change the ending of Nightmare Before Christmas so Jack Skellington becomes the Grim Reaper." To which W said "Huh?" and I repeated it all. Mike came out into the living in time to hear me repeat it all, and I added "So THERE" to the end, and Mike gave me this really odd look, and I said "E said it. Minus the so there." He blinked. Can't say I blame him.

We stopped for dinner last night after W's hair cut was done and after we got comics at the mall. Like I've said before, the Mexican place in the mall food court is 1)Locally owned and 2) Really good. Actually, most of the food places in the mall foood court are locally owned, there is a Subway and an Arby's down there, and there used to be a Wendy's, but compared to the goodness of the locally owned places, they went out of business. We gave the kids money to order what they wanted. W got almond chicken, plus had what was left of Mike's burrito and chips. This led to the oddness of me watching my son take a bite of almond chicken, and then a bite of burrito, and at one point, dipping his eggroll into salsa.
I had carne asada tacos. Yum yum.

The icon? W is currently reading my Sherlock Holmes. He's absolutely enjoying it. I think I was his age when I got hooked, but since I won't let him take it home with him, I think that's part of why he's been so eager to hang out here. I asked if he wants copies for Christmas, and he said yes. Funny thing is, when I bought it, the clerk at B and N looked completely baffled "Are you actually going to read these?" (apparently I don't look like the Sherlock Holmes type?) and I said, I have before. I mentioned Sherlock's drug problem which came as an absolute shock to the clerk. Who hasn't ever read them, and didn't seem to think fiction's greatest detective would do drugs.

I didn't mention Irene Adler. Who didn't get hooked because of her? The description of her is the sort of thing to set imaginations on fire.

We listened to some of Armed Madhouse by Greg Palast, I got it on itunes specifically as something for the family to listen to together. I like reading his stuff, but Greg Palast reads it himself with several celebrity guests playing voices. It's abridged of course, but the timing is great, it's easy to listen to and not get bored. W loves that sort of thing, reading it, hearing it. He's very interested in politics, and reads the newspaper every day. Like a book, not everything, he skips sports and sometimes human interest stories, but he sucks up news and forms opinions. He's learning now that "It's hard for me to explain" is not an acceptable answer in a political discussion with dad, like I did as a kid. We were always encouraged to have our own opinions, as long as we had a reason. The reason didn't have to make sense, but we had to have one. Just stating an opinion "Just because" didn't work. This, drilled into me so young, caused me problems in my last marriage. My ex was very opinionated, but didn't often have clearcut reasons for his kneejerk reactions, so he'd argue with me, and I'd pull out the reasons why my opinion was counter to his, and he'd get defensive and angry with me. So now sometimes I get defensive, I defend my opinions too quickly before people are disagreeing with me, or spell out my reasons for thinking something I do in absolutely boring detail to people. I do appreciate that my friends love me anyway.
Anyway, if you want to check out some of Greg Palast for free, check out Alternative Tentacles, click on MP3, and search for Greg Palast, there are a few downloads available of his album Weapons of Mass Instruction, which is a great album.

( lots of pictures )
We did, what is rapidly becoming the Saturday ritual. We hopped on a bus, and went to do crafts then had lunch after. After that, since we are soo crunched right now, we walked over to the mall and hung out in the library a bit. Much fun!!

Just realized, like just this second because I was looking for it, I don't think I ever posted the bat earrings I made myself here. I guess I figured, I showed them to R, and that was enough.
( bat earrings )

My daughter is happily using up the last of two partial rolls I had of black duct tape (scotch brand of course) and making her favorite Barbie into a duct tape witch. I'll get pictures later.

Beadwork at Bellaonline has been updated.

Subtitle- Or the first Flop
( flipping and flopping )
It's not my worst first try at something, the first scarf I knit for Mike had a definate flare, and I've got little bits and pieces of netted lacy beadwork that didn't turn out at all like I'd planned, and a lot of you saw the original bats I "drew" for a mood theme. I just keep trying until it is something I'm willing to show off.

FYI, when your daughter is watching Monty Python, it's really hard to stop laughing long enough to type decent instructions!

First, this weeks versus..
Poll #994509
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Willow Ufgood versus Frodo Baggins

You all, as usual, went against the masses last time. Wesley was the overwhelming winner at the store, and Jack won by a 3 to 1 margin here.

I'm following this post with a second so the crochet pattern I'm posting will be all by it's lonesome instead of mixed up with my updates.
( there was a pink pink lady )
I've been debating writing instructions for making stitch markers. They are awfully simple, but sometimes step by step instructions are helpful. Do you think I should?

Let's see.. had eldest child over Monday night, and made him his favorite dinner. Prawns with lots of garlic, red onions, crimini mushrooms and butter served over pasta with real cheese on top. Not that icky powdered stuff. It was nice. The next day he and Mike had a Mel Brooks marathon, and he asked me to put the Dead Kennedys on the next mp3 disk I make him. My BOY!
Today I went to HT with the youngest, and she chose herself a pair of footless tights from the clearance racks with skulls and stars. She's mama's girl all the way. With skulls on her legs and her hair tied back with a orange piece of fabric that matches absolutely nothing in her wardrobe. It's perfect.
Summertime, so Mike's working late hours. Not nearly as late as last summer yet at least.
Today, I finally stopped and picked up the new NIN, and while I was at the music shop, I got that itchy feeling, the one that says "check over here" so I checked the S's in the used cd racks and found the Some Girls album I've been looking for. Happiness!!!! I also ordered the new Blackfire album, and made some album recommendations to the girl working there.
I'm paying for it though. I knew I didn't have the spoons, and now I'm wiped, hurting and cranky.
So far, the winning recipe for breakfast cereal for eldest child is the 7grain, but he prefers the raisins/brown sugar/butter powder flavoring stuff/instant milk to the farina. Same price. We've agreed though to keep experimenting with different dried fruits and he did *finish* the cherry. He just thinks he'd like it better with raisins.
The health food store we get our bulk stuff like that from has a dried vegetable soup mix that apparently is absolutely great in ramen. I need to remember to send some to Mel. When I find her bookmarks. The comic book store had these kickass ad bookmarks for some of my favorite comics. This week, they also had "free" download cards for e-music.com for 35 songs (credit card required) with a Marvel theme in lightweight plastic, so I grabbed one for her. Does anyone else want one next time I go in?
Speaking of which.. the store I get my coffee from? Has these neat Japanese pain patches, menthol and camphor, but unlike American patches, the menthol is the strongest, they smell like winter green lifesavers, and are *exactly* the right size for just under my knees, and cost 3.50 for a box of 20. So I'm going to pop a couple of them in her box. I'm posting it here, in case I forget to tell her, so she understands what the white tape things are.

( Trying to get the look of tatting with beads )

I also made E a penguin necklace based off my penguin earring, just bigger and fatter. She likes it. :)

I do believe you learn something new every day, so part of our evening is always me asking everyone what did they learn new today. It could be a new word, an idea, anything.
Yesterday, Mike and I learned together that Peerless handcuffs are a lot harder to pick then Smith and Wessons. Yes. We spent part of the evening mutilating my hair pins and picking handcuffs. Yes, we do actually have pairs, plural, and different brands. Mike used to be a cop you see. Dirty minds.

Neither one of us could get the peerless cuffs open, both of us could pop the Smith and Wessons. It's driving me mad. I can FEEL.. almost, the tension bar in the Peerless, I just can get it to go down.

So now we need lockpicks. Because we've agreed that we want to learn to pick locks together. Which is marginally more useful then last month learning how to walk coins down our fingers.

So I called my dad to ask him if he had any lock picks. You never know. Turned out he doesn't have them anymore, but had a couple sets a few years ago. He told me about what price range to look in, and gave me information about where he's seen them in the past. Then asked why we want to learn to pick locks. I said "Because it's a mountain." He said Oh.

When Mike came home, I asked him to grab dinner for us, and he stopped by Mc Donalds and came back with an almost complete set of the Madame Alexandra dolls. Which TOTALLY rocks. They are Wizard of Oz themed this year. He missed the Munchkin and the Scarecrow, but I got both witches! He didn't get Emily a set, but did get her a happy meal, so she got Dorothy. I told her she could play with mine if she put them back when she was done. So a few minutes later I hear "I don't care if you've got magic powers, you're going DOWN" and Dorothy pushed the Witch of the West off a chair. I said "I don't recall Dorothy being so blood thirsty. Besides, the witch can fly." and she popped a melted bead ornament under her and said "ALIEN witch! On a flying saucer" then asked me why witches were green. I said "I'm not green." and she said impatiently "I know that. I meant costumes and pictures and stuff." This is an absolutely normal evening really.

I posted instructions for the clasp on my Wonder Woman bracelet here, and the bracelet?
( Stop a bullet cold... )