Caribbean Color Palette - Challenge Update

If you missed the Caribbean Color Palette challenge post over at Love My Art Jewelry, don't panic.  There's still time to play along.  Here's the palette:

Yep, that's me - hanging on to summer with every ounce of my being!  I know, I know... it's that time of year we should be playing with the autumnal colors, but just look at those blues and how fun it is when you throw in some chartreuse!  I've been playing around with my cord and beads and have come up some really pretty bracelets so far.

I liked this one so much I made up kits for it and used them in my ZigZag Micro Macrame bracelet class in Denver.

I thought this one was going to be boring when I started - like maybe it needed more color.  But once I got underway, I really liked the way this one came out with more white than color.

Anyway, if you're interested in playing along, the rules are simple:  make something inspired by the Caribbean Color Palette photo.  It can be anything - a painting, jewelry (of course), a scarf, a quilt, a pair of hand painted shoes (hinting here - I'd really love some!) - as long as it's made by you.  Share a photo of your piece with me by September 14, 2016 (see, you still have time!) and I'll put together a blog post revealing them on the Love My Art Jewelry blog on September 16th.   If you'd like to do a blog post, send me the link along with your photo and I'll include it.  Please send photos to me through my business Facebook page or via email.  

Who's in?

Classes, Cakes & ShrinkyDinks

Oh my gosh that was fun!!  I just got back (okay, a few days ago - at my age it takes me a minute to regroup) from teaching classes in Denver and it was such a great experience!!  The ladies from the Rocky Mountain Bead Society were enthusiastic about learning micro macrame and we had a full 20 people in the Beginner's class!  Many of them came back for additional classes over the four days and one lady (you rock, Irene) took all four classes!  Just look at that concentration!

That's not to say there wasn't any banter (there was banter aplenty) but the students were fearless when it came to the small cords and tiny seed beads.  Oh, and then there was this:

It seemed somehow symbolic to find one lone turquoise colored chair in a sea of regular old beige ones, that being "my" color and all :) 

I've mostly been getting things put away this week (you know how trying to put something back into the closet you removed it from sometimes leads to having to clean out the whole closet to get it to fit?) and relaxing a bit.  The last couple of months were a whirlwind of activity trying to get ready for the class, working on the new house and wrapping up the budget for the fiscal year at my "real" job.  I took the afternoon off yesterday and did just for me stuff.  I baked a pretty cake:

And I played with ShrinkyDinks (thanks to Kate, a student in one of my classes)!  You know what?  It was every bit as much fun as it was when I was a kid!

I traced and colored (check out my new 48 pack of colored pencils!) and then baked and went from this:

To this:

TOO much fun!  I did have one "issue" with my pumpkin.

It turned out almost black after the baking/shrinking process:

I'm still kind of pouty from the whole pumpkin thing, but I'll certainly know better next time.  Meanwhile, the others are cool!

And that's what I've been up to lately.  You?

Housework

Boy oh boy have I been busy!  In the midst of trying to get ready for the upcoming classes in Denver, we bought a little house and have been busy working on it.  It's about three hours away from us, so it's not like we can just pop over and work for a few hours.  We worked a full five days with as many as seven of us working on the place at times.  We're really happy with how it all came out, though and my daughter, who will be living there while she goes to school, is ecstatic.

Here's a before picture:

We had the roof, gutters and downspouts replaced before we closed on the place so we didn't have to deal with that.  The front step was rotted, though, and that was a big project for my husband.  Other than those things, the rest of the work we did was more cleaning and cosmetic.  The little old place just needed some love and attention.

See what I mean?  That's the same tub and same fixtures before and after.  Just a lot of elbow grease.  We did do a couple of makeover projects for some furniture pieces, too.  We took an old round coffee table we found in a used furniture store and made it into an ottoman:

My daughter had a very specific idea of what she wanted in an ottoman.  It had to be large and round and it had to be white/gray.  And cheap.  We couldn't find anything that fit all of her requirements so we came up with this idea.   We're pretty chuffed about the results!  We did the whole thing ourselves never having done anything like that before.  Right down to covering the buttons.  Go team!

We bought this extremely tired, worn and used dresser for $5.

You can't tell too much from the photo, but it's missing a bar between the top and middle drawers on the left side and has a lot of damage to the top (raised spots) as well as one side looking like it was dragged down a street behind a pickup or something.  It got a makeover and became her TV stand with lots of bonus storage.

Isn't that fun!  The finished room includes a loaned couch and chair that her friend's mother recovered - I just have to show you the couch before:

Are you ready for the reveal? 

 

We painted every inch of the upstairs and all but one room downstairs.  We scrubbed and weeded and cleaned floors on our hands and knees.  I'm tired, but I'd do it again next week!  It was a really fun project.

I had to switch gears in a hurry, though - my Denver classes are coming up this week!  Eek!  I'm still putting together kits for one class and refining my presentation for the Rocky Mountain Bead Society meeting (gulp).  And I still need to add prices to all my finished jewelry since I usually only sell online and don't have anything marked.  So much left to do!  Wish me luck!  

Meanwhile, I'll leave you with another picture of the made over living room.  It makes me happy!

More New Micro Macrame Kits

The kit making frenzy continues!  I've added some new ones to my Etsy shop that contain the cord, beads and findings you will need to make the Woven Diamonds micro macrame bracelet (the online class for it can be found here on CraftArtEdu).  I even mixed all the seed beads myself!

I've included a focal in each of the kits, but you can choose not to use it if you prefer the plain version of the bracelet.  The class contains instructions for making either version.

I've also added more kits for several other patterns.  I've never been so sick of making kits in all my life, but I have quite a selection on hand now.  Happy knotting!