The UFO -- Completed!

It's every beader's dirty little secret - that stack of half-finished, reconsidered, abandoned, incomplete, wrongly-turned projects that lie, lonely and unfinished, in the bead room. Our own stash of UFOs - unfinished objects.

Karen Williams, in her wise and encouraging way, brought together a group of beaders to dig into their UFO pile with the mission of finishing one or more of them. Karen's great at giving me a kick in the creative pants, so I had to jump in. Read all the way down, because this one took several turns along the way...

Several years ago, I wanted to build a necklace around a lovely abalone cabochon.

 The original vision was for one side of the necklace to be a Cellini spiral, with the other side a multi-strand collection of pearls. The Cellini spiral turned out great, but I couldn't get the multi-strand part of lay correctly, no matter how many times I tried.

It wasn't ugly, but it certainly wasn't right. In fact, it was so not right, I never took a picture of it. Just took the pearls off and put it aside into the UFO pile.

Until Karen's nudge. There weren't enough of the seed beads I used in the spiral to make a matching side, so that option was off the table. I decided to try the pearl idea again, this time in a braid or other structured format.

But again, it didn't work. This is that version, but this is not the final result of the challenge:

Yeah, again not right. So far from what I had in my imagination.

So what to do? I took a deep breath, picked up a pair of sharp scissors, and cut that spiral in half.

Gulp.

The resulting halves were too short to be a necklace, so I had to finish them off and add a couple of purple jade and sterling silver beads to make a necklace that I could wear without choking. The final version, while not what I had originally imagined, is wearable, satisfying, and most importantly, complete.

Whew! Thanks, Karen, for providing the motivation and the accountability. Now, go check out what some of my beady buddies have finished from their own UFO collection:

Karen Williams, Baublicious

Francie Broadie,  FAB

Christine Van Dyke Altmiller, One Kiss Creations

Therese, Therese's Treasures

Kim Dworak, CianciBlue

Liz Hart, Treetop Life

Liz En, Bead Contagion

Amy Severino, Amy Beads

Cynthia Machata, Antiquity Travelers

Hope Smitherman, Crafty Hope

Christi Carter, Sweetpea Path

Bobbie Rafferty, Beadsong Jewelry

Margo Lynn Hablutzel, My World and It's Full of Books

UFO Spotting

They're every beader's dirty little secret.

No, not the piles of beads that occupy every nook, cranny, and closet in the house.

Not the urge to buy every color of the newest shaped bead. That's not a secret. But it does create the issue mentioned above.

The universal problem is the UnFinished Object. The project that started out great and either hit a creative wall, got run over by the time demands of daily life, or just petered out somewhere along the way.

Karen Williams, the creative genius behind Skunk Hill Studios and Baublicious, put together a blog hop specifically to encourage people to finish and share those UFOs that are lurking in their studios. I dithered a bit and missed the sign up for the first one (dithering may lead to some of my UFOs...). But she's doing it again!!

On May 1, we'll reveal how we've completed one (or more) UFOs.  Here's a sneak peek of what I've got in line to finish. If I manage to get it done early enough, I'll work on one of the other three thousand few UFOs I've got laying around.

The Silver Lining To Packing The Bead Room

The hardest part of moving into a new home? (I mean, aside from the whole selling the old place and finding the new place. Or remembering your new address. Or driving home only to find you're in the wrong place....)

If you're a beader, it's got to be the whole process of packing up your bead room.  Dear heavens. Talk about getting slapped in the face with your hoarding tendencies!

But then you get to the new place and discover all the treasures you forgot about, including the Un Finished Objects that had been stashed at the bottom of the drawer or in the back of the closet. I found a couple that would work up pretty quickly, so here they are, the first completed UFOs of 2017!

First up, some cabochons that I had glued to backing, in order to embroider the into a pair of earrings. They sat on the backing, unfinished, for an embarrassingly long time. When I finally got back to them, one of the purple glass cabochons had cracked, so a matched pair of earrings were out.

So, with the addition of a nice little jade round, the earring and a half became a pendant.

The second UFO was a red jasper cab that I had prepped as an illustration for a class that I taught. About 15 years ago. Yep. It only had the peyote bezel, with no backing or edging.  With the addition of modest fringe (I am SO not a fringe gal) and a necklace of faceted carnelian, faceted glass, and coconut heishi with an antique brass toggle clasp, she's ready to come out of the drawer.

Do you have any UFOs lurking in your bead room? 

Taming the Monster

Every now and then, I start a project that becomes, for lack of a better word, a monster.

You know, one of those interesting "what if" ideas that quickly devours your work table.

My latest one has been sitting around in its UFO state for a really long time.  Mocking me.  Taunting me.  Causing me to mutter under my breath like the crazy lady in the neighborhood.  Oh wait, I am the crazy lady in the neighborhood.  Anyway, I was starting to measure the length of time this thing was taking me to complete it in geological terms -- paleozoic, mesozoic, necklacezoic....

You may have seen it at this point:

or at this point:

ANYWAY, I had gotten to a point in the monster's development where it was time to add the neckstrap.  I wanted to do something that would echo the swirl of turquoise that winds around the glass discs in the focal.

Tried one idea.  Ugly.  Tried another idea.  Fugly.  Tried yet another idea. Not bad, but not quite substantial enough to stand up to the boldness of the centerpiece.

Finally, finally, finally, I came up with something I feel good about.  What do you think?

The photo's overexposed, but you get the idea --
this is not for the shy woman!

So happy to have tamed the monster!

The Triplets

Finally, finally, finally, I got some time in my bead room over the past couple of days.  It was so good to spend some time reacquainting myself with the things in there.  ("Oh, stash of crystals, I remember your sparkle.  Seed beads, how I've missed you!!")  

Yes, I talk to my beads.  Not worrisome until I report that they've begun to talk back.

Anyway, several projects got worked on, more got started, and a whole bunch are sitting there just waiting for clasps, earwires, or other finishing touches.  I'm particularly excited about one I'm calling The Triplets -- a trio of jasper beads that I'd embroidered a while back, but hadn't made into a finished...whatever.

Frankly, it had been sitting on the UFO (unfiished objects) pile for a long time, as contemplated what kind of beadwoven neckstrap to make for it.  Then today, it struck me that perhaps the Triplets would shine more beautifully if they were surrounded more simply.

Meet "The Triplets"

So here they are, suspended from a simple neckchain of onyx and gold beads.  The clasp is not yet made, so the photo only shows a portion of the piece.

Tomorrow morning brings a visit to the dentist, to get some filling replaced (oh joy, oh rapture...oh, sure).  The afternoon will likely be spent on the sofa, finishing the projects that just lack findings and other completing touches while the novocaine wears off.  (Who knows, maybe the novocaine will make the beads start talking to me!)

Another Project Is Eating My Worktable

If you've been dropping into this blog for a while, you may know that I tend to take on large projects.  Big, worktable eating projects that initially seem like a great idea but soon have me wondering what the heck I was thinking.

After a few thousand nights hours and hours of working at these table-eaters, I'm usually pleased with the results.  But holy crap, they do suck up some hours.

And darned if I didn't do it again.  Here's a peek at the latest project that's devouring my worktable.

Still not entirely sure what this will become.  I have had several ideas along the way, but the ideas keep shifting and changing.

So it's back to step by step progress, do a little bit and then set it aside.  The project has moved forward a bit beyond the stage in the photo, but I think it's time for it to sit and marinate for a while.

I'll keep you posted...

Bringing an Awkward Adolescence To An End (Hopefully!)

And to begin today's confession, I refer once again to my inordinate stack of unfinished objects. You know, the ever-encroaching stack of projects that either didn't turn out as beautiful in reality as they were in my imagination, or those that just got stuck at an awkward phase.

Kind of like I did between the ages of 9 and 17 (or 9 and now...)

And no, I will not subject you to my school photo from seventh grade. THAT, my friends, would scar your psyches beyond all repair, and frankly, I just can't be responsible for that.

Instead, I will show you a picture of the latest project that I hope to rescue from its own adolescent bizarre-ness. (Bizarre-itude? Bizarre-ification? Ok, now my head hurts.)




It started with the ceramic face. It grew and grew, to a point where I just ran out of steam (or inspiration or interest) to continue working on it. So it lived on my work table for a long time. I mean a long time. Long enough that it's now lived in two different states in its, um, unfinished state. Yes, it got packed up in our former home and moved to our new home. Six years ago.

That's long enough to subject anything to an awkward adolescent phase, don't you think? I've got some ideas for where to go with it now.




I went fishing through the seed bead collection, pulled out some likely candidates, and I'm going to bust out the needle and the nymo and get cracking. Let's see if we can turn this ugly duckling into something a little more presentable!