A Little Christmas Present for Myself

A couple of months ago, as part of the Patterns for Tigger fundraiser on Facebook, Carol Dean Sharpe created a set of peyote pattern graphs from a picture I'd taken of Tigger. (Thanks again, CD!)

I loved the patterns, and all the colorways, so I set out to stitch them - since I couldn't pick a favorite, naturally, I stitched them all!

As I looked at them, I decided that rather than wear them as bracelets, I wanted to display them, so I took them to a local framer. They frame lots of needlepoint, but had never done beadwork, and once I told him each was made from glass beads, he was a bit leery about mounting them to the mat, so he sent me home with the matting. I tacked each one to the mat, then took them back to the frame shop to complete the process:

Framed set of 4 peyote stitch Tiggers

And now they are hanging on the wall in my shop, and they are gorgeous!

Here are the "bracelets" before I matted them:

colorful bracelets stitched from CD's peyote graphs

This is the picture of Tigger that the pattern was created from:

Tigger, 8/17/14

All 4 peyote graphs are available as in a bundled tutorial in my Etsy shop.

Thanks again to Carol Dean for her contribution to this, and for creating the Patterns for Tigger group on Facebook. Thanks to all who participated, Tigger is alive and thriving. He still has diarrhea and periodic abdominal pain and distress, and most likely will be diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease. He's on a special diet, and is growing - he's a very active, happy 6 month old puppy, and just graduated from puppy obedience:

Tigger's graduation portrait, 12/14/14

He starts an intermediate obedience class this Sunday. He loves his school!

Tigger and I send warm Holiday greetings to all our friends, and special thanks to the wonderful Patterns for Tigger group!

My Hammer and I have been very, very busy

I have not worked with metals for a long while; I have been blissfully wrapped up in seed beads, beadweaving away, when not tending to a sick puppy.... but more about Tigger later...

I taught a cold connections workshop a couple of weeks ago, and made a few things while I was teaching:

Mixed Metals and Kyanite Necklace, available on Etsy

This contemporary, geometric necklace combines sterling silver and copper, my own enameled headpins, and a beautiful piece of kyanite - I love this necklace!

Also during that workshop I made a pair of long copper and sterling earrings, very similar to this pair:

Long hammered copper earrings, wrapped with sterling silver; available on Etsy

The pair I made during the workshop sold in my B&M shop within 10 minutes of the time I listed them on Etsy, so I sat down last week and made another pair (seen above), plus some other stuff - I hadn't forgotten how much I loved working with metal, but it was hard to pull myself away from the siren call of the seed beads!

Here are some other creations from last week:

Three different chevron necklaces:

Copper, Aluminum, and Brass Chevron necklace, on Vintaj Natural Brass chain; available on Etsy

This one combines copper, aluminum, and brass chevrons, hanging from dark Vintaj Natural brass chain - I really love the contrast of all these metals combined!

Hammered copper double chevron necklace, available on Etsy

For this one, I simply stuck to copper, and I think the result is very nice!

Hammered copper and brass chevron necklace, available on Etsy

This chevron necklace combines hammered copper with a thin brass chevron. I used Vintaj Natural brass jumprings to connect the two, and hung the chevrons from copper rolo chain.


Lastly, these hammered copper earrings, wrapped with artistic wire, available in 3 colors:

 Hammered copper earrings with silver wire wrap

 Hammered copper earrings with aqua wire wrap

 Hammered copper earrings with royal blue wire wrap

The last pair isn't on Etsy yet, because I forgot to take photos of them hanging - I'll get that done, probably tomorrow.

I noticed, while creating all these listings, that my camera has something foggy going on - I hope it is fingerprints or dog slobber on the lens; something I can fix, because I cannot afford to get this camera serviced AGAIN. It was MIA for over 3 months the last time I needed repairs! The flash has quit working on it, so I need to get it fixed, but there's no money!

Can someone with a critical eye take a look at a couple of these listings on Etsy, and let me know in the comments below whether you think I need to retake THESE pictures? I really don't want to, and the blurry spots in them really bug me, but I think the photos are clear enough for the product listings, but I'd love a second, and third, and 4th opinion!

I'm going back to the seed beads this week (I've missed them!), but I have an idea for a series of metalwork pieces, so I'll be starting with that soon - I'm still in the sketching phase right now.

So, back to Tigger. He is doing much better now. He's healed and recovered from his surgery, but his diarrhea never resolved, so he is now being evaluated for inflammatory bowel disease (little guy just never gets a break!). He is on an extremely restrictive diet (no treats!), and the diarrhea is much better, but still there. The intestinal gas is finally gone, and I can tell he feels better. He is SO active and energetic! He has started obedience classes, and is doing well, although he can be very stubborn and uncooperative (much like his mom). If he doesn't feel like coming when called, he is Just. Not. Gonna.

We see the doctor day after tomorrow, to see what the next step is after these 2 weeks of extreme dietary restriction. I'm hoping we can start to add back some dietary elements, trying to find which ones really upset his tummy and which ones are OK. School is very hard with no treats for reward! Plus, he is going nuts watching me eat Pepperidge Farm Goldfish, and not share with him - it bugs me, too! He's so cute!

There are still tutorials and kits available in my Etsy shop, where all proceeds go to help with Tigger's ever-mounting medical expenses. And, of course, all jewelry purchases from my shop also go to help with the bills!

Thanks for taking the time to read this long post, and have a great week! If you have a minute, leave me a comment, and tell me what you think about the blurry photos!

Thanks!

Blog Giveaway for Tigger - Awesome Prizes, and not just for Beaders!

As you may know, my puppy, Tigger, has had a rough start in life. I won't detail all his medical issues again (you can read about them here and here), but he is finally home from the hospital after extensive surgery, and is on the mend. In fact, tomorrow we drive back to his surgeon in Columbia to get his sutures and staples removed, and hopefully he'll be cleared for full activity! (I'm supposed to be keeping this 3-month old bundle of puppy energy calm ... LOL!)

 Tigger wearing his post-op T-shirt (to protect his incision) and his inflatable collar to keep him from chewing

Carol Dean Sharpe (of SandFibers) and Nancy Dale (NEDbeads) have organized a Facebook Group called Patterns for Tigger to help me with Tigger's medical bills, and we also have a separate Fundraiser on LoveAnimals.org.

 Tigger playing with Chance, his stuffed doggy (one of Bailey's old toys)

Here are the patterns donated for Tigger's expenses, courtesy of some very talented beaders and designers:

 Carol Dean's Corrugated Mixed Metals Peyote Cuff

100% of the purchase price of this pattern will go toward Tigger's expenses if you purchase it between now and October 23.

Nancy's Summertime Wrap Bracelet tutorial; 100% of the proceeds from the purchase of this pattern go to Tigger's bills. Nancy's generous offer expires October 8 (when the pattern will return to her shop), so you have to hurry to snap this one up!

Summertime Wrap Bracelet tutorial by NEDbeads

Ella of Ellad2 has donated the tutorial for her Alcira bracelet, an elegant and sparkly bracelet made with seed beads, metallic Marino Ice fire-polished beads, and SuperDuos. 100% of the proceeds from this pattern go towards Tigger expenses UNTIL October 26, when the pattern will return to her shop, so the clock is ticking on this one, too!

Alcira bracelet tutorial by Ellad2

Beki Haley of Whimbeads is donating 15% of the purchase price of her Dragon's Tail Tutorial/Kits. These are available in 4 enticing colorways: purple, copper, cream, and bronze.

Purple Dragon's Tail Kit and Tutorial, by Beki Haley

Karen Waterston of Endless Sparkle has donated her Hex-A-Gon Fling Tutorial.

100% of the purchase price of this bold, graphic odd-count peyote pattern goes toward Tigger's bills, and Karen is also allowing me to sell bead kits for this design - the kits are available here.

Cristie Prince has donated her Cleopatra bracelet tutorial; this sparkly bracelet features 8mm rondelles, 3mm crystal bicones, and various seed beads, and is an intermediate level beadweaving tutorial that includes cross-weaving, peyote, and netting techniques.

 Cleopatra bracelet tutorial by Cristie Prince

Susan Barrett of Bead Goddess Designs has doubled the beady goodness by donating 2 tutorials:

Mermaid's Treasure Chest -- a gorgeous sparkler worked on a netted base,

Mermaid's Treasure Chest bracelet tutorial by Susan Barrett

and her sparkly and colorful Stained Glass Bracelet tutorial, which is based on Herringbone, and uses Delicas, 15/0s, and Swarovski crystals:

Stained Glass Bracelet tutorial by Susan Barrett

Susan has taught both these patterns at Bead and Button in the past, and is allowing me to sell these patterns for as long as I need to!

Smadar Grossman, of Smadar'sTreasure, has donated her Rosita Bonita tutorial, a 2-in-1 package that contains both a bracelet and a necklace pattern; these use Superduos and a variety of seed beads.

Not to be outdone (not that it's a competition, ladies!), Carol Dean Sharpe surprised me last night with not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 gorgeous peyote graphs she created from this photo of Tigger I had posted on Facebook:

smiling Tigger

In addition to the gorgeous, natural Golden Retriever colors, she designed 3 eye-popping pop art-inspired colorways: red-blue, pink-turquoise, and heavy metal. These are all even-count peyote graphs, and I've bundled them together as one fantastic tutorial package, available in my Etsy shop.

 Golden Retriever puppy bracelet tutorial - natural colorway

 Golden Retriever puppy bracelet tutorial - blue-red colorway

 Golden Retriever puppy bracelet tutorial - pink-turquoise colorway

Golden Retriever puppy bracelet tutorial - heavy metal colorway

These will be available forever, and I think they'll appeal to a broad audience: Golden Retriever lovers, Dog lovers, puppy lovers, Tigger lovers, and all sorts of folks - don't you agree? Thanks, CD!

I'm working on making kits available for these - I have to order a lot of colors, but I hope to have them ready within 2-3 weeks.

Sales of my own Well-Traveled Superduo and 2-hole tile bracelet tutorial also go toward Tigger's expenses.

Sales of the kits for this bracelet pattern also go towards our cause - click here to see all the kits and tutorials available to help Tigger!

And we still aren't done! Here's one for non-beaders:

Katie Nelson of Katie's Creations has generous offered to stitch up my Well-Traveled bracelet for anyone who purchases the kit from my Etsy shop. That's right: purchase one of my Well-traveled kits, and Katie will stitch it for free* -- all you have to do is purchase the kit, and leave a note for seller at checkout telling me you want Katie to stitch it, and tell me your desired bracelet size. I'll provide a clasp, and ship the beads to Katie, and you'll receive a beautiful custom bracelet! (*You'll have to send Katie a small fee to cover her shipping the finished bracelet to you.) What a deal!

Despite the outpouring of generosity from Planet Bead and Tigger's many friends and family (both in real life and on Facebook), we are still falling short of our goal. Between our 2 fundraising opportunities, we have only reached 1/3 of our goal, for which I am very, very grateful, but we still have a long way to go!

To this end, I am putting together this blog giveaway! We have 3 prizes (and I can add more, if anyone else wants to donate - just contact me!): Carol Dean is offering a $50 gift certificate for her Etsy shop, good for patterns and/or finished jewelry, and I am offering 2 prizes: a $35 gifts certificate good for anything (patterns, kits, or jewelry) in my Etsy shop OR at YaYa Beads in Augusta, GA (one or the other - winner's choice!) AND one free seed bead kit from my shop - either a Well-Traveled kit, the Hex-A-Gon kit, or the yet-to-be-listed Tigger bracelet kits.

How can I enter, you must be asking by now?! Well, 3 prizes means 3 drawings, and 3 winners, so let's lay out the rules:

First, every purchase (jewelry, kits, tutorials) in my Etsy shop between now and midnight (Eastern Daylight Time) October 10, 2014, will be entered into the drawing for the $35 gift certificate to my shop. The entry will happen automatically, so the sale(s) itself IS your entry. Buy more than one item, get one entry for each item purchased, automatically EASY! Plus - you folks have been busily shopping in my shop while I've been writing this lengthy post, so any purchase since midnight last night will be automatically entered.

Second:  Make a donation directly to LoveAnimals.org in Tigger's name - here's the link. All donations made between today (October 5) and midnight, October 10, will also be entered into the drawing for the $35 gift certificate to my shop. Be sure and leave your e-mail address there when you donate, so I can contact you if you win.

Third, every comment on this blog post between now and midnight, October 10, will earn one entry for the remaining 2 gifts certificates (the $50 SandFibers gift certificate and the gift certificate for one free seed bead kit from MY shop). These must be unique, purposeful comments, though - don't spam me! You won't like me when I'm spammed! (Incredible Hulk reference, LOL). Please make sure that every comment you leave contains a way for me to contact you - either an e-mail address or a link to your Etsy shop. I need to be able to contact you if you win! If I cannot find you, I'll have to draw another name.

Here are some of the ways to make a qualifying blog comment:

• Leave a comment here, telling me what kind of beaded jewelry you like to wear best, and why.
• Leave a comment here, telling me what kind(s) of jewelry you make, and why you like that medium.
• Leave a comment here, telling me how cute Tigger is, because, seriously - how can you resist that face?
• Blog about this giveaway, and leave a comment here with a link to your blog post.
• Tweet about this giveaway, and leave a comment here letting me know about your Tweet. Tweets must include the hashtags #giveaway and #PatternsForTigger, and also a link to this blog post. Here is a shortened URL for this post to make your tweeting easier: http://bit.ly/10C3RYH
• Share this blog post on Facebook using this link, and leave a comment here letting me know you shared this post,
• Visit the Patterns for Tigger Facebook page, find the post that links to this blog post, and share that Facebook post. Then come back here and leave a comment letting me know you shared the Patterns for Tigger post linking to this blog post.

So that's at least NINE different ways to enter, SEVEN of which require SEVEN different blog comments on THIS blog post (make sure you are commenting on the correct blog post!)  Lots of ways to enter, several ways to win, but you have to get busy! This giveaway ends at midnight, Eastern Daylight Time, Friday, October 10, 2014. You are free to chooses as many methods to enter as you like - just enter! You can't win if you don't enter! And please be sure each of your comments contain a valid e-mail address or Etsy shop address for me to contact the winners!

I'll be drawing the 3 winners sometime on Saturday, October 11, and contacting the winners shortly thereafter.

So, good luck, and get going: Comment, Tweet, Share, and Blog away! The clock is ticking!

And be sure to visit the shops of the talented ladies above - they have many more wonderful designs to tempt you!

If you have a tutorial you'd like to donate to help Tigger, please let me know - he and I are very grateful for all the beading community has done for us!

Tigger in the ICU

Just a short follow-up to yesterday's post about Tigger:

I drove down to Columbia and visited Tigger in the ICU this morning. He is doing very well, but isn't ready to come home yet - here are pics of him with all of his drains, IVs, and such:

Tigger in his hospital garb

Hopefully, I'll get to take him home soon! I miss him!

I'm still here ....

I can't believe it's been exactly 3 months since my last post. And no, I haven't done a thing yet with those toggles I soldered. But I will, one day.

It's not that I haven't been doing anything. I have been very busy beadweaving, but this post isn't about beads - we'll save that for another day.

On August 3, I adopted a new puppy!

 My sweet Tigger

Tigger is a golden retriever, and he is cute, and smart, ... and he's sick.

I'm not going to get into all the gory details here (if you want to read all about it, you can find it on my Facebook page. Every gory detail!).

The good news is, after months of pain, diarrhea, and other problems, and a couple of hospitalizations, the doctors finally found the problem yesterday afternoon, and the problem could be treated surgically. Last night, little Tigger had major surgery - parts of his small and large intestines had to be removed, and then surgically reconnected, and some other things also had to be done, and while he is still in ICU, he is finally on the mend, (although he will need monthly vitamin B12 injections for the rest of his life, because they had to remove the part of his intestine that absorbs B12). He has an appetite (for the first time since he came home with me), and is feeling much better, even though just 24 hours ago this tiny puppy had major surgery. It breaks my heart to think how long he has been suffering, because not a week has gone by that he hasn't seen the doctor at least once (sometimes 3 and 4 times!), and he's had test after test after test, but no one suspected a surgical problem until Monday night.

The bad news is - this has more than wiped me out, financially.

There are a couple of fund raising efforts going on right now that I wanted to let everyone know about:

LoveAnimals.org allows pet owners like me to create a web page for situations just like this - they call these FriendRaisers, and here is the link to Tigger's FriendRaiser. I'm so grateful to our many generous friends who have already donated $890 toward Tigger's bills. The money raised here goes directly to Tigger's vets, and if you feel like you CAN donate, and would like to help (every little bit helps!), I hope you'll visit the link and read more about it. Tigger and I greatly appreciate it!

The other fundraising effort is on Facebook, where the beading community has banded together to create Patterns for Tigger. Some very talented beadweavers, including Nancy Dale (NEDbeads),  Beki Haley (WhimBeads), and Carole Dean Sharpe (SandFibers) are donating the proceeds from certain of their beadweaving tutorials and kits towards helping us out. And of course, all proceeds from anything purchased in my Etsy shop will go towards Tigger's bills, and if you like the look of my Well-Traveled bracelet, but are NOT a beadweaver, Katie Nelson has offered to stitch the bracelet for free for anyone who purchases one of the Well-Traveled bead kits from my shop (I'll make sure the beads are shipped directly to Katie, and you're only remaining cost will be to reimburse Katie for shipping the finished bracelet to you.) 

Patterns for Tigger is also looking for more beaders who'd like to help out by donating a pattern (these are short term loans only!), or maybe you'd like to help out in another way - there is a place on the group's Facebook page to let the group's administrators know how you'd like to help.

I'm fiercely independent, and don't like asking for help; in fact, I don't think I have ever asked for help before in my life. But I recognized I was between a rock and a hard place this time, and neither the rock NOR the hard place is going to win!

So that's how I spent my summer vacation - here's a picture of Tigger hanging out at the bead shop - he has gone to work with me everyday until this week, but he's got a good excuse for being absent this week.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and if you find that you can help me, just know that it really means the world to Tigger and to me - we really appreciate it.

And I hope many of you can come visit and meet Tigger!