The Perfect Bead

Spent part of the afternoon searching through my stash of beads looking for the perfect beads for a project I'm hand stitching.

Bead Storage

How do you store your beads, was the question asked on Facebook this morning, and lots of great ideas were shared.  Here is some of my bead storage, I say some because I still have canning jars, old pickle jars, etc., in my upstairs office filled with both beads, buttons, and other embellishments.  Such is the fate of a mixed media fiber artist, you end up collecting lots of stuff for creating new work.

I have probably 150+ of these little containers filled with various types and styles of seed beads, and another 30+ filled with sequins.

Bead storage, these are Iris organizers and I bought them at Staples.

 Cardboard containers filled with vintage plastic beads, baubles, and buttons.

A cart filled with jars and jars and jars of beads!

That's mostly beads on that shelf!

More beads, embellishments such as old clock parts, furniture hardware that was too beautiful to pitch, etc., the big empty space is where the new studio tv will be living, eventually.  The stuff in the jars on the bottom shelf, natural dyed silk cocoons.

Happy New Year

Mark Making with Nature Surface Design with Natural Dyes!!!

Available in my store!

Mohair Fiber Purge

I'm destashing my studio of items and supplies I'm no longer using, I'm updating my shop daily!

Natural Dyes and Fibers Sale

Starting tomorrow I will be divesting of a ton of fibers of the silk and wool variety, and some of my natural dye stash via my eBay store.  Stay tuned for more information!

Bittersweet Endings

I filled out the cancellation form for The Natural Surface this afternoon, it was a bittersweet moment after having put many hours of time learning how to use the network and then finally adding content to the network.  And then I did the math,

What's next??? I have some really exciting projects waiting in the wings that I will be announcing on Monday June 1st!  Yes I will still be working with natural dyes, earth pigments, ochers, and rust! Yes, my eBooks and Videos will still be available!!! Yes, I will still be stitching like a mad woman using my natural dyed fabrics, fibers, and threads!  And YES I will still be sharing my journey with you!!!

I've Consolidated!!!

I've consolidated!  I have moved most of the posts from this blog, and the other blogs I was trying to keep up with to one blog only!!!  You can now keep up with me at my main blog, and the only blog I will be posting at over here! 

Paring Down & New Beginnings!!!

Paring down, starting with my websites and blogs, and soon to be my wet studio, and have new goals and an actionable plan for future art and designs. I'd do handsprings from the excitement, but my allergies are preventing me from doing so today, lol.

I have two immediate goal dates, September 6th to get my new designs/collections for licensing up onto my blog (group accountability is great for this!!!) and October 4th for the Open Studio Tour. I need to deep clean for the tour, which means an opportunity to get rid of stuff I haven't used in years and probably won't be using again anytime here in the near future, and get prints made of newly created works of art for the tour!

The next goal after that is the Month of November which is National Writing Month and the goal is to get my last Natural Dye Book finished, and hopefully the app (by the end of December) and then it's on to other activities. I'm culling the Natural Surface Academy, etc., too many things on my plate which prevents me from creating and doing what I really love! Also no more teaching!!!

The 60 Day Crow (Bird) Challenge has been a wonderful experience, I will do the big reveal here in a few days.  I now have plans to run this challenge again, as it was quite popular!

CLOSING The Natural Surface Academy

I will be closing The Natural Surface Academy NING Network on September 30th, 2014.  The Natural Surface Facebook Group will remain open.


The Acadmey is now down to four members making the expense of keeping the NING group open no longer viable.  The Facebook Group is private and can only be seen by members. I will be slowly moving all the information from the NING network to a private blog for the remaining members to access.

Studio Help

Or not so much. Oliver waiting in his kennel, he goes in there when I'm working at my drawing table on projects.  Actually I'm really glad he likes his kennel!

Angel is still with us, I thought for sure she was done for a week ago as I hadn't seen any evidence that she had been eating, etc.  Well it turns out she's been shimming under the gate and has been eating the cats food.  So I raised the gate up a bit so she wouldn't have to shimmy as much.

2014 Goals

I know, I know 2014 is 8 months old now, but up until tonight I was hesitant to share my goals list with the world.

But as I was thinking about my newsletter this evening, the Natural Surface Academy, what was working and what wasn't I decided no guts, no glory!

You can read about the changes I've decided to make on my other blog, which is also another change that is going to happen for 2015, I own seven blogs.  That's right seven blogs!  I let public opinion sway me and my blog activity about seven years or so ago and divided up my posts to different blogs.  I had people bitching because I was posting about my pets too much, or I was talking about gardening too much, or who cares about canning food we're here for the natural dyeing.

Well peeps, that comes to and end tonight!

Courage is my word for 2014, so it's time to step out in courage!!!  No guts, no glory!

Copper Crow

I added a copper crow to a bundle dyed silk crepe de chine scar,f I dyed sometime ago, using my Three Crows Stencil today.

I like the results enough that I plan to try this on some other scarves I've dyed.

Not Your Mascot.

Crow Panel in Progress 
24x32x2 inches ~ I think
Acrylic on Raised Panel Frame.

In Other News:  Working on a new series called "Not Your Mascot".  Since it's such an honor and priviledge, or so us NA's have been told, to be a mascot I've decided to turn this onto it's ear!  More to come!!!

More Crow Panels in Progress

If I counted correctly there will be a total of 26 panels in this new series, and once these are done I'm off to rework some encaustic pieces from a few years ago to include my crows, Queen Anne's Lace, and the marks I've been putting in these pieces.

I wasn't sure how these pieces were going to come out, while they have similar colors they are not exactly the same... but where's the fun in everything being the same, right!

I've allowed the distractions of the past few weeks beat my confidence levels down, it doesn't help that I've had a nasty head cold, or that my dad has had ongoing health problems.

I did get to see my brother last Monday, the first time since my mom died in 2005, they visited for a whole hour and forty five minutes before they had to leave again. 

So tomorrow it's back to drawing and painting crows, ravens, and blackbirds and if they are horrible then they are horrible.

But, the secret to mastering anything is to keep at it until... until well you've mastered it!

With that said I've decided to seriously edit the information I've compiled for my Natural Dye App, and just create the app!  A simple app that is accurate and usable is much more enjoyable than one that doesn't exist!!!  Feet of clay, I think that's the name for this syndrome, the whole "what if they hate it???"

There will always be haters, and they are not my audience anyway... so onward I will push this week!

Stitching Again

It feels good to be stitching once again, whilest awaiting layers of drying paint to cure.  This piece is about 8x10 inches in size, machine stitched with green Aurifil thread, wool batting; I also used my Black Birds in Tree Stencil with acrylic paint onto fabric painted cotton cloth.

I shall stitch a few of the birds next, to bring them forward, and add a few beads and then this piece will be done.

WIP Crow Panels

WIPCrow Storm Redux

More layers of paint, texture, pattern, and crows to come!

WIP Crow Series

These are a little on the dark side color wise but I will lighten them up here in a bit.

They 

Acrylic on raised baltic birch raised panel frames.