Take A Deep Breath And Hit "Send"

 I've been a regular contributor to a variety of bead publications for the past 11 years, but I found myself to be a little bit nervous and a lot bit excited today when I sent off the electronic portion of my submissions for the Fall 2011 issue of Stringing magazine.  

I submitted 4 bracelets to be considered for the gallery portion of the magazine.  I had plans for making a few necklaces and some earrings, but those ideas fell by the wayside while I did battle with the Snot Monster.  

Motherhood has been the main focus over the past three years so my nervousness comes from feeling somewhat out of touch with the beading community.  On the one hand, I've never been much of a trend follower, but on the other hand, I do believe I need to at least be aware of what the current fashions are all the rage in Beadlandia. 

Wish me luck!  

In the meantime, you can see some of my recent work in the Spring 2011 issue of Margie Deeb's Color Report for Bead and Jewelry Designers.  And just for this color report, with each purchase, Margie is including a free PDF of instructions for my lovely, lovely Dolphino beaded beads, as seen in the picture above.

Now for a bit of belly dance news:

Three days of rehearsal while doing battle with the aforementioned Snot Monster has left me exhausted, but I've still been able to keep up with my 365 Days of Belly Dance challenge.  I'm currently at 89 days and 3,520 minutes of dancing.  

Sadly, with all these extra rehearsals I had to give up my tribal class, at least for now.  I may be able to return to class in mid-April after the Mujeres 3 show on April 9th.  Happily, I did sign up for 6 months of on-line classes with Ansuya and I'll be doing those at least once and possibly twice a week.   

Oh, My Aching Back!

See that picture?  I just wanted to show you what I have not been doing lately.  I stupidly pulled the same muscles in my back twice within a few days of each other which means that I've had to seriously modify my practice this week.  

Hurting my back forced me to miss rehearsal on Sunday.  I was not happy.  A sick husband and child had me missing class as well rehearsal on Monday.  I was not happy in the extreme.  This week did not start out well, but I'm determined that it will have a better ending.

I love, love, love yoga!!  It always seem to be good for whatever is ailing a person.  Almost 10 years ago a yoga instructor and a physical therapist worked with me to create a program to heal and strengthen my lower back after I herniated 2 disks.  Yoga has also helped me to control the almost daily migraines I have suffered with for most of my adult life.


Since Sunday my practice has consisted of the back pain yoga sequence from the book Yoga As Medicine and the 30 minute isolations and drills from Rachel Brice's Tribal Fusion Belly Dance DVD; which meant that by yesterday I was able to attend a tribal belly dance class.  Yipee!!

My back is still a bit sore and I'm very aware of those pulled muscles when I move just right, but the debilitating spasms are gone and that makes me happy.  And now that my hubby and kidlet are also on the mend I am extremely happy.  

I love happy endings, don't you?    

*belly dance clip art provided by: Me'ira's Clip Art for Oriental Dancers

To Thine Own Self Bead True

To thine own self bead true.....that's the lesson I learned while working on the Spring/Summer 2011 Pantone color report.  Back in December I wrote a post about the color scheme  you see below for one of my projects with the idea of using it in a bead embroidered heart pendant.

 But as you can see from this picture, the results were less than stellar.

In a word....yuck!  I don't know what I was thinking.  Well, actually I do.  I was thinking I was going to make this absolutely stunning, complex, over the top bead embroidered pendant that would have people sighing "Oooh!" and "Aaah!"  And that's just not me.  I definitely want my bead work to be considered stunning, but I also want it to be classy & elegant.  So I scrapped this whole idea and decided to go back to what I do best, good ol' classy & elegant.  Here's what I came up with.

Now this is more like it!  This is me!  Only three colors; lavender, green, & gold with some fabulous beaded beads designed by yours truly, faceted amethyst nuggets, and of course, Swarovski crystal. 

Of course I can't end this post without letting you all know that I'm still dancing strong at 50 days and 2,274 hours.