Alligator Shoes

This is my current set of beads on eBay called Alligator Shoes. This set was made with Terranova 2.1. After complaining that I wasn't thrilled with this new version of Terranova, I came to really like it while making this set. I got a much wider range of colors so even though it's darker for me than 2.0, I'm liking all the different colors going on.

Gold Dragonfly

We get a lot of Dragonflies during the summer but they are usually blue. We get the occasional red one too and all of them are really BIG. This guy was different from the norm. A pretty gold or Silver Rattan color. (I just finished a set of Silver Rattan beads...can you tell? LOL!) While I was taking his picture there was a fly flying around the camera and this critter's eyes were following the fly all around. It was really cool to watch through the viewfinder.

Bunny Nest

This bunny is building a little nest smack dab in the middle of our tomato plants. I was able to get fairly close while it was gathering dried grass to pad the nest. You can see her mouth full of grass in one picture. Such a little cutie but that's not a good spot for a nest silly bunny!

Home Grown Garlic

Ahhhh.....garlic! I just love it. I go through garlic like crazy. This is some home grown garlic from our neighbor's garden. Isn't this baby HUGE? Should last me a week...lol! If you've never had fresh garlic, and I mean fresh from a garden, you are really missing out. It's fabulous. Totally worth adding it to your garden. Wally has planted some that the neighbor gave us but I think it's has a few more months to go before it's ready. Dinner tonight is BBQ'd salmon, home grown zuchinni with lots of garlic and risotto with mushrooms and garlic. No, you can't come over for dinner. :)

More Aurae Photography

This set Modern Metallics, gave me such a headache! I tried photographing it in my usual studio lighting and the beads just looked icky. I tried outdoor lighting in the shade....yuck. I then tried natural daylight but indoors. I went from room to room in our house photographing these beads and facing all different directions and I was ready to just drop it all together. Then I tried photographing them in the bathroom and...success! I think the diffuse lighting coming from the frosted privacy windows did the trick. The photograph looks just like the beads look in person. Only took me a couple hours...

Photographing Aurae

Jeez Louise. Aurae is so hard to photograph it's frustrating. I've tried studio lighting, natural indoor lighting and direct sunlight. Sunlight is too harsh. Studio lighting shows the colors the best but you can't see the luster at all. Natural lighting shows the luster but the colors are muted. Wally suggested I try using a black background instead of the gradient background so I tried that last night with my studio lighting. It's actually MUCH better (he's right once in a great while) and the luster even shows up a little too. Anyway, these are my Punk Rock Diva nuggets on eBay right now. There's also a set of chunky discs that match, Rivers of Gold.

Praying Mantis Baby

Wally is always finding all kinds of critters in the yard. Today he brought me this teeny, tiny praying mantis. Yes, that's his wedding ring in the picture.

Olympia Rain

These Firefly beads up on eBay were made with a new version of Olympia Rain. I did a lot of comparison beads for Jed using the original OR and this new version and I like the new version encased better. The nuggets are lightly reduced and encased and the discs are heavily reduced and encased.

June POTM

The Beeswax June project of the month is up on our website here. It's an easy pop-up garden party invitation. You can also take the stamps in the project and make a birthday card or get well card instead.