2 Months is a Long Time....

...To be gone.......I just needed to take some time . I spend entirely way too much time on the pc. I took some time away to try to gain control of my blogging. ( I have other blogs, that I RANT on).

While I was gone I was working on my crocheted lapghans and also some beaded cherry blossom trees.

The tree I have currently assembled and am working on fixing is this..........









I made each bud by hand. It consists of 5 loops of ten pink seed beads with a small pearl in the center.

The Leaves were done in similar fashion , except I only used One loop of ten, and I varied between dark green rocailles, and a lime green seed.

My mistake was not wrapping each branch before assembling to the base which is made of 3 strands of 16 ga. black annealed wire that I picked up at the local home improvement store, I doubled up the strand ( folded it in half) and stuck one end in my drill and pounced it litely to twist the wire. I did this 3 times then bent the feet so it would stand.

So now I go back and floral tape then green paddle wire wrap the branches and stems ....Alot of work indeed.......However it is my prototype and I am keeping it as a reminder as to NOT make a tree.

The corrected way would be as follows......



While I really like the beauty of the detailed buds of the first tree, I like the ease and continuity of this type of tree.

Kimberly Chapman has the instructions on how to do this type of branch. ( my idea was the first, based on pics I had seen, and someone had a tree similar to this but I dont recall the site where I saw it)

When I get it assembled I will post some pics.

I have Not been clay working. But I am getting the feel to start up again.
I just need to focus on what exactly I want to do. Last time this happened I ended up with boo coo baskets of beads of which I still have not used. Most of them have been sanded and either polished or varnished/ acryliced.

Also I started experimenting with different types of paper on my bowls. However I'm not really sure about if and how much I like them. They are still an ongoing experiment.