Second cup of coffee and things are looking better. We are on the final countdown to my daughter’s wedding, which is this Saturday. My dining room is stacked with boxes of decorations, bowls, platters, plates, etc. If it’s not all in one place I know that something will get forgotten or lost.

Here’s a sneak peak of the dress.

I’m off to make candy seashells that will go on the cake.

The tornado took the roof off of some homes, snapped off trees, and destroyed fences, garages and sheds. Thankfully no one was hurt. Our house is 1.5 miles from where the tornado hit. We also had torrential rains that caused some major street flooding. There was other wind damage around also. My parents live a couple miles east of town and they lost a bunch of shingles off their garage, had some big branches down, and part of the fence around their pool is bent in.

On a happier note, I was able to get some clay on sale at Michaels yesterday.

Don’t worry, it’s a temporary thing. I’m in the process of making my daughter’s wedding dress. Seems like it was just yesterday that she was the cute little miniature bride in the photo below.

Anyone know of a good cry-proof mascara? I’m feeling weepy already.

Summer is in full swing here, which means that we spend quite a bit of time at my parents pool. I usually swim a while and then sit and visit with whatever family members happen to be there at the time. While this is a great way to spend a summer afternoon, it’s not so great for my productivity. I have photoshop on my desktop, but am looking for a free or at least cheap photo editing software for my laptop so that I can get some work done while on the go.

If you know of any or have any experience with any free or relatively decent priced photo editing software, please leave me a comment…..as I will be at the pool.

Enjoying my morning coffee is blessed quiet. Spring break is over and the kids are back to school. And time for me to get busy. I’ve been doing more thinking than creating lately. It’s time for a change of focus. There will still be beads and jewelry, just more one of a kind or limited editions.

I recently got to choose the idea for a polymer clay challenge in one of my groups. What did I choose? Bangles! Bangles are one of the hot trends for spring.

Bangles are probably my favorite piece of jewelry and yet, I’ve never made one….until now anyway. Below is my first attempt. It’s made entirely of polymer clay. It’s a little more flexible than I would like, which means it needs to be thicker or made around a metal base. I spent part of the night dreaming about bangle designs, so there will definitely be more of them soon.

I also wanted to show a cuff bracelet I made some time ago. It was made around the time of the reformulation of Premo! and I had issue with the clay flaking. There’s an area toward the back where I sanded through to the metal blank, so it just sits here looking pretty.

Trying to get back into the swing of making beads, so hopefully I will have something new to share soon.

Almost forgot, the fall/winter 2010-2011 PANTONE® colors are out. I will be working on the polymer clay color recipes for those of you who have already asked when I would have them.