Here are some pictures of my newest creations, Art Charm Bracelets. They are loaded with glass beads and charms! I have these for sale in my Etsy shop and on E-Bay.

With all that is going on in my life, I seem to have lost my creativity and intuition. In the meantime my fingers have been busy weaving squares, rectangles and triangles. I have been knitting and crocheting dozens of lacy scarves. I have been beading simple designs that I have worked so many times before. I zone out and let my mind rest and it is a great form of meditation. The bonus is that I have been producing lots of pretty things to keep my loved ones warm next winter.

Here is a poem that I wrote several months ago when I was in a good place, full of creativity. I'm hoping that by looking at this in a positive way, I will more quickly regain what I feel I have lost.

On Art and Creation
By Allie

That which I call God
Resides in my hands
my shoulders
my fingers
Looks through my eyes

Holds all that I touch
with Golden Reverence

As my head is still
my heart opens
Out pours Creation

Glorious perfection
only a reflection
of all that I am

or wish to be.

Well, life happens and it's been happening to me, so I've been busy and have not had a chance to update here. I kept thinking I would take pictures of my latest creations, but alas, I have not.... so I will tell you about them now and show you pictures later.

I recently got a big 7 ft. triloom and I finished a beautiful vivid blue shawl. I am working on another, a magenta one. They are both regular old lion brand yarn, "homespun", but they are the most beautiful shawls. They are so soft and they wash nicely, and come out even softer and the best thing is that they are inexpensive to make, since you only need 2 skeins for a shawl. I crocheted an edging around the blue one (it looks like waves, since the color of blue reminds me of the ocean). I think I will crochet around the magenta one too.

Lately, I've been quite "knotty"!(sorry, couldn't resist:-)) I took a micro-macrame class at the Beadwork conference last month. Joan Babcock was the teacher. You should check out her website. She does BEAUTIFUL work. I have been eyeing her work for some time, and when I saw she was teaching a class in Oakland, I had to sign up. Wow! It was a GREAT class. I came away with a finished bookmark and promptly came home and made a couple pairs of earrings. One pair, I gave to my mom for Mother's Day.

I've also been taking classes at the Acupressure Institute and just took an aromatherapy class. I love all the lovely scents and their healing properties are quite potent, especially if used with acupressure. I am mentioning it here on my creativity journal because we learned to make lotion, spritzers, roll-on oils etc.... I am so jazzed to make more and to practice using essential oils with acupressure. I have been using aromatherapy for years, but taking the class gave me a renewed interest.

In addition to all of this, I have been knitting and crocheting like a fiend! I have made several scarves with different lacy patterns in both knit and crochet. I have also been playing around with braiding a lot. I just got Jacqui Carey's new book and there are some great ideas in there. I have been moving beads around and I am coming up with a couple new patterns for you all to enjoy. I also have a couple of tidy commissioned jewelry projects to work on.

Will post pictures soon! (I hope!)

Sunday was my Creative Caravan open house. It was such a great success! Lots of people came and bought things. They also enjoyed good food, great company and some cool crafts. We made bracelets and some guests tried their hand at making braids. I had a great time! Thank you all for coming!

Christmas is coming and I'm getting a lot of jewelry orders and setting up some open houses. I've been busy creating lots of necklaces with some "found" jewelry components that I've been collecting over the summer. I have had several people give me their old jewelry recently and I've collected pieces from garage sales.

I love to make necklaces because they are such focal pieces (sitting right there on the decolletage). What beautiful "frames" for my work! I've just been making the simple single strand, strung on tigertail kind of thing.

I plan to make some kumihimo braids and string some special beads on them for necklaces. I have several beautiful glass and wood beads that will be lovely in such a simple setting. I also can't wait to try out some pretty silks I found a couple months ago!

I haven't done much with seed beads lately, but I did make a couple of special orders recently (that I forgot to photograph). One was a necklace and earring set. I wove a fancy, "netted" star and strung it on tigertail with complementary beads. The color was supposed to be black, but I couldn't resist adding some deep tealy, purpley AB beads. The other was for a special friend. It was a gorgeous peyote stitch bracelet (with 2 and 3 drop used together). The colors were such a surprise. I started with clear and earthy greens (colors that makes me think of healing and nature), but it ended up with some purple strands running through it. This was a highly symbolic bracelet, so I just let my muse guide me and I was very surprised at the wonderful results! This kind of creating is very healing for me.

I just feel like I'm running out of time. Sometimes as I sit at my desk and create at this time of year, it feel deliciously decadent. I actually get to create pretty things and people buy them! I love it!

I had such a wonderful afternoon making jewelry with my friends! We sat outside and beaded while the kiddos played. Jen made us a lovely lunch (a beautiful salad and bread). It was a wonderful day. That is just what I need to do more often. It's so nice to get together with girlfriends and create! We did a good deal of talking too, of course.

I went and started doing some research on inkle looms and small loom weaving and found "split-ply weaving". It looks really cool, and there is no loom involved. It looks like it is a braiding technique, and there are lots of items made from this technique (baskets, jewelry, even rugs). I found Linda Hendrickson's site, http://www.weavershand.com/#P and I'm going to order the cord and a book on the basics. I didn't mean to find another craft. I was innocently looking for information on a craft that I already have all the supplies for;-)

I am going to the Diablo Weaver's guild meeting tomorrow, maybe someone there knows about split-ply. I was also planning on bringing my inkle loom, to find out how to make the heddles.