April Birthdays... Plus Tiny Beadworks

Tiny Purses or Amulets, Thimble Case & Spacers Beadworks Double-sided Amulets

Since I wasn't still much in the mood to stitch, I thought on starting my spring cleaning. I focused on my beading supplies and when I saw my Miyuki delica beads, I couldn't resist not to make anything out of them... (there goes my spring cleaning again, flew up in the air... lol)

Anyway, at first I thought I'll make some dangling earrings and bracelets but ended up making amulets or tiny purses instead. I only have limited colors on delicas so I made some out of my round seed beads as well, I have lot of selections on these - be it Mill Hill beads or Bead Treasures, etc. Now I can't wait to go back to Hobby Lobby to get more delicas as I want to make a bigger (a little bit) purse. I practiced and used brick, peyote, netting and square stitches on the above pieces. Everything I made were very simple and just let my needles and nymo thread go with the flow... I had difficulty doing the thimble case but will definitely make more in the future. I'm planning on finishing the tiny purses as necklaces, though I'm still undecided if I'll use netting, simple or decorative finishing. But of course, I will share the final completed pieces here.:) I definitely need a lot of practice for these things as my experience on beading over decade ago was free-style. Back in college, me and my cousins used to live at our aunt's (my father's sister) who got (and still has) a dress shop and we did a lot of beadworks on wedding gowns, formal gowns, costumes in Japan, etc. We did all kinds of beading and embellishing on head-dresses as well. We never used any patterns on our works, everything were free-style and OOAK, no repeat of designs. During those times, I learned to sew as well, but it's all starting to fade away now... lol

On the family side, we all managed to survived birthday parties of our April celebrants - Katie (SIL's daughter) and my hubby on April 19th and April 26th respectively. Lots of food of course, I think we all gained few extra pounds afterwards... lol It was so nice to see some friends and of course, glad to spend sometime with the entire family.

SIL prepared chicken bar-b-q and hamburgers while the rest of us brought different kind of salads and desserts. I was in-charge on bringing the green bean casserole. Good food, good friends, what else could we ask for? Among everybody, of course Katie had the most fun - opening gifts of course. She couldn't wait to open her gifts as she's longing for her "Troy" doll. At some point, while everybody were busy chatting after the good meal, Katie had to positioned herself next to her gifts and started calling out everybody. lol She got a bunch of her recent favorite stuffs, nothing else but "High School Musical". Needless to say, that's her birthday theme... from cups to plates to cake, etc. She's been telling me about it over the phone weeks before her birthday party, plus the fact that she and SIL had to do early spring cleaning so she can have some space for her birthday gifts. I think about 90% of her old toys were donated to Goodwill early this month... lol

As for my hubby's birthday, MIL and our dear aunt (MIL's sister) prepared yummy lunch yesterday at MIL's house. We had ham, cheezy potatoes, rolls, deviled eggs, green bean casserole, baked corn bread and fruit "froogy or froggy" salad... plus cake and ice cream of course. Nevertheless, everything was yummy and each of us had to take home some left-overs as they cooked a lot. lol That's how we traditionally celebrate our birthdays here. MIL will cook whatever the celebrant's food's request, then the rest will bring salads or desserts, etc.