We're All Ears :: April Challenge :: Paradise Calling

I am leaving today on a jet plane for a very important trip!

I am headed down to Fort Lauderdale, FL today as the first leg on a once-in-a-lifetime journey. I am excited to be joining my best friend Heather Powers of Humblebeads on her BEAD CRUISE! This is the 13th sailing of that cruise and I have always, ALWAYS, wanted to go, but it was never the right time nor circumstance. Well, at the end of last year there was a cancellation, and I knew that this would be my year!

I can't wait to put my {freshly pedicured} toes in the sand, sip a tropical drink or two and gaze out at the bluest blue as we bob around in the Caribbean Sea for a week. We will have ports of call in Labadee, Haiti and Falmouth, Jamaica and Cozumel, Mexico including shore excursions ranging from a tropical paradise cove, the Dunn's River Falls and cooking with tequila and chocolate on the beach. In between those ports, we will be beading up a storm on the high seas! I am taking two metals classes with Tracy Stanley (whom I adore and is the most awesome teacher ever) and one polymer clay class with Heather. I am sure that I will have a marvelous time, make a ton of new friends, learn something new and come home with all sorts of inspiration!

To that end, you will have to excuse me if I indulge my tropical fever in selecting this month's challenge. And it makes me even happier to see these pictures since we just got dumped by about a foot of snow the last two days! So throw on some island music, whip up a frothy drink and pull out all your seashells, sand dollars, ocean and hothouse flowers for a little beading escapism! Even if you can't join me on this trip of a lifetime, you can still dream in tropical colors, right?

[Photo Credit :: via Unsplash :: clockwise from top left :: Gaddafi Rusli :: Ren Ran :: Pedro Lastra :: David Straight]

Here's to sunny days and sandy toes!
See you back here on April 20th for the reveal!

We're All Ears :: June Reveal

 “The edge of the sea is a strange and beautiful place.”
~ Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson was a world-renowned marine biologist and author of some of the most famous books ever written about the natural world. She wrote with passion and expertise, and her writing was accessible and poetic and lovely. Her message of conservation, preservation and love of the earth that we call home is as fresh and compelling today as when she penned them over six decades ago. The following quotes about the sea are from her writings, urging us to never take for granted this world we live in, filled with glory and wonder.
  
I created a new bead set in my Symbol Bead Series that I call Tide Pool Treasures. The smaller size (about 3/4" round) is a new shape for me and perfect for earrings. The earrings that follow show the front and back of the same pair. At the bottom you will see an example of two focal beads, all sides. They are each made individually with molds and special stamps, painstakingly place. For me, these beads evoke the wonder of those tiny puddles of sea salt brine where the magical worlds of ocean wonders collide and coexist. I will start taking custom orders for these beads through my website, www.tesoritrovati.com.

"Tide pools contain mysterious worlds, where all the beauty of the sea is subtly suggested
and portrayed in miniature." 

“To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides, to feel the breath of a mist moving over a great salt marsh, to watch the flight of shore birds that have swept up and down the surf lines of the continents for untold thousands of years, to see the running of the old eels and the young shad to the sea, is to have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal as any earthly life can be.” 

“The winds, the sea, and the moving tides are what they are. If there is wonder and beauty and majesty in them, science will discover these qualities... If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.”

“One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself,
"What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?”  

I have never seen a tide pool or rock pool in person. One day I would love to have that chance. It gives me pause to consider that final quote from Carson... what if when I do get there, they don't exist anymore? A sobering thought, that makes me even more passionate about conservation and preservation of this amazing world we live in.

 

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We're All Ears :: May Inspiration

Zigzag Nerite shells - Neritina Communis - from Atlantis Shell Co

God is the most marvelous artist.

There is such beauty in this world. And a lot of it is so tiny that we don't even get the chance to see it!

Case in point... this month, at the suggestion of our editor Linda Landig, I discovered the Zig Zag Nerite shell - neritina communis. The Greek legend is that there was a boy of astonishing beauty named Nerites. He was a lover of the sea-born Aphrodite. When Aphrodite was invited by Zeus to join the gods on Mount Olympus, she invited Nerites to join her. He refused, preferring to stay in his home, the sea. In revenge she metamorphosed him into a seashell.

Now all shells are simply amazing, but what I love about these tiny treasures - just over a 1/2" in size - is that each one is completely unique. Within the same population of these creatures found in the brackish mangroves in the Western Pacific, each shell will be completely different from the last. The typical shell is black and white, but can have colors that range from cream and yellow to red and burgundy, proving to be a very variable species. Of course, the more colorful, the more highly sought after!

Zigzag Nerite shells - from SeaLifeGifts.net

Check out this link to a blog post about the 12 Most Common Nerite Shells to see even more variety!

What inspires you from this marvel of nature?

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Make earrings inspired by this picture.

Write a post on your blog.

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