acrafterslife

I’ve finished my affirmation  ladder.  It’s quite different from the one suggested on the About.com The Artist’s Way site,
but that’s what making your own affirmation ladder is about, using things that have meaning to you.

My affirmation ladder is literally a ladder.  It has gemstone chips for the sides and gold bugle beads for the rungs.  I was going to make it a bracelet, but decided I liked it for a bookmark.

First, I chose the gold bugle beads for two reasons, gold represents one of the most valuable raw materials known to man, and the color of gold or yellow represents happiness and joy.

I chose white and black seed beads to sprinkle throughout the ladder to represent the white light of divine love and the black to disperse negativity.

The gemstone chips are arranged as follows.  The four center beads are sodalite and the ladder repeats in reverse to the end where I’ve attached a go go donut of rhodonite and amazonite.

Amethyst
is associated with increased nobility and spiritual awareness.  Disperses anger,  increases vivid dreams, relieves depression, promotes calm, serenity, and spirituality. Helps with addiction and stress

Aventurine
A good luck stone, especially in financial matters. Stimulates creativity, intelligence and perception. A great healing stone, it gives a sense of mental and emotional well-being.

Rose Quartz  great for attracting love. Promotes self-loving and heals emotional wounds as well as promoting peace, forgiveness, and nurturing.

Garnet
is considered to be the stone of devotion both to others and to one’s self.  It is said to inspire romantic love, passion, sensuality, sexuality, intimacy, positive thoughts, inspiration, past life recall, career success, social popularity and self confidence.

Lapis Lazuli is said to be associated with self-confidence, truthfulness, openness and inner tranquility. Lapis Lazuli is the ancient stone of mental and psychological health. It promotes spiritual healing, mental calmness and strength of will. It increases psychic abilities and allows for spiritual growth.

Sodalite  purifies your aura and protects you from negative energy from people around you.

Rhodonite  self-affirmation and self-love. Fosters ability to remain calm in arguments and resolve disagreements in a loving way.

Amazonite
is thought to bestow truth, integrity and honor to its wearer, enhance love, and soothe tense, aggravated emotions and situations.

Between this post and the About.com site, you should now have enough information to make your own affirmation ladder.

Every year Jeanette Shanigan, of Wasilla, Alaska,  hosts the Bead Artists Against Breast Cancer bead quilt drive.  Each beader can submit as many 1 ½” X 1 ½” squares as they wish, and Jeanette will make them into bead quilts to auctioned off in Milwaukee in June.  All money received will go to finding a cure for breast cancer.

She has done this for several years in memory of her mother, a cancer victim. Read her story

There have already been many bead squares donated for this year and some quilts have been sewn together.  The deadline for submitting your square (s) is March 15, 2009 in order to give her plenty of time to put the quilts together.

If you’re a beader and would like to contribute to this worthy cause click here for the rules and guidelines.

If you don’t have a heart pattern to work from, you will find links on Jeanette’s site to several patterns by other beaders made especially for this project.  I’ve included pictures of two patterns I’ve made and will share with you.  Just e mail me at thebeaddoodler@live.com and ask for square # 1 or square #2.  I’ll e mail you the pattern.  Patterns include graph, color legend and word chart.

Last year 960 squares were donated.  Each quilt contains 100 squares.  Each year has seen an increase in the number of squares donated.  Lets join together and make this a banner year!

You’ve experienced those times when your day was all planned out and a very important (to you) project was in the works, but from the moment you got up life seemed to thwart you.  I got up yesterday morning with a head full of beading plans, very special project I was anxious to get into.  I immediately realized my kitchen sink drain pipe had come loose from the sink, flooding the cabinet underneath it.  Well this happens sometimes, so I replaced the pipe and gave it a little bump with the heel of my hand to push it up tight.  The whole basket assembly in the sink went flying in all directions.

Needless to say my beading project got put on hold until later in the day.  First I had to get on line to see if I could figure out what this “object” was called.  I was pretty sure I could replace it myself if I could find one.  The first listing to my on line query was an article from “This Old House” detailing how to replace the basket assembly in a kitchen sink.  Oh, that’s what that’s called, so I was off to the hardware store to get the needed supplies.  Long story cut short, I did manage to replace both basket assemblies in my kitchen sink and by 3:30 in the afternoon began that beading project.

While the unexpected interruption was an irritation, and the process of doing something unfamiliar was, at times, frustrating, the sense of accomplishment was pretty exhilarating.  I’m an independent old bird and I like being able to do things for myself!

So when live takes a left turn, enjoy the scenery.  Life’s too short to be trapped in the rut of daily living!  Being able to adapt to little changes on a constant basis enables you to be prepared for the big changes that are inevitable.

Well, my muse seems to have returned.  I’m not sure what she/he is trying to tell me.  I have two new designs ready to be beaded. The picture above is a brick stitch bracelet based on a Native American symbol called an Ojo de Dios, eye of God.  A shape representing the sun and its rays is positioned on each side of the eye and the rays are split by a lightening bolt. The bracelet is designed in earth tones.

The second design is a pendant representing  Janus, the Roman God.  He is the God of gates, doors, and hallways.  Having two faces looking in opposite directions he can look forward into the future, and backward to the past.  Some sources say one face is the face of Hermes, the other the face of Athena. The pendant will be finished with fringe, which I hope I can shade in to look like a draped Roman toga.

As I looked at these newest designs, I thought what’s up with eyes?  Do I need to open mine?  One design signifying the eye of God always watching over us, the other a mythical Roman deity who sees, if not all, at least can see the past and the future.  The god of gates and doors.  Is he ready to open a door for me if I let him?  I have to admit that I wouldn’t be opposed to some positive events.  Not that life is dismal right now, but it sure could use some pizzazz!

If you’re reading this blog you’re most likely a crafter.  If you’re a crafter, do you depend on your craft to supply all or part of your income?  Do you sometimes just come up blank?  Do you worry that your muse has permanently left you and now you’re stuck with no income?  Or even if you don’t depend on your craft for income, do you feel lost when you can’t come up with a new idea?

Creativity is the basis for all human activity.  It controls the desire to seek food, and shelter, to procreate and to live or die.  Sometimes the very basic essentials for life seem to require all our energy and attention, and our artistic creativity suffers.  We worry where we’re going to get the money for the mortgage this month, where can we cut corners to save a little money here and there, and the next thing we know we’re exhausted, depressed and seemingly afloat in a sea of morass.  No wonder our muse leaves, or rather that we can’t make contact.

Years ago my daughter bought a book called “The Artist’s Way” by Julie Chamberlain.  She let me read it and I had some success in breaking free from a lot of past emotional bondage and moving on with my life.

I was delighted to find that the About.com Beadwork site had done an online workshop for beaders based on the book. Since I don’t have the book any more, I can still go to About.com and re read and do some of the tasks suggested for unblocking the creativity any time I feel I need to.

I think what brought this all on has been some dismal failures in some of the jewelry designs I’ve been working on and the lack of interest in my creations shown by the public recently.  Yesterday I received the book “Spiritual Marketing” by Joe Vitale.  In reading through it I realized I had slipped back into my old self doubt and unworthy feelings.  I think we all have those periods in our life, but the Spirit always knows what we need and sends it our way.  The trouble is that sometimes we are so caught up in the daily grind of life we fail to recognize our need.

I hope you’ll take a look at About.com’s The Artist’s Way and maybe even get a copy of Joe Vitale’s book.  After all, as crafters for income, we must market not only our wares, but ourselves.  As crafters for fun . . . well, crafts take us out of the daily grind and give us a moment to put the everyday worries aside.

Well, I’m off to make an affirmation ladder.